Chapter 25 - NAVIGATION

Dunk's overladen skiff was wallowing in the deep chop between Rogue's back door and Sawyer's Point. "This old flatiron can sure carry a load," he was thinking, "but she's leaky as an old basket." Dunk had goosed her up onto the step in Bunker's Hole, but as she opened out the exposed passage the pounding had opened her seams, and now he was running at half throttle and scooping water overside with the cut-off bleach jug he used for a bailer. The 16-footer was lumbering through the waves as a displacement hull, and her hard chines made for a rough ride. Walker was decidedly green, clinging to the bow gunwales, staring off into the white nothingness.

Caldwell, perched on the center thwart, had the local chart spread on his knees. He juggled a notebook, watch, pencil, and compass. "You don't need a compass?" he asked Dunk.

"Nope."

Caldwell let the silence run on. "Got to outwait a Mainer," he mused. But this kid seemed especially reticent. "Probably not had much experience with outsiders," Caldwell judged. "Doesn't look all that bright, either."

"How do you know where you're going?" Caldwell finally asked.

"Wind and tide," Dunk said. Caldwell look into the fog. It was blowing straight on their bow, and they were motoring through a fleet of lobster buoys which were all cocked at 90 degrees to the wind and seas, their spindles all pointing right. There must be a strong tidal current across the wind.

"You ever get lost?" Caldwell continued to try and draw Dunk out.

"Yeh." Dunk wondered why he was being so standoffish. It wasn't just the yachtsmen's patrician manner, although that was offensive enough, or the other one's remark about the women. There was something here he didn't understand, and he was resorting to his old mask of ignorant invisibility.

"Y'all know Sumner Dow?" Walker drawled from the bow. Dunk looked startled for a second, and his body stiffened, then he relaxed into his laconic mask. Caldwell saw Dunk's reaction, and smiled. "So Sum IS around here."

"Yeh," Dunk said, taking his time to answer.

"We're old friends of his," Caldwell said. "Went to school with him. You know how we might get in touch with him?"

Dunk saw something in the fog and he turned the skiff so it was taking the wind and sea on its starboard quarter now. Caldwell quickly looked at his watch and compass, wrote down a note, and stared at the chart. The buoys alongside had changed their angular relation to the wind, the wind itself seemed a bit lighter. Through the fog the tops of ledges and small islands appeared faintly. Caldwell concluded they had crossed the open passage, and were now navigating the outcrops off Sawyer's Point. Confirming this, a lighted red bell buoy appeared off to port, and they could just hear its tolling over the laboring outboard. Caldwell found the buoy on his chart.

"Pretty good," he remarked to Dunk. The young man shrugged.

"Well?" Walker asked. "Y'all know how we maght fine are ol fren Sumnah?"

"Lives over east," Dunk said, jutting his goatee toward the shore.

"No street address?" Caldwell encouraged.

"Ain't any," Dunk persisted. He'd been watching the cowboy out of the side of his eye, wondering what was wrong with his shoulder. Now he saw the outline of a gunbutt against the line of his jacket, and his mouth tightened. "I bet this has to do with that barrel," Dunk thought.

"I suppose he's in the phone book?" Caldwell went on. Dunk shrugged. They were running past a green daymark atop an iron shaft set into a ledge. Two seals humped themselves down the rocks and splashed into the water. Caldwell checked his chart.

"I see there's a cove along here, are there docks there?" Caldwell asked.

"Yeh."

"But it's not the main harbor?"

"Nope."

"And where are you headed?"

"By the bridge."

"Y'all think we maght fine a boat to rent thyah?" Walker probed. Dunk shrugged. The conversation lapsed, which was just fine by Dunk. If these men meant trouble for Sumner and Mrs. Dow, he wasn't about to help them. Now they were running close along the Smithport shore of the reach and the old sardine factories loomed up in the mist.

"Sumnah a fisherman?" Walker asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeh."

"His own boat?" Caldwell asked.

Dunk shook his head. "Shareman." They were now motoring among moored boats. He pointed his chin at the pier clarifying out of the fog ahead. "I kin drop yuh theyah," he said.

Dunk steered the skiff up alongside the Co-op float and reversed to a halt, put the Merc in neutral, and let it idle. The two yachtsmen clambered aboard the float. There were fishermen standing around on the wharf and kids playing on the gravelly shingle, a lobsterboat was offloading crates of lobsters at the end of the wharf. All eyes gave the newcomers a quick onceover, then pretended not to notice the cowboy and the gent.

"Thank you for your help," Caldwell said. "Little as it was," he thought. "There a phone handy?"

"End of the building," Dunk nodded his head and glanced that way. He reached down and engaged the Merc, then throttled up and motored out under the bridge and alongshore to Wild Bill's winkle car.

"Wonder if I should call Mrs. Dow," Dunk thought. He didn't know Sumner much at all, although they'd shaken wrinks together a few times. What would he say if Sumner answered the phone? He'd be sticking his nose in someone else's business, wouldn't he? But if that WAS a gun the cowboy had, he wouldn't want anything to happen to Mrs. Dow. Dunk decided he'd cull his wrinks first, and decide what to do later.

Wild Bill was sorting wrinks on the car with another picker. "What you paying today?" Dunk asked.

"10 -15 -20." Wild Bill said, a Marleboro dangling from his lips.

"Acourse," Dunk said ironically, "just as soon as I've got a big catch."