Spartina Read online

  “There are rules,” Elsie said. “I’m not sure what Schuyler’s relation is to them.”

  When they got back, May was serving hamburgers and peas to the boys and Schuyler. Dick said, “Hope you didn’t mind being left. Be sure you get to Parker’s boat.”

  May served Elsie and Dick. Schuyler said, “We had a very pleasant time.”

  After Schuyler and Elsie left, Dick went into the bedroom and set his alarm for two. May came in and sat on the bed. “He seems nice,” she said. Dick snorted. “I hope you’ll get along with them,” she said. “It certainly beats spending time with Parker and his crew.”

  “I am his crew,” Dick said.

  “I mean his pot-head college boys. That man and the Buttrick girl are just a nicer sort.”

  “Right this minute I’m not looking to improve my social life,” Dick said.

  “I wonder sometimes if you’ll be able to fit in with anyone even after you have your own boat.” She touched his head in a way that made her remark more sympathetic than nagging. Her touch also reminded him he was going to be at sea for the better part of a week. “Maybe you’d like to take a nap too,” he said.

  May stood up. “When you get back,” she said. “Same as when you wanted your supper.”

  They left the dock just after 2:00 a.m. It was a late-June night that felt more like midsummer. As they slipped past the breakwater, Parker’s boat began to work hard in the swell. Dick tried different speeds until he got her to move a little easier.

  Dick had taken a nap. The others turned in. Dick could hear Elsie and Schuyler exclaiming and laughing over how grungy the bunks were.

  She was a grungy boat, but Dick was content to be putting out to sea, slanting under the arc of the waning moon.

  Elsie got up first. It was still dark.

  She said, “It stinks of something in there. I can’t tell what.”

  “If it stays calm you can air it out.”

  Ahead of them the sky was growing pale—at first just a smudge on the horizon and then, arc by arc, the stars were put out by light.

  “It’s calmer than it was,” Elsie said. “But here we are in the middle of the ocean.”

  “Not in the middle,” Dick said.

  “Well—nothing but water. ‘Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’ ”

  Dick turned on the radio-direction finder. “Here,” he said to Elsie. “Get me a station in New York.”

  “You want music?”

  “I want to show you how to find out where we are. It’s easy now with just a few all-night stations on. Get New York, Boston, and one in Providence. Take a reading from each one, draw the line on the chart and where the lines meet, that’s us.”

  Elsie said, “Like a back-azimuth with a compass.”

  “Yup,” Dick said. “You got the idea. Here. You try it.”

  “Why not do just two lines?”

  “You’ll see. When you get that done, get some coffee and juice.”

  Elsie laughed at him.

  Dick said, “After breakfast I’m going to tell you and Schuyler the name of everything on board.”

  Elsie said, “I don’t want to know—”

  “So you’ll know what it is and where it is if I ask for it. You can laugh about it when we get home. You can take all the movies you want when there’s not something else to do. It’s not my way of being a son of a bitch. It’s the way to run a boat. There are some things we can discuss, and there are some things we can’t.”

  Elsie didn’t say anything. She got her readings and drew them in. Dick looked at the chart. “Not bad,” he said. “But it’s a pretty big triangle you got. It’ll do for now. You see why you do three? With two you can make yourself think you’ve got it. If you can make three agree, you know you’re right. We got just enough time for you to do it again if you want.”

  Elsie did it again. Not an exact fix, but a smaller triangle. Dick turned on the depth finder. It flashed a reading. He said, “See if where you put us has that depth.”

  Elsie nodded.

  Dick said, “Now flip that switch over there and get a reading from the loran.”

  Elsie read the numbers and found them on the chart. “Why didn’t you just use the loran?”

  Dick said, “Because things get broke. If the RDF breaks there’s another way, but I don’t have time to show you now. Get Parker to show you where the coffee’s at. Ask Parker to take the wheel so I can go up and start looking. Bring my coffee on up. Lots of milk, no sugar.”

