Divine Fury (12 page)

Some riders ignored her.
 
Others scowled.
 
Most smiled back.
 
Occasionally, one would try something hopeful like, “Hey.
 
Meet me at the top?”
 
Of course, a few male riders would feel pressed to assert their manhood and pick up the pace – a dangerous and usually futile move since the reason she’d caught up was that she was comfortable climbing faster.

The rider in yellow was in some pain.
 
He just grimaced, wagged his head and went back into a private trance, mouth wide opened and eyes staring downward at the road.
 
Carr gave him some silent encouragement as she got up on her toes and danced ahead of him.

 
“C’mon, honey,” she thought.
 
“You can do it.”
   

* * *

When Sonia Moretti called from Australia and asked Lee if he knew of a good way to get a private boat on San Francisco Bay near Angel Island, the first person he thought of was Captain Nick.

He’d interviewed Captain Nick for a story about an epidemic in the Bay Area of the ridiculously overqualified.
 
 
The idea for the story came after a week in which Lee discovered the plumber fixing his toilet, the masseuse who worked on his back every month and the cook at his favorite breakfast spot all had more than his own five years of college.
 
(“
Advanced Degrees: The New Wallpaper?”
read the headline.)

It didn’t take long for him to find dozens of people driving cabs, fixing windows and tuning pianos who had once been lawyers, top-tier accountants or PhD candidates in fields ranging from chemical engineering to linguistics.
 
He concluded that the trend wasn’t limited to the Bay Area.
 
But an abundance of colleges in the region plus Northern California’s culture of experimentation and reinvention fed the phenomenon.

Captain Nick, a burly man with shoulder-length blond hair under his captain’s hat, was within easy striking distance of a UC Berkeley doctorate in comparative literature when he chucked academia and bought a party fishing boat.
 
Lee interviewed him on his boat for the piece.
 
(“
A PhD?” said the captain. “You can’t even wrap a fish in it!”)
    

Nick credited Lee’s article for an uptick in business and a somewhat exalted status for his vessel, the
Red Snapper.
 
Now, while his passengers waited patiently along the sides of his drifting boat for a strike, Captain Nick treated them to dramatic readings over the
Snapper
’s PA system of Old Man and the Sea, Moby Dick and less famous novels dedicated to oceanic quests.
 
The
Snapper
had become known informally as the “Book Boat” on the waterfront.

As a favor, Captain Nick agreed to take Lee, Sonia, Scott Truman’s family and an urn containing Truman’s ashes out to Angel Island after he returned from the
Snapper
’s usual Saturday fishing excursion.
 
Truman’s family agreed to pay for the
Snapper
’s fuel.

It was after 5 pm when they congregated at the pier in Emeryville.
 
Lee met Sonia Moretti in person for the first time and it was easy to see why Truman had fallen for her.
 
She was stunning.
 
She was medium in height and stature and wore little makeup over her deep tan.
 
She was dressed casually.
 
Her medium-length chestnut hair was held back by a dark blue hair band.
  

Truman’s mother was short, plump, energetic and the clear dynamo of the family. She gave curt directions to her husband, a tall taciturn man, and a sullen son who looked to be just out of high school with a bad complexion and baseball cap worn backward.
 

The trip to Angel Island was a quick 15 minutes.
 
On the way, Moretti explained that before she left for Australia she and Scott Truman had spent a wonderful sunny day on the island, hiking, picnicking and making plans for the next year.
 
Afterward, he raved to everyone he knew that it had been the best day of his life.
 
He also was an avid sailor who loved the bay, crewing for anyone he came across who owned a sailboat.
 
His mother and Sonia had settled on the waters of San Francisco Bay off Angel Island as the perfect place to spread Scott’s ashes.

Captain Nick positioned the
Snapper
fifty yards off the island on the side where currents would pull it slowly away from it.
 
He turned off the engines and let the boat drift, riding up and down in the gentle waves.

Lee stood back as the other four passengers gathered along the rail facing the island that was orange-brown in the waning sun.

Truman’s mother opened the plastic cylindrical urn and handed it to Sonia.
 
Sonia held it in both hands for a moment, looked into it and then slowly poured some of the contents over the side of the
Snapper
into the water.

“I miss you so much, Scott,” she said, still holding the opened urn.
 
“I thought I’d spend my life with you.
 
You were wonderful.
 
It’s been the happiest time of my life.
 
I love you, Scott.”

She handed the urn to Mrs. Truman who first looked upward over the top of the island and then looked down again as she poured what remained in the urn slowly into the ocean.

“You made us proud, Scotty,” she said.
 
“It doesn’t seem fair.
 
I guess God has his reasons.
 
