Salvage (2 page)

After a few minutes of scrabbling against the stern of the
Kelly Lynn
, Scarnum realized he was never going to get hold of the stern rail from his knees.

“Son of a whore,” he said, quite loudly, and rose to his feet in the little boat, jamming his boots into the space where the inflated tube met the floor. He pressed his chest and face against the stern of the
Kelly Lynn
and reached up toward the stern rail. The inflatable twisted and pulled at his feet. For one sickening moment, the two boats pulled apart and Scarnum thought he was going to drop into the water.

On the next swell, the inflatable rose at the same moment that the
Kelly Lynn
sank down. Scarnum managed to get his hands and his elbows over the rail. When the sea rose again, he grunted and launched himself off the inflatable boat and managed to get his arms entirely up over the stern rail, so that his forearms were inside the
Kelly Lynn
. Behind him, the inflatable drifted away. His legs were in the icy sea, which surged and splashed at him as the
Kelly Lynn
rose and fell. Waves smacked hard against his back.

This, Scarnum knew, was as close as he was going to get to being on the deck of the boat. There was no way he could pull himself up. Behind him, the inflatable rode the waves. The line from the boat tugged at his life jacket.

To Scarnum's right, on the starboard gunwale, there was a stainless steel cleat. He pulled himself toward it, his freezing hands clutching against the smooth fibreglass, the waves surging around his legs.

When he was next to the cleat, Scarnum held himself to the boat with his left arm and pulled the white line off his right shoulder and wrapped it around the steel post. It took him five minutes of exhausting work to manage a simple cleat hitch with the heavy, wet line, and the inflatable tugging hard at his life jacket and the sea pulling at his legs. By the time the line was fast, linking the lobster boat to the schooner, his left arm felt like it was going to be pulled out of its socket.

“
I's the b'y that builds the boat
,” he sang softly through clenched teeth as he hauled the inflatable toward him. “
I's the b'y that builds the fucking boat
.”

Scarnum's left arm was getting weak and he was shivering uncontrollably. He had no choice but to drop into the little inflatable boat. His upper body landed in the boat but his legs were in the sea. A sickening amount of water surged into the boat as he pulled himself in. It was very cold.

The inflatable swung away from the lobster boat on its yellow nylon tether, riding the confused swells, jerking roughly on the line. Scarnum hauled himself to his hands and knees and set about bailing, his frigid fingers like claws holding the plastic bucket.

When he finished, he peeled off his gloves and jammed his icy, grey hands in his armpits to warm them. He lay down in the boat, with his face buried in its rubber wall. When he could finally feel his fingertips again — when his hands changed from numb to sore — he started the long, tiring job of hauling the inflatable back to the schooner, pulling hand over hand on the nylon rope. The rain pelting his face was so cold it felt like sleet. Twice he had to stop to rest, warming his hands in his armpits again. The spray and rain mixed with tears on his face.

“
I's the b'y that sails her
,” he sang. “
I's the b'y that sails her
.”

Scarnum almost fell in the water as his frozen hands clawed uselessly at the ladder on the
Cerebus
and his feet slipped on the rungs. He heaved himself into the cockpit and finally stopped singing. He lay on his back and cackled wildly, staring up into the falling rain, hugging himself.

“I got you, you son of a whore!” he shouted. “I fucking got you, you fucking whore!”

Then he crawled to the warmth of the cabin, where he wrapped himself around the diesel heater. His hands hurt badly as they filled with blood again, but it was the pain of life, and Scarnum grinned as he flexed his throbbing fingers. When the cold came out of his bones, he changed into dry clothes and had some long drinks of rum from the neck of the rum bottle. Then he went to the cockpit and smoked a cigarette in the rain, looking back at the lobster boat.

The
Kelly Lynn
came off the rocks eventually, but it took some doing.

On his first try, as the rain turned to snow, Scarnum pulled gently, slowly accelerating until the tow line went taut and the schooner strained in the waves. The old diesel was wide open but the
Kelly Lynn
wouldn't give up her perch, even when he steered from side to side and tried to work her loose.

Scarnum figured that if he let the line go slack and ran the schooner at full speed the sudden shock might pull the
Kelly Lynn
loose, but he was afraid it might tear the stern cleat out of the old schooner, so he hauled in the tow line and tied several smaller lines to it about ten feet out. These lines he tied to other cleats on the schooner, hoping to distribute the strain. Then he opened the diesel up and ran due south, bracing himself for the shock.

