Читать книгу Nehalem (Place People Live) - Hap Tivey - Страница 4

4:30 AM: South Jetty

Neahkahnie Mountain absorbed dawn’s color, and night ended with an Oregon mist that blurred the horizon in mirror haze. Before warmth moved the air, Nehalem’s jetties slowly materialized, levitating into that monochrome void like mandibles sampling Pacific offerings. They collected the night detritus that would ride the rising tide through the river mouth into the bay, and before the ocean pressed in or light revealed the placid water, small black shapes assembled between the jaws, where they hovered, like bits of punctuation poised to structure the day’s inevitable text.

Two boys listened to surf breaking in the distance as they climbed into the moist darkness surrounding the south jetty. They had left their trailer before dawn, following a familiar route lit first by streetlights and finally by harbor lights to a trail that led up through jagged blocks of black basalt. When they reached the concrete surface on top, the older boy walked ahead shining his flashlight into sharp holes on either side of the crumbling pavement and then onto the path behind him, reassuring his brother’s steps. Salt spray and floods had eaten away sections of the road that once allowed motorized access to the jetty’s beacon and in shadow-less light, dark boulders merged with the voids between them. They passed the rusted warning sign prohibiting vehicles, and continued slowly for the first hundred yards until dawn challenged the weakening flashlight.

When distinct details of the world finally appeared, they stopped to listen and the older boy pointed the beam at the water where it met the rocks. He studied the swell as it slid past barnacles, mussels, a few starfish and sea anemones wilting in the low tide. Strapped to their backpacks, they carried homemade crab traps constructed with chicken wire bound to sticks. The smaller boy collapsed on the dusty concrete, shrugged off his pack and dropped his feet into a hole. “It sounds like cannons going off. How big do you think it is?”

His brother pointed the dying beam into the haze revealing nothing more than a faintly glowing cone dancing before a long dark shadow. “A lot bigger than you. Definitely overhead, maybe six to eight. I can barely see the north jetty. Doubt if anyone’s in the water. When we get halfway out it should be light enough to tell, but if the swell is this big over here, it’s gotta be overhead on the north jetty. This glassy, they’ll be out.”

The younger brother tightened his sweatshirt hood as he swung his legs between the boulders. “Let’s stay here till it’s light. Your batteries suck. Half the time I don’t know where you’re going.”

Quinn offered the flashlight with a note of impatience in his voice. “I want to get out there while the tide is still slack. You take the light. I don’t need it anymore.”

“I don’t need it, either.”

“Take it.”

“I don’t want it. I just want to sit here a while.”

Quinn ignored Rhys’ request and added, “If you don’t want to use the light, just stay behind me and watch where you’re going. It’s getting light, but I don’t want to carry you back with a broken leg.”

Rhys didn’t get up. “Why are we out here in the dark anyway? We can catch crabs anytime.”

“I already told you, pea brain. You catch crabs on an incoming tide just after it turns; tide brings in food, but crabs don’t eat when it starts rippin. They hunker down in the rocks.”

“Smells like the tide’s turning right here and I’m cold. We’re supposed to be hunkered down in bed like normal kids.”

“Normal kids don’t surf. You want to surf?”

Rhys considered the sound and the dark water. “Not out there.”

Quinn’s irritation increased with Rhys’ stubborn refusal to accept his authority. “You want a surfboard; you sell crabs to the Crab Pot. You want to catch crabs; you take the weather.”

Rhys started untying his trap. “You sound like dad. I’m for fishing here.”

“Crabbing dill weed. We need to go all the way to the point.”

“You just want to go out that far so you can see them better. There’s plenty of crabs right here. I’m tired of lugging this crap.”

Quinn began walking. “Fine, you stay. I’m going out where I can catch crabs. I told you not to come – that this was too hard for a little kid. Just sit here for an hour till I get back and don’t fall in a hole if you try to catch up.”

“I didn’t say I was staying. I said I wanted to fish here.”

“Crab. I’ll carry your trap, but I get half of anything that comes up.”

“No way. I’m putting it in here. I’ll get the crabs out when we come back.”

The older boy stopped and looked across the channel at the junction of the north jetty and the sand spit, where headlights appeared and started a slow crawl out the access road that remained intact on the north side. “Alright, I’m waiting three minutes; then I’m leaving. Don’t slide off the rock slime and get drowned.”

Quinn watched passively as Rhys picked the remains of several fried chicken wings from a greasy fast food container at the bottom of his pack and straightened the sticks inside the trap. He baited it by suspending the bones with heavy twine in the center of the crumpled wire cage, and attached a length of clothesline, which he tested as he lowered it into the rocks below the path. Rhys descended to a large flat boulder a few feet above the high water line and dropped the trap beside him, while he secured the rope’s end loop around a sharp corner. He tossed it into a passing swell, but the wire frame remained visible, suspended a few feet below the surface.

Quinn had watched his brother’s slow process silently, but laughed cynically when he saw it wouldn’t sink and added, “You forgot to put rocks inside. It’s never going down without weight.”

Frustrated but determined, Rhys tried retrieving it for another launch, but the trap resisted. As it reached the surface, he saw clear monofilament fishnet snagged by the corners of the wire frame. Hoisting it the last four feet onto his rock ledge, his sneakers slipped on the smooth wet surface as each passing swell tugged hard at the trap, threatening to drag it and him back into the water.

When Quinn shifted his attention from the truck’s progress and looked down again, he saw his brother standing over the trap, staring at the strands of twisted net trailing off into the channel. “Three minutes are up. Five minutes are up. Let’s go. Cut that crap off your trap and let’s go.”

Rhys began pulling more net onto the rocks. “Hey Quinn, fishermen make more than crabbers, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

Rhys turned and grinned with the satisfaction that justifies stubbornness through unexpected success. “Well, you catch crabs and I’ll just sell big fresh Chinook.”

As a pile of net accumulated between the rocks, Quinn saw the dark silhouette of a heavy fish rise on the swell and fall as it passed, dragging his brother to the edge of his perch. “Jesus, Rhys, that fish is going to pull you in. Stop fighting it; just hold on. Wait till I get down there.”

Rhys sat down and braced his feet. “My fish.”

Quinn scrambled down to the ledge. “Fine, your fish. Stay down and hold on. You don’t want to try swimming with that mess wrapped around you.”

Together they dragged the salmon onto the boulder. The net had drowned it, but it was fresh from a recent death. A few yards off the rocks, they could see smaller fish suspended in barely visible filaments that rocked back and forth with the surge. Quinn inspected the salmon and calculated the extent of the treasure they had discovered. “That fish is as big as you Rhys. What do you weigh? Fifty, fifty-five? You just got like a hundred bucks. Let’s keep pulling and from now on, just so it’s fair, we share what comes up.” Rhys nodded. His treasure already exceeded anything he had imagined.

A knot of rockfish and herring came up easily, but what had been a thin streamer of net gradually thickened into a conglomeration of several nets in graduated sizes and progress stopped as more and more fine mesh tangled in the barnacles and mussels. Five yards off the rocks, the first of the floats appeared. It was ten inches wide, five inches high and black with a thin red line just above the water. It looked like a plastic bowl floating upside down.

Erratic pulses of wind whispered from the bay toward deep water, and Quinn imagined the offshore breeze arriving, building, and perfecting the waves for whoever had the guts to face them. He looked up to check the truck’s progress on the north jetty, but before his gaze had crossed the channel, hundreds of floats, extending across its entire width, diverted his attention. They receded from the rock where he and his brother sat beside their salmon, to the tip of the north jetty, now visible three hundred yards away beneath the lifting mist, like helmets of a submerged infantry. The north jetty terminus stalled and condensed one end of the column as the tide slowly rotated the expanding remainder into the channel. The erratic dotted line that marked the advancing edge led directly from Quinn’s hand past a hollow eight-foot wave that rolled like a cavernous barrel along the north jetty. Occasional puffs feathered the wave’s lip into fine white mist that trailed behind the dark green wall before it collapsed. He saw two silhouetted figures standing above the rocks waiting for a massive set to pass before they paddled out. He tried yelling and waving. Then both he and Rhys shouted together as loud as they could, but the break was two hundred yards away. Quinn knew that not much sound could penetrate a wetsuit hood. Together, they dragged the salmon and the small fish up to the path and tried yelling again. One of the surfers dove from the jetty and began to paddle.

