Port Starbird (Storm Ketchum Adventures)

by Garrett Dennis

  Ketch settled in the cabin behind the boy where he could see the compass and the GPS, drank his water, and shared his breakfast with the dog. Then he rejoined the boy at the wheel.

  "Good job, Henry! Really, not bad for your first time," he said. "Okay now, keep one hand on the wheel and put your other one here, on the throttles. We're almost where we want to be, so we have to start slowing down now. Remember, a boat doesn't have brakes..."

  When it was time to stop, Ketch relieved the boy at the controls. "You can go out and fish for a while now, Henry, if you like," he said. "I'll call you back when I need you. Okay?" The boy left the cabin then, as did the dog who was curious as always about what these people might drag up from below the surface.

  They'd idle and fish for a while here and see what developed. Ketch retrieved a battered paperback book from his backpack. He generally preferred his electronic-book reader these days, but exposing it to salt and spray was probably not a wise thing to do. The dog wandered back in and Ketch gave him a bone to gnaw on, then climbed up to the flying bridge. It would be comfortable there under the awning with the brisk sea breeze that was blowing today, and he'd have the controls there in case he was needed.

  Meanwhile he'd see if he could remember what was going to happen to Harry Morgan next in To Have and Have Not. He'd read this book before, but it had been a long time. He reminded himself to revisit The Old Man and the Sea soon; though he'd read that one several times through the years, it was by far his favorite. Re-reading it periodically was almost like a religious obligation for him, and he'd lately been feeling drawn to it again.

  But for now, back to Harry. He knew the adventures of pirates and smugglers, even the more modern kind like Harry, struck most people as romantic, but in reality it had always been a brutal and unforgiving way of life. But then again, nowadays there was the Wall Street crowd, for example, many of whom could be viewed as simply more sophisticated technology-based pirates, couldn't they? Their lives were usually longer and richer, but perhaps not any less difficult than the lives of the pirates of old, at least in terms of stress, especially for the ones who lived on the edge of the law or slightly beyond. And then there were people like Bob Ingram, the owner of HatterasMann Realty and the main depositor in Ketch's current bank of misery.

  'HatterasMann' - a clever bit of wordplay, he supposed, but he wasn't amused by it. The Hatterasman was the noblest figure in Hatteras Island lore. He was a rugged, proud, unpretentious and self-sufficient abstraction, making his living from fishing, whaling, boat building, wreck salvaging, farming whatever he could get to grow in this harsh environment, doing whatever it took to survive back in the wild old days.

  The Hatterasman was epitomized by the surfmen employed by the old U.S. Lifesaving Service and later the U.S. Coast Guard. At grave personal risk, these men attempted to rescue mariners from offshore shipwrecks, starting in the time before internal combustion engines and reliable charts. There'd been lighthouses along this coast since the late seventeen hundreds, but they weren't always adequate; and a combination of strong currents, frequent storms, and deadly shifting shoals had earned the coastal shipping lanes off Cape Hatteras the well-known epithet 'Graveyard of the Atlantic'.

  Beginning in the mid-eighteen hundreds, crews of these courageous men would launch sturdy wooden surfboats into the breakers and row out when a wreck was sighted, often at night and regardless of the season, and even during the fiercest of storms. Their regulations required them to go out, but didn't require them to return. Numerous members of several crews had over the years been awarded Gold and Silver Lifesaving Medals of Honor for their efforts, the highest honors that can be given for saving lives in peacetime. There'd been seven official lifesaving stations along the Atlantic coast of the island from 1874 well into the next century, two of them in the Kinnakeet area.

  Whereas 'Mann' was simply the maiden name of Ingram's first wife, the founder of the realty he'd simply inherited from her.

  "Good work, Mister Ketchum!" the Captain called after Ketch had been reading a while, oblivious to the activity below. "We got enough flounder and spots to fill a cooler! How's about takin' us through the inlet?"

  "Will do," Ketch called back. He summoned the boy up to the flying bridge and they got the boat underway again. Ketch knew the buoys and markers, such as they were in this changeable inlet, and when they reached the entrance of the inlet he pointed them out to the boy as he helped him navigate them through, giving a wide berth to other traffic and keeping a special eye out for the ferryboats that regularly traversed the roughly two-mile-wide inlet between Hatteras and Ocracoke Island to the southwest.

