A Beautiful Place to Die (2 page)

Susie was sweet sixteen or so. A nice kid. Not too happy right now, though.

“Hi, J.W.,” she said.

“What's up, kid? People pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of coming down to the Vineyard just so they can fish on Wasque, and here you are on the hallowed sand itself and your face is a mile long.”

Sue sniffed and turned away. George touched my arm with his coffee cup and we walked to the back of his Jeep.

“I take it that I've been about as diplomatic as usual,” I said.

“It's Jim Norris. He's decided to head back out west again. Just decided out of the blue. Leaving this afternoon, in fact.”

“Kind of sudden. You two have been fishing together for over a year. I thought that he was on the island to stay. Good carpenter, good job, good guy . . .” My sentence trailed off into the air.

“Been like a son to me,” said George. “Something else to Susie, it seems. Billy, too. The three of them got along fine these past months. It never occurred to me that it would end so quick.” He glanced into the Wagoneer. “She's taking it pretty hard, Jeff. To tell you the truth, so am I. I was kind of hoping that Jim and Susie might make a go of it. He's quite a bit older, of course, but— Well, hell, I guess not.”

I looked for something safe to say. “Surprised he didn't come out with you this morning to have a last go at the blues.”

“Oh, he's going to have a go at them all right, but not off the beach. He and Billy are taking the
Nellie Grey
out this morning. Billy's idea. Sort of a going-away present. Susie wasn't invited. I guess the boys wanted to do something together before Jim takes off. We're all having lunch together afterward.” He took his waders out of the back of the Wagoneer and climbed into them. “I figure that Susie and I will make a couple of casts here, then maybe drift up to Cape Pogue and watch the boys bring the boat out. Give Susie something to do.” He took his rod off the roof rack and tapped on the Jeep window. “Hey, are we gonna fish or not, Susie? You have to get out of the car to catch 'em, you know.”

Just as I was thinking how glad I was not to be sixteen and losing my first love again, the fisherperson down at the shore gave a shout. I looked and saw her rod bend.

“Good grief! She's on!”

I ran down and made my cast. I heard her reel singing.

“Help!” she shouted. “I'm reeling as fast as I can and my line's running out anyway! What do I do now?”

“Tighten your drag some more!”

“I can't! I don't have enough hands!”

Just then I felt a fish hit my plug. My rod bent and I set the hook. The fisherperson's line ran out and out. Christ! A moral dilemma. To bring in my own fish (the first of the season!) or help her save hers? Why hadn't I set her drag just a snippet harder? Curses! I ran sideways toward her. “Give me your rod and you take mine! Quick . . . That's it. . . .”

“My God, it feels like there's a whale out there!”

“Don't do anything but keep the line taut! Just do that!” I tightened her drag a bit more and then some more, carefully. She had a nice fish out there. The reel stopped singing and I took a few turns. “Look, here's what you do. Lift the tip of the rod toward you. No, get the butt between your legs first. That's it. Now lift the tip, and when you get it up, reel down like this.” I hauled back and reeled down. “Let the rod work for you. That's it, that's it. Now, we change rods again . . .”

“Oops! Oh, my gosh!” My rod suddenly straightened and my line went slack. The fisherperson looked abashed.

Blast and drat! “He's off,” I said. “Here, take your rod and land this one!” She ducked under my arm and I gave her her rod. It was nicely bent. She began to heave back and reel down. I moved away and reeled in my slack line. Everything was gone—fish, lure, and leader.

While I rigged up again, the fisherperson landed the first bluefish of the season. George got the second. Susie got the third.

I was fourth.

So it goes. Still, I found it interesting that I didn't feel as bad as I thought I should. I wondered why. It seemed out of character.

An hour later the fish were gone and the four of us were drinking coffee. In the warming morning Zee Madieras had doffed her hooded sweatshirt and no longer looked like five pounds of shit.

