Hope

By Eric Rudd

Rachel Bernardi is a fishing-boat captain who must assume a larger leadership role when change threatens her neighborhood. A developer’s designs for an upscale, ocean-view housing development have targeted the property where Rachel and her working-class neighbors happen to reside. Citing “eminent domain,” and an old repossession clause written into the property by the timber company that originally owned the tract, the developer sees their aged homes as an expendable commodity. It’s another "leveraged buy-out scheme," but this one is personal. The setting is Shamrock, a small seaside town in the modern day.
When these uninvited winds of change blow into Shamrock, tension results. Rachel, who commands her boat and her life with courage but also humanity, takes center stage as the conflict goes public. Hudson Rivers is a rangy country singer-songwriter with Nashville training but Shamrock roots, whose heart pulls him into the drama, and inexorably toward Rachel.
Real-world implications of a neighborhood’s angst take shape as Hope Tisdale, a local child whose family is caught in the drama, becomes desperately ill. Rachel’s aged-mariner father, Cappy, wanders off in an ill-fated attempt to escape the fugue.
Amid this tumult, help comes in unexpected ways. Friend Sidney Blue from Nashville, who happens to be black, lends a hand but also historical context in this newest version of class warfare. Another friend from a distant land and another culture hears of Cappy’s peril, and comes to his aid.
The story intentionally channels a microcosm of Wallstreet vs. everyman. David Trask is the developer and CEO who plays only one game: hardball. The story of one neighborhood’s struggle against the odds replays an ageless theme, which in its depiction here may prove cathartic to the reader who has been through so much this decade. In this tale Trask, clearly the embodiment of the Wallstreet/CEO ethic, is exposed to mainstreet scrutiny.
Will Rachel save the day? Will Hudson’s most important song ignite the hearts of the homeland? Will Cappy be found? Can friendship, loyalty, music, and Hope survive in a ruthless world? The answer depends on you and me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eric Rudd
• Release date: Jun 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301441860

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HOPE

A novel by Eric W. Rudd

Copyright ©2013 by Eric W. Rudd

Published 2013 by Eric W. Rudd

on Smashwords

SMASHWORDS EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Chapter 1

Rachel Bernardi knew it was late—late in the day, since she faced a ninety minute run back to port after fishing. Late in the life of her boat, the Iqax, which needed an engine rebuild if not outright replacement before long (and God knows where that money would come from). Late in her own life. At forty-nine, she was childless and without a man, and the clock that ticked in her brain kept getting louder. As always she concluded there was no time to think about time.

They’d caught not a single fish in the morning, and the two twelve-pound silvers they’d netted in the last hour meant she had to keep lines in the water. The black cumulonimbus clouds that filled the shoreward sky, and the storm warnings that crackled over the VHF, would have to be ignored for the moment. Adding to the difficulty was a deckhand fighting a migraine. Cletis had been useless all day.

As the captain of an ocean-going charter boat she’d come to classify the difficulties of a given day into discrete variables including weather, boat/engine, crew problems, issues with other vessels, and unhappy customers. A Class 2 day implied that any two of these categories had gone awry. Glancing at Cletis’ ashen face through the pane of the wheelhouse, and further at the angry storm front brewing to the east, she knew such a day was afoot.

Staying late to catch fish (and thereby satisfying clientele to prevent a Class 3) was her current strategy. Fortunately she could recall only a few Class 4 days and never a true Class 5.

Balancing risk versus gain was nothing new of course. She remembered younger years crewing for her father in Alaska, when difficult situations would arise, often without warning. Her father, Cappy, had always seemed so calm in such times, rising to the task and bringing boat and crew safely back to home waters. She had learned from such moments. Finding in herself a similar constitution guided her decision to take command of the boat when Cappy retired.

She’d come to the helm with an understanding of its responsibility but also its opportunity. Out there past the prow lay an open canvas and a fighting chance.

Fish on! yelled a wiry unshaven man with a baseball cap turned quarter sideways. He stood against the port gunwhale, his back arching as thirty-pound filament screamed from his reel. Ten minutes later Rachel scooped an eighteen-pound Chinook salmon from the darkening sea, cleared the hook from its gaping maw, and threw the fish into the hold.

Miss Rachel, hollered a forlorn-looking Cletis from the wheelhouse door, do you think we should start heading in?

