The Summer I Dared: A Novel

by Barbara Delinsky

  Thinking of Hutch and the myriad things he had taught Noah in his noncommunicative way, Noah tossed the lobster into a tank. “Now for the bait. See the bag inside the trap? Reach in and take it out.”

  Ian got the bag out. It contained nothing but fish bones and small bits of flesh. “This is gross.”

  Noah ignored the remark. “Bait like this has become part of the ecological system. The smallest of the lobsters walk in and out of the traps feeding on it.” He pointed to a small rectangular opening at the bottom of one side of the trap. “This escape is for them. As they molt and grow, they become food for other marine species.”

  Ian continued to stare at the bait bag, now with his upper lip curled. “What’re we supposed to do with this?”

  Noah reached in, scooped out what remained of the bait, and tossed it overboard. The pieces had no sooner hit the waves when a seagull swooped down, caught one up, and carried it off. A second seagull followed suit.

  “Now, restuff the bag,” he instructed. When Ian had done it—albeit with a pinched look that decried the smell—he showed him how to retie the bag in the trap. Setting that trap aside, he turned to the second one. It contained more seaweed, a starfish, and a lobster with one claw. The seaweed and the starfish went overboard; the lobster remained. Noah didn’t have to measure it to know it was a keeper, but he had Ian do it anyway. “A one-clawed lobster is called a cull. It won’t command as large a price, but it’s worth something.”

  “How’d it lose the claw?”

  “A fight, maybe. Lobsters can spontaneously drop a claw if it’s that or death. Once in a while they grab on to the wire of the trap when you’re trying to pull them out, and lose a claw that way. If they were still in the ocean, they’d grow another. It won’t be as big, but it’ll work.”

  He let Ian struggle with the bander, which was what he remembered his father doing when he was young and had been learning. He had been seven at the time and lacked the strength in his hand to properly do the job, but he could stuff bait bags. He was paid a nickel a bag.

  Ian eventually had the lobster banded and the trap baited, at which point Noah put the boat in gear and the traps went back over the transom, one by one. As soon as a newly painted buoy was bobbing in the waves, they moved on. They had hauled twenty pairs of traps and were about to gaff the last of the vandalized buoys when the sound of a motor came out of the mist.

  Noah straightened. He knew the local fleet well enough to tell the Mickey ’n Mike from My Andrea or Long Haul or the Nora Fritz sight unseen. This was none of those. It was too smooth, too oiled, too content. He was feeling a sense of anticipation even before the Cobalt materialized, and smiled helplessly when he saw the cockpit. Julia stood there with Matthew Crane. She broke into a grin and waved.

  He raised an answering hand.

  Matthew throttled down and sidled up as close as was wise in the ocean swells.

  “How’s it going?” she called.

  “Getting there,” he called back. “How about you?”

  “I’ve gotten terrific stuff. Now I want you.”

  He grinned. “Want me how?”

  “Doing your thing. You know, lobstering.”

  “You mean, I should pretend you’re not there. Act like I’m just doing a day’s work.”

  “Exactly,” she insisted and looked past him. “Is that Ian? Hi, Ian!”

  Noah glanced back. His son had taken advantage of the small break to open Rick Greene’s bag and was devouring a chocolate croissant. With the bits of seaweed on his oilskins, the windblown mess of his spiky hair, and his upper-body musculature, he could have been taken for a lobsterman. Noah felt a glimmer of pride.

  The boy raised his chin in greeting as he chewed the last of the croissant. Tossing the bag aside, he went to the rail as Noah caught up the last buoy and put the line over the winch. As the line coiled into a pile on the deck, they watched for the first trap. Ian grabbed it, then the second one. While he removed the spoiled buoy and worked at attaching a fresh blue-and-orange one, Noah sorted through the contents of the traps. He tossed back a small cod, several sea urchins, and one undersize lobster, leaving three legal ones on the table. He banded these while Ian rebaited the traps, and all the while he did his best to forget Julia was there.

  Outwardly, he succeeded. Her camera might capture the lobsterman at work, but it wouldn’t record the fact that his heart was beating faster than normal and his hand was less than steady.

