The Wild One

by Nick Petrie

  The counterman nodded. “Takk takk.”

  At the long table, Uncle Ingo and Uncle Axel were deep in conversation. They had taken off their coats and leaned back in groaning wooden chairs. Peter collected his coffee and walked out into the worsening weather.

  He hadn’t found an apartment, but with the uncles at breakfast, he had a new plan. He didn’t know how much time he had, but he meant to make the most of it.

  30

  He left the Defender on the far side of the road, nose-out in an unplowed parking lot, and dug a flashlight out of his pack. He considered grabbing Bjarni’s folding shovel, because it was the only thing he had that would serve as any kind of weapon, but decided against it. He jogged to the red metal building with its small raised loading dock. A steel I-beam for a rolling chain hoist poked through the wall like an afterthought. Beside the dock, open steel steps led to a rusty door.

  He climbed the steps and tried the knob.

  The door was unlocked.

  When it closed behind him, the interior was cold and completely dark. The static rose. Peter felt his chest begin to tighten. With his flashlight and one good eye, he found a wall switch and flipped it.

  Fluorescent flicker lit a single large space. Beside him stood a cluster of gray forklift bins loaded with thick coils of rope and aluminum net floats the size of beach balls. An open mending frame filled one corner with a faded blue net spread across it, torn holes arranged at a comfortable working height. Repairs were in process, the bright new strands as thick as a pencil. The whole place smelled of fish and the sea.

  He found no bunkroom or small apartment carved out of the frozen space. He didn’t even find a heat source.

  Ignoring the screaming static, he followed his flashlight down a sagging interior stair. The lower floor would be at ground level, with more loading doors for easy access to the boat. The fish smell was much stronger. The siding rattled in the wind.

  He turned on the lights and saw a long wooden trough with wood rakes for pulling fish down to scarred cleaning tables. A fish-cleaning line, antique but clearly still in use. Rows of gray plastic tubs were stacked along the back wall beside a counter with a hand-cranked knife-sharpening wheel. Definitely old-school.

  Aside from the lights, the only real signs of modernity were a commercial icemaker for cooling the fish and radiant electric heaters mounted on the ceiling. The heaters were cold to the touch.

  No sign of living quarters, not even a cot and sleeping bag. No Erik, no Óskar.

  The clock was ticking. He cracked the dockside door and peered out. The four-door flatbed was still there, but no Dacia wagon. No other human visible on or near the Freyja. Just snow, falling harder still.

  Trying to look like he belonged, he walked to the gangplank and climbed aboard.

  The Freyja’s working deck was stacked with more empty gray bins. Vicious-looking fish gaffs lay clipped in easy reach below the side rails, varnished handles gleaming in the floodlights. The wind was bitter. The pilothouse windows were bright. Peter undogged a round-cornered hatch and listened at the opening. He heard nothing. He took a deep breath to calm the static, then stepped over the bulkhead and inside.

  He stood inside the ship’s galley and common area. Built-in benches flanked a dining table, the wood finish and upholstery reminding Peter of a suburban breakfast nook from the 1970s. The tiny open galley had a marine stove on gimbals and high shelves with rails to keep the cups and plates from flying off in heavy weather. Lockers held cans and boxes of easy-to-prepare food. Despite the substantial supply of Reyka vodka, everything was clean and in good repair. The sink held no dishes. The steel stove was polished to a high shine.

  Tick tock. Peter ducked down a ladder, static flaring, to a small landing with two doors, one to each side. He opened the left door and saw a wide bunk built into the curved side of the hull, with storage for personal things below and a narrower bunk above, hinged up and out of the way, with no mattress. The wall opposite held a built-in desk and storage locker, with unhealthy plants lashed into open shelves beside Icelandic-language books. There was just enough space for a grown man to change his clothes, if he was careful about it. The porthole was the size of a dinner plate.

  The cabin to the right was the same, only messier. Both cabins had pictures taped to the bulkheads, tropical beaches and swimsuit models and family snapshots. Very homey. The only things missing were a half-knit sweater and a ship’s cat.

