Free Spartina by John D. Casey Page B

the low rail. Dick put a line around her and made the other end fast.
    By the time he got a bucket of water and sloshed it across the window, got a life jacket under Elsie’s head, and found her a Dramamine, the sun was too low to look anymore.
    He turned in. Parker got him up at midnight. Dick woke Schuyler up, asked him how he felt. Schuyler said “Fine.” Dick got him on deck to help bait the pots. Parker took a sounding and a fix. Dick put the first line of pots over. By 2:00 a.m. they’d set the pots and headed back. Schuyler and Parker turned in, and Dick took the wheel.
    Dick could just make out Elsie, curled up on her side. The boat was rolling some, but not so bad. The moon came down off the starboard bow, made a long sheen across the easy swell. The light was always there, glistening, fading, glistening, no matter how fast it seemed to be racing past.
    Dick thought of how
his
boat would feel, deeper and steadier. He thought of how she would sound, the engine lower, the creak of the timbers less abrupt than this set of nervous hummings and clanks.
    He kept coming back to Elsie. He should have thought to get some of those new anti-seasick tapes. The Fishermen’s Co-op had them—you stuck one behind your ear, instant sea-legs.
    He saw her stir. Sit up. Discover the line on her belt. Rummage through her bag. She pulled on a sweater, stretched her arms. He could tell she felt better. She pulled her hands back through her hair and sank down again all in one motion, graceful as a passing wave. Her hand appeared and fumbled for the edge of her yellow slicker, found it, and pulled it over her shoulders.
    He looked down at the compass and got back on course. There was a good reason for leaving women onshore. Being at sea opened you up. And if you wanted to do things right, you had to use all that opening up for what you were doing, for where you were, for what was going to happen.
    Dick notched the engine up. He’d been lucky not to miss the skilley. He felt certain they’d see a fish tomorrow. He thought he should probably get Schuyler up to take the wheel the last hour before light, get himself a nap for an hour or so. He’d better use the wood shaft if the fish wasn’t too deep. He’d been lucky.
    After Schuyler took the wheel, Dick went forward and knelt beside Elsie. Watched her until she opened her eyes.
    “You okay?”
    She rubbed her hand across her eyes and cheek.
    She said, “I feel stiff.”
    He brought a folded blanket and shifted her onto it.
    She said, “I feel like such a jerk.”
    He said, “No. It happens. You’ll feel good when you wake up.” He tucked another slicker around her knees.
    She said, “You’re a good daddy,” and laughed.
    It annoyed him. “Officer Buttrick,” he said, “Law-and-Order Buttrick. You looked about as green as your uniform.”
    She stared back at him and grinned.
    Dick was surprised. Damn, he thought, she likes that stuff.
    Maybe that was what it was about rich kids—everything was quick little laughs, everyone amused by who gets to who. Dick said, “I guess you’re your old self again.”
    He went below, turned in, and thought of nothing but swordfish, 200, 250 pounds, swimming to meet
Mamzelle.

E ven with six hours of the spotter’ plane, they came up empty.
    They headed out beyond the swordfish grounds and hauled the pots just after sunset. Schuyler filmed by the floodlight on the wheelhouse. He said to Dick, “I thought fishing was the second most dangerous job in America.” Dick kept an eye on the line coiling onto the winch, moved aside as a pot came into view. Schuyler called out, “Can’t you work a little closer to the bull?” Parker laughed and said cheerfully to Schuyler, “You can be a real asshole.”
    They got a few okay lobster, a poor-to-fair haul of red crab. Dick guessed the whole haul wouldn’t bring much more than three hundred dollars. They hadn’t put out enough pots. The tender could have carried more,
Mamzelle
could have