Summer of Pearls (13 page)

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Authors: Mike Blakely

BOOK: Summer of Pearls
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The roaring laughter of the pearl-buyer followed the tinkling of shattered glass. He dropped his guard and looked around at the men in the saloon. “Never trust a drunken sailor to fight fair, mates! It isn't in him!”
Kelso chose the moment to spring from the shattered glass and throw a wild blow at Brigginshaw's head. The captain's beard absorbed the punch as his knee came up and caught Kelso in the ribs. He made playful jabs at Kelso's nose and ears, backing him up until he knocked
him over the stove. There was no fire, but the stovepipe fell out and a black cloud of soot dropped into the saloon.
When Kelso got to his feet, the leather satchel swung again, knocking him all the way through the door and into the woodpile outside. Trevor began shaking with laughter, and the customers remaining in the saloon joined him. Even Esau smiled, though he was shaking his head and surveying the devastation around him.
“Not to worry,” Brigginshaw said. “International bloody Gemstones pays all my expenses.” He put the leather satchel on a table and began unbuckling it. “Including damages incurred in protecting my pearls.”
As he peered into his leather case, Trevor sensed a sudden change in the mood of the crowd. He pulled back the tail of his jacket, found the grip of his revolver, and drew it. As he turned, he cocked it, and found Judd Kelso in the sights as the burly little man came through the door, an ax above his head.
Kelso stopped so suddenly that his shoes slid across the dirty wooden floor. He was still quivering with rage, but he knew better than to rush the big man now. He stood as if in leg irons, the ax handle at his shoulder, the broad steel blade above his head.
“Drop that weapon,” Trevor said.
Kelso's face writhed with flexing muscles.
Trevor raised his aim a few inches and sent a bullet glancing off the ax head, humming through the wall, and sailing out over the lake. The weapon jerked in Kelso's hand. A couple of customers bolted for the door, and others dove under tables or behind barrels.
“Drop it!” Brigginshaw repeated.
Kelso threw the ax aside.
The big Australian laughed again, but in a distinctly devious tone. “You'll wish you hadn't raised a weapon to Trevor Brigginshaw when I'm finished with you, mate.”
Esau shuffled through the broken glass. “Captain, let him go,” he said. “There's been enough trouble. The constable may have heard you shoot.”
“Not until we finish our fight,” Trevor said, easing the hammer down on the pistol and returning it to his belt.
“I ain't fightin' you with that gun on!” Kelso said.
“Then you will be shot,” Trevor said, bringing both fists up and assuming his boxing pose. “The choice is yours.”
“There's been enough damage done, Captain,” Esau said.
“There's been too much bloody damage done,” Trevor answered. “And no one will leave this room until some of it's been accounted for.” He bent his head forward and moved toward Kelso.
“I don't want to fight no more,” Kelso said, taking a step back. “I give.”
“Run, and a bullet will stop you, mate. Put your fists up and fight like a man!”
Reluctantly, Kelso put his fists in front of his face and circled away, backing around chairs and tables clumsily. “Goddam, Esau! Stop the crazy son of a bitch!”
Esau did nothing.
Trevor continued to stalk the retreating man until he got him trapped in a corner. When Kelso crossed his arms in front of his face, a flurry of crushing blows arrived, coming with incredible rapidity from a man of such size. Kelso doubled over until a punch to his chin stood him straight. Another snapped his head against the wall. His knees buckled and he slid unconscious to the floor.
Trevor, as if he had failed to see his opponent fall, continued to belabor the wall until a board came loose, letting all the lake's animal croaks and chirps into the saloon.
Still fuming, he turned to glower at the men left inside the saloon. He saw his leather satchel open on a table. He saw the ax on the floor. He stalked across the room, picked them both up, and went outside.
Esau breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the ax splitting wood. He motioned to a couple of customers. “Drag Kelso out through the back,” he said. “Don't let the captain see him.” He mopped his sleeve across his forehead and reached for the flask in his pocket. “That Australian sure gets mean when he drinks.”
I GOT SOOT IN MY EYE WHEN THE STOVEPIPE FELL OUT OF THE CEILING.
Adam Owens and I had sneaked down to Esau's place after dark to watch through the knotholes in the wall. We were hoping to see a fight, but hadn't bargained on guns and axes. Adam ran for home as soon as the pistol slug glanced off the ax and ripped through the wall.
I was more curious and less cautious. I stayed until the bloody end, and even watched Captain Brigginshaw chop wood until he was so tired he could hardly stand up. I watched from a distance, because it was frightening to listen to him heave and grunt, and to look at his crazed face. He must have split enough wood to last a week.
While Brigginshaw was chopping, I was wrestling with my conscience. It wasn't the fight that was on my mind, but the story the pearl-buyer had told of Billy on the island of Mangareva. It had given me an unforgivably wicked idea. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't help myself from thinking about it. I was fourteen and in love with the most seductive woman in creation.
Before Billy Treat, there had been a far-fetched hope that Carol Anne would share her body, if not her heart and soul, with me someday.
But since they had gone into business together, and started socializing around town, arm in arm, there was no hope of anything. Billy would have her all—heart, soul, and body.