  Peter opened lockers and held up clothes. Everything was sized for giants, both cabins. The uncles, who obviously lived on the boat. Their boots were size seventeen triple-wide. No kids’ books or clothes, no Lego. No Erik or Óskar. No sign of anyone living aboard except the uncles.

  The static climbed Peter’s spine. He couldn’t hear anything outside the boat. He imagined the uncles climbing out of their clown car, then tried not to think about it. Down a half ladder, he found the engine room, all heavy metal and color-coded paint, but not a spot of rust. Cabinets full of mechanical tools, a workbench with a pump rebuild in process, lockers loaded with spare parts. No pallet on the floor, no sleeping bag.

  Tick tock. One last possibility. Moving quickly, he climbed back up the ladders, past the cabins and the galley, to the pilothouse. He found a spoked ship’s wheel and a sagging leather captain’s chair flanked by banks of elderly marine electronics. A chart table with rolled maps in a rack and a built-in bench that wasn’t long enough to sleep on.

  The brass and chrome gleamed. The broad, curving windows looking out over the harbor were clean.

  Outside, the black Dacia station wagon rolled down the gravel drive and onto the pier.

  31

  Peter didn’t like how easily big Uncle Ingo and Uncle Axel unpacked themselves from the small car. They were quicker and more limber than anyone their size had a right to be.

  He dropped to his knees and peered under the chart table and pilot’s controls. If this were his boat, he’d have a shotgun stashed somewhere he could get at it quickly. Nothing. Did nobody in this country use gunpowder? He opened drawers looking for a handgun and found nothing but an orange-handled fishing knife in an orange rubber sheath. He shoved it into his back pocket. Not much good, but better than nothing. Get moving. If they caught him inside this tin can, he might never see daylight again.

  He clattered down the ladder and pushed open the hatch just in time to see the uncles step from the gangway to the deck, fresh cigarettes in their fists. They stared at him.

  Peter felt like a seal at a polar bear convention.

  Up close, the uncles looked very much alike. Their round, wind-worn faces were creased by years of squinting into wind and sun and snow. They had the noses of street brawlers, crooked with previous breaks. Their beards were yellowed at the lip from the smoke of ten thousand cigarettes. Their hands were huge, scarred and thick from years of cleaning fish and mending nets. Their stomachs would have the hard kind of fat.

  The slightly smaller uncle said something in Icelandic. His face remained expressionless, but his tone of voice was clear enough. What the fuck are you doing on my boat?

  Peter felt the adrenaline rise up in his blood, but he just held his hands up, palms out, like it was all a big mistake. “Sorry, I don’t speak Icelandic. English?”

  “Já, I have some English,” said the same uncle. He had a voice like an idling bulldozer. Being slightly smaller than his brother made him only the size of a prize bull. He wore a gray hand-knit sweater under his coat and a gold pirate hoop in his left ear. “You are the American. You broke Bjarni’s arm.”

  “Bjarni started that fight,” Peter said. “I could have done much worse. You are Ingo and Axel?”

  In Icelandic, the one with the gold hoop said something to the other, who nodded silently. Peter thought he caught the Icelandic word for “farm.”

  “I am Ingo.” The talker jerked his head at his silent brother. “He
is Axel. What do you want?”

  Peter wanted this to end without a fight. “I’m looking for Óskar Eiríksson. I just want to know if the boy is all right. I’d like to see him, to talk with him. Then I’ll go.”

  The uncles looked at each other, then back at Peter. Neither man spoke. Their massive hands flexed restlessly.

  “Bjarni told me Erik and Óskar are dead,” Peter said. “Is that true?”

  Ingo regarded his cigarette, then dropped it to the deck and stepped on it. Axel rolled his shoulders like a boxer between rounds.

  Peter said, “If something happened to Erik or Óskar, it had nothing to do with me or anyone I know. Has anyone else talked with you?”

  Ingo’s lips twitched in the tiniest of smiles. His eyes crinkled up at the corners. It made him look like Óskar, just a little.

  “So many questions, Mr. American. But I have a question for you.” The smile grew wider. “Can you swim?”

