The Baymen's Wake: “Voices from My Deck”

By Evert Bay Scott

As the final chapter in Evert Bay Scotts life drifts off, he looks back. Hes still out there, hiding within that great bays shadows; only this time, hes digging up the past, not clams. Poachers and pirates still wander about his boat. Friends and family are also close by.

But the answer Mr. Scott is trying hardest to find this night continues to elude him. So why dont you come on board and join this crew of characters? Who knows, maybe youll be the one who finds just what Mr. Scott has been searching for!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479786749

Book preview

Prologue

I know there are those of us who take this life for granted, not really appreciating what they have or what they may have once had; however, I am not one of them. I cherish every morning’s sunrise and look forward to each evening’s final flash. The laughing gulls atop their weathered perches still keep me smiling… as do the memories of those beached sailors, not willing to ask directions. But then again, maybe I’m luckier than most.

Exploring the shores of Long Island as a boy was quite amazing. Having been able to take part in the final glory years of an industry so many of us islanders depended on couldn’t have been more fulfilling.

Thinking back now, as I often do, to the years I spent in the clamming trade, I have come to realize that the lessons I learned out there on the bay were actually priceless life experiences that no institution could ever have given me. Having seen so many of these honest, hardworking baymen holding fast to both their rakes and dignity is something I will forever remember…

But once I left that life of freedom and adventure, thoughts of giving something back seemed to beckon me. How do you give something back to a place that asks for nothing?

Night after night, the same question kept surfacing in my thoughts. Then one evening, as I stood along the shores of the Great South Bay, I heard it. Honor it! the waves whispered. Share your tales with the world. Let everyone know of its beauty, its unselfishness, and its wonder.

Well, here it is… here’s my way of giving something back to the place that influenced and shaped my life. I can only hope that these passages of recollections along with the smiles and tears that I have placed on the pages of this story somehow pay back a lasting homage to the place that will forever be in my heart…

So come onboard, and join me in this adventure. We’re going back out to the same waters my first book, The Bay Men, sailed. Spring has now arrived and there’s a storm rumbling just off shore, chasing away any remains of a long cold winter.

As I watch, I wonder, is it ever too late to say good-bye to those we’ve come to know?

Forever

If you listen closely, and stand near that shore…

It’s the sound of the baymen… you’ll hear no more…

Their culling and laughing, while pulling in stride

Has vanished forever… gone like the tide…

EBS

The Baymen’s Wake

Bah-boom . . . I heard the thunder . . . it was out there rumbling over the Atlantic. Lightning had to have been flashing as well . . . but visions of my past were all I could see . . .

Is this thing wide open? Cole asked, his sandy blonde hair dancing around his head like sea grass in a full gale. My friend was right, wondering what was wrong, and just as confused as I was…

Why aren’t we up on plane… hauling… ass? rung out in that summer night’s warm air.

But I had no answer… I was just as confused as my clamming partner must have been. I shrugged my shoulders in a kind of bewildering answer to Cole’s question.

He asked something else. Do you have the throttle all the way down? Forcing my eyes off my boat’s instrument panel, I peeked up. Cole was now turned away from me and muttering his newest concerns while facing north, toward the shoreline.

You know… that’s probably a cop in there, his muffled voice told me. He wanted me to know that whoever it was… they were headed our way. But I was so engrossed in my own thoughts just then that I had no urge to respond. Seaweed was crossing my mind then… seaweed!

I told myself, no way… we’ve been clamming, just drifting here for the last twenty minutes. There’s no way grass would have gotten wrapped up around the engine’s propeller. Then I asked myself, fouled plugs? Can it be fouled spark plugs slowing my boat down? Nah… no way… can’t be that either! After all, I had just gotten this engine. Trust me, the thing’s like brand new was Jonezee’s analysis. Jonezee was an old friend and a great mechanic. He was also someone a lot of us guys working on the bay trusted. After all, he knew what we needed these big, hot as could be, reworked sons of bitches for. More importantly, he knew how to keep those reasons to himself.

We’re not pulling the drag? was Cole’s latest thought that he shared. After hearing that, I asked myself, Is the freakin’ drag anchor overboard? But as soon as I looked down, I could see the mushroom shaped thing he was referring to lying there on the deck. Thoughts of what was slowing us down right then were no doubt stumping the both of us… But I was so involved in thinking of my own solutions to our problem, Cole’s questions never got answered. There was no doubt about it, the motor was hesitating; it wanted to get up and go but for some reason wasn’t able to do so.

I bought this almost new, fell off the back of a truck Merc outboard just weeks ago. It was a hundred-and-thirty-five-horsepower, stainless steel propped, power trimmed, big block… the type Jonezee’s brother, Flynn, suggested I get. Yea, I know. Flynn’s been out of sight for a while now. But his absence out here has nothing to do with him not being able to outfox the local patrol boats. Like his brother Jonezee said, If the Vietcong weren’t able to hunt his ass down over there in the dark, you sure as hell can’t expect some local marine cops to do it around here. But then again, this guy Flynn has always been the expert, the one that knew all about that kind of stuff. Oh, and word on the water lately is that he is back and taking up just where he left before he went to that jungle. Anyway, it just made sense to go about this thing, this poaching stuff, the way Flynn always told us to go about it. After all, he and his brother had been raiding closed clam beds long before Cole or I had ever given it a thought.

If you’re going to get into this line of work, you need to have what it takes to outrun the boys guarding the treasure chest. Those were the experts’ exact words back then.

I can’t remember if it was Flynn or Jonezee that informed me that day, but one of them said that it’s always been like this on the water… The guy with the fastest boat wins. The brothers reminded me that it went back as far as Black Beard and his pirates. They too, I was told, only got away with the treasure they stole if the ships under them sailed faster than the ones in pursuit of them could. As another, even more violent, explosion of distant thunder quills my ears… my thoughts of earlier days get placed on hold. As I peer out from the deck of my boat, into the heart of that storm, I chuckle for a moment. I’m realizing that those slowly moving clouds in the distance aren’t the only things in limbo tonight; my rake seems to be idle as well.

As I give another halfhearted tug on my clam rake’s handle, my past calls out again.

Sure Flynn had told me, years ago, that it’s always been like that out here on the waters of the world. I can recall some of that day like it was yesterday… I had just pedaled down to the shelter of his dad’s barn that afternoon. The old two-story building couldn’t have been neater, and I don’t mean neat as in clean and tight, I’m referring to the board-and-batten building itself.

It stood in the rear of their property at least a hundred yards from the main house, which was located near the outskirts of town. The dark red barn was the spitting image of one you might see in a Rockwell painting. Two oversized sliding doors in the front of it begged for you to enter, while another hinged door just above them watched you approach. The red building could have used a coat of paint as could the peeling white trim of the place, but then again some of the barn’s character might well be lost. The old block and tackle once used for hauling feed still stood out from above that second-story opening, and above that, up