  Ketch noted the boy's obvious exuberance at being permitted to pilot the boat from the flying bridge, and at the same time the boy's continued self-discipline. This must seem like a wild ride to him, Ketch thought, yet he's still paying attention and keeping himself under control. He also didn't appear to be getting sick from the pitching, rolling, and yawing of the boat, which were all exaggerated at this height. Ketch, too, had always been lucky in that regard; he'd never been seasick a day in his life, no matter the conditions.

  When they were about to exit the inlet, Ketch realized the Captain hadn't specified which direction to proceed in from there. Before he could call down to ask, he spotted a pelican gliding by. He wondered if it was one of the regulars that had started showing up at the docks to claim some of the culls from the fishermen's daily catches. There were still not that many of them in this area, but they'd recovered from the DDT debacle of a few decades back and were no longer considered endangered, though it wasn't until the mid-Eighties that they'd begun nesting along this coast in earnest. They'd originally mostly lived farther south, notably in Texas and Louisiana, where the use of pesticides laden with DDT had decimated their populations in the Fifties and Sixties. As with other carnivorous birds, like the ospreys and the peregrines, the chemical had caused them to lay thin-shelled eggs. But now they were making a comeback, so much so that they were expanding up the east coast.

  Ketch saw the pelican go into a steep dive straight into the water some distance up ahead. It appeared to be feeding on something, so he had the boy turn the boat in that direction. He focused and saw there were gulls and terns congregating there as well, and he thought he could see fish jumping at the surface. They throttled back some and when they got close he idled the engines, sent the boy back down to fish, and allowed the boat to drift along the fringe of the feeding area.

  He checked the fish finder as they drifted. It looked like there might be two schools in the area, maybe Spanish mackerel and menhaden. Maybe they were being driven together by predators. This could be a hot spot. Whatever they were, this conglomeration of fish would soon be undergoing a three-pronged attack - the schooling ones on the outskirts of the swimming masses would be picked off by bigger fish, those that ventured too near the surface or above it were fair game for the birds, and the fishing hooks would hopefully soon prey in turn on the school's predators. The fishermen below wouldn't be targeting the menhaden if that's what they were, as they were filter feeders, but the mackerel and whatever else was after all of them below the surface might keep the party busy for a while.

  It would probably be a little while before they caught much, so he allowed his mind to wander and considered Ingram again as those below started casting their lines. He remembered reading that Ingram's first wife had died under somewhat questionable circumstances, sometime before Ketch had moved here. A boat drowning, he now recalled, but there had been drinking and recreational drugs and a well-documented argument during a nighttime party on a yacht - which had been docked, not under sail; and there had been an inquiry. But it had been ruled an accidental drowning. At least they'd had a body to examine that time, unlike in the case of the disappearance of Ingram's second wife.

  After a while Ketch heard a commotion from below. "Hey, you got somethin' there for sure, son!" the Captain exclaimed. "Lemme give y'all a hand with that!"

 
Ketch decided to go below in case he was needed, and also to tend to the safety of the dog. He'd leash the dog to something in the cabin until he knew whether they had a fighter on the line. If the dog got too close to the wrong fish while it thrashed its last life out on the deck, he could be injured by errant teeth or spines or bills.

  By the time Ketch got the dog leashed there was a jack flopping on the deck. It looked to be at least a ten-pounder, which was noteworthy for a jack as it was a fighter, but he knew this fish shouldn't be eaten due to the possibility of ciguatera poisoning. If it were a pompano, okay, but not amberjack. But this wouldn't matter to the boy, who looked about as happy as a boy could look. He appeared to be having an excellent day, Ketch thought; good for him.

  It looked like a couple of the others were reeling in mackerel - Spanish, smaller cousins of the king mackerel, but decent eating - and someone had hooked what looked to be a puppy drum, and another was struggling to bring in a thrashing bluefish. He'd been right to follow that pelican.

