Always Ready

by Susan Page Davis

  Ten

  In late September, the Milroy plied the waters of Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet, checking salmon, cod, and scallop catches. Aven’s sporadic communication with Caddie kept him eager for the next e-mail or phone call.

  When his ship put in at Seward for half a day, he tried her cell phone but couldn’t get through. Her ship was scheduled to take supplies to scientists doing research in the Walrus Islands State Game Sanctuary in Bristol Bay. But her latest e-mail came through just fine.

  Hey, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you and my Gram said about my pictures and writing. That article for the newspaper got my ambition bubbling, and I’ve gotten guidelines for several magazines by e-mail. I had a chance this morning to get some fantastic shots of walrus in the wild, and now I’m looking for magazines that might be open to a photo essay. There’s one that’s looking for stories about women in unusual jobs, and I thought immediately of your sister, Robyn. Do you suppose she’d let me photograph her sometime? Gotta go! I miss you.

  Aven smiled as he reread the message. He clicked on “REPLY” and typed:

  I think that’s a great idea, but you realize that to photograph Robyn and her dogs, you’d have to be within a thousand miles of her, right? Not that I think you can’t do it. You’ve got the ingenuity to make it happen. Let’s pray for a chance to go to Wasilla together.

  He hesitated for a moment. Taking Caddie home to meet the family would be a huge step. He’d never brought a woman home before. His mother and Robyn—even Grandpa—would assume things were sailing full steam toward permanence. Did he want them to think that?

  In spite of the slightly scary factor, the idea sat well with him, and he clicked “SEND.” Too late to take back the invitation. Now for the prayer. It would be next to impossible to get a long enough leave for both of them at the same time. But then, God specialized in the impossible.

  ❧

  Caddie ducked into the crowded cabin she shared with Operations Specialist Lindsey Rockwell. Bunks, lockers, a shared desk—those took up most of the space. But Caddie was used to tight quarters on a ship.

  She was thankful to have other women aboard, even though Lindsey seemed a bit standoffish. The other two females—who bore the rank designation “seaman” despite their gender—had quarters nearby. Those two talked more than Lindsey, and in Dee Morrison’s case sometimes to the point of annoyance. Because of the nature of her duties, Caddie didn’t spend much time with Dee or her roommate, Vera Hotchkiss.

  Lindsey was stretched on her bunk, the bottom one, which she’d occupied long before Caddie was transferred to the Wintergreen.

  “Hi,” Caddie said. “Whatcha reading?” She smiled and watched Lindsey’s face to gauge her mood.

  “Just a magazine.”

  Her listless voice set Caddie’s internal mood gauge at “bored, a little tired, but not hostile.” Did Lindsey resent her? Caddie had been away from the ship for more than a month. Had Lindsey wished she wouldn’t return and reclaim her space in the cabin?

  Caddie stooped and caught a glimpse of the cover. “That looks interesting. Do they have travel stories?”

  “Travel? I guess so. Why? Are you taking a vacation?”

  Caddie laughed. “No. I’m earning extra money by writing travel stories.”

  “For real?” Lindsey sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bunk. “Is that what you’ve been working on with the laptop?”

  “Yeah. I’m trying to sell articles and pictures.”

  “You take good pictures.”

  “Thanks.” Caddie peeled off her jacket and hung it in her locker. “I heard we may go as far as Nome on our next deployment.”

  Lindsey shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “It’ll be the farthest north I’ve ever been. I’d kind of like to see Nome.”

  “There’s not much there. And it’s kind of late in the season to head toward the Arctic Circle.”

  Lindsey flopped back on her bunk, and Caddie wondered if keeping the conversation going was worth the effort. A sudden idea jogged her, but she cast it aside. “So, do you know what we’re having for supper?” Even to her, it sounded lame.

  “No.”

  The idea wouldn’t go away. Caddie took her hairbrush from her locker and snapped on the clip-on light so she could see what she was doing in the mirror inside the locker door.