Quinn dropped his pack. He demanded that Rhys promise not to drag anymore net alone and wait on the path with the fish until he returned. He offered his knife to cut the small fish free. Rhys agreed and Quinn ran.

5 AM: North Jetty

When storm swells arrived from the southwest they broke along the outer reach of the north jetty. If the direction became more westerly, the break moved farther into the channel and rides lasted longer. Extreme southern exposure slammed the swells into the outer reach of the sandbar making the waves hollow, the rides fast and the impact of the shore break on the jetty boulders vicious. Richard Glassman and Sam Rodeheim had grown up surfing Oregon waves and this break with these conditions happened once a year – maybe. They had driven out onto the jetty with headlights and hadn’t seen the break from the harbor, but when they parked Glassman’s ‘65 Chevy pickup and shut down the engine, they could hear that it was big. The calm excitement of pulling on wet wetsuits in dawn light and searching for booties under sleeping bags kept the Chinook camper quiet and each time a new peak thundered down, one or both of them stopped and silently estimated size. Adrenaline washed away the morning’s daze and any weed residue from the last night’s party.

Sammy stepped out of the camper first and stood completely still. “I think I’ve waited most of my life for this. You are not going to believe what’s out here. This is what I named you for. This is perfect. This is the day you will not forget.” A big barrel collapsed in a spitting roar and he howled as loud as he could, as if his lungs could compete with the air exploding from the heart of the wave. As they walked along the jetty looking for the right spot to launch, they saw more headlights pull up onto the access road.

Sammy watched them with mild annoyance. “Hey Glass, you think we should pull the truck over? If that’s Murphy, he’s gonna be pissed and haul our ass out of the water to move it.”

Glassman recognized the headlights. “Murphy’s sound asleep. That’s Billy. You think Billy would sleep through this? He’ll park behind us. He knows we’re already here; I told him the waves would be here today. One of these days he’s gonna learn to believe me and get up when I do. How long did it take you to start believing me? You guys all treat my visions like they’re bullshit, but when I know waves are coming – they’re coming. I see things.”

Sammy laughed dismissively. “I don’t know what you see without your glasses, but I see the best freakin tubes of the year – right in front of me.” He saw Glass stop and for no apparent reason stare across the channel.

Halted by the impression that he heard the echo of what he had just said, Glass looked for the source of the sound and found two small figures on the rocks across the channel. For a moment they appeared mysteriously - vague, gray and distant. He imagined the other end of this swell stretched across the river mouth to their side, where it barely made a splash as it slid past them. On his side, a head high maelstrom crashed through the basalt a few steps below. Fifty feet of churning foam attached the black and white violence beneath him to a steep green wall that swept past – empty, smooth and stretching into deep channel oblivion. It was well overhead, maybe eight feet, which meant the peak would be at least ten. His attention returned to the figures, who solidified and really seemed to be there, standing on the jetty - waving. Maybe they were surfers excited to see someone going out; or more likely, they were birders who had never seen a big flock of murres and ducks at dawn, black shapes floating in the south jetty’s protective shadow.

Sammy dove from the jetty as the last wave of the set passed, sprinted into the channel and paddled out to the lineup as the next set began to show. Glass waited for another small wave to wash past and dove after him. He was far enough behind that he decided not to stroke for the line up. He could miss this set, and sitting out in the channel he could relax and watch Sammy take his pick and work it alone. It was always amazing to stare directly into a big barrel from the safety of the channel, even better if your partner was locked in the tube screaming at you. In these waves, Sammy promised a great show. He could see Billy’s truck parked behind the camper with Billy sitting half naked on the hood. It was now an audience of two waiting for the show to begin and Glass had the cat seat. Sammy let the first wave go and the second and the third. Glass watched the barrels roll past and began to regret waiting, but on the fourth, he saw Sammy drop in behind a huge peak. He pulled up onto the wall as the lip pitched out behind him and the tube enveloped him. Glass thought he saw a dead bird follow the lip down into the white water and the barrel rolled by empty. Sammy popped up behind the broken wave swinging his arms as if he was swatting away flies, and began paddling for the channel.

Glass yelled over the roar of the shore break. “I thought this was the big show. Nice burial, dude.”

Sammy yelled back irritated and frustrated by his failure on a wave that had promised to be a perfect beginning. “Bite me. I snagged some fish net and it’s all over me.”

Glass yelled a half-joking warning. “You gotta pick a better line next time. And you better start stroking, the next barrel’s on its way.”

Sammy began paddling hard for the channel, but moved sluggishly as the next wave broke and rolled toward him. He managed to reach the shoulder of the wave and avoid the impact, but as it passed, the white water seemed to exert an invisible force that dragged him along with it. When the motion of the net subsided, he had almost reached Glass, but it had drawn him closer to the jetty and into the path of the next wave. They were still thirty feet apart.

A tone of mild fear crept into Sammy’s voice as he realized that enduring noxious pollution could degenerate beyond humiliation to survival. “Hey man, help me get this crap offa me. It’s all wrapped around me and tangled in the board’s fins. This is messed up.”

Glass looked outside at the last wave of the set and decided to stay in the channel. “You gotta get out here or take one on the head. Come on dude, paddle. You can make this. It’s the last wave of the set. I’ll get that off you after this one.”

Sammy struggled awkwardly, but couldn’t gain traction.

Glass watched the wave break and the barrel roll toward Sammy. He yelled. “Leave it and swim. Come on man, you got about twenty seconds.”

“I can’t. He screamed back. “It’s like I’m tied onto the board.”

The last barrel rolled over Sammy. As Glass rose on the shoulder he checked the lineup for another wave and suddenly visualized the deadly expanse of black floats not as birds, but bulbous spiders bringing their web forward with each successive wave. He turned toward the jetty and stroked hard after the white water, hoping it wouldn’t drag Sammy onto the rocks before he could reach him. Suddenly Sammy was there, on the surface beside him, wound so tightly he could barely control the board enough to right himself. He floated almost vertically and his eyes bulged as he gasped for air. Glass could see the net spreading beneath them and feel it collecting on his legs as he kicked to maintain leverage while he tore at the lines binding Sammy’s arms.

Panic gripped Sammy and he screamed at Glass. “Get the knife. Get in there and get the knife. I’ll paddle through the next couple; they’re small. They can’t put me in the rocks. We gotta get me out of this before the next set comes through.”

Glass continued tearing frantically at the net, breaking only the light lines. Heavy lines cut into his wetsuit gloves and held. A small shore break passed between them and the jetty, dragging Sammy a few feet. He screamed at Glass. “Forget it man. I can paddle enough to get around these little ones. Get the knife. You’re thirty feet away; get the knife!”

Glass stroked away from the net, and directly at the jetty, but didn’t reach it before the next wave caught him. Using his board as a shield, he braced for the impact as it drove him onto the rocks. The white water that caught him was small, comparatively, but big enough to slam him and his board into a ledge with enough force to snap the board. He caught a boulder, let the wave pass and scrambled out screaming for Billy. When he looked back, he saw Sammy paddling again. He still had control, but a corner of that broken wave had twisted a fresh layer of net into his tether.

Glass ran toward Billy’s truck yelling frantically. “Billy, gimme your knife. Sammy’s caught in some crazy net and it’s gonna drown him or drag him on the rocks. He’s totally snarled. I gotta get back out and cut him lose. Gimme your board. I just broke mine. Where’s your deck knife?”

Billy stepped out from behind his pickup wearing trunks. One leg was a few inches into a wetsuit. He looked out at the next wave bearing down on Sammy, stepped on the wet suit with his free foot and pulled lose in one motion. He opened the truck cab, grabbed fins from under the seat, snatched a deck knife that hung from the rearview mirror and ran.

Glass ran after him. As he scanned the boulders for a way down, he saw the net beginning to nest around a piece of his shattered board that had wedged between boulders. The white water rushed past and for a moment everything stopped as he stared at the wet lines glittering around it like old tinsel clinging to a trashed Christmas tree. His entire body shook violently, as if he had gone hypothermic. He looked up as Billy pulled on his second fin. It suddenly occurred to him that Billy was going without a wet suit. “You can’t go out there. You’ll freeze.”

