Spartina Read Online Free PDF Page A

Wormsley told him he wasn’t good at taking advice, let alone taking orders. When Dick crewed on fishing boats, the various captains and shipmates had been glad to see the last of him. When he worked in the boatyard, even though the yard owner let him do his work his own way at his own pace, Dick drove boat owners up the wall. There was a pretty strong tradition at most New England boatyards of rich boat owners’ putting up with blunt talk from grumpy workmen. The New England bankers and lawyers who owned boats didn’t expect well-mannered servants—they even liked being roughed up a little by an old salt when they handled their boats badly, or came in to get a dumb mistake fixed. “Of course you broke your mast. There was whitecaps on the
pond
, and you tried to take her to Block Island.” Dick’s mistake was adding a little barb. Like “You’re a real piss-to-windward sailor.”
    The yard owner let him go, but still called him in for a job now and again. And when someone asked at the yard to have a beetlecat built of wood, he referred him to Dick.
    The beetlecat was a beauty. Cost four thousand dollars. Dick’s profit was less than a thousand, and the pay rate finally came to less than three dollars an hour, including driving around for the right wood and fittings. You could buy an okay used beetlecat for a quarter of that. A new plastic knockabout for only a little more.
    He built a couple of skiffs to sell, and then the one for himself. A smaller one for the boys. Thought he would just see if a man with a good skiff could make do. The answer was yes. Barely. But the
yes
gave him less and less satisfaction as the seasons went by. Then, three years ago, he started his big boat. He saw the plans in the
National Fisherman
and fell for her. That was the main part of it—he just fell in love. Later on he felt other motives, felt the jump this would give him. No one expecting it, he’d pop her into GreatSalt Pond at high water and chug past the rest of the fleet to the town wharf. The harbormaster would ask him if the owner was a resident. “You can’t tie up here unless the owner’s a resident. You know that, Dick.” Dick wouldn’t answer. Just stroll back and look at the lettering across the stern, as though he was checking where the boat was from. Dick wasn’t sure of the name—maybe
May
, maybe
Spartina
—but underneath it would say “Galilee, R.I.” The harbormaster would come back and look. Dick would show the papers. “Owner: Richard D. Pierce.”
    The harbormaster would say “Jesus! Jesus, Dick.” The town-wharf crowd would see something was up then. They’d all come over, even Captain Texeira. They’d all say, “Jesus, Dick.” Maybe Captain Texeira wouldn’t say “Jesus,” but he’d damn well think it.
    “Where’d you get her?”
    “She’s not the one the yard’s been building …?”
    They’d figure it out. One of them would pretend to just be strolling the length of her along the dockside, but he’d be counting the paces. He wouldn’t be able to keep it to himself. “Fifty-four feet!”
    Dick might say something then. He might say, “Near enough.” The harbormaster would have seen it written down. He’d say “Fifty-four feet, eight inches.” He was always setting people straight.
    Dick had a couple of other scenes he couldn’t help playing in his imagination no matter how he tried not to. Miss Perry, Captain Texeira, and the harbormaster were recurring characters. So was Joxer Goode. Joxer Goode with a sweet contract. “Dick, I need you and your boat. Here’s the deal.…”
    Joxer briefing the skippers of the red-crab fleet, pointing out likely spots near the edge of the continental shelf.
    “And by the way, men, the
Spartina
was this month’s bonus winner. Some of you sixty-footers better stay out longer.”
    Dick took a bite of the bottom with his tongs. He could feel thegood crunch of sand. He was working in about eight feet of water, not far in from the gut.