Catch of the Day (Gideon's Cove #1)(64)
“Sure, boss,” he says. “You deserve it.”
Now while seven isn’t early if you work in a diner, it’s downright late if you’re a lobsterman. Most of the boats are already out, including the Twin Menace. Malone’s Ugly Anne sits bobbing on its mooring as the tide rushes in. He’s waiting for me by his dinghy.
“So are we going lobstering?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says, handing me into the little boat.
The smell of herring, the bait lobstermen use for their traps, is musty and thick, but it’s a smell I’ve dealt with most of my life. Still, I breathe through my mouth until we get to the Ugly Anne, the waves slapping against the hull of the dinghy, spraying me occasionally. “Charming name,” I comment as we approach the boat. Malone’s face creases into a smile. “Who’s Anne?”
“My grandmother,” he says.
“And does she know that you’ve immortalized her this way?”
“Ayuh.” He smiles but offers nothing more, climbing aboard and reaching out his hand to me. “Have a seat,” he says.
A lobster boat is all about work, nothing about comfort. There are no chairs, just an area in the middle where you can sit if you’re so inclined, which the lobstermen aren’t and therefore don’t. The pilot house is crammed with equipmenta couple of radios, the GPS equipment, radar. There are barrels for bait and a holding tank for the lobsters. If Malone was going out to check pots, there’d be ten or twelve extra traps stacked on deck and miles of line coiled and waiting, but each night, the lobstermen unload at the dock, and the deck is clear and empty right now. I sit on the gunwale, not wanting to get in the way.
Malone does his preflight check, as it were, and then starts her up and releases the Ugly Anne from her mooring. The wind is brisk as we head out to sea. Malone steers us past Douglas Point, dodging Cuthman’s Shoal. Colorful buoys illustrate the water, so thick you could walk home, as Billy Bottoms would say, and we work our way as if navigating a maze. It takes us about twenty minutes to hit clear water, and even then the Maine coast is loaded with abrupt shoals, tiny islands, currents and tidal dangers. Once we’re out a bit, Malone sets the wheel and glances over at me.
“Are we going to check your traps?” I guess, pulling the hood of my coat on.
“No.”
“Where are we going, then?”
He adjusts the controls, then looks over to where I sit on the gunwale, insecure enough that I’m clenching a handhold. “It’s a surprise,” he says, unscrewing a thermos lid. “Want some coffee?”
He pours me a cupblackbut I don’t complain (or mention the fact that I just knew he took his coffee black). Then he turns his attention ahead, and I tilt my head back and watch the seagulls and cormorants that follow us, hoping for some bait. Colonel would have loved this, I think. The smells, the fish…maybe he’d roll around in something foul, a pastime he loved above all others.
The sound of the motor is soothing, and the damp breeze is tinged with salt and the slight smell of fish. The sun flirts with the idea of putting in an appearance, then reconsiders, and strands of fog still hug the rocky, pine-dotted shoreline.
I sip my coffee and study the captain, who seems different out here. He’s at ease, I realize, something I’ve rarely seen in Malone. He checks the instrument panel occasionally, makes adjustments to throttle, steers steadily and with confidence. Because the door of the pilot house is open, the wind ruffles his hair and jacket. “You doing okay?” he asks.
“Sure,” I answer.
Malone points out a group of puffins, the fat little black-and-white birds toddling on the shore of a small island. I ask him a few questions about the boat, but otherwise we don’t talk much. It’s actually kind of nice, being quiet. The dark head of a seal pops up about ten yards off the port side. It watches us for a moment, the silky brown fur gleaming, then slips noiselessly beneath the surface. My hair blows around my face until Malone offers me an elastic, one of the thousands he has to slip over the strong claws of the lobsters. The motor is loud and strong, but not strong enough to drown out the cries of the gulls that follow us, or the slapping of the waves as we cross a wake or current.
After an hour or so, we once again encounter a sea of offshore buoys. Malone slows down, navigating carefully through them, and heads to a wooden dock where about a dozen other boats are tied.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Linden Harbor.” He doesn’t look at me.
“And what are we doing here?”
He shrugs, looking a little sheepish. “Well, there’s a thing here. A lumberjack competition. Thought you might like to see it.” He secures a line and steps onto the dock, then reaches a hand back for me.
“A lumberjack competition?” I ask, hopping off the boat.
“Ayuh. You know, tree cutting, axe throwing, the like. There’s a little fair, too. Games, craft tent, that sort of thing. Good food, too.”
Is he blushing? He turns for the gangplank before I can tell for sure.
“Malone,” I call.
“Yeah?”
“This sounds suspiciously like a date, you know.” I smile as I say it. “Sounds like you actually planned this.”
His eyes narrow at me, but he’s smiling. “You want me to win you one of those ugly carny toys or not?”