Chapter 10

Considering the relief that Linda was feeling at that moment, the fact that she didn’t feel like arguing with Keri shouldn’t have been a surprise. Instead of saying anything though, she changed the subject.

“Keri, I’ve been in this bay before with friends and the last time I was here, we dropped a crab trap overboard. We caught about six good sized crabs in a very short time. Do you think Karl might have any crab traps aboard?”

“Now you’re thinking lady. I could use a crab dinner,” Keri grinned, reading Linda’s subject change for what it was and going along with the idea. “He keeps two or three folding traps in a deck locker, and I think he probably has some chicken bits in the freezer for bait too.”

So they set out to try to catch some crabs. When Keri went below to check out the freezer, she found Trudy and Mary-Beth just starting coffee and breakfast in the galley.

“Good morning, Keri” Trudy smiled. “Coffee will be a few minutes, then I’ll see about breakfast.”

“You’re up early,” Keri grinned, “Did we do something to wake you.”

“Yeah, you made the boat quit rocking so much,” Mary-Beth giggled. “Did you know Daddy snores, a whole bunch?”

“Yeah, he does, doesn’t he?” Keri grinned. “Did you sleep okay otherwise?”

“Unh huh, but I went and slept with Mommy after a while. Daddy snored and David poked me in the tummy with his elbow too,” Mary-Beth frowned. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Oh, I’m going to get some old chicken bits out of the freezer. Linda said she thinks there are lots of crabs in the water here, so we’re going to set crab traps,” Keri grinned at her as she went into the workroom to get at the freezer.

“Can I help? I like eating crab too and Unca-Daddy Karl showed me how to bait the traps.”

“Well, it’s raining really hard right now, maybe you can help me when we pull them up later, how’s that?” Keri spoke, bellied down over the freezer and looking into its depth.

“I guess. I think my raincoat is in one of our bags, but I don’t know which one, so I guess I’d get wet if I went outside to help, huh?”

“Yep, I’m afraid so. Hah, here we are, even labelled crab-bait,” Keri crowed as she found the package she was looking for.

“Eww, those are all the yucky bits from when Unca-Daddy Karl kills the chickens,” Mary-Beth made a face. “You mean he keeps that for crab bait?”

“The crabs love eatin’ ‘em, kid,” Keri laughed. “And I love eating crabs.”

“I like crabs too, cooked and on my plate,” Mary-Beth giggled. “They sure must be stupid though, to eat the yucky parts of the chicken.”

“Well, I won’t argue with that. Now come on. We need to get this upstairs before Linda gets impatient with me.”

“It’s not upstairs, Keri, it’s above decks,” Mary-Beth pronounced authoritatively. “Unca-Daddy Karl said so.”

“Yes, little Miss Smarty Britches,” Keri grinned, pushing the little girl ahead of her to the galley. “Mama Trudy, has this little girl had a shower yet this morning?”

“Why no, we didn’t want to waken anyone.”

“Well, the wind’s not as strong here in the bay and although the rain is cool, it’s not cold. I just had a brainwave. If she and I took our clothes off when we went to bait and set the crab traps, we could rinse off in the rain.”

“Oh my, what an idea, but it sounds like fun. What do you think, Mary-Beth?”

“Okay, but if I freeze, can I come back inside right away?”

“I think that’s a smart decision and you know what? I think I’ll come too,” Trudy laughed.

So giggling and laughing, all of them stripped in the wheelhouse, then ran out in the rain. When Linda, who was standing on the stern deck, saw them coming she broke into laughter, but after a moment’s hesitation she stripped off her clothes and joined them. It was such a simple thing, but right then it was just what they needed; a little bit of pure fun to relax from the tension they’d all been under.

It was cool enough that they didn’t stay out for long, but after they had gone back inside, the warmth of the boat soon had Linda and Keri yawning. Luckily, both George and David had awakened by that time and since there were four people to keep watch, Keri and Linda slipped off to find a bunk for a quiet cuddle and a snooze.

Karl awakened slowly, hardly realizing where he was. He could hear rain beating on the hull above his head, but there didn’t seem to be any strong waves rocking the boat, in fact it felt quite calm. He realized immediately that he was not only nude, but he was holding and being held by a woman’s gentle body. He opened his eyes to stare into hazel eyes and a smiling face.