  Behind him, Axel gave a rhythmic grunt. Peter realized the bigger brother was laughing.

  No, this was no place for a child.

  * * *

  —

  Axel stepped left to block the gangplank, still holding his cigarette. Ingo stepped right and slipped a two-foot fish gaff from its clips under the rail. The sharp steel tip shone bright under the floodlights. With Peter’s vision limited to just one eye, he kept his head on a swivel. Two on one was always hard, but these two would be harder.

  The fjord was chunky with ice. If they threw him in the water, it would kill him. Even as big as they were, even with their nicotine lungs, they could walk faster than Peter could swim with his clothes on. They’d certainly be able to beat him to any place he might scramble out, and keep him swimming until the hypothermia got him. He’d be lucky to last fifteen minutes. Even if he somehow managed to reach dry land, he’d be soaking wet on the east coast of Iceland in December with a storm coming on strong. Unable to do more than shiver and wait for the uncles to arrive and throw him back in, a fish too small to keep.

  The uncles stepped forward and he backed away, keeping his distance. Letting them close was a bad idea. If they got their hands on him, he was done.

  His open coat flapped in the wind. The superstructure loomed behind him. There was a narrow gangway on either side that would get him to the rounded stern, but that would just give them a smaller space to contain him. He still had the orange-handled fishing knife in his back pocket, but he’d have to get inside their reach to use it, and he’d have to kill them both quickly. Step inside and sever an artery. If they didn’t smash him down first.

  For men of their size, the uncles were impossibly fast. Even as Peter reached for the knife, Ingo stepped into Peter’s blind spot and caught the windblown open front of the safety-yellow coat. Peter spun backward and counterclockwise to slip his grip, but when he finished the spin, Axel was already there to meet him. Peter raised his arm and slammed his elbow into the side of the big man’s head, but Axel didn’t even seem to notice. He just caught Peter’s lower sleeve in one thick fist and held him.

  Peter didn’t wait for the other fist. His back now to both brothers, Peter raised his open arms in a gesture of surrender. But before they could improve their grasp, he dropped to his knees and slid his arms from the slick sleeves of the coat. Then he angled right, took three fast steps, planted a firm hand on the cold steel rail, and vaulted over the top and into thin air.

  32

  It was a long drop, eight feet or more. Off-balance, Peter landed hard and awkward on the snowy dock, but managed to push his momentum into an ugly forward roll. He wouldn’t win any points for style, and his clothes got soaked in the slop. Still, he hadn’t hit his head or sprained his ankle, so he called it a win and popped to his feet.

  On the Freyja, the big Icelanders stared at him over the rail. They were too big to jump. Instead, they boiled toward the gangplank, shouting as they came.

  Even with space to maneuver on the dock, this wasn’t a fight Peter wanted. It was almost certainly not a fight he could win, not without a real weapon, not if he wanted to walk away in any kind of useful condition. Part of him wanted the fight, wanted it badly. The cleansing sweat and adrenaline and pain. But it wouldn’t help him find Óskar. Especially not if he lost.

  There was a time-honored tactic for moments like this.

  Peter turned and ran.

  The black Dacia and the four-door flatbed were parked at odd angles on the dock, nose-in toward the gangplank. The Dacia was closer, and the driver’s side would give him some cover. Running, he put his hand to his back pocket and found the orange-handled sheath knife from the Freyja’s pilothouse. Feet still moving him forward, he pulled the blade and cut into the soft sidewall of the Dacia’s front tire. He was rewarded with a quick blast of air as the tire went flat. Without slowing, he did the same at the back wheel. Nobody carries two spares.

  The snow swirled, flakes flying faster still. He heard the uncles bellowing over the sound of the wind. They were behind him somewhere, probably on the dock by now.

  Staying low, he ran around the rear of the Dacia and peeked. No uncles. How could you hide that much beef on the hoof? They weren’t the kind to hide, anyway. Probably circling behind to keep him from leaving. He had to get away from the water. They could throw him off the pier just as easily as they could throw him off the boat. They’d just step on his head and that would be the end of it. But getting distance from the water wouldn’t help if they could run him down on the road.

