A Dolphin's Gift (10 page)

Nellie shook
her head. "Dr. Emery advised against sharing a room with Mike. I was doing
that when the nightmares started and it seemed to make things worse."

"Ah yes.
The venerable Dr. Emery," Will said, a cynical edge to his voice.

"I'm sorry
if you don't have faith in therapists," Nellie clipped, "but Dr.
Emery has done a good job helping us get our lives back together."

"Okay,"
Will said, with resolve. "I'll stay in the fo'c'sle with Mike. Meanwhile,
we'll be pulling out at daybreak so you'd better get to bed early." When
he didn't leave right away, Nellie waited, wondering if he might take her in
his arms and hold her and kiss her as before. But he didn't move toward her,
and after a few moments, he turned and left. And with his departure, Nellie
felt a profound emptiness. In
Will
she saw a man she
could love, a man who made her feel wanted and needed in a deeply sensual way.

He was also a
man who was avoiding marriage and she wondered why. The curious thing was, he
seemed to have no insight into his own seemingly insecure psyche, and she
didn't have the experience or knowledge to unravel the reasons behind his
solitary existence and his reluctance to make a permanent bond. Maybe in time
she'd understand him, but for now, if she wanted to share her life with Will, though
their relationship be brief, it would have to be on his terms. Sex without
marriage, and love without the promise of anything more.

The following
morning they were greeted by a dismal overcast sky heavy with low scudding
clouds. While listening for the rain, which threatened to come at any moment,
Nellie checked the latches on the cabinet doors and secured the heavy strap
around the small refrigerator. Will told her they'd encounter large ocean
swells in the Straits of Juan de Fuca and to be prepared for rough seas. The
big, overhead door to the boathouse was now raised, and she saw whitecaps
everywhere. The seas looked dark and menacing, an unwelcome contrast to the
beautiful late summer days they'd been having. Feeling uneasy, she said to Will,
when he came to check the galley, "I hope it doesn't get as stormy as it's
threatening."

"It's just
morning clouds," Will assured her, while making a quick round to recheck
the latches on the cabinets. "The wind will blow them away before
long."

"We've
never had morning clouds like this before," Nellie said.

"
The season's
changing," Will replied. "We'll be
fine."

Nellie peered
out the porthole again. "It still looks kind of rough," she said,
then glanced back at Will, and added, "Are you sure you can handle the
boat alone?"

"No
problem," Will assured her. "I spent six weeks cruising Johnstone
Strait by myself last summer. This old girl and I weathered several
gales." He thumped a wadded fist to the bulkhead. "She’s a tough old
lady. Our main concern will be watching for deadheads and drift logs. They
don't show up on radar." Satisfied that the galley was secure, he turned
and left.

Mike, who was
sitting on the floor in a corner of galley, elbows propped on his folded legs,
face against his knotted fists, looked at Nellie and said, "What about
Katy?"

"We'll
keep her here in the galley," Nellie said. "She'll be fine in her
box."

"But Mr.
Edenshaw's dumb old cat's going to be in here too," Mike said, eyes
focused on Will’s apartment where Zeke sat on the window ledge staring down at
them.

"Then
they'll just have to learn to get along," Nellie said, wondering what
would happen when they turned Katy and Zeke loose in the galley. Will had
removed the door to one of the larger lower storage cabinets and replaced it
with a plywood door in which he'd cut a cat-sized opening so Zeke could have a
place to hide. Inside the cabinet he'd placed a pad covered with a piece of
flannel and a small litter box. Zeke, Nellie suspected, would probably spend
most of the cruise inside the cabinet. For Katy, Nellie purchased a
fleece-lined dog bed just before they left Medford, and the little dog lay
curled contentedly inside. "Meanwhile, you need to straighten your cabin
before we get underway," she said to Mike. "I saw clothes thrown all
over the floor."

A few minutes
later, Nellie stepped on deck and found Will securing the kayak. "How long
before we shove off?" she asked, staring at the play of muscles in Will's
arms as he tightened the ropes around a cleat on the bulwark.

