The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay by Tim Junkin Read Free Book Online Page A

the river some. I’ll come by. Anything you need done around the house, you let me know.”
    â€œClay, does it have to be the river? So soon?”
    He looked away. “It’s what I want now. Hard to explain. Even to myself. But I feel it. And the summer’s mostly calm. I’ll be careful.”
    She slowly sighed. “Of course.”
    He didn’t answer.
    â€œThank you, Clay,” she said then.
    He turned.
    â€œI mean thank you for everything.”

5
    It rained in sheets all that Thursday. Clay had slept late. In the afternoon the telephone rang, and Byron answered it. It was Barker Cull. Barker needed help with his pound nets down off Ragged Island. They could make good money for the day, though it would be blowing right rough and stormy. Byron was heading out for the evening with Laura-Dez, so they agreed, in case he didn’t make it home, to meet at the wharf at five the next morning. It rained all night.
    It was still dark when Clay pulled into the lot at Pecks. The oyster shell surface crackled under his tires. Through the beams of his headlights, the raindrops seemed to float to the earth. Occasional gusts would send the swarming droplets curling across the light. With the engine off he sat watching the rain swish sideways and listened to the whine of the wind over the water.
    He got out and walked past the boathouse and restaurant. Out on the dock he passed the sailing yachts, tied tight in their slips, their halyards snapping in the wind and clanging against their aluminum masts like so many bells in a churchyard. The largest, a Swan 50, he believed, its teak deck shining under the wharf lights,was named
Mood Indigo,
out of Wilmington, Delaware. He had never seen it before. He had sailed since he was a young boy, and in his teens he’d moved some nice boats for his father, before the break, but nothing so luxurious. He looked at her and wondered about the runs she had made and the people who owned her. The wharf had always caused him to dream.
    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.
    â€œDidn’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.
    â€œBarker 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.
    â€œGonna be tricky out here.”
    â€œWas 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.”
    â€œWas 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