Still Water (19 page)

She blanked out the memory, and the maelstrom of feelings it evoked.

On the horizon the clouds were thin and hazy, but dark in places like factory smoke. The air was oppressive and close. Ella’s shirt stuck to her back, and she found herself wishing for rain. The forecast had promised a break in the weather last week, but it hadn’t happened, and the warm humid air that flowed into the gulf from the south held off any weak Atlantic front building over the ocean. The last big storm that had hit the coast had been in February, when gales had whipped up the seas and kept the fishing fleets in their harbours. The rain had lashed the windows of the little house she had rented on the southern side of town. The wind had whistled in the eaves, and water had cascaded from a broken pipe outside. When the phone had rung late at night she’d been drifting into a deep sleep, and for several moments she’d been disorientated, scrabbling in the dark for the light switch, knocking over a vase of flowers. But by the time she lifted the receiver she was awake, and even before she heard her mother’s voice, she’d felt the clutch of foreboding tighten in her chest.

Her mother sounded worried. There had been an argument, she said, and Ella’s father had left the house. Ella could hear the wind and rain down the phone line and her mother’s voice suddenly snatched away.

“Mom, where are you?”

“I’m at the dock. His boat is gone. Ella, your dad took his boat out in the storm.”

And then Ella’s foreboding hardened into something real. She put on a coat and drove through town, the streets awash with water, the lights dim and wavering as if shining from underneath the sea. At the intersection on Independence the traffic signals were stuck on red and were swinging crazily in the wind. She pulled up by the phone where her mother was waiting, and by the time Ella had wrenched open the door, battling against the wind, and climbed into her mother’s car she was wet through. Her mother looked white, her hair stuck to her head. Ella reached out for her, and felt her wince.

“What happened? Are you hurt?” Her mother shook her head. “I’m okay. I fell.” In the dim light coming through the windscreen her mother averted her eyes. For a second neither of them spoke, then gently Ella hugged her. Beyond the dock she saw the empty mooring where her father’s boat would normally be. Out in the harbour it was too dark to see anything, but the waves crashing on the docks conjured images of violent seas.

In the morning the wreckage of her father’s boat had been washed up at the foot of the cliffs, beyond the reef at the mouth of Stillwater Cove. Her father was missing, presumed drowned, and his body was never recovered. Three days after the wreckage was found Ella and her mother had stood silently side by side in the small cemetery as the crowd of mourners gathered around an empty grave next to Danny’s. It was the anniversary of Danny’s death. He would have been a little over two years younger than Ella, had he not died in his sleep one night at the age of just three months. The cause of death had been recorded as infant cot death syndrome.

A week later Ella had moved her things back home and given up the cottage she had rented ever since her brief marriage had abruptly ended six years earlier.

If she let her focus turn inwards Ella could see her dad as clearly as if he stood before her. His eyes were the colour of the Atlantic on a day when clouds raced overhead, the sea changing shades of grey. When he smiled the creases around the corners of his eyes were etched deep in his weathered skin as if carved there, and when he was in a sombre mood his eyes looked inward and he became brooding and melancholy. He had been a quiet man, outwardly strong and not given to expressing his feelings. He was a fisherman from a long line of fishermen, and he was well versed in hardship. But in some men the silence that appears as strength masks a deep flaw. Danny’s death had sown a bitter seed inside him, which over the years had grown and spread its tangled roots through his being. He had lost the only son he would ever have, and he could never forgive the world for taking him. The loss tortured him, setting loose demons in his mind and sometimes in anger and frustration he hurt those who he loved the most. Ella had grown up in a house with a secret that was kept hidden from the outside world.

The radio crackled from the wheel-house, rousing her from her thoughts, and Ella went back to answer it.

“Is that you Ella?” a voice asked. “This is Bo Winterman. Everything all right over there?”

She looked through the window at the boat still three quarters of a mile away and recognized the Rose Marie. She glanced at Gordon, silently framing a question.

“I think I’ve just about got it,” he told her.

“We’re fine thanks Bo. We had a little trouble with the fuel pump, but I think we have it licked. My stern man here is a genius,” she added for Gordon’s benefit, at which he grinned.