When the lines pulled taut, one of the lighter ones rent with a sickening snap and the schooner's bow twisted to the port. Scarnum kept the engine wide open, the taut lines singing. He let out a deep breath when they slackened. The
Kelly Lynn
had budged.

It took twenty minutes of sawing back and forth and a few more sudden jerks before she was fully afloat and he could start to tow her, stern first, into the channel and back toward Chester through the snow in the darkness.

I
n the sheltered waters behind Betty Island, Scarnum managed to get a line around the bow cleat of the
Kelly Lynn
so that she would tow more easily, and he shortened the tow line considerably when he got near to Chester so that he could manoeuvre it more easily through the tangle of lobster buoys and moored yachts in Mahone Bay.

Scarnum slowed way down as he steered into the Back Harbour and drifted slowly through the mooring field at Charlie Isenor's boatyard, where he kept his boat. He used a gaff to pluck a spare mooring buoy out of the water, then waited as the
Kelly Lynn
drifted in, hauling the tow line out of the water onto the deck of the schooner. When the lobster boat was close, he tied the tow line to the mooring buoy and goosed the schooner's engine so it was out of the way when the lobster boat came up short on its new mooring.

Scarnum's exhaustion settled in suddenly as soon as the
Kelly Lynn
was moored, and he could think of nothing but his bunk aboard his own boat as he tied up the
Cerebus
to Charlie's dock.

Charlie was there on the wharf, waiting for him, a yellow slicker pulled over the workout clothes he liked to wear in the evenings. He was holding a big six-volt flashlight, playing the beam over the
Kelly Lynn
, which was floating free, although low in the water.

The house that he shared with his wife, Annabelle, overlooked the boatyard and mooring field at the tip of the Back Harbour, and Charlie liked to sit at his kitchen table and look out at his domain while Annabelle watched television in the evening.

Down the little hill from the Isenor's bungalow was his workshop, an old barn of unpainted, weathered wood. A bit farther up the bay was the boat shed where Scarnum had replanked
Cerebus
. The rest of the yard was full of sailboats on steel cradles, and piles of scrap lumber and marine detritus.

A long grey wooden wharf ran between the edge of the yard and the bay, its deck resting on a crib of heavy, stone-filled wooden timbers. A floating dock with a few boats tied up to it was attached to the wharf. Beyond was the mooring field — with buoys for sailboats.

“Holy fuck, Scarnum!” said Charlie as Scarnum climbed up onto the wharf. “Whatcha, buy a fucking lobster boat? Did you inhale too much of that paint thinner? Jesus Murphy!”

Scarnum smiled. “Salvage,” he said. “Found it banging on the rocks on Chebucto Head.”

“Holy fuck,” said Charlie. “You managed to haul that rig off the Sambro Ledges, by yourself, in a fucking snowstorm?”

Scarnum was too tired to do anything but nod.

Charlie, for once struck speechless, pulled off his ball cap and scratched at his bristly grey hair, looking first at the
Kelly Lynn
then back at Scarnum. He let out a cackle.

“Lord tundering fuck, Phillip, you son of a whore, that must have been a job of work. How'd you get a line on her?”

Scarnum smiled. “Well, I'll tell you, Charlie,” he said. “It weren't fucking easy.”

Then the two men laughed together, Charlie giggling, Scarnum chuckling and wheezing.

When they finished, Charlie took a good look at Scarnum, taking in the stooped shoulders and the grey pallor of his normally tanned face.

“You look like an old bag of shit,” he said. “Your eyes are like two piss holes in the snow. You'd better get to bed and you can tell me about it in the morning. You want a bowl of chowder before you turn in? Annabelle made some today.”

Scarnum shook his head and nodded toward his boat. “I wanna hit me bunk,” he said.

Charlie put his hand on his shoulder and pushed him toward his boat.

As Scarnum started to open the hatch on the deck of his boat, Charlie called out to him. “Hey,” he said. “You been aboard the
Kelly Lynn
?”

Scarnum looked up at him and shook his head.

“Funny thing for there to be a lobster boat floating around without a crew, isn't it?” he said. “Could be it broke free of its mooring and drifted there, I suppose.”

He let that sink in for a minute.