You were a wonderful son and brother.
 
I don’t…I don’t know what else to say.
 
It doesn’t seem like enough for a life.
 
A whole life.
 
We’ll always miss you, son.”

She set the urn down on the deck and turned to hug her other boy who broke down and sobbed loudly as he bent his head down to rest on her shoulder.
 
His arms hung limp.
 
She wrapped hers around him and repeated, “It’s okay…it’s okay…it’s okay…”

Truman’s father had moved to the side and dropped to his knees.
 
He gripped the rail tightly with both hands touching and his forehead resting on them.
 
Lee could see his entire body silently shaking as if he was trembling in the cold.

Sonia stood off to the other side on the left.
 
She stared at the island hugging herself and rocking with the motion of the boat.
 

 
Lee waited a minute and then stepped next to her.

“I lost someone I loved not too long ago,” he said.
 
“It’s hard to believe but it eventually gets better.
 
One day it just felt like I was coming out of the tunnel. And, it’s gotten better.
 
It just takes time.”

Sonia Moretti shifted her gaze to Lee and gave him a nod.
 
She tried a small smile but started weeping.
 
She wiped her eyes with her hand and turned away, back to Angel Island.

Lee left them and climbed up the stairs to the enclosed bridge where Captain Nick was standing behind the controls of the
Snapper
.

“Pretty intense, huh?” said Nick.

“Yeah,” said Lee.
 
“You could say that.”

“‘The dead cannot cry out for justice,’” said Captain Nick, deepening his voice into his best oratorical style. “‘It is a duty of the living to do so for them.’”

“Who said that?” said Lee.

“Lois McMaster Bujold.
 
Science-fiction writer.”

“Well.
 
She was right,” said Lee.
 
“Let’s go.”
  

Chapter 14

THE ROWS OF artichoke plants seemed to extend forever, starting just off the shoulder of the highway and reaching to the low barren hills in the distance.
 
Dozens of sun-baked workers, men and women dressed in worn denim and flannel, worked in the perfect dirt paths between the plants, just wide enough to wield a hoe in the never-ending battle against wild grass and other intruders.

Lee climbed out of the car he’d shared with two other reporters and a photographer for the two-hour drive to the Harper campaign event outside Salinas.
 
He walked down an embankment to get a closer look at the artichokes.

Out of each plant a few immature flower buds shot skyward. Each was the size of a man’s fist and seemed to be held aloft by a thin green wrist.
 
They looked odd, like something out of the dinosaur era.
 
Lee knew the huge flower buds would be cut before they could bloom and, with some further trimming, packing and trucking, eventually satisfy the nation’s artichoke needs in the months ahead.
  

The Harper campaign had picked this empty lot along the artichoke field to unveil the candidate’s immigration platform.
 
Harper and a few staffers, a half dozen television crews, and a scattering of other media types had arrived for the event.
 
As usual, everyone was waiting around for the television equipment to get set up and for the cameras to start turning for the media extravaganza to formally begin.

Harper wore a blue blazer over new, pressed blue jeans and an open dress shirt.
 
Campaign casual.
 
When the camera folks signaled they were ready, he assumed his position in front of several microphones with the fields and workers behind him.
 

“Thanks for coming today,”
 
he said.
 
“We’re here to talk about immigration.
 
But I wanted to start with what we can see behind me.
 
We’re at one of the largest farms in the Salinas Valley, sometimes known as the ‘Salad Bowl of America.’
 
Eighty percent of the lettuce grown in the United States is grown here and virtually all of its artichokes.”

“Only migrant workers from Mexico make this industry possible,” said Harper.
 
“The same holds true for the California wine industry.
 
Simply put, there are not enough home-grown Americans willing to do this kind of tough work to make many of our farms and wineries possible.”

As Harper paused, Lee heard a buzz off in the distance.
 
He looked in the direction of the noise and saw a small plane, perhaps two miles away, flying low.

“So, to begin any discussion of policy, we must recognize both the history and value that immigration has brought to our state,” said Harper.
 
“It’s overly simplistic to just say, ‘Build a fence. Hire more guards. Keep everyone out.’”

The plane was drawing closer and getting louder.
 
It looked to Lee as if it was heading directly toward them.
 

“And, we must realize that many people may not be here legally, but they have paid taxes, had children and been productive parts of our economy and society for decades…”

A quarter of a mile away, a smoky trail began pouring out from the back of the crop duster and spreading outward behind it in a billowing plume.
 
Everyone on the ground turned and stared, mouths open, as the plane passed directly overhead and whatever it was emitting fanned out in a white cloud that drifted down on the assembled group.
 
It had a smoky smell with a slight but definite rotten eggs odor of burning sulfur.