Seals of Kinney

by C G Dalton

  Smiling, Fisk gathered up Boyd’s clothing and brought it to him before returning to the hearth. “For breakfast you have two choices. More stew or I can make oatmeal.”

  Getting dressed, Boyd watched his host stir the stew pot before adding a few more pieces of wood to the fire. “Stew. Not a big oatmeal fan. Did you just leave that cooking all night?”

  “Yes. No electricity means no fridge. As long as it stays hot it’s safe. When I make a batch I just don’t let the fire go out until the pot is empty. I made the stew while you were unconscious because I thought it would be warming and filling after your ordeal.” He dished up a bowl and held it out to Boyd when he approached, happy to see him on his feet. Taking his own bowl, he sat on a small three-legged stool near the fire, eyes darting briefly to the cushion before Boyd sat down in his rocker.

  “It’s even better today. What’s in it?” Boyd asked as he spooned up the rich broth, his skepticism over it having been left to simmer for hours gone.

  “A couple kinds of fish, clams, a lobster, some kelp and a bit of flour to thicken it. Oh, and salt and pepper,” Fisk explained, smiling at the praise.

  “Lobster? Damn, cutie. No wonder this tastes amazing. You eat good out here in your hideaway.” Boyd flashed a grin that was all even white teeth that grew wider when he saw how the impromptu endearment made Fisk blush.

  “I don’t get them often. Too hard to catch without lobster pots,” Fisk admitted, still flushed. “You’ll have to go in with me to see the sheriff. Otherwise he will pretty much ignore me. Do you feel up to being back in a boat? If not, I can go by myself and try to get him to make the call. We really need to let the authorities know you are alive. I suppose I could just go to the mainland, but that would take me all day to get to the Coast Guard station and back.”

  “I’ll go with you. My throat hurts and I still feel like I’ve got a bit of water in my lungs, but I think I’m alright.” Boyd coughed experimentally. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Actually, that could be really bad.” A look of worry creased Fisk’s face. “You need to see a doctor. I thought you got all the water out or I’d have taken you to the village and had them radio the Coast Guard last night. Boyd, you can die from a near drowning as much as seventy-two hours after the event. As little as one millilitre of fluid in your lungs can lead to pulmonary edema and suffocation, because your lungs become unable to exchange air in your flooded alveoli—”

  “Whoa, whoa, hold on a minute. Are you telling me I can still drown three days after I’m safe on land?” Boyd panicked slightly at the thought.

  “Yes. Sort of. In your own fluids leaking in because of damage to your lungs. But Cyril, don’t worry. You are on your feet, you are talking, and you can breathe normally, right?”

  Boyd took a deep breath, coughing a bit on the end of it, but nodding. “Yes. I don’t feel lightheaded like yesterday either.”

  “Good. Then you probably aren’t suffering edema or hypoxia.” Fisk took their bowls and gave them a quick rinse in a basin on an old sideboard.

  “Fisk, are you a doctor?” Boyd asked, his tone incredulous. The kid didn’t look like he could be more than twenty years old.

  “Yes. I have two doctorates. But not a medical doctor if that’s what you thought.”

  “Hold up. How the hell do you have two doctorates at your age, and how did you know all that medical shit?” Boyd asked, clearly not believing Fisk.

  The young doctor sighed. He was used to people finding him a freak for his mind here, but had hoped Boyd would be better than his community at large.

  “I have above normal intelligence. I started college when I was in my teens. I also have an undergraduate degree and was working on another when I had to come back because of my mother. I know the medical facts because I like to read. It’s about my only true pleasure these days. I could dig out my degrees and show them to you if need be,” Fisk told Boyd, a hint of testiness creeping into his voice.

  Boyd blinked and then backtracked; he had no reason or desire to upset the person who had saved him from certain death. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I believe you.”

  Fiskvisibly sagged. “It’s alright. I’ve been made painfully aware I’m not normal.” There was nowhere he fit in. Unwilling to abide by local customs, too smart for his own good, and unable to escape his heritage, he was trapped.

  Without thinking Boyd pulled the obviously dejected man into a hug, murmuring, “I’m sorry,” again. “Sorry I said that the way I did. What’s normal anyway?”