Billy yelled before he dove. “There’s a car headed this way on the access road. Whoever it is, get them down to the water. I’ll get Sammy lose. There’s rope in the truck. Get it and stay on shore. Honk the horn till you see me headed in with Sammy or till they get here – whoever they are.”

The last of the small waves rolled over Sammy sweeping him closer to the jetty. Three waves he couldn’t escape had wound him to the board in a cocoon of fine filament, but he managed to stay upright with his head above water. The net bound the tail of the board with knots around the fins. As the surge moved past, it swung him like a swamped kayak in a powerful current with nothing but the bow floatation out of the water and the stern tethered to the bottom by an unbreakable anchor chain.

He was only thirty feet away, nothing, the width of a swimming pool, but this was not just water. The cold and the adrenaline pumped him, but Billy had almost no body fat and he was swimming through an exotic soup of clear tentacles that clung to anything that moved. As soon as he hit the water, he realized that his arms were useless. One stroke wound a few lines around his shoulder that he shrugged off easily, but the message was clear – forward progress would be limited to kicking with fins.

Hands stretched in front, above the water, gliding over the invisible mesh beneath him, he could see the next wall of white water coming - not too big, still no set. Sammy was ten feet away when it hit. Billy tried to power up and over hoping to stay clear of the net, but three feet of broken wave had enough power to flip him, roll him and wind him into the web. The deck knife went through the monofilament easily and he was on the surface in seconds, but Sammy was gone. When the board bobbed back up, it was close, but inverted. Billy jerked hard on the board’s nose, spinning the cocoon over and Sammy gasped for air. Without waiting to see the mask of terror attached to Sammy’s face, Billy dove again. The knife unzipped the cocoon with a few hard slashes against the bottom of the board and Billy felt the explosion of freedom above him when Sammy could suddenly move again. He stayed down, cutting away his own entanglement and the trailing web still knotted to the board’s fins. He sensed the panic inches above him as Sammy collected the freed board and spun away for the jetty; and he felt an invisible presence surrounding them – the mindless silence of an amoral killing machine passively awaiting movement.

5:20 AM: North Jetty

Quinn rode out the north jetty road in Sven’s Jeep, sandwiched between two towers of anger. Sven and the Jeep smelled like fish and the other guy just stank. They were both huge and Quinn felt insignificant, squished out of existence. Maybe Rhys had it right; they should have stayed in bed like normal kids. Sven had been OK when he told them, but Lester reminded him of everything bad that happened when their father got too drunk. At first no one would listen except John and Sven, who thought it was hilarious that two kids could land a fifty-pound Chinook off the jetty before the commercial boats had even loaded to go out. John had disappeared and Sven didn’t believe there was a net or a Chinook until he walked out of the Sandbar and saw the dots on the channel. Then he turned mad. He was still mad. No one had talked since they climbed into the Jeep. When they turned up onto the jetty, they could see the trucks parked out at the break.

Lester exploded first. “That’s that meathead hippie’s truck. What the hell is he doing out there? You said you saw two surfers. Now we got two trucks. You need glasses kid?”

Sven didn’t look at Lester. “Lay off the kid.”

“You his mom? This is all bullshit. I don’t know what I’m doing in a fish wagon anyway, it stinks.” He turned his hangover breath on Quinn. “And you’re probably a lying little bastard, cause your lazy old man got a illegal fish and this net shit is all crap.”

Sven kept his visual attention on the concrete, but didn’t conceal his anger. “You said it’s your kid out there. I didn’t ask you to come. You want to walk; you can get out. You want to ride; you can shut it.”

“Pull this shit heap over.”

Sven turned bright red. The Jeep slowed. Quinn knew it was dangerous to talk. He’d heard that tone before, but in the moment of calm before the fight he could hear the steady whine of Billy’s horn. He wanted to say ‘they’re blowing the horn, because something is wrong’, but Sven heard it too and slammed the accelerator down.

“You want to walk, tough guy? Jump.”

When they got to the Billy’s truck, Glass had gathered the rope and was running out the jetty waving wildly for them to follow. Sven parked and ran after him. He was a waterman and one glance at the floats and the netted rocks told him disaster had moved into their bay. He saw Billy disappear under the whitewater and moments later Sammy and his board surface.

Quinn looked out at the lineup as the first wave of the next set began to rise. Thirty yards away, the peak ascended like the apex of a green glass wall. An offshore gust blew a wedge of spray off the transparently thin lip.

Glass watched the peak pitch out and form the empty ellipse that collapsed into a hollow barrel spinning toward them on the channel side with its thundering wall of white water hammering the boulders on the jetty side. He saw black dots stretching across the green face of the wall and a shadow like a log or a dolphin surfing.

5:30 AM: North Jetty

With every stroke Sammy wound his arms back into the web and the nose of the board, slipping under new lines, collected connections. Fifteen feet from the jetty Billy caught up to a frantic windmill whirling uselessly - all progress stalled, all rational thought absent. He had seen the peak come down and the size of the wall about to engulf them and he knew the time to cut loose was gone. He screamed into Sammy’s face to get air, wrapped his arms around him and his board, and filled his lungs. They would take their chances with the rocks.

Six feet of white water struck like a wet slab avalanche moving everything in its path. When it engulfed them, the turbulence wound them together in a new cocoon, drove them to the bottom, and anchored them to the rocks with tendrils that drew taught and cinched the lines surrounding them. The surface was out of reach. Bill cut his arms free and slashed at the back of the board. As soon as the cocoon’s grip loosened, Sammy’s flailing terror began again. Billy slashed at everything that resisted and suddenly Sammy was kicking his face and shoulders, clawing his way to air. The board released and shot upward and stalled. He cut through knotted twists of line and loosened his legs enough to kick for the surface. One fin had stripped away, caught irrevocably in the plastic bramble. Both feet were numb. It was hard to keep his grip on the knife. He got air and turned to find Sammy beyond reach, panicked, thrashing toward the rocks. He gauged the size of the next white wall and took another deep breath before it hit him.

5:35 AM: North Jetty

Sven recognized the mask when he saw Sammy surface – the wild eyes, the gaping mouth, the insane flapping attempt to climb air. He’d witnessed drowning men. As the wave swept by that buried Bill and Sammy together, he grabbed Glass and threw two loops of rope around his waist and one around each leg forming a harness. Another loop under his arms and a final hand loop in front of his chest completed the outfit. In the thirty seconds it took to complete the rig, he watched Billy surface and spin around to find Sammy ten feet farther down the channel and swimming for the rocks as the next wall bore down. Sammy seemed close enough to throw the rope, but Sven knew he would never find it in his crazed state and even if by some miracle he caught it, he’d never hold a line pulled hard enough to drag him free from what was coming. Sven watched Sammy’s progress slow as the net reasserted its grip with every stroke.

He handed his belt knife to Glass and looked directly into his eyes. “I’d go myself Rich, but you’ve got the rubber suit and I can pull harder. After this next wave goes past, wait till you see where they come up and go. They’ll wash down to us in that one. I won’t lose you, no matter what happens.”

Lester hadn’t realized the power of the relentless killer that enveloped his son, until he saw Glass look back at him and his thoughts slowly crystallized into dread that recognized the fear in Glass’ glance. Flushed with the false confidence of a sudden adrenaline rush, he ran toward the ledge where Sven prepared Glass for the rescue and leapt from the road into the wet boulders. He fell hard. The barnacles opened gashes on his forehead and one hand. He struggled up in time to see Billy reappear, but his vision blurred and he slumped against the stone trying to focus.

For Quinn, nothing seemed real. Everything felt like a movie. There was the drowning boy and the heroes trying to save him. There was the father stunned to sobriety and paralyzed with fear for his son. And here came the monster – white roaring, with some huge bone in its teeth. He could feel cold spray on his face and smell low tide, but everything moved slowly, and the light was strange, and he couldn’t get enough air.

