The Boat Thief Read online

  Skinny Pete may be a drunk, but at least he’s someone to talk to. I throw a rock into the water, causing a few seagulls to jump into the air.

  It’s a quiet afternoon―the ocean’s flat, and there’re no waves crashing onto nearby rocks. Even the gulls are silent; they just stand on the beach, looking out to sea. The quietness of Hunter’s Island feels out of place.

  I head down to The Sticky Wicket and decide that today will be a good day to clean her up and do some straightening down below. I kill a good portion of the afternoon doing routine upkeep because it’s just good seamanship to take pride in one’s vessel. Also, I intend to return the boat to the owners someday in better condition than I found it. I’m probably in deep trouble for taking the little sailboat and, quite honestly, the owner will probably never notice I took good care of it while I was its captain. But I don’t care. I’m going to do my best to keep it as nice as I possibly can.

  I start by pulling up all the floorboards down below, and sponging out the bilge. From there, I move on to straightening up the cabin and using the liquid soap that was stowed below to cleaning just about every surface, whether it needs it or not. After I’m satisfied I’ve done all I can do, I go back up top to the deck and start scrubbing the teak and polishing the brass. When the last piece of brass is shining, the sun is just about to set. The boat sparkles just as it probably had on the day she left the boat builder’s yard. I go to bed, tired and exhausted.

  * * *

  Something causes me to wake suddenly. I try to sit up in the bed, but I can’t move! My legs are stuck, and I my arms won’t budge. Panic sweeps over me like a wet blanket, suffocating me.

  “HELP!” It’s all I can do to call out. I fight furiously at whatever is holding me back, and feel a sharp pain dig into my wrists and ankles. I’m tied up.

  A flashlight clicks on at the table in the middle of the room, and sitting in the chair is Skinny Pete.

  “Just chill, Fisher Shoemaker. If you fight it you’re only going to hurt yourself, you dig? You may think I’m a worthless, no-good drunk, but the one thing this drunk’s good at is tying knots. But believe me, man, the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

  “What’s going on?” I demand, as I struggle against the ropes.

  “Well, you see, Fisher Shoemaker, it’s like this. What do you suppose I saw when I pulled into the dock at Wyman Cove?”

  I shake my head; I have no idea.

  “There were posters stapled to telephone poles with your name, Fisher Shoemaker, under a picture of you. And guess what? There’s a $5,000 reward if anyone’s seen you or knows of your whereabouts. I said ‘Pete, that’s a heck of a lot of moolah,’ and guess what . . . I have seen you, and I do know your whereabouts. Cha-ching!” He starts whistling, “We’re in the Money.”

  I’m in shock. I guess my parents didn’t buy into my park service story. How could that not work? I suppose I knew all along it wasn’t going to fly. Suddenly, I realize that, for them to offer reward money, and money they probably couldn’t afford, they must’ve been really worried about me. I surely don’t want them to worry about me.

  “You cannot take me back. They’ll kill me.”

  “Man, don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? Your parents aren’t going to kill you; they’re probably worried sick about you.”

  “Not my parents,” I say, with panic in my voice. “The guys who saw me watching them put a dead body into the trunk. They want to kill me!”

  I’m not sure why, but I don’t want to reveal that the guys were the police chief and the mayor of Trent Harbor; it just seems like it might make it all the more unbelievable to someone like Skinny Pete.

  Skinny Pete thinks about it for a moment while he takes a bite of a cold hamburger. With a mouthful of food, he says, “You were right; a hamburger is better than eating cold fish.”

  Then he stands up and picks a little piece of ground beef from his beard that had dropped from the sandwich. “You know what I think? I think you are a thirteen-year-old boy with an active imagination. Five grand’s a lot of dough for a guy like me, so I’m still going to turn you in.” He chuckles.

  Clearly I need to take another approach because he doesn’t believe I saw a body being loaded into a trunk.

  “With me helping you, we should be able to make that much money catching lobsters. Probably more. Why would you want to give that up?”