  Other than that very morning, Fisk hadn’t been held in years. So, it was hard to deny that the embrace felt good, even if he just stood limply in the circle of Boyd’s arms, his head lolling on the black man’s shoulder.

  “Thanks. We really should get going,” Fisk mumbled into Boyd’s skin. He needed Boyd away for both of their wellbeing. One good thing at least, his ear pressed to that strong body heard no gurgling when Boyd breathed.

  “Yes. Okay,” Boyd conceded, letting Fisk go even if his inclination was to stay right there with his arms around the other man.

  Fisk led Boyd down to the strand. Pulled up on shore, well above the high tide line, was an aluminum boat with a small outboard motor. Fisk began to tug it down to the water, glaring and waving Boyd away when he tried to help.

  “I haul this thing to the water almost every day. How do you think I got strong enough to move you? Save your breath, you need it,” he scolded, but ended with a smile when Boyd backed off, hands in the air.

  Soon enough they were underway. Boyd sat in the prow, happy that being on the ocean again held no fear. He watched Colwin in the stern steering the boat through the straights between the islands, toward the ones dotted with houses.

  The happiness Boyd felt dissipated as soon as they climbed onto the public dock in the harbour of the largest isle. No one said a word to either of them, but the eyes of the fisher folk followed them with thinly veiled malice as they walked through the town.

  “Jesus, kid. No wonder you didn’t want to live here,” he muttered under his breath, causing Colwin to snort right before he pulled open the door to the village’s combination police station and post office.

  Normally, the sheriff would have ignored Fisk. When Colwin had to mail something, he left it and the postage money on the counter until someone got around to taking care of it because they legally had to. But the large man accompanying him gave the sheriff pause.

  “Colwin, what in the hell...” he began, eyes narrowed and face hardening, hand unconsciously settling on his pistol.

  “This is Officer Cyril Boyd,” Fisk said evenly, being sure to identify Boyd as fellow policeman, but not that he was a federal agent. He knew the presence of a government official would set off the paranoid island attitude. “His boat capsized last night in the storm and he washed up on my beach. You need to radio the mainland that he is alive.”

  “Is that so?” the sheriff asked skeptically.

  “Yes, that’s so,” Boyd jumped in. “If not for Fisk I’d be dead.”

  “How’d you get ashore? It was pretty bleak out there yesterday,” the sheriff asked, his gaze traveling away from Boyd to glare balefully at Fisk.

  Boyd rubbed the back of his neck and shifted uncomfortably. “You’re going to think I’m nuts. But I’m pretty sure a seal helped me.”

  “Yes, you’re nuts. Don’t go telling no-one else that tale. They’ll lock you up like young Fisk’s mum,” the Sheriff deadpanned, staring absolute daggers at Fisk, and radiating almost palpable anger as he picked up the mic of his radio to make the call.

  “Hey,” Boyd protested, offended more by the rude comment about his benefactor’s mother than even the unspoken threat he felt just being there.

  “Go wait on the dock, and don’t bother no-one unless you want to wait in a cell,” the Sheriff barked before keying the mic.

  Boyd held his peace, though he was vibrating with fury, until they were alone on the pier with the locals givin
g them a wide berth. Only the fact he was unarmed and in an isolated and obviously hostile community, hadmade him keep his mouth shut in that office and on the walk-through town. He could taste blood where he’d bit through his inner cheek in frustration.

  “Would you mind telling me what they hell that was about? I get it, they don’t like you. But I thought that bastard might shoot one of us and I got the distinct impression he’d have rather I drowned. This whole fucking village feels like something out of a damn Lovecraft novel,” Boy dranted, his voice low but intense.

  “Lovecraftian. That’s actually an apt description...” Fisk started, shrugging his shoulders and looking embarrassed.

  “What?” Boyd snapped.

  “Joking,” Fisk said quickly, though he hadn’t been really. A lonely, odd New England community, it’s secret tied to the sea. It did sound likes the bones of a Lovecraft plot. “Though in all honesty he probably did wish I hadn’t rescued you. They don’t care for mainlanders here.”

