The Black House (13 page)

She smiled at him. “Yes, sure . . . I don't think I'm hurt.”

Chuck looked at her, remembering her smooth, pale body, unblemished. “Not a scratch, far as I know. Can you manage this?” He was ready to set the tray on her thighs, then it occurred to him that the sheet would fall from her shoulders, and he had a brilliant idea. “Hold this for a minute!” He set the tray on her lap, then knelt and pulled out a drawer from the side of the bunk. In this he had at least one clean shirt besides woolen socks and various underpants and T-shirts. He found the red-and-white checked flannel shirt that he wanted. “This. It's warm. You want to keep warm.”

The girl extended an arm, and Chuck handed the shirt to her and at once turned his back. This caused him to notice Johnny and also Bif looking down through the open hatch. “Well, don't stand there
gawking
!” Chuck shouted, and advanced to the foot of the steps, blocking their view. There was even Louie peeking between Bif and Johnny!

“Thought there might be something else she needs,” Johnny said. “Ketchup?”

Too annoyed to reply, Chuck turned his back on them. The girl was buttoning his big shirt over her breasts, and then she picked up knife and fork. She poked a piece of steak into her mouth, and smiled at Chuck, chewing with an appetite.

“Salt, miss? Is that all right?” Chuck had salted the steak.

“It's fine. Good, really.”

Chuck glanced up, and saw a single figure, Louie, slip away. Chuck reached up and slammed the hatch doors firmly. “Will you tell me your name?”

“Natalie.”

Natalie
. It made Chuck think of things that came from the sea, like pearls and pretty corals, pink and red. He realized that he didn't want to ask her where she lived. Wouldn't it be fantastic if she could stay always in his bunk here, smiling at him, and he could wait on her hand and foot? “You're getting some color back in your cheeks.”

She nodded, and sipped from the glass of milk.

“Would it annoy you, Natalie, if I shaved here? It's the only mirror on board—and I really need a shave.”

The girl said it wouldn't annoy her, and Chuck opened the hatch and yelled, “Galley!”

Filip with bandaged head was first to arrive.

“Pan of hot water for shavin', Filip. Can you manage that?”

Filip gazed past Chuck at the girl. “Sure. Right away.” He went off.

Chuck got his razor from the drawer, and whetted it on the leather strap that hung by the mirror. Then he heard a yelp from on deck, the snarl of an angry voice, and Bif's roar of reprimand.

“God's
sake
!” Bif said.

“
He's
not tellin' me what to do!
That
son of a bitch!”

Chuck climbed partway up the steps, opened the hatch doors and looked out. Louie was lying on the port deck outside the galley. Bif was feeling his pulse, and Filip stood with feet apart and a belaying pin in his right hand.

Louie was dead. Chuck could tell that from the way Bif straightened up from the fallen figure, from the way he rubbed his chin. Chuck quietly shut the cabin hatches. Louie must have asked Filip to let him carry the hot water. Something like that. And Filip had got his own back at Louie for causing the cut on his head. There'd be a burial at sea now. Wouldn't there be?

The girl had closed her eyes again. She had long golden lashes. Was she maybe twenty? Or even younger? Her delicate hands and slender wrists rested outside the covers, beside the tray. She had eaten nearly all the steak.

Filip with shaking hands brought a pan of steaming water a minute later. Chuck took it through the hatch and asked no questions, set the pan on a step and closed the hatch doors at once.

At the helm of the
Emma C
, Sam Wicker had composed a poem. He had made three drafts of it, writing on the ruled scrap paper that lay on the shelf before the wheel, and it had taken him some time.

         I watched for leaping fish

         And troubled waters, signaling

         Action and the lowering of nets,

         The whirl of winches, and flapping death.

         Instead there floated tranquil

         On the sea's blue face

         A lovelier prize.

         We hauled it up gently

         Like coral that might break,

         In awe-struck silence beheld you,

         A beautiful girl, alive and perfect,

         Born of the sea!

         Need we, need I search further?

