Storm Tide (28 page)

“Spring in their blood,” said Nils. Joanna opened the door carefully and they went into the dark entry. Somebody crossed the kitchen floor then, and opened the door. She stepped over the threshold into the warmth and light, and looked into Stevie's face. Her eyes aglow, her lips framing a quip, she saw no answering twinkle in his face — only a sort of wry dismay. She met it with bewilderment, and a strange premonitory dryness in her throat. Behind her Nils said quietly,

“What's going on?”

She looked beyond Stevie then and saw Mark and Owen. She thought with a horrid sinking of her heart,
What have we walked into?

Mark stood in the center of the kitchen, big in his red plaid shirt and corduroys, his black head lowered; he watched Owen from under his eyebrows and never shifted his gaze to Joanna or Nils. She could see a muscle tighten along the clean hard line of his jaw. His arms hung at his sides and the hands were fists. It was the sight of those clenched fists that staggered Joanna. Owen leaned against the door casing between kitchen and sitting room. As if the arrival of Nils and Joanna had given him the chance he'd been waiting for, he took out a cigarette, lighted a match with his thumbnail, and put it to the cigarette.

As if the flare of the match broke the spell, there was sudden life and movement in the low, lamplit room. Joanna was conscious of the clock ticking; light flashing from the shiny surface of the well-polished teakettle; spilled water on the floor by the sink, reflecting the lamp.

“Come in,” Mark said. “And make yourself at home.” He didn't take his eyes from Owen, who watched him idly through the cigarette smoke and didn't move. “You're just in time.”

“For what?” Joanna tried to sound humorous.

“To see me give this goddam son of a bitch the lickin' of his life.”

Behind Joanna Stevie moved. Nils said easily, “What's he done? Tied small buoys on long warps? That's a hell of a mess.”

Mark looked around at him then, as if Nils' cool voice had penetrated to the hot core of his rage; a rage which flung out its vibrations into the room as a rock thrown overboard sends out ripples. It seemed to Joanna that she could feel those waves strike her. Mark's eyes were burning as if with fever, and all color had drained away from his skin.

“He's been after my wife,” he said thickly. “The bastard. Sneakin' up to the house for a drink of water. Then he tried to take her over. She showed me the marks on her arms.” His words came with difficulty, as if his throat were clogged. “I'm goin' to cut his heart out and hang it up for the crows.”

Nils said, still unexcited, “If you're going to fight, go outside. You don't want to mess up Helmi's kitchen.”

Mark's eyes wavered toward him. “Sure,” he said huskily, “I'll take the bastard outside to lick him.”

Nils said, “Come on, Joanna. This is no place for us.”

She looked at him in amazement. Did he propose to turn his back as if he had seen and heard
nothing?
Her surprise made her voice crisp.

“I'm not going
yet
, Nils.”

Owen laughed. It was a soft chuckle, and the insolent sound was like a match set to the dry tinder of Joanna's anger that he should bring this situation into being. She brushed by Nils as if he weren't there and faced Owen's mocking eyes.

“You've succeeded, haven't you? You couldn't come home and leave things as they were, you couldn't be happy till you'd made some trouble, somehow! And with your own brother!”

“At least I keep it in the family,” Owen drawled.

She felt Nils' hand on her arm. She brushed it off as she had brushed by him a moment ago. “Everything was too peaceful for you,” she accused Owen. “You came home to see us all working hard trying to build up the Island; you couldn't bear to see us getting along so well, so you had to stir things up.” Her words echoed in her head; she remembered in the instant all the times Owen had made her so violently, sickly angry and ashamed. The memory gave her new fire. Her words were meant to cut.

“What do you suppose Helmi thinks of the Bennetts, when she can't be left alone in her own kitchen? I'd hate to know what her idea of Mark's family is right now.”