Billy had saved me from the sinking riverboat. He was the first adult to treat me as a man. He had started me in the lucrative catfish and drinking-water enterprises. He was my hero, and a hero of the entire town. I idolized him. It was difficult to think of stabbing him in the back, but I was a desperate whirlwind of surging confusion.
My crush on Carol Anne had become an obsession. She was everything to me. Visions of her consumed me, day and night, only to be intruded upon by visions of Billy Treat.
Until that night at Esau's place, I had thought Billy invincible. There had been no chance of weakening his hold on Carol Anne. I was doomed to watch him take her. Then I heard the story of Mangareva. I knew why Billy seldom smiled. I knew why he suffered. There was no greater shame for a man than to be labeled a coward, and Billy had so labeled himself for not dying with his island friends. I saw a weakness in the invincible Billy Treat.
It was wrong to even think of it. I knew very well it was wrong. I personally didn't think of him as a coward, even if he thought of himself that way. I knew what kind of mettle he was made of. I owed the man my life.
But I was fourteen and driven by motives I could not control. I couldn't win. Either I would lose my slim chance with Carol Anne, or I would lose the respect and friendship of Billy. According to the stuff that was coursing through me, there was no choice to make. I could do without Billy.
 
 
I waited until the next morning after breakfast, when Billy drove the store wagon to the pearling camps. I sauntered into Carol Anne's store, already ashamed of what I had not even done yet, and waited until she and I were the only ones in the room.
She looked at me and smiled. She had taken to smiling more since she and Billy had started their business. She was wearing the Treat Pearl,
the one I should have found. Lord, she was a sight to make a boy yearn. I knew then that I would betray a hundred Billy Treats for a thousand-to-One chance at knowing the pleasures of her flesh.
“Hi, Ben,” she said. She was dusting the tops of some canned goods and she couldn't prevent herself from moving provocatively all over, though she was only using a feather duster. She didn't do it on purpose. She was just put together that way.
“Mornin',” I replied. “Have you heard?”
“Heard what?” she asked.
“Captain Brigginshaw got drunk last night at old Esau's place.”
“Oh, yes. I think I even heard the gunshot last night. I know I heard something.”
“I was there.”
“Ben!” She propped her fists on her hips and stared at me, half amused and half concerned. “What's a boy like you doing around there? You should have been home in bed!”
That hurt, but I only shrugged. “You know what the fight was about?”
“From what Billy says, Captain Brigginshaw doesn't need much of a reason to fight when he gets drunk.” She was not really very interested.
“Judd Kelso said Billy was a coward.”
She stopped in a shaft of morning light that was streaming through the store window. Tiny particles of dust swarmed around her like the fancies of a young boy, wanting to be near, but afraid to touch her. She suddenly seemed to realize that I had come to tell her something important. “That was a stupid thing for him to say. Why would he even think such a thing?”
“Captain Brigginshaw told everybody at Esau's a story about Billy, and Judd Kelso said it made Billy a coward.” I didn't tell her that Kelso had also called her a whore. I wasn't trying to destroy her image of herself, just her image of Billy. It was a sneaky, cowardly thing for me to do, but I was beyond honor. I was fourteen.
She asked me to sit down with her behind the counter, and I repeated the story as Captain Brigginshaw had told it, trying to remember
his every word, wishing I could borrow his accent. In my version, Billy put up a little less of a fight as Captain Brigginshaw thumped him on the head, deserted the island village a little easier, and went a little crazier with shame aboard the
Wicked Whistler.
It was sad to watch Carol Anne's face as I talked. The story hurt her. I thought it might be breaking her heart. By the end of the tale, her fingers had fallen from the Treat Pearl and lay clasped in her lap. She wasn't smiling now.
“So that's it,” she said. “I knew there was something. I could tell.” She got up and walked aimlessly out into the middle of the store, holding her fingers to her lips. “That's why he never talks about the South Seas. I knew something had happened there.”
I barely enjoyed ogling her. The story had taken the luster off her smile. “Well, I thought I'd better tell you,” I said.
She turned and looked at me. Her eyes were glistening with tears that wouldn't quite roll down her cheeks. Suddenly she came toward me. I jumped from the stool I had been sitting on just as she reached me. She put a warm hand on each side of my face. I felt electricity in her touch.
“Thank you, Ben. I'm so glad I heard it from you instead of from some gossip.”
She leaned toward me and kissed me square on the forehead. I went almost as blank as Judd Kelso had the night before. Fire started on the spot where her lips had touched me, and sent a wave of crimson across the rest of my face. It was happening fast. Too fast for me to handle.
I pulled her hands away from my face and took a step back. “I gotta go now,” I said. I tried to regain some semblance of composure. “I have to haul some water to the pearl camps. Those folks won't have any water if I don't.” I figured that while I was tearing Billy down, I might as well build myself up. I must have been cardinal-red when I left.
I walked to Esau's camp in a trance. She had kissed me. My betrayal of Billy had worked quicker than I could have imagined. It was only a kiss on the forehead, but I never expected her to kiss me on the lips the first time.