         Our prize is here, and as she sleeps

         A paradisic peace prevails.

And Sam had just copied out the last line, when Louie's dying scream rent the air. Sam had been about to yell out himself for relief at the wheel, and now he watched in blinking astonishment the scene on the port deck. Louie was being covered with a tarpaulin. Had Filip done that? Sam knew about Filip's cracked head. “Johnny!” Sam called, and when Johnny swaggered up, frowning, Sam nodded toward the wheel. “Take over, would you? I've been here a long time.”

Slowly, saying nothing, Johnny stepped into the wheelhouse.

The
Emma C
moved gently northeastward, at creeping speed. Ordinarily Captain Bif would have given orders who was to man the helm, or would have taken the wheel himself, but today was a different day indeed. Sam kept silent and watched. Chuck, with a puffy lip and jaw but freshly shaved, stood on the deck in earnest conversation with Bif. Filip leaned against the superstructure near them, and the patch on his head glared white in the sunshine. Filip was from the gutter, Sam thought. Like Louie. Louie had been a little better, with a family in Truro, but Filip was rather like a street urchin. Funny to think of Filip standing trial for murder or manslaughter, and this was what Captain Bif and Chuck were dealing with now.

“. . . accident,” Bif was saying. “Slipped and hit his head, you know? Sure enough he
did
die from a concussion—that blow with the belaying pin . . .” Then Bif saw Sam and beckoned to him.

They went into the galley, Bif opened a locker, and pulled out a full bottle of whiskey. They all had a neat drink. Sam grimaced, but finished his.

“You're to say nothing, Sam, understand?” said Bif. “Unless asked. And then you say Louie tripped in some rope and fell and hit his head.”

“Are we heading back for Wellfleet tonight?” Sam asked.

“Tonight? . . . Tonight,” Bif repeated dreamily, and poured another drink for himself, frowning.

Sam fingered his poem, which was folded in the back pocket of his dungarees. “The girl's all right?” he asked both Chuck and Bif.

Chuck looked challengingly at him. “Sure, she's fine. Why shouldn't she be?”

It was past three, and they'd all forgotten lunch. Sam shook his head at the offer of another drink, and went out on deck. He pulled his poem out, glanced at the open page, then made his way forward to the cabin and knocked so gently on the hatch doors, it might not have awakened the girl, if she had been asleep.

“Yes? Come in?” the girl's voice said.

Smiling with sudden relief, Sam slid open the doors. Sunlight slanted down just above the girl's head, lighting her blonde hair as if she wore a halo. Her lips and cheeks were pink now with a natural color. “I came to ask how you are—and if I can do anything for you.”

“Thanks. I feel much better. I'm—”

“Well—what're
you
doing here?” Chuck seized Sam's arm from behind.

“Hey, cut it
out
, Chuck!”

“Better leave, Sammy boy.” Chuck pushed past Sam and went down a couple of steps.

“I found this girl!” Sam said. “I've got a poem to give her.”

“A poem!” Chuck smiled, and waved Sam back.

To Sam, Chuck looked insane. In defense, Sam made a fist of his right hand. “Really, Chuck, I don't know why—”

Chuck jumped on deck, and a blow in the left side of Sam's ribs cut his words off. Sam let go with his fist against Chuck's chest, barely shaking the heavier man. Then Chuck shoved Sam with a foot, and Sam fell on the deck.

The girl said something in a tone of protest, and Chuck interrupted with, “I don't want those apes coming in here!”

Sam got to his feet a little breathless, furious. Apes? What was on
Chuck's
mind? “If you try anything—with
that
girl—”

Chuck closed the hatch doors in Sam's face.

Trembling, Sam folded his poem and stuck it back in his pocket. He went to Captain Bif, who was still drinking in the galley, sitting at the table, and said in a voice so hoarse, it didn't sound like his own, “Chuck's up to something in the cabin, I think, sir. Maybe you'd better go see.”

“Wh-at?” said Bif incredulously, not getting up.

