Fire In The Water

They never found the Sara Lee.

She was 5 days out working the trap lines, just like us when I heard the mayday call over the radio.

I was running the haul, I just stopped and grabbed for the microphone.

There was no answer to my repeated calls.

We dropped everything, I hit the throttles on the Nancy Lee and headed in that direction. Even at full throttle, we were 3 hours away, The Sara Lee was 40 miles South and West of us.

Running into the seas and wind, it took us 4 hours.

I checked the radar. I had been glancing at it every minute or so for hours.

Nothing.

There was a steady chatter on channel 16, we saw one chopper from the base up North swing over us and then head on.

I switched to a side channel and called Mark, the skipper of the Bitsy that was working farther out. They had beaten us to the area, running with the wind.

"Nothing, Dan. Not a goddamned thing!" His voice sounded broken over the speaker.

"All right, thanks, Matt."

"God. I am sorry, Dan."

The radio fell silent.

The seas were only 5 to 7 feet, the wind a steady 20 knots. Still, she rolled up angry and slapped us every few minutes. I had been calling out warnings to my deckhands when we were hauling to give them time to grab a line as the boat heeled over, seas washing the deck.

As calm as it ever got this time of year.

The Sara Lee was our sister ship, named after my Dad's two step-daughters by his first wife, Sara and Nancy. Dad was the Sara Lee's skipper, he had commissioned the two steel hulled 65 footers. The Nancy Lee was assigned to me.

Everyone called Dad "Cap", partly for the ever present wool cap he wore over his bald head, and partly because he was the oldest Captain in our little fleet.

The best Captain, too. Men fought for the right to crew with him, he always found the catch, he always came back with full holds.

He always came back with his men.

Now he was gone, just like that.

The hardest part is the not knowing, but that is the way of the sea.

The next day, we pulled the rest of the pots and ran for home, there was nothing else to do. The Coast Guard spent another day or so looking, but found nothing.

That was enough for me, I sold the boat and gear, opened a shop working on marine engines. I lost all interest in going to sea.

At least that is what I told myself. But I would stand on the docks and watch the fleet head out, that always caused a tug at my heart.

A man is completely free at sea, nothing but the water, wind and sky.

I would shake it off, and go back to my shop, my work.

I did fish the runs into the river, though. The Herring would come in riding the tides, tens of thousands of them. They came in waves, hours of waiting and then sudden mayhem. On moonlit nights we would hear the men yell, "Fire in the Water!" and we would run the nets out and around them with the skiffs.

Then we would hook up to one of the bigger boats and haul, thousands of them at a time flooded the decks.

On dark nights we often fished blind, only the rare flash in the water from the lights on the boat were there to warn us of our prey, so many times we pulled empty.

When we hit the school, it was always a frantic time, but often we would only get one or two good hauls on a night. Sure, we could net in the daytime but the fish went right around the nets, we would do well to recover our fuel costs.

We left the daytime river to the hand jiggers that sold their catch to the bait boats for a dime each.

That is how I met Tara. She was a jigger, one of the few women doing that. It took strong arms to tug the lines over and over all day long, sometimes pulling up a half dozen wiggling 8-10" long fish at a time.

She came into the shop carrying an old outboard. The thing was an antique 9.9 horse, it was so old I didn't know why she bothered. To start it the rope was wrapped around the top and pulled.

I normally wouldn't have bothered either, it should cost more to fix than it was worth.

But one look at Tara and I think I would have done anything she asked.

First, she didn't smell like slightly washed dead fish like the women I knew down at the waterfront bar. Women in our town worked as cutters gutting and cleaning the catch, or as packers in the canneries, shelling Crab. Most of them had fannies the size of a Walrus, several wore rubber boots right into the bars. I saw more than one woman out on the dance floor in those, carrying on to some tune out of the old jukebox.

Once in awhile I would end up with one of the better looking ones, they were all mostly willing. The only ones that were off limits were the wives of the men in the fleet.

None of us would dare touch any of them, it was just the way it was. And we all knew who they were.

Still, more than one of the wives had made it obvious that they would play while their man was off fishing, I just refused to.

I wasn't married, but I was one of those men, even though I didn't go to sea anymore. But there were other men around who would take advantage, we all knew the score and ignored that.

