Salvage. Stephen Maher
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old wooden Cape Islander and crouched behind the wheelhouse and peeked up through the window and watched the canoeist paddle up the bay. Scarnum couldn’t see the man’s face, but he could see that he was wearing dark clothes, and he could see that he knew how to paddle a canoe.
The man steered the canoe on the far side of the Kelly Lynn and then behind the boat. Scarnum could see the man looking along the docks before he paddled the canoe toward the stern.
Scarnum ducked his head down and looked around. At his feet was an old marine battery — the size of a car battery. It had a plastic carry strap on top and a tangle of wires coming from its terminals. Scarnum yanked the wires loose. He hefted the battery, jumped up onto the dock, and swung it back and forth in his arm. He ran a few steps back down the dock, then turned and ran to the end, swinging the battery back behind him like a bowling ball as he ran. At the end of the dock he let it fly, aiming it at the canoeist, who was holding on to the stern of the Kelly Lynn and getting up, ready to board.
The man in the canoe turned at the noise just as the battery glanced off the stern of the canoe and hit the water with a splash. The canoe turned in the water and the man was knocked on his arse to the bottom of the canoe.
“Get off my fucking boat, you cocksucker,” Scarnum bellowed. He looked around for something else to throw and spied an old plastic bucket filled with rusty nuts and bolts. He dug in and whiffed one at the canoeist, who was now scrambling for his paddle.
The bolt hit him in the back as he started to paddle hard down the bay.
“You like that, you cocksucker?” bellowed Scarnum. “What do you want with my fucking boat?”
Scarnum’s next throws missed, and the canoeist was soon behind the Kelly Lynn and out of sight.
The light in Charlie’s house went on and Scarnum knew the old man would soon be out.
By then, though, the canoeist would be long gone. Scarnum jumped into Charlie’s twelve-foot aluminum runabout and cranked on the little two-horsepower outboard. It was a temperamental old two-stroke Evinrude, and he had to fiddle with the mixture knob and choke and crank it a few dozen times before it coughed to life.
By the time he headed off down the bay after the canoeist, he could see Charlie walking down to the dock, wearing his pajamas and rubber boots, with his flashlight in one hand and a shotgun cradled over his forearm.
Scarnum gave him a wave and opened up the Evinrude and took off down the bay. The canoeist was hammering the water now, paddling hard, switching from side to side, aimed for a rocky beach near the mouth of the little bay. Scarnum might have caught him but the damn Evinrude sputtered out after a few minutes and Scarnum had to fiddle with the mixture knob again before it would start.
By the time he was moving again the man in the canoe had too much of a head start. Scarnum watched him jump from the canoe onto the rocks and run up to an SUV parked in the shadows. As Scarnum’s boat approached the shore, he saw the tail lights of the SUV take off down Walker’s Road.
Scarnum tied the canoe onto the stern of the aluminum boat and motored back to the dock, where Charlie sat waiting, sipping a can of Keith’s. Another one sat on the wharf next to him. The shotgun was cradled across his knees.
“Holy Jesus, b’y,” he said as Scarnum tied up the aluminum boat. “Two salvages in three days.”
Scarnum laughed and sat next to the other man. He opened the beer and drank half of it one long swallow. His hands, he noticed, where shaking.
“Holy fuck,” he said. “That was fucking weird.”
They sat in silence for a minute.
“Fellow wanted to get aboard the Kelly Lynn, did he?” said Charlie.
“Yuh,” said Scarnum. “He come up the bay in his canoe, paddling along very quietly. I was up having a piss and a drink of water when I spied him. So I snuck up and watched him from behind the wheelhouse of the Martha Kate.”
He turned to look at Charlie. “I owe you a new battery.”
Charlie cackled. “Don’t tell me you threw my hundred-dollar deep cycle marine battery at the cocksucker in the canoe, did you?”
Scarnum grinned. “Time you got a new one, anyways. When I get my cheque for the Kelly Lynn, I’ll buy you ten batteries.”
“So, did you hit the fucker?” said Charlie.
“No, but I hit the canoe and scared the fucker off,” said Scarnum. “And I did hit him with a five-inch nut from that bucket, right in the middle of the back. I’d a caught him, too, if that old Evinrude woulda started. That’s what I’ll buy you, a new Honda for your runabout.”
Charlie, who loved old American motors, scowled. “I don’t want no fucking Honda,” he said. “That Evinrude always starts for me. It’s just you fucking Newfies who don’t know how to run them.”
Scarnum told him how the man in the canoe had gotten away in an SUV but had left the canoe floating in the water.
They walked over to look at it, Charlie shining the flashlight on it. “Nice canoe to leave floating in the bay,” he said.
It was a seventeen-foot Old Town Kevlar back country canoe — worth thousands of dollars.
Charlie shone the light inside the canoe. “Lookee here,” he said and bent at the waist. Inside, under the bow seat, there was a stack of vinyl bags. Charlie pulled them out and dropped them on the dock. On the floor of the canoe, under the bags, there was a silver half-pint flask in a leather case.
Charlie passed it to Scarnum, who unscrewed the lid and sniffed at it. He took a sip and passed it to Charlie, who also took a slug and grimaced.
“Well, it’s not Canadian Club, I’ll tell you that,” said Charlie.
It was whisky, though, Scotch whisky, thought Scarnum. It tasted of seaweed and peat. He took another drink and swished it around in his mouth. “Scotch,” he said. “Expensive Scotch, I’d say.”
Charlie waved the flask away. “You tuck that away, my son.”
He shone the light down on the vinyl bags.
They were dry bags — the kind of heavy, watertight bags canoe campers used to keep their gear dry on camping trips — with heavy rubberized seals at the top.
There were ten of them.
“Well, that’s a queer thing, isn’t it?” said Charlie. “I wonder what a fellow would want ten dry bags for?”
Scarnum said nothing.
“How carefully did you look around the Kelly Lynn?” Charlie asked.
“Not carefully enough,” said Scarnum. “I’ll go out and have another look now.”
“Might be a good idea,” said Charlie.
They stood looking at each other for a moment.
Well,” said Charlie, “I s’pose I’ll get back into bed. I doubt that fellow in the canoe will be back tonight.”
Scarnum put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Thanks, Charlie.”
Scarnum got a flashlight and some gloves from his boat and paddled the canoe out to the Kelly Lynn.
He started in the wheelhouse. He found the battery switch, which was off, and switched it on.
Everything on the boat lit up: the running lights, the cabin lights, the big thousand-watt deck light behind the wheelhouse. All the instrument panels started to hum and come to life.
“Christ,” said Scarnum, and switched the battery switch off.
He found the electrical panel and switched everything off except the cabin lights. He turned the battery