It was their second day out at sea, and everything had been perfect. Trevain briskly walked across the deck of the ship, his limp hardly noticeable in his determined stride. He meticulously supervised the work of his entire crew, barking out unyielding commands instead of his usual polite-but-forceful recommendations. He was normally very respectful; he knew that the men were capable of doing their jobs and he did not like to insult them by treating them like newbies and nitpicking over minutiae. However, things had changed—Trevain found himself suddenly searching for the proverbial Devil whom he understood to have a penchant for haunting the details.
He would have liked to exchange a word or two, or better yet, blows with that particular Devil.
The crew responded to his behavior in kind, carrying out their instructions in jumpier, but more obedient form. It had only been a few days since Leander’s death, and to a disinterested onlooker the actions of those aboard might have seemed more or less exactly the same as before, (the men were still performing the same routine procedures, and still catching crabs, after all) but the atmosphere had changed significantly.
“Good work, Edwin. Those pots look secure. Careful there, Brynne—if that pitches to starboard you’ll get crushed.”
“Not my first rodeo, Captain.”
Trevain smiled at the woman’s lithe movements as she climbed over the pots. She really was an asset to the morale of the team. “Perfect as always, Doughlas. Just rig a few more of those up and we should be ready to start today’s catch. Callder, for god’s sake! You aren’t done with the bait yet?”
“If this herring didn’t reek so goddamn bad I could work faster,” Callder complained, wiping his forehead with the back of his gloved hand.
Trevain rolled his eyes at his little brother. “Jesus, how long have you been doing this? You should be numb to the smell of fish by now.”
Brynne could not help cracking a smile. “The aroma must remind him of the strippers he’s been hooking up with lately.”
The men all burst into laughter. Doughlas clapped Brynne on the back. “Low blow! I swear; these jokes are twice as funny coming from a lady.”
“She’s just jealous,” Callder said with a scowl as he scooped up great handfuls of putrid bait. “She just needs to get laid is all. She misses all of this hotness.”
“Brynne is way out of your league, Calamari,” Billy said with a giggle. “She could have you in a second if she wanted to.”
Callder grinned. “True. Do you want me in a second, Brynne?”
“You can ask me ten times a day, Calabash, but my answer isn’t going to change.”
Trevain smiled at the antics of his shipmates. “Let’s get started, guys. Ujarak, did you remember to bring the…”
He found himself trailing off midstride and mid-speech. The captain’s head swiveled sharply to the south, and he felt a keen sense of awareness overtake his body. He felt shivers of trepidation suddenly arrest him, along with a dark feeling that could only be described as dread. He walked to the edge of the deck and grasped the railing, staring out at the giant swells of the sea breaking against the boat.
In the darkness of the wee morning, the water looked black. It felt black.
The color was not for lack of light, but for malevolence. Trevain suddenly felt himself taken by a bout of dizziness. Am I going crazy? Today looks like it’s going to be a perfectly fine day for fishing. The skies are clear, the temperature is mild, and the waves are pleasant. What’s wrong with me? He stared at the water until he imagined he saw large, dark figures just under the surface. He peered down at them, trying to determine whether they were whales or sharks or something of the sort. But something about the silhouette of a certain figure struck him as oddly human—and there was no shape more capable or terrifying. He turned around, observing his men hard at work as his double vision began to correct itself. He felt ill.
“Stop,” Trevain said abruptly. “We’re turning around at once.”
Ujarak’s brows knitted together in confusion as he paused, his hands full of ropes. “Captain Murphy? You’re kidding right?”
“No. We need to turn around.”
“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me, Cap’n!” Wyatt Wade shouted across the boat. “Billy and I are just getting’ warmed up here! There are plenty more crabs for the catchin’!”
“Everyone stop,” Trevain said resolutely. “We won’t be fishing today. We’re going back to shore.”
Brynne frowned deeply. “What the hell, Murphy? I know I only worked eighteen hours yesterday, but I needed a nap mainly due to the jet lag. I’m good to go for another twenty-five to thirty hours today.”
Everyone else chimed in with murmurs of agreement.
“Listen,” Trevain said gravely. “I may sound crazy right now; I know I’m asking you all to sacrifice potentially fifteen thousand dollars each… but we need to turn around.”
The crew members looked at each other in quiet surprise and disbelief. The Wade brothers, Wyatt and Wilbert mumbled to each other in displeasure and bewilderment.
Edwin flexed his enormous arm and scratched the back of his neck in puzzlement. “Look, Captain Murphy. I want to be home in front of the television with a beer in my hand and my feet on the ottoman just as much as the next guy… but we have a job to do. We can’t go it alone—we need to stick together as a team.”
“We’ve already taken some unexpected time off,” Ujarak added as he crunched down on an unfortunate toothpick. “We lost prime fishing days due to the whole situation with Leander. We have major catching up to do.”
