The Rattled Bones(32)

“Oh. Right. Of course.” Sam leans over the edge of the boat and suspends the lobster above the surface. The dawn sky is still too dark to see her descent, but I’ve seen enough lobsters returned to the sea to know that she dives skillfully, reunited with a world she can understand. I pretend I don’t hear him say, “So long, little lobstery.”

I try to hide my smile. “Six more.” Sam watches as I measure the remaining bugs, all legal length. We band their claws and place them in the cooler that circulates fresh seawater. “Now we rebait the trap.” I pull the small bag of netting from the trap’s kitchen and hand it to him.

He looks around the boat. “What do I fill it with?”

I kick at a five-gallon bucket. “Throw in a scoop of bait and hang it in the front of the trap. Then we set it back with its buoy and do it all over again.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

Sam pops the plastic lid off the bait bucket, and the whiff of rotten fish pushes him back so hard he falls on his ass. I extend a hand, which he takes.

“Always gotta watch your step.”

“Good God, woman. What is in there?”

“Chum.”

“Chum actually sounds a thousand times better than the way that smells.”

“Chum is dead, chopped-up fish.”

“That would be a precisely accurate description for the aroma emanating from this tub.” He scoops the fish and aims it toward the bait bag, but a wave heaves us and the chum slams into his thigh, blood and fish bits dripping down his leg.

“Chum is also one of the many reasons we don’t wear shorts when fishing.”

Bloody fish parts slither down his overalls. “That is a brilliant rule.” He nods. “No shorts. Never shorts.” He takes another scoop, fills the bag. “I might never wear shorts again.”

“Maaaaybe a bit extreme,” I say as I show him how to hang the bait bag within the trap’s kitchen. “Okay. Now just close and latch the door and you’re all set.”

He hoists the empty cage to the side of the boat. “Do I just throw it back?”

“Make sure the buoy line is free first.”

“So it doesn’t snag my foot?”

“You’re a fast learner.”

“You’re a good teacher.” He steps outside the coil of rope and drops the pot overboard. The line runs to follow the trap, slithering out over the boat’s edge. Then, finally, it snaps the buoy over the edge. The painted buoy bobs at the water’s surface, waiting. “Can I ask you something?”

I write the coordinates of the trap into my logbook. It would be easier, faster maybe, to set them into the GPS system. But Dad was old-school, so I am too. “About fishing?”

“Yes.”

“Ask away.”

“How do you know if a lobster is female?”

I put down the pencil, turn to him. “It’s illegal to harvest egg-bearing females. That’s why you check their bellies. If you see eggs, you need to notch their tail with a V and throw them back. Sometimes you won’t see eggs, just the notched tail. It means she’s a breeder. We throw them back to help sustain the lobster population.”

“But that one’s tail wasn’t notched.”

“Nope.”

“And she didn’t have eggs?”

“She didn’t.” I head toward the next buoy in our string.

“But you called the lobster a her. Why?”

I know the reason, but I’ve never told anyone, not even Dad. Sam sees me hesitate.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

And maybe that’s why I tell him. Because I don’t have to. Because he gives me the space in which to make my choice about what I share and what I don’t. “I’ve been fishing for lobster all my life.”

“I kinda got that.”

“I was taught at a really young age that lobsters take care of us out here. They feed us. Nurture our stomachs and our economy. I guess that always seemed like a maternal thing to me. As if lobsters were like really good mothers and grandmothers. Taking care of their own, taking care of others.”

“Damn.”

I pull my eyes from my water course. “What?”

Sam rights the grapple hook so it stands next to him like a staff. “You sound more like a poet than a fisherman.”

I like the way he gives my words back to me. I return his gift with a smile.

At the final string, my buoys are entangled. I see the blue-and-white markings of the crowding buoys long before I reach the string. Old Man Benner’s colors.

I take the gaff hook and pull the last string to untangle my line from his. My anger grows with every second lost to this task.

“Does this happen a lot?” Sam asks.

“Buoy lines can get tangled in the currents, but this is a whole line.” Three traps in a row. “Old Man Benner set over my traps.”

“On purpose?”

“Yep. It’s a way for fishermen to send a message.” Benner wants me gone. And he’s telling me that he’s willing to crowd me out.

“What kind of message?”

“That this particular fisherman is an asshole.”? I pull Benner’s pot, a complete violation under any circumstances. I open the hatch, take the keepers.