Chapter 33
Doc barely acknowledges me with a nod. “You got a half dozen of the best yachts and skips to take you where you want to go, and you still want the Lady Vee?” He directs his comments to Nash.
“It is meant for four passengers, and a yacht does not serve our purposes today,” I say primly. Doc may not want to talk to me, but I will still be heard.
Nash gives another of his helpless shrugs. “Girls like fast boats.”
“Heck to breakfast,” Doc mutters.
I’m not sure where he picked up his favorite expression. The man grew up in the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, then drifted his way down the coast until he found a position here.
I bend a frown in Nash’s direction and tell Doc, “We’re just taking a ramble across the sound, and as you can see, there’s nothing out there.”
Doc glances up at the low clouds muddying the sky. “Seeing isn’t everything. Can’t see the wind. Can’t see what’s coming up from the bottom. Especially with all the bull kelp. Could be sea wolves, and I wouldn’t want to get in their way.”
I feel chastened by his reply, but at least this time he acknowledges my question.
Plus, he has a point. The water is a mirror showing spiky forests of conifers, but rafts of bull kelp with their gaseous floats put bubbles in the glass.
Beneath the kelp forest stirs an entire writhing ecosystem, from the tiny zooplankton to the great sea wolves.
“Wait for me,” a voice carries from the dock. Eva hurries toward us, wide-brimmed straw hat bobbing.
What is she doing here? After declining to accompany me to the Chinese camp, she is the last person I expected to see. She approaches the boat as if it were an alligator.
“Thought you wouldn’t step foot aboard the Specialties,” Doc observes.
A memory bubbles up, Sveyn declaring that yachts were a man’s business, pointing out Miss Jack as proof: She won’t even board them.
“The Nooksack are a seafaring people,” she announces in a more defiant tone than I’ve heard her use.
“They can still get seasick,” says Doc out the side of his flat mouth, handing her in.
So water makes her ill. “There is no need to get nauseated on my account,” I say.
Instead of replying, Eva takes a seat in the back, folding her dark skirt under her as she settles, and buttons her gray sweater all the way to the top. Nash goes in next, taking the driver’s seat.
Before boarding myself, I peer into Doc’s deeply lined face. “Do you believe the sea wolves mean us harm?”
He has answered me once. Perhaps I can coax another reply. His livelihood requires constant vigilance over the sea, and he must have an opinion on this.
He busies himself straightening a rope, and I think he might ignore me.
But then he says quietly, “Elders tell us the animals are related to us, including sea wolves. When humans drown, sea wolves take them down to their underwater homes, and they become sea wolves too.” His flannel sleeves are rolled, and he rubs at one of the red-and-black dogfish tattoos on his arm.
“Sea wolves aren’t dangerous like the way people are.
” He’s back to addressing Nash only. “But they can get stirred up. Ask Mr. Gotze. One bit the keel clean through his skiff once long before you were born. He swore he saw teeth marks.”
Is that why the man is forever looking over his shoulder, as if expecting something to rise from the deep? Was his run-in with a sea wolf just bad luck, or the start of something darker, with my father caught in between?
Suddenly chilled, I take the seat beside Eva, who buries her own surprised expression and briskly tucks a blanket around us.
Doc pushes us out of the slip.
The Lady Vee purrs beneath us as Nash bears north, scaring off sleek black cormorants who squawk protests.
Nash glances back at Eva, who hasn’t let go of the grab bar. “There’s a life vest, in case that will make you more comfortable. And if pirates worry you, I’ve got a gun and I’m a good shot.”
“I am fine.”
We pass the stables, then the Rifle House, Nash regaling us with tales about legendary Puget Sound pirates.
I informed Red about our secret journey, thankful not to have to tell Koa myself.
I dislike excluding him from my life, especially now, when I need his support more than ever.
But I can’t help feeling that that unrestrained part of him, always in danger of slipping free, may lead us into trouble.
As we leave Nowhere behind, my heart starts up an anxious stuttering. What will I find on the beach where my father was killed? Time will have erased all visible traces. But, as Doc said, seeing isn’t everything. What ghosts remain?
The west side of the sound is a more rugged version of her sister on the east, with jagged shoulders and steep slopes. She is the one who rises at dawn and goes to bed early. With the sun overhead, both sisters are on display, each with her own curves and peaks and textures.
