Speak to the Earth Read Online Free Page B

had adopted her and Bryan and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
    “Eggs, Walter?” Jimmy asked, pushing the bowl in Walter’s direction without waiting for a reply.
    “Don’t want to put you to no trouble.”
    “No trouble, old friend,” Iris said.
    The ritual now performed, Walter silently ate. Over second cups of coffee, as Jimmy filled the kitchen with cigarette smoke, Walter commented, “Got some tourists on board today.”
    In his late fifties, Walter had spent most of his life on the sea or in the bush, so that the skin on his craggy face and calloused hands was leathery and dark. He was tall, heavy and arthritic and, as Iris once said not unkindly, he moved in slow motion. Walter owned an old fishing boat, and when necessity caught him by the throat or when a spirit moved him, he would put to sea. Sometimes he would hire out as a water taxi, when people could find him; sometimes he trapped crabs until he had enough money for a while, then quit until it ran out; and sometimes, when the whales were migrating — in March and October especially — he’d take tourists out to see them.
    “That’s good,” Iris said. “Nice day for it. Looking forwhales, are they?”
    “Yep. Got six people this time.”
    Walter was a man with a profound belief in silence. It was not unusual for him to come into the house, sit down with Iris and watch TV for an hour, then say “Gotta be goin’” and shuffle out the door, those three words having been the sum total of his oral communication. Nor did he take a head-on run at a topic when he did have something to say.
    A few minutes and several sips of coffee later he added, “Lotta work, six people.”
    “Sounds like you could use a little help today,” Jimmy suggested, looking at Bryan, who sometimes helped Walter out when his arthritis stiffened his fingers so much it made handling and baiting the crab traps difficult.
    Bryan took the hint. “I wouldn’t mind going along, if you’ve got the room. I’ve never seen whales close up.”
    Walter nodded to no one in particular. “Always got room for my best crabber.”
    “Do you have room for two?”
    Jimmy rolled his eyes and said to his sister, “Ain’t romance wonderful?”
    “Mind your own beeswax,” Bryan said when Iris giggled.
    “Pretty big boat,” Walter said.
    Bryan figured he was probably the only person in Nootka Harbour who had not, at some time of his or her life,taken a trip out into the deep blue waters of the sound to see the greys, humpbacks or orcas. On the interest scale, whales ranked up there with watching paint dry or taking a walk to White’s General Store to try on gloves. Twice a year tourists flooded into town from across Canada, the U.S. and even from Europe, to study the leviathans migrating north or south.
    Now, here he was, blinking in the late-morning sun as he helped Walter get his weather-beaten but well-cared-for boat ready for just such a trip, looking forward to a day on the water with Ellen. As the customers — three middle-aged German couples decked out in new parkas and matching watch caps and hiking boots — climbed on board, Ellen swooped onto the dock on her mountain bike, dismounted, and locked it to the lamp post. Bryan introduced her to Walter, who grunted a greeting and fired up the diesel.
    “Friendly,” Ellen commented.
    “You have to get used to him.”
    “I guess.”
    Walter piloted the boat up Gray’s Passage and into the channel between Vickers and Flower Pot islands. Mount Vickers rose high above the rainforest, one side shadowed, the other lit up by the sun. Off the northernmost point of Flower Pot, an osprey floated high above the waves, scribing serene and watchful circles. Abruptly it pulled in its wings and dropped like a spear to the surf, sending up a puff of spray and, a few seconds later, beating its wings hard as it struggled into the airwith a fish flopping in its talons.
    The tourists stood at the rail in the bow, chattering and