“My gosh—” She was laughing. “I never had so much fun! I'm exhausted! My arms feel like they're going to fall off.” She looked at the sunlight dancing on the sea and at the empty beach curling away around the point. “You know, this is just astonishing. I'll bet that only three or four people out of every hundred who come down to the Vineyard ever get to a place like this or even think of fishing. All they know about is the beaches they can get to from the highways, the restaurants and the bars and the sailboats. How did I ever live this long without a four-wheel-drive vehicle?”

“It's a secret,” George said, grinning. “Don't tell anybody. We want them to stay away.” He rubbed his shoulder. “I've got an ache or two myself. Every year it takes me a week or so to get back into fishing shape.”

She tapped him on the chest with her finger. “How about that ticker, George. Does your doctor know you do this stuff?”

He laughed. “If I go, this is how I want to go. I like to think that those heart attacks were God's way of telling me to give up work and get to fishing and hunting. It's been five years since I sold the company and came down here, and the old pump hasn't missed a beat.” He tapped his shirt pocket. “I carry my nitro pills to keep everybody happy, though.”

“I thought my own heart was going to burst when I was trying to land that first fish,” said Zee. “It is really beautiful down here.”

“Missed the green flash again,” said Susie. “The magic moment went by during the blitz.”

“What's the green flash?” asked Zee.

“They say that when the atmospheric conditions are just right at dawn or dusk, there's a flash of green just as the sun is touching the sea. I've never seen it.”

“Don't look at me,” I said. “I've never seen it either.”

“Why do you cut the fish's throats when you land them?”

“I think it makes the meat taste better.”

“Fishing lore,” said George. “Everybody's got a different idea about how to do things.”

Zee began counting fish. “Wow! What'll we do with them all? I never saw so many fish!”

“First, you get bragging rights,” said Susie. “Look, here come some late arrivals. They'll see these fish and say something like ‘They still around?' or ‘When did they come in?' And then you get to say, ‘You're just in time for the funeral.' ”

From the west came two Jeeps.

“You get to say it, Zee,” said George.

“Just act natural,” I said. “Take a couple and toss them into George's fishbox just as they drive up. Then say it.”

The first Jeep pulled up and the occupants surveyed the scene. Zee tossed a couple of fish into George's box and gave them a dazzling smile.

“They still around?” came the inquiry.

“You're just in time for the funeral,” said Zee.

“They hit about an hour and a half before the end of the west tide,” ‘said Susie. Fishing lore.

Zee picked up two more fish. “Yeah, about then,” she said and tossed the fish into the box.

The second Jeep pulled up. “Looks like they're here,” said the driver.

“They were here,” said the driver of the first Jeep.

“You mean . . .”

“Yep. You're just in time for the funeral.”

Everyone laughed. “God,” said the second driver, “how I love to say that and how I hate to hear it.”

George looked at his watch. “Well, what do you say, Susie, shall we drift up to the lighthouse? The boys ought to be coming out in the boat about the time we get up there. We can make a couple of casts along the way, if you want.”

We divied up the fish while the newcomers tried in vain for more. Zee had no fishbox, so without asking I tossed hers into my box. She looked at me. “You ever been up to the Cape Pogue light?” I asked. She shook her head. “Well, what do you say we trail George and Susie up there? It's a pretty drive. After we watch Billy and Jim come out, we'll come back down here, and you can pick up your four-by-four and follow me to the fish market. Then you can take your share of the loot and buy yourself a fish box of your very own so you won't be dependent on awkward but well-meaning strangers.”

Zee looked at me. George and Susie looked at both of us.
“Hmmph,” said George. He and his daughter got into his Wagoneer and headed up the beach.

“Well,” I said, “what'll it be? You do have a choice. If you don't want to go up to Cape Pogue, I'll put my fishbox in your Jeep and you can take the catch to the market and give me my share of the money later.”

“I don't even know how many fish I caught. I lost track after about the third one.” She had a laugh that came from deep down, like bronze bells. “How many did you get?”