“Hi, stranger,” Ely said with a smile. “Imagine meeting you here.”

Karl couldn’t help a start of surprise. He stared at her momentarily before he responded, his mind having flashed back to the earlier conversation during the storm with all three women.

“Well, hello,” he managed to mutter, still unsure how she expected him to react.

Since he had awakened with an erection and he was lying on his side, facing her, he could feel her soft lower belly pressing against his hardness. She tightened the muscles of her stomach, making her flesh move softly against him.

“Do you remember the first night we spent together in this bunk?” she whispered.

“If I remember correctly, you seduced me,” he smiled.

“Guess what? I’m going to do it again,” she laughed softly.

“And that should be a surprise?” he slid his hands to her bottom and pulled her tightly against him, relishing the sensation of her softly yielding flesh.

“No, I don’t suppose it is, but we’ve got a good two hours until it gets dark again,” she whispered. “And I want to have something to eat, but before that, I want a nice long gentle loving.”

“Upper or lower,” he grinned.

“Surprise me.”

So he did and she was delighted as well as delightful.

Almost an hour later they went out and met everyone else in the galley, where Trudy was acting as the chief cook. George saw them the instant they appeared in the passageway from the captain’s cabin.

“Well hello,” he grinned at Karl. “At last! I was wondering if you two had absconded. However, Linda assured me you were simply reviewing memories and reestablishing familial bonds.”

Trudy grinned, wrapped her arms around Karl and hugged him tightly, then to his surprise she kissed him quite thoroughly. As she released him from her hug each of the other women wanted a turn. Karl was hugged and kissed by each of them in turn until finally he was holding Ely again and he looked up to ask quietly. “Shouldn’t someone be up top and on watch, just in case something goes wrong or someone shows up?”

“Your son and my daughter are on the job,” Trudy smiled at him, pressing him back into a seat, then setting a plate full of crab meat and several slices of freshly baked bread in front of him.

“Linda and I decided that we needed to feed you well, now that you’ve got three women to keep happy,” Keri volunteered.

“We know about the old wives’ tale that you feed man oysters to make him horny. But, while we couldn’t find any oysters, this bay seems to be crawling with rock crabs,” Linda added, laughing in delight.

“So since crab is sea food, we substituted one for the other,” Keri grinned. “We’re hoping that maybe it’ll put a little extra lead in your pencil.”

“He’s never needed that before,” Ely chuckled.

“There was usually only one of us making love to him at any time before. We made sure we took turns, remember?” Keri interjected, laughing gaily.

Everyone laughed and Karl joined them after a moment, even though he was quite surprised at their mirth.

Karl waited until they were quiet, then asked. “Are you sure David and Mary-Beth are responsible enough to be the only ones on watch?”

“They will do just fine,” George pronounced. “Each one will keep the other alert and attentive to their duties. At the moment they are feeling very grown up. It has always been my contention that the more responsibility you give children, the fewer problems you have with them when they are grown.”

“If that was true, Dad, Ely and I should have given you a lot less trouble,” Keri giggled.

“You never gave me any insurmountable amount of trouble,” George looked at her attentively.

“Oh come on, Dad,” Ely crowed. “For one thing, you had a fit when I came back on Karl’s boat with him and bragged that he was my lover.”

“I felt that you were much too young, barely old enough to be responsible enough to learn to drive. In fact, I’m not sure you were of the legal age of consent. However in point of fact, I don’t know what the legal age of consent for sex between a young woman and an adult was at that time, because I consciously made the decision that I would not do the research. I did not wish to know.”

“Oh get real, Dad,” Ely laughed aloud. “You set the whole thing up. First you found a guy you liked, then you got the Pinkerton’s to investigate him and even gave Keri and me the report to read, knowing darn well that we’d like what was in that file. Once you knew you had us hooked, you sent me off to live and work with the man for two weeks. You knew we were going to be together on a boat where there’d be little if any privacy. You knew he was recently divorced and that I had a crush on him already. You knew damn well that we’d seduce each other.”