It was just something we would never speak of, not to any of the men who were often out to sea for days on end.

I am sure many of them knew, though.

I had never met Tara, odd for our small village. She never went to the bars or around town much.

Tara had on a sweater that did nothing to hide her full bust, and a pair of stained blue jeans. She wore shoes that were heavy like a man's, functional. Her hair was tied back tightly, black as coal but clean looking.

Not a fancy woman like one might see in a nightclub in the city a hundred miles inland.

Beautiful, no doubt about that. She looked to be 30 or so, and she stood six inches under my 6' height.

For some reason looking at her made my breath catch in my throat.

I checked out her old outboard, I quickly realized it would need a couple of hundred in parts, if I could find them at all. I saw the pained expression on her face when I told her.

"Let me work on what I can figure out." I told her. That $200 could be a week's work for a day jigger.

Then I reached and handed her an old Evinrude I had sitting in the corner. It ran like a top, it would do until I could find parts for hers.

You would have thought I just handed her a Diamond necklace. She took the 80 pound engine and walked out carrying it like it was nothing.

It was about a week later I was over at Sam's scrap yard, looking for some pipe to make a winch frame from. I spotted one of those old outboards laying in the pile, and several pieces of another one.

Sam let me have them, someone had dropped them off for scrap metal. The best one had a hole in the top gas tank, but I didn't need that, I needed a piston and rod. The shafts were all there on both of them, too.

I had Tara's old outboard ticking away like a sewing machine in just one day.

So I went looking for her. It wasn't because I needed to, it was because I wanted to.

George down at the docks loaned me a skiff.

"Goin' fishin'?" He asked me.

"No, I was going to see if I could find Tara."

He grinned at me with a knowing expression.

"That be quite a catch, that one." He smiled.

"I just wanted to tell her her outboard is ready."

"Yup, she be quite a catch!" he repeated, making me blush.

George rented out boats to tourists, and he was a fixture on the docks. He knew everyone and everything. Plus he looked like he had stepped right off a sailing ship from 100 years before with his long white hair and sailor's outfit, which was quite a delight to the families with kids that showed up for a boat ride.

He was missing most of the fingers of his right hand, the result of a line catching them years before at sea while setting crab pots. George always made a point of showing that off to the wide eyed youngsters as he readied the boats for them.

"She starts a little hard." He told me, a bit of an understatement. I finally got the old engine running, headed off upriver, figuring she would be working one of the areas where the scattered fish recollected.

I found her, sitting in a 16' wooden hull, her hands busy with the lines.

"Hi!" I called out as I slid up alongside and shut the engine down.

She looked up at me, surprised at first, then she smiled as she realized who I was.

"Hi, Dan!"

I tied us off, noting the buckets she had onboard were pretty full.

"Good catch, huh?"

"Yes, I have nearly 300 now." she answered, just then lifting two fat Herring on board.

"I got your outboard fixed." I told her, as I pulled a jig line out from under one of the seats and flipped it over the side.

I began to jig, in short order I had one, I tossed it into her bucket and dropped the line down again.

"What did it cost?" she asked, never stopping the constant effort to attract another fish.

"Nothing. I found a spare engine at Sam's and he gave it to me." I hooked a double this time, and flipped those into her boat, too. I missed the bucket with one and it flopped across the floorboards. She reached down and deftly grabbed it, her other arm never stopping the constant motion with the hand line.

"It has to cost something." She said.

"What about your time?"

"Aw, I had nothing else to do." I lied.

She just nodded, we sat quietly and fished for a good hour, each of us landing several more.

Her buckets were full, she had perhaps $40-45 for her day's work. We both knew the bite would stop when the tide changed.

"How about I cook you a nice dinner?" she asked, as she rolled up and stowed her gear.

I wasn't about to turn that down, my own ability with a frying pan leaves a lot to be desired.

"Sure! When?" I asked.

"Tonight. About 7 or so?"

I nodded, happy at the prospect.

She pulled on the rope starter and was off, I pulled on my loaner a dozen times before it finally sputtered to life.

I made a mental note to drop by and see George, and tune this thing up as it labored back down the river to the docks.

