Storm Tide (30 page)

Grandpa Bennett's store had gone out of business eventually, when neither of his sons, Nate and Stephen—Joanna's father—had wanted to carry it on. But Pete Grant flourished, and in his thirty-five years of store-keeping and lobster-buying he had been a good friend to the Island. A sharp-tongued one, almost too blunt—but still he'd been one of the Islanders. Even when he bought one of the harbor points, and built his house on it, and sent his boys away to school and college—that was during the Golden Period for anyone who bought or sold lobsters—the older men never forgot that he was still the big, boisterous, canny youth who could bake beans as well as any woman, and had peddled them around the camps on a Saturday night. And Pete never forgot it, either.

He'd left Bennett's Island—one of the last to go—when it seemed as if there were no more lobsters left to buy and not enough trade coming into his store to count. But he still owned his point, his house and store and wharf, and the other buildings; and it was said that he still considered himself an Islander, though he was too old and lame now to come back.

So, smiling a little to herself at her memories of Pete, who had been such an important figure in her life ever since she could first remember, Joanna opened his letter. She sat by the table, with the fragrance of the chrysanthemum in her nostrils, and read what he had written to Nils.

It was only a note. She read it and understood it in something under five minutes. And when she had finished she sat very quietly in her chair, her fingers tightening gradually on the slip of paper. She couldn't tell whether she felt shock, or sickness, or panic, or a sheer primitive fury; perhaps it was a mixture of all of them. But for a moment she could not move. Then she read the letter again.

Dear Nils, (it began). You'll want to know this right off, so I'll be brief. Randolph Fowler has been up here to see me and wants to buy my point and shore front down on the Island. He is offering me a good price, and will pay cash. I don't mind saying I can use the money—Stella and me are both getting on, you know—but I thought I'd offer you folks first refusal. Fowler is a good business man and maybe he could do something for the Island, but I don't know how well he sets with you people, not being an Island man. Let me know right away. I don't mind telling you I'll accept any reasonable offer from Bennett's Island people. I'm still a Bennett's man. Fowler is offering me more than the place is worth. If you don't want it, he can have it.

Yours truly,
Pete Grant.

She stood up and went to the window, staring down across the meadow at the harbor. The October afternoon was at its loveliest. But she hardly saw it. She was thinking of Randolph Fowler. So, all the time he'd been handing out mail and nodding courteously to her through the postoffice window, he'd been planning this . . . actually to lay his hands on a piece of Bennett's Island. To be able to call a strip of its shoreline
Fowler property;
one of its most beautiful points, and the best place in the harbor for a wharf—why, he could control over half the harbor! She thought of his smooth, polite face and voice with an almost physical loathing.

Yet there had been one thing he hadn't planned on—that Pete Grant would notify her of the offer. Not herself, actually, but Nils. But that didn't matter, as long as they knew.

They must have the point, and without delay. She throttled down her sense of outrage—she mustn't let that interfere with her thinking, which must be clear and logical. One thing was certain; she could not wait two days for Nils. Anything could happen in two days. She couldn't bear to sit still and wait, and do nothing till he came.

The thing to do was to get the money somehow, and get it today; and it must come from the Island. The fall spurt had been going on for some six weeks now, everyone had been doing well, and nobody'd been spending much. They'd all have money in the house; for most of the fishermen let it mount far into the hundreds before they banked it—if, like Nils, they believed in banks. She knew that at this moment there were at least four hundred and fifty dollars in Nils' money box, and that Stevie and Owen each had a good sum. Mark would have plenty too. Why, right in the family there must be enough cash for what might be called a “reasonable offer”; no, not quite enough, she must make it a very good offer. After all, the wharf and buildings, though in bad repair, were fundamentally solid.

She looked down at the harbor again. In the bright flood of afternoon sunshine it was empty, except for the
Donna
. No one was in from hauling yet, and she was tormented by her impatience, till she remembered that Jud would be available. Jud, as lobster-buyer, was always around. And—as lobster-buyer—he had money put by.

