Far From The Sea We Know (7 page)

“And they have rarely, if ever, attacked
humans in the wild. If they did,” she said, smiling, “they would
have been wiped out years ago. Perhaps another indication of their
intelligence?”

“Folks,” Skimmer suddenly yelled over his
shoulder, “we’re about five minutes from splash down at Victoria.
Clearing customs shouldn’t take long. Penny, I was expecting the
usual battery acid, but your coffee went down like silk.”

“That’s because my mother made it.”

Customs did go smoothly. Skimmer used the
wait to fuel up, so they had time to grab some sandwiches. They
were airborne again in less than half an hour.

The de Havilland sailed north, swaying back
and forth in the gusts coming off the mountains, sometimes suddenly
but more often gently. Matthew was getting used to it, like the
rocking of a cradle by an unseen hand. Between clouds and peaks,
they steadily made way. Below them the coast of British Columbia
unrolled and the sovereignty of towns and roads was gradually
relinquished to what might still pass for true wilderness.

“We’re not really getting anywhere with
this,” Penny said. “We need to look at the best approach to the
situation rather than try for explanations. We don’t have enough to
play with yet.”

“Some readings of the vital signs of the
leader would help, and I’d certainly like to have a look at some
skin samples.”

“Wouldn’t all that be risky?”

He shook his head. “A little, but the
Valentina
has equipment on board to monitor heartbeats from
a distance. I’d be surprised if they weren’t already doing this. To
get the tissue samples, we’ll have to get in tight and take a
swipe.”

“Do you have much real experience with
this?” she asked.

“That was all supposed to happen this next
year.”

“Okay,” Skimmer’s voice boomed. “We are
about there. The weather is fine, as forecasted, so we’ll touch
down
no problemo
. Check your seat belts, you never know,
right? Don’t worry, no disasters planned for today.”

Matthew’s ears popped as they plunged down
toward a sheltered cove that seemed much too small for them to land
safely. As if sensing his doubts, the cove seemed to suddenly grow
wider before them, and the floatplane was soon slapping the tops of
low waves. They settled in quickly against the drag of the
water.

“Made it again,” Skimmer said, leaning back
toward them. He taxied the floatplane across the cove into the
mouth of a small harbor and then to the only dock.

Most of the harbor was naturally formed, a
small cove within a larger cove. To close it off from the worst of
the sea had required only extending the natural points of land. The
slopes around them were thick with Douglas fir and cedar, but the
crests of mountains beyond could still be seen rising up above the
trees. It had the feeling of quiet, even though there were people
working all around them. No one was idle, yet no one was rushing.
Skimmer tied up the plane where the three could step directly onto
a float.

Skimmer got the passenger door open, and
Matthew and Penny climbed out.

“Okay folks, here comes your gear. One, two,
one, two….” He began to pass baggage through the opening.

Perched at the far end of the dock was a
small cedar-sided café named
Gabby’s
. A few other buildings,
houses, and shacks rested on nearby slopes where the land had been
cleared of trees. Vessels in a variety of sizes, primarily for
fishing, were resting at anchor. Others were pulled up onto the
rocky scrabble of a nearby beach.

“We need to contact the
Valentina,
right away,” Penny said as she put down the last bag. “Too bad we
couldn’t have landed right by the ship.”

“Much too rough out there,” Matthew said,
his gaze on the ocean’s horizon.

“I’ve done it before,” she said.

“Then your pilot was nuts.”

“Can you contact the
Valentina
,
Matthew?”

He said nothing.

“Matthew?”

He finally glanced toward her and nodded,
and fished out the sat-phone.

“Hope that thing works,” she said, as he hit
a preset.

“It’s ringing, so I guess—Hello?”

Captain Andrew Thorssen’s voice came on the
line surprisingly fast.

“Captain here.”

“Captain, it’s me, Matthew Amati.”

“Where are you?”

“We just landed at Abercrombie. How’s it
going today?”

“We’ll be coming by sooner than expected.
About two hours, seventeen nautical miles out. Can you make
it?”

“It will be close, Captain, but I think we
can. I’ll find the man who is going to take us out, right
away.”

“Good.”

There was a noticeable pause, then Matthew
let his breath out. “Can you say anything? I mean the whales—”

“Wrong time.”

“Okay, we’ll get out there when we can.”

“Be looking,” Thorssen said, followed by a
click. The call was over.

“Is everything okay, Matthew?” Penny
asked.

“Not sure, but we’ve got to get moving,”
Matthew said, almost whispering. “The
Valentina
is closer
than we figured.” He turned toward her. “I’m going to run down that
launch, if you can watch everything here.”

“Go ahead, Matthew. I’ll be waiting up in
the café.”

“What about the gear?”

“I can take care of it.”

“You sure?”

“Matthew, go.”

“All right,” he said and spontaneously took
her hand, then let it go. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He was about to race up the gangplank from
the float to the pier, when Skimmer called out to him. “Watch
yourself out in the deep blue, folks.”

The engine started on the last word,
drowning out any possibility of a belated thanks, but Matthew waved
and mouthed the words anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

“Doing science out there, are you?”

“Research, yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What was she doing?

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

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

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

A hand caught his sleeve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We made it, didn’t we?”

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

“Just what happened to you, anyway?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are, just fine.”

“Did you tell this ‘Normy’ anything?”

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

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

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

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

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

After about an hour, they sighted the blue
and white hull of the
Valentina
. Matthew had been on her
once a few years ago when she made one of her infrequent calls at
Victoria. That brief visit had helped him decide to return to
school and earn at least a graduate degree in marine science. At
nearly sixty meters long, with a generous ten-meter beam, the
Valentina
was built more for working room and stability than
for speed, but she
was tough enough to
go anywhere on earth
where the water was four meters or deeper.