The Raft
Page 11
Chapter 7
The Raft was a floating Barnum & Bailey Circus. Rachael could describe it no other way.
The Agate Pass opened out into the slower, calmer waters of the Puget Sound. Circling the northern tip of Bainbridge Island, the Soft Cell came sailing into the wakes of a hodgepodge of small craft constituting the main flotilla of the Raft.
The first outrider of the Raft Rachael caught sight of was an elderly man standing aboard a paddle board. He was moving away from the shore, for no apparent destination, buck naked except for an elaborate Indian headdress of eagle feathers.
He waved as the Soft Cell sailed silently past. Maggie returned his salute.
Soon, there were more boats moored here and there, moored with a comfortable amount of water between each craft. But as Maggie sailed farther around the north end of the island, the craft grew thicker on the water. Before long, artificial islands floated to the left and right of the Soft Cell, whole islands formed by the lashing together of large, mismatched collections of boats and dinghies. Everywhere there were signs of life: on one craft, a group of long-haired, bearded men performing in a drum circle; on another, a harem of burka-veiled women stood watching the passing of Maggie's boat while a solitary, smiling, gold-toothed man sat at the boat's prow, smoking a hookah.
A cross between Seafair and Burning Man indeed, Rachael thought, remembering Maggie's off-the-cuff description. Rachael had no idea what she'd expected, but she marveled at each and every ship as it passed. She'd never understood the scale of the Raft, the reports on the news had never done it justice. It was big, Rachael realized as Maggie sailed the Soft Cell past cluster after cluster of bustling boats. How many could there be? Five hundred? A thousand? It had to be nearer to a thousand, she thought, climbing to her feet and trying to see back to the edge of the Raft, back along the route by which they'd entered. Rachael could no longer make the path Maggie had followed through the clusters of boats, the Raft seemed to close in behind them.
Rachael turned her attention back towards the bow. She could just make out something large at very center of the Raft. As they closed in, the outline of a ship resolved into view. The ship sat at the epicenter of the commune. As Rachael sailed, she could see the shiny chrome of the multi-decked Art Deco ferry, the Kalakala, before her.
Rachael laughed. She knew that the old ferry, a famous piece of Northwest history, had been purchased and restored by a member of the Raft, but to see it in person was quite something else. The mass of the great silver ferry dominated the congregation of ships, sitting at their hub like an old church at the center of some rural community. It glistened in the morning sunlight, slick with the earlier light rain.
“The Kalakala!” Rachael said with joy. “There it is!”
“That's Gandalf's junk,” Maggie replied.
“What- Gandalf's boat is the Kalakala?” Rachael felt like a schoolgirl. “We're going to go aboard?”
“You bet,” Maggie smiled. “Sort of our town hall. Gandalf bought it from some dryfoot years ago and restored it. Its car deck is the only place a good number of Rafters can stand shoulder to shoulder.”
“So this Gandalf,” Rachael said playfully. “He's some sort of wizard?”
Maggie chuckled. “Smart ass.”
“No, seriously. What is he? Does he head this Gray Beard council?” Rachael's reporter persona was making an apprentice.
“I guess. Owning the town hall sort of makes you the Mayor by default,” Maggie shrugged.
“Then, he's not elected? Appointed?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“I guess elections would be too structured for the Raft.”
“They would,” Maggie nodded. “Legend has it that the Raft chose the members of the council by measuring the length of beards. Gandalf, with the longest whiskers, was made chairman.”
“That's ridiculous.”
“It's misogynistic bullshit,” Maggie said with venom. “But it served an important purpose.”
“What's that?”
“To look justifiably ridiculous to anyone watching from dryland. It's all unofficial you see, the Raft. It doesn't really exist. It's survived by walking a thin line of plausible deniability with the dryfoot authorities. It doesn't exist, therefore there's never been any need to do anything about it. The second anything aboard the Raft started to look official, like a governing council, the aura of deniabliity would have been broken.”
“So you choose your leaders by the length of their beards?”
“Exactly. Stupid. Juvenile. Sexist. Totally impractical.”
“Just like the Raft,” Rachael smiled.
Maggie returned her grin. “But even without the Gray Beards, Gandalf might still run most everything out here. After all, he started the Exchange, and it's his gold that backs it.”
The word 'gold' caught Rachael's ear. “What? Exchange? Gold?”
“Mmm,” Maggie's grin turned into a sly smirk.
“You're kidding me?”
“Nope. A room full of it somewhere. Aboard the Kalakala.”
“A gray-bearded wizard, sitting on a horde of gold?” Rachael said in disbelief.
“Life is stranger than fiction,” Maggie said.
“At least the Raft is.”