  Lord, is this thought from You, or is it a crazy whim of mine? I don’t want to say something just to get Lindsey to talk. It could turn out all wrong, and I’d regret mentioning it.

  She waited but felt nothing. Her hair was disheveled from the wind, and she began coaxing it into place with her brush.

  “Did you get some good pictures when you went out to look at the walrus yesterday?” Lindsey asked.

  “Yeah, I did. I’m hoping to sell some, but I’m not sure where yet.” Caddie inhaled slowly. Her stomach fluttered, but she decided it was now or never. She turned and smiled at her roommate. “You know what I’d really like to photograph?”

  Lindsey looked up from her magazine. “What?”

  “You.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Lindsey lowered the magazine and stared at her. “Why?”

  Caddie smiled. Hooked. Thank You, Lord. Help me to make good on this. “I’ve found a magazine that’s interested in profiles of women in unusual jobs. I’d love to do an article on you. Take some pictures of you on the bridge, maybe a fewon deck. Then, for a change of pace, take some on shore when we get leave. Give the readers an idea of what our life is like. Four of us women, living on a ship with fifty men.”

  Lindsey’s eyes crinkled. “I don’t know. You think they’d buy something like that?”

  “Yes, I do.” Caddie sat down on the stool they used when sitting at the desk. “I thought about asking Dee or Vera, but let’s face it, Dee’s not very photogenic. Vera might be okay, but I think what you do is much more impressive. Not only do you live in a man’s world, you’ve begun to climb the ladder of rank. I think it’d be a great story, Lindsey. And your eyes. . .”“What about my eyes?” Lindsey scowled.

  “They’re gorgeous. I never know whether they’re green or blue.”

  “Me either. It depends on what color the water is that day.”

  Caddie laughed and pointed a commanding finger at her. “See, that’s part of your uniqueness. Any other woman would have said it depended on what color she wore that day.”

  Lindsey shrugged. “We’ve always got the ocean at our backs, or at least it seems that way.”

  “You’re right. And that’s what I want to get across. It’s lonely out here, even though we’re packed in like sardines.”

  The blue-green eyes flickered, and the ghost of a smile trembled on Lindsey’s lips.

  Caddie thought how seldom she’d seen Lindsey smile, and how pretty she was in that moment. “It’d make your momma proud,” she teased.

  At last Lindsey let loose with a genuine laugh. “Do you really think you could sell my story?”

  “I’m not sure. But we could have fun trying.”

  ❧

  “So what do you want. . .thirty days?” Lieutenant Greer asked.

  “No, nothing like that,” Aven said quickly. “A week, maybe?”

  “Well, you’ve got time coming. But if I give it to you this month, you’ll miss a deployment, and it will wind up being more than a week. If we’re not in port when you’ve finished your business, you’ll have to wait until we get back.” Greer sat on the edge of his desk, studying the work schedule. “I might be able to give you ten days, starting two weeks from today.”

  “That’s fine, but I don’t want you to put the paperwork in yet. I need to get my ducks in a row.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, well. . .” Aven felt his face redden. “I need to coordinate with someone else.”

  The skipper tilted his head toward his shoulder. “What aren’t you telling me, Holland?”

  “N
othing you need to know, sir.”

  Greer’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not violating regulations, are you?”“No. Absolutely not.”

  “Good. So what are you doing?”

  Aven gritted his teeth. No way to get out of this. “She’s on another ship.” There. He’d said it.

  Greer stared at him for a moment then laughed. “Is that all? Why so secretive?”

  “I just. . .I didn’t want all the men to know. I’d never hear the end of it.”

  “I see. All right. It’ll be our little secret. Let me know when you want to begin your leave.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Aven left the ward room to the sound of Greer’s laughter.

  He wasn’t at all sure that Caddie could get time off, since she’d just finished a medical leave, but if the timing was right, he might be able to whisk her away for a few days during his ten days off duty. If it didn’t work out, he’d just have to wait awhile.

