Ghost Sea: A Novel (Dugger/Nello Series) Read Online Free PDF

them to a private collector; that was not.”
    “What does this have to do with me?”
    “The potlatchers were tried and sent to jail,” Hopkins went on with a forced calm. “Thirty-two of them. Last week they feigned a riot and in the commotion two of them vanished.”
    “Maybe they got eaten.”
    “Captain Dugger!” he snapped. “They escaped, then killed a man! Left his head in a bowl.”
    I don’t remember what it was I had tried drunkenly to say, but whatever it was, it made Hopkins’s fist hit the table so hard the mugs jumped, and he roared, “Dammit, Dugger! I can ship you back to Frisco and have you hanged!”
     
     
    M Y NERVES HAD had it; my ears were ringing and I made out only phrases drifting in the cabin. “An important artifacts collector…family of insurers…broke into his yacht…took back masks…killed a crew….” Hopkins talked on but it was all choked by the fog until a cold draft of it shot down the hatchway and my head cleared and his voice came back. “They stole a canoe and headed up coast. We’d like you to find them.”
    I must have looked pretty strange, because he asked, “Did you hear me?”
    “Can’t you go find them yourselves?”
    “ Our hands are tied, Dugger. They took a hostage. The collector’s wife. He made us promise not to jeopardize her life.” Then he leaned close to me and said slowly, with as much accusation as I ever care to hear, “Katherine Hay; I believe you know her.”
    I think my breathing stopped. It must have, because I passed out. When I looked up, Hopkins was gone; only his card and a stuffed envelope rested on the table. I thought I heard his footsteps die off in the fog. I had a slug of rum. A long one. It did the job. I lay down on the berth, and in the codling warmth drifted off into painkilling sleep. And dreamt of Katherine Hay.

    4
     
O BSESSION
     

     
    T he Indians live in an atmosphere of the supernatural; not only are the forests tenanted by mythological animals, but the birds, the animals and the fish, all are capable of assuming supernatural form.
    —T. F. M C I LWRAITH , Anthropologist (1922)
     
    W henever I drink I drink the pain of your love, mistress. Whenever I get sleepy I dream of my love, my mistress. Whenever I lie on my back in the house, I lie on the pain on your love, mistress.
For whenever I walk about I step on the pain of your love, mistress.
    —Kwakiutl love song, transcribed by Franz Boas
     

    I ’m not some dreamer who believes a woman to be his sole salvation. Women have come and gone in my life, some leaving an emptiness, others just the door open behind them, and I lived through them all and mostly kept my footing. But for some inexplicable reason—and I had been around, I was past thirty then—the first time I saw Katherine Hay on a street, in a crowd with the July sun on her auburn hair, eyes aglow, her steps so full of life, I was shaken. I ran after her and almost under a tram; what I would say when I caught her never crossed my mind.
    She stopped on a corner, waiting out the traffic, and I landed beside her, out of breath. She glanced up surprised and I stared into her eyes, before forcing my gaze away, whistling weakly at a cab down the street. A shrill whistle ripped the air behind me. I turned. She stood there, smiling, fingers at her lips—I was a goner.
    I sound like a schoolboy smitten at first sight, but when in this sorry world a face still passionate, still bursting with life appeared, believe me, it kindled something close to hunger, like a desperation. If a shooting star hurtled toward you from the heavens, would you turn away? Would you not throw open your arms—reason, fear, and tomorrow be damned? I didn’t see her for a while after that. Looked for her, asked for her. For who? A frail woman, dressed too well for my empty pockets, with auburn hair and a deafening whistle. I found her practically at the ends of the earth.
    I was hauling a coil of anchor rope, pouring sweat in the