Lily and the Octopus(56)

The man tosses the rope and it lands with a thud at my feet. I grab the end and pull us together, tying the lariat to a large cleat on the deck with a poor man’s imitation of a sailor’s knot, keeping us as close to the yacht as the side trawl will allow.

“Some storm.” The man looks drier and more put together than I must, but he is weathered and scraggly, too. He’s bald, with a round head, his skin almost bluish from the cold. Judging by our distance from shore, he has been at sea awhile.

“She was a rager,” I say. And then, almost as an afterthought, “You think that was the worst of it?” I brace myself for the answer. If it’s not, I don’t know what will become of us.

The man smiles. A dog’s bark pierces the wind and I look back at Lily, but she shivers in silence. A golden retriever emerges from the yacht’s cabin, tail wagging. “Lost your engines, eh? Why don’t you come aboard. We’ll have what the whalers used to call a gam.”

I remember gams from reading Moby-Dick. When two ships would meet at sea, they would drop anchor and whaleboats would ferry the crews of each to the other ship to exchange gossip and news. I look toward Lily. She seems unnerved, and I wonder why. It’s not like her to be so still in the presence of another dog.

“Sounds good to me. May I bring my first mate?” I indicate Lily.

“Goldie here insists.” The man pats his dog on the head, and I lift Lily and hold her close so that she feels safe. I grab the last bottle of scotch from the deckhouse, thinking it rude to come aboard empty-handed. There’s only a swig or two left, but it will more than do.

The seas are instantly calmer aboard the sturdier boat. The yacht is named Owe Too, and is newer than Fishful Thinking. The cabin is warm and inviting, and while not overwhelmingly large, it seems absolutely palatial when compared to our deckhouse. The man pulls some towels out of a closet and tosses them to me. I undo Lily from her life preserver and gently rub her dry. She noses up to Goldie while I dry myself. Goldie sniffs her hindquarters in return and Lily relaxes in the dryness of Owe Too’s shelter. The overwhelming relief of seeing another person, and another dog, brings the feeling of tears to my eyes even though none appear. I’m too dehydrated and too shocked to actually cry.

“Goldie, why don’t you take your friend to your special place in the hull.” The man whistles and snaps and Goldie motions to Lily to follow, and they disappear through a small door together. “Wasted space under there, so I hollowed it out for Goldie. The enclosed nature gives her a safe place in the vast expanse of sea. I thought us captains could speak while I fix us something to eat.”

I raise what’s left of the scotch as an offering. The man smiles and pushes two glasses toward me.

He heats a stew for us, and chicken and rice for the dogs. Lily is going to be ecstatic. As he works I tell him our story. I tell him about the octopus’s arrival, the vet’s diagnosis, and all we’ve been through—the octopus’s sudden disappearance, chartering Fishful Thinking, the details of our hunt. He listens intently, interrupting only twice to ask me to clarify a point. When I finish we are both quiet for a moment.

“Do you think you’ll be able to kill this octopus?”

I answer truthfully. “I think I will enjoy it.”

My response hangs awkwardly in the air.

“You know, yacht derives from the Dutch word jacht. Translated literally it means the hunt.”

I nod as if this isn’t new information, but it is. Even after three weeks at sea, my knowledge of boating is limited. The man serves us two bowls of hot stew and it is, in this moment, the best thing I have ever tasted. Salted fish and tomatoes and parsnips and other root vegetables. He puts the chicken and rice in two bowls on the floor and whistles for the dogs, who come running.

CHICKEN! AND! RICE! LOOK! I! GOT! CHICKEN! AND! RICE!

For Lily, it’s Christmas morning. She is just as excited as I am. Her initial hesitance to come aboard has now fully abated. She wastes no time marveling to Goldie about how chicken and rice is her favorite, choosing to show her instead by sticking her whole face in the bowl of warm mush.

“This far out at sea. No one else around. Would it be correct to say, then, that you are on a hunt of your own?” I ask.

The man hesitates before saying, “Perhaps.”

“And what are you hunting, if you don’t mind me asking?” The man looks at me as if perhaps I’ve overstepped my bounds, and I look back at him without blinking. The silence becomes too much. “If we’re just talking. Captain to captain.”

“We’re just talking,” he confirms, before answering. “What is anyone hunting for? Peace. Solace. Meaning.” Then, after a pause, “Spoils.”

“Spoils?” The word strikes me as odd. Like the spoils of war?

The man shrugs.

We eat our stew and the Owe Too rises and falls over a big wave and we both brace ourselves against the table, afraid that the squall has turned back in our direction. After a moment of relative stillness, it seems the wave was an aberration.

“You know, I may have seen your octopus,” the man says.

I drop my fork and the tines strike my bowl with a clang. “You have?”

“Not three days ago. Goldie and I were enjoying the sunset when off the starboard side there was a slick reflection that sparkled differently off the water than the last of the sun. I looked more closely and I swear I could see an eye watching us. The eye blinked once before Goldie caught a whiff of him and started barking. The thing swam closer, eyeing Goldie, and I grabbed her collar and held her close. The whole experience was over in a matter of seconds, but it was unnerving. As it approached our ship it sank beneath the surface and I never saw it come up again.”