  Before anyone could do anything with the jack, one of the men announced he had something really big, and the Captain hurried over to assist. Ketch considered releasing the jack, but it looked like it might be too late for that now, and they might want to mount it or something for the boy anyway. He found some gloves and showed the boy how to remove the hook and stow the fish.

  An epic struggle appeared to be taking shape near the stern. "I don't know if this line is strong enough to hold 'im!" the Captain declared. "Don't yank on it Doc, we don't want 'im to throw the hook! Don't try to reel 'im in yet, if he runs let 'im take some line, hope there's enough! Everybody else reel in your fish and get your lines out a the water, we don't want to get tangled. Now! And you there, watch out for that blue, he's got razor teeth!"

  Without being told, Ketch herded the boy back up to the flying bridge, where the view would be better. They prepared to throttle up. He'd use the boat to make up for any deficiency in the line. If the fish took out a lot of line, he'd make the boat follow it so they could reel in the excess and reuse it for the next run.

  After several strong runs the fish finally began to tire, and they were eventually able to reel it in closer to the boat. When it got close enough, Ketch left the boy at the helm and went down and helped the Captain gaff it and haul it aboard.

  It was a cobia. The Captain made everyone stand back while he put the creature out of its misery before it could hurt anyone. The cobia's horizontal pectoral fins can enable it to remain upright and thrash vigorously on a boat deck, making its sharp spines a hazard to bystanders.

  Ketch called the boy down, then went into the cabin and released the dog so it could investigate. He heard his cell phone beep and retrieved it from his backpack. It looked like there were a couple more missed calls like the other day, but again the caller ID wasn't showing the number. Probably some charity or other; it had better not be telemarketers, since he was on the do-not-call list and he could and would report them. When he noticed the time on the phone's display, he was surprised to see it had been almost three hours since they'd left Oden's.

  "Well, will y'all look at that - a cobia! I bet he's fifty pounds!" the Captain announced. "That's damn respectable for cobia. You did good, Doc - that there is a good eatin' fish! We better pack it in some ice, and then you can have 'em cut it up for you back at the dock. Here, you guys can stick it right in here, you're younger'n me and my arms are tired..."

  When the fish was secure, the Captain went into the cabin to get a drink, and Ketch followed him in. "Ain't that the damnedest thing!" the Captain exclaimed, plopping down on a bench to rest. "Cobia's hard to find in the first place, never mind hard to catch, and we weren't even tryin', didn't even have the best bait. Just shit-all dumb luck, that's all. Good thing we had the heavier line on." He briefly grinned. "Well, they're happy now. Bet I'll be gettin' a good review on my website for this trip!"

  "I wouldn't be surprised," Ketch replied. "It's a good fish, and it's been a good morning." The dog joined them and Ketch also sat, and scratched its ears. "Thank you again for having us, as always."

  "No no, thank you-all for helpin' out! Especially with that boy like you done, I appreciate that. I didn't want to have to leave somebody behind, and I figured they'd let us slide with the second mate thing if anybody asked about it. Sorry 'bout springin' it on you like that."

  "No problem. It's been fun, he's a good kid."

  The Captain took a final pull on his water bottle and stood up. "Okay. Well, I think we might could start headin' back now, let 'em troll along the way if they want. I sure hope we don't have no more dumb luck though, or we could be out here all dang day. Don't stop unless you have to!"

  "I hear you. If I see another pelican, I'll go the other way this time."

  The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful. Someone hooked a striper, and someone else added a trout to their cache. A pretty good haul overall for a half-day trip. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Pamlico Sound and the nearshore Atlantic here were said to offer a world-class variety of fishing opportunities; one didn't necessarily have to go all the way out to the Gulf Stream for a good time. But the Captain's charters hadn't been this lucky in a while.

  Ketch called the boy in and let him steer again toward the end. After they docked back at Oden's, he thanked the boy and shook his hand, then removed the dog's life jacket and got the dog off the boat.

  The dog lifted his leg on the first piling he encountered. Ketch figured he'd walk the dog for a bit, let him relax and do whatever else he needed to do while the others dealt with the fish, and then they'd clean up and ride back to the boatyard with the Captain. He leashed the dog and checked to make sure his doggy-waste disposal bag dispenser was clipped to his belt.

