Storm Tide (24 page)

In honor of the weather, which was affecting Ellen the way such days always affect young puppies, kittens, and children, she asked Owen if Joey could go for a walk with them.

Joanna watched them disappear into the woods; they would come out past the Whitcomb place and go wandering on the West Side this afternoon. She marveled to see how patient Owen was with the children. He'd never noticed children much before. But perhaps he was weary of adults, she thought; and perhaps it was refreshing to his spirit, the candid, unaffected innocence that looked out at him from Ellen's blue-gray eyes and Joey's amber ones. To walk the shores of the Island with a rifle in the crook of your elbow, to speak or not to speak—because the children didn't demand your attention—that would be balm and healing for anyone.

She was left with an afternoon to herself, and what to do with it she didn't know. She was caught up on the washing, ironing, and mending for the household, and she didn't want to go calling. She mixed the dough for the Saturday night yeast rolls, and left it to set; she inspected the beans, browning in the two squat bean pots with the chunks of pork crusty on the tops. Then she put on her boots, and went out to walk by herself.

She walked down through the soggy marsh, and around the shore of the harbor, to climb up past Pete Grant's boarded-up house, high on the rocky point that reared beyond the wharf. Here the jumbled slabs of stone gleamed a warm, rose-shaded saffron in the sunlight; streaked here and there with glinting granite. They slanted down into the sea, so that she walked above the roistering water. There were no big breakers today, but there was a cheerful sloshing and gurgle and slap-slap. The sea was very blue; close to her, where she could see the thick shaggy manes of rockweed, it was dark green and purple, and sometimes a surprising creamy jade. She walked slowly over the springy moss, around the juniper and the boggy places where the frost was coming out of the ground; her boots protected her legs as she walked on slopes that were thick with raspberry bushes and blackberry vines. The wind was as she wanted it, with both a nip and a softness, and a perfume of salt and wet earth. The gulls were crying; they sounded like summer. She wondered what the summer would be like. Perhaps there would be a lobster buyer here then. Herself, maybe. Her heart jumped at the idea. It was no sense for Nils to think of doing it, or one of her brothers. They couldn't haul their traps and buy lobsters too. She could tend the car, and still get her work done.

The mildness in the air, the crying of the gulls, the new brightness that seemed to have settled over the dried, yellow-brown slopes and the dark somberness of the spruces above her—all these things and her own thoughts worked like an intoxication within her. Nils could start her out. He had money in the bank from his seven years on the freighter and his lobstering since he came back. In almost no time she could replace the funds he gave her. It was a perfect job for her. Lobsters were going up in price. There was no reason why she couldn't make a sucess of it. Perhaps some Brigport men would sell their lobsters to her—
everybody
on Brigport didn't like the Fowlers.

She went down over the rocks into the little cove that went with the Whitcomb place; it was called Barque Cove, because long ago when her grandfather was a young man, a barque had run ashore in a blinding snowstorm on one of the cove's points. As she crossed the beach she looked up, and saw the roof and chimneys of the house above the scrub spruces. She thought fleetingly of the nights she had come down here from the house with Alec, and the nights when she'd come alone, to sit on a driftwood log and listen to the soft murmur and rattle of the sea on the pebbles, and try to plan a tomorrow for herself and Alec.

She did not think of it long, for this was her tomorrow, and the plans she'd made for herself and Alec had never flowered. He hadn't even known about Ellen when he died; she'd intended to tell him when he came home to supper, and he had never come home. Instead, he had been drowned. . . .

Now she was on the West Side, and would be catching up with Owen and the children soon. This was the high side of the Island; she was following a narrow path that twisted along the abrupt hillside, and below her the water kept up its cheerful voice. A sparrow sang from a fallen spruce, and an engine made a steady, industrious sound somewhere out on the dancing, glittering sea. She shaded her eyes and tried to make out the boat. It was the
Donna
. She wondered when she would have to chance to tell Nils about her new idea. It was a good thing she'd remembered to tell him about not lending money to Owen.