She ignored her first mate for the moment, patted the beaming fisherman on the back, and added fresh bait to his hook.

An hour passed without another bite. Her watch showed three o’clock, and she knew there was little choice but to head in. Granted there were only three fish in the hold but waiting any longer risked too much, especially in these conditions. It was starting to rain sideways with the gusting wind lifting wavetops. Taking the wheel she gazed onto the darkening face of the Pacific, gave her diesel power plant a throttle boost, and stood fast as the Iqax surged eastward on the restless ocean swell.

I’m getting old for this, she thought. If I can just pull in a few more years of reasonable earnings, I’ll either upgrade to the bigger boat, or maybe call it quits. Maybe by then the fish farm plans will fall into place. But what about Cappy?

Miss Rachel, Cletis interrupted her thoughts, maybe you better watch what’s going on back there.

She followed his gaze to the afterdeck where the three twenty-something customers had broken into a third round of beer cans and were peering into the hold at a catch their eyes said was less than they’d hoped for.

They’re talking about a refund, said the deckhand.Tell them that’s all the beer we want anyone drinking, she replied. And if the weather breaks maybe we can drop lines for some bottom fishing for cod on the way in. Rachel began sizing up the potential for trouble-maker management in the aft crowd, verifying the location of a baseball bat she carried along partly to bean wild fish but at times to tame other species as well. Class 3 days were never easy.

By three-thirty the situation was deteriorating on all fronts. The seas were increasingly tempestuous with fifteen-foot swells that obscured the horizon in the wavetroughs. The sky had turned gunmetal gray and the cacophony of the whistling wind was exceeded only by scattered thunder claps. The gulls didn’t mind the weather, and circled the afterdeck in pursuit of fish entrails as Cletis struggled to clean the days’ catch with a gutting knife.

The drunkards didn’t seem fazed either. They were laughing as the rain soaked their faces, making jokes at Cletis, and taking turns urinating into the cantankerous sea. For now Rachel turned her full attention to the way ahead.

Rachel had more to worry about than this fishing day. She knew the wild Pacific salmon runs were declining. It was no secret that their cousins the Atlantic salmon had been drastically decimated by two centuries of heavy fishing and river damming along the eastern seaboard. The same agents of change were acting in the west. Catch limits had been increasingly imposed for years, attempting to preserve the fishery. The declining catch had dictated decline in the Shamrock fishing fleet for two decades. The low catch on this day was therefore nothing new.

Rachel, and Cappy before her, had long foreseen these changes. Both had been early proponents of salmon farming, and Rachel had participated in pilot projects with other coastal fishermen. The politics of salmon farming had unfortunately engendered little harmony, as data were increasingly showing problems with farmed salmon including potential disease spread to wild runs; PCB and other chemical concentrations in farmed fish flesh, and the relatively high feed-to-product ratio (thus high expense) of salmon rearing. Consequently the idea of widespread salmon farming had found little nurture in her state. There was promise in other locales such as the fjords of Norway and Chile, but that gave Rachel little comfort.

Rachel’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a scuffle. Turning, she saw Cletis and the ringleader of the troublesome trio grappling on the afterdeck, the younger man repeatedly punching the older deckhand in the face and gut. Cletis, weakened by his migraines, returned blows as best he could but to little effect. His eyebrow was bleeding, his hair wildly strewn across his face as the uncaring sea convulsed beyond the transom.

Rachel leapt on top of the combatants, bat in hand, and without hesitation hammered the younger man on the back of his head with sufficient force to stun a salmon or man, but kill neither.

What the hell are you doing? the struck man cried as he rolled from the fray clutching his head.

Make one more move toward my deckhand and I’ll put a dent in your head, my friend, barked the skipper.

The younger man slid back against the gunwhale and remained silent under the shadow of the upheld Louisville slugger.

Just then Rachel felt a shudder. She’d left the throttle engaged at slow forward speed during the altercation, but now noted the Iqax had come to a dead stop. The engine was nevertheless running.

Peering over the transom she saw what she didn’t want to see. The boat had run across a drifting crab pot buoy and its lines. A tangled mass of nylon rope and its attached rubber buoy trailed behind the prop. Absent prop swell and no forward motion meant the prop was entangled. The Iqax was dead in the water. She felt the pang of Class 4 difficulty as a dense coastal fog now enveloped the boat. She well knew the dangers of being stalled in poor visibility in rough seas.

