Excerpt: With Earth in Mind

Summer as it might well be, the newly risen sun did little more than to make the atlantic fog all too bright a haze… would be an hour yet, or more, before the stuff would be driven off. Each of the other folk clustered about the side of the old metal-edged pier raised their hands, from time to time, as if out of instinct to shield their eyes, letting them drop after it must have occurred to them… what’s the point? The light’s scattered and coming at ‘em from nigh on everywhere. Momentarily amused over this observation, Bach just squinted all the while. His hands worked busily at moving goods into the respectably well-kept boat, and could not be spared for such unthinking impulses.

“Any some else?” His father, Dean Kavanagh, stood above him, still on the pier, looking down, eyeballing the vessel and the pile of containers Bach had already taken on board and set about without much by way of rhyme or reason.

Breakfast… lunch… snacks… three sealed cases containing templates… maybe two dozen barrels of indie machine fuel. “Don’t think so.” Bach recounted each item out loud, his father nodding slightly, perhaps once for every other item of cargo.

“Oh.” He snapped his fingers. “Manifest.” With that, the elder Kavanagh was quickly out of sight, bounding back for the warehouse office, leaving Bach alone in the back of the boat.

An older woman, Jo Washburn, and her son, El, both distinctly of african descent, remained. “Nothing heavy left?” Hands on hips, Bach squinted up through the brightness to the young dark man who’d asked. Elvis, as he so hated to be called, also worked for Dean Kavanagh. Sure, he was sometimes right there to help out with the grunt work before Bach could so much as stand up straight… but the kid had talent. They’d be lucky to keep him out of the hands of bigger outfits with more by way of money to throw around.

“Nope, nothing left at all, I think… once Dad’s back with list n’ contract.”

That had been answer enough, Bach guessed, as El Washburn let himself fall to the wooded rear deck with outstretched arms and a dull thump and bent knees upon landing. His mother pulled back an outstretched arm, visibly uncomfortable with her son’s maneuver. “Geez… have a care, Elvis.” The younger man let out a half-snort, half-laugh.

“Hardly four feet, ma.”

“And so? Could have been fog slick for all you know.” She had a point, Bach knew… from personal experience.

“Oh.” Hah… at least El wasn’t so brash as to dismiss wisdom when he heard it.

Bach grinned, if perhaps only for his own benefit. Neither of the others were paying him any mind. Letting it pass, El took to pushing around the all the various cans of indie fuel, and tying them off, secure against the inner edge of the rear deck. She might not be the biggest ship, the ‘Charm of Castine’… as demonstrated by El’s leap of faith back there… only her bridge came much over the edge of the dock. Still, she was his… theirs… well, the company’s, to be precise. They used to contract out deliveries by sea… but, she provided one hell of a tax write-off, and was perhaps one of the few influences in his life, these days, that gave him any real… oh… well, joy would be the word. The fact that he hesitated even to think it was evidence enough, to him, of the truth of it all.

So much for the grin. And why the hell was he up so damn early? He’d been prepared to be surly over the whole ordeal, but then word came down they’d be talking out the boat for pretty much the whole day. Ah, and there, it’s back again… Bach just couldn’t help smiling to himself.

“A rare sight!” Jo’d caught him in the act! Careless! The older woman… dark of skin, with long straight black hair only just starting to grey about the temples… well, Bach liked her well enough. All too nice, too out-going. He couldn’t help liking her… but he had is cool and introverted demeanor to maintain. But she knew better, and made a point of needling him whenever she caught him in the act of being… well… something akin to a functionally living human being, Bach figured. She giggled her to herself, knowing well enough not to over-reach her momentary victory.

Creaking wood and footsteps brought Bach’s father back into view overhead. “Got it.”

Perhaps some of Bach’s introverted nature came from his father, who also could not be labeled as one for idle chatter or freeform displays of emotion outside that of frustration. Didn’t mean either he or his father felt no closeness to others… it was just, really… neither expressed it… at least, outwardly or with words or hands on shoulders and such like that. Those who mattered to them knew they mattered… why say more than what someone already knew, right? Best way to end up eating one’s own foot.

Dean landed with a thud on the back deck, nigh on exactly where El had let himself fall from the pier. From above, ol’ Jo Anna grunted with little less exasperation than she had over the folly committed by her own flesh and blood not minutes before. “Each a twisted ankle would serve the lot of you some good, I think.” She wrapped her arms about her thin frame, and looked down upon them. Her actual son had busied his way inside the cabin beneath the bridge, securing loose objects and the like… so it fell to her adoptive boys to wish her a calm summer’s afternoon and evening. At least… such was implied with the nods each gave her.

“Thanks,” was all she said, but there she remained. Bach had little to do, but Dean took himself to the bridge and El had yet to re-appear. A bit of a watery whoosh brought the boat a bit away from the pier’s metal edge, and then forward. Ol’ Jo turned to follow them as they silently slid out into Penobscot bay. Though much of Castine already hid from view under the morning’s fog, mere minutes hid first the plant, then the warehouse… and then the pier, with Jo still standing upon it till the last he could see of her.