The Deepest Water by Kate Wilhelm Read Free Book Online Page A

champagne were on the counter. He had planned a celebration. She closed her eyes.
    Soon Caldwell came back. “One more thing,” he said, and went up the stairs to the loft.
    Outside, the car started, tires grated on the gravel driveway; it sounded very loud. Proving a point, Abby thought distantly, tracking the progress of the car as it climbed the steep ascent to the forest service road. Caldwell didn’t come down until the silence had returned.
    “Okay. We’ll lock up again and go for a boat tour. I’d like to keep the key another day or two, then I’ll hand it over. You finished in here?”
    She nodded. Finished.
    4
    They walked around the cabin to the natural basalt deck where the rowboat was tethered to a rock on the lowest ledge, inches above the water. The oars were in the boat.
    Caldwell examined the ledge carefully. It was above water now, but in the winter rains, the water rose to cover the first ledge, and with the spring runoff it came up another foot to the second ledge. He turned his attention to the rowboat; it was ten feet long and lightweight, old but sturdy. Every fall Jud had repainted it, repaired anything he saw amiss. The plank seats had been worn satin-smooth.
    “If you want, we could get the cushions,” Abby said, an afterthought. “We never used them unless we planned to stay out and fish.” Or if she drifted out on the water, pretending she was on a cloud high above the earth; or when Jud was drifting and claimed to be writing. He had said he did most of his writing out there on the water.
    “It’s fine like this,” Caldwell said. He was peering at the water now. “How deep is it here?”
    “About four feet.”
    “Looks bottomless,” he said.
    She began to pull the boat into the water; he watched and didn’t offer to help. He was listening, she realized, to see how much noise she made launching the boat. It made a scraping sound that she never had paid attention to, a sound that now seemed very loud. The basalt was smooth, but this was the reason Jud had had to up-end the boat year after year and retouch the paint. She unhooked the mooring rope from a rock, coiled it, then tossed it into the boat. “You want to row?”
    He shook his head. “No way. I’d just take us in circles, or run us aground.” He pointed to a light low on the back side of the cabin. “Did he keep that on at night?”
    “It’s automatic. Dusk to dawn. He stepped off the end once and the next day he went to Bend and got the light. Coop has one, too. Same reason. It’s hard to see the surface at night against all this basalt, especially if it’s raining.”
    “So it wouldn’t be much of a problem to cross over after dark. Just head for the light. Any other lights on up here in the finger at night?”
    “No.” She stepped into the boat, settled on the narrow board seat, and took up the oars; gingerly he followed, evidently uncomfortable as the boat rocked with his weight. She started to row as soon as he was seated.
    Abby had rowed around the far end of the finger, then down to Siren Rock and the other break in the rimrock to show Caldwell the two places boats could pass from the deep water to the shallow water. She was getting tired, she thought in disgust. This little bit of rowing was using muscles that had gone soft and lax.
    “Okay,” Caldwell said, gazing at the cottages along the north shore. “You up for just a little more?”
    “Yes. Where?”
    She assumed he wanted to go to the state park ramp, or the cottages, but he seemed to have little interest in either. “Along the shoreline over there,” he said, “on up to Halburtson’s ramp. Close in, as close as you can.”
    He was examining every inch of shoreline, looking for a place a boat could have been put in the water, she realized, and she knew there was no such place. She rowed toward the shore silently. On this side the lava had flowed in narrow streams, and between them the soil was much deeper than on the far side; trees grew