  Dick went up to the crow’s nest. There was a long swell, which gave a good deal of motion to the crow’s nest, but the sea was perfect, not a tear in the whole sheet of surface. Not yet six. They might get the plane by eight. He’d be tired by the end of it, but for the moment it felt good to let his gaze stretch out. The soft-seen sea was an ointment across the front of his brain. He looked far out and then wandered back, his eyes relaxed. He squinted and swept past the first rim of brightness.

  After an hour Elsie came up. She had her camera on a padded U strapped over her shoulder. She took a shot of the bow pulpit with the harpoons lashed to it. She swung around and shot their wake, the only troubled water.

  “What do you see when you see a swordfish? A fin?”

  “Sometimes you see the fin. Sometimes just an inch or so of fin. Looks like a floating stick. If your eyes are good, you can spot a fish a couple of feet down just by the way it disturbs the surface. If it’s choppy, you can’t see ’em. If it’s overcast, they don’t fin.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They come up so the sun’ll kill worms that get in them. No sun, no fin. So you just hope for a day like this.”

  “And when you see one …?”

  “We nose up on him.”

  “You mean you sneak up on it?”

  “You just come up on him. Sometimes he can even see the boat, he’s not scared. A shadow scares him, so you come into the sun.”

  Elsie said, “And then what?”

  “Then I get up in the pulpit. I stick him. The lily—that’s the piece with the point and the barb—see it there. It comes right off the shaft. The lily has the line tied to it. The fish takes off, the line pays out. At the end of the line is a float. See there, the beer keg with the ring. If the line was fast to the boat, the fish could pull against the weight, tear the lily out. But when he pulls against the keg, the keg goes down some. When he eases off, the keg buoys back up. Same reason you use a fishing rod. It gives with the fish when the fish pulls, it pulls when he eases. Always tension, but no jerks.”

  “But if the keg is overboard, how do you pull the swordfish in?”

  “You follow along after the keg. When the fish is dead, or just about dead, you can get the keg, and go right up and gaff the fish. We have a tail gaff. It’s a wire noose that goes over the tail. Just forward of the tail even a big fish is no thicker than my arm. You get hold of that, you’ve got him. Pull him in and knock him on the head. Be sure you and Schuyler stand clear. The sword is as big as a baseball bat, and he can swing it. That’s how they kill what they eat. They don’t stick it. They swim into the school and whap that sword back and forth. Then they circle back and eat the fish they’ve whapped. The tail can knock you overboard too.”

  “Then what?”

  “We kill him, gut him, put him on ice.”

  “How many do you think we’ll get?”

  “I’ve heard of a boat getting six in a day. And I’ve been out on a boat didn’t get but one all summer. There’s no guarantee. The plane helps. If the water temperature’s right, the sea’s smooth, the tide isn’t running too hard, and you get a plane spotting, it’d be bad luck not to get one in four days. We’ll be out past the swordfish grounds to set some pots, but we’ll do that early and get back around here for the daylight. Then, the third night, we’ll go out to pull the pots, and keep looking on the way home. After three or four days you get so you can’t see so good.”

  They stood quietly for a while, each in the
ir hip-high steel hoop, Elsie with her left arm around the mast. Dick surprised himself by starting to talk again.

  “There’s a knack to how you look. You got to … unfocus your eyes. What you want to do is let as much come in as you can. You don’t so much see a fish as you just get a feeling that something’s different. You just feel a speck on your screen. Then you focus in. Most of the time it’s a shadow of a wave, or seaweed, or flotsam. You’d be surprised how much junk there is out here.”

  “And you see sharks too, I imagine.”

  “Yup. And if you see one, you see fifty. If we stick a fish, it’s likely there’ll be sharks about by the time we pull him in.”

  “So they might eat the swordfish. And you get nothing?”

  “Oh no. As long as he’s got any life, they’ll stay clear of his bill.”

  “How long does the swordfish live after you harpoon him?”

  “Depends. If I buttonhole him, not long. Anywheres from a minute to a half-hour. If I just barely get the lily in, it could go on and on.”

  “But can’t he swim faster than the boat?”

  “Not for long—not towing a beer keg.”

  “Ah.”

