The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay (6 page)

Looking back, he saw the lights from what looked like Byron's pickup pull into the lot. He walked out to the end of the dock. The waves were pounding the pilings, and the river was high. Byron came out walking wobbly. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot.

“Didn't make it to bed last night,” he mumbled. “Had Laura-Dez drop me off at the pool hall. Card game.”

Clay frowned. The Bay would be rough. At least the air wasn't too cold.

The two of them untied Clay's workboat and were out in the Choptank by seven and running with the wind behind them. Clay periodically checked his compass and his watch and after a while told Byron he figured they were nearing Ragged Island, where Barker Cull was supposed to be. They couldn't see more than about fifty yards through the rain, which splashed and streamed off the cabin windows. Both had full slickers on. Clay had tied down everything aboard that could move. The boat pitched like a bronco. Inside the cabin, Clay sipped coffee from a thermos, while Byron held on to the stanchion.

“Barker said his poles were off the southwest point in thirty foot of water,” Byron said. He looked pale as a gutted fish.

Clay opened the chart and studied it for a moment. He angled southward to avoid the broadside swells. After a while he turned east.

The rain came in vertical walls, intermittently pounding across the windshield and then relenting, as if resting for the next onslaught.

“Gonna be tricky out here.”

“Was waves like this sank the Sloat boys,” Byron mumbled. “A wave over the stern. Just before I got shipped out.”

Clay squinted into the rain. “I remember hearing something about that.”

“Was cold though. That's what kilt them. The cold water. Ice everywhere. They were winter gill nettin' for rock. Two boys, not even twenty. And their father and uncle, Seth. Seth Sloat. It was his boat.”

Clay turned to hear better.

“The boat was weighed down with the ice. It had caked around it. Like a skin. And fish in the hold and in the net too. They say one of them was probably on the rail, trying to knock the ice off, and slipped and went over. Seth tried to back up and took a wave over the stern, which was already way low. From all the weight. They radioed for help. Two other boats had just left 'em and weren't more'n ten minutes away. But she sank fast. They found the boat under water to its canopy top. And they was all froze. The two brothers were floating right there, arms wrapped tight around each other. Found the father, miles away down water, locked onto an ice pack. Never did find Seth.”

Clay took a breath.

“Yeah,” Byron answered it.

“Remind me never to go ice trawling.”

“I will.”

“Keep your eyes sharp now.”

“I'm lookin' for 'em. If they even came out here, that is,” Byron answered. “Hell, we could ride around all morning and never find 'em in this shitstorm, even if they are here.”

Clay checked his depth finder and studied the chart again. He moved the bow around farther to the east. The bateau felt solid still, even in the chop. They plowed forward.

“Keep looking,” Clay said. “I figure we're getting close.”

The rain and sea spray swept laterally across their bow. Moments
later they seemed to cross through a fog bank into a clearing. Through the clearing and into the wall of mist on the other side appeared the shape of another, bigger boat.

“There they are!” Bryon said. “You found 'em!”

Ahead, Clay made out the haul boat and gradually recognized Barker Cull and three others slicked up in foul-weather gear. Behind Barker's boat he just made out the tips of the pound stakes, stripped pine trees that had been driven deep into the river bottom, running along in a linear hedge for several hundred yards, perpendicular to the prevailing current, and supporting the net. The schooling fish, following the current, would be intercepted by the net, turn away from shore, and follow the net into a circular enclosure, or pound, that funnels them into the trap net, from which few fish escape. Clay pulled up alongside Barker, close enough to shout but not so close as to get wave slammed.

“You fella's half crazy comin' out here in this blow,” Barker bellowed. He seemed to be smiling despite the rainwater and spray spewing across his face. “Earl didn't believe you'd come, Clay. Or even that you'd find us out here below the bar. I figured different.”

“What's your trouble?” Clay shouted. “Looks right friendly out here to me.” He smiled in turn.

Barker was a big man, about six three and maybe 240 pounds. He had played fullback and linebacker for Easton High and taken them to the state championship some years back. Had a scholarship to Towson State but had only lasted one year and then got drafted. He had been home a year or so. Clay felt a bond with Barker. After Clay's father had left him, Barker had taken Clay on as crew occasionally on his workboat and on his log canoe, which he raced, and Clay had always been grateful. Barker was able on the water. Clay admired what he did. There weren't many pound netters left.

