Locked Doors

36

BACK at the Harper Castle I took a hot shower and did not leave the steamy bathroom until the chill had been thoroughly driven from my bones. As I sat on the bedspread, tying the laces of my soggy tennis shoes, it dawned on me that I was utterly unprepared for my trip to Portsmouth.

I knew nothing of the island, had inadequate clothing for this raw November weather, and I was hunting for a madman without a weapon of any sort (My alias, Vincent Carmichael, didn’t possess a gun permit so it had been far too risky to smuggle my Glock, even in pieces, with my checked luggage).

I headed downstairs through the lobby and out the rear exit into the muddy parking lot. According to the visitor’s guide, there was a bait and tackle shop on Highway 12 at the north end of the village that stocked the supplies I would need.

Three minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of Bubba’s Bait and Tackle. A hundred yards further up the highway, the village abruptly ended, and as I stared through the rainbeaded glass I could see where 12 continued on and on for the full thirteen remaining miles of Ocracoke, accompanied only by the sound, the dunes, and the sea.

The store was a tumult of overstimulation-three sea kayaks, a blue marlin, and a red canoe hung from the ceiling. Along the back wall stood a phalanx of fishing rods. Reels shined under glass at the front counter. I noticed an aisle devoted solely to tackle boxes, another to waders.

A T-shirt had been tacked to the wall above the register:

FISHED ALL DAY AT OCRACOKE INLET AND ALL I CAUGHT WAS A BUZZ

A rotund young man emerged from behind the counter and asked if he could help me with anything. Dressed in camouflage, his bottom lip swollen with tobacco, I recognized the rural distrust in his eyes and smelled the wintergreen Skoal.

“Are you Bubba?” I asked.

“I’m Bubba’s boy. My name’s Brian.”

I told Brian I was going to Portsmouth this afternoon, that I might be spending the night, and that I’d be willing to purchase anything that would keep me from freezing my ass off in this bitter rain.

“You going to Portsmouth in a nor’easter?” he said. “Who’d you find to take you?”

“Just show me some camping gear, okay?”

Forty minutes later I stood at the counter, Brian behind the register, ringing up an ungodly assortment of camping equipment. He’d talked me into Moonstone raingear, a three season, two-man tent by Sierra Design, a Marmot 30?F sleeping bag, Nalgene water bottles, a Whisper-Lite stove, MSR fuel bottles, a Pur water filter, Patagonia fleece pants and jacket, Asolo boots, and the kicker, a 5500 cubic inch internal frame backpack by Osprey, just to catalogue the substantial purchases.

“Sell any maps of Portsmouth?” I asked as he swiped my credit card and handed it back to me. He reached under the counter, set one on the glass.

“Oh, I’m sorry, that fucked up the total, didn’t it?”

Brian chuckled. “Mister, you just spent,” he glanced at the receipt as it printed out, “a little under fifteen hundred dollars. The map’s on me.”

He tore off the credit card receipt and handed it to me.

I signed it, said, “I was hoping to eat a hot meal before I head out. Can you recommend something?”

“Right across the street. Place called Howard’s. If you don’t eat there at least twice when you come to Ocracoke, you’ve wasted your trip.”

“I’ll check it out.” I handed back the receipt and looked down at the heap of gear on the floor. “Brian,” I said, as he opened a can of Skoal and chose an earthy pinch, “you’re telling me all this equipment is going to fit into that backpack?”

He shook the pinch of tobacco in his hand, inserted it into the pocket between his lower teeth and gums, and licked his tongue across his bottom lip.

“Oh sure,” he said.

“Care to show me how?”