"About
twenty minutes," Will replied. He reached into his pocket, and said,
"These patches are for seasickness. They go behind your ear. You and Mike
better put them on now so they'll take affect before we leave. It's going to be
rough for a while."

As Nellie looked
at the patches and the big hands holding them, she resisted the urge to place
her hands on Will's arms and reach up and kiss him. She knew her advances would
not be returned. At least not the way she wanted. Nothing had changed. In the
end, the only relationship for Will was one without ties, and after a night of
thrashing around in her berth, trying to justify other options, she knew the
only relationship for her was love, with the only true commitment being
marriage. She took the patches and headed to the fo'c'sle, where Mike was
supposed to be preparing to get underway. But he was not in the cabin, and his
belongings remained strewn about the small quarters.

She called to
Will. "Did you see Mike leave the boat?"

"No,"
Will replied. "But you'd better round him up because we need to get
underway."

Nellie ran to
the boathouse next door, where Roy Peterson informed her that Mike came to get
Donnie, and he thought the boys were with her. Wasting no time, Nellie jogged
along the dock while calling out for Mike. Finding no sign of him, she felt a
rush of panic that her worse fears might have become reality—the boys had been
lured away by the person who'd followed them, for whatever reason. She raced up
and down piers, calling for Mike, but he and Donnie were nowhere to be found.
Running back to the boat house, she said to Will, in a desperate voice, "I
can't find them... Mike and Donnie. They were together but they're nowhere
around!"

"How long
has it been since you last saw him?" Will asked.

"I don't
know. Maybe fifteen minutes," Nellie replied, her eyes wide with fright,
her hands clasped together against her chest.

"I'll go
look around," Will said. "Maybe they're by the highway."

"The
highway?" Nellie said, bewildered and alarmed. "Why would they be
there? Mike knows he's not to go near the road."

Will looked at
her, gravely. "I guess I should have told you about the day he went with
Roy and Donnie to the store." He shoved his fingers in his hair and paced
the floor, trying to find the right words to explain, in a way that wouldn’t
send Nellie into a complete panic. But the words wouldn’t come, and after a few
moments, he said, "Mike told me he'd hitchhike to Medford if I didn't stay
away from you. I didn't believe him."

"My God,
Will! You had no right to keep that from me," Nellie said, her voice
wavering with a blend of anger and panic.

"I
would've said something, but Mike didn't sound convincing," Will said. "But
if they are heading for Medford, they can't be far. There hasn't been enough
time. You call the police and report the boys missing and I’ll check the
highway."

Will rushed out
the boathouse and headed toward the highway. After scanning the road both ways,
he questioned people up and down the docks, and fifteen minutes later, returned
to the boathouse, where he found Nellie wringing her hands and pacing up and
down the dock connecting the boathouses.

When she saw
him coming without Mike, she rushed up to him, and cried, in a voice teetering
on panic, "You should have told me, Will. You had no right keeping that
from me. You don't know Mike, and you don't know what he might do."

Will said
nothing because Nellie was right. He didn't know Mike. And there was no
parallel between what Mike might do and what he would have done as a child. He
remembered the times he planned to run away but could never bring himself to do
it. He'd accepted the harsh realities of home. They were predictable, and for
that reason, offered some measure of security, perverse as it was. But he had
no way of knowing what might be lying in wait for him in the world beyond.

But Mike was
acting out of anger and jealousy, not desperation. Still, it had been foolish
to assume the kid was making idle threats. Meanwhile, what does he say to a
distraught mother who believes she may never see her son again? So he said the
obvious. "You're right, I should have told you, but I have no experience
with kids. And no, I'm not perceptive when it comes to them, and I don't have
the makings of a natural father, just to set the record straight. But I am
sorry I didn't tell you. I know better now."

To Will's
distress, Nellie started sobbing and saying, "You have no idea what it's
like... after the wreck and almost losing him... and now maybe never seeing
him... never seeing him..."

At a loss what
to do, Will tugged her by the hand into the boathouse and lowered himself onto
a bench along the wall and pulled Nellie onto his lap and held her and let her
cry, and wipe her eyes, and cry some more, until by the time the police
arrived, she couldn't be consoled.

