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

space. The bateau, motionless on the still water, seemed suspended in a perfect element, suspended in silent time.
    Byron opened another oyster for Clay, then one for himself. “I think about that afternoon, for instance, when you and me went fishing. When we were kids. That time in that rickety goddamn rowboat.” He paused and reached into his jacket for his cigarettes. “And we hit into them stripers off Castle Haven.”
    Clay leaned back against the cabin and stretched his legs down the rail. He watched the water, still as death.
    â€œCaught a boatful. Before that diddly engine quit. They bit off all our tackle and you wouldn’t stop. Remember? You tore up your shirt and put a piece on the hook and caught that one.”
    Byron flicked a white-tipped wooden match against the gunnel and it flared. He lit a cigarette, taking a long, deep drag, and exhaled slowly. “The sunset over the churning water turned it all red, and I thought it was blood everywhere and got scared.”
    â€œWell, we weren’t more than ten.”
    â€œGod. Remember how we got blowed out in the channel and then couldn’t make any headway and then dark coming on and with no lights?”
    He leaned and spat a piece of tobacco over the side. “And how we saw this figure comin’ at us, above the mist, like Jesus on the water, from out of the dusk? I was glad to see your pappy and then this here boat under him, I’ll say that. And then I thought he was gonna kill us. But he surprised me.”
    â€œHe was full of those.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œSurprises.”
    Byron dragged on his cigarette. “You were hotter than he was.”
    â€œI lost track of my way. On the water.”
    â€œWell, what’d you just say? We weren’t more’n ten.”
    Clay smiled. “Still.”
    â€œHow about that time before? Might’ve been that same spring. When Pappy first let you take the rowboat. And we went chicken-neckin’ in the creek.” Byron chuckled to himself. “Remember? Neither of us had shoes on, and one small bushel basket, overflowin’. Crabs everywhere. The whole bottom of the boat full of ’em tryin’ to pinch us. So we jumped over and swam to shore and had to go lookin’ for some shoes.” Byron pulled on his smoke. “He saw the boat out there floatin’ and thought we’d both drowned. Shit.”
    Clay studied his friend, there doing as he had over the past two weeks or so, trying to make him feel better about Pappy. He reached his elbows back to stretch his shoulders. From high overhead came a clamor, and he looked up and watched the contours of two migrating flocks of Canada geese converge, blending into a single focus northward.
    Byron changed subjects. “That Matty is a piece of work, ain’t he?”
    Clay didn’t respond.
    â€œSome guys are just born with it, I guess.” He shook his head.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œYou know. Looks. Money. Chicks.”
    â€œThink so, huh?”
    â€œYeah.”
    Clay sniffed at a stir of breeze and watched a cat’s-paw scuttle across the coppery surface. “There’s a price everyone pays for what they have.”
    â€œYou suppose?”
    â€œMatty’s got a generous side. The way he took me in right off. He and Kate. I told you. But he’s kind of adrift, a little bit. Got no need to be otherwise, maybe.”
    â€œWhat’s his family got? Like a city block they own in Richmond?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œWhere did he go to high school again?”
    â€œNear Charlottesville. Woodbury-Forest. He boarded from like tenth grade. Didn’t like it, though.”
    Another pocket of rolling breeze lazily rippled the water, quiet like the rustling of a skirt. Both young men paused to listen and feel the imperceptible motion of the boat.
    â€œThat Kate’s a looker,” Byron