She changed her housedress for a tweed skirt and yellow sweater, brushed her hair to a crow's-wing smoothness, took the letter and went out. She took the road toward the harbor, intending to try the lobster-car first; she hoped Jud wasn't still at home, dallying over his dinner, because she felt she could talk to him best without Marion around. She didn't want any possible obstacle to Jud's giving her three or four hundred dollars.

He wasn't out on the car, but on the beach, painting his skiff a vivid robin's-egg blue. His solid, pudgy figure was quite alone and at peace, except for a couple of young gulls arguing over a dead fish at the water's edge. Joanna, approaching him, felt suddenly as if the October sun were burning her face and drying her lips.

He heard her step and looked up, mopping his red face with his bandanna “Hi, Jo. Hot, ain't it? Weather-breeder.”

“It's a beautiful day,” she said. “So's your punt.”

He looked pleased. “I think it's real pretty. Marion, she don't think much of it. Says it's too giddy for a man o' my years an' discretion.”

“Your years!” Joanna laughed. “Jud, you're younger than I am this minute!”

“Lonesome for Nils?” he inquired sympathetically. “That must be love, huh? He ain't been gone but an hour or two.” He shook his head. “By God, I stay out on the car all mornin', go home to dinner, and the old lady, she looks at me and says, “What you home so soon for?” Still shaking his head, he went back to his painting. “That's what it is when you git to my age!”

Joanna sat down on the side of a dory. “I've got a good reason to feel old.” She held out the letter to him. “Read this.”

He squinted at it. “Ain't got my specs, Jo. You read it. Ain't bad news, is it?”

“It depends on how you look at it,” she told him, and read the letter aloud. When she had finished Jud sat back on his heels and looked at her.

“That son of a bitch!” he said softly. “Tryin' to cut our throats when our back is turned!”

Joanna's heart quickened. The letter was doing what she wanted it to do. Jud was at least three shades redder, verging on purple. She went on, speaking quietly.

“You know what he can do with Grant's place, don't you? He could put hired fishermen in the buildings to live, and under the law he'd have a right to. Ten men with a hundred pots apiece—that's an extra thousand to choke up these waters so you could hardly get a power boat through. . . . Of course,” she added, “they'd be selling to Ralph, over at Brigport.”

“I wouldn't buy the bastards' lobsters, anyway!” Jud said violently. He struggled to his feet. “And even five fishermen with a hundred pots would be five too many—'specially if they was Fowlers men!” He glared up and down the empty beach as if he saw them there already. “What are we gonna do, Jo?”

“We're going to buy the point outright,” Joanna told him. “If I can get enough money together today, I'll get Stevie to take me ashore tomorrow morning, and the business will be done by noon. How about it?”

“You want money right now, Jo?” he asked uneasily. “How much do you want from me?”

“As much as you can give me.” She forgot to be calm. She slid off the dory and faced him, taller than he, her intensity making her seem taller still. “Oh, Jud, can't you see how important it is? What's it worth to you to keep the Fowlers from getting their hands on any piece of this island?”

“Worth plenty, Jo,” he said soberly. “Look—I'll be up to the house by'mby. I'll bring you up—well, how 'bout three hundred dollars? I got to save some to buy lobsters with, tomorrow.”

“You won't be sorry about chipping in,” she said. The sound of an engine grew in the sunlit hush; they looked up, watching Eastern Harbor Point, and saw the nose of Caleb's boat come in sight. She rounded the point, her wake throwing a creamy surge against the rocks, and headed for her mooring. “I'll talk to Caleb next,” Joanna said. “I'll walk around to the house and be there when he gets in.”

“Better give him a chance to eat his dinner first,” Jud advised her.

“This can't even wait for dinner,” she retorted. She went up over the pebbly slope to the road. A flock of grackles flew up from the edge of the marsh, shiny black bodies wheeling against a luminous sky.

T
HE NEXT MORNING SHE ATE BREAKFAST
at sunrise with her two brothers. It was another lovely day. The sea lay mirror-calm in the coves and in the harbor, and the chatter of birds was loud and sweet, as the light began to filter through the woods.

