DoG

kept envisioning himself writhing around in agony after one of these wild creatures disemboweled him for a laugh. Perhaps he’d have been better off facing his fate in Schaumburg.

“Hell, Gus,” Worner said, “these little turds don’t know how easy they had it. Remember the Cajun? That guy did not mess around. Two greenhorns died when he was first mate.”

“Died?” Culann said

“This ain’t Club Med,” Worner replied, his face suddenly serious. “One kid got tangled up in the nets and drowned. The other one slipped on the deck and cracked his skull.”

“He didn’t slip,” Gus said. “The Cajun kicked him in the back.”

“Why?” Culann asked.

“Because the kid wasn’t pulling his weight,” Gus replied. The old man stared at Culann as he said this, and everyone else got quiet for a moment.

“Don’t worry about it,” Worner said. “You just do what Gus tells you to do, and you’ll do fine.”

Then they all drank another shot.

Part II THE VOYAGE OF THE ORTHRUS

Diary of Culann Riordan, Day 3

I pushed myself too hard today and am paying the price for it now. Winter will be here before I know it — assuming the season’s still change — so I need to be ready. Today I finished a long-overdue inventory of just about everything worthwhile on the island — tools, clothing and, most importantly, food. There was a lot of food stashed in the cabins, and I’d let some of it go bad. That was stupid — the dogs are running pretty low. I’ve also noticed that they don’t obey me quite so well when they’re hungry. If I can’t keep the dogs well-fed, they might just decide I’d make a good meal.

Maybe I’m just getting paranoid — I am high, after all. Don’t judge, it’s just that the only reliable pain reliever on the island is growing behind Worner’s shack. But even that is of limited utility because I need to be able to think clearly to get anything done, so I’ve been waiting until my work is done to smoke. I’m pretty much in constant pain during the day (which could be the middle of the night for all I know), then I have to shove a wheelbarrow all over the island with a broken hand and a broken kneecap. So I overcompensate when I’m done working by smoking too much and then I find myself jumping at shadows, nodding off or eating too much of my limited food supply.

Sorry if I’m rambling, but the fault really lies with Worner’s impressive horticultural abilities. I’d have never pegged him for a guy with a green thumb, but you don’t really know anything about anyone, do you? I’m sure none of those guys would have believed in a million years that I’d still be alive. Makes you wonder what kind of surprises they had in them…especially Frank. When push came to shove, Frank was the only person in my life I could count on, and I didn’t really know him at all. And I guess he didn’t really know me either. Hell, I didn’t know me. I suppose I still don’t, which is why I’m writing this, right? No epiphanies yet, but I’ve got plenty of time… or at least I hope I do…

1

Culann awoke to a crucifying headache and a mouth that tasted like a litter box.

His head lay on Frank’s couch, while his body splayed out across the soiled carpet. He was covered with a towel for warmth. He didn’t know whether he’d gotten it himself or Frank had draped it over him. He pushed up to a sitting position, and Alphonse growled from a few feet away before dropping his chin back to the floor and scrunching his eyes shut.

“You ready?” Frank said from his bedroom doorway.

“What time is it?”

Once again, the sky was neither day-blue nor night-black, but Purgatory-white.

“Time to work.”

A month at sea stood before them. Culann brushed his teeth and washed his face.

He considered calling the whole thing off just to get a couple extra hours sleep, but figured Alphonse would probably eat him if they were left alone together.

“Who’s watching Alphonse while we’re gone?”

“Marge McGillicuddy — McGillicuddy’s wife — is going to feed him. She’s the resident animal-lover. We all pay her a dollar a day to put out food for the dogs, but they otherwise pretty much run wild when we’re gone.”

The cousins loaded their knapsacks in the truck and drove the quarter mile to the dock. The other men of the Orthrus—and they were all men—milled about, looking just as hungover as Culann, which gave him a little satisfaction.

The same Hawaiian-shirt-clad ferryboat driver from the two nights before nodded at Culann as he boarded. The little boat sank almost to the waterline with all the fishermen aboard, but their jolly pilot didn’t seem to notice. The boat splashed across the choppy, black water to a small town on the mainland called Three Fingers, named for the shape of coastline upon which it rested.

As they approached, Culann caught his first glimpse of the Orthrus. It was half a football field in length and nominally white, though rust had eaten through much of the paint. Frank gave Culann a crash course in nautical terminology.

“The ass-end is called the ‘stern.’ Our nets are cast off the stern, so this is called a ‘stern trawler.’ That bigass thing over there is called the ‘net drum.’”

The bigass thing Frank was referring to looked to Culann like a giant sewing bobbin, though he didn’t dare give voice to such an unmanly analogy. The ferryboat docked, and the cramped crew spurted out onto the dock, before scurrying aboard the Orthrus just seconds later.

“Frank,” Gus shouted, seemingly out of nowhere, “show this pantywaist where he sleeps and then bring his cherry ass back up here.”

And so began Culann’s stint as a greenhorn. In the still waters just off the mainland, the deck stood fifteen feet above the water line. Once the ship reached the open waters out beyond Pyrite, however, the Bering Sea crashed waves up and over the rails.

Culann was soaked within minutes of clearing the island.

He spent the next hour scurrying out the way of Gus’s boot, as he struggled to quickly learn the ways of the sea. Culann stopped to vomit over the railing as the ship lurched up and over twenty-foot swells. A decade spent teaching To Kill a Mockingbird to a bunch of whiny, little nosepickers had done nothing to prepare him for life at sea.

The combination of a hangover and seasickness cost him a good bit of stomach lining.

Plus, the ship smelled like a can of tuna that had been left open for three days. He was sweating from the exertion and heat of the sun, but shivering from the frigid water that rolled over the deck. He didn’t think it could be any worse until Gus grabbed him by the collar and hurled him to the deck.

“Puke on your own time, greenhorn. We got work to do.”

“But I’m sick.”

“You can get sick all you want, just pull your own weight. Otherwise, I’ll toss you over.”

Culann rose unsteadily and returned to his place beside Frank, who shook his head. They were untangling the fishing nets and loading them into the net drum, a fifteen-foot diameter hydraulic spool used to pull in the nets. As soon as Culann resumed work, he felt the bile rise in his throat. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Gus