Dangerous Waters

“Yes. But—”

“We have to talk to you,” he said, “don’t we, Granger?”

Granger said slowly, “I guess we do.” He glanced back at the hearse, where the driver was showing signs of impatience.

“You’re not leaving Mokohina yet, are you?” Rogan pressed her.

After a small hesitation she conceded, “Not yet.”

“Then we’ll see you later.”

Camille didn’t answer, and as he moved away with his brother he shot a glance over his shoulder as if willing her to stay.

The wake was just the sort of send-off Barney would have enjoyed. Drinks and stories flowed freely, and Rogan lost count of the number of beer-breathing, teary-eyed old salts who clapped him or his brother on the shoulder and urged them to join in yet another toast to their father.

One white-bearded, purple-cheeked character whispered hoarsely, “Did he tell you about his find then, boy?”

“What find?”

Rogan edged backward, but the beard only moved closer, and the man squinted up at him through watery, bloodshot eyes. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?” The old guy was probably talking through the bottom of his beer glass.

The man looked about them covertly and clutched at Rogan’s arm. “We gave Taff a send-off the night your dad got his, y’know. In absentia, so to speak. Poor old Taff.” He shook his head in sorrow. “Barney was saying Taff had missed out on a fortune.”

Barney would say that. He’d always hoped someday to uncover sunken treasure.

The beard leaned closer still. A whiff of tobacco breath mingled with the beer. “I reckon,” the man said portentously, “him and Taff found something.”

Rogan looked about for an escape route. “Then I guess he died happy.”

“And that’s another thing.” A broad, blunt finger poked his chest. “Heart attack, they said, right? But what brought that on, eh? Someone jumped him, didden they? Barney didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

“It wasn’t the first time he’d got in a…fight.” Rogan avoided the words drunken brawl. Apparently Barney was already in line for the sainthood conferred by death, but he’d had minor brushes with the law in several Pacific ports after becoming involved in some pub scrap.

“Not for years,” his friend averred. “He was getting a bit long in the tooth for that sort of caper, you know.”

He was probably right, but Barney had been mourning his sailing companion, a man he’d spent way more time with over the years than he ever had with his wife or his sons. And he’d been drinking heavily. “Maybe he felt like getting in a fight that night.”

The white-bearded chin protruded stubbornly. “Or maybe some bastard robbed him. Y’know, all night he kept feeling his breast pocket as if he had something in there he didn’t want to lose.”

“You think someone from Taff’s wake beat up my father?”

The man looked shocked. Then he scowled. “Well, the pub was full and we were in the public bar. It wasn’t a genteel private do like this.” He looked about at the crowd splashing beer on the tables and the floor as they poured it from brimming jugs and brandished their glasses in raucous toasts. One man snored in a corner while his companions rocked in their chairs with laughter at another who stood on the table, declaiming a long and exceedingly ribald poem. In competition, a group being kept upright only by their affinity for the solid bar counter struggled through an off-key and heavily adapted version of “Shenandoah.”

Rogan manfully kept a straight face. It was becoming obvious why the proprietor, after hosting Taff’s send-off, had preferred to corral this particular group of patrons in a separate bar.

“Webby, you old piker!” Another enthusiastic mourner clapped the bearded man on the back. This one was taller and younger, with gingery whiskers peppering a long, creased face under a thistle-head of reddish hair. “Fill up, then!” He poured a stream of beer into Webby’s glass, then waved the jug invitingly at Rogan. “What about yourself, Rogue?”

Rogan shook his head. Already he was feeling slightly unattached from his surroundings, the beer fumes and smoke and noisy revelry receding in an alcohol-induced haze.

Webby dug the newcomer in the ribs. “Hey, you remember old Barney at Taff’s wake, don’t you, Doll? Don’t you reckon he was all fired up about something?”

Doll? Rogan blinked as the taller man pondered. “He was fired up about a lot of things—doctors, Taff dying on him, the government, customs regulations…”

Webby poked him again. “Wasn’t he talking about getting rich at last?”

“Barney was always talking about getting rich.”

“Yeah, but that night…”

Rogan edged away, leaving the two of them arguing. Granger, a slightly hunted look about him, caught his eye and came over. “Do you think anyone would notice if I left? This lot might keep going all day.”

“And all night,” Rogan speculated. “I’ve had enough, anyway. I don’t suppose they’ll miss us if we slip away.”

Granger’s look held veiled surprise. Then he grinned slightly. “Not much of a female presence here, is there?”

Rogan tried to look offended, suspecting he only looked sheepish. Sure, he liked female company when it was available. Came of being without it for so much of his working life. Even on shore, in some places where he’d worked just looking at a woman could get him thrown into jail or worse. Not to mention the even greater danger to any poor girl who might be tempted to return the compliment.

So in a free country where what a man and a woman did was a matter of mutual consent and no one else’s business, he made the most of the sometimes brief periods he had to enjoy being with them.

He liked women. He liked their bodies, softly rounded or slender and supple, and their silky smooth skin, and their hair—how they kept it shiny and sweet-smelling, sometimes curled and plaited and decorated. He liked the way they moved, the subtle roll and sway of their hips and behinds as they walked. And how if they liked a man back, they touched their hair and tilted their heads and peeked at him with shy, flirty eyes. Or boldly looked at him and smiled, inviting him closer.

He specially liked their laughter, and their voices—light and pretty, or low and sexy. And how they listened, really listened when he talked. He liked the way they cared, about all sorts of things—children, the environment, their girlfriends’ problems.

And he was awed by how capable they were. His mother had needed to be, but other women too seemed to just know things that men blundered through without a clue.

He liked being with them. For a while.

Sometimes a leisurely drink or two with a woman in a warm bar was as pleasurable in its own way as a wild romp in bed. Not that he wasn’t open to offers…

He wondered if Ocean-eyes was around.

Camille, he remembered. Her name was Camille. Nice. Yeah, and it suited her. Although she didn’t look consumptive like The Lady of the Camellias.

It wasn’t easy escaping, and it was another hour before the brothers slipped through a side door and Rogan gulped in a lungful of fresh air.

“Let’s walk,” Granger said.

Putting some distance between them and the revelry inside, they strolled randomly along the nearest street, then uphill, where for a while they silently observed the view, and finally by a roundabout route made their way back into the heart of the town.

Rogan told Granger about his conversation with Webby. “Do you think it’s possible Dad had stumbled on something valuable?”

Granger snorted. “The old man chased after so many wild geese he could have started an egg farm.”

That was certainly true. Except that he’d never actually caught one.

Granger’s step faltered, then picked up, and Rogan said, “What?”