  He’s silent while he finishes the last of the cold hamburger. He wipes his lips with the back of his flannel sleeve, then says, “There’s a part of that plan that just won’t work. You see, those traps that we’ve been working, well, they ain’t really mine. We’ve been poaching.”

  Aw, crap, I think. Now I’m in trouble for poaching, too. In Maine, that’s as bad as horse stealing. I’m pretty sure they won’t hang us, but I do know the lobstermen, in their own way, will get us good! There’re always stories of the new guy who starts lobstering where he shouldn’t, only to have his boat cut loose from the mooring, or worse . . . simply sunk. And this is FAR worse in their eyes than some newbie setting traps in the wrong place. If we get caught, we’re screwed!

  “Why would you do that? You couldn’t just buy your own traps and set them? You had to steal lobsters out of other people’s traps?”

  “Too much work to do all that,” he says. “I’d have to buy them, get a license, maintain them, pull ‘em out of the water each year, find a place to store ‘em in the winter, and then put ‘em all back in the water in the spring. And nobody’s going to let me just show up and start throwing traps into their territory; it don’t work like that, man.”

  He starts to shine the flashlight around, as if he’s looking for something. “Damn, there’s no rum in here. How can anyone have a lobster shack without rum?” He steps out the door for a second, then steps back in.

  “It’s lucky for me I parked one just outside the door.” Skinny Pete unscrews the top and takes a big gulp. I can almost see rum working through his body, then a satisfying smile grows across his face. “Man, that’s SWEET.”

  “The way I see it,” he continues, “it ain’t too heavy. I ain’t hurting anyone by taking a few of their lobsters. Hell, we’re putting bait back in the traps so when they show up there might be a fresh new lobster lounging in there.”

  But, I think, there might not be any lobsters.

  “No one knows―no one loses any ching,” he says. “I take a few, sell them to the dude in Wyman Cove, and move on.” He stops talking, and I can see his mood’s quickly changing. Suddenly, he slams his fist to the pine table, causing it to jump.

  “Hell! Why are we even talking about this? It’s what I do, okay!” Skinny Pete takes several more big gulps from the bottle, draining a good portion of it. It doesn’t take long before he starts wobbling, and needs to sit back down in the chair. As if it takes everything he has left, he snaps the bottle to his mouth and finishes off the remaining rum. His head careens side to side, as if it has just doubled in weight, then hits hard against the table. He’s out; hands still clutching the empty bottle.

  The room’s now silent, but there’s still light from the flashlight. I’m bound to the bed. But now that I’m not panicked I remember, once again, my dad’s favorite saying: brains, not brawn. It’s obvious that “brawn” has already hurt me because when I struggled the rope cut deep into my hands.

  I realize that the way Skinny Pete has me tied down, it’s actually only the mattress that’s keeping things tight. If I can wiggle the mattress around, the rope might become loose enough to get out. Brains, not brawn.

  The bed’s not much bigger than a cot, so I start shifting my weight to rock the whole frame. Bump . . . bump . . . bump. The bed bumps from one set of legs to the other, the momentum building, the intervals between bumps growing longer and longer. With one big shift of my body, I manage to rock it hard enough so it hangs for what feels like forever balancing on two legs, then―WHAM! I crash hard to the ground, slamming my face into the solid pi
ne floor.

  OOOUFF! Man, that hurts! Lying on my side, I can’t do anything until the pain goes away. While trying to get the air back into my lungs, I realize the mattress has shifted just enough so that the rope holding me is now sloppy. I wiggle my right hand, and almost effortlessly, it pops free of the rope. My other hand comes out just as easily, and in no time, I have my legs free as well. Skinny Pete’s not as good at knot-tying as he boasted because here I am standing over HIM!

  * * *

  Now that Hunter’s Island has been my home for most of the summer, steering Skinny Pete’s lobster boat out through the channel is almost second nature. The sun won’t be up for maybe an hour, but I can easily find my way out in the gray morning light. I know the rocks, the shoals, and where the waves are breaking. It’s no big deal.