“Well, it may have seemed that way, but at the moment of inception, that was not my plan. After it became a fait accompli, there was little I could do. Besides, you seemed quite enthused with the situation and that was the important consideration,” George pronounced.

“Oh, George, you lying old fart. I warned you what would happen weeks before, when you told me what you were going to let her do. You just shrugged your shoulders and ignored my protests,” Trudy laughed softly. “And, just for your information, she was well past the age of consent, so at the moment she made her decision, she was entitled to give her permission. But if I remember, you weren’t all that worried about it even then, except that it made you horny. The next week when I came for my weekly visit, you asked me to move in with you.”

“I asked you to marry me,” George said vehemently. “And you turned me down flat.”

“Like hell you did,” Trudy laughed again. “ The first time we ended up in bed you waited until I wasn’t expecting any funny business and pulled me into your bed with you. Then you set out to convince me that I’d be turning down a wonderful opportunity for satisfaction if I didn’t hang around. You didn’t propose until later, years later, and you only did it then because I was pregnant.”

“Well, you did turn me down at that point however,” he frowned. “Have you any idea what that does to a man’s ego? The guilty man finally scrapes up the nerve to commit himself to living his life with another, but she expresses a wish to remain free to pursue extramarital affairs.”

“That’s not true at all, you old fart,” Trudy laughed. “What you did was offer me a perpetual contract that was basically identical to what I’d get from proving a common law relationship. Besides, since I was pregnant, you knew I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Ah, were you pregnant then? I thought it was a year before Mary-Beth was born,” he sighed. “And she’s growing up so fast.”

“Well Dad, you always said children grew too fast,” Keri winked at Ely. “At least that’s what you always told Ely and me.”

“Well, look at yourselves. When I bought the island you were six, Karl joined us there when you were not much more than sixteen. Trudy was making weekly visits then, but shortly thereafter she moved to the island permanently. When you went off to school, you’d have been twenty or so. Now -- you’re what, thirty? It only seems like a few months or perhaps a year to me. Time passes so quickly,” he sighed as he looked at Keri with a melancholy gaze. “Just as I remember Ely advising me that she had seduced Karl upon her return from assisting him with his boat, I also remember you not long later, casually announcing that you were Karl’s lover as well.”

“Does it bother you that both Ely and I happen to love the same man, Dad?” she asked quietly.

He paused and frowned. “No, that doesn’t matter, as long as everyone remains happy and relatively satisfied. I just don’t understand any of it really. I mean, I can understand it from Karl’s perspective. I literally had two wives when I was younger, your Mother was one and Ely’s the other, but I doubt if I really satisfied either of them. I never have understood one woman being willing to share her lover with another woman.”

“Only one of her lovers at a time Dad. That’s what’s wonderful about four, if two are busy, there are two left to keep each other company,” Keri grinned. “Linda and I talked it out. We’re all going to talk Karl into letting us live in his old cabin. If anyone from outside comes around, it will look like Linda and I are lesbian lovers while Karl and Ely are living together.”

“Well, as I see it, that means that Trudy is going to have to look after the whole house,” George frowned and winked at Ely. “Somehow, that doesn’t seem right to me. It was built with more than three residents in mind and certainly it’s too much work for one woman to maintain.”

He paused and then he smiled at Linda. “I don’t suppose you’d consider coming over for a day or two a week, just to help out would you?”

Linda broke into delighted laughter, she bent and kissed his cheek, then turned to Trudy. “I’ve heard of his reputation with house keepers,” she giggled. “What do you think?”

“That depends,” Trudy chuckled. “Karl, how is your arthritis these days? Could you use another nurse for a couple of days a week?”

“Huh?” Karl stared at her and then at Linda. “I’m not sure I understand. My arthritis isn’t all that bad.”

“Oh you ass,” Trudy threw her hands in the air as she turned to Ely. “Is he always this obtuse?”

“Not usually,” she laughed softly. “Usually he’s unbelievably quick, so he must still be sleepy. Either that or he has something else on his mind right now.”

Trudy walked over to Karl and surprised him as she slid into his lap.