“There wasn't anything for him to get upset about,” Owen said, cocking an eyebrow at her. “I never bothered the kid enough for her to run and tell —”

“Why shouldn't she tell?” Joanna demanded. “He's her husband, and she doesn't have to put up with you just to keep peace in the family!” She saw by the stiffening in Owen's face that he was getting mad. “A fine thing for the Island,” she said. “A fine thing for a Bennett to be laying his hands on his brother's wife. How does that sound?”

“You keep hollerin' at me,” said Owen, “and the whole bay will know it, and tell you how it sounds. Anybody could hear you from here to Port George.” He shifted his big shoulders lazily. “Anyway, why don't you mind your own business? This is between me and Mark.”

“It's Bennett business,” Joanna said calmly. “Just as much as it is Mark's.”

Mark, at the sound of his name, looked around at them all swiftly; the savagery was gone from his face, leaving it bleak and tired. He shrugged his red plaid shoulders at nothing, and went to sit down by the table, dropping his head into his hands.

Beside Joanna Nils moved, but she wouldn't look at him. He would only tell her they should be going home. And she wasn't going to be taken out of the room by her husband like a meek and ordinary wife; she was going to stay here and take care of this situation. After all, it involved her, they were her brothers. And when they were so angry with each other they needed her. They weren't able to judge for themselves.

Nils spoke quietly to her. “Come on, Joanna. We'd better go.”

She glanced at him briefly. “No. I'm going to straighten this mess out.”

“Mark and Owen are old enough to take care of their affairs — they don't need you.”

She hated the cool finality in his voice, especially when she knew without looking how Owen's eyebrow was tilting. But of course what happened between her brothers would never upset Nils. . . . He could go home if he wanted, but she was staying.

Mark was still sitting with his head in his hands, but Owen went over to the sink and drank some water. Over his shoulder he glanced at Nils and Joanna as he set the dipper back into the pail.

“Well,” he remarked, “might as well be headin' home. Nothin' more to stick around here for.”

There was no answer to that. Even Joanna was silent as he opened the door and went out. When he had gone, Joanna went over to Mark. His elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, he stared at an invisible spot on the floor between his feet.

The lamp on the table fluttered slightly in the draft stirred by the door's closing. It picked out coal-like glints in Mark's rough head.

“Mark,” Joanna said softly, “I'm sorry for Owen's actions. But I'll talk to him —”

“Talk, hell! Talk to Owen, what good did that ever do?”

“I don't believe he'll bother Helmi any more,” she said.

“I don't think he will either, but it's not because it made me mad or because she's his brother's wife —” He lifted his head, his black eyes narrowing. “It's just because he knows he won't get anywhere with her.” He stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “I don't want to see Owen on this end of the Island again. That's all.”

Joanna had a sick feeling at the strange finality in his face, in the sudden quieting of his voice. A breach in the Bennett family. She had fought against things like this all her life, and at the moment she felt very tired. She had wanted the boys to be working for each other and the Island — not flying at each other's throats. . . .

“Helmi's outside,” Nils said to Mark. “Maybe you should go —”

Joanna swirled. “I'll go,” she said.

“Never mind, Jo,” Mark said. “I think I know where to look. Much obliged, sis, for droppin' in this evening. Sorry you and Nils had to run into this mess.”

“I'm glad we came,” she said earnestly to her younger brother. “I'm glad I could be here to talk to you and Owen.”

The corner of Mark's mouth lifted in a small, rueful grin. He opened the door and the smell of fog came in. He walked out, and in a moment he was beyond the yellow reach of the lamplight; they didn't even hear his feet on the grass. The kitchen was silent again, except for the teakettle and the clock.

Nils said, “Going home, Joanna?”

“I suppose so,” she said reluctantly. He shut the door behind them and they stood for a moment on the doorstep, adjusting their senses to the night world outside. The moonlit fog was light and cool against Joanna's hot face. She listened for the sound of Mark's voice or Helmi's. There was only the long-drawn-out sigh of the water on the pebbled beach of Eastern End Cove, the wind rising, the foghorn out at the Rock — distant because of the wind — and the low, muted crying of the gulls.