Owen, coming in with the water pails, said, “Sure is a pretty day. But when this stretch ends, all hell will break loose.”

Joanna laughed. “And all hell will break loose in Fowler's store when they find out we own Grant's point!” She went to the dresser for more bread, and patted her pocketbook affectionately when she passed it. “There it is—I never carried so much money in my life.”

“You scraped the bottom of the barrel, all right. Gathered up everybody's hard-earned dollars,” said Stevie. “Only hope Pete's ready to do business when we get in there.”

“Of course he'll be ready.” She rested her chin in her hands and looked dreamily out across the paling sea. Two gulls flew across a peach-flushed sky that was already turning to gold. “Isn't this a heavenly day?”

“Look,” said Owen. “What if you run into Nils over there?”

“He'll be glad I've done this,” she answered promptly.

“You sure?” Owen looked quizzical. “After all, you go around and make everybody fork over their savings—tell 'em it's practically a matter of life and death. . . . That's not exactly Nils' way of doing things.”

She said angrily, “What else was I supposed to do? It was an emergency. I couldn't wait for him to come home! We've
got
to have that point!” She pushed back her chair left and the table. Owen's voice followed her to the mirror, where she stopped to adjust her blouse collar.

“Don't fly down my throat, darlin' mine. I was just wondering. . . . And what am I having to eat today?”

“Well, your dinner-box is all ready, and when you come in, there's cold boiled lobsters in the cellar way, and potatoes ready to fry, and some apple pie—I guess you'll make out.” She had stopped being angry with him; she couldn't be angry on such a flawless pearl of a day, when she had this deep, solid knowledge that what she was doing was
right
. And she had done it by herself; she had talked Caleb and Jud and Matthew and her brothers into realizing the urgency of the situation. Forever afterward, whenever she looked at Grant's point, walked on the wharf or on the solid rocks of the shore, she would feel a special relationship with the timbers, or the granite boulders, because of her part in helping the Island to hold them fast.

Stevie, in his good blue serge trousers and clean white shirt, and yellow pullover, his new leather jacket under his ann, his brown cheeks ruddy from his recent shaving, was waiting for her. She caught up her tweed topcoat and her hat, and the precious handbag. She gave the kitchen a swift inspection. Everything was in its place, Owen knew where to find the lobsters and eggs and coffee, and anything else he'd need. Now she could go. And when she came back, well—she grinned at her two brothers.

“So long, Owen. Okay, Stevie? Let's go.”

There was no one stirring as they walked down through the dewwet marsh, their shadows falling before them. Only the birds seemed to be awake, the little birds, and the gulls weaving back and forth overhead. The cool, windless air touched their faces. They smiled at each other, and walked down the damp, stony beach without speaking, feeling no need for words. She helped him shove the punt off, and she took her place in the stern. The oars dipped in the glassy green water, and the wet blades shone, and shining drops of water ran off them and left tiny dimples where they fell. Always the sun was climbing, and outside the harbor, toward the mainland in the west, the sea already wore its morning blue, the soft bright blue Joanna had once seen in a stone called lapis lazuli.

But the mountains were misted in a lilac haze.

Stevie had some business of his own to do, so she went alone to see Pete and Stella Grant. It was early afternoon when she met him, as they had agreed, at the Limerock Public Landing. On such an unusually mild day, the Landing was busy with people who had come down to take out their little sailboats or sea sleds for a run around the harbor, and the afternoon boat from one of the large islands up the coast was discharging its passengers on the float. But when Joanna saw the intrepid little
Elaine
tied up between a visiting yacht and a sleek gray Coast Guard boat, she ran down the slip as if no crowd existed, and jumped down into the
Elaine
's cockpit.

“I've got it, Stevie!” she said joyfully, her whole face alight. She unzipped her pocketbook and took out the long brown envelope that held the deed. “There it is! All registered, and everything.” Regardless of an interested sailor aboard the Coast Guard boat, and a crew member on the yacht, Joanna and Stevie bent their heads over the deed.