She went up on the higher ground, almost to the trees, to circle around Old Man's Cove. It was like a deep fissure in the shoreline, a fissure lined with steep walls of rock. She rounded the opposite point, and the whole West Side, down to the very tip of Sou'west Point, lay before her, scalloped with its coves and its long arms of rock, and fringed with its narrow edge of white. Not far from her the crows were calling harshly and circling, big black birds against the delicate sky. A raven—there were a few left on the Island—flew past her on rusty, shaggy-edged wings. Something had disturbed them. It must be that Owen and the children were down there along the shore. There was a dark boat with a few pots on it at some distance outside Marshall Cove, but a boat wouldn't bother the crows.

She walked faster. She would sound Owen out on her idea, when the children were safely behind or ahead—she didn't want Joey to say anything at home yet.

She went over a small headland and came down to Marshall Cove. They were there. They didn't see her at first, as she stopped in the shelter of the trees and watched them. Owen was sitting on a massive log that the tide had rolled up to the very edge of the woods. Ellen was on one side, Joey on the other, and they watched him with an intensity that Joanna could feel. Owen was squinting along the sights of the .22. Joanna leaned against a tree trunk and watched them, smiling. Once she'd thought anyone who could fire a rifle was a species of god, too. It didn't matter if the biggest game was a pot­buoy; just the fact that he could hit it would make the children adore him.

She heard the crack of the rifle, swung her gaze involuntarily toward the sea. Yes, there was a dancing pot-buoy there, a round wetness glistening in the sunshine. Only—she stiffened, and almost cried out. The dark boat—from Brigport—was less than half a mile beyond, and that was too close for Owen to be taking any chances. The boat was right in line with the pot-buoy. . . .

“Owen!” she called down to him, before he lifted the rifle to his shoulder again. She started down across the beach.

“It's Mother!” Ellen shrieked rapturously, and ran to meet her.

“Well, I'll be damned,” said Owen pleasantly. He laid the rifle down and took out a cigarette. Joey gave her a bashful grin and wandered down to the high water mark to inspect the fruits of the tide, and Ellen, torn between love and curiosity, finally ran down to see what he had found. Joanna sat down on the log beside Owen and refused a cigarette.

“I don't smoke now. Look, Owen, there's a boat out there. Didn't you see it?”

“Sure I saw it.” He grinned. “Brigport bastard. Shifting pots a little close to us, isn't he?”

“Yes, but you don't want to shoot him, do you? Besides, he's not too close,” she added, wanting to be fair. “You should have seen them last fall.” She squinted her dark eyes against the sunlight. “That's Theron Pierce. Jonas' brother. . . . You'd better wait till he gets out of range before you fire again.”

“Maybe I want him to stay within range,” Owen said deliberately. “What in hell do you think I was shooting at?”

“Owen, you're not—you wouldn't—” She said between her teeth, “Just what
were
you shooting at?”

Owen ground out his cigarette under his heel. “Rest yourself, darlin' mine, I wasn't aiming straight at his head, or anything like that. But I figure if we're going to teach them to stay in their own dooryard, it won't hurt none to kick up a little water around them. Only Theron's kind of numb, and he hasn't just figured out what's happened to him. Guess I'd better make it more definite.” He lifted the rifle to his shoulder again, and before Joanna could stop him he had fired. They saw the black figure in the cockpit whirl around, and Owen laughed. “Almost dusted him off that time, didn't I?”

Joanna set her teeth and caught the rifle. He let her have it, still laughing. “You want to try it, Jo?” he suggested blandly.

“Oh, you blasted
idiot
,” she said. “Do those kids know what you've been up to?”

“They think I'm firing at a pot-buoy. I tell them I hit it each time, and they believe me.” He chuckled, and the sound of that chuckle made her look at him sharply. The weariness was gone; and almost gone, the sardonic twist. He looked completely and richly happy. He laughed aloud as the boat made a wide circle and disappeared behind the point, leaving a lusty wake behind it.

“High-tailin' it home at full speed!” Owen said. At the sound of his laughter, Joey and Ellen turned and came back, Ellen running, Joey walking with his twelve-year-old dignity. With a mixture of emotions, Joanna stood up.