  Ian noticed. Julia had no sooner given him a thumbs-up and the Cobalt disappeared into the mist when he said, “What was that about?”

  “What?” Noah asked, buoy in hand as he waited for the line to play out with the second of the traps sinking fast.

  “That woman.”

  Noah dropped the buoy into the water. “Her name is Julia. She also survived the crash. She’s from New York.”

  “Figures, with a boat like that.”

  Unable to ignore Ian’s arrogance this time, Noah throttled up the Leila Sue. “That boat belongs to a local fisherman. You may find this hard to believe, Ian, but many local lobstermen do quite well.”

  Ian seemed unimpressed. His mind was elsewhere. “Was that her husband?”

  “No. He’s in New York,” Noah said in an end-of-discussion tone. “Here’s the next buoy. Gaff it, will you? We have a hell of a lot of work to do before lunch.”

  Noah drove his son hard, steaming from one string of traps to the next, hauling, emptying, rebaiting, resetting, and starting all over again minutes later. He demanded a level of stamina from Ian that he doubted any baseball coach had ever demanded, and felt little sympathy when the boy began to flag.

  But fatigue caused accidents, and had Noah not looked back at the right moment, seen what was about to happen, and lunged to push Ian out of the way, the boy might have gone right over the side.

  “What the hell?” Ian cried. He was sprawled on the deck, while Noah dropped the second trap into the water.

  “Didn’t you see the coil of pot warp?” Noah called back. Heart pounding, he dropped the buoy in after the trap and turned, feeling suddenly drained. “There’s always a coil of rope under the hauler. Put your foot there like you did, and when the line plays out fast, you either lose the foot or go right over the side and down with the trap. I had a childhood friend who died that way.”

  Ian sat up, a sullen expression on his face.

  Noah returned to the wheel and killed the engine. “I need lunch,” he muttered and pulled out the cooler. He turned over two pails and sat on one. Tossing Ian a sandwich, he unwrapped one himself and ate, but it was a while before his pulse returned to normal and a while after that before he tasted the food he was wolfing down.

  “I would never have forgiven myself if anything had happened to you,” he finally said.

  “What about me?” Ian cried in a higher voice. “Think I want my life to end up here?”

  Noah considered that. More to the point, he considered how to answer. Ian’s dig could only hurt if it was valid—if there were truly reason for Noah to feel inferior about Big Sawyer. Suddenly, though, he didn’t believe there was, and he was upset enough to say it. “If your life has to end, you could do a whole lot worse than here. People think here. They care here. They feel here. Your grandparents died here, and your father probably will too. You have roots here, Ian. You may not want to admit that, but that’s because you’re ignorant.” He had meant to say shortsighted, but the other word had popped out, and Ian was quick to react.

  “Ignorant of what? This?” the boy asked, shooting a disparaging glance at the marine debris strewn on the deck. “Am I supposed to care about this? This is what you wanted, not me. You hide here.”

  “Hide?”

  “You ran here after the divorce and you haven’t left.”

  “Left to live elsewhere? Why would I? I like it here.”

  “But you used to do something. This can’t compare to that.”

  Noah bristled. “You don’t think so? You ar
e ignorant, making a statement like that. I didn’t have to come back here after the divorce. I could have gone anywhere I wanted. I was good at what I did. Do you know that? You didn’t have a clue at seven, but at seventeen, you should. I was earning big bucks, and it had nothing to do with luck. Luck only takes you so far. What was carrying me was smarts.”

  “But you gave it all up,” Ian charged, smug in the indictment.

  “No,” Noah said slowly. “I didn’t. I still do consulting.”

  Ian was skeptical. “What do you know about what’s happening in the world?”

  “Probably more’n you do.”

  “How?”

  “Phone, fax, email. We’re not backwards.”

  Ian snorted. “You’re not connected. I looked.”

  “You didn’t look in the right place,” Noah said, though he had no intention of elaborating. Ian wanted to email his friends—Sandi had warned that he would. Noah had no qualms about letting the boy rough it a while. “You know nothing about my life, Ian. You might, if you asked a question or two, but you never seem to want to do that.”