The officer
knocked on the door to the boathouse, then poked his head inside. Seeing him,
Will set Nellie aside and stood. The officer said, as he walked toward Will,
"I've got a couple of boys that match the descriptions you gave us."

"What!"
Nellie jumped up. "Where are they?"

"Just
outside," the officer replied. "Come on in, boys." He turned the
boys over to Will and Nellie. After the officer left, Mike was the first to
speak. "What's the big deal?" he said, looking from Nellie's
distraught face to glare at Will.

"Where
were you?" Nellie scolded, her eyes now filled with tears of anger.

Mike shrugged.
"Over in the old warehouse talking to a man."

"An old
man, sort of thin and untidy and unshaved?" Nellie asked.

Mike shook his
head. "No. He was big and bald."

"Why were
you talking to him?" Nellie demanded.

Mike glared at
her. "I don't see what the big deal is. The man was just asking Donnie and
me some questions."

Will eyed Mike
warily. "What kind of questions?"

"Geez.
What's wrong with talking to—
"

"Mike!"
Nellie scolded. "You heard Will. What kind of questions?"

Mike compressed
his lips. His eyes shifted to Donnie momentarily, then back to Nellie, and he
replied, "He wanted to know where we were going, so I told him we were
going up Johnstone Strait to Beaver Bay to watch whales."

"What else
did he ask?" Nellie pressed.

Mike shrugged.
"Just... who all was
going.
"

"And you
told him?"

"Sure. Why
shouldn't I. It's no secret."

"Is that
all?" Nellie asked.

"Well… uh…
Yes," Mike replied, his eyes shifting nervously between Nellie and Will,
which made Will especially uneasy. Something was definitely wrong, not just
with the boys slipping off and talking to some man who was asking questions,
but other incidents recently.

"No it's
not all," Donnie interjected. "Tell 'em the rest. Tell ‘em about the
gun."

"What
about a gun?" Will asked, alarmed.

"The man
had a gun," Donnie said to Will. "We saw it in a holster inside his
coat when he leaned over. That's when we took off and started back here. But
the policeman caught us."

Nellie looked
at Will. "I want to call the police again, get them to at least question
the man. Aren't there laws against carrying a concealed weapon?"

"Only that
you need a permit. But the boys may be exaggerating," Will said, not
wanting to alarm Nellie. But he suspected the boys were telling the truth.

Mike glared at
Will. Nellie caught Mike's caustic look and said to Will, "If the boys
said they saw a gun, I believe them. And I want to call the police."

Will noted the
determined set to Nellie's mouth. "Go ahead then," he said. "I
just hope it doesn't take too long because we need to get underway."

A few minutes
later the policeman returned, questioned the boys and noted the man's
description. Wanting to talk to the officer without the boys being present,
Nellie sent Donnie back to his grandfather and Mike to his cabin, then she
explained to the policeman about being followed by someone in a stolen car, and
about the old man in the boathouse, even though he didn't match the description
the boys had given. The policeman assured her he'd do some questioning and get
back with them later. He also advised them to go ahead on their cruise as
planned. And Will was only too eager to leave Port Townsend and be far out at
sea.

Thirty minutes
later, Will untied the lines and eased the
Isadora
out of the boat house. Standing at the helm, he contemplated the old man Nellie
confronted in the boathouse, and the man Mike described to the policeman. It
was also the first he'd heard of Nellie being followed by someone in a stolen
car. It seemed she had her secrets from him as well.

But something
was definitely amiss. Strange happenings he'd been unable to explain earlier
seemed somehow related: the shuffling noise he'd heard in the boathouse a
couple of nights before Nellie arrived and the battered cap he'd found on deck
the next morning, which he suspected belonged to the old man. But the man with
the gun the boys described—large, balding, dark bushy brows—he'd never seen
before.

Will was more
than just a little concerned. He had no idea what either man could want with
Nellie, or any of them, or why anyone would want to know where they were going,
but a gut feeling told him they'd meet both men somewhere along the way.