“I’m telling you all now—if we want to avoid more unexpected days off, and more anguish and grief, we’re not going to fish today.” Trevain’s voice was inflexible and resolute.
“But Trevain…” Wilbert Wade whined.
“No buts, Billy.”
Callder snickered a bit at this, but promptly stopped when he felt Wyatt’s elbow connect with his ribcage.
“Trevain,” Brynne began, almost frantically, “I know that you feel responsible for what happened. My outburst didn’t help. I’m really sorry for attacking you before. I said some awful things. I just didn’t know how to deal with it other than to lash out, you know? But please, Trevain… don’t give up on us. Be reasonable…”
“Brynne, this is not up for discussion. We’re turning around.”
“Wow. When did my big bro grow a pair?” Callder questioned sarcastically. The captain glared at his brother, but their staring contest was interrupted by Arnav stepping between them.
“Guys… look. It occurs to me that we’ve been decimated.”
“What?” asked Wilbert grumpily.
“It’s a word that’s been stuck in my head for days,” Arnav spoke. “Decimation. It’s not an easy thing to deal with, and I think we’re all a little off our game…”
“Decimation?” Ujarak asked.
“It’s a war term. It means that one tenth of our forces have been destroyed,” Doughlas answered. “There were ten of us on this boat originally, and one of us was killed. That amounts to exactly one tenth of our unit being destroyed.”
“But this isn’t a war, boys,” Brynne said “We’re a crew, not a unit. No one is attacking us. The crabs certainly aren’t fighting back. It was just an accident.”
“Whatever it was, I won’t let it happen again,” Trevain vowed.
“It won’t. Leo was an anomaly,” Wyatt Wade said. “If we get scared now, it’s kind of like we just got pulled over for speeding on the highway, and decided to slow down for the rest of the trip out of fear. It’s asinine —I mean logically there won’t be another cop around for ages. This is Alaska, and it’s fucking gigantic. They can’t afford to put a cop at every exit.”
“That’s an interesting comparison, but a little more is at stake here than a speeding ticket. All of your lives are at stake,” Trevain rebuked, running a hand through his grey hair in frustration.
“Captain Murphy,” Arnav said politely. “I think that’s something we all have accepted. I’m sure everyone here has heard the statistics. There are dangers in every job… people die all the time from construction and mining accidents and whatnot. But this is the most dangerous job in the world. I came here knowing that I was one hundred times more likely to die doing this as I was doing anything else in America.”
“Not on Trevain’s boat,” Brynne said softly.
“Now you show some loyalty, eh?” Ujarak spat. “That’s nice, Brynne. After callin’ the cap’n names all day yesterday.”
“I needed a nap,” she said defensively.
Arnav sighed before putting his hands up. “I know Captain Murphy runs the best crew on this sea, maybe the world, and that’s why I begged him almost on my knees to hire me. Still, we’re not immune to the elements. What makes up for the danger is the money. If we don’t work, we won’t make money, and the danger isn’t worth it. We can’t hide from the danger whenever someone gets a bad feeling.”
“I’m with the kid,” said Edwin, in his Canadian way. “This job is all kinds of nasty. It’s physically strenuous, it’s exhausting, and it’s wet. But we’re here because we prefer to be rich men of action than poor men of cubicles. We’re here to get insanely rich. So let’s not wimp out because of what happened to poor ol’ Leo. Let’s catch some more crabs! Let’s make expensive, scrumptious entrées out of some poor unsuspecting suckers!”
A cheer went up from the men aboard the boat, and Trevain found himself frowning. “We already have a good day’s catch. We can head out again tomorrow when we’ve all had a good night’s sleep at home in our own beds and refreshed ourselves. We need to learn not to be greedy. Let’s just take what we’ve got so far and head back to shore.”
“A day’s catch isn’t bad, Captain,” said Doughlas, “but there comes a moment when every self-respecting man has to upgrade the old Toyota. I need a few more bucks to buy that new Audi I’ve been saving up for.”
“Seriously? You’re still on about that Audi?” Wyatt said scornfully. “I told you to go with the X6.”
“Leo was saving up for a goal too. He wanted to buy a house so he could marry his girlfriend. Now he can’t do any of that,” Trevain scowled. “When you get too greedy you end up losing everything. Isn’t that right, Callder? Isn’t that the way gambling works? I won’t gamble with your lives!”
Callder glowered at his brother, but was prevented from responding by Brynne grabbing his shoulder and shaking her head.
Ujarak sighed. “We’re gambling with our own lives, Cap’n. We’re already here. Other fishing crews aren’t going to fish for a day and then go home to rest. They’re all out there now, hauling in their pots and catching as many crabs as possible. They’re pulling inhuman marathons to make the best of the season. They’re bulldozing through their setbacks and focusing on the cauldron of gold at the end of this watery rainbow of shit.”