  “You’re the one who won’t talk,” the boy muttered.

  “I’ll talk,” Noah countered, putting his elbows on his knees. “Go ahead. Ask.”

  “Do you get HBO?”

  “Only when the cloud cover is light enough so the satellite can connect.”

  “What about Thai food?”

  “At the Grill. Rick serves lobster pad Thai, gingered scallops, and curried mussels.”

  “Till what time?”

  “Nine.”

  “What do people do after that?”

  “Go to bed, because they’ll be up before dawn the next day, like we were today, so they can do most of their fishing before the seas rise. People do an honest day’s work here, and it isn’t just physical. There’s a lot of know-how that goes into successful lobstering. This may not be your choice of work, but there are generations of families who’ve been lobstering, passing the knowledge on from grandfather to father to son, to daughters now, too. These people could have gone elsewhere and been successful, but they chose to stay. Just like I chose to return.” He straightened. “So don’t ever think I’m hiding here. I choose this life.” He was deliberate in his use of the present tense. “Choose this life.”

  A thrumming came from the fog. He turned his head, easily identifying the approaching engine as that of the Trapper John. Devouring the remaining half of his sandwich in a single bite, he went to the rail. The other lobster boat emerged from the fog and came alongside. Noah had just caught her rail, so that the two boats rose and fell in tandem, when the Willa B. joined them.

  “That your boy?” asked John Mather.

  Noah made the introductions. He was grateful when Ian came to the rail to shake hands with John and acknowledge Hayes Miller aboard the third boat.

  Hayes called to Noah, “Saw your new buoys.”

  Noah nodded. “The bad ones are gone.”

  “Tell us what to do,” John said.

  “I’m gunnin’ for bear,” Hayes called.

  But Noah knew what he wanted. “They singled me out, so I’m singling them out. The way I see it, a few cut lines won’t hurt.”

  Grinning, Hayes pumped a fist in the air.

  John was more quiet but no less approving. “Want help, I’ll do it.”

  “No,” said Noah. “Me and my boy can handle it. Thanks, though.”

  Noah finished hauling the traps he’d set out to haul, and the catch was good, particularly since damage control had taken much of their time. His tanks held three-hundred-some pounds of lobster, averaging out to more than a pound per trap. Yes, the catch was good.

  Even better, he and Ian hadn’t argued since lunch. Granted, they hadn’t said much at all. But they had fallen into a rhythm of hauling that lobsterman and sternman didn’t always find. Noah might have told Ian that, if he hadn’t feared a snide remark in return. He didn’t want to have to deal with more anger. The waves had risen, and there was still work to do.

  With the fog finally starting to thin, he directed the Leila Sue to a heavy concentration of purple-and-lime buoys, then pulled Ian to the wheel. “See these buoys? Go to one and let her idle,” he threw the gear into neutral to demonstrate, then into forward again, “go to the next and let her idle,” then neutral again. “I’ll be quick.”

  “I’ve never driven a boat,” Ian said.

  “No better place to learn. The only danger here is that you’ll mangle pot warp. Be my guest. Any line you cut with the prop is one less I do by hand. Here you go,” he said, indicating the first buoy. Taking a sharp knife from the cuddy, he leaned over the rail and freed the buoy from its warp with a decisive upward cut. The Leila Sue was idle longer than she needed to be, bucking in the waves, and when she finally moved forward, she wasn’t as sure as she would have been with Noah’s hand on the throttle. The next time was better, though, and the third time even better.

  “You learn fast,” Noah called as his knife neatly severed another buoy from its warp.

  Ian had his legs planted wide for balance. “Isn’t this illegal?” he asked as he headed for the next buoy.

  “Not by local law.”

  “But you’re destroying someone’s property.”

  “That someone is trespassing. Technically, since he’s on my turf, it’s my property.”

  “Who says it’s your turf?”

  “Same people who make local law. People who’ve fished here for generations. People like your grandfather.”

  Ian might have asked about Hutch then. Instead, coming up on the next buoy, he asked, “What if they bring charges?”

