The Waterman: A Novel of the Chesapeake Bay Read Online Free PDF Page A

his friend.
    Byron shook his head. “I was worried you were leanin’ that way.” His tone was unsympathetic.
    â€œRefurbish the bateau. Now that she’s mine. She’s solid enough. Good for potting. If the summer works, then I might try to oyster this winter. Maybe even take out some fishing parties.”
    It was Tuesday. Clay’s father had kept a spare set of oyster tongs in the garage in Oxford, and Clay and Byron had taken them out and tied them to Byron’s pickup and driven down to the workboat. Off Cook Point there was a bar Clay had fished with his father, and he and Byron had ridden out to it on flat water. The late afternoon sky was clear, and way south they could see the twin white rotundas of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant on the far shore of the Bay. Anchoring in about twelve feet of water, Byron had worked the tongs for a while. The rakes brought up dozens of mud-caked oysters. Then Clay had taken a turn. Standing on the rail, he worked the long wooden stiltlike tongs down to the river bottom. The muscles in his shoulders and arms had gotten soft atcollege and then sore over the days of dragging, and he had felt them strain as he worked the rakes through the mud of the oyster bed. He filled the rest of the bushel, though. Using a canvas bucket on a line, they had washed the oysters down and then cleaned the rakes. A range of purple cloud stretched across the western sky.
    â€œI thought you had brains, man,” Byron said. Byron had brought his navy corpsman’s knife, clipped to his belt. He pulled it out and flipped open an oyster, severing the muscle that attached it to the shell, and offered it to Clay. It sat fat and floating on its juices. Clay took it and tasted it with the tip of his tongue. Then he sucked the oyster down.
    Byron waited.
    â€œFresh enough.”
    â€œSalty?”
    â€œNot bad.”
    Byron opened one for himself. “Good for the pecker,” he mumbled, drinking it down. “Could use some horseradish.”
    â€œI think I can make it work,” Clay continued. “With a good season I could build a second boat. I’d like to start on that. Eventually maybe I could try to buy back the wholesale operation.”
    â€œBig thinkin’.”
    â€œIt’s been done before. Look at Pappy. It’s called horizontal monopoly. I’ve studied it.”
    â€œTimes change. The life’s gotten harder. Just go down to Tilghman and listen to the oystermen for a while. Better yet, just look at ’em.”
    â€œI’ve seen them. Plenty.”
    Byron gestured with his arms, opening them wide toward the open water. “Bay ain’t what she used to be.”
    â€œThe Bay needs managing. Needs people on her who understand that.”
    â€œMay not be enough left to manage. Or time left.”
    After a while Byron wiped the blade of his knife across his pantsleg. He turned it, watching it flash the fading light, then sheathed it. It was one of the few things he had brought back from Vietnam. “Bones of the deep,” Byron muttered. “To all the bones in hell . . .” Raising his beer, he crumpled the empty can in his fist and threw it into the oyster bushel. “Could use some good dope right now.”
    Clay sat on the rail, quiet, sensing the turn in Byron’s mood. “You think about it too much, don’t you?” Clay said after a while.
    Byron hesitated. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Nope. Not at all. I don’t think about it at all.” He paused. It was not something he had been able or willing to speak about. “It’s just there, though,” he continued, “like something stuck in my gut. Attached. But I try not to notice it. In fact, I think mostly about trying to think about other things.”
    Both of them listened for a moment to the silence. The sun started to dip below the horizon, and spires of violet fire radiated up into the round of darkening