“I can't do anything. He's
over
me.” Sam meant Chuck had higher rank, was next below Bif.

Captain Bif went out, past Louie's wrapped body, and Sam stood on the deck, sneakered feet braced, watching. Bif knocked and shouted. The cabin was some four yards distant from Sam.

Chuck opened the hatch a little, and Bif said, “Are you all right there, Chuck?” and Chuck replied something that included “. . . protecting this girl . . .”

Sam's anger mounted. Was Chuck telling the truth? Chuck was a tough customer, nearly thirty, with a scar in one eyebrow and a naked woman tattooed on his right forearm. And could Chuck write a poem? Sam spat bitterly over the side, and looked again toward the cabin. Bif must have given Chuck some order, because Chuck was climbing the steps, coming on deck. Sam walked past Chuck without looking at him to the prow, pulled his ballpoint pen out, and wrote in a small hand above the poem:

I am the one who saw you in the water. I wrote this for you. With all my love, Sam

And bitter tears stung his eyes for a moment. Sam glanced around, and saw no one except Bif, who was steering. The cabin was close. Sam tapped quickly on the hatch door, and said, “ 'Scuse me, miss! Can I hand you something?” He heard a soft reply that he did not understand, but there was no time to lose, so he opened the hatch doors, fairly slid down the steps, and extended his folded paper to the girl in the lower starboard bunk. “Take this, please!” He stuck it into her hand, and as he scrambled up the steps, he saw Chuck approaching on the port deck.

“Well, well! Peeping
Tom
!” Chuck said, and dashed for the cabin hatch as if to see if Sam had murdered the girl or done her some other damage.

Sam waited tensely to see if the swine Chuck was going to make the girl give up the poem.

“It's just a piece of paper!” Sam heard the girl say. “I want to read it!”

Sam drew a breath and smiled with satisfaction as if he had bashed Chuck to the deck! He walked slowly aft, feeling happy. And there was Johnny, lowering buckets over the side, rinsing. Johnny was apparently sprucing up their toilet facilities, such as they were. Sam wanted to laugh, but he only grinned, through nervously set teeth. Did the girl like his poem? Where were they heading? And why? Captain Bif at the wheel was still chewing his old unlit cigar. The captain had a wife in Wellfleet, Sam knew. What was Captain Bif thinking about now? Bif had told Sam that he had radioed P'town about the girl. And surely the girl would tell them her name and where she lived. Had she already told Chuck?

Suddenly hungry, Sam stepped into the galley, over the back of Filip who was scrubbing away slowly at the floor. Sam cut a hunk of the orange cheese they called rat cheese, and stood munching it. The old linoleum floor of the galley had never looked so clean. Blood had appeared in Filip's white bandage, and as Sam gazed at him, Filip slumped over in a faint and dropped his scrub brush. Sam stretched him out, and put a towel moistened with cold water over his forehead. Filip's face was pale.

“You'll be okay,” Sam said. “You've done enough. The floor looks great.”

In the cabin, Chuck had ascertained that the girl's family name was Anderson, and that she lived in Cambridge. Her father was a history professor. She had been on a camping trip with some friends, and she had taken a swim around nine that morning, intending to swim to a certain little cape or projection (Chuck thought he knew where she meant), but she had deliberately swum out farther to sea, aiming for somewhere else, and then she had become very tired.

“I had a quarrel—with someone. Then a kind of bet with someone else—a girl.”

Chuck thought he understood. Maybe she had quarreled over a boy, some worthless kid. Chuck resented that possibility, and in fact did not wish to ask details. He didn't want to imagine her attracted to anyone. “You're much too . . .” He hesitated a long while. “. . . valuable to risk your life in a silly way like that.”

The girl laughed a little, amused. “Can I get up? I'm feeling much better now.”

“You can do anything you
wish
—Natalie.” Chuck got up from where he had been sitting, on the opposite lower bunk, and again pulled out his clothes drawer. Dungarees. There was a pair, reasonably clