The Gulf Read Online Free PDF Page B

spent their time in the engine room, greasy as any machinist’s mate; some ruled with an iron hand, others left the reins loose. He remembered those he’d served under. Packer. Sundstrom. Leighty. Fish. Some had been masters at the craft of command. Others were disasters. It was far too early to hazard any judgment about Benjamin Shaker.
    There was one thing different about this situation, though. He’d never served under a captain who’d lost a ship. No matter what a board concluded, it was remarkable Shaker had gotten another command. And he’d know that—know that his margin for error, always slim, was now nonexistent.
    There was another question, too. What would it do to a man’s psyche, his mind, his emotions?
    It occurred to Dan then that if Shaker screwed up, he might succeed to command of Van Zandt. An instant later he dismissed the thought, angry at himself. He had his job as exec, and that was to support the skipper. Anything else would be poor leadership, dishonorable, and possibly, nose to nose with the enemy as they were, dangerous as well.
    He decided to hope for the best. Gulping the last of the tea, he grabbed his cap and headed for the bridge.

2
    Stonefield, Vermont
    THE dawn light was like golden wires strung through the Green Mountains. It came through the barn door glittering with dust, painted the age-darkened planks red-gold, glowed yellow off a stainless vat. The air smelled of sweet hay and bitter silage, leather and disinfectant, sour milk and manure. It smelled of cow sweat and man sweat.
    John Gordon leaned on a wooden scraper, ankle-deep in the nitrogenous excreta of forty Improved Holstein milkers. He was a narrow man whose slight stoop and Lincolnesque angularity made him seem taller than he was. His hair was long and spiky, black brushed with gray, and his face was made of knobs and awkward planes like some nineteenth-century invention. He was wearing coveralls, a sleeveless T-shirt, and old knee-high rubber boots. Stout-bodied blueflies whined around him in short, angry half circles.
    Gordon had been up since four. His milking schedule was 5 A.M . and 4 P.M . It took only a few minutes to rinse out each stainless DeLaval milker, attach it, and turn it on. Then on to the next stall, the next fidgety stanchion-hemmed cow, her rump shifting like a fat woman waiting for a bus.
    Now he was almost done. Spread fresh sawdust, hose down the milk house, then it’d be time for breakfast and the paper. He wondered what was happening with the Boston markets. And the town meeting was coming on; he’d entered his name as selectman; it was time he tried for a seat.
    He drew the crisp air slowly through his lungs and looked around the barn. Its tenants were outside now, straggled up along a polywired section of the hill with the imperfect randomness of creatures governed by simple wills and simple loves. Four were heifers yet. One should freshen this month. His eyes lingered on a corner stall. He’d just sold Galatea. Twelve years old and with more heifers to her credit than he could remember. The dealer had come yesterday and he’d stood with his hat in his hand watching the closed truck pull out and away down the hill.
    Now the barn filled with the smell of maple as he scattered and leveled fresh sawdust. He propped the scraper against an oak beam covered arm’s-reach high with carved hearts and gouged initials, pulled a coil of hose off a rack, and went next door. A moment later, water leaped forth in a curved, clear cylinder and broke spattering under the bulk tank and around the sink.
    Cleaning, feeding, milking, breeding: That was how a dairyman spent his day. The first was the most time-consuming. Cows were delicate animals. This almost ritual renewal of the floor, for example; without it, there’d be hoof problems before winter. Mastitis was another plague. There was a flare-up every so often, no matter how careful he was.
    He opened a cupboard and