  Dick liked this conversation, his eyes looking far and near, their voices coming in from some far-off station. He half-realized, half-remembered that when he was out for a long time in his skiff he talked to himself. Usually chewing on something bitter. When he felt good, he didn’t say much. If he pulled a pot and got something worthwhile, he might say, “If they all came up like this, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

  He almost missed it. For a while he couldn’t find it again. He got a hint at the side of his eye and flicked toward it. Something. He yelled down to Parker and pointed. Parker headed the boat over.

  Elsie said, “Where is it?” Dick was on his way down, keeping the dot in view, so he ignored her. When he got out on the bow pulpit, they were three or four hundred yards off. Another minute and he saw it was too black to be a swordfish. Dick rechecked the keg, the line, the lily, the knots. He motioned to Parker which way the fish’s head lay. Parker swung the boat out in a curve, lined her up, and came ahead slow. It was a black marlin. Not too big. The aluminum shaft felt funny. Too late to get the wood one. He looked at the coiled line and keg, set his feet. Parker was letting the boat glide in. Dick felt the rail across his hips. He pressed into it. He raised up with the harpoon. The lily was way out front, a long way down, it seemed to be floating away from him. The bow came down off the swell. Dick lined up the lily and the thickest piece of fish. He jammed it in. The fish disappeared. Dick wasn’t sure if he’d got it in until he saw the line pay out strong. He retrieved the shaft and got a grip on the rail in case he had to raise his feet. He got behind the keg and propped it up. The line peeled down to the last few coils. The keg went over, skipped twice, and then splashed through the top of a swell. Dick pointed to the keg in case Parker had missed it. Parker ground the engine into gear.

  Dick looked back and saw that Elsie was filming from the crow’s nest. Schuyler was leaning out over the side with his camera too.

  Dick shouted to him, “If you go over, we pick the fish up first.” Schuyler ignored him.

  Dick thought, I didn’t miss. I should have practiced some, but I didn’t miss.

  He said to Parker, “Skilley.”

  Parker didn’t mind. Schuyler stopped shooting, made his way forward. “What did you say?”

  “Skilley. Black marlin. Tastes as good as swordfish, but they don’t buy ’em.”

  “What’s the point, then? Just fun?”

  “Good meat. If we get him, we’ll cut some steaks. You’ll see.”

  The keg dipped out of sight, came back up. Dipped again, popped up.

  “See there,” Dick said. “He’s trying to get down.”

  Schuyler said, “Get down and boogie,” his eye still glued to the viewfinder.

  Dick hoped the lily was in good. It had felt right, but he couldn’t remember. Dick pointed again and Parker nodded. Dick let Parker follow the fish. Dick went to check the gaff, make sure the wire noose ran smooth. They seemed to gain some on the keg. It was still pushing up water like a nun in a strong tide, but it was slowing, definitely slowing.

  He took a deep breath and made fists to steady the flutter in his forearms. They were coming up on the keg. Dick got the boathook. He didn’t want to pick up the keg if the fish had another run in him. The line was still taut, the yard or so he could see giving off a green shimmer through the top water.

  Parker came up on the keg, kept it alongside. Dick saw the line go slack, tighten again, go slack. He waited until the line went really lazy. He put the hook under it, slowly raised an arc of it. He took in some line. Got the keg up. He glanced up at Parker to make sure he was with him. They slowly moved up the line, Dick coiling it in. And there was the fish. Dick saw the pale belly, then the bill, the mouth agape, the gills flaring slowly, the fins and tail still. No trouble slipping the noose over the tail and then tight. The fish tried to swim, but he was in air. Swung him right in. Felt like eighty, eighty-five pounds. Dick saw the lily, buttonholed in so he was amazed the fish had got as far as he did. A pretty fish, every line swept back for speed. The slender bill wasn’t as long as Dick’s arm. Dick got his foot on it, felt it stir under the sole of his boot, heard the tail slap once just before he clubbed the head. Once was enough.

  He kept his foot on the bill anyway as he ran his knife from anus to throat. The stomach was full of bait fish. He gathered the innards in both hands and dumped them. Dipped the fish once to clean the blood out of the cavity. Took it below to put it on ice. Sloshed a bucket of water across the deck and scrubbed off the slick.

