Chapter 23 - HITCHING

Marianne heard Dunk's skiff motoring toward her campsite, and she put the big skillet on the fire, then poured a little oil in it. She'd sliced the end of the loaf of bread, and now she set four pieces on the back of the grill, near the half full coffee pot. Now she could see the skiff just emerging from the mist.

"How do you like your eggs?" she called out as Dunk cut engine and rode up between the weed-covered boulders.

"Sunnyside," he answered, "if you can on a day like this." Dunk carried the end of his long painter up to the high tide mark and set a stone on it. He'd been thinking on how nice it had been last night, regardless of the ache, and he found he was much more comfortable with Mary after working the tide.

"How'd you do?" she asked.

"Finest kind," he replied. "You bring me luck."

"Then you better keep me," she quipped, too quickly, and they both reddened a bit.

"So much for staying calm," Dunk thought.

Marianne busied herself with the cooking. "Gaah. I really am rushing this," she thought. "You going in to sell your winkles?" she asked aloud.

"Yeh. Price'll probly be down again," he shrugged. He heard his words and realized that tides work turned his tongue back to Maineish. "I'm probly too rough for her, anyhow," he thought.

"Will you come back today?" she asked, trying not to look at him.

He stood silently until she looked up and met his eyes. "What would YOU like, Mary," he asked.

Now she was still, too, and they stared into each other. "O god.. what's the right answer?" she pleaded to herself.

"I want you very much.. I mean to come back.. oh Dunk, you've got me all fuddled." She babbled. "Look, I'm burning the eggs."

But the eggs were OK. In fact they tasted better than any eggs he'd ever eaten, even if there was some wood ash mixed in. They ate in silence. Then cleaned up the utensils together, neither daring to speak or look at the other.

"I'll come right back," Dunk finally said. "Unless you want to come with me?"

"Should I ask him about going to Lizzie's," she wondered. "Wait.. step at a time, " she decided.

"No, thanks Dunk. I'd like to get caught up here. I was thinking of going in to see the races tomorrow. Do they still have them in the fog?"

Dunk chuckled. "Rain or shine," he said. "Makes for interesting watching."

Marianne smiled, "What do people do in the fog?"

"Tell lies, drink beer, light firecrackers, listen to the CB, act foolish," Dunk reported. "Same as usual, only everyone gets wet." They both laughed.

"Can I go with you, Dunk?" she asked.

"It won't improve your reputation," he observed dryly. Muk had probably spread tales all over already, when Dunk didn't come back to town last night.

"If it's so bad, maybe I need you to protect me," she teased.

Dunk smiled. "Sir Dunk, at your service," he bowed. "I'd best go now, or I'll be all day sortin wrinks," he said, getting to his feet. Marianne walked down to the boat with him, taking his hand over the most slippery spots. He got the same jolt as before.

"Don't get lost," she twitted him, as he poled out of the shallows.

"No moren usual," he promised, lowering the leg and yanking the pullcord. The Merc started right up, he waved, and quickly disappeared into the fog. Marianne stood at the water's edge with her arms pressed tight against her breasts and listened to the fading sound of his outboard. Her hair was dripping in the streaming wet.

Dunk followed the outer edge of the ledges headed west, staying just outside the innermost lobsterbuoys. The dark loom of the trees receded as he ran out into Bunker Hole, and he could feel a bit of a swell coming in the side door, when the rapid blaring of a horn came out of the fog to his left. There it was again. Dunk throttled down, and pointed the skiff toward the sound.

"AHOY, over there," a voice came out of the white wall before him. Then he began to faintly see the lines of a big yacht. Soon he could see three men in the cockpit, one of them wearing a cowboy hat. He could read the name on the stern now. BALI, Small Point.

"That's what I heard last night," Dunk thought. He motored up alongside and idled down until he was just matching the current.

"Are you headed to Smithport," the man in khaki shorts and polo shirt was asking.

"Yeh," Dunk replied. "If the sharks don't get me."

"They bad round here?" the man chaffered.

"Wicked," Dunk replied, "but I hear they prefer yachtsmen."

"We wondered if you could give us a ride in," Caldwell asked.

"We would pay you, of course," Cyr put in.

"Not smart, Cyr," Caldwell thought. "Bit rough for our dingy," he said to Dunk.

"Yuh could follah me in the sailbut," Dunk offered, wondering why he bothered. Yachtsmen were generally a pain in the ass. Getting tangled in trap gear with their spade rudders. Pulling traps when they felt like it. Being oh so friendly, but looking down their snoots. But hospitality to strangers was the way of the coast, at least way downeast.

"We hoped to leave the boat here," Caldwell explained.

"How'd yuh get back?" Dunk asked. He sure didn't want to be a hired taxi.

Caldwell waited.

"Thought we might rent a boat," Cyr put in.

"Jesus, Cyr," thought Caldwell. "You really haven't a clue about Mainers." Cyr must have finally read Caldwell's body language, because he started to speak again, then shut up.

"Dunno," Dunk said. "No rennal outfits to Smithport." He heard his dialect thicken. "That's how you keep'em at arm's length," he realized.

"We'd appreciate it, if we could ride in with you," Caldwell was reduced to a direct request for a favor. A shot to the solar plexus, downeast, but one which left you with no respect at all.

Dunk looked at the bags of wrinks in his bilge, calculating. "I could freight one ah yuh, f'showah. Two mebbe, but it might get wet," he said.

"No problem," Caldwell replied, relieved. "This cowboy's a wetback anyhow," he said jerking his thumb at Walker. Walker just stared hard at the back of Caldwell's head, without smiling.

Cyr shivered. "Thin ice, Hackie," he thought, "very thin ice."

"Me an da skeepair, den," Walker announced. "So he fine da way home."

"I'll mind the fort, gents," Cyr agreed. Caldwell put on a pair of topsiders and grabbed his foul weather jacket. Walker went below, and came back up wearing his denim jacket with the pearl buttons buttoned all the way up. Cyr noticed his left shoulder was hiked up a bit, and could see that Walker had contrived to stick the big revolver into the armhole of the jacket. He raised his eyebrows at Walker, who just grinned.

Dunk motored up until the two hulls touched, and held the skiff there against the current with his motor. Caldwell leaped aboard amidships, then leaned over and held a stanchion while Walker gingerly clambered down into the bow. Dunk's skiff, already down to her marks, settled deeper in the water.

"Gonna have to keep her up on the plane, if I can," Dunk thought.

"OK?" Caldwell asked, Dunk nodded, and Caldwell shoved off from BALI, as Dunk revved up the motor.

"Don't take all the women," Cyr called after them.