Far From The Sea We Know

by Frank M Sheldon

CHAPTER 7

  There was no one at the dock to meet them. Not a good sign. After asking around, Matthew finally found the son of the man who was supposed to take them out for the short trip to the Valentina. He was grinding paint off the sides of a wooden dory with a power sander, and without even glancing up as Matthew approached said, “Dad knows you’re coming.”

  Matthew guessed that the man was in his mid thirties, about the same age as himself. His bruised hands and arms told of someone who had spent a long time on the water. A deep scar lay across his left brow.

  “Do you know where your father is now?” Matthew asked. “We need to leave immediately.”

  The man looked him over, started brushing paint dust off the dory. “He knows about you. He’ll be here.”

  “Yeah, but when? Look, our ship is coming by earlier than we thought.”

  “Doing science out there, are you?”

  “Research, yes.”

  “Bet you’re a seal lover, eh? Tear up our gear and steal fish right out of our nets, but we’re supposed to just watch and appreciate. Between them or us, I pick us.”

  “We’re tracking gray whales. They don’t even feed when they migrate.”

  The man put the sander down and just stared at Matthew. Finally he said, “You know what it’s like now, trying to keep this going? Do we need more dumb-ass restrictions? It’s hard enough already, and every time those fools start in, sure as day, we got some new regulation, made up by some witless twerp who in his entire life has never fed anybody or done anything that people really needed. Then they all go to the supermarket and demand their ‘wild-caught’ salmon tidy wrapped in plastic like a chocolate so they don’t have to think about where it came from.”

  “Overfishing is the real problem, everybody knows that.”

  “And the regulation says we have to throw ’em back if the wrong fish winds up in the net, and those all die anyway, so what’s the point?”

  The sound of an engine, rolling across the water behind them, began to reverberate in Matthew’s gut as it grew louder.

  “That’s dad coming now,” the son spat out before turning away.

  The grinder resumed its tedious howl and Matthew was left staring at the son’s hulking back. He turned toward the approaching launch and waved, feeling like a tourist.

  After they talked, the father promised to be at the float in ten minutes. Matthew thanked him and ran back, but saw no sign of Penny or the gear. The café. She told him she would wait there.

  Gabby’s was more of a bar than a coffee place, which was not surprising, considering they were at the beginning of the real North. There was no espresso machine, but a respectable number of bottles lined the pine shelves behind the bar. The countertop itself was made of a single plank as thick as a fist and layered with polyurethane to fill its many scars. Penny was at a corner table, seated with two young men and a woman. Glasses, some already empty, were spread out in front of them.

  What was she doing?

  He let his breath go and walked over as slowly as he could.

  “Penny, we’ve got to go now. The boat’s coming.”

  She looked up, lifted a glass of whiskey to her lips and rolled it down, watching him the whole time.

  A hand caught his sleeve.

  “What’s the hurry, friend? Have one with us.” The man who spoke looked like an Inuit. He was short and stocky, with a big friendly face. The woman could have been his sister and the other looked barely out of his teens. They all gazed up at him, the liquor in their eyes making it seem they were looking straight through him.

  “No time, today,” Matthew said. “Sorry. Maybe on the way back. Penny, this is really going to be close, so—”

  “We’ll make it,” she said, and turned to the man who had spoken. “Normy, could you help with the gear again?”

  “Sure. We brought it here, now we bring it back. Like the tide.” He glanced over his shoulder at Matthew. “You gonna roll the bones with us, Professor?”

  Matthew’s smile disintegrated. The song on the jukebox had just ended. There was dead silence. The terror that had seized him on the Eva Shay inexplicably descended again. The world was dissolving around him, pieces falling out of place into an endless chaos of gray. Normy took his hand. His own was damp with cold sweat. He could see nothing, could only feel Normy’s hand, with only the heat of it keeping him from going under forever, and it now brought him slowly back. He felt grateful, but then the memory of it faded, and as if from a great distance, he heard Normy whisper, “You go deep, man…”

  As Matthew’s vision cleared, the faces around him came back into focus. All had puzzled looks, all except Normy.

  The moment passed and all the chairs started scraping back at once. He had his balance back but did not try to move yet. Penny left two twenties on the table as she got up. Everyone picked up a bag or two and filed out the door without a word. He picked up the last remaining duffel, but the heaviness of it oppressed him. He wanted to leave it behind, along with everything else. He stood for a moment, feeling detached and out of place.

  Penny was waiting for him at the door. “Are you okay?”

  In response, he hefted the bag’s strap to his shoulder and nodded to her to keep moving.

  As they walked down the ramp to the float, the ocean launch was just pulling in. The old man at the wheel tossed a coiled line to Normy, and the warm look he gave Matthew was in welcome contrast to the son’s last cold stare. Normy jumped in without hesitation, quickly stowing the gear as the others passed it along. Matthew stepped over and sat down, and Normy gave his shoulder a brief clasp as he passed him on his way back to the float.

  Penny said a few words to the people from the café, then hopped in the launch and gave the “go” sign. As they pulled away from the dock, Normy stood with the others, looking out toward them, not moving, a smile hiding in his eyes somewhere. No one waved.

  Penny came back and sat down opposite Matthew in the stern. She touched his arm lightly. “Matthew, are you sure—”

  “I don’t understand why you did that! You knew we were on a tight schedule!”

  “We made it, didn’t we?”

  “You told me you’d be ready. Sitting in a bar drinking with those characters is not my idea of ready.”

  “Just what happened to you, anyway?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Sure you are, just fine.”

  “Did you tell this ‘Normy’ anything?”

  “What’s the point of fretting about things I can’t do anything about, like whether a boat’s going to be late?”

  “So instead, you relax by picking up the bar tab for people who obviously don’t need more.”

  “That’s my business. And, no, I didn’t tell him anything.”

  This would only get worse. Matthew retreated to just behind the low cabin and found some papers in his bag to read. He gave up on that before long and moved forward to stand next to the old captain and watch their progress. The movement of the boat, cutting through the chop and swells, and the pungent spray misting his face, helped calm him down.

  Without looking at Matthew, the old man said, “A speck choppy today. Expect it’ll smooth out later.”