The symmetrical buildings of Eastsound, small as brushstrokes, appear at the end of the waterway, and soon we are pulling up to the sleepy marina with its handful of boats. Prosper waits on a bench, eye-catching in a yellow dress and matching hat.
“Afternoon, miss. You wouldn’t be looking for a taxi, would you?” asks Nash, bumping us up against the dock and quickly lashing to.
“Depends, sir. How much is the fare?” She crosses her arms and tilts her chin.
“One stop at Rooster Cove.”
“Done,” she says with a wink at me. She is a well-made lure, designed to attract from all angles. Perhaps I will go to finishing school too, one of these days.
Nash helps her into the front seat, and she twists around.
“Hello, ladies. What an exciting adventure after a rather… unusual evening. Tell me, sir, what about that poor man—was Koa his name?—had you so knotted up? You are a prince, and he is a guard, though of course a very good-looking one. Now, that is a man who knows how to handle a rifle.” She twists around again and flutters her large brown eyes, her beauty mark looking especially bold.
Eva blushes, and I imagine myself evaporating, a cloud floating out of reach.
Nash throws the throttle all the way forward, and we all hold on.
Prosper squeals with laughter. “Oh, hit a nerve, did I?”
“Koa and I have been at odds since we were twelve years old and he ripped up a picture I was drawing,” Nash states simply.
What picture? I never heard that story. Despite a twinge of annoyance at how easily she extracted that, I can’t help marveling at her skill in outcharming him, touching her finger right on a sore spot.
Prosper gasps and puts a hand on her heart. “What were you drawing?”
Feeling us all watching him, Nash shrugs. “I can’t tell all my secrets.”
Prosper points to a cove coming up on the right.
I have never looked into the deep nook, shaped like a rooster’s head, with its narrow entrance that is easy to pass.
Nash pulls back on the throttle, guiding the boat into the notch.
A pair of loons in black-and-white nuptial plumage disappear silkily into the water.
At the shoreline, a one-hundred-foot pier splits the cove in half.
Two hundred feet beyond the dock lies the kiln.
But there is no smoke. The kilns I’ve seen before burn at all hours of the day, smoke rising in white curtains.
This one looks cold. There are no barrels for the filling of lime, or carts for the transport of limestone to the kiln.
The bluff above the kiln looks carved out, and stumps litter the hillside.
A handful of seals eye us from the shore.
“I thought it was a working kiln,” says Eva.
“Your grandfather said it was full of heavy equipment, fire, and smoke,” I add.
Prosper twists her chin toward us. “I don’t know why he would say that. It’s been depleted for over a year. Pretty ugly spot, if you ask me. He should clear it all and build a ranch.”
Despite the bald spot in the middle, not all the trees have been taken. A shady forest rises up on the right.
Nash kills the engine and lets the current drift us to the dock. Then he jumps out and ties up. He holds a hand to Prosper, but she doesn’t move.
Gazing up, she holds her hat to her head. “Are you sure you want to stop here? I say we ride the blue highway. The way you handle this sweet little boat is making my heart pitter-patter.”
Nash flashes a grin. Prosper’s skillful flattery would be enough to start anyone’s motor.
“I would love to stretch my legs, and I’m sure Eva would appreciate a rest on solid ground,” I pipe up. “Why don’t you take Prosper for a jaunt?”
“Yes, please,” says Eva with a groan that does not sound put on. She unpins her unwieldy hat and leaves it on the seat.
“Well then, it’s settled.” Prosper beams up at Nash, leaning against the piling.
Before he can express an opinion, I step out of the boat and pull Eva after me.
Nash glances around at the deserted beach and the kiln, its square edges looking out of place in the natural setting, like something that got plunked down from space and left a blast radius.
“We will be fine,” I assure him.
He taps his head. “Remember the Poggie motto.”
It’s just a fish. Don’t take unnecessary risks.
Prosper claps her hands. “You have a secret code—how spy-like. Uncle Gotty and Papaw have a secret word too, and whenever one says it, the other has to meet with him right away. It can be a little annoying, though. The last time was on my birthday—that’s August first, in case you care to remember”—she pokes a finger at Nash—“and Papaw walked out just as they brought my cake.”
Goose bumps break out over my arms. August 1 was the day of the Salmon Smokeout, the same day the first seal head was discovered. There is no reason to think their secret meeting had anything to do with Nowhere.
Yet.
Eva seems to be holding her breath, the ties of her hair bow blowing in the breeze.
Nash, watching me with a curious expression, asks Prosper, “So what is the secret word?”