“My dear man,” she grinned at him. “George seems to want to share in your good fortune. You have three women serving you, while he has only one. If he has Linda do ‘housekeeping’ for two days a week, I might have to sleep on the couch. To be honest, I hate to sleep alone; do I need to be plainer than that?”

He stared at her grinning face, then decided that everyone was teasing and that she and Linda were calling George’s bluff with a touch of pure deviltry.

“Well, my back has bothered me on occasion, but not much lately,” he smiled, bringing a hand up to pat her round bottom. “I suppose we could give it a trial. Do you have a preventive treatment in mind?”

“A really good massage and then lots of exercise, with emphasis on pelvic thrusts,” she grinned.

“He doesn’t need practice at those,” Linda laughed as she slid into George’s lap. “How about you, George, how are you at pelvic thrusts?”

“Well, Trudy has been trying to improve my technique for years,” he laughed, then to Karl’s surprise, he audaciously slid his hand up inside her blouse. “But, she tells me that I’m still much better with my hands.”

Linda sat up instantly, her eyes registering her surprise. No one else could really see what George had done, but everyone could guess. She pushed his hand away, but only laughed.

“Well, that hand does pretty well, but I’m a bit leery about the present setting. There are little kettles around that have big ears,” she chuckled as she grasped and held his wrists. “By the way, are you ambidextrous?”

“George, Linda is right. The children might come down,” Trudy said quietly. “Karl, that goes for you as well. We’ll discuss your treatment later.”

“Okay, I need to check the engine and boiler before we start out on another leg of the trip anyway,” Karl nodded as she rose from his lap.

“All right,” she smiled

He shifted to the side from the bench seat and stood as well, but was surprised to find her following him as he went down the passage and turned to go to the engine room. He glanced at her face quizzically.

“I’ve never seen your engine,” she grinned. “Would you show it to me?”

“Oh he keeps his ‘engine’ in really good shape and he makes sure it gets lubricated regularly,” Ely said quite loudly from where she stood in the galley at the other end of the passage.

Keri popped her head around the corner as well. “Watch out, Trudy, it can get hot in there and darn dirty too,” she giggled just as Karl opened the door into the engine room and stepped inside.

Trudy paused to look back before following him, grinning widely as she winked at Linda.

“That’s okay. I like it hot and dirty at times,” she followed Karl, closing the engine room door behind her.

“Okay woman, now what?” Karl grinned. “I think you and Linda were trying to bluff the old man and your bluff just got called.”

“I know,” she managed to say while laughing softly. “We were teasing, but the old bastard must have seen me wink at Linda.”

“Yeah,” he grinned back. “Now, why don’t you stick around and really help me check things, maybe George will get the wrong idea after all.”

“Well of course,” she smiled. “We couldn’t let a good tease simply die, could we?”

So Trudy helped him as he checked and oiled around his boiler and engine. They took their time and were quite thorough, so it took almost half an hour. When they finished and returned to the galley, George was speaking

“ ... but what if Karl and Linda are together, are you and Ely going to...” he asked.

“I like Ely a lot and she likes me too, but whether we ever make love, well, since you bring it up, it doesn’t worry me,” Keri frowned as she interrupted him. “It’s none of your business Dad, but for your information, I do think she’d make a wonderful lover.”

She stood up and pushed past Linda to go up the ladder to the wheelhouse. As she disappeared, Linda sighed deeply.

“George, I don’t know you very well,” she said firmly. “But I think she just did a very good job of telling you that you’ve got your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

She followed Keri and George just stared. He glanced at first Karl and then at Trudy.

“Well, which one of you is going to chew on me next?” he growled.

Karl looked at Trudy and she looked at him, then she smiled as she sat down at George’s side.

“George, even they don’t know if this is going to work. Those two are still getting to know each other. Your being negative isn’t going to help anything though. Besides, what else are they going to do?”

George just rolled his eyes and looked at Karl.

“George, I don’t know what’s going on,” Karl sshrugged. “I love them all, each in her own special way, and I plan to enjoy every minute of what we have for as long as it lasts, whether that happens to be one day or a hundred years. Now, it’s getting dark and I’m feeling homesick. As soon as I can, I want to be back on Gull Island. Well, at least I want to be near the island by dawn tomorrow. If we can manage that we might be able to catch the high tide going into the cut. If we cruise all night long, we can just about make it.”