  After I’m well clear of any islands or hazards, I bring the throttle back to idle and shift it into neutral. We drift, and the diesel engine putts away quietly in the background. I gaze back at Hunter’s Island, which seems to be at least a mile away. It’ll be a long row back but I can do it, no sweat. I’ve become stronger throughout the summer, so a little rowing’s no hassle.

  In fact, when I dragged Skinny Pete’s passed-out butt from the shack down to his boat, it wasn’t any harder than dragging a sack of potatoes. Not that I know what it’s like to drag a sack of potatoes, but I guess it must be sort of the same. I can now pull lobster pots all day long without a struggle. I also guess I’ve grown quite a bit because the few clothes I have are starting to look ridiculous on me. I’m going to need to do something about that soon, or I’ll have a real problem on my hands.

  Skinny Pete’s still passed out in his bunk. I suspect, from the amount of rum he drank, he’ll be passed out for a long time to come. That’s good. Because my plan depends on it.

  In his top shirt pocket, I find a neat roll of cash from the lobsters he sold. I pull it out, unwind it, and begin to count the money. It comes to about $600. Not bad money for a week or two, of work. I peel off $300, shove it in my pocket, and then put the rest back in Pete’s shirt pocket. It seems like a fair split to me.

  Back at the helm, I pull out the rope I placed there before we left. I make sure the steering wheel’s straight, and then I lash it so it won’t move. With a few, quick tugs on the wheel, I’m satisfied it isn’t going to budge. It should hold a straight and true course.

  Well, this is it, I think to myself. This is the day I say goodbye to a lousy drunk who wasn’t much of a friend. I really could’ve used his help given my situation back at Trent Harbor, but rum always comes first in his life. So, once again, I have no one to rely on but myself.

  I move to the transom where the dory’s tied off. Uncleating it, I pull it alongside the lobster boat, climb in, and while I’m still standing in the dory, pull myself alongside the helm.

  There’s no turning back now. I reach over, push the throttle a bit, and then bump the gear shifter forward. The lobster boat lurches ahead and begins to chug out to sea while I’m left still standing in the dory.

  Pete will be okay. Once he comes to, he’ll be far away from Hunter’s Island so I hope he’ll get the message he isn’t welcome back. Depending on how dead-drunk he is, there should be enough fuel left that he can find his way back to shore somewhere. And he has enough money to buy plenty of fuel and food, so I certainly don’t feel any guilt about sending him on his way. I watch the lobster boat chug away for several minutes.

  Both the oars are in the locks. With a solid grip on each, I turn the dory back toward Hunter’s Island. I pull hard to get the dory moving, and then begin to set a steady and true pace back to my island. It’ll take a while, but it’s no big deal. I got rid of the drunkard, Skinny Pete.

  Chapter 15

  Wyman Cove

  Several days have passed since I sent Skinny Pete on his way. I’ve fallen into a pretty good work routine, all of which involves setting my own lobster traps, or at least using the ones that’ve been left behind on the island. Now I’m able to row three at a time, stacked in the transom of the dinghy. With nothing but my hands and back, I can set them and check them. They’re set in shallower water this time. I don’t want a repeat of the first time I tried to set a trap.

  After only the second day of setting traps on my own, I have more than enough sitting on the ocean bottom. All I need to do now is let them soak for a few days. I now have time to do other things.

  All the rowing back and forth, dropping traps in the water, has given me a lot of time to think. According to Skinny Pete, my parents have a reward out for anyone who knows where I am. So that means they’re worried sick about me. I need to do something about this.

  I figure, while I have to wait several days, at least, for the traps to fill with lobsters, I should sail into Wyman Cove, where Skinny Pete sold the lobsters, and mail some letters home to let everyone know I’m all right. My plan is to send a letter to my parents through Sara, who’ll be told to drop the letter in a local mailbox. This way there’ll be no postmark on the envelope. If my parents were to see a postmark from Wyman Cove, they’d probably find me pretty soon.