“This isn’t a competition with the other fishing boats,” Trevain argued. “We need to focus on ourselves. I want us to do well, and I want us to make our money safely—we shouldn’t be concerned with how much other fishermen are making.”
“It totally is a competition,” argued Wyatt. “At the end of the day, I want my house and car to be bigger and shinier than my neighbor’s house and car. This is my method of achieving that. I don’t have anything else in life to aspire to. This is America, you know. Do you expect me to have some kind of nobler intent than competition?”
“And when your neighbors are all also fishermen, you’ve gotta fish harder than them,” Ujarak added.
“Fish harder!” Billy echoed, as though it were a prayer in a gospel choir.
“We make a lot of money, but it’s in fleeting periods of time. The fishing season is always gone in minutes. Every single day of fishing that we lose is a massive amount of money lost as well, and it hurts,” said Doughlas. “I start getting really depressed if I don’t make money for a single day—you don’t even understand.”
“If you lost your life on one of these excursions, the pain of losing potential income would be the least of your concerns,” Trevain muttered.
Callder advanced on Trevain threateningly, speaking in a slow and steady voice. “We’re not all rich like you, big brother. Some of us need to work in order to pay our bills.”
“You mean you need to pay off those credit cards you maxed out gambling, right Callder?” Trevain shot back.
“Look bro—you haven’t taken a day off since you became captain. You’re a beast! It’s downright weird. You’re like some kind of demonic machine-thing.”
“Thanks. I believe you’ve taken enough days off for the both of us.”
“Look, shut up! I’m trying to be nice here. I mean… you’re getting pretty old. Someday, eventually, you’re probably going to retire, right?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Trevain asked with a modicum of panic. “Retire? Have you gone mad?”
“No, seriously—listen. You do a lot of other things. You read and you plant shit in your stupid garden. I do nothing except fish during the fishing season and gamble when I’m not fishing. I’m basically nothing if I’m not a fisherman. So just let me do it for once. Let me take over and be the captain for one fucking day while you relax at home. That way everyone gets what they want. The crew can keep fishing, and you can stay at home where it’s safe.”
“It’s not just about me! I want everyone to be safe. I have a very bad feeling about this.”
“About this beautiful day?” Callder asked, making grand gestures around himself. “Big brother, maybe you need a break. A sabbatical. I know you’ve been taking this Leander thing hard although you’re acting tough. Let me be the head honcho for this trip. We’ll turn around and drop you off then we’ll head over to fish near Kodiak. We’re good to go, right crew?”
Many of the crew members nodded. Trevain looked around, making eye contact with all of them and frowning. “You really want to be the captain?” Trevain asked the younger man slowly. “You want to act as my deputy, take charge of things?”
“Why not? I am your brother. It could be good practice for when you retire.”
Trevain sighed. “And when do you think that will be, kid? I could have retired at thirty if I really wanted to sit around on my thumbs.”
“But there’s a woman in your life now. Maybe you can relax a little.”
“It’s not like that, Callder. She’s just a girl.”
“The same way you were just a boy at her age?” Callder snorted. “She’s a woman if I ever saw one. Hell, her vocabulary even intimidates me!”
Doughlas nodded. “He’s right there, Captain. You need a woman.”
Trevain groaned. “Guys, my personal life isn’t up for discussion. Let’s keep this work-related. I’m only asking that we take a break for one day.”
Brynne smiled tenderly. “That’s ’cause you never have a personal life, Murphy. I hate to say this, but I think Callder’s right.”
“You do?” Trevain scowled, thinking to himself that he would rather put Brynne in charge of his ship than Callder. However, he could see on his brother’s face that beyond the confident words the younger man was seeking his approval and recognition. What kind of monster would he be if he withheld it from him? He was the only family that the boy had. Callder was his responsibility.
“Do you guys think he can do this?” Trevain asked his crew.
The first mate Doughlas had a skeptical look on his face, but he only shrugged. “He can’t make it worse. We know what our jobs are.”
“Let him give it a shot, Trevain,” Brynne said gently. She was smiling brightly at seeing Callder show a bit of initiative. Trevain knew that Brynne had always had a soft spot for his younger brother. She liked her men the way she liked her cars and houses—pathetic fixer-uppers that she could feel sympathy for initially and profoundly proud of after the renovations. She had never successfully renovated a man, of course.
“Alright, alright, fine,” Trevain said, taking a deep breath in surrender. “Callder, I’ll give you the chance to do this. You can run the rest of the excursion.”
“Awesome!” said Callder gleefully. “You won’t be disappointed. You deserve to spend some down time with your new girlfriend.”
“I told you she’s not—”
“She will be. I like that Aazuria, even though she talks a bit funny. So go home. Take her out for dinner. Show her your stupid plants.”