  He ducked across the gap to the flatbed and jabbed the knife into a truck tire. The blade wouldn’t go through the sidewall. It was a heavy-duty tire, and the thick rubber was hard with age. Head still on a swivel, he stopped to lean on the handle. It wasn’t going in.

  Axel ran past the front of the truck, saw Peter, but skidded on the too-slick snow, which gave Peter a few extra seconds. The valve stem was metal so cutting it wasn’t an option. The knife was plenty sharp. Pushing harder, he wiggled the blade back and forth and finally heard a hiss. The tire wasn’t flat yet, but it would be.

  Axel finally managed to change direction, but he was staring at the knife in Peter’s hand and holding back. Ingo appeared over the top of the Dacia and called out in Icelandic, making a plan. He still held the fish gaff in his fist, a two-foot wooden club with an eight-inch hook. Peter reversed away and around the back of the flatbed. The dock was still empty on that side. He jammed the knife into the next tire at the rounded curve of the inner sidewall, got it in far enough to stick, then carefully stepped down on the blunt end of the grip. The blade sunk to the hilt and the tire began to hiss.

  Ingo came around the rear of the truck and Axel came around the front. The gaff hung negligently from Ingo’s hand, like any other familiar tool. Peter tried to pull out the knife but it was stuck.

  The storm was loud in his ears and the snowfall had accelerated again. Without the good yellow coat, Peter’s fleece was heavy with moisture. Ingo and Axel came closer. Peter stepped on the flat of the knife handle, hoping to free it. The hiss turned to a soft pop and the tire sank, but the blade snapped at the hilt.

  When they saw the blade break, Ingo and Axel ran at him, one from each side, tilting forward in their rush. Peter dropped flat to the slippery snow and the fishermen’s thick torsos crashed together like a high-speed meat collision. He felt an impossibly powerful blow to his outer thigh, but before they could grab hold of some part of him, he pushed off the dead tire with his legs and squirted out onto the dock.

  Then he was off, thigh aching but legs sprinting strong across the pier and onto the uphill drive, where his hiking boots dug deep and found gravel to grip. When he made the top of the rise, he glanced over his shoulder without stopping. Ingo and Axel were coming hard, the gaff still in Ingo’s fist, but Peter was a runner and the uncles were smokers and he was thirty meters ahead.

  He ran across the road and up the low hil
l to the Defender, keys already in his hand. Thankfully they’d been in his pants, with his wallet and phone, and not his coat.

  The Defender started without a hiccup. He threw it in gear and bounced down the snow-slick slope, slewing sideways onto the road just as the uncles made it, breathing hard, to the top of the drive. Ingo threw the gaff overhand and it hit the passenger side with a thump. Peter considered running them down with the Defender but figured it would be like hitting a pair of moose and he didn’t want to hurt the truck. Instead he raised the single-finger salute and put the hammer down.

  He had a moment of panic as the four tires spun down to pavement. Then rubber grabbed the road and he shot forward into the worsening weather.

  Man, he was going to miss that damn coat.

  33

  Peter fled up the high-walled river valley. Plows for the previous storm had made high white banks flanking the road, and the wind dropped heavy new snow into the space between, narrowing the two-lane to a single track. There were no other tire marks. The Defender slewed sideways on the curves, and wouldn’t go faster than eighty kilometers per hour. It had also developed a new and unpleasant rattle.

  When he reached the top of the valley, he stopped the truck and walked around to the passenger side, where the rattle came from. He found the gaff’s hook caught in the door hinge, the bright spring steel still vibrating with the weight of the hardwood handle. He worked it free and threw it into the truck, then looked behind him, his swollen eye throbbing in the cold. The sun had come up behind the clouds, and Peter could finally see farther than the limits of his own headlights.

  Another vehicle was halfway up, a white plume in its wake. It was too far to see the kind of car, and he didn’t want to take the time to dig out his binoculars, but it could have been a silver SUV. Maybe the same one they’d used to force the Norwegian off the road the year before. Maybe hidden in a barn for a year, waiting until it was needed again.