Come Alive Ch. 02

'That seems to have stopped the old bitch in her tracks,' he thought - grimly self-satisfied.

"I see," the bitch said. "I, well, no...I hadn't taken that into consideration."

"Rolf?" his mother asked quietly. "What do you have to say?"

"I'm staying." His arms were crossed, his jaw was thrust forward, and Taggart thought the kid looked like some kind of amped-up Viking warrior...about to burn down an abbey full of nuns.

"Well, that settles that," Britt said.

And then the fire breathing spoke: "And I also will stay onboard - until this vessel returns to Bergen."

"What?!" Taggart said, grinning maniacally.

"What?!" Rolf cried, rolling his eyes.

"What?!" Britt asked, starting to laugh hysterically. "You? On this boat, with Henry - AND Rolf?!"

"And WHY NOT!? I am a PERFECTLY competent sailor," the dragon-lady oncologist said.

Taggart's eye went from the Dragon to Rolf and back again, red warning signals going off in his mind...like there was something he'd missed before - and shouldn't have.

"Please, Dr. Bauer," Taggart said, aiming both barrels at his oncologist, "could you tell me why you think this is necessary?"

"Because I am more concerned than ever that my grandson's life would be in great peril should something happen to you. I am, therefore, simply looking after my family the best way I know how."

Taggart looked at Britt and shrugged in defeat; Britt didn't raise a stink and even Rolf was now lost in thought, trying desperately to come up with something, anything to protest this unwanted intrusion. When he couldn't he did the same thing any other fifteen-year-old did; he stormed away from everyone, and his mother took off after him.

And that left Taggart and the Dragon Lady standing together on the pier. A monumentally awkward silence ensued.

"Do you happen to have any gear with you?" he said after a minute or so had passed.

"Such as?"

"Foul weather gear, gloves, boots, thermal protection...you know, the basics?"

"I can pick up whatever you think is needed in town."

"I see."

"No, Mr. Taggart, I don't think you see. Not at all. You should have never taken Rolf on a trip like this. Sailing in these waters can be a life-threatening endeavor, for even the most well-prepared adventurists. Bringing a fifteen-year-old with barely any experience at this sort of thing was wildly irresponsible - of my daughter and you. I intend to see to it that my grandson is well protected out there."

He nodded. "Commendable. I appreciate your sincerity."

"What? Are you being sarcastic?"

"No, not at all. I appreciate your point of view, especially as you don't know me well, nor do you have any real idea of what Time Bandit is capable of."

"Time Bandit. That is a preposterous name. How did you come up with that?"

"Well, my dad had a boat he named Bandit, and one of my favorite movies was Time Bandits..."

"I've never heard of it."

"I'm not surprised. It was kind of a little known classic." He turned, looked at Britt and Rolf fully engaged in a heated argument. "Too bad," he said. "This didn't need to happen."

"Of course it did."

"Well, we need to leave this pier as soon as possible. The Coast Guard was nice enough to let us stay here last night, but we need to move on. Would you go get Rolf and let him know I'm going to start the engine, let her warm-up for a minute. You and your daughter need to decide what the two of you are going to do."

"I told you. I'm coming with you."

"You know, I don't want to make too fine a point here, but you haven't exactly been invited."

She turned on him with fire in her eyes, then she softened somewhat. "You are absolutely correct," she said as she walked off towards Britt and Rolf. He thought he could see steam coming out of her ears as she walked, surely not a good sign...

"Funny woman," he said as he returned to the Bandit. He got the diesel going then went below to take his meds, slamming down a bottle of water in the process, then he went topsides and started the process of leaving by untying the 'spring lines' and coiling those ropes. Next, he checked that the sails were ready to go in case of engine failure, and the anchor ready to deploy in case nothing worked, and by that time Rolf was hopping back on board.

"I think I'm leaving now," the boy said, frowning.

Both women were standing on the dock now, looking up at Taggart, the Dragon Lady relishing her triumph.

"Sorry to see you go, son. You've been a helluva a mate. You better go down and get your things."

Rolf disappeared below and Taggart turned to the Dragon Lady; she stood there waiting, waiting to be invited aboard, waiting to bend Taggart's will to her own.

He stood there, smiling, not saying a word...until Rolf came topsides with his duffel.

And still, he remained silent, though he stepped closer to the boy - who came and hugged Taggart, hard. Taggart simply kept his eyes boring into the Dragon Lady's eyes, tearing her to shreds before her family...

Then she gave in. "Rolf? Put your things down below. Mr. Taggart, would you at all mind if I accompanied you and my grandson for the return journey to Bergen?"

"No, please, be my guest," he said too graciously, extending his hand to help her aboard...

Which she refused. She put one hand on a lifeline stanchion and pulled herself up, lost her balance, and fell into the water.

"Man overboard!" Taggart yelled at the top of his voice, causing several nearby servicemen and women to laugh and begin clapping. He then jumped down to the pier and helped her out of the water, then up on deck, then he helped Britt up and got her to the cockpit. Rolf? Time to cast off some lines. Forward first, I'll use the aft line to pivot on, so start coiling lines and cleaning up the deck, and I'll cast off the aft line."