Helping her deckhand to his feet she quickly assessed his injuries, applying a clean handkerchief to his forehead.

C’mon, Cletis, she yelled. We’ve got to free the prop. Turning to the other parties she hollered above the weather. I’m in contact with Sheriff Dunbar via the VHF. I also have this bat. Try anything more and see what happens. You can see we are in a jam here and I’m asking you to stay out of our way.

First they tried an old trick she’d learned from Cappy, ‘running the keel’. She brought a spare tow line onto the forward deck where she took one end and Cletis the other. Dropping it over the bow they then walked aft, she on the starboard side, Cletis the port, working the line beneath the boat along the keel until they met on the transom. Hoping to free the entangled prop they jerked and pulled the line like an elaborate piece of dental floss. Several attempts failed to extract the enmeshed lines.

I’m going in, Rachel finally yelled, as the sky darkened and the Iqax contorted on a thrashing sea.

Cletis ran for the dive gear. He’d seen her go under enough times in similar straights to know the drill.

She donned the neoprene suit, strapped on her leg knife, grabbed her light and went over.

The sea was bitingly cold on the exposed part of her face. She switched on and threw a shaft of light into the gloom, finding her bearings in the hushed silence below the waves. She grabbed and cut the free ends trailing away toward the crab pot buoy. Surfacing for air she threw the buoy onto the boat then dove again, and went to work on the entangled prop. It was densely wound with yellow nylon line. It was difficult work, having to duck and dodge as the hull rose and fell on the pitched waves, the prop almost slashing her several times, the cold sea numbing her gloved fingers. Layer by layer she cut the line away. A number of strands had embedded deeply in the recesses of the prop, and she had to dig them out with the knife’s tip. She was starting to cut the last strands when a low throbbing sound met her ears.

At first she couldn’t make it out but quickly recognized the harmonic vibration of an engine. She instinctively surged away from the prop, for a moment fearing Cletis or someone else might be trying to turn over her engine. That concern quickly eased as she realized the sound was coming from a distance. A deeper dread now struck as the sound was becoming increasingly loud. At that moment she realized another vessel was approaching fast. The intensity of the vibrations and relative frequency of the prop rotations also announced that the oncoming vessel was very large. After slashing through the last fibers entangling her prop she surfaced and screamed, Cletis! Start the engine! Check sonar! Someone is approaching fast!

Scrambling from the sea on a transom ladder she saw nothing as the sky had decidedly darkened and thick fog was on every side.

The deafening blast of a ship’s fog horn coming from dead abeam startled her like a gunshot. Just then Cletis yelled above the now-running engines, My God he’s right over there!

Full throttle reverse, Cletis! Now! Rachel screamed, mentally gauging ship’s position based on the fog horn.

Cletis threw the diesel into full reverse, blasting his boat’s horn into the damp air. The Iqax surged backward against the waves, breakers cresting fitfully across the transom as all aboard stumbled and fell with the lurch.

Now they saw it. The massive bow of a seagoing freighter bore out of the mist only twenty five feet dead ahead of their reversing position.

The ship’s captain had found their frequency and barked over the VHF but also over a loudspeaker, Warning. We are trying to evade. We are trying to evade.

The giant ship’s wake raised a mountain of water along her flanks. Iqax’ reverse momentum couldn’t quite pull free from the maelstrom and now she started to tip, her gunwhales reaching down into the hungry mouth of the sea, cold water overflowing onto the deck. For a moment Rachel thought they were going to capsize, and if so, she knew they were unlikely to survive. As if defying the doom that pulled them downward, Iqax suddenly righted itself, again throwing gear and humanity across the deck. The smaller boat now bobbed toylike as the giant steel form flowed past, Rachel’s hands tight on the helm as whirlpools and miniature ripcurrents formed in the freighter’s fantail.

Finally the ship was past. As the towering stern disappeared into the gloom Rachel could just make out the words Nordic Trader. Stockholm.

The shock of the events passed over the skipper in silence. She stood clothed in neoprene as sweat and seawater dripped onto the wheelhouse floor. At last she could sense the chaos was past. Close call, she said to Cletis who slumped exhausted across the chart table. Watching the way ahead, she again reviewed her sensibilities.

I will not let a rough scrape weaken my resolve. This boat is who I am right now and I have no time for fear. I do it because I can.