Glass saw the dolphin spinning in the shore break and for an instant he couldn’t understand why it hadn’t made the wave, dolphins always made it. The whole channel seemed to glow dimly along the rocks, but brightly around the black carcass in the white water, and around Billy and Sammy, as if they moved through swarms of bioluminescent creatures. Lester had fallen. Dolphins never wiped out. He heard Sven yelling in the distance. The tumbling corpse crashed over Sammy.

He heard, “Next one - when you see them, go.”

5:35 AM: North Jetty

Billy had gone to the bottom before the chaos rolled over him. He imagined being up in that hydraulic was worse than going down into the net. At least down there he could cut his way straight up, no knots coiled tight by the wave. His hands were numb; he was shaking violently. If he could find a grip and hold, until this wave passed, he could cut a path up and get Sammy. They were close now. He had seen Sven up there and Glass with rope. Eight feet above him he watched the shore break churn over his head and seconds later the surge tore him off the bottom. This wave carried the dolphin, which towed a mat of net, gathered in its rush from the lineup. It’s power drove Billy into the base of the jetty, dragged the gossamer mat over him and rolled on, wrapping him with a new sensation of density, and binding him silently onto the black basalt wall. The knife was gone. The only way up meant crawling - pulling himself and the net up, rock by rock, to the air. Half way to the surface, the third wave of the set hit. The turbulence slammed him against a boulder that he clung to. For a moment he thought the violence had freed him, but the net had simply shifted with him. The surge moved on, increasing his entanglement before anchoring him again.

He focused. Two-wave hold down – he could do that; he had done that. Not three. Drag this net five more feet. He felt like a beast harnessed to a deep furrow plow with an anchor chain. His face found air and time for one breath. He crabbed down into a void, holding for the next shock with numb hands and feet jammed into barnacled crevices.

5:37 AM: North Jetty

They watched the wave pass and no one came up. The dolphin bounced along the rocks below them and stopped - snagged and held by thousands of fine strands twisted into the jagged wall. A third wave crashed toward them. No one came up as the dolphin spun slowly in place. With the fourth approaching, Glass saw a glow covered with sparkling net rise momentarily from the water and sink back. Quinn had seen him too and yelled frantically, pointing at the spot as Glass, tethered to Sven, moved across the boulders. The third wave passed. Glass jumped.

Lester couldn’t understand, if they were gone or if he just couldn’t see. There was blood on his hands. He could taste it.

5:38 AM: North Jetty

Billy struggled to climb again, but thousands of threads resisted. His body shook uncontrollably and he needed air. Everything that wasn’t numb hurt. Suddenly the anchor was gone and something pushed him up into the air for the breath he thought he’d lost forever. Sven had his arm, pulling, and something pushed him up and he pushed against rocks with anesthetized flesh that couldn’t feel the dull barnacle knives. The fourth wave crushed them and rope pinned him to a boulder, sawing on his chest. Foam smothered him again, but when it passed, his face felt air and Sven pulled him up over the sharpness. Then, he was lying on his back looking at the sky.

Glass cut his way out of the horror that clung to him and signaled to Sven that he was safe and he could drop the rope. He crawled out before the fifth wall hit and helped Sven get Billy onto the road.

Sven called to Quinn, who stood starring at the ocean. “Anything? You see anything?”

Quinn’s voice came from another world where children lose their innocence in fragments of calm between breaking waves. “Nothing.”

Sven needed help and he heard that Quinn needed help. “Get in the camper Quinn. Get sleeping bags and get Billy covered up. Watch him.”

He turned to Lester. “Lester, you see anything? Lester! You see anything? Jesus, where is he?”

Glass scrambled back down to the water and Sven followed, picking up the rope on the way. They stopped above the dolphin. The set had passed and the huge carcass wilted between boulders, encased in a shroud of plastic vines.

Billy jerked upright and called out in strangled tones. “Sammy’s still down there. He’s down there.”

Without discussion, Glass dove and the rope paid out until Sven had to move down beside the water. He set his feet and wedged himself into the rocks preparing for the next small shore break. It came and went, washing over his legs and soaking him. The rope tugged and he began pulling. When he could see them, he stood and backed away to next big boulder. He saw Glass surface and get air. He held fast as the next small wave rolled by, tied the rope off to the boulder, and lowered himself down to lift Sammy out as Glass slashed at the net.

Glass held his knees up as Sven laid Sammy on the sleeping bag. Sven walked Quinn back to the Jeep, started the engine and turned the heater to high. Glass and Billy took turns doing mouth-to-mouth and cardiac pressure. After ten minutes they stopped to unzip his collar and remove his hood. One side of his skull had a deep dent above and behind his right ear. He was blue, white and cold.

Nobody talked and Lester continued staring at the shore break as it churned through the black boulders. He hadn’t moved.

6 AM: The Sandbar

The Pacific Coast Highway wound down into the Nehalem River valley from the slopes of Neahkahnie Mountain and crossed the river on a narrow two-lane bridge. Although it technically maintained its highway status through the village, it slowed traffic to the speed of a quiet city street. The town depended heavily on tourism from a stretch of shops that the highway divided into hillside and bay side locations. Negotiating the curves or the bridge provided passengers plenty of time to examine shop windows or signs offering directions down to the waterfront.

For years the town had two bars that also served meals, the Truck In and the Sandbar. Both offered standard menus typical of small town cafes, but the Sandbar also served seafood, caught fresh and subject to change on the specials menu. The Truck In also served unique fare, including venison, shot fresh, an item not listed on the menu. The walls of the Sandbar displayed trophy sized taxidermy – cutthroat, steelhead, salmon, a variety of cod, crabs and a thresher shark - composed and suspended in a decorative net. The Truck In also provided a natural history section – several mule deer heads with impressive antlers, a beaver, a coyote, a red tail hawk, some ducks and a snarling black bear’s head with yellow teeth. Scattered among the animal heads, a collection of photographs depicting men standing on huge stumps or gathered around antique steam driven engines developed a logging theme that stretched from the nineteenth century to the nineteen-eighties, represented by dramatic color photographs of customized logging trucks. Behind the bar several saws, axes and an exploded choker cable completed the décor. The extensive photographic section of the Sandbar included dozens of boats, both private and charter, proud tourists with their catch and seascapes in all seasons and varieties of weather. The Truck, squatted between the lumberyard and the garage, and faced the Coast Highway across a parking lot wide enough for a dozen pickups and a couple of log truck tractors without their trailers. The Sandbar perched above the little public marina on a parallel business street, a short walk from the boat launch and the slips. Unlike the Truck, which washed its floors weekly and relished the aroma of beer soaked wood, the Sandbar’s speckled linoleum received nightly mopping and weekly waxing.

The owners, Toby and Evelyn Babb, took pride in the fragrance of their home cooking, which drifted into the main seating area through a horizontal serving window behind the counter. Evelyn dressed the windows that opened onto the bay with fabric curtains that matched the tablecloths. Locally crafted glass panels depicting abstract sea life and exploding sunsets hung from the mullions with price tags attached. During summer months, potted plants bloomed under the windows on the street side and the bay side, where she maintained a cantilevered deck with chairs for smokers and a view of the harbor.

A crowd had gathered in the Sandbar and Billy sat at a corner table wrapped tight in an unzipped sleeping bag with half a mug of coffee in his hands and half the coffee on the floor. He was still shaking and occasional involuntary spasms in his arms and legs made drinking the coffee ridiculous, but it was warm.

Sven sat across from him with his own coffee, speaking softly in an attempt to keep the conversation at their table. “Glass went with the ambulance. I think Lester went too, but I’m not sure.”

Billy’s teeth periodically chattered as he spoke. “Bad idea. Lester’s nuts. If he thinks this is Richard’s fault, he might kill him right there in the ambulance.”

“Murphy went too.”

“In the ambulance?”

“I believe so.”

“I hope so.”

Sven leaned over and pushed his hot cup across the table. “Take it easy Bill. Sammy’s gone. Lester’s hurting, but I doubt he’ll hurt anybody else.”

Billy set his mug on the table. “I’m not so sure as you, but you’re right. Sammy’s gone.” He tried a sip of the hot coffee, spilling it again on the bag covering his legs. “Shit. I can’t get warm. I can’t stop this shaking; how long have I been shaking?”