  “Fisk, what century are we in again?”

  “I know, I know. But it’s a fact there still exist insular communities that aren’t really interested in integrating with the world at large. A lot of these people wouldn’t even use electricity or gas boat motors until the nineteen-sixties. They voted almost unanimously to refuse power lines and telephones. Everyone relies on old gas-powered generators, and that one radio you just saw is the sole method of communicating with the outside other than a postal boat that shows up once a week.” Fisk laid out the facts, acutely aware that someone from a large city like Chicago would be appalled.

  “Fisk, when that Coast Guard cutter shows up I want you to get on it with me. This life, the isolation, the hatred, this isn’t for you. Not with a mind like yours. I’ll help you get started, build a real life—”

  “I can’t, Boyd. I can’t,” Fisk cut him off, clearly distressed.

  They were silent for a good while. Boyd sat down on the edge of the dock, feet dangling above the water, and stared into its depths while Fisk stared sadly at him. Boyd felt the eyes burning into his back but ignored it for as long as he could. Finally, he broke and looked up at Fisk before patting the deck boards beside him.

  Fisk sat down beside Boyd and gave him a half-hearted smile. He didn’t know what to say. He wished he could go away with Boyd, for about a million reasons. That megawatt smile he’d had a glimpse of this morning was reason enough. But Fisk couldn’t leave these islands, the ocean, and he couldn’t tell Boyd why.

  “I thought I got it,” Boyd said without really looking at the man sitting beside him. “I understand the draw of the sea. But why has it got to be here?”

  “I don’t know anywhere else. When I went inland for school I was never comfortable. Part of me was happy there because of all the education available to me and I even had a sort of social life. But my skin itched, Boyd, and I couldn’t sleep at night because I couldn’t hear the surf. Even if mom hadn’t lost it I’d have had to come back. My ex boyfriend, Dalton, tried to get me to stay at school, we were together for the last three years I was there, and he thought just like you do. That I was wasted out here on these rocks. He wrote me constantly, even after I sold the house in town to pay for mom’s care and moved out to that old shack. Eventually he stopped writing.”

  Boyd just nodded. He understood a little better, maybe. It was similar to the reason he’d never left Chicago even with all the bad memories he had there, and even though his career would be better advanced if he left that local field office. But he at least had a normal family to anchor him to the place. Silence descended on them again and Boyd was overcome with a sense of dread that grew as he watched the Coast Guard vessel appear on the horizon. The idea of leaving this brilliant, sensitive soul in this bleak and forbidding place made his chest ache.

  “If you change your mind...”

  “I won’t, Boyd.” Fisk reached out and took the black man’s hand in his. “I really wish I could.”

  Not an hour later, Fisk watched as the Coast Guard boat headed back for the mainland, Boyd’s form visible on the deck looking back towards the island. Fisk got in his own boat and headed out.

  Halfway back to the mainland, while pacing the ship Boyd noticed the seal darting back and forth across its wake. It made him smile to see what he imagined was the only other friend he’d made duringhis short stay. He waved when it turned away right before the ship made harbour.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Boyd spent the next two days in a medical and paperwork nightmare. He was poked and prodded and examined to within an inch of his life; first in the emergency room of the local hospital, then by the local marine authorities, and finally by his insurance company. Luckily the capsized boat hadn’t sunk, its foam-filled fibreglass hull remaining afloat and salvageable, minimizing the loss. But the charter company Boyd had rented it from still had to file a claim for the damages. By the time he finally got some peace he could understand why folks like the Kinney islanders would hide from modern life. The whole time he’d been unable to get Dr. FiskColwin out of his head.

  {{{

  The seal sat up, craning his body to see the approaching ship. He could scarcely believe that a second strange boat was entering these waters in one week. The mainlanders avoided the area as the islanders protected their fishing rights, sometimes violently, and local legends held the whole place as cursed in any case. It was definitely a fishing boat, not a commercial vessel with big trawling nets, but rather the type you would charter to take you deep-sea fishing for pleasure. Curiosity turned to worry as an inflatable dingy was deployed from the boat and headed for the island with two figures on board. One was clearly Boyd.

