Killing Grounds Read Online Free PDF Page A

still, and there was something in her eyes that brought Kate to a standstill. "Auntie?" she whispered, without knowing why she was whispering. "Auntie, what's wrong?" A bumper caught between two hulls squeaked in protest and Kate turned to see the drifter captain vault the Freyas gunnel in one smooth, easy motion. It wasn't anything she hadn't seen skippers and deckhands do fifty times already that day, but he made it look natural, even graceful, like Mutt taking a fallen tree in one easy stride on a run through the Park. He made no move to come closer, but somehow he seemed to fill up the deck with his presence. Again Kate looked toward the bow. Mutt was sitting up now, looking at her, waiting for a signal.
    The man nodded. "Joyce."
    Auntie Joy, her face stiff, nodded. "Mr. Neamy."
    He grinned. His mouth was wide and overfilled with large white teeth. "Meany. But I told you to call me Cal." His voice was a deep, soft purr of sound.
    He stripped the gloves from his hands and tossed them back to his boat. The boy made catching them into an act of personal survival, which it probably was. Cal Meany watched without expression as the boy snatched the gloves from the air with one hand, lost his balance and went down hard on one knee to avoid going into the water. "Wash the hold and the deck down," his skipper said, and turned back to Kate, allowing his eyes to drop to her breasts. "Who are you?"
    "The deck boss," she said shortly. "Sam!"
    A grizzled head poked out the door. "Yeah?"
    "Got another ticket to write."
    "Call 'em off."
    She called off the numbers and he took them down. "Well, come on in then, Mr."
    "Meany," the man said. "Calvin Meany."
    "And don't forget your goddam permit card like the last three assholes pretending to be fishermen who came on board," Old Sam growled.
    Meany walked aft to the galley door, reaching in his back pocket for his wallet. Auntie Joy was standing in front of the door. He paused, looking down at her. "Have you given any more thought to my proposition, Joyce? We could make a lot of money together, you and me."
    Auntie Joy stepped to one side without answering. He shrugged. "Think it over. It's the right thing to do, for both of us." He opened the door and stepped inside.
    Kate looked from the closed door to her aunt. "What was all that about?"
    Auntie Joy looked at her and through her. "Nothing."
    "Nothing? What do you mean, nothing? What's that guy talking about, the two of you making money together? How did you meet him? What does he want?"
    "Nothing," Auntie Joy said again, her voice as stony as her face. She turned as if to go back in the galley, hesitated and then walked around Kate to climb up into the bow. Mutt watched her go by, and then padded after her, sitting down to lean her shoulder against Auntie Joy's knee. A worn, gnarled hand came down to rest on the dog's head.
    Kate looked from them to the drifter. The boy was hauling buckets of water up over the side and splashing them over the deck of the drifter. He raised his head to find Kate watching him. His mouth set in a thin line. "What are you looking at?"
    The Joanna C. pulled up to the Freyas starboard side and Kate was spared the necessity of a reply.
    The fishing period was over at six sharp that evening. They took their last delivery at seven-thirty, the rest of the boats hauling their last loads into Cordova themselves. The Freya's galley menu offered up deep-fried beer-batter halibut cheeks at ten o'clock that night. The heart of the great fish was still beating on the railing, a dull red, humping lump of flesh in the slanting rays of the sun, single-minded, single-purposed, inexorable, as the four old women clambered down into their dory and set off for the mouth of Amartuq Creek.
    They weighed anchor and were in Cordova by one a.m. Kate and Sam donned boots and rain gear to climb into the hold with three members of the cannery's beach gang, there to fill the brailer lowered by boom from the cannery dock. One brailer at a