I was virtually worthless hauling water with Cecil and Adam that
afternoon. Cecil kept trying to get me to tell him about the fight at Esau's the night before because Adam had a poor memory for details, and had left before it was over, but I was so wrapped up in Carol Anne's lips that I couldn't concentrate on anything.
“Well, Ben?” Cecil said. “Ben!”
“Huh?”
“Well, what happened then? What's wrong with you? Didn't you hear me? What happened after Judd Kelso came in with the ax? When did Captain Brigginshaw shoot?”
Poor Billy Treat. I had ruined him. It was a sorry reward for his saving my life. It hadn't been fun destroying him, only necessary. Anyway, I didn't have a lot of room left in me for pity. I was too full of wonder. My skin still tingled where she had kissed me.
“Ben. Ben!” Cecil shouted.
“What?”
“Why haven't you got the danged mussels opened yet? We're almost to the trotline, boy. Hurry up. Haven't you been listening to me? You must be sick or something.”
“He don't look too good,” Adam said. “I think he's feelin' peaked.”
I avoided my usual haunts that evening after supper. I didn't want Cecil or Adam intruding on my thoughts of Carol Anne. I had plans to make. Tonight was the night Carol Anne was going to tell Billy she didn't want to wear his pearl any longer. It was a vicious thing, but I wanted to see Billy get rejected. Not because I would get any pleasure from it, but because I wanted to make sure he was really out of my way.
Well, maybe I would get a little pleasure from it, and that was the disturbing part. Until that moment, I truly believed that I wasn't doing anything to spite Billy. I could have sworn that I was only filling my own instinctive needs. It was primal, like a coyote howling for a mate. But I had to admit I was going to get some kind of kick out of knocking Billy down a peg, and that vicious feeling gave me no pride. My shame began to build, but there still wasn't much room for it next to the hope I had been breathing in all day.
I was naive beyond imagination. I truly believed that just because Judd Kelso had called Billy a coward and I had repeated it to Carol Anne,
she would think of him in that way. That little peck she had given me on the forehead must have soaked through my skull and addled my brain. Can you believe that I actually had some kind of hope that she was going to shun Billy and take up with me?
Of course my plan backfired. I'll tell you how I found out. I wandered around to the Treat Inn that evening to flirt with Carol Anne. I was approaching the building when I saw Billy knocking on the door to Carol Anne's room. Unseen, I stepped into the shadows to watch. Carol Anne came to the door. I couldn't see her face, but I figured she was telling Billy to get lost because word was all over town that he was a coward, and she didn't want to be seen with him anymore.
Poor Billy Treat, I thought. He had taken some hard knocks. First Mangareva, now this. He would never kiss Carol Anne. She wouldn't want to wear the pearl of a coward. He would probably leave town. It would be a relief to see him go, but it would make me a little sad, too. I was going to miss him. I admired him and I knew he was no coward, but he was standing between me and Carol Anne, and that was justification enough for my treachery.
“Sorry, Billy,” I whispered as I watched from a distance. “But I was here before you.”
Then it happened. I saw Carol Anne step from her room. Her hand reached behind Billy's neck, and she kissed him. I don't mean on the forehead like that little smack she had given me earlier that day. She kissed him full on the mouth, and pressed herself against him in the most aggravating way. I turned and walked away then, because I couldn't take it anymore.
The hope that had been filling me all day fled. I felt sick and helpless. My heart was tender and it fell into halves, as if some pearl-hunter had pried it open with his mussel knife and, finding no gem there—for my treacherous heart was destitute of anything that worthy—had thrown it back into the murky waters.
My pain and shame deepened. Confusion mounted. Anger surged. The hollow where my heart had been froze. It was awful.
It took me years to understand, but one morning I woke up thinking about the summer of pearls and realized what had happened. No
honorable man wants to be a coward. He can think of nothing worse. Billy Treat was a brave man, but he blamed himself for what had happened on Mangareva. The fact that he had not stood and fought to the death made him feel like a coward, whether he was or not. It wasn't as if he had had a choice in the matter. Trevor Brigginshaw had knocked him on the head and dragged him away. Still, Billy blamed himself.
No honorable woman wants to be a whore. She can conceive of nothing lower. Carol Anne wasn't a whore, but she had thought of herself that way. She had allowed herself no excuses. It didn't matter that she had grown up watching her mother take strange men into her bedroom. The fact that Carol Anne had been seduced with a pearl excused her from nothing. She had punished herself by secretly, privately, calling herself a whore of the lowest order—that is, until Billy convinced her otherwise.
Billy had given her honor, and she was only too happy to return the favor. A woman can restore a man's self-respect even if he has given up finding it himself. I'm sure Carol Anne knew ways I will never fathom. She knew how Billy suffered under the weight of his own useless shame. She knew how to relieve him, renew him, replenish his dignity, his honor. A good woman can do that. Those two needed each other more desperately than the earth needs the sun.
Of course none of that occurred to me as I walked away from the Treat Inn that night. All I knew then was that I had betrayed Billy and lost Carol Anne in the same day. I was shamefaced, guilt-ridden, and heartbroken. I knew how Billy Treat must have felt after Mangareva. I deserved it. I had gone behind his back—like a coward.

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