  Cyril leapt out of the small boat when it slowed to a stop in knee-deep water just offshore. The sailor grabbed his arm as he reached in for his bag. “We’ll be back at high tide in five days, as arranged. Don’t be late Mr. Boyd. We won’t linger by this shore. Last chance to change your mind.” He groaned when Boyd shook his head no. “This is madness. The people out here, they ain’t right. They’re all hitched. It’s no decent camping spot.”

  “I’m cool. Just make sure you come back.” Boyd flashed the man a reassuring smile, hoisted his bag on his shoulder and waded ashore. The sailor took off shaking his head, eager to be away.

  Boyd was surprised when he found the small cottage empty. Fisk’s boat had been pulled up on the shore so he couldn’t be out fishing. He considered exploring the island, not only to find his new friend, but because he’d seen no more of it than the one small bit of sandy beach and the cottage. Instead he elected to wait and made himself comfortable in Fisk’s chair with that book on local lore the other man had recommended the first night he’d spent there.

  He’d had to wait until the unfamiliar boat was gone and Boyd indoors before he could return to his home. Now Fisk stood outside of it, feeling worried and foolish and really wishing he wasn’t buck naked. He didn’t want Boyd to see the pelt, but even less did he want to walk into that cottage bare. And he certainly did not want to leave it hidden somewhere outside. He had to be ever so careful with it.

  Boyd looked up from the book, the smile on his face freezing in surprise when he took in Fisk’s appearance. His hair was wet, hanging in ringlets around his face that made Boyd’s stomach tighten and heart thump. But not as much as the fact the younger man was dressed only in some sort of animal skin knotted haphazardly around his waist. Fisk looked positively primal. It was simultaneously one of the hottest and yet most disconcerting things Boyd had ever seen.

  “What are you doing here?” Fisk asked, brow furrowed as he looked questioningly at Boyd. His tone wasn’t angry but wasn’t entirely welcoming either.

  Boyd began to wonder if arranging to be dropped off on the islet with no way out had been a serious miscalculation. “Well, Tarzan,” he drawled with a false air of confidence, “I don’t have to be back to work for aweek, so I thought, since sailing is right out at the moment, I’d visit a friend.”

  F
isk’s mouth dropped open, then closed again, unsure what to say before he slunk over to where his clothing was laid out on his neatly made bed. His back turned to Boyd; he pulled his pants up underneath the skin. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just didn’t... didn't expect to see you again. I was taken off guard,” he said quietly, untying the pelt and laying it on the bed, before picking up his shirt.

  Boyd scowled when he saw the thing’s face, the empty-eyed snout showed him that Colwin’s strange loin cloth was the whole skin of a seal. Having developed a recent affection for the sea mammals he felt a stab of hurt in his chest. Rising, Boyd crossed the room.

  “Did you kill it?” he asked, his face a mask of sorrow as he reached out to stroke the soft fur.

  “What? No,” Fisk countered as he pulled on his shirt and reached out to still Boyd’s hand. “Please don’t. It’s... it's a family heirloom,” he lied smoothly, telling the same untruth he had told Dalton the first time he’d found Fisk’s skin in his dorm room closet.

  Boyd smiled, relieved by Fisk’s reply, taking his hand away as requested. “I’m sorry I just invited myself back. I didn’t really have any way to ask ahead and I wanted to see you again.”

  “So, you can convince me to leave?” Fisk asked, tone resigned to a debate.

  “That too,” Boyd quipped, returning to Fisk’s chair. He gave the younger man a wicked smile. “Dare I ask why you were outdoors dressed in nothing but an antique sealskin?”

  “You can ask,” Fisk replied, clearly implying he had no intention of answering. Since Boyd was occupying his normal spot, he took a seat on his bed, pulling his lanky legs up and crossing them. “How long do I have the pleasure of your company?”

  “Five days,” Boyd said, sounding quite happy with himself for getting marooned there again.

  Fisk’s eyes grew wide. Five days. How was he going to hide his secret for five whole days? It wasn’t like in college, they couldn’t just go to the cafeteria for lunch. He had to go to the sea just to keep them fed.“Okay then. I hope you like fish. A lot.”