An hour later the lights of Shamrock Harbor twinkled against early twilight. The boat had grown calm and the pugilists strangely friendly in the aftermath of oblivion. Cletis and his combatant were cracking jokes on the afterdeck. She’d decided not to press charges. She was already checking her schedules for the following week. Fish farm consortium and alternative energy conference in Seattle next week.

Cletis came back into the wheelhouse after packing the gutted fish on ice and stowing the aft gear. Skipper, that was one helluva gutsy day, he said in his endearingly simple tone. I mean, do you know how many obstacles you beat today?

Five, said Rachel without a moment’s hesitation.

* * *

For Hope Tisdale, it was a pretty great day. It usually rained a lot in Shamrock, especially in the winter. Now it was spring and, although there was a big storm yesterday, today it was sunny. The sky was as blue as the dress Mom was wearing. Dad was in a great mood, and had carried her on shoulders all the way into church.

Almost everyone she knew was there, including her grandparents, her neighbors, and of course all her friends. Her friends were dressed up special just like she was, for children’s choir. Helga from across the street had given her a big hug when she came in. Rachel and Cappy waved from their pew. After they sat, she smiled up at her Mom, who brushed her hair one more time and tightened her ribbon.

Now it was the part where the minister spoke, and Hope knew to keep quiet. She could never listen the whole time, and sometimes got a little bored, so she always brought colors and paper. She always listened to the part where the minister talked about Jesus. Jesus, she knew, loved all children, and she liked to say his name, too.

When the whole church sang she felt good, the same way she felt when her family sat down at dinner, or when Grandpa and Grandma came over. She pulled close against her Mom, listening to her pretty voice. She didn’t mind sharing her Mom’s voice with the whole church, since she knew there would be a special song just for her before she fell asleep at night.

It was almost children’s choir now. They were doing the part where dishes are passed down the aisles for money to help the poor. Hope always brought a nickel from her piggy bank to place in the dish. Her Dad had always said that the poor children were everybody’s children. When she dropped her nickel into the dish her Dad looked down and smiled.

Now it was time for children’s choir. She walked to the front with her other friends, and took her place right in the middle where teacher smiled and nodded. That silly boy in front was making faces but teacher made him stop.

The song was one of her favorites, and she’d sung it in church choir before. Teacher had asked her to sing a solo part again. Singing the solo made her feel special, so she sang as pretty as she could, wanting especially for her Mom and Dad and Grandparents to hear her.

She let her voice go up, using the upper register, as teacher had coached her, the way she had at other times when everyone said she sang like an angel. Today, with the sun shining through the church windows and Mom and Dad smiling back from their pews, she felt extra proud and sang the best she ever did.

When the song was finished the whole church clapped. Usually churches don’t clap, she knew, but it was okay because Grandma said making a joyous sound was thanks to God.

She didn’t know exactly why they liked her singing so much, but it made her feel good to do her best with her choir, and her mother had said it was her gift. When she got back to the pew Mom and Dad both gave her a big hug. She colored a picture of the church with children playing outside beneath a shining sun. It was a picture of a pretty great day.

Chapter 2

Hudson Rivers was driving north, steel-gray skies of early May blanketing the forested corridor along which he drove, as his mind replayed memories of happy times but also cold, tragic death. The radio played a George Strait song as the pine scent of spruce, fir, and cedar kindled reminiscence in the rangy driver’s mind. It was a road he knew well, having driven it first as a young man and later, after so much had changed, on his yearly sojourns to Grisdale.

The name of the camp had always evoked the wilderness—hints of bears and deep timber. He remembered the stories—how his family had traveled impoverished from Tennessee, looking for work in the Depression years, his mother very pregnant. They found their way to Shamrock in the middle of a rainy night but couldn’t find the hospital; so it was that his father delivered him in the back seat of an overloaded Hudson in a strange town in 1939. They named him after the car.

Later that summer his father found work at a CCC camp while the family stayed at Starsovich’s boarding house in Shamrock. A few years later, when the Depression eased enough to get the timber business moving again, the whole family moved to Grisdale, a logging camp north of Shamrock, where his father found work and the family set up residence in a rustic neighborhood built by the timber company, deep in the woods.

His early memories of the camp were mostly good—forest trails to run, big pancakes from the camp kitchen, banjo sessions by the fire. His mother managed to make their small wood-framed house very much a home, and