  He was a bit fatigued, but he felt good; it had indeed been an enjoyable trip, with the boy's interest and enthusiasm an invigorating bonus. He stepped lightly as he regained his land legs. He felt like he could do anything. Nothing of course could reverse time, but days like this made him feel younger, like maybe he could keep up with just about anyone. And he could, he thought, if he stayed in shape; he could still occasionally defeat those two divers he played tennis with now and then, despite being almost twenty-five years their senior.

  They meandered for a while along the patches of grass over by the inn. The dog squatted, Ketch cleaned up after him, and they started to head back across the parking lot. As they approached the restaurant, Ketch heard someone behind him call his name.

  "Mister Ketchum? Storm? Hey, Storm Ketchum!"

  When he turned and saw who it was, he remained rooted to the spot, his buoyancy dissipating like dry ice sublimating in the summer sun.

  ~ ~ ~

  3. Make them think you're more man than you are, and you might be so.

  A jambalaya sweat broke out on Ketch's forehead, and he became momentarily light-headed and his mouth went dry. But he remained rational. His scientific training (and not the lame attempts at therapy he'd fleetingly tolerated until replacing them with the dog), allowed him to recognize these changes for what they were, simply symptoms of the 'fight-or-flight' or acute stress response, or what most people referred to as an adrenalin rush. Catecholamine hormones, including adrenalin, were flooding his system in preparation for violent muscle action in a primeval attempt to ensure his survival. Just survival of the fittest, that was all; a caveman thing.

  "Mister Ketchum, I'm glad I ran into y'all," the man said as he drew up with Ketch and the dog. "My secretary's been tryin' to reach you by phone, but she hadn't had any luck so far."

  Ketch didn't reply. He remembered being virtually incapacitated by this physiological response at various times in the past, and especially of course during his 'difficult' time, but he was over that now - wasn't he? You're fifty-eight years old, he told himself; don't panic, man-up and control it.

  The interloper soldiered on with what seemed to Ketch an obviously insincere smile. "Sorry for the bother. I was gonna send someone out to pay
y'all a visit, but my secretary showed me a picture of you on the computer just the other day, and then I saw you walkin' here, and I figured it'd be a good chance for us to talk. Anyway, I don't believe we've ever met." He stuck a hand out. "Bob Ingram."

  Ketch didn't immediately respond to the proffered handshake. Surrender was of course out of the question, and technically wasn't a component of the fight-or-flight response anyway; and fleeing wasn't an option, it would be childish and embarrassing, and lashing out physically would be even more so. Thus though the 'fight' part of the response appeared to be biologically obligatory in this case, it would have to be muted.

  He kept his hands to himself and coldly replied, "I know who you are." The dog, attuned to Ketch's tone and body language and extraordinarily sensitive to pheromonal signals as most dogs were, positioned himself between Ketch and the perceived threat and emitted a guttural growl.

  "Jack, be quiet. Down!" Ketch commanded. The dog obeyed, but continued to keep a wary eye on the situation. Ketch tautened the dog's retractable leash and pressed the lock button just in case.

  "Thank you," Ingram said, withdrawing his hand but still retaining the smile. "That's a fine-lookin' animal you got there. What's his name again? Loyal too, I can see - "

  "What can I do for you?" Ketch curtly interrupted.

  "Well," Ingram said, momentarily nonplussed. Then he slapped another smile onto his face, the way politicians can when it might be expedient to do so. "Say Storm, mind if I call you Storm? I was just about to meet some folks for lunch, but how about we get us a cold drink and have a little chat first? They have an outdoor deck right over there at the Breakwater, and I know they wouldn't mind if your little friend joined us. My pleasure, of course."

  Ketch focused and took the measure of the developer. Around forty maybe; average height, casually but impeccably and expensively dressed, hair well-styled, tanned but smooth skin, a gentleman's hands, well-fed. A good old boy, confident and condescending. "That's Doctor Ketchum to you, and I'm pressed for time. Please make your point now if you have one."