  He went in search of Mark and found him in the engine room, where the men had a weight bench and a stationary bicycle—the closest they could come to a gym on board. “Mark, I need your opinion on a private matter.” It was a signal they’d worked out between cruises, when Jo-Lynn broke the news that she was pregnant. If Mark wanted Aven to find a quiet spot on the ship and pray with him, he asked for Aven’s “opinion.”

  Now the tables were turned, but Mark picked up the signal, grabbed his towel, and followed Aven into the companionway. “What’s up?”

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt your workout.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Aven looked over his shoulder. So far, so good. A few seconds might be all they got alone. “Would you pray for Caddie and me? I want to take her home to meet my family, but we’d need at least three or four days. That’s if we fly. She’ll make a fuss if I try to pay for plane tickets, but I doubt she can take more time off, since she just had all that medical leave.”

  “Yeah, that could be tough to pull off.”

  At that moment, the ship’s bell rang. Aven checked his watch. “I’ve got to run. I’m taking a detail to inspect another boat this afternoon.”

  “Have fun. I’m off until tonight.”

  Aven hurried up the ladder to the main deck. Just as he came into the open, his radio burbled. “Boatswain’s Mate Holland, please report to the bridge.”

  Seaman Kusiak and another man had come on deck, and Aven called, “I’ll be right with you.” He hurried up to the bridge.

  Greer waited. “The U.S. Marshal’s office just informed us that the fishing boat we impounded in June is being auctioned in Anchorage.”

  “The Molly K?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Aven wondered why this was important to him. Impounded boats were sold at auction, and the money was put toward law enforcement equipment. The crews who made the arrests and impoundments weren’t usually involved in that end of the case. “Is there a problem?”

  “They’re not sure. Seems Captain Andrews placed a bid on his boat.”

  “He’s allowed to do that.”

  “Yes.” Greer frowned and looked down at the printout in his hand. “But Andrews filed for bankruptcy after we took the boat. Now he shows up with a large chunk of cash to bid on it.”

  “And they want to know where he got it.”

  “That’s right.”

  Aven followed his skipper to the big windows that looked out on the sea ahead. His team waited down on the main deck. In the distance, several fishing boats bobbed on the shallow waves.

  “Is the marshal’s office looking into it?”

  “They may hand it to the state police,” Greer said. “I told him we didn’t have any information about Andrews’s income, other than his fishing business, but we’ll share anything we turn up.”

  Aven nodded. “It’s unlikely that we will come across anything. Now, we might run into some of his former crew members in other places.”

  “Yeah.” Greer sighed. “Well, I just wanted to let you know and to tell you to watch your back, Holland. You never know when one of those fishermen who attacked you will show up on another boat you’re inspecting. And they carry grudges, believe me.”

  ❧

  Caddie used her morning free time to photograph Lindsey at work on the bridge. With Captain Raven’s permission, she took her camera to Lindsey’s communications center while the ship sailed steadily toward civilization, on its way to refit buoys within Cook Inlet. She hoped they would get to go ashore in Anchorage, as she’d never seen the city, and perhaps Homer. She wouldn’t have much chance to build her portfolio of wildlife photos, but she’d have breathtaking backdrops for her photos of Lindsey. The inactive volcanoes around Kachemak Bay would be perfect if they did stop at Homer. And while they sailed, with only ocean on every side, she found Lindsey a more accessible subject.

  “I feel silly with you hanging around with that camera,” Lindsey said with a scowl.

  “Just do what you normally do,” Caddie told her. “I’ll snap a few candid pictures while you’re working.”

  “It’s too weird. The guys are all distracted, wondering what we’re up to.”

  Caddie had wondered if the occasional stares the officer of the deck and two other petty officers at work threw their way would rattle her model, but she’d secured the go-ahead from Captain Raven in advance, and she wasn’t going to throw away her chance.