“Beely had his appendix out,” Barker shouted. “Won't let anyone run his boat. Pa can't help 'cause his back went out Tuesday. We
been waiting too long to pull already. Moon's full and there's been a good run of fish. And I can't get no help now. Not in this kinda shit. Traps are full and the fish are smotherin'. Nets are gonna tear if I don't haul. Particular in this blow.”

Barker reached into the cabin of his haul boat and grabbed a towel and wiped his face.

“Y'know my little brother, Earl,” he shouted. “This here's Roy Martin and Pal Tyler. Clay Wakeman and Byron Steele.”

Everyone nodded.

“Trap's a mite large, there,” Byron commented.

“Yeah. We got a bit greedy, there,” Barker answered. “Now we're paying the price. Use your boat as my trap skiff, Clay. It'll be awkward big, but it's too rough for a smaller boat out here. Take Earl and Roy with you. We're shorthanded, boys. Net's overfull. Got to give extra today.”

Barker threw Byron a line, and they pulled the boats close enough together so that the two men could leap from their top rail over to Clay's boat. Byron gave them each a hand, pulling Earl clear just as a wave pushed the boats apart.

“Hey, I appreciate you boys helpin' out,” Barker shouted as he backed his boat away. “No shit.”

Clay followed the line of stakes that ran neatly across the current line, and he could see the funnel nets leading into the trap he was heading for, some thirty-odd poles curving around in a tight circle. It would take some skill to haul in this weather, he thought.

As he neared the trap pocket, he could see the net was full. Even in the gray chop, silver fingers flickered under the surface. The menhaden, known as alewives in the Bay, catapulted over themselves, cartwheeling across the slate troughs. Definitely some big-eyed herring down there and maybe a shad underneath, Clay thought.

Barker tried to maneuver his haul boat up tight against the southwest edge of the pocket, but a large swell pushed him off.
Only after his second attempt were he and Pal Tyler able to tie it fore and aft to the downwind stakes. Once Clay's crew released the trap net from the upwind stakes and, by heaving and bunching it, worked the bottom of the net toward the surface, concentrating the fish, Barker and Pal would work the motorized brailing net and dip the fish into their hold.

Clay began to work his bateau around the trap net as his crew looped lines to the stakes to hold fast long enough to release the top sections of the net and shake the shimmering fish into a tighter bunch toward the haul boat, gathering and tying hunks of the net inside the bateau in the process. At the same time, they had to keep the bateau from being washed into the pound. The rain made everything more treacherous. They worked slowly as Clay guided the boat down along the trap. With the crew leaning out and into the stakes, a rogue wave could crush an arm, or worse. The men yelled to heave in unison as Clay steadied the tiller. They snapped and bunched the net, concentrating the fish into the decreasing net area, and pushed off as Clay moved slowly along its windward edge. He backed and centered, working the throttle and tiller, anticipating the swells and breaks, sensing the pull of the current. “Wave!” he yelled when he knew he couldn't keep his position, and the boat was thrown into the stakes, bending the poles and straining the lines, and the men had to give back some slack in the net. If pushed too far, the men would have to let go, and the fish could all be lost.