“You need your neck wrung,” she told Owen under her breath. “Have I got to hide that rifle from you? Can't you be trusted, Owen? God only knows what he'll tell when he gets back to Brigport! And if Tom Robey's gang or the Fowlers get hold of it—”

“You scared of them?”

“No, I'm not!” she said furiously, and then realized that Owen was acting like himself again; very much like himself, when he could make her so angry. In spite of herself, her mouth quirked. “But I'm not going to leave you alone out here with a gun, you're not responsible,” she told him, before Ellen reached them. And louder, so the children could hear, she said, “Let's all go back to the house and have some cocoa and lobster sandwiches. How about it?”

She smiled at Owen, and tightened her hands on the rifle. Excited by the prospect of food, the children charged on ahead. Owen, following Joanna along the path, said, “Still too big for your boots, ain't ye? Oh, what the hell, I'll find something else to amuse me.”

N
ILS CAME IN AT SUPPER TIME
, ruddy-cheeked, hungry, and well satisfied with his day's haul. He'd averaged a lobster to a trap, and that was good for the tail-end of winter.

“Funny thing, though,” he said thoughtfully, laying his heavy canvas gloves to dry on the stove shelf. “I met Theron Pierce down between Long Cove and Tenpound. He was speeding right along and never gave me a look. I waved, but —” He shook his head. “I always got along all right with the Pierces. I wonder what ailed him?”

“Maybe he had a toothache come on him,” Joanna heard herself saying. Across the kitchen she met Owen's eyes, and turned away from his wink.
Damn him!
she thought.
He knows I won't tell Nils. . . . Well, I will tell him. But not just now
. . . . There was no reason why she shouldn't tell Nils what Owen had done. He had grown up with Owen, he knew what deviltry Owen could carry out. Maybe he'd only laugh. But maybe — and this was stronger to Joanna's mind — he'd be like their father, and take it too seriously. As if Theron would ever know who'd done it! Perhaps he'd taken it as an accident when the bullet came too near. But still he'd snubbed Nils —

She gave up conjecturing, and hurried to get supper on the table. No sense to worry about it now. It would never happen again, probably. . . . Nils was sitting down to have his first good smoke for the day, and he and Owen began to talk about the relative merits of dry-salted bait and pickled; he kept his eye on the clock so he could get the six o'clock news. Ellen played alone in the sitting room, her paper dolls laid out on the rug around the base of the curlicued stove. It was a pleasant family scene, all around, and why worry because of Owen's pranks? At least it showed that he was feeling well again. And who knew but what it might serve as a warning to the lawless faction on Brigport?

And besides, she had more to think about. Her idea of being lobster-buyer, for instance. She moved quickly around the kitchen, between stove and dresser and table, tall, firmly slim, in spite of her big Bennett bones, still youthfully narrow-flanked in her wine wool skirt, her strong smooth throat lifting from the open neck of her white blouse, her mouth curved in a secret excited happiness, her dark eyes smiling under the lashes. Nils' glance followed her sometimes, and pulled away by an almost perceptible effort, but she didn't notice. She was too intent on herself. To be lobster-buyer would mean that at last she could fulfill her desire; she would be doing something real and tangible to help the Island grow.

The beans were on, deep bronzy-brown, steaming and aromatic to blend with the perfume of hot yeast rolls; the chili sauce and the piccalilli glistened in their separate dishes, the apple jelly was a tawny jewel, the grape jelly was the color of garnet, and the cole slaw rested lightly in its blue bowl, gleaming shreds of palest yellow and green, starred with the pinky-orange of grated carrot. Joanna stood off and surveyed her table as an artist surveyed his work, and reached for the coffeepot. Ellen came in and looked hungrily around her.

“My golly, I bet Mark and Stevie wish they didn't have to eat in any restaurant
tonight!
” she said fervently. “Even if they
can
go to the movies afterward!”

Joanna poured the coffee, and its pungence was the crowning touch. How wonderful everything looked and smelled tonight! she thought. And all because she was going to do something she'd always wanted to do. As the premature breath of spring had laid a new sheen over the Island today, so had her plan laid a sheen over her.

“Come and get it!” she sang out happily to the men. “Or I'll throw it out to the gulls!”