“Twenty minutes since we pulled you out. You’re still white. Could be shock. Maybe you need to check it out at the clinic. We pulled a guy out last month who went over. He was only in the water for ten minutes and he went into shock. We almost lost him; had to call the Coast Guard Helivac.”

Billy stood up and the sleeping bag opened revealing a bloody chest and thighs. “Maybe I need some clothes instead of this coffee soaked bag.”

Sven surveyed the damage. “You definitely need more than swim trunks, but I think you need the clinic, Bill. You’re bleeding all over the place.”

He dropped the bag to the floor and took a look at his chest and legs. They were covered with shallow cuts from the barnacles. “I look like one of those religious fanatic flagellators, those guys that whip themselves with thorn ropes. I guess I got seriously hypothermic. Must be capillary shunt stopped any blood from getting to my skin. Oregon water - so cold we don’t bleed.”

Sven got up to look at his back. “I guess you should go. There’s a nasty cut on your back too and that one’s not barnacle scratches. That’s deep. Ribs OK? You got beat up down there.” He draped his coat over Billy’s shoulders and sat down.

Billy sat down and wrapped the bag over his legs. “Didn’t do much good though. Did it?”

“Now don’t say that. You did everything you could. That thing damn near got you too.”

“It would have without you and Rich.”

Sven sensed Billy’s mood darkening. “I just helped you out of the water a little quicker. You’re so mean you would have crawled out without me.”

Billy looked up. “Seriously, Sven, I don’t think I would have made it if Rich hadn’t cut me out. I was about done and Rich wouldn’t have been there without you.”

Sven sat up as if he suddenly remembered something important. “It wasn’t me who spotted you. It was that kid, Quinn. He’s the one who got us out there. He came in with a tale about catching some huge Chinook with a net that filled the bay and surfers about to die like salmon in a gillnet. Your mate John was the only one who believed him and he went over to the Truck to see if Lester knew where Sammy was. I guess John knew you went out, which meant Richard was there. You should thank him.”

Billy wrapped the bag around his waist and walked over to Quinn, who sat at one of the counter stools. Evelyn had given him a plate of marrion berry pie and a glass of milk, but he continually glanced over his shoulder to monitor events in the room behind him. He heard Billy get up and start toward him; he spun the stool around.

At six feet three inches, Billy towered over him and he smiled down. “Sven said you saved me. I guess I owe you big.”

Quinn looked up and grinned at the acknowledgement of his part in the drama. “Rhys and I saw the net and the floats and rode out with Sven, cause I saw it out there at the lineup. I saw your head come out at the rocks. That was pretty scary when you went back down. You’re bleeding pretty bad. I’m glad you’re OK. Sammy died, didn’t he”?

Billy surveyed Quinn’s excited confusion. “Yeah we couldn’t save him. We tried pretty hard though. And you saved me. You’re a good kid and I owe you one; so if you need something, you find me and I’ll help any way I can. So, who’s Rhys?”

Quinn turned pale and jumped off the stool. “My brother. I left him out on the jetty with the fish. I gotta go get him.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

“I better run. You better go to the clinic.”

The street door opened and John walked in holding a huge salmon followed by Rhys dragging the backpacks.

Billy smiled. “That him?”

Quinn stopped, relieved and curious. “Yeah that’s him.”

John tilted his head and looked at the blood and the sleeping bag. “You OK Billy?” He waited until Billy nodded. “I bought this fish for you, from this Rhys. I thought you needed it. Help you heal. That’s his brother. He’s the one who came for you. Where’s Maggie’s boy?”

“Ambulance is headed for the clinic. Maybe we should pick her up. Take her there.”

“Nothing she can do at the clinic except see that crazy Lester get more crazy.” John paused and looked over at Sven still sitting at the corner table. “Sven’s crew is waitin for him. All the boats are going out for that big net. We could start up Hecate. Net’s full of fish. Salmon, steelhead – everything. Sharks, tuna, everything’s in a net that big.”

“No. I’m going to Maggie’s. See how she’s holding up.”

John changed his tone and spoke as if Billy was the only person listening. “Sammy lost his breath; that’s all done. Doctors always keep them over night. I’ll call grandfather and we’ll start ceremonies tomorrow. Go see Maggie and tell her go to my place or Aunt Sue’s. Clean up first. You’re a mess.”

Billy looked from Rhys, who couldn‘t stop staring at the blood, to Quinn who was examining John and the salmon. “John, you should take the boat out; take Hecate out. And take these kids if they want to go. Make some money. You two want to go out on my boat with John?” They both nodded. “You have to promise to wear jackets? John, don’t let them on board without jackets. Hecate’s rules won’t allow that.”

John knew what the blood meant. “You’re getting warm now. I’ll take you to the clinic. We can all go out.”

Billy waved him off. “I’ll just get clothes out of the cabin and make sure these two have life jackets that fit. You go. Get money. And get that monster out of the channel.”

6:45 AM: Nehalem Clinic

Billy paced the clinic reception office in three strides, stopped, stared at Murphy and continued in long strides. “I’m cleaner than I was forty minutes ago in the Sandbar. I got pants and a shirt, maybe not shoes, but I don’t stink and I don’t yell at people for doing their job. You’re the sheriff, Murphy; I get that. You have to stay calm, but Christ, how can you listen to a drunk fool scream at that little nurse like that?”

Murphy stood beside the door to the examination room. “Sammy. Lester’s in a lot of pain. She understands that.”

“Rich said he never lifted his ass off that rock. Sometimes I think he hated Sammy the way he treated him. Hell, he slept on my boat as much as he slept in their trailer. Lester scared the shit out of him. And you gotta tell me to calm down? We share history. We’re practically brothers, but beside me you act like a numb Republican. OK. Ponytail, no uniform - boots, Levis and clean Pendleton shirts isn’t a suit. You’re calm, obviously I respect that, but that little girl isn’t a doctor or a social worker. She’s barely five years older than Sammy. Probably knew him. She’s trying to make it OK by washing him and getting him ready, with him lying there cold – and that alcohol soaked psycho is in there screaming at her. I should put his lights out and let her do her job.”

Murphy added a note of friendly warning. “Don’t even consider it.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what’s wrong with you having this job. It makes you think everything goes by the book. Sometimes the book is totally useless. You go by the book, I’d be assaulting him and you gotta read the rules to me. What about her? Don’t you think he’s assaulting her? You think she’s gonna sleep tonight? What do you think messes with her mind more: a dead child, someone she knew, lying on that steel table; or a crazy drunk threatening her, by screaming at her? Or both at once? Sometimes we have to make moral choices to protect innocent people and sometimes we have to burn the damn book and just do it.”

Murphy responded seriously. “If you clocked him, he would shut up. I don’t doubt you could do that, but he has or had a concussion – you heard that too. You might kill him. Then where do I stand? I take my brother-in-law to jail and book him with manslaughter, or worse? I don’t burn the book, because people smarter than me wrote it. I need to keep peace in this county. I need to keep both you and Lester out of jail.”

Billy’s anger continued heating up. “That is where you are wrong again. It’s not black and white – in jail, not in jail. You have to have a moral side that sees things before disasters happen. If you had been listening, when I told you about that thing with Amato, maybe that net wouldn’t be in the channel right now and maybe that boy wouldn’t be room temperature. Some things you can’t fix after they happen.”

“Bill, I’ll write all this down at the office. We can make an official statement when you’re a little calmer, but tell me one thing again. Who exactly did you talk to at the Coast Guard station? Was it only Amato?”

Billy stopped pacing and stared out the window before turning back to Murphy. He pressed his fingers into his temples and slowly massaged while he drew a series of deep breaths. “Good idea. Change topic. Yes. Yes definitely. The little prick was bustin my balls about my registration. I’m telling him a factory ship is hauling a pirate drift net over the banks and suddenly he’s yanking my chain about my registration. Never guessed it would be this multi-net monster, all I saw was some floats. It was night and I was trolling with the current.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked if it was legal for me to be drifting over the banks and what was I doing there? What kind of moron question is that? I’m trolling, not dragging a mile of net.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him he didn’t have the balls to do anything but safety patrol, and he should be kicking those assholes off our shores instead of giving parking tickets.”

