Far From The Sea We Know by Frank Sheldon Read Free Book Online

sending sprays of
water everywhere including into his eyes.
    “That woke me up,” she said. “How you
doing?”
    “Fine, I guess,” he said, opening his eyes
again. “Fine.”
    “Maybe you could hand me my towel.”
    He looked around, back and forth until she
said, “You’re standing on it.”
    “Oh, sorry…here.”
    The low rumble of an engine came faintly to
their ears at first, but continued to get louder until a floatplane
appeared over the trees to the north. It circled around just once
and made a lumbering, yet elegant, descent into the waiting
water.
    “That thing looks as old as my grandmother,”
Penny said, towel-drying her hair.
    “It’s a de Havilland. You still see them,
especially north of here.”
    “Great. Will it get us there?”
    “Built like a bridge. It won’t be all that
swift, but it should get us there all right.”
    The pilot taxied toward them, then let off
the throttle, the propeller now moving so slowly that it was
visible, and the canoe-sized twin pontoons sank deeper into the
water.
    “I should wade out to help him,” Penny said.
“I don’t think he’ll make it.”
    “Oh, he will. Anyway, he’s got a paddle
strapped on, see there?”
    The engine cut out and the door opened to
reveal a reedy character with a high altitude sunburn and a manic
smile hiding in a beard. He leaned out and gave a wave, then
scampered down to the nearest pontoon in one practiced movement. To
Matthew, the pilot looked like Charles Manson in hip boots.
    When the plane had drifted close enough, the
pilot leapt off into the shallow water and allowed the plane to
beach itself on the gravel. Then he pushed the tail around so that
the plane faced away from them.
    “See?” Matthew said. “We won’t even have to
get our feet wet. Okay, let’s…”
    Penny began passing her gear to the pilot
before the end of his sentence.
    His bags!
    They were still in his truck, and he raced
off to get them.
    By the time he got back, they had loaded
Penny’s things and were waiting only for him. Penny now stood on
the pontoon near the passenger door. He passed her his big duffel
first.
    “Got it?”
    With some effort, she heaved it half into
the doorway and held it while the pilot got a grip on the other
end.
    “Sorry,” Matthew said. “Too many books, I
guess.” But she was listening to the pilot speaking and didn’t seem
to hear him.
    A sun break opened in the clouds, sending a
dazzle of light off the water into his eyes. Suddenly he had that
familiar feeling. Why had he involved himself and why, again, was
he risking all that he had worked so hard to attain?
    “Matthew?”
    “Yeah,” and he reached for the closest of
his remaining bags.
    “No, the other one next,” the pilot said. “I
got a ton of junk I’m taking up for someone else, but we’ll squeeze
it all in, I guess. Going fishing? Where’s your boat? I could strap
it on for a little extra. Drag, you know, uses more fuel, got to at
least pretend I’m running a profit-making business. I’m Brian, but
everyone calls me Skimmer. Not my idea, they just do ’cause I clip
a few trees now and then, have to if you want to get into the short
strips…”
    He kept up this stream of jabber, as they
secured the last of the gear with chains.
    “That all of it, friends?”
    “Yeah,” Matthew said, “I guess. I’ll just do
the idiot check.”
    He ran to his truck and, sure enough, found
his hat and sunglasses. Penny probably hadn’t forgotten anything.
He left the keys under the seat, hoping that Doctor Bell would
remember to have his truck picked up, then raced back to the
plane.
    “Watch your head as you get in,” the pilot
said, as Matthew stepped on a pontoon. “My last passenger cracked
his a good one.”
    Penny sat tying her sneakers and did not
look up as he stuck his head in. Matthew looked toward the back,
where their gear had joined a larger conglomeration of just about
everything imaginable. Though piled on and wedged in between