"Got it."

Which left Britt and her mother to look on and observe how easily Rolf moved about the little ship, and how he had taken to life with Henry as a teacher. He did not disappoint, either. They left the base without issue and motored into Bodø, pulling into a marina for an overnight stay.

"Rolf? Take your grandmother into town, see that she gets everything she'll need for about two weeks on board..."

"Two weeks?" the Dragon Lady cried. "Aren't you going back to Bergen?"

"Indeed we are. After we spend about ten days in the Lofotens."

"I see."

"Of course, we may decide to spend more time out there, depending on what we find."

"Very well."

"Will you need to call your office and let them know?" he asked, a twinkle in his eye.

"No, that won't be necessary. I told them I would be away for at least a month," she said, the twinkle now in hers.

"Ah, I see," he said as she and Rolf walked off to do her shopping.

"I told you, Henry," Britt sighed. "She sees everything, the future most of all."

He shook his head. "I'll have to pull out the chessboard. See what's what..."

"You will lose."

"First time for everything, darlin'."

+++++

With only a fifty or so mile passage to Reine, Henry waited for perfect weather, and with virtually no night to speak of he sailed on the tide, at four in the morning, choosing to let Rolf and Dina sleep while he motored out of the town and into the main channel. The diesel, of course, woke Rolf...who dutifully came topsides and helped clear the deck of lines and fenders. With almost no wind out, Taggart decided to motor until they were well clear of the rocks and islets that lined the channel, then he set a drifter and cut the motor, enjoying the hours-long sunrise with his coffee.

Making no more than 3 knots, by midday they were just past the halfway point and now the sea looked like a giant piece of glass stretching off to infinity. "How fast she changes," he said, recalling the storm just a few days before.

Dina made perfect little sandwiches of cucumber and smoked salmon for lunch, a far cry from what Henry usually made at sea, and he enjoyed watching her move around down below. She would, he said more than once, have made a wonderful wife...for someone with the balls to keep her from running all over them.

It was warm out now - being not quite 60 degrees F being considered warm in this part of the world - and Dina came topsides wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and he found that - whenever she wasn't looking his way - he was staring at her, not quite believing what he saw. She was cute, incongruously so, and it just didn't compute. Fire breathing dragons weren't supposed to be cute, were they?

The breeze piped up, an honest little wind began filling in from the southwest and Time Bandit heeled to starboard, her bow wave started to gurgle a little, and she sat in the sun, leaning back and, he saw, jutting her breasts just out a little too much...

'Ah,' he thought, 'the game's afoot...'

He turned away, pulled up an info page on the chart plotter, looking intently at the harbor chart for Reine. He next looked at the inner harbor chart, saw the little marina there used VHF 9 for inquiries so he called, made a reservation for a few nights, then pulled up the chart for the channel entry, studying buoy placement and limiting depths. With all this info at hand, he plotted waypoints all the way to the marina, turned on the autopilot and went below to get a Coke.

"You can't just get up and leave the wheel!" she cried.

"Why not?"

"Well, who's steering the boat?"

"The autopilot."

She looked at him quizzically. "The what?"

"Doc, all the way across the Atlantic I probably steered for less than an hour. It just isn't necessary, unless you want to. This thing steers where you tell it too, it makes changes in heading..."

"Show me," she said, crawling over to the wheel and then looking at all the instruments clustered there.

"What have you sailed before?" he asked.

"The Folkboat? You are familiar with this?"

"Yup. You might find the navigation equipment on Bandit a little more up to date than what you're used to."

"I can't recognize anything here, except the compass. Could you teach me?"

"I could, but I'm curious; why do you want to learn?"

"These things interest me."

"Sailboat navigations interests you?"

"Yes, very much. I learned to reduce sights, all of it, the last time I sailed."

"You've done celestial?"

"Yes. I loved it. Reading Bowditch, everything about it."

"Who did you sail with?"

She looked away. "My husband."

He felt real anger simmering just beneath those waves, so decided to change course a little, try a new tack. "What did you think of sailing the Folkboat?"

And she seemed more than a little grateful he hadn't asked the next, most obvious question, even as she turned to meet his question. "Small but nimble. Nothing more than simplicity itself, really."

And that was all it took, in the end, for common ground to emerge between these two disparate souls. He talked navigation and she listened. She talked about sailing in and around Oslo, about wanting to sail more before a bad marriage and her all-consuming career changed everything. He talked about sailing in Newport Beach and Mexico and sailing across the Pacific on two Transpacs.

And the oddest part of this equation was to be found in Rolf's eyes. He sat and listened to all these varied experiences and for the first time in his life began to see all the possibilities out there, just waiting. Henry knew the signs all too well: the faraway look in the eyes, the slow turn to look at the horizon, maybe wondering what was on the far side of a dream.

So, within the confines of a little sailboat, all kinds of dreams and regrets took form that afternoon. Dreams that would shape for the rest of a lifetime, regrets that would inform the most consequential choices looming just ahead, like a rocky bank rising out of the fog.

(c) 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | look for the next chapter in a week or so.