Part Five

The Blessing

28

"Are you sure you don't want to wait for Amanda and me?" Chase said.  He held the new bow line of the Whaler while Max started the motor and stowed his camera under the steering console.  "She'll be ready in half an hour, eleven-thirty at the latest."

"I can't," Max said.  "The Blessing of the Fleet starts at noon; if I don't go now, I'll never get a decent spot."

"You sound to me like a young man who has a date."  Chase smiled.

Max grimaced.  "Dad..."

"Okay, sorry...  Now: you know where the anchor's stowed, you've got two life jackets aboard, you—"

"We've been through all that."

"Right."  Chase sighed and tossed the bow line into the boat.  "Park the boat at the club; beach it there if there're no slips."

"Okay."  Max put the boat in gear, turned the wheel and moved slowly away from the dock.

"Remember," Chase called after him, "no stopping on the way... for anything... no matter what you see."

Max waved and shouted, "See you!"

Chase stood watching as Max accelerated, bringing the boat up onto a plane.

At first, Chase had resisted letting Max take the Whaler; the boy had never been out in the boat alone.   Though the channel into Waterboro was well marked, there were rocks to hit if you were careless.  Though the outboard motors were meticulously maintained by Tall Man, all outboards harbored gremlins and could seize up and stop at any moment  for no apparent reason.  Though Max had shown that he was a careful boatman and a fine swimmer, what would happen if he had to go overboard and swim for shore?

But for the past three days, the weather had been lousy:   the wind had blown from the northeast, a relentless fifteen to twenty knots, sometimes gusting to forty, and a chill rain had soaked the coast from New Jersey to Maine.  There had been nothing for Max to do, except for an occasional trip to town with Chase or Tall Man, during which the boy had disappeared into the warren of back streets and tiny houses and, Chase hoped and assumed, made friends with some of the local children.  Max had looked forward to the Blessing of the Fleet, had been caught up in the town's enthusiasm for the celebration.

Now that the day had arrived and the weather had at last turned fine, Chase wanted Max to enjoy it, and so he had relented.

He almost wished the weather had gotten worse.  The good thing about bad weather was that it kept people out of the water, boats had stayed ashore and nobody else had been hurt.  Whatever was out there, wherever it was, it had had nothing to prey upon.  Chase hoped that fair weather wouldn't bring on a feeding frenzy.

The morning after the sea lion had been killed, he had taken the videotape to the police station and shown it to Gibson.  He had suggested postponing or even canceling the Blessing until they could determine what the animal on the tape might be.

Gibson's reply had been brusque.  "Forget it, Simon," he had said.  I'm not gonna cancel the biggest event of the summer because of two seconds of crappy videotape that doesn't look like diddly... or on the testimony of some drunk."

"What drunk?"

"Rusty Puckett.  He got himself sauced to the gills last night, started telling everybody that he'd seen some mutant zombie from hell.  He made such a nuisance of himself, he got thrown out of the Crow's Nest and two gin mills, that I locked him up."

"He's here?  Can I talk to him?"

"Nope, not until after the Blessing.  Then you can talk to him all you want, till you both come down with bullshit poisoning."  Gibson had paused.  "Have you shown this tape to anybody else?"

"No."

"Good.  I think I'll just keep it here for the next few days.  We have all the rest of the summer to get hysterical."

"I wish I thought you were right, Rollie," Chase had said.  "But something's out there."

"Then let it stay out there, Simon, or let it go to hell away.  Either way, I don't imagine it's gonna come ashore and start hassling tourists."

*          *          *          *          *

When the Whaler was so far away that it was invisible against the contours of the mainland, Chase walked up the hill and down the slope to the sea lion tank.  He could see Amanda standing on the concrete apron, using fish to try to lure the sea lions out of the tank.  They were shaking their heads, refusing.

"They won't do it," Amanda said when Chase arrived.  "It's like every day since we got back from the whales:  no matter what I do, they will not leave that tank.  It's as if they're receiving warning signals from the water."

"What signals... electromagnetic?"

"I guess so.  All I know is, something is telling them to stay out of the sea.  And they're behaving like they're scared to death."