Murphy smiled. “Your usual style of winning friends and influencing policy. Why do you think it was their net?”

“Who else has nets a mile long? We don’t even have boats that can pull a monster like that.”

“But why that ship?”

Billy heated up again. “What else is she doing inside our water? Waiting for repairs; checking the weather; mapping sea floor - or any of the other lame bullshit Amato claims? I don’t care what their official status says. They’re out there snagging salmon before they get to the river - and every other ocean creature that gets in its path. That was a harbor dolphin on the rocks. They’re doing it at night. And he’s too lame to go out after dark.”

Murphy countered rationally. “Nets like that have been illegal for years. An identified vessel isn’t likely to use one, or lose one, if the Coast Guard knows they’re inside our waters. Suppose someone still had one of these nets; they’re worth a fortune. No industry ship could afford to lose one.”

Billy calmed as he considered the options. “It is possible it’s a phantom net. Maybe it sank with a heavy catch and finally resurfaced. A pod of dead porpoise would sink one of those for years. Those nets catch everything from herring up to great whites. Once they fill with baitfish, everything big comes to feed and dies. If it’s not hauled in - storms, bad navigation, bad timing – it goes to the bottom till everything in it rots. If it’s deep water, it could take a year to get to the bottom and another year to get back up – killing all the way down and all the way up. And if no one spots it, it could keep doing that. Monofilament doesn’t die.”

It relieved Murphy that Billy had settled down. “Isn’t that more likely? How could an industry ship lose something like that over the banks?”

Murphy’s attention encouraged Billy to expand his lecture and Murphy indulged him, preferring lectures to threats. “Factory ships used to find bait fish swarms and set five, six of those at the same time in a small radius. They would kill everything and process it. Cat food to sushi, they took it all. The factory that’s out there now has been in and out of our water for three weeks. The salmon are moving closer now, ready to come in. Suppose they set nets ten miles out – where I was drifting – and they’re doing that at night. The float beacons are probably infrared. I could barely see them and they didn’t blink. I’d put money down that those floats are high-tech, brand new. Anyway, that wind we had two days ago moves in and spreads their nets out. The big ship plays round up, but one of its nets gets a little lost, a little too close to shore. The sun comes up. Christ, you can see a big ship that’s eight miles out from any highway turnout going around Neahkahnie Mountain and tourists take a million pictures there every day. They could have panicked and figured they would get it the next night. This big south swell moves in and the next thing you know, the net comes across the bar, snags the jetty and swings into the channel.”

The explanation satisfied him and he concluded. “After I open one of those floats, we’ll know a little more about this. Batteries don’t make it to the sea floor and back.” He paused. “I know one thing; that dickhead Amato didn’t go out there to check out what I told him.”

Murphy felt the danger returning. “How do you know that?”

“Because that little jerkoff gets seasick in big water and this last week was big. I doubt he’s ever been out twelve miles in his life.”

Murphy shifted to serious and personal. “People that lame don’t survive in our Coast Guard. I will follow this Billy, but please take my advice - do not, please, do not tell people Amato was responsible for what happened to Sammy. “

“That little prick … “

Murphy stepped away from the wall and raised his voice to emphasize that this conversation had ceased to be speculation. “Stop! Bill, listen to me. Let me deal with this. A lot of fishermen are involved and if Amato decides he hates us, people will suffer. You need to shut this one away for a while. You know me. Let me do this.”

Billy stared hard at Murphy, released his shoulders into a relaxed posture and took two deep breaths. Turning back to the window his long arms dropped to his sides. He shook his hands rapidly as if they were wet and he was throwing off excess. “You going back to file the report? I could stay till the doc gets here and keep an eye on this situation, if you want to go and come back with my truck.”

Murphy smiled. “It might be safer if we file this report together. We could go to my place, where you can take a real shower and put on some dry clothes. Come back here in an hour and let the doc look at those cuts. Or if you still want to be a hard ass, there’s iodine in the medicine cabinet.”

“I’ll do that, but only if you sort out Lester first. Nobody deserves that, especially a nurse. And what’s wrong with these clothes?”

“I’ve known you to wear a clean shirt, when you’re wounded. You don’t look that Republican in my uniform. Right now, you look more like a highway hippie than a local hero.”

Murphy opened the door to the examination room and Billy turned his gaze away to the window. “Those kids are the heroes I didn’t do shit.”

Before he closed the door behind him, Murphy addressed Billy’s back. “There was nothing more you could do. You could barely breathe when they got you out.”

Billy waited following the flight of a gull headed back to the coast and muttered to himself. “I survived.”

8:45 AM: The Harbor

Billy took the shower and the dry clothes, drove the truck back to the harbor and ate alone in the Sandbar. Through the window he could see the wind chopping at the channel and smaller boats returning. Hecate rode low in the water as she headed toward the pay dock. He hoped the kids were richer than they had dreamed they ever could be, when they woke up and walked through the darkness to catch crabs. Something good had to come out of this. He left money on the table for Evelyn, wherever she was, and headed down to the water.

As Hecate slid slowly up to the public mooring, Billy stepped out of the truck and lowered the tailgate. A pillow of raveled net filled the stern and the boys sat on it like tiny sultans adorned with bright orange May West life jackets. They grinned and waved. He caught the bowline and made fast while John reversed up against the tires hanging from the pilings, finished a stern line and jumped aboard. “How was your crew John?”

“Good. Hard workers.”

The kids’ glow neutralized the specter of death that Billy associated with the pile of plastic and he followed their enthusiasm as he assumed command of Hecate’s enterprise. They all helped wrestle the net onto the dock, and transferred four empty plastic crates from the dock into the boat. “Ok. Let’s get these tasty morsels into the truck and iced. You kids load the small ones into these plastic boxes.”

He whistled as John opened the fish locker. “I think you should run this to Portland. Tarp’s already down in the truck bed, and we can pour out those bags of ice from last night for a base. If you get out of here fast, you can pour on more ice at the station when you fill up. Can you get to the bottom ice bags? You got a lot of fish in there. Looks like you’ve been out for two weeks.”

John lifted out heavy fish and laid them on the deck. “Fastest fishing I ever did.”

Billy jumped onto the dock. “Rhys, you go up in the truck for now to spread out this ice when I dump it in. If John gets this truck to Portland and those fish are still cold, you boys are making a lot of cash today, tax-free. He’ll drop you off home on his way. Your folks know where you are?”

Rhys jumped onto the dock and Billy tossed him up into the pickup bed, followed by the first bag of ice, which Rhys spilled out and started kicking around to make a base for the fish. “They think we’re crabbing. We’re supposed to be home for supper.”

Billy tossed up the remaining bags as John uncovered them and Quinn moved them onto the dock. “Good. I wouldn’t want them to think you’d been kidnapped for slave labor. Fishing is hard work.”

Rhys grinned. “I love fishing.”

“You know John’s family fished here before Oregon was Oregon, before any white people even knew about Oregon.”

Billy lifted the end of the tarp shifting ice back into the bed. “Spread it out evenly, but don’t put it on the tailgate.” He looked down into the fish locker. “How many bags left in there John?”

“Two more under the last fish.”

He pointed at the big Chinooks laying along side the stern transom. “John, let’s get a layer of big fish up first. Make Benny buy the Silvers to get to the gold. Leave those last bags till all the fish are in. Hand up those crates Quinn packed. I want them on the tailgate. We gotta move boys, there’s a line of boats coming in and they all want to be right where we are. And they all want ice from the Seven Eleven store. We gotta get there first.” He smiled at Quinn as he and John shifted the fish onto the dock. “You’re right John; these boys are good crew.”

They worked steadily until the hold was empty and they had knotted down the tarp. Rhys crawled into the cab and lay down.

Billy surveyed the weight of the load. “You’re ready John. See you back around ten? Don’t stay in Portland. You have stuff to do tomorrow and I need the truck. Don’t screw around.”

John opened the door to the cab on the passenger side and motioned for Quinn to climb in. “That time has gone.”

