Dana Stabenow - Dead in the Water

"Yes, it will be very difficult."

Kate thought of the two young faces that had haunted her days on the Avilda. Victims or dealers? This time, both. She couldn't find it in her to condemn them too harshly. Wrong boat, wrong crew, wrong time. The money had come to them so quickly, more money than they'd ever seen for a day's work, a week's, a month's.

A season later and they were forty thousand to the good, but it wasn't easy money. Kate thought of the night of ice again and shivered. No, not easy. At least when you were dealing you were dry and warm and didn't miss any meals. It must have looked like a cakewalk by comparison.

"So," Jack was saying, "Harry cooked up that story about going ashore for water and getting lost in the storm to cover what really happened."

The waiter came by with a coffeepot and they waited until he refilled their cups. "And why not'? Who was there to say otherwise? Ned and Seth were in his pocket, the guys on the plane were in partnership with him, God knows the Aleutians have taken more than their share of human life. He didn't even have to fear the Avilda being taken away from him, what with his advantageous-and convenient-marriage." Jack inclined his head. "Sorry again, sir."

"Why?" Nordensen said, this time with a touch of weary resignation. 1 should never have let my daughter marry him. I knew it was wrong, I knew he was wrong."

He shrugged. "But she had been a widow for so long, and she said she loved him, and I loved her too much to say no."

Silence grew around the table, until Jack, appalled, said slowly, "You didn't tell me it was your daughter he married, Mr. Nordensen."

The old man smiled a bleak, wintry smile. "And advertise my own stupidity?" He rose to his feet, Andy and Jack rising with him. He reached for Kate's hand and with Old World charm bowed over it, brushing the back of it lightly with his lips. "Again, Kate, my thanks. With great initiative, and at tremendous personal risk you have found out the truth, brought the criminals to account for their actions and restored the Avilda to our fleet. Alaska Ventures will never be able to repay what it owes you."

His eyes twinkled. "But we will try. Your check will be ready to be picked up tomorrow."

Kate, caught by surprise with her mouth full of baked potato, gulped and said indistinctly, "Thank you, sir."

He released her hand and said to Andy, "I'm spending the next week here in Dutch Harbor until my crew flies up from Freetown. I'll be bunking in the captain's cabin.

You will keep your own berth, please. I will expect to see you at breakfast tomorrow, when we will talk."

Andy stammered out his thanks and they all watched the tall, erect old man walk out of the restaurant.

Kate looked down at her clean plate and heaved a sigh for all good things past. Catching sight of the clock on the wall, she pushed back her chair and rose to her feet.

"It's time, guys."

They followed her out of the restaurant and into the truck Jack had commandeered from some poor cannery schmuck who didn't know any better. They drove to Unalaska and parked near the white frame building, perched within sight and sound of the lap of the waves and crowned with onion domes. A crowd was gathering before the church, and they climbed out and joined it.

Kate saw villagers and fishermen and cannery workers, skippers and deckhands, processors and packers, standing shoulder to shoulder in clusters around the little church.

Japanese stood next to Koreans, Koreans next to Chinese, Chinese next to Americans, Americans next to Aleuts.

They were all men and women of the sea, all there for the same reason, to propitiate whatever the gods might be for a good catch and a safe journey home.

The Russians were there, too, unsurprising since Kate had seen the Ekaterina in the harbor that morning.

"Kate!" Anatoly shouldered his way through the crowd and swept her up into an exuberant embrace, kissing her smackingly on both cheeks and taking a longer and less smacking time over her mouth. Next to them Jack stood up a little straighter.

Anatoly let her go and said anxiously, "Kate? All right are you, yes? Things hear I in Dutch, not good for you."

"I'm fine, but, Anatoly, you're speaking English!"

He beamed and produced a decrepit, leather-bound Russian-English dictionary with half the pages falling out that must have been published when the promishlyniki first came to Alaska. "Study 1, yes?

Speak I good?"

This last was said with such anxiety that Kate didn't have the heart to disillusion him. "Of course you do. You speak very well."

He beamed again and might have swept her up into another exuberant embrace if Jack hadn't cleared his throat in a manner that needed no translation. With reluctance Anatoly let Kate go.

An old, old man in a long, elaborately embroidered robe appeared on the steps of the church. He had a grizzled beard that reached almost to his knees, enormous, bushy eyebrows that cast deep shadows over his eyes, and a dignified, authoritative presence that immediately stilled the whispers and rustling of the congregation.

"I had no idea so many Aleuts were Russian Orthodox,"

Jack whispered.

"It was the only sensible thing to do," Kate whispered back. "When the first priests came to Alaska, every Aleut who agreed to be baptised in the Russian Orthodox faith was exempted from three years worth of taxes."

Jack turned his laugh into a cough as the patriarch began to speak. They celebrated mass there, out in the open, partly because there wasn't room for them all in the church, but Kate thought mostly so that they could be closer to the sea, so He would make no mistake about what they were asking His blessing for.

The Russian Orthodox patriarch was very specific. He asked God to make the fishermen wise and strong. He asked that their boats be sound and seaworthy. He asked that the sea be fruitful. He reminded Him that the opilio and king crab seasons were about to open, and asked His blessing on the catch. He mentioned the weather only in passing, as if aware that even the power of God went only so far.

The bell in the steeple began to ring. One for each fisherman dead in the past season. Kate counted forty-one.

Forty-one fishermen lost to the Cradle of the Winds since last year's Blessing of the Sea. It would have been forty, but for Harry Gault. She searched herself for guilt, and found none. He would have killed her without compunction, and Andy, too. The memory of the inside of that steel cage, of the rapid descent into a cold, green grave, was all too vivid. Deliberately she shook it off. Harry was dead but she was alive. Andy was alive. She raised her head to draw cool fog and salt air deep into her lungs, and expelled it on a long, slow, almost voluptuous sigh. Jack squeezed her hand and she smiled without looking at him.

The last peal died away and they stood in silence.

The fog drifted offshore, muting the coming and going of boats, the noise of the processing plants across Iliuliuk Bay, the inevitable stutter of the taxi vans passing back and forth. Andy, rapt and reverent throughout the service, gave a long, deep sigh. "Did you ever hear of Deva Lokka?" he asked her in a low, dreamy voice.

She shook her head.

"She's the Hindu goddess of death. She waits at the bottom of the sea for sailors who drown."

Kate looked blank. "Deva Lokka," he prompted. "Get it? Deva Lokka. Davy Jones's locker."

The patriarch raised his hand in the sign of the cross, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. As the mass ended Kate felt a touch on her arm and turned to see Olga, a scarf tied over her head and Sasha at her side. "Hello, auntie."

"Hello, Kate," Olga replied. They moved out of the crowd, and stood side by side looking out at the water.

"Didn't I tell you? When the killer whales come."