Fifteen. I always know. “I don't know,” I said. “It's hard to keep track.”

“How will we split the money, then?”

“Fifty-fifty is okay by me.”

“You're a cheerful liar,” she said. “You know exactly how many fish you caught.” How did she know? “Okay, I'll go up to Cape Pogue with you. But I do have to get back before too long. I didn't get off work until two this morning, and I'm pretty wiped out.”

“The first thing about riding around in waders is that it's hard to sit down in them,” I said. “You can either take them off, which is not a good idea if we happen to find some fish because then you'll have to climb into them again, or you can loosen the suspenders and slide the waders down a bit so you can bend your knees.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I suggest that you take them off. We've got all the fish we need, and I'd like to know what's really inside that ten-pound bag.”

“If mine's a ten-pounder, yours is a twenty-pounder!”

“Flatterer!”

She had a great laugh, but she only loosened her shoulder straps before we chugged off north toward Cape Pogue. It was small-talk time.

“What are you looking at, out there in the water?” The sun was glancing off the water and I was squinting into the glare.

“Sometimes you can see fish.”

“See fish? Under water?” She shaded her eyes against the dancing sunlight.

“Not now. There's nothing there. But when you drive along like this you can see them sometimes. There's a difference in the way the water looks when there's a school of bluefish moving along. If you cast into that water you can pick one up. Sometimes you'll see four-by-fours driving along and guys jumping out and casting a couple of times and then jumping back into the truck and driving on and jumping out again and casting. They're following the fish.”

We were driving up East Beach, a beautiful stretch of sand where only fishermen can normally be found. It was lonely and lovely in the early morning sun. Far ahead, George's Wagoneer was a small dot on the empty sand.

“Why do they call you ‘Zee'? An initial?”

“Short for Zeolinda. Named for my grandmother. She was from the Azores. How long you known George?”

“About five years. Just after we both came down here to stay. We met on the beach, fishing. He could really cast. Better than me, then, and probably still better.”

“But can't you throw your plug out farther? I mean he's so much littler than you are. . . .”

“Some of the best casters are little guys sixty or seventy years old. They've got the right gear and the right technique and that beats size and strength every time. You're not very big, but the day may come when you're casting with the best of them.”

“Really?”

“Really, if you practice.”

Ahead, George stopped at a little point of sand and made a few casts. No action. He drove on and we followed.

“Why don't we try?” asked Zee.

“We'll try if you want to, but . . .”

“But if there were any fish there, George would have got one.”

“Probably. The tide's slack now. Fishing will be better when it starts to run again. How did you meet George?”

“I met him in the hospital.” She hesitated. “Do you know about his son, Billy?”

“I heard the rumors. That he was strung out on drugs, but took the cure. That he's clean now.”

“Well, I met George and his family during all that. Billy was in Emergency before they flew him to the mainland for the cure. It wasn't a week later when I saw that article about George in
Time.
Did you see it?”

“The rags to riches to rags story? Millionaire entrepreneur leaves fast track for jeep and fishing rod and the simple life on Martha's Vineyard? Everybody on the beach read it. George took a lot of razzing from the regulars. They accused him of slumming.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He took it. And nobody ever mentioned it again. On the beach, it doesn't make any difference whether you wash dishes or own General Motors. They only care if you can cast straight and can kid around.”

“Manly society.”

“Mostly. There are half a dozen women, maybe, who belong, as it were. They have to meet the same tests.”

We drove all the way up to the jetties. Shimmering waves, pale blue sky, gentle wind. A Chamber of Commerce day. Ahead of us stood the Cape Pogue lighthouse.
I stopped the Landcruiser and climbed out of my Gralites. Zee also shed her waders and we stashed both pair in the back.

“Guess what you don't look like any more,” I said.

“Gosh, mister, you really know how to sweet-talk a lady. Do you realty mean it?”

“Us Jacksons are noted for our silver tongues.”

We drove toward the lighthouse. “What shall I call you, Mr. Jackson?”