“Yuh,” Scarnum said. “Or it could be some poor bastard fell off the damn thing and drowned and his widow's home fretting, not sure if he's at the bar or dead in the fucking water.”

He shook himself and climbed back onto the wharf. Charlie held out the flashlight for him to take.

“I'll go out and make sure there's not somebody dead of a heart attack below. You call the Coast Guard and report the salvage.”

Charlie brightened and put the ball cap back on his head. “That I will do,” he said and started to climb back to his warm house as Scarnum climbed into the little alum­inum runabout that Charlie kept at the end of the dock.

“If there's a body aboard I'll come tell you,” Scarnum called out. “Otherwise, I'm going to sleep, and in the morning I'm going to see a lawyer about a salvage claim.”

It was easy as pie to climb onto the lobster boat from the little rowboat in the sheltered bay, and Scarnum shivered as he thought of his struggle hours ago.

He played the light around the deck of the boat. There was nothing to see, just a heavy winch, some of the plastic boxes used to store lobsters lashed to the back of the wheelhouse, some old rope, and a few buoys.

Scarnum held his breath before he entered the wheelhouse, half expecting to see some old fishermen dead of a heart attack on the floor.

“
I's the b'y that builds the boat
,” he sang to himself. “
I's the b'y that sails her
.”

But inside, there was nothing special. The instrument screens were all dead. The throttle handle, Scarnum noticed, was pushed all the way forward. He absently pulled it back to the off position.

Below, there was six inches of water sloshing around in the crew quarters. There was a small TV, three narrow bunks, a duffle bag, and a little galley with a propane stove and fridge and some little cupboards.

In a daze, he made his way back to his boat and collapsed into his berth, still fully dressed.

HE DIDN'T FEEL TOO GOOD
in the morning.

He didn't wake up until nine and didn't get out of bed until ten.

He stripped down in the fibreglass hallway of his Paceship 32 and gave himself a once-over in the little shaving mirror in the cramped head. His arms and legs were badly bruised. He had blackened blood in the palm of his hand, although he didn't see the source anywhere, aside from a handful of little cuts and scrapes on his hands and forearms.

His tanned, sharp-featured face looked haggard, but not much more so than usual, considering his forty years of hard living.

The Paceships were built without showers, so Scarnum had installed one in the head, but it was awkward, standing half bent over the toilet, under the little shower head. This morning, in the awkward position, his sore body complained as he washed himself.

All his cuts and bruises came to life under the thin stream of piping hot water, and he had to force himself to scrub himself raw. After he shaved and towelled dry, he went to the back of his hanging locker and came out with a pair of grey wool dress pants, a pressed pale blue button-down shirt, and a dark blue blazer. He dressed, then stepped back into the head to survey himself in the mirror.

“Not bad,” he said. “Gentleman salvor.”

Charlie was waiting for him up at the house with a pot of coffee.

Scarnum sat at the table in the warm little kitchen, which was decorated with paintings of boats and photographs of Charlie and Annabelle's grandchildren. From Annabelle's sail loft off the kitchen, Scarnum could hear the rattle of a sewing machine.

“There's Chester's newest lobster fisherman, Annabelle,” said Charlie, cackling. “Them are fancy clothes for a lob­sterman, you.”

The rattle of the sewing machine stopped, and Annabelle came in from her sail loft and gave Scarnum a good look as Charlie poured him a cup of coffee.

“My God, Phillip,” she said, “you must have had quite a time bringing dat ting in.”

Annabelle was sixty and had lived in Chester for forty-two years, but she had never lost her soft Acadian accent.

“It was a good day's work,” he said and winked at her.

He told them he had no appetite for breakfast, and he settled down to drink his coffee and tell them how he had snagged the
Kelly Lynn
.

They both looked at him with horror as he told them about his grim minutes hanging off the stern, half in the water, and both grinned as he described the moment when the lobster boat eventually let go of the reef.

When he was done at last, Annabelle suddenly flushed.

“Phillip, I don't know why you would take such a risk,” she said. “It's crazy. You could have easily drowned. From the sound of it, you almost did. You can't spend your money if you're dead.”

She threw up her hands, got up from the table, and turned to the sink to rinse her cup.

Scarnum looked at Charlie for support, but the old man just looked at him with narrow eyes, as if he was wondering the same thing.