They walked around the truck together. “I’m just saying it as a friend. You can go to Astoria if you’d rather, but you only save an hour driving. You’ll get half the money, but I’d rather you get half the money than get caught in Portland.”

John climbed in behind the wheel. “I’m OK.”

Billy held the door open for a moment. “I’d go, but I want to see how Maggie’s doing.”

John looked directly at Billy with a note of mutual concern in his voice. “I’m OK. You watch yourself.”

Billy laughed and swung the door shut. “Good, cause I’d probably fall asleep and unload these fish in the forest.”

John rolled the window down. “Go see Maggie. Tell her I’ll be there tomorrow morning. Tell her to get Cedar and go to Aunt Sue. Tell her don’t stay at the trailer.”

In a quieter tone Billy added. “Come back early. I’ll take care of Maggie.” He backed away from the cab and asked. “What about the rest of that net? What did Sven say?”

“Net’s too big. Says we should strip it off the jetties in one piece. He’s gonna pull it part way and hook heavy lines on it. They’re gonna haul it up the launch with trucks. Whole town’s gonna get fish.”

“What trucks?”

“Radio said log trucks are coming.”

Billy came back to the cab window. “You think Lester’s coming?”

“Lester’s gonna get drunk. Blame Maggie, if she stays in the trailer.”

Billy tensed. “How do you know that?”

John maintained his unwavering calm voice, but his eyes narrowed. “Lester’s gone bad, just like Maggie’s dad. He’s gonna blame her, probably beat her. Started last year. She won’t take help, even from me.”

Billy stretched his fingers and looked down at his hands. “Not today. That’s not happening today.”

“Go see Maggie. Tell her what I told you.”

Billy looked back at John and nodded. “I’ll take care of Hecate and go to the trailer. I’ll need your bike. You got the key?”

“Don’t need a key. My bike’s protected.”

Billy flashed an amused smile. “Well my key goes in your pocket when you get to Portland, not the ignition. This is the eighties and my truck’s damn near new. Get these kids home and come back to the boat.”

John started the engine. “I’m Ok. Eagles are watching tonight. All night.”

11AM: Boat Launch

Crowds filled the harbor boat ramp. Two log tractors, hooked to inch and half hawsers, pulled a section of net up the ramp fifty yards and parked while the crowd emptied the contents into wheelbarrows, buckets and bags. Once empty, they dragged it aside making room for the trucks to back down the ramp and park again, while grappling hooks were reset for another extraction. Rumors of a get rich free-for-all brought dozens of locals down to the harbor and vehicles packed the streets leading to the ramp. When Murphy returned from the clinic, he found a temporary barricade of day glow orange sawhorses blocking the street from the highway down to the harbor. A couple of old timers pulled one away and waved him in. They directed traffic informally, opening the barricade to allow loaded cars out and empty ones in, as space allowed. His street had transformed into a parking lot with a steady stream of people carrying sacks and coolers of booty from the pirate net to their vehicles. He parked beside the barricade on one side and flipped the lights on. It gave the barrier an official look. He waved to his spontaneous deputies and walked down toward the semi-organized delirium that intoxicated the town with the spirits of unexpected treasure.

When he reached his office he could see the extent of the crowd and the festival atmosphere on the ramp. Glass slumped in his doorway. Sammy’s board stood on its tail leaning against the wall. Murphy sat down on the sidewalk beside him with his back against the building and they watched the spectacle in silence for a few minutes before he said anything. “I’m going to Astoria to talk to Amato about this net. Billy thinks a factory ship lost it. I think we can find out who did this.”

Glass shook his head. “Not from Amato.”

“Why do you say that?”

Exhaustion tempered his volume, but not his apparent disgust. “His head is twisted. Anybody closes a break like river mouth has sand for grey matter. Nobody ever got hurt there, before this. And whose fault is that? Not the ocean. Not surfers. That was pure meanness.”

“I don’t know his reasons, but even if he made a bad choice there, why would that stop him from helping us find the people responsible for this?”

“He doesn’t give a shit about people here, especially fishermen. He’s in some other universe. And me and Sammy aren’t in it.”

Responding to Glass’ emotional pain, Murphy dropped the problem of Amato’s attitude and turned to face him. “I expect Sammy’s fine wherever he is. And I would like to see you stick around my universe. I don’t want to miss seeing you in perfect overhead tubes off north jetty. You’re the best we have in this town.”

“That’s over.”

“This is a bad time Rich.” Murphy stood up and looked out at the harbor. “Maybe you should wait for Billy down on Hecate. I know he wanted to talk to you, thank you for saving his ass.”

Glass looked up. “Did he say that?”

Murphy turned and offered Glass a hand. “Just talked to him at the clinic. Crash aboard Hecate. You look like you could use some sleep.”

Glass accepted the hand up. “I probably can’t get my camper out till tomorrow. Is it cool sitting on the jetty all night?”

“Keys in it?”

“On the tire.”

“No problem. If I have an emergency I’ll move it.”

Glass started for the harbor and Murphy called after him. “What about the board?”

Glass stopped and thought for a moment. “If Maggie doesn’t want it, trash it.”

Murphy called after him. “Lester’s coming by later.”

Without looking back Glass muttered. “Screw Lester.”

2 PM: Lester’s Trailer

Thirty years of derelict pickups had accumulated along the driveway, some with missing engines or transmissions, most up on blocks and all rusting into the blackberries and ferns. Ten acres of third growth timber surrounded the trailer. Except for fresh tire tracks and the mailbox lying in the gravel beside the county road, the drive looked like any abandoned logging track that hunters maintained for seasonal camps. The front of the trailer developed into a large screen porch with attached woodshed and recently repaired steps. A neat vegetable garden with flowers was the only island of order in a chaotic jumble of useless machinery, broken appliances and dead chain saws. The shape of the chain link fence surrounding it suggested that it might have once served as a dog run, but morning glory and sweet pea transformed the galvanized links into colorful texture and the borders of gladiolas and hollyhocks contributed to the startling effect of measured care surrounded by compulsive collections of ordinary objects worth little more than faint memories they might rekindle.

Lester scanned his garden of precious junk, crushed his empty beer can and hurled it at an old truck. He lifted Sammy’s board from the bed of his new truck and walked to the garden, where he drove the nose violently into a bed of lettuce. The stairs presented a coordination problem and he failed to make it up and through the screen door on his first try. “Maggie! I’ve decided where to plant Sam. Get your ass out here. I want you to see where.”

Inside the trailer a similar chaos prevailed. A tidy kitchen afforded Maggie safe haven, because food somehow remained a domain Lester respected or had learned to accommodate. When he lurched through the door, she stood over the sink starring through the window at her garden, awaiting the familiar storm she heard approaching. She wore jeans and running shoes. She had tucked her jet-black braid into her sweatshirt.

“I’m talking to you Maggie.”

Her voice remained calm. “Lester, not today.”

“What not today? What day do I decide to bury my only son?”

“Don’t start this Lester. I can’t do this today. I can’t take any more today.”

Lester pushed her against the stove and opened the refrigerator. He took out a can and slammed the door, which bounced back open. He slammed it shut. “Yes. Yes you can, because that’s all you do - is take. You think you’re so patient and generous, but all the time you’re just taking. Taking my time, taking my money, taking my son.

He popped the top off the beer and dropped it. “Your devil spirit communion with the sea crap. Being a sea creature crap. Well now my son’s a dead fish boy. All because of all the crap you taught him.”

“Our son Lester.”

“What? What did you say?”

Maggie turned to face him and looked directly into his eyes. “Our son Lester. I taught Sammy - our son - to respect the sea. He loved the sea and it wasn’t the sea that killed him.”

Lester’s eyes narrowed and his face redden as he squared off, trapping her between the sink and the refrigerator. “I know what killed my son – Sam – your doper fisherman friends and your junkie surfer hippie attitude and your devil spirit crap. That’s what killed my son.”

As he began his tirade, Maggie turned back to the window and slid her right hand onto the stovetop, hunched her shoulders and waited.

Lester stood behind her yelling at the back of her head. “Admit it! If he was up in the woods with me, he’d be fine. He’d be fine. ADMIT IT! He’d be a man instead of a dead fish boy.”

