The Big Both Ways (18 page)

“Whatcha doing?” she asked.

“Criminy!” The skipper flinched and turned to her. “You scared me there.” Then he looked over the moving anchor chain to the beach and spoke over his shoulder. “You go back inside. When the hook comes off the bottom the boat might turn toward the beach with the current. Just nudge her into gear and turn us off the beach. You remember the gear lever?”

“The one on the left … port … with the black knob?”

“That’s the one. No need to give her any fuel. I’ll get the chain up and the hook secure, and then we’ll work our way out of the cove.”

The deck was damp from the evening’s dew. The little girl
walked back, placing her bare feet in her just-made prints on the deck. She made it into the wheelhouse just as Slip was coming up from below.

“Where we headed?” Slip asked the little girl in her nightshirt.

“I can’t talk right now. When the hook comes up, the boat might swing into the beach.” Annabelle hopped back on her box in front of the wheel, and slid her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger.

The anchor came up and Ellie came from the forward berth to give Annabelle a kiss on the cheek. The little girl barely noticed her aunt as she turned the big boat away from the beach. Johnny secured the anchor in place and then took the wheel. Annabelle uncovered Buddy and the yellow bird began to chatter and preen his feathers.

“So, do you cook?” Johnny turned to Ellie.

The woman looked hard at the skipper, her fists resting on the points of her hips.

“It’s not what I’m best at.”

“Well, rummage around. There’s plenty of food and I promise no one on this boat gives any guff to the cook.”

Ellie and Slip walked down into the galley and went to work making a big pot of mush and frying up some eggs that could be eaten on slices of buttered bread. Coffee boiled and slopped out on top of the iron stove.

Johnny steered around the submerged rocks at the entrance to the cove where they had anchored. Once out of the cove he gradually gave the single engine more throttle and the boat churned west.

“I’ve been thinking,” Johnny said, with some trepidation. “I mean … I’ve made a decision of what I think is best.”

Everyone turned to face him. Slip was drinking coffee and Annabelle was crunching up a sugar cube with a spoon in her bowl of mush. Ellie handed Johnny a fresh mug of coffee.

“We’re going into Canada. I’m going to need to clear customs.
I’m assuming that you don’t have all your papers and that you probably don’t want to stand up to a bunch of questions by the Canadian authorities. Is that right?”

“You have to clear customs?” Slip asked, chewing his toast.

“Yeah … well … they patrol this coast. Not all that often. Not all that regular. But if I’m going to deliver this wood up to the cannery, eventually I’m going to run into some government agents. What do I tell them? I got no reason not to clear customs.” He was stammering a bit and clearly uncomfortable.

“I understand,” Slip said, rubbing his hands across his sore chest.

Johnny cleared his throat nervously. “What I was thinking was that I’ll take you up to the beginning of the Gulf Islands. Then I’ll duck back and clear customs. You can just keep moving north and I’ll catch up with you in a couple of days.”

Slip handed Johnny a slice of buttered bread with a fried egg folded into it. “You think we’ll run into any customs agents?” he asked.

“Just don’t go into any of the villages. Stay to the back bays and try to keep to yourself. If someone sees you, they’ll think you’re local. Just don’t talk to too many people.”

“That sounds all right to me. A couple of days, you say?” Ellie stood with her hands on Annabelle’s shoulders.

“A couple of days for sure. I’ll show you on a chart where to start looking for me.”

“We’ve got food and water in our little boat?” Slip looked at Ellie.

“Enough for a couple of days, I think.” She looked at Slip and then at Johnny, working over this new plan in her mind. “We could manage,” she said.

Annabelle was looking out the side window to where the waves were scrolling past. Just the thought of getting back in the little boat made her hunch her shoulders and shudder.

“I’ve got another idea.” Johnny cleared his throat nervously.
“I was thinking that Annabelle and Buddy can stay with me on the
Pride
. If customs asks any questions, I’ll tell them she’s my niece and that she’s coming along for the trip to help me steer. That last part is the truth and I think they’ll be happy with that.”

Annabelle turned her head to Johnny. “That sounds all right with me,” she said, and her spoon flipped out of her bowl, sending mush catapulting onto the deck.