It was his turn to head up the steps and to the wheelhouse.

Ely looked at him as he came up and winked.

“I thought I’d send the kids down to settle things before any of us went down. What do you think?”

He grinned. “That sounds great to me. But first, David, could you turn up the burner on the boiler for me”

Ely opened her mouth to say something, then realised that there were four adults who knew exactly what to do and were watching her son. She just smiled and winked at Karl as David moved to the controls and fired up the burner.

“Now, what’s next, Mary-Beth, how about you show me?” Karl grinned at the tousled hair of the little girl who stood at his bald headed son’s side.

“Double check the water level in the boiler on this gauge,” she pointed, then reached for a control. “Then you have to run the feed pump on manual control for just a bit. Just long enough to make sure it works.”

“And what do we need to do next, David?”

“Check the reading on all the lubricator indicators to make sure they’re full. Then you have to make sure you don’t pump too much water into the boiler, so we shut the feed pump back to automatic.”

“And you have to check the stack temperature, dummy!” Mary-Beth chided. “You gotta be sure the burner fired up.”

“That was next, Aunty Mary-Beth,” David grinned at her, not in the least upset, but taking the opportunity to tease her a bit about being bossy.

So for the next few minutes, Karl used the kids as examples as he gave the three women a review of the startup sequence of a steam boat. Once he was satisfied that the boiler was coming up to pressure and working properly, he had both kids climb on his lap and tell him about their day.

Shortly afterward the kids went below decks, so when the boiler was at operating pressure, Karl and the three women got the boat underway. They raised anchor and slowly steamed out of the shelter of the bay that had hidden them all day. Karl laid out a course on the chart for all of them to keep an eye on, then settled back to enjoy the trip. During the day the wind had slowly dropped and shifted directions as well; now it was coming from the northwest. Since they’d changed the direction they were travelling when they left their overnight moorage, it was again almost directly in their face, but now it wasn’t much more than a stiff breeze. However, along with the impending darkness and the steady rainfall, the clouds it brought were as much cover as Karl wanted.

Keri volunteered to take the wheel. So Ely offered to coach her on integrating the GPS readings with the radar sightings, since Keri felt she didn’t know the GPS well, which left Karl and Linda at loose ends for a while. Karl decided to listen on the radio, first to catch the weather and then to try to catch up on the news. After that he wasn’t sure just what he wanted to do.

Linda spent a few moments with him at the radio since she told him that she’d had some difficulty with it during the day. Even George hadn’t been able to figure it out. It turned out to be quite a simple problem, someone had left the earphones partially plugged into the jack, which cut the speaker out of the circuit. Karl fiddled for a few seconds, then noticed the earphones. When he pulled the connecting plug completely out of the socket, the speaker blared.

“ ... moderate westerly winds with little rainfall throughout the evening and a possibility of further moderation tonight, but a strong possibility of rising winds and heavy rainfall again in the early morning. The low pressure system that has brought on a general small craft warning throughout the whole of the forecast area and extremely heavy rainfall is now lessening. Weather radar shows one further small trough which should pass through the general area early in the morning hours, but there is a possibility of a general clearing trend toward daylight. However, there will be further unsettled weather conditions for several days... “

“That doesn’t sound like the storm we’ve been expecting,” George spoke up from his side, startling Karl.

“Oh, shit, you surprised me,” Karl laughed uneasily. “You’re right though. It sounds to me like the storm center might have gone past us.”

“What have we been slopping around in for two days then?” Keri laughed. “A summer breeze?”

“Well, it could have been a lot worse,” Karl shrugged. “I just hope this weather holds out for a few more hours. I want clouds and rain for cover for most of the way home.”

“I don’t understand,” Linda frowned. “I mean we could travel a lot easier if the weather was nicer.”

“Ah, but if it the weather was nice, more people would be outside and those who were outside could see much further,” George spoke. “In a heavy storm like this, even regular radar is not as reliable, since part of the radar beam is deflected by raindrops. The only things which might track us in a heavier storm are the military satellites. At least the only thing at the present time that is, I understand the new ‘HF’ Radar will not be affected by storms at all. However, since the government is still contemplating where to construct the first West Coast installations, we are safe from that.”