Scarnum looked at them both, down at his coffee cup, and then out at the
Kelly Lynn
floating on the dock.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose you're right. I likely should have called it in on the VHF and shared the prize with someone. On the other hand, the
Kelly Lynn
looks pretty good sitting out there in the Back Harbour.”

She just shook her head at him and walked back to her studio.

When she was gone, Charlie told him that the Coast Guard had no reports of a missing vessel by the name of the
Kelly Lynn
, and Scarnum told Charlie what he'd found aboard: nothing.

Then Scarnum called a lawyer — William Mayor — who had a little office in Chester.

The receptionist told him at first that Mr. Mayor was booked up.

“Tell him, please, that it's Phillip Scarnum calling, and that I've salvaged a lobster boat, and I'd like to see him today.”

She put him on hold and came back and told him Mr. Mayor would be free at one, if he didn't mind watching the lawyer eating his lunch.

“That would be fine,” said Scarnum.

C
hester is built on a wooded hill at the head of sparkling Mahone Bay, a sailor's paradise dotted with pine-clad islands. There is a bay on each side of Chester — the Front Harbour, lined with wooden wharves and filled in the summer with sailboats and cape boats going to and fro, and the Back Harbour, a quiet backwater lined with houses.

It was built when every village and town around Nova Scotia had a shipyard, where men with hand tools turned trees into wooden vessels, so the houses were built by shipwrights with all the time in the world on their hands and plentiful, cheap timber. They are handsome, sturdy, wooden homes, clad in clapboard, with peaks and gables and widow's walks looking out over the water.

In the early part of the last century, rich Americans discovered Chester's charms, and since then the little port had been largely bought out, taken over each summer by well-off come from aways: Americans, Ontarians, retired Halifax professionals. The summer people have bought up most of the beautiful homes from the descendants of the sea captains who built them, driving up the property values, which has sent most of the locals inland or down the bay, where land doesn't cost so much. In the summer, Mercedes and Land Rovers clog the narrow, tree-lined streets, but during the rest of the year, there are pickup trucks and old sedans.

What passes for a downtown strip — a bank, some churches, a few cafés and pubs and a ship chandler — takes up one street a few blocks from the water.

There was not much going on this Monday at lunchtime, and Scarnum found a parking spot for his old Toyota pickup right in front of the Victorian house on Queen Street where William Mayor had his office.

Inside, Mayor's receptionist greeted Scarnum and showed him into Mayor's office, a pleasant wood-lined room with a view of the carefully groomed backyards of some of Chester's nicer homes.

“Phillip, good to see you,” Mayor said, rising from his chair and extending his big, soft hand.

“Good to see you, William,” Scarnum said and sat down in a wooden chair in front of the lawyer's desk.

“Phillip, you hungry?” said Mayor, patting his oversized belly. “I'm starved. I'm about to get some fish and chips sent in from the Anchor. Want an order?”

Scarnum did. Mayor called in the order and sat back in his chair, looking at Scarnum over his rimless reading glasses.

“So,” he said. “Sounds like you've got a story to tell,” he said, and leaned back in his chair.

“Well,” said Scarnum, “I was doing a delivery run yesterday, taking a schooner into Halifax, when I saw a boat — the
Kelly Lynn
, though I didn't know her name then — washed up on the rocks off Chebucto Head, just inside the Sambro Ledges. She was getting banged up pretty good, I suppose, and for some reason I got it in my head to get her off, which I did. Took a bit of doing, but I got a line onto her and towed her back here to Chester. Right now she's tied up on a mooring down at Charlie Isenor's yard.”

“There was nobody aboard her?” asked the lawyer.

“Nope,” said Scarnum.

“Well,” said Mayor, smiling, “It seems to me you're likely in for a pretty good payday out of this.”

He reached into a drawer in his desk and pulled out a contract and slid it across the desk.

“Before we go any further, I'd like to sign you up. Here's the dealio. This is my standard salvage contract. Sign here and you'll give up 15 percent of the salvage fee to me, regardless of how much or little it is. In return, I'll contact the owners and try to, uh, negotiate the best price I can for you. The alternative is you could contact them yourself and try to make your own deal, but in my experience vessel owners are sometimes reluctant to pay their salvage fees, and a lawyer's letter or two helps clarify their thinking.”

The receptionist knocked on the door and brought in two orders of fish and chips.