They walked up toward the gate in silence, but halfway through, she stopped. “I
ought
to see Helmi before we go home, Nils,” she said. “Maybe I could talk to her a little —”

Nils' hand on her elbow propelled her through the gate. “You've done your talking for tonight, Jo. Let Mark handle her. After all, he's married to the girl. You told Owen off — now you can take it easy.”

She walked along with him willingly, conscious of a pleasant pride. “I did tell him, didn't I? And I got him out of the house before anything happened. I'm glad we walked into that kitchen when we did.”

“I'm not,” said Nils. She swung her head to look at him in amazement, but she could hardly see his face; they were walking in the dense shadow of the trees.

“If we hadn't come in, they'd have been trying to kill each other,” she protested.

“After they'd bloodied each other's noses, they'd have stopped,” Nils said quietly. “And that would have been the end of it. Now they've just put it off for a while.”

Tired, her nerves overtense, she couldn't let that pass but must challenge it. “I suppose you think I did wrong to say anything.”

“I think we should have gone right out again when we saw what was going on. It wasn't any of our business.”

She stopped in the path, her hands clenched in the pockets of her jacket. Her voice came as levelly as his. “It was
my
business, Nils. I wasn't going to see my brothers beating each other up.”

“It's not for a woman to try to separate two men, no matter if they're her brothers or strangers,” he said. He began to walk on, but she reached out and caught hold of his arm.

“I suppose you think you could have handled it better,” she said, a slight tremor in her words. It was hard to keep them so steady. “ Do you know the Bennetts better than I do?”

“I know that Owen's been in line for a damn' good licking all his life, and Mark's as big as he is — Mark could do it.” She was appalled by his calmness. Her brothers, fighting — it was a sickening thought. And for Nils to speak of it was to bring a chilling sensation to the pit of her stomach.
Nils
, of all people.

“All his life he's had folks walking around him on tiptoe, trying not to get him mad. He's never had a come-uppance. Oh, I know something sent him back here to the Island, but I mean a come-uppance from any of his own people. He should have got it tonight. But you walked in and took over, Jo. He got out of it again. And meanwhile Mark's still brooding. You didn't help him any.”

She walked in silence for a little while, trying in all fairness to see his point. But all she could see was the scene in the kitchen, brother facing brother, and not in friendliness but in enmity. She still felt bruised from the impact of Mark's fury, she could still hear his voice, and it was louder than Nils' voice, so that his recent words faded out. Her mind could only reiterate that Owen and Mark mustn't fight — they must work, like herself, for the Island. That must come first with them as it must come first with her. It was their past and their future. It was themselves. She'd talk to them about it when she got them alone again.

She and Nils had reached the clearing by the Eastern End gate. The fog had blown over in damp white waves, and now, suddenly, the moon-washed sky arched over them, the Island lay sleeping on a pale and dreamlike sea, lit by the gleam of foam on the rocks. The Island slept, but it listened, too. . . .

She turned and faced Nils. “I don't care how you figure it,” she said,
“I'm
not going to stand by and have the boys beating each other up. There are more important things for them to be doing.”

“What things?” he said quietly.

“Things for the good of the Island.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his hand on the gate, his eyes shadowed by his visor; yet she could feel their intentness. “The Island always comes first, doesn't it, Joanna?”

There was something in his voice that made her hesitate, but only for a second, and then she plunged on. “We're just getting the Island back on its feet again. We can't go off on tangents now. We can't let the boys —”

“We?”
he said. He put his hands in his pockets with a curiously deliberate gesture, and did not take his eyes from her face. He watched her for a long moment before he spoke again, as if he were studying her in the moonlight. “Joanna, let me ask you something — something I've been wondering about for a long time.”

“You can ask me anything, Nils,” she said slowly. “You know that.”

“Then tell me this. Just how much do you figure I'm worth in your scheme of things?”

She stared at him in blank surprise. The question wasn't fair, it came too swiftly. “Why, Nils!” she cried out. “You're worth
everything!
And look what you've done! Fixed up the wharf, fixed over the long fish house, and you're rebuilding the boatshop —”