Obsidian Read Online Free PDF Page A

it was nothing a good night’s rest and some fresh salt air couldn’t cure.
    The gritty, whining crank of an engine pulled him from his thoughts.
    He had something to do and he’d better get it over. He knew from his own personal experience that the woman at the wharf was right. People in these small Maine towns were not always open to newcomers. They tended to guard their privacy closely. And nothing could change the fact that he was an outsider.
    Swinging his leg over the motorcycle, Jamie made his way down the narrow, pebble path to the wharf, his boot-clad feet sliding against the small pebbles.
    The weathered planking of the dock was piled high with gear, leaving only a small pathway to pass through. As he approached the Crosstide, the sound of the engine grinding filled the air.
    “Hello, anyone here?” No one was on deck.
    A muffled curse preceded the sound of movements below deck. A man made his way out of the boat housing, wiping his greasy hands on a rag as he looked cautiously at Jamie.
    “Can I help ya'?” He asked. The man was a mammoth with broad shoulders and rough hands the size of dinner plates.
    Jamie straightened up some as he pushed his sunglasses back to the top of his head. The man scowled at him.
    Jamie reached out a hand in greeting and put on his most winning smile. “The name is Jamie Rivard.”
    “Yeah.” The man looked down at Jamie’s hand and back up again as he continued to wipe his hands on the rag. Jamie dropped his hand, stuffing it into his pocket. He was a school kid squirming in the chair in the principal’s office.
    “Are you the owner?” Jamie motioned toward the Crosstide.
    The man shook his head. “One of ’em.”
    Having made it this far, he pushed on.
    “The lady at the store told me that you might be able to tell me where I could get a job on a boat.”
    He stopped wiping his hands and looked at Jamie again, sizing him up.
    “Shelby sent you here?” He shook his head, dismissing him. “You don’t look like you could do the job.” It wasn’t a question, more a statement of fact.
    Jamie hadn’t been this uncomfortable since the nuns at St. Catherine’s had hauled him before the Mother Superior for smoking in the bathroom. He cleared his throat and tried standing a little straighter. He had no choice. He had to convince him he was capable of the work.
    “I’ve got experience working on a boat.”
    “What kind of experience would that be?” The older man grabbed at the large, blue bait barrel at his side and began half-rolling, half-dragging it to the back of the boat.
    “I worked on a shrimp trawler off Louisiana.”
    “Louisiana, huh?”
    Jamie nodded.
    “Never been there. Besides,” He looked Jamie in the eye this time as he shook his head. “Not quite the same up here. You wouldn’t like it much.”
    Their conversation, much as it was, had ended as soon as it had begun. The man grabbed a hose and start spraying down the deck. Jamie was in a spot. He needed this job if he were going to have a cover.
    “Look, you need someone to help out and I’m looking for a job. It seems like a good fit to me.”
    The fisherman just shrugged and looked over at Jamie again and then back at the job at hand. He couldn’t help wondering what it took to impress a man like him.
    “I’ve already got a teenager, who goes out with me on the off days. But he’s got himself a job in town at one of those fast food joints. I’m looking for someone to go out with me a few times a week. I fish a hundred or so traps and I only go out about four days a week. I leave early most of the time and I’m back in the afternoon. You’d have to be getting up pretty early to work with me.”
    “Not a problem.” Jamie said.
    The man ignored him, shrugging his shoulders as though he was already counting Jamie out. “I imagine you’re looking for full-time money. I can’t pay that so you won’t be wanting this work.”
    Finished with the deck, he wound the hose in a circle on the