“As I understand it, even the satellites seem to be somewhat affected by heavy rain,” Karl sighed. “However, there isn’t much we can do to avoid those at any time. I’m more worried about being seen, either by eye or by radar, and we present a damn small radar profile for regular radar under any circumstance. The ‘Skolka’ is made of wood and wood isn’t an effective radar reflector. As well as that, heavy rain can reflect a hell of a lot of radar waves and distort things rather badly. I’m hoping that the combination will reduce our chances of being noticed. So, if you want a nice uneventful trip, hope for strong wind and rain until we get home.”

“Oh,” Linda frowned slightly. “Well, why are you worried about the military satellites?”

“Well, if they happen to be using infrared scanning cameras to keep an eye on the area, and if those cameras work through heavy cloud cover, we’d stand out like a sore thumb. I mean to them it would seem that the boat was on fire, just from the heat of the boiler. Admittedly, the boiler room is insulated, but we do have a fire burning inside the boiler and the exhaust goes straight up the stack. We’d be an extremely distinctive anomaly from space and since they dislike seeing anomalies, they’d probably send someone to investigate. “ Karl explained. “Which means that they worry me, first of all because we shouldn’t be travelling at all, but mostly because we’re breaking the law just by being on the move. However more than that, we are smuggling people into Canada, my dear.”

“Yes. You are. You’re smuggling me and mine,” George added, laughing softly. “But like you, I’m more worried about being seen from ground level than from the air or from space. So I don’t mind the rain at all, I just hope the wind doesn’t come up as strong as it was last night. Early on, it was really more than I have ever been out in before.”

Ely laughed softly. “Dad, you’re a wuss, this trip wasn’t bad and you’re in an extremely good boat. I’m astounded at how well she takes to heavy waves.”

“Well, it was built for fishing the west coast of the island,” Karl smiled. “Out there, twenty or thirty-foot waves are quite common. I’ve just made sure when I rebuilt her that I kept the center of gravity as low as I could; other than that, the hull is still like it was when she was originally built.”

“She has served us well,” George smiled. “What time do you expect to get home?”

“I was hoping to get near the vicinity of the island about five in the morning. It should be just coming on toward daylight. If it’s raining hard, I’ll hang back a bit, since I’d rather have daylight to go through the cut.”

“Yeah,” Ely snorted. “And either a high or a low tide because of the current there.”

“That works too,” Karl smiled. “High tide tomorrow is at six thirty or there about.”

“I don’t understand,” Linda looked confused. “What is this cut everyone talks about?”

“Ah,” George chuckled. “That, my dear Linda, is a story in itself. You see, I am a writer and when I am in the throes of creation, I have no wish to be disturbed. We are heading for an island which I purchased many years ago in order to ensure that I would have the privacy I require. For years, it had sat untenanted, because there was really no way to land on its shores in most weather conditions. Most of its outer shorelines are actually steep cliffs, surrounded by deep water. There is one narrow passage which almost bisects the island that leads into a land-locked and well sheltered bay, but even that passage was thought to be unnavigable.”

“Picture in your mind a narrow passage, perhaps one hundred feet wide in the most part, but narrowing to approximately sixty or seventy feet in several places. On each side are sheer rock faces, which tower up to one or two hundred feet above you, some of those faces have overhangs that almost meet. Now as you know, nature abhors a straight line, so visualize several sharp bends and a few straighter sections for a total distance of several hundred feet in length. Imagine too, if you would, that at the end of this passage is a deep and quiet bay, several acres in extent. As the tide rises and falls during the day, the tidal waters from this bay must pass through the cut. At its greatest flow rate, you can imagine the turbulence in that restricted passage.”

“As well as all that, the entrance to the bay is through a passage in the sheer cliffs that is, for all practical purposes, hidden from view from almost any angle, especially if one is at or near sea level. I first viewed the island during an overflight by a small plane, but after purchasing it, I and anyone that I wished to have visit the island made the passage by way of helicopter. I felt certain that I was almost guaranteed privacy, which as I intimated, was why I had purchased the island in the first place.”