Bud Sparhawk - Jakes Gift

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Jake's Gift

by Bud Sparhawk

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Science Fiction

A DF Books NERDs Release

First published in Analog, September 1993

The crisp fall wind blew the tops of the pampas grass to and fro, scattering the seed that hung heavy in

their tassels. This late in the year every stand of grass was adorned with their pink plumes, ringing the

marsh and hiding the brackish black waters of the enclosed pond from the nearby creek. Between the

grasses and the water were cattails, displaying their own abundance of seed like fat brown sausages on a

skewer. Nestled among both were the other flora of the Bay, eel grass, sonnet weed, and a broad expanse

of reed, all tough grasses that could survive in the porous sand and resist the incursions of brackish water

that bathed their feet at high tide.

Jake's shack was built on the edge of a small feeder stream between the pond at the center of the marsh

to the beginnings of the black organic muck that was the floor of the marsh, which was home for the

endless variety of frogs and turtles and breeding ground to the twenty varieties of fish that inhabited the

greater Bay beyond the creek. The shack was nondescript, typical of many that sprouted up around the

Bay, its siding turned a uniform gray by the combination of sun and weather. It stood on an assortment

of crazily tilted stilts that lifted the shack's floor above the high tide. Over the years Jake had to add

more supports to prevent subsidence; even buried ten feet into the bottom the poles still did not touch

solid ground. Jake liked to imagine that the black goo beneath him went all the way to the bottom of the

world.

A rambling walkway ran from the one and only door atop a series of floating fifty-five gallon drums to a

small side extension where Jake docked his big boat and, in the other direction, marched on poles and

patches of solid ground to the rutted road that led from the main road to the edge of the marsh. The

walkway was a motley assortment of driftwood planks, rough cut to size and attached to the stringers

with whatever fasteners Jake found at hand; wire, nails, screws, and even worn manila rope dotted the

rail-less walk. Gaps over a foot wide showed in places, since the boards were set to the length of his

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stride. It was a daily labor to replace those pieces that both weather and tides carried away. Many was

the night when he'd stumbled, trying to step on a missing board.

Close by the shack were his collection of small boats, for the most part flotsam brought to his little

world by the storms and misfortune of others; damaged rowboats with broken thwarts, canoes with stove

ribs and the like. Where and how he could, he returned them to their owners, the rest he repaired with

whatever odds and ends were to hand and added them to his own little fleet. Mariah, the small

blackened rowboat whose sides were so badly burned that he simply cut them away, leaving a scant six

inches of freeboard above the gently curving bottom. One decent wave would swamp her, so she was

useless for any work outside the marsh. On the other hand her shallow draft and light weight made her a

responsive and agile vessel for his quiet forays around the marsh. Mariah could glide along with no

more than three inches of water beneath her hull, propelled by Jake near the stern, push pole in hand.

The other boats he'd named Simplicity, Handsome, and Gull, who was a wesort-rigged rowboat that he

used as a day sailer. He had gotten the used sails from a loft across the Bay, near Annapolis, and had

fashioned the mast himself. Her lines were odds and ends of manila and poly and cotton, depending on

their use. Simplicity was the runabout he used to get some fresh fish for his own table and had a nice

little 3-horse outboard fastened to her stern. Handsome was a green sponsooned canoe with rich birch

ribs and three layers of canvas overlaid with a slathering of fiberglass. He'd gone the length of the creek

and up and down the Bay looking for its owner after the hurricane had blown her into his refuge, but to

no avail. Now he used her for his commute to the docks on the far side of the creek when he needed an

occasional job helping the crabbers in the summer or oyster tongers in the winter. It was a way of

making enough to buy his few necessities.

He met Mary on a crisp fall morning when there was a gentle breeze blowing out of the southeast.

Chessie, his dark brown part-bay retriever had awakened him from a sound sleep with a slobbery lick of

his huge tongue. Jake kicked off the covers and scattered the assortment of cats that had chosen to share

the warmth of his bed from the frosty night before. Throughout the summer they stayed on his big boat,

probably thinking that they owned the smelly tub, but more likely trying to figure out with their tiny cat

brains where all the fish were that made the boat smell so good. Since the boat was over thirty years old,

and a fisher for the last twenty, it was no wonder that it had absorbed a certain atmosphere. “OK, OK,

boy. I know its time to get up,” he groused and scratched his head, part of the morning ritual, just as

throwing the door open to air out the place and release Chessie and the cats into the marsh, heating

coffee on the small propane stove, fixing a small breakfast for himself, and taking a dippy bath with a

small bowl and washcloth were a never changing routine.

He took his coffee out the front door and gazed over the marsh. Pretty soon the ducks would be flying

down from the North, and a little later the Canadian geese would follow. The flocks loved the marsh

where there was protected cover and lots of food, bottom grasses, tasty frogs, and minnows. Chessie

would be crazy for weeks when they started arriving, but she was too old for hunting, too old and too fat,

but then, aren't we all, he thought and patted the small pot that spilled over the tops of his jeans.

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