“Okay then, if you’re sure. Call us if you need any help.”

“I will, thanks. How’re the fish biting today?”

“So so.”

“Good luck, and thanks again.”

Ella flipped the transmit switch off. “How long do you think?” she asked Gordon.

“Maybe half an hour or so.”

On the horizon the strip of grey cloud had grown visibly wider, faint streaks melting towards the sea and merging. It was raining over there, but it was a long way off. Ella stayed in the shade, trying not to think about the heat.

A little over a mile away to Ella’s stern the Seawind was heading towards her at a steady eight knots when Jake picked up Bo Winterman’s message. He focused his glasses on the Santorini until he found Ella standing on the deck. His grip on the glasses tightened as a throbbing ache flowered in the back of his neck and flowed upwards through his head like a spreading ink stain. With one hand he massaged a spot at the base of his skull. He was barely aware of doing it. He thought of the ache as a colour. It started off as grey, and settled over his brain like fluid that slowly hardened and became a pliable film. As it continued to harden it shrank, squeezing his brain in its grip, and as it did so the throbbing increased in pitch and the grey darkened towards black. Sometimes it was as if it was leaking down behind his eyes and the light faded in the world outside and he saw everything through a grainy film.

Since Bryan had disappeared Jake’s headaches had been growing steadily worse. He knew that his brother was dead. He’d known it since the first day. He’d felt it. And he didn’t need Howard-goddamned-Larson to tell him that Ella had killed him. Howard was only interested in the vote, Jake knew that too.

The radio crackled again and Jake heard Bo Winterman’s voice.

“We’re about done here, Ella. You sure you don’t need any help.”

“No everything’s fine Bo. Gordon fixed the pump and we’re about to leave ourselves. Watch out that you don’t snag my string over there.”

“Don’t worry. I see your buoys. Good luck.”

“Same to you.”

As Jake listened to the exchange he watched the Rose Marie as she changed direction to a heading north-east, steering away from the Santorini. Ella’s buoys were between the two boats and Jake shoved forward on the throttle and steered a course towards them. The thump of the big diesels rose in pitch as the Seawind picked up speed. A moment later Calder Penman came to the door and glanced at the fish finder.

“We got something?”

“Yeah, we got something,” Jake replied.

Penman looked ahead. “That’s the Santorini ain’t it?”

Jake didn’t bother to reply. “Get a man on the side with a gaff,” he said. He planned to snag the first of Ella’s buoys on the blind side of the Rose Marie, then drag the float line and the traps attached to it across the seabed. By the time he was finished Ella’s string would be a tangle of junk.

Penman hesitated, guessing what Jake was planning, then he voiced his reluctance. “Jake, maybe this isn’t such a good idea with the Rose Marie right there.”

Jake grinned. “Accidents happen, Calder, that’s just the way it is.”

Penman tried again. “Look, we’re all with you in this thing. Ella ought to get what’s coming to her, but you know how it is. Stripping her traps at night is one thing, dragging off a string right here where everybody can see us clear as day, that’s something else.” His words fell on deaf ears.

“This isn’t a goddamned debate, Penman. Unless you want to find yourself looking for a new job, quit your damn bitching and do what I say. Now have somebody grab that buoy.”

Penman hesitated for a second longer, then he went out the door and shouted to one of the crew to grab a gaff.

As the boats on the surface converged, the orcas were approaching from the north. Swimming in a series of shallow dives, the bull was listening to the sound of humpback whales hunting at great depths further out to the east. The water above the bank was suffused with light and colour, of hues of blue and aqua, and below were waving forests of seaweed of all shades of green and brown and yellow. Shafts of sunlight pierced the ocean as the sun broke through drifting cloud, and shadows raced eastward. For the bull orca this submarine world was alive with sound. As he swam, his senses were finely tuned to filter the mundane from the significant. He listened to the distant booms of the humpbacks as they hunted squid, and to the south he heard fishing boats working, and others further out to the east. One of them was discharging its bilge pumps, emptying polluted water into the sea. Of the three to the south he could distinguish each from the tone of their engines. One of them had just completed drawing in a net. It made a sound like wind raising a fine spray as it whipped across the surface of the sea, and the motors driving the winches made a low vibrating rumble. The bull sonared ahead, listening to the returning echoes and searching for the fish that the boat must be hunting, but there was nothing there.