  Parker slipped the two hoops of inner tube onto the wheel spokes and came aft to give him five. Then back to work.

  The plane showed up, but didn’t spot anything during the morning run. The plane went home for lunch when the tide began to run hard. Dick took a two-hour nap.

  When he woke up, the boat was rolling more. The southwest wind had picked up, and there was some sea running but not too much chop. In the crow’s nest he could feel the motion amplified. She was not an easy boat. Two-foot seas and she was a goddamn barge. Elsie came up. Dick sent her back down when he saw she was holding on for dear life.

  Dick could hear the plane, sneaked a look at it every so often. He climbed down at five. The plane could see better than him anyway.

  He drowsed on deck. Parker had got Schuyler to take the wheel. Parker had left the channel open but the squelch up in case the spotter had anything to say; the crackle blended into Dick’s nap.

  They’d been moving east in slow zigzags. At seven-thirty the plane wagged his wings and left. Parker got Elsie to fix canned soup with hot dogs cut up in it.

  They ate in silence, were through in a few minutes. Dick said, “Better juice it on out and pull some pots. We want to be back here by morning.”

  Parker said, “You want to look for a while longer? Just on the way.”

  The wind had dropped, so it was a bit more comfortable aloft. Elsie came up. She didn’t say a word. After twenty minutes Dick looked at her. Even in the rich light of the late sun she looked green.

  “You better go down,” he said.

  Elsie didn’t say anything for a bit. Then, “On deck I can smell the bait.”

  Dick had to lean near to hear. He said, “Better lie down on your bunk.”

  Elsie made a face. Dick was watching her now, in between looks at the water. She suddenly leaned away from him, bent at the waist over the rail, and vomited. The pea soup and hot dogs carried on the wind, trailed across the windshield of the wheelhouse. Dick grabbed her as she retched again. She was bent over so far he was afraid she’d fall. He got his right hand on her right hip, groped for her belt. Got his other hand on her left shoulder.

  She moaned weakly. He moved his left hand down onto her belt. “I got you,” he said. “Go on, just let go.”

  “Oh no,” she said. “Oh shit
.” She sounded terrible.

  “You through?” he said. “If you’re through, I’ll get you down.” She didn’t say anything. He waited a bit, then got her onto the ladder. His feet a rung below hers, his hands on the ladder, his arms under her armpits.

  When he got her down, she sagged back against him. He felt sharp tenderness for her, as though she was a little kid. He was also embarrassed by how aroused he was. He looked into the wheelhouse. Parker was laughing his head off. Pointed at the streaks on the glass. Dick shook his head at him, and turned Elsie forward.

  He sat her down on the foredeck. He got her duffel from the cabin and spread some clothes under her. She curled up against the low rail. Dick put a line around her and made the other end fast.

  By the time he got a bucket of water and sloshed it across the window, got a life jacket under Elsie’s head, and found her a Dramamine, the sun was too low to look anymore.

  He turned in. Parker got him up at midnight. Dick woke Schuyler up, asked him how he felt. Schuyler said “Fine.” Dick got him on deck to help bait the pots. Parker took a sounding and a fix. Dick put the first line of pots over. By 2:00 a.m. they’d set the pots and headed back. Schuyler and Parker turned in, and Dick took the wheel.

  Dick could just make out Elsie, curled up on her side. The boat was rolling some, but not so bad. The moon came down off the starboard bow, made a long sheen across the easy swell. The light was always there, glistening, fading, glistening, no matter how fast it seemed to be racing past.

  Dick thought of how his boat would feel, deeper and steadier. He thought of how she would sound, the engine lower, the creak of the timbers less abrupt than this set of nervous hummings and clanks.

  He kept coming back to Elsie. He should have thought to get some of those new anti-seasick tapes. The Fishermen’s Co-op had them—you stuck one behind your ear, instant sea-legs.

  He saw her stir. Sit up. Discover the line on her belt. Rummage through her bag. She pulled on a sweater, stretched her arms. He could tell she felt better. She pulled her hands back through her hair and sank down again all in one motion, graceful as a passing wave. Her hand appeared and fumbled for the edge of her yellow slicker, found it, and pulled it over her shoulders.