I have a series of photographs of Billie and Thomas together, taken shortly after we have eaten the pancakes. I have dressed and am getting my gear together in preparation for the boat ride over to Smuttynose. I take out the Hasselblad, which I have loaded with black-and-white. I do four quick shots — click, click, click, click — of Thomas and Billie, who have lingered at the table. In the first, Billie is standing on the padded bench, inspecting Thomas’s teeth, counting them, I think. In the second, she has bent her body so that she is butting her head into Thomas’s stomach; Thomas, too, is slightly bent, and has wrapped his arms over her back. In the third picture, they both have their elbows propped upon the table and are facing each other, talking. The conversation must be serious; you can see that in the tilt of Billie’s head, the pursing of her mouth. In the fourth picture, Thomas has one hand tucked inside the open collar of his shirt, scratching his shoulder. He is facing me, but he won’t look at me or at the camera. Billie has turned her head away from Thomas, as though someone has just called to her from the forward cabin.
The head sea is apparent the moment we round the breakwater. Small waves hit the Zodiac and send their spray into and over the inflatable boat. With one hand on the tiller, Rich tosses me a poncho, which I use to protect my camera bags from the salt water. When I look up again, I find I can hardly see for the spray. My face and hair and glasses are soaked, as in a rain, and foolishly, I have worn shorts, so that my legs are wet and cold and covered with goosebumps.
Rich turns the Zodiac around. He has wanted to observe the ocean on the unprotected side of the island, and he has seen enough. He maneuvers back into the harbor and puts the Zodiac up onto the narrow dark beach of Smuttynose, a beach I left only the night before. I dry my glasses on the inside of my sweatshirt and inspect my camera bags for any signs of wet.
“How do you want to work this?” he asks as he is tying up the boat. His T-shirt has turned a translucent peach. “You want me to go with you and hold things? Or do you want me to wait here.”
“Wait here,” I say. “Sit in the sun and get dry. Rich, I’m really sorry about this. You must be freezing.”
“I’m fine,” he says. “I’ve been wet before. You do what you have to do.” He smiles. “I know this is hard to believe,” he says, “but I’m actually having a good time. The truth is” — he gestures to indicate the expanse of the ocean and seems to laugh at himself— “I usually have to go to a lot of trouble to be able to do this on my days off.”
“I’ll try not to be long. Thirty, forty minutes at the most. And if you do get cold,” I say, “give a shout, and we’ll get out of here. This isn’t worth getting sick over.”
I bend to collect my camera bags. When I stand up, Rich is wrestling with his wet T-shirt. He takes it off and wipes the top of his head with it, and then squeezes it out. I watch him walk over to a rock that is in the sun, or what is left of the sun, and lay the T-shirt carefully out to dry. When I was in Africa, I observed the women there drying their clothes in a similar manner — by laying them flat on top of long grasses over a wide field, so that often you would come upon a landscape of bright cloth. Rich glances over at me. Perhaps because he has almost no hair on his head, the thick dark chest hair that spreads across his breast draws the eye. I turn around and walk to the interior of Smuttynose.
The defense waived its right to cross-examine Ingerbretson, at which point the prosecution then called Evan Christensen to the stand. Christensen was asked to identify himself and to talk about his relationship to Smuttynose.
“In March last, I lived at the Shoals, Smutty Nose, in John Hontvet’s family; I had lived there about five months. Anethe Christensen was my wife. I was born in Norway. Anethe was born in Norway.