“Jeepers, I don’t know …” Ellie said slowly, as she bent over to clean up the mush.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” the girl shrugged, when in fact the excitement at the prospect was building in her voice.

“It’s really the best plan,” Johnny said with his mouth full of bread and egg.

“I don’t know …” Ellie repeated. Her hands were gripping more tightly onto the girl’s shoulders than she realized.

“Just a couple of days.” Annabelle winced and moved away from her grip. She looked at Ellie and slid her glasses up her nose.

“I suppose,” Ellie said finally.

“All right then,” Johnny said, and he turned the boat toward the north.

The
Pacific Pride
wound a course up through the San Juan Islands. Past Shaw and Yellow Islands, Jones Island, and then Johnny set a course to the south side of Flattop and to the north of Johns Island to the south of Waldron. A few clouds gathered but the wind was mild and carried a slight chop. The high mountains to the east seemed to have crept closer and the others to the south and west had stepped back behind the close hills. The sides of the smaller islands were steep and they showed smooth granite faces. A swell was running from the northwest, and the waves crawled slowly up the smooth rock faces to break back on themselves in garlands of white. Just as they fetched up abeam of Flattop Island, a seal popped his head up ten yards from the boat and Johnny pointed it out to the girl. She stood up on her tiptoes
and barely got a glimpse of the animal before it ducked straight down without a trace.

“It looked like a doll’s head,” she said, “except it looked like it was thinking.”

They spent most of the day moving toward the northeast. There was one section of water where big swells rolled under the
Pacific Pride
. At the top of the waves Annabelle could see the hazy line of the far horizon and moments later she was looking up the hill of the glittering green wave. Something in her chest rose up as she felt the big boat break across the top of the wave.

For most of the afternoon the
Pacific Pride
rolled gently as it quartered across the easy seas. The little dory skittered like a water bug behind the big boat, rising and falling at the end of its line almost like the tail of a kite. Annabelle stood by the wheel and talked with Johnny, and Ellie and Slip did the dishes, ate the last of the loaf of bread, and lay down in their bunks. The boat crossed over into Canadian waters.

Early in the afternoon Johnny eased back on the throttle, and Ellie and Slip came up from their bunks. Slip pulled the little dory alongside the big boat and stepped inside to bail her out. He undid the clasps on the trunk in the dory and took out the leather case with the roll of charts, which he handed up to Johnny on the back deck.

Ellie was putting on her warm coat and Slip stood looking down at the dory as if he’d rather take another beating than get back into the little boat. Johnny began to explain the points on the chart to Slip, who wasn’t paying any attention.

“See that island there?” Johnny said. He pointed to a steep-sided wooded island about three miles to the northwest. “That’s Saturna Island there. Look here on the chart.”

Ellie swung the big man’s shoulders around so she could see the charts clearly. “I’ll navigate. Slip’s still a little rocky,” she said.

Johnny looked over at Slip with a frown. “Okay, then. Here on the chart is Saturna. The one after that is Mayne and then Galiano.
Just stay on this side of those islands. See? It’s like a channel. I’ll catch up with you before you get up here … Dodd Narrows,” and he pointed to a narrow passage on the chart. “Beyond that is Nanaimo. Don’t go through the narrows. There’ll be lots of boats waiting to go through Dodd at slack tide. If I don’t catch up with you before, I’ll wait on this side of the narrows.”

“Okay,” Ellie said, looking out at the expanse of sea to the distant island.

“There’s plenty of coves and places to tuck in. Just make sure you don’t pick a place that’s too busy. You’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Ellie said again. “You take good care of her,” she said, with just the tinge of a threat. Then she turned, wrapped the girl in her arms for five seconds, and clambered over the side of the wooden boat into the dory.

Slip was the last to get in and he looked around as if he were lost.

“Two days?” he asked no one in particular.

“Two … three days at most. Just don’t go through Dodd Narrows. I’ll catch up,” Johnny said, and he threw the bow line into the dory.

Annabelle waved as if she were on the deck of an ocean liner leaving New York.

Ellie looked at the far shore of Saturna Island, and Slip gave the girl a quick nod and a smile and then fixed the oars in the oarlocks.