One of the vessels ahead picked up speed. The sound of its engines changed from a steady slow thump to a continuous growl. The bull slowed in the water, recognizing the signature of this boat. Suddenly he detected a new sound. It was the distinctive pattern of bluefin tuna, approaching from the west. They were swimming in loose formation, streaking through the sea as they hunted, and they were heading on a course that would coincide with the position of the boats. The swish and hiss they made as they quickly turned and swooped with powerful thrusts of their tails was unmistakable. The bull was wary of the Seawind, but hunger and the needs of the pod outweighed the risk, and the orcas quickly picked up pace.

Bo Winterman wondered what Jake was up to. His mate, Rob Taylor, stood beside him, smoking a cigarette.

“I think that sonofabitch is planning on snagging her string.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

The Santorini was moving now, but she was a lot smaller and slower than the Seawind.

“I don’t like to just stand by and watch,” Taylor said. He turned and spat out the door, as if to emphasize his opinion.

Jake and his brother had never been exactly popular in the harbour, Bo thought, especially among the lobster gang, but fishermen were a tribal bunch, and Sanctuary had its share of rogues like anywhere else, and in the Rodericks they’d quickly found their leaders. But then Ella wasn’t about to win any popularity contests right now either. There had always been those who resented her. Now with her running for mayor and this business with Bryan, it was hard for anyone to know what to think. Bo had known Ella all her life, and her father too before he’d died, and until a few days ago he hadn’t taken much notice of the talk. Mostly it was from people who were too stupid to know any better, or else they just plain didn’t like Ella. But since Carl Johnson had told everybody what he’d seen the night Bryan had gone missing, even Bo had to admit he had his doubts.

“We going to do anything about this?” Taylor said, interrupting his reflection.

The Seawind was almost upon the first of Ella’s buoys. Bo was reluctant to get involved, but if Ella had done something wrong,

it ought to be the law that punished her. It wasn’t for Jake to take things into his own hands, and besides which, running down somebody else’s gear was stepping way over the line, and Jake knew it.

“Damn him,” Bo muttered, and making his decision he swung the wheel to bring the Rose Marie around.

Just then one of the crew shouted from the deck. Bo followed where the man was pointing and at first he didn’t see anything, then some of the other men started shouting too, and he saw what had got them so excited. A quarter mile west of the Santorini the surface of the ocean was broken with the spray of leaping fish. The sun flashed silver on a school of tuna as they hunted smaller fish at the surface.

“Bluefin,” Taylor breathed.

They watched in silence, mesmerized by the spectacle as the giants moved rapidly towards them. Some of them looked to be around eight or nine feet long, maybe nine hundred pounds of prime fish. Bo couldn’t remember ever having seen such a thing, not even when he was a boy, and back then bluefin this size had been a relatively common sight when they migrated into the gulf each year.

“Look there.” Taylor pointed.

From the north, heading straight towards the boats, a number of large black dorsal fins rose and fell.

“Orcas,” Bo said quietly. He watched for a moment, figuring that the orcas were planning to intercept the tuna, and it was going to happen right around where the Rose Marie was positioned. He hesitated, torn between going to Ella’s aid or going after the bluefin. There was no time to set a net, but the Rose Marie carried harpoons, though they were rarely used.

He made up his mind and swung his heading away from the Seawind. He felt a momentary regret, but just one good giant was worth a lot of money and he had a living to make. He consoled himself with the reminder that no boat owner these days knew what the future held. A chance like this might never occur again, and who was to say what might happen next week, or next month? Who was to say the Rose Marie would still be fishing these waters a year from now? You had to take the chances when they came. “Rig the harpoons,” he said.

Ella’s grin quickly faded as Gordon finished refitting the pump and the engine sputtered back into life. She saw the Seawind making straight for the first of her buoys and she guessed immediately what he planned to do. A string of fifty traps, apart from the loss of her catch, would cost upwards of four thousand dollars to replace. It was a cost she couldn’t afford. Ella knew she was witnessing the end of her livelihood.