I was pretty sure why George had given me this one in the first place, he knew I wouldn't be happy until it ran right.

I scrubbed myself until my skin turned pink, trimmed my hair and beard. I put on my best shirt and pants. I checked my watch every few minutes, rebrushed my teeth a dozen times.

I was acting like a damn schoolkid.

Arriving a half hour ahead of time, I walked around for awhile, finally knocking on her door 10 minutes early.

She answered the door with a big smile, the fine smell of homemade bread baking in the air around her. Her hair was hanging loose over her shoulders, not tied back tightly like I had seen each time before. She wore a soft flowered blouse and a skirt instead of the ever present blue jeans.

I looked around the simple home, photos hung on the walls, furnishings sparse but functional. There was a couple of older matching chairs setting off to the side, newspaper under them. She was obviously working on refinishing them.

She showed me to her living room, and got me a cup of tea. I don't think I had ever drank tea before in my life, it tasted odd but good.

My mind was trying to think of clever conversation, my tongue was so thick I couldn't speak.

"Come on into the kitchen." she told me.

I walked in and took the chair she held for me. She set some fresh hot bread on the table, then pulled a roast out of her oven. Potatos and peas rounded out the meal, it was delicious.

Later I helped her with the dishes and we went and sat on her porch watching the last of the light from the setting sun.

We just sat and watched the colors, the breeze off the ocean was fading as it almost always did, the salty air was crisp and cool.

She told me about having grown up in the city, and how all of the constant hassle of that type of life had just gotten to her.

So she had moved here by the sea. Finding work other than in the canneries was almost impossible, so she had bought the little boat and outboard.

She worked the Herring runs jigging, did some day crabbing and sold to the tourists, even took a few people on guided fishing trips upriver.

I talked a little about my life growing up around the boats. She knew about the Sara Lee going down, giving me a sad look when I mentioned that it was why I ran the shop now.

Finally it was time to go, she gave me a hug and thanked me for repairing her outboard.

The next afternoon Tara dropped by the shop to return my engine and pick up hers. She set it on the wooden stand, I looked at it. It was neat and clean, she had washed it down and ran the fuel out, ready to store.

I helped her load her old outboard I had fixed.

"I was going to go down to the beach tomorrow, I can make a basket. Would you like to come? She asked me.

"Sure!" I nodded.

Tara seemed to like me, I knew I sure liked her.

Tara and I "dated" if it could be called that for several months. Somewhere in there I guess I was supposed to make my move, but Tara wasn't like the women I knew from down at the bars. I had no real idea if she wanted to take things further or not, so stupidly, I waited.

Sometimes we just took her skiff up the river and fished in silence, sometimes we walked the beach, or had a picnic in the wayside park overlooking the ocean.

In all that time we never even kissed, once she took my hand as we sat on her porch. The sum total of our romantic involvement. I began to think of asking her to marry me, I even practiced what to say. But the words just wouldn't come when she was around.

I thought about her constantly, and every chance I got I would drop by to see her. She never made any moves or hints, I didn't either. But she always seemed pleased to see me.

Then it was time for the annual Herring runs, I called Tony, a man I used for a deckhand. Tony had worked my boat for a long time. I could count on him, he always showed up sober and ready. He had long blonde hair, arms like trash cans, if something needed moved he just reached out and moved it.

Years of working on the boats tends to build strong men.

He was ready to go, so I called Don, my other sometimes deckhand.

He was laid up with a broken leg.

I didn't know who to call, then it hit me.

Tara.

She was tickled at the idea.

I went down to the docks and got my 30 foot day fisher ready to go, the big diesel engine fired up with little effort.

Old George was way ahead of me, he had the nets stored on deck before I even got there.

Tara showed up first, we tied her skiff on alongside. George nodded to her, gave me a big grin and wandered off to putter with his fleet of skiffs. Tony arrived a few minutes later.

I introduced them, Tony gave me a sidelong glance since women on a fishing boat were pretty much unheard of back then.

But we weren't going to sea so I didn't think that would matter.

Soon we in the harbor, circling with the other boats. All the same direction because of less chance of a collision.

The best description is a total madhouse, somehow everyone manages though.

Tara was standing on the deck, her back to the bright 3/4 moon, watching the dark water.