  “They won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s ten guys who’ll testify that they painted my buoys, and zero guys who’ll say I was cutting these lines.”

  “What happens to the traps attached to these?”

  Noah held the rail with one hand while, fighting the waves, he leaned down with his knife. The boat rose and fell, rose and fell before he was able to make his slash and cut the line. “They’re lost to Haber and Welk, unless they want to send a diver down, but without buoys, they won’t have a clue where the traps are.”

  “What if lobsters are in them—big ones, that can’t get out the escape hatch?”

  “These traps have a panel held on by hog rings. Hog rings are biodegradable clips. In time, they fall apart, the panel opens, and the lobsters get out.”

  “Alive?” Ian asked, moving the Leila Sue forward.

  Noah waited for the next buoy. “If not, they’re food for other fish. The system works.”

  They didn’t cut free all of the purple-and-green buoys. The point was for Haber and Welk to find a few tied to traps and know that the rest had been deliberately destroyed. Not that Noah wasn’t enjoying himself. He slashed lines for himself and his father, for Greg Hornsby and Dar Hutter and Grady Bartz. He slashed a few for the Walshes. And for Zoe’s assistant, Todd Slokum. Haber and Welk might not have had anything to do with their deaths, but they were bad guys all the same.

  Noah might have done a few more, if the Leila Sue hadn’t been suddenly rolling in six-foot swells. With Ian starting to look a little unsteady, he retook the helm and put in for the harbor; there was work to do there as well. First stop was Foss Fish, where they unloaded the day’s catch. Then it was over to the fuel wharf for diesel, then back to the slip to clean up the boat.

  At four in the afternoon, he dropped a clearly exhausted Ian back at the house. Then he went back into town to see the police chief.

  Julia had come ashore far earlier. She and Matthew had actually eaten their sandwiches while tied up at the dock, soon after which she was back on Hawks Hill, sitting at Noah’s computer and playing with the pictures she had shot. She cropped some and lightened others, sharpened a few and rendered others in unusual color tones.

  In time, she sent those of Noah and Ian replacing vandalized buoys on to Alex Brier. She sent a f
ew of the others to Monte, because she wanted him to know she was using—and loving—the camera. She even made prints of her favorites, playing with this program as well.

  Then she drove to Zoe’s, fully expecting to find her in the barn, but when she walked in, she found only her father. He was cleaning out trays under cages, refilling hay racks, apparently content to putter around. But why shouldn’t he be? With the misters giving aromatic puffs every few minutes, the rabbits scrabbling and shifting, and fog muting the rest of the world, the barn was as peaceful as ever.

  On closer look, she realized he wasn’t entirely content, but rather wore the same furrowed look he’d had at dinner the evening before.

  Letting him be, Julia checked out the babies in the nest boxes. As always, though, she gravitated toward Gretchen. She didn’t even have to sit down now; she could easily hold the rabbit in the crook of her elbow, stroking her while swaying gently from side to side.

  “So,” she said after a bit, “are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Very much,” her father declared with a bit too much zeal. “It’s nice not to be programmed for a change.”

  “Are you talking about your work, or Mom?”

  “Both.”

  “So. Tell me about your day. What’d you do?”

  He gave a lopsided shrug. “Oh, walked around.”

  “Where?”

  “In town. On the dock. Wherever. I talked with people. You know.”

  What Julia knew was that he sounded less than enthused. “Have you called her?” she asked.

  “Not yet.”

  She waited for him to say more, but he simply removed a depleted water bottle from the wall of a cage and replaced it with a full one. So she asked, “Do you plan to?”

  “Eventually,” he said with renewed bravado. “I can’t stay here forever. I have a business to run. She isn’t the only important person in our house. Fortunately, the second quarter is over and estimateds are paid, so this is my quiet season.”

  “Mom loves you, you know.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  “Come on, Dad,” Julia coaxed as she had so many other times. “She has to be autocratic at work; that’s how she succeeds. She just has trouble turning it off.” She watched him replace another water bottle. “You don’t really plan to divorce her, do you? That’d be a mistake. She’s a good person.”