As they ate, Scarnum read the contract. “How's it usually work?” he asked.

“Well,” said Mayor, “it's a pretty well-defined area of law. The idea is that a salvor has an ownership stake in a vessel if it's clearly in jeopardy of imminent destruction when the salvor salvages it. The legal principle goes back to ancient Rome. If we can show that the
Kelly Lynn
was likely a wreck without your intervention, then you are entitled to a payday. If she just slipped her mooring and was floating in Chester Basin, you're likely out of luck, but that isn't your story. If you risked life and limb to save her, your share goes up. If we can't agree on a price with the owner, then it usually goes to arbitration. Depending on how well your story holds up, you're likely entitled to 25 to 50 percent of the replacement value of the boat.”

Scarnum whistled. “Minus your cut,” he said.

Mayor smiled, his broad, pale face lighting up. “That's the way she works,” he said. He had a bit of tartar sauce in the corner of his mouth.

Scarnum bent to sign the contract. “How long's it usually take?” he asked.

“Anywhere from a few days to a few months,” said Mayor. “Depends on the state of mind and the state of finances of the owner. If it's some hard-up lobsterman a payment away from losing his boat, it could be a while. If it's a big outfit, could be pretty quick.

“Until then, you are to maintain possession of it,” he said. “Nothing short of a court order ought to convince you to turn the
Kelly Lynn
over to anyone. Don't use it yourself, and don't let anyone else go aboard it. Just leave it at the mooring and don't let anyone aboard the damn thing. If the owner can somehow get it back into his custody, the legal situation can become more complicated.”

“Sounds like I ought to guard it,” said Scarnum.

“I would if I were you,” said Mayor. “Or I'd ask Charlie to do so. Does he still go rat hunting around the boatyard with his pellet gun?”

Scarnum smiled. “When he's got a mind to.”

“You might encourage him to be out hunting rats if any strange cars pull up. If I were you, I'd ask him to keep an eye on the
Kelly Lynn
for you,” said Mayor.

Scarnum nodded.

“Now,” said Mayor, “I need to hear your story, while the memory's still fresh.”

He hauled out a digital voice recorder and put it in front of Scarnum, and got him to unspool the story.

The lawyer took notes as Scarnum talked. Every so often he'd lift his head to interrupt with a question. Otherwise, he was hunched over his pad, scribbling as Scarnum talked.

When Scarnum got to the part where he hauled himself aboard the stern of the
Kelly Lynn
, the lawyer put down his pen and looked sharply at Scarnum.

“I need a bathroom break here,” he said and switched off the recorder. But he didn't head for the bathroom. He sat still, staring at his pad, then lifted his face to gaze at Scarnum.

“Look, I don't mean to insult you, but it's unwise to, uh, embroider your story. The element of risk does factor into the payout, but exaggerating is dangerous, because if someone finds a chink in your story, the whole thing could fall apart.”

Scarnum stared at him without saying anything. His blue eyes glinted and his mouth was thin and tight.

Mayor stared back, then looked out the window and picked up his pen. “Okey-dokey,” he said. “My bad. In that case, I'll tell you you're a damn fool to have risked yourself in that way.”

He turned back to Scarnum and smiled — the same charming, warm smile he had used earlier. “But I'm glad to have the payday.”

Mayor switched on the recorder. “There,” he said. “That's better. Now. Please continue.”

When Scarnum finished telling how he went aboard the
Kelly Lynn
at the mooring and checked that there was no corpse aboard, Mayor kept his head down, scribbling.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “That concludes the statement of Phillip Scarnum,” and he gave the date and time and switched the recorder off.

“OK,” he said and pushed the pad across to Scarnum. “Read that, please, and see if it's all right. Meanwhile, let me do a registry search on the
Kelly Lynn
.”

He turned to his computer and did some typing while Scarnum read.

He had the answer before Scarnum finished and was waiting for him with an odd expression on his face when Scarnum signed and dated the bottom of the statement.

“It's SeaWater,” said Mayor bluntly. “It's one of Falkenham's boats.”

Scarnum stared at him, expressionless, but his cheeks flushed.He sat mute until the lawyer started to babble nervously, reading the entry.

“Fishing vessel
Kelly Lynn
, registered by SeaWater in 2004, forty feet, built at Thibodeau's Shipyard.”

Scarnum interrupted him. “Where's your bathroom at?” he asked him.