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 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.
"Now where could that damn dog have gone?" he mused. Usually Chessie made a mad dash down the walkway, jumped onto the sand spit, raced along the stream to the edge of the creek, turned left and chased waves for a while and then followed the rutted path that passed for a road back to the walkway. It usually took him about a half hour to make his circuit, until this morning that is. He sipped on the hot coffee and waited a while longer, planning his day.
He needed to get over to the store for some more ice, some fruit, and vegetables to stock up for the next week. Then he could see what he had snagged on the trot line he'd put out the previous evening. Maybe he'd have a nice Rock or yellow Perch for dinner, if luck was with him. Otherwise it was fried whatever and crab soup. Chessie's barking roused him from his reverie. It sounded like it was coming from the far side, opposite from the road. Sounded like he'd caught a muskrat, or maybe treed a coon. Well, he'd better go rescue the poor thing. He stepped onto Mariah, picked up the pole, and shoved off across the pond.
Chessie's barks sounded more distressed as the boat slid into the high marsh grasses and along a small channel carved by the freshwater spring farther up, near the tree line. The boat moved quickly along the channel since the meander was slight and the curves adequate for the length of the boat. Soon he was within sight of the dog, who was standing on a huge driftwood shoring beam that had wedged itself into the marsh during some unknown storm years past, before his time even. As soon as he came into sight Chessie stopped barking and plunged forward, tail wagging furiously. Just like that damn dog, Jake thought, expecting his backup human to pull him out if it was more than he could handle. He moved to the stern to raise the bow and gave one final push of the pole to ground Mariah. Carefully placing the pole on the deck he stepped onto the beam and peered into the break in the grass where Chessie had disappeared.
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