Then I heard her voice call out.

"Fire in the water!" That sounded strange, a woman's voice. But she knew exactly what to do. She was quickly in the skiff and running the nets out and then back to close it. Tony hooked the line as she slid by, turning and hanging it from the winch as I hit the lever starting the haul.

Tony was always handy on the deck. He was young, perhaps 25 or so but had been fishing since he was 10. Of Norwegian blood, his long blonde hair flashed in the moonlight as he guided the gear on board. Soon Tara was sliding the slippery Herring into the hold and flipping the bay perch back over as Tony worked by her side.

I noticed she glanced up at him several times.

But mostly I kept my attention on the other boats as they pulled into position, hoping for the flash of fish. If none showed, they pulled by and dropped around with the tide and the next boat pulled into the drift.

We all knew not to waste time on a drift if we could avoid it, empty hauls cost everyone time and money.

The fish always came in surges, there were only a half dozen good drift areas and 30 boats waiting to swing into place. So it was easy to be pulling an empty haul and have a surge go by no one could set on.

By the change of the tide we made 3 good hauls, we headed back to the docks with heavy holds.

I did notice Tara and Tony in a deep discussion as I dealt with the unloading crew and got us paid. It was a good night, over $400 for each of them.

A few days later I was riding my little scooter up the hill to Tara's house, I stopped when I spotted Tony's old truck parked in front.

Curious, I drove by the next morning, the truck was still there. Saddened, I just went on to my shop and went to work. A day or so later I saw the two of them walking towards the waterfront.

I guessed that Tara had made her choice, Tony was young and strong, a good looking guy who always had a way with the ladies.

I had always been tonguetied, even the few times I would take one of the gals who worked the canneries out. Most of them knew the score and were willing, it didn't take a lot of effort to get one to agree to some bedroom fun.

With Tara, I was waiting for her to say something, offer some sign. I guess she was waiting for me, and got tired of waiting.

It was a couple of weeks later when Tara stopped in.

"Hi, Dan. I haven't seen you in awhile, How is everything?

"Fine. Just working."

I had a Chrysler Grey marine on my engine stand, I was just finishing it up. I tried not to meet her gaze as I snugged up the last bolts.

"Are you still seeing Tony?" That got out of me before I could stop it.

"Tony? Oh. Yes, sometimes." She seemed hesitant.

She even blushed a little.

"I noticed his truck outside...all night."

She blushed again, her eyes downcast.

"Tony wants to buy a boat. He wants me to be with him on it."

"Oh." I knew what that meant, I turned away to hide the sudden dampness in my eyes as I thought of why I had sold my own.

"I was wondering what you thought?"

"Me? Hell, if Tony wants to buy a boat and go fishing, he is all grown up."

"If you want to go with him, that is your decision." I think my tone was probably a little bit short.

"Oh...I...I just thought since you know..I wanted to know if.."

"I don't know what I thought." She turned and hurried out.

I stood there for a moment, thinking of going after her, then I turned back to the engine I was working on.

"Ya stupid ass!" I heard the voice from the side doorway.

I looked over, old George stood there. He never was one for pulling any punches.

"What?"

"Ya just let the woman walk out, ya just stood there."

"She is with Tony." I protested.

"Naw, she ain't."

"But he is..she and Tony..."

"That don't hurt her none, what ya expect? She will wait forever?"

I just looked at him.

"It's like fishing, set the hook!" He grinned at me.

I still stood there.

"Git! I will lock up."

"But...What do I say?"

"Just grab her. Worst she can do is belt you one." He grinned, showing a mouth full of snaggly teeth.

"Dumb ass kids!" He muttered as I turned and headed out the door.

Tara was several blocks up the hill, I ran after her.

"Tara!" I called out as I got close enough for her to hear.

I didn't have a clue what I was going to say.

She stopped and turned, looking at me with a puzzled expression.

"Tara, I...." I managed as I got close.

A smile crossed her face.

I held out my arms, she slid into them.

"Oh, my God." she whispered as our lips met.

"I want you...for me." I told her.

"I want you, too!" Her eyes were wet.

"What do we tell Tony?" I asked.

"Tony will understand."

"Oh. But what about his wanting you to go with him?"