'Tis a damn tough life full of toil and strife We whalemen undergo And we don't give a damn when the gale is done How hard the winds did blow."
She grinned at Andy, who looked like he was failing in love.
'Now we're homeward bound, 'tis a grand old sound On a good ship taut and free, And we won't give a damn when we drink our rum With the girls of old Maui."
She handed Seth a full bait jar so he could hang it in the pot about to go over the side. He took it and didn't immediately turn to hang it, but stood for a moment, looking down at her. Her smile faded. "What's the matter?"
He shrugged. "Nothing," he said, and turned back to the shot of line he was coiling.
She stared at his back, puzzled. The expression in his eyes had seemed somehow regretful. She shrugged and went back to the bait table to cut more herring and fill more jars.
Rolling down to old Maui, my boys, Rolling down to old Maui
Now we're homeward bound from the Arctic round Rolling down to old Maui."
She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this good.
Her last trip on the Avilda, and no matter what Jack said it was going to be her last trip, was going to be a piece of cake. As soon as they nailed the shark in Dutch, he'd put them on to the men in the Navaho, and when they finished singing, the truth of what had happened to Alcala and Brown would be known at last.
Harry Gault had no real idea there was a cuckoo in his nest, and all Kate had to do was help set and pull pots and make money and count the knots home. She hoped Jack had remembered to make her a reservation on the plane. The flights north were always jammed and she wanted to be on the first one that left after her tippy toe hit dirt at Dutch. She missed Mutt and her cabin and her homestead and the Park, though it didn't look like she was going to miss the first snow after all.
"How soft the breeze from the island trees Now the ice is far astern And them native maids in them tropical glades Is awaiting our return."
She was able to dismiss Harry catching her coming out of his cabin at two in the morning; he hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow in her direction, or referred to it in any way. He had likewise ignored her reference to his two previous crewmen's disappearance, probably having decided she'd heard the story over a bar in Dutch. He hadn't picked up on the shark's reference to Jack, and Andy, bless his heart, had covered for the wet survival suit.
"Even now their big black eyes look out Hoping some fine day to see our baggy sails running 'fore the gales Rolling down to old Maui."
She leaned head and shoulders inside a crab pot balanced delicately on the pot launcher, and began to hang the bait jar. Through the metal mesh stretched between the steel frames, she saw Ned raise his right hand, as if to wave toward the bridge. His left hand moved to the launching lever.
The engine changed pitch, the Avilda made a sudden jerk to port and the platform of the pot launcher shifted.
The pot tilted precariously, overbalanced and fell into the water.
It wasn't until Kate inhaled water and exhaled bubbles that she realized she had fallen with it.
Her first thought was how strange it was that her mind never stopped thinking, that she remained unpanicked, that she could assess her situation so coolly, ticking off items one at a time.
She realized she was overboard.
She realized she was inside a crab pot.
She realized it was no accident, and dismissed the knowledge as something to be dealt with later.
She spared one brief, bitter thought for the cocksure arrogance that led her to believe she was safe.
No, safe wasn't the right word. She had thought herself invulnerable. That, too, was something better dealt with later.
Meanwhile, she and the pot were sinking together, down, down, down, heading straight down through the cold, green waters of the Gulf of Alaska, water that grew ever darker as they descended toward the ocean bottom three hundred feet below.
Kate realized the killers had had no time to tie the door shut before dumping the pot. It had happened so fast, she still had the strap of the jar hanger in one hand.
Instinctively, she used it to brace herself and kicked at the door. It didn't move. She kicked again. It remained closed, perhaps the force of their descent causing the water to keep it closed, perhaps the water blunting the force of her kicks.
The pressure of all that water bearing down on her pitifully fragile self was building in her ears.
It would kill her.
If hypothermia didn't get her first.
If she didn't drown before that.
She kicked again, and still that damn door wouldn't budge, and suddenly she was overwhelmed with an energizing, revitalizing fury and she kicked again and again and again. She would not be disposed of like an inconvenience, Harry Gault and Seth Skinner and Ned Nordhoff would not be permitted to go their way as if nothing had happened, business as usual, she would get out of this pot, she would fight her way to the surface, she would flay all three of them alive and shove them over the side in a crab pot and see how they liked it.
She kicked again and her foot hit nothing. The fury cleared from her eyes and she saw that the door to the crab pot was open, forced by the water all the way open and back against the side of the pot. Without hesitation she grabbed mesh to the open end and, because the pot had tumbled and was descending door side down, pulled herself around the bottom and up the other side, virtually climbing around the outside of the pot.
When she reached the top she hesitated for a millisecond.
As rapidly as it was descending toward the ocean bottom, as much as the pressure was building in her ears, as numb as her hands and feet were becoming, still the pot was the only solid object in her world at that moment, and it took a conscious effort to let go and strike for the surface.
She did it, though, following the long trail of bubbles up, upward, ever upward, stroking vigorously with arms that felt like lead, kicking steadily with legs that felt like spaghetti. Her lungs began to burn from lack of oxygen.
Was she still going up? Had she become disoriented and lost her sense of direction? Was she already drowned and didn't know it? The temptation to inhale, to gulp in great breaths of air, was so tempting that she opened her mouth to do just that when she saw a dark shape above her.
It was the hull of the Avilda, and with a burst of adrenaline she reached out for it with every numb sinew of her body. As it came nearer some detached comer of her mind noticed that the keel had enough kelp growing from it to qualify as a sea otter habitat. It must have slowed the Avilda's cruising speed by at least five knots. But then, what could you expect from a skipper whose creed was "Use it up, throw it out and buy a new one"?
The thought of Harry Gault, laughing at how he'd tricked her, triumphant in his successful disposal of what was surely nothing more than a temporary annoyance, less in importance than a rock he would stub his toe on, cleared Kate's head at once. She was close enough to where she could see the surface through the water now, could even make out the clouds in the sky. She made for the side of the boat, hoping to attract Andy's attention, but the side kept retreating in front of her. Her lungs bursting and her ears popping, she made for the surface, breaking out of the sea's cold embrace into air that felt even colder.
Gasping for breath, coughing water out of her lungs, she shook water from her eyes and looked up.
Just in time to see the stern of the Avilda swing toward her, the water boiling out from beneath its stem. Instinct took over and she sucked in and dived straight down as far and as fast as she could.
Even at that, the churning propellor tickled one booted foot. Another stroke and she was beyond it, just barely.