  The other thing I keep thinking about is the fact that I’m not going to be able to hide out on this island forever; at some point I’m going to have to go home. I need to come up with a plan. The situation with the chief of police, the mayor, and the body in the trunk are not going to just go away. I’ve actually been thinking hard about it all summer, but I still have no idea what to do.

  I do, however, have a back-up plan just in case something goes wrong, but hope I’ll never have to find out if it’s any good or not. The plan has to do with the third letter I’m planning to mail.

  ***

  After I have most of my chores done for the day, I stroll down to The Sticky Wicket to write my letters. There’s a small pad of paper and some pencils at the nav table, which will serve the purpose just fine.

  I sit down at the table, pencil in hand, and begin to write. Dear Sara . . . and that’s as far as I get. It’s been almost the entire summer since that night I sailed off. Maybe she couldn’t care less about me, and is hanging out with some other boy. I stare at the paper, clutching the pencil for at least a half hour. I know almost nothing about girls, and the harder I think about her, the more confused I get.

  Eventually, I give up and just tell her I’m fine, that I hope she’s having a good summer, and I tell her to “stay cool.” I’m ill when I read it back to myself. It sounds like I’ve just signed her yearbook in the phony way you do when you want to be nice to someone, but you know there’s no chance you’ll see that person until the next school year. I don’t know what else to do. I end it with instructions on what to do about the other letter, to my parents. I hope she doesn’t tell them where I am. I fold it and just look at it in my hands. I’ll have to get some envelopes in town.

  While I’m still below, I switch on the VHF radio so I can listen to the day’s weather report. I need to figure out when a good day will be to sail into Wyman Cove. Without any kind of motor on the sailboat, I need to make sure I have the right conditions or, at least, conditions that aren’t going to kill me.

  I always start out on Channel 16 because I like to listen to some of the other boaters chat. Sometimes they talk about the weather. Other times it’s about how many fish or lobsters they caught that day, and sometimes it’s even about their wives or girlfriends. I always make sure, though, I never listen to the chit-chat for more than a minute before switching over to the weather channel because I don’t want to drain the battery. I have no way of recharging the battery here on Hunter Island, so once it’s dead, that’s it―no more weather reports. I need to make certain I only use it when I need to.

  Today, no one’s talking on the VHF radio. It’s a little disappointing because it always makes me feel like I’m not so alone when I hear other boaters talking. Not today, though. I switch over to the weather.

  Tomorrow’s weather report sounds good. Just a nice, steady bre
eze in the right direction, but not so much that it could make sailing right up to the dock challenging. That’s it, then. I decide that tomorrow’s the day I’ll go into town.

  * * *

  Just as yesterday’s weather report promised, the breeze is good. Wyman Cove’s now ahead, just off my starboard bow. I can see what looks like a little community floating dock at the end of a long pier, and given the direction I’m sailing, it seems to be almost the perfect location. It shouldn’t be too tough to make a good landing.

  At about fifty feet from the dock, I ease the mainsheet out a bit to slow my speed. Then, as I glide closer, I give the tiller a hard push, spinning the sailboat into the wind and bringing it to a perfect stop right at the dock. I grin with satisfaction.

  A minute later, the boat’s secure with a bow and a stern line holding it fast to the dock. With the sails dropped, I stand on deck and take a look around.

  Wyman Cove looks like any other little town on the coast of Maine. There are a handful of assorted boats on moorings, and all the buildings and shacks along the shore are mostly weathered gray cedar shingles―the result of years of salty air. From what I can tell, there looks to be a small town center just up the road from the pier. I would guess the post office has to be there somewhere.

  I make my way up the long ramp from the floating dock to the pier. Over by the crane there’s a lobsterman offloading his catch, and he’s wearing black rubber foul-weather pants with a red flannel shirt beneath. On his head, he has a dirty green cap that looks like it’s been worn for a decade.

  I can feel his eyes on me as I walk past. I keep my head up, trying to convey with confidence that I’m one of them. He doesn’t say anything, but I’m a stranger in his little town. That doesn’t always go over well with lobstermen. I can tell he’s not impressed by my confidence. But I just keep moving ahead and hope he doesn’t cause me any trouble.