He worked his crew around the pocket slowly. They regained much of the lost slack. But their progress gradually slowed and seemed to stop. Earl began cursing, then yelling. Clay hardly heard anything except the whine of the wind on the water, but he knew that the net was heavy. They couldn't move the fish any farther. The haul boat was still too far away and had to stay downwind of the pound. He knew they would never be able to reset the net. Byron suddenly slipped on the wet deck and crashed down, cursing,
losing his share of the net. Roy swiped for it, catching an edge in his fingers. Barker was yelling then too from the haul boat and gesturing, and then Clay saw him suddenly in and under the water, fighting his way to the boiling surface and swimming around the net and for the bateau. Clay knew how cold the water was. A wave broke over Barker, burying him in foam, but he came up spitting and cursing and with several powerful strokes reached one of the stakes against the bateau and somehow grappled his way on board, then immediately began hollering and heaving at the nets with Byron, Earl, and Roy. “Heave!” he yelled, and again “Heave!” They all yelled and pulled in unison, again, and then again, and Clay felt the give and with it fought around farther to the back as the men bunched more of the net together, pulling it inside the boat. He got nearer to the haul boat, near enough, he thought, and then he heard its dip net engine crank. Barker yelled “Hold!” and was over the side again, and Clay saw him in the water and then clambering over the gunnel of the haul boat. Clay worked to steady the boat and net and thought, Come on, boys, tie her right, and saw Byron and Earl lashing the pound net secure. The fish were thick in the water. He heard the dip net engine strain and crank, strain and crank, and letting his eyes leave the water, he saw Barker guiding the brailing handle of the large dip net as Pal Tyler tended the windlass and purse line. The net scooped down and, bulging with fish, came up and over the hold as Pal Tyler snapped the purse line, bright twisting alewives raining everywhere, two hundred pounds easy, Clay figured. Clay gave a sigh of relief. He watched them dip again and again until Barker, knee-deep in fish, was satisfied. On his signal, Earl quickly tied the bunched top net to the aft stake.

“We're done,” Earl shouted, pushing off from the pole. “Thank God. We'll reset it when she calms a bit.”

Clay backed the bateau off. He looked at Barker Cull, who returned the stare. Barker was breathing hard and his face was
flushed. His eyes were riveted. River water and rain streamed over him.

“Appreciate it, Clay,” he said in earnest, raising his arm.

And then Barker started to shiver.

“Better get dried off,” Clay hollered back.

Barker waved them off, though he headed into his cabin. Then he poked his head out again.

“Washington Street Pub,” he shouted. “'Bout seven. On old Barker.” And then he disappeared.

Once back at the farmhouse, Clay stood under the hot shower for what must have been half an hour, letting the jets breathe new warmth into his body. He toweled himself dry, threw on his jeans and sweatshirt, and walked down into the kitchen, where he heated a bowl of leftover oyster stew. Afterward he fell asleep on the couch and dreamed of being deep in the river, emerald dark and clear, and he could breathe its oxygen and flash through its liquid universe without fear. He saw Pappy floundering above him in the tumult near the riotous surface, and he couldn't get the attention of the strange faces on the boat above to help his father, so he sounded an alarm, a bell, and rang it and rang it until he awoke to the ringing of the telephone on the table in the hall.

He let it ring and it stopped. It was already dark through the living room windows. On the side table the clock's fluorescent dials showed it was after seven. He was surprised Byron had not returned. He got up and turned on some lights. He splashed some cold water on his face, brushed his teeth, and changed. From the refrigerator he grabbed a beer for the road.

Outside, the night air was sharp and clean. The front had moved through. As he drove toward town, the moon followed him over the fields. He rolled the window down to feel the cold air and his own blood in the rush of the wind. He rode and felt alive. He
thought of Kate, her hair damp against his face, her lips brushing his neck, her body against his, dancing in the darkness as the light receded over the fields. He tried to push the image away, making a motion to turn on the radio, oblivious to the station, his face half out the window in the cold rush of the wind. Pulling back inside, he caught the end of the news. Something about another offensive in the Quang Tri area. Thirty-one marines killed. He pushed in the eight-track sitting in the player under his seat to listen. The cut was “Gangster of Love.” The highway rolled by. He sat back, trying to relax, and listened and smiled as Stevie “Guitar” Miller sang, “and I said yes sir brother sheriff . . . and that's your wife on the back of my horse . . .”

Inside, the pub was already filling up. Clay said hello to Clem Saunders, who sat at the bar watching two middleweights fight on the overhead television. Clem was about ten years older than Clay. He had been a waterman once. Now he worked for the local Seagram's distributor as a salesman. As Clay walked toward the back room of the long, rectangular structure, he heard John Prine whining off the jukebox, “There's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes . . .” In the back, in a booth, sat Barker, Byron, and Pal Tyler. They had finished plates in front of them, and long-necked Budweiser bottles were scattered over the table. Byron had by far the most bottles in front of him. He had come straight from the river, he announced. Because he was thirsty. His clothes were streaked with dried salt.