Snow Falling on Cedars Read Online Free Page A

‘Let’s get his net in, Art.’
    ‘Suppose we better,’ sighed Art. ‘All right. We’d better do it, then. But we’ll do it one step at a time.’
    ‘He’s got a power takeoff back there,’ Abel Martinson pointed out. ‘You figure he hasn’t run for maybe six hours. And all these lights been drawing off the battery. Better choke it up good, Art.’
    Art nodded and then turned the key beside the ship’s wheel. The solenoid kicked in immediately; the engine stuttered once and then began to idle roughly, rattling frantically beneath the floorboards. Art slowly backed the choke off.
    ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Like that?’
    ‘Guess I was wrong,’ said Abel Martinson. ‘She sounds real good and strong.’
    They went out again, Art leading. The Susan Marie had veered off nearly perpendicular to the chop and angled, briefly, to starboard. With the thrust of the engine she’d begun to bobble a little, and Art, treading across the aft deck, stumbled forward and grabbed at a stanchion, scraping his palm at the heel of the thumb, while Abel Martinson looked on. He rose again, steadied himself with a foot on the starboard gunnel, and looked out across the water.
    The morning light had broadened, gained greater depth, and lay in a clean sheet across the bay, giving it a silver tincture. Nota boat was in sight except a single canoe traveling parallel to a tree-wreathed shoreline, children in life jackets at the flashing paddles a quarter mile off. They’re innocent, thought Art.
    ‘It’s good she’s come about,’ he said to his deputy. ‘Well need time to get this net in.’
    ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ answered Abel.
    For a moment it occurred to Art to explain certain matters to his deputy. Abel Martinson was twenty-four, the son of an Anacortes brick mason. He had never seen a man brought up in a net before, as Art had, twice. It happened now and then to fishermen – they caught a hand or a sleeve in their net webbing and went over even in calm weather. It was a part of things, part of the fabric of the place, and as sheriff he knew this well. He knew what bringing up the net really meant, and he knew Abel Martinson didn’t.
    Now he put his foot on top of the beaver paddle and looked across at Abel. ‘Get over there with the lead line,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll bring her up real slow. You may need to pick some, so be ready.’
    Abel Martinson nodded.
    Art brought the weight of his foot down. The net shuddered for a moment as the slack went out of it, and then the reel wound it in against the weight of the sea. Surging, and then lowering a note, the engine confronted its work. The two men stood at either end of the gunnel roller, Art with one shoe on the beaver paddle and Abel Martinson staring at the net webbing as it traveled slowly toward the drum. Ten yards out, the float line fell away and hobbled in a seam of white water along the surface of the bay. They were still moving up the tide about north by northwest, but the breeze from the south had shifted just enough to bring them gently to port.
    They had picked two dozen salmon from the net, three stray sticks, two dogfish, a long convoluted coil of kelp, and a number of ensnarled jellyfish when Carl Heine’s face showed. For a brief moment Art understood Carl’s face as the sort of illusion men are prone to at sea – or hoped it was this, rather, with a fleetingdesperation – but then as the net reeled in Carl’s bearded throat appeared too and the face completed itself. There was Carl’s face turned up toward the sunlight and the water from Carl’s hair dripped in silver strings to the sea; and now clearly it was Carl’s face, his mouth open – Carl’s face – and Art pressed harder against the beaver paddle. Up came Carl, hanging by the left buckle of his rubber bib overalls from the gill net he’d made his living picking, his T-shirt, bubbles of seawater coursing under it, pasted to his chest and shoulders. He hung heavily with his legs in