“Safe journey,” Johnny said. He put a big hand on Annabelle’s shoulder and led her into the wheelhouse.

Johnny swung the boat toward the southeast. Annabelle stood on the skipper’s short bunk and looked over the stern. Buddy was preening and pecking at his bell. She had given the bird two teaspoons of seeds that she had brought with her from the small boat. She stored the seeds in a green tonic bottle that she sometimes left in the bottom of the cage. She would buy some more seeds in Canada with some of the money she had kept in her shoe.

Buddy preened and worried his food while the little dory with the two adults grew smaller to the stern. Annabelle saw the long oars dipping slowly in and out of the water. They looked liked skinny little bug’s legs, she thought. Then she remembered Slip’s sore hands and thought she might buy him a pair of gloves when she got into Canada.

She watched out the stern until she couldn’t see the boat anymore, and for a few minutes she stared anyway to see if she could catch the invisible tremble of their oars. When she couldn’t, she cleaned her glasses on her shirt sleeve and tried again.

“You don’t need to worry about them. Their kind always makes out. We got to worry about you,” Johnny Desmond said as he steered toward the south.

“About me? Why?” Annabelle turned back toward Johnny.

“You don’t want to get back in that boat do you? You’ll be happier here on the
Pride
. Don’t you think?”

Buddy kept tapping the silver bell, and Annabelle felt a tightness in her stomach as if someone were dropping BBs down her throat.

“It will be a lot better here with me,” Johnny said, staring at the sea ahead.

It took almost forty minutes for the
Pacific Pride
to disappear behind the southern islands, and with each second Ellie felt the sea growing larger and more lonely. The little dory, which had once felt substantial when they were pulling away from the docks in Seattle, now felt like one half of an empty walnut shell. It felt to her as if her anxiety alone was keeping them afloat. Slip had torn up his one spare undershirt and had made wrappings for his hands. He pulled slowly and steadily, not trying to increase his speed once he felt the boat moving along the water but just working to maintain their momentum. The oarlocks creaked with each stroke and Ellie could hear him breathe in time to his labor. Far ahead she could barely hear the swells
washing around the rocks off Saturna Island, and behind the dory she could hear the winnowing flutter of the
Pacific Pride
disappearing.

“Do you see that rock breaking over there?” Ellie said, stretching her arm toward the bow.

“What do you mean?” Slip said.

“I mean that a rock is breaking through the surface of the water, farmboy.”

Just ahead, an elephant-colored rock garlanded in slick green banners of kelp appeared. The waves rose and covered it completely, and when they sank away the rock seemed to stand up in the water, dripping in the milky sunlight of the afternoon.

“I see it,” Slip shot back. “And don’t call me a farmboy.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” Ellie leaned back against the stern of the dory and fished around for a cigarette and a wooden match.

Slip rowed into the strait between Saturna and South Pender islands. Once in the middle of the strait their progress slowed. Slip pulled harder on the oars and the boat pulled quickly through the water yet they seemed to make little headway. Ellie pointed off their starboard to a point and suggested that they take a diagonal course to bring them closer to the shore of Saturna. Slip pulled for an hour with very little forward progress, but he did not stop.

Ellie dug out four pieces of flatbread crackers and put some orange marmalade on each of them. She fed one to Slip as he rowed, putting a piece into his mouth each time he leaned forward on the haul back. She alternated bites with a drink of fresh water from a ceramic jug that was wrapped in burlap and kept cool in the bottom of the boat. Slip pulled and drank, pulled and took a bite of the stale flatbread. When he had eaten the last piece, Ellie licked the marmalade off of her fingers and settled in to eating her own. Slip pulled and never looked where they were going, but occasionally Ellie would point out the best heading and Slip would line the boat up until her finger was pointing straight at his face. Then
he settled into his steady rhythm on the oars. The crackers tasted fine but caused his stomach to growl with hunger.

They made better forward progress the closer they came to the shore, the boat moving up the island with less effort on his part. Slip slowed his pace, shipped the oars, and stretched his shoulders.

“I’ve got a pretty good knot coming in my back,” Slip said, wincing.