  “Ignore me,” she said. “Ignore those guys, too.”

  She found that Lindsey was most relaxed when she stood back several paces and used her zoom lens to get the close-ups she wanted.

  When Lindsey’s shift was over, they went below to the mess hall and got a cup of coffee.

  Sitting in a corner with her notebook on the knee of her blue uniform pants, Caddie smiled at her roommate. “Let’s talk a little bit about your background. I don’t think you’ve ever told me why you joined the Coast Guard.”

  Lindsey hesitated. “You want the truth?”

  “Of course.” Caddie smiled, but her interviewee wasn’t smiling.

  “I wanted to get away from home.” Lindsey inhaled deeply, not meeting her gaze. “Things weren’t good between me and my folks. I wanted out of there as soon as I graduated.”

  “Wow. That surprises me.” Caddie couldn’t help the mental contrast between her own years of longing to enlist in the branch of service that her father was a part of and Lindsey’s apparently random choice. “Why the Coast Guard, though? Why not the army or the navy?”

  Lindsey shrugged. “Their recruiter came to my school first.”

  Caddie forced herself to look down at her notebook and scribbled a doodle on her paper, pretending to take notes.

  When she glanced up, Lindsey’s nerves again showed in her sober face, and she twisted her mug back and forth in her hands. “I’m not sure I’d want you to print that in a magazine.”

  Caddie leaned toward her and lowered her voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to barge right in on a sensitive topic. And I’d never put something you’re uncomfortable about in the article.”

  Lindsey licked her lips. “Okay. Well, maybe we can talk about something else and come back to that later.”

  “Sure.” Caddie sat back and checked her list of questions. “What do you like best about your job?”

  “Hmm. I have to think about that. I suppose knowing I’ve done a good job. At least in the military, you know when you’re doing okay and when you’re not.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Lindsey sipped her coffee and paused for a moment, looking off into space. “It’s just that before. . .well, at home mostly. . .I never knew if I was going to get yelled at or what. I liked school better, because if I worked hard there and stayed out of trouble, I could do well. For the most part, the teachers were fair. And that’s what I found in the Coast Guard. Basic training was tough, but I knew when I passed each part that I’d succeeded.”

  “You must have done well in your advanced training, too.”

  “P
retty well, I guess.” Lindsey straightened her shoulders. “I was determined to make it. Because I wasn’t going back. I had nothing to go back to.”

  Caddie studied her pinched face. Although sorrow shadowed her heart, Lindsey didn’t want pity; she could see that. “You’ve done a good job.”

  Lindsey’s features relaxed. She closed her eyes for a moment then opened them, still determined but less wary. “Thank you.”

  “It was different for me. I didn’t want to get away from home so much as I wanted to get into the Coast Guard. My father was—”

  “I know. Your father was an illustrious officer.”

  Caddie felt stung. Was this what had caused the underlying animosity she’d felt emanating from Lindsey since she’d transferred to the Wintergreen?

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I wanted to be like him. Now I wonder if my ambition was misdirected.”

  “Oh? He was a good officer. I’ve heard people talk about him.”

  “Yes, but. . .I’m not so sure he was a good father.” Caddie squirmed a bit in her chair.

  Okay, Lord, I’m supposed to be doing the interviewing here. Do You really want me to talk about this?

  “Then why did you want to please him so badly?”

  “That’s just it. I didn’t think that was my motive. At least, I never used to look at it that way, but. . .well, a lot of the time, Dad wasn’t there. He was always off at sea. Mom stayed home with us kids, and she never got bitter about it. She built him up as a hero for us.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “I don’t think we ever really knew Dad for the man he was. Only the man we thought he was. Because we could only snatch time with him here and there. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good person. Only that I didn’t really know. And I think that might be why, as a kid, I fixated on joining the service. To be like him. To have that in common with him. To have something special with him that I’d never had before.”