She knew that sooner or later the explosion was inevitable, so she took control and lit the fuse. “Better dead than a drunken log trucker.”

Lester grabbed her shoulder and spun her around as he cocked his arm for the blow, but as she turned, she brought with her the iron frying pan from the stove and his fist landed in metal. The round house that would have broken her jaw broke Lester’s hand instead, but the force of the blow smashed the skillet into her shoulder and she went down. Lester screamed in pain and momentarily doubled over with his fist in his left hand. Maggie knew this battle had only two possible outcomes. She had warned him and she came up swinging. She aimed the skillet at his head and missed, but it caught his shoulder hard enough to knock him aside, allowing her to push for the door, but his left hand got a grip on her sweatshirt and he slammed her to the floor on her back. Standing over her he tried to bring his boot down on her chest, but his drunken balance allowed her to roll aside and spring up. He threw a wide backhand that sent her sprawling down the trailer past the front door and crashing into the television stand, which came down in an explosion of lamps and figurines. He walked toward her, head lowered, determined by hate and pain to change the score of one dead, two surviving.

The door opened between them. Billy stepped into the living room providing Maggie a path to the doorway behind him. He calmly surveyed the damage. Maggie had not allowed tears since the news had arrived, but this bizarre interlude into the moment in which she had prepared herself to kill or die diverted her resolve and the flood released. Without a sound she proudly walked past Billy and ignoring Lester’s glare stepped out onto the porch.

Screaming, as if he could force his voice through Billy, he yelled after her. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Instantly, his homicidal anger refocused on Billy and in low vicious tones spat out his greeting. “And what the hell are you doing in my house?”

Billy spoke like a concerned friend arriving to comfort his neighbor. “I came to say I was sorry about how things happened and that I talked to Murphy about some stuff that I think you should know about.”

Lester started for the door, but Billy stepped in front of him. “Let her go Lester. It won’t help anyone to hurt her.”

Lester squared off with him. “You don’t know dick about helping people. Do you? But if you don’t move your own skinny ass, you’re going to help yourself to a hell of a lot of trouble.”

Billy didn’t move. Lester swung a left hook. Billy caught his wrist as it passed and with a simple twist sent Lester face first down into the rug, where he pinned him with pressure on the wrist and a sandal in his armpit. Lester let out another wail as he tried pushing up with his broken hand. “Lester, I didn’t come here to hurt you, but unless you quiet down, you’re gonna lose the use of both hands. I came over to tell you something I’ve been discussing with Murphy.”

Physical energy left Lester suddenly, as if someone had tripped the power circuit and all the engines stopped. He lay on the rug starring blankly at the skillet. It rested upside down, at his eye level, on the floor in front of the stove.

Billy let his arm go and it fell like a prop rendered useless. He sat on the rug beside the overturned TV watching Lester slowly roll over and stare up at the ceiling.

“Beer?”

“No thanks Lester. And that’s not because I don’t want to drink with you. I don’t drink beer. I’ll get you one and see what’s in the fridge.”

“Take a beer.”

Billy went to the refrigerator and returned with two beers, popped the tops, put one on the rug and held one at arm’s length for Lester. “Screw it. Maybe I drink beer today.”

Lester’s anger vanished with his energy, replaced by remorse and self-pity. “Sorry. What I said about helping people. I say stuff; do stuff. World’s gone crazy. I pick up and drive logs. Never dropped a load. Own my truck. Paid for. No accidents.” He looked over at Billy. “You own your boat?”

“Yeah.”

“You worked hard getting all those fish to buy it?”

“Yeah.”

Billy nudged him with the beer and Lester took it lying down. “I worked hard every day since Nam. For what? To be a drunken logger whose family hates him, in a town full of fishermen? No offense.” Billy signaled it was OK. Lester cradled his broken hand on his belly and spilled his beer as he struggled to push himself up with his back against the sofa. He tried drinking and pushed higher. The pain of his shoulder and his hand showed in his face. “Under the sink, grab that bottle of Jack under the sink.”

Billy set his own beer on the rug beside Lester. “Let me help you up onto that sofa before I get Mr. Daniels.” Lester nodded. Billy sat him up, locked his arms under Lester’s arms from behind and lifted him easily onto the sofa. When he lifted his feet and swung them onto the cushions, Lester collapsed and settled into a semi conscious slumber. His beer fell to floor.

4 PM: Hecate

Billy found Rich on the aft deck stretched along the transom. The tent and the cots were still in the locker and he slept huddled against the wind in his bag. He stepped aboard and a moment later Rich rolled over and looked up. Billy knew all the answers to the questions he felt obligated to ask, but he continued quietly. “When does your mom get back from Medford?”

“She said she’d call.”

Billy sat on the rail and questioned him, as if they both understood the litany and the requirement of going through it again. “Does she know where you’re staying? In case she hears about this.”

“More or less.”

“Make it more. Who is she gonna call?”

Glass sat up and pulled the bag around him. “Maggie.”

Billy realized the delicate balance of the summer’s relaxed living conditions had suddenly failed. “You know how to get hold of her?”

“No.”

“I better leave word with Murphy you’re here in case she calls him.”

“She won’t.”

Billy wanted to avoid aggravating Glass’ personal wounds. They both chose to repress any emotion. “She might see a paper.”

“Doubt it.”

Billy opened the cabin hatch and started down. “OK. No problem then, I’ll see you back here tonight.” He turned and looked back at Glass. “You’re sleeping here for a while. If anything goes wrong, call Murphy.”

Rich stood up; the bag dropped to the deck. “Can I put the tent up?”

Billy’s voice came through the hatch door. “I’m going to be busy for an hour. Go get yourself something to eat at the Sandbar. Tell Toby to charge me. We’ll put it up together when you get back.”

5 PM: Hecate

He could still feel the cold beer in his hands and smell it splashed out on Lester’s pants, the trailer’s rug, and their life. Billy had asked Glass to leave, because he needed Hecate empty. Rich would not profit by worrying that one more adult in his tenuous life might fail him. Glass knew a lot about Billy, but a lot more history, that he didn’t know and didn’t need to know, haunted William Whitman.

It bothered Billy that he had challenged John before he left for Portland. They’d met in the recovery program and helped each other ever since, but it had always been Bill who lapsed and John who rescued. It occurred to him that he might have been lecturing himself and needed John to listen. Maybe that’s why he needed his truck back, because John would be arriving in it - back before ten, easy. He decided a few hours of meditation would help and brought his cushions up on deck. When Rich got back, they would put up the tent. Home away from no home.

9 PM: Hecate

Billy sat on the cushions watching Glass sleep, occasionally glancing toward the dock. A peaceful rain beaded against the plastic side panel, as he listened to the bay washing against Hecate’s hull and the moorings. Sleep always helped, but eluded him when he most needed it. He could sense its healing power at work in Glass and closed his eyes as if he could drift off sitting up, but the unending stream of angry chatter continued. He recognized the futility of pursuing his thoughts and tried pushing them aside by counting his breath and reciting passages from sutras, but the self-recriminations continued. Gaining control over the darkness within him had been a long and complicated road with numerous failed detours that swept him into chemical oblivion throughout the seventies and into the eighties. Almost a decade dedicated to healing had driven his demons into retreat, but he knew they hadn’t surrendered. The next decade, the nineties, would be his clean beginning - if he could make it through the night and the next day. He clenched his teeth against the pain in his knees and waited for physical exhaustion to close down his memory of another critical failure.

10 PM: Hecate

His feet had numbed and his knees ached as he slowly unwound his meditation. Intending to give them time to recover before standing up, he glanced at Glass on the cot and turned to check the slip. At the sight of John sitting patiently on the rail, inside the plastic side panel, he jerked with surprise and burst out laughing. “How long have you been there?”

John tossed him the truck keys. “Didn’t want to disturb you. I’m going home to bed. See you in the morning.” He could see Billy was fine and closed the panel behind him as he stepped onto the slip. From the dark he called back. “Sleep.”

Billy smiled and looked at the keys. He knew better than to chase John and offer him the truck again so he could drive home. John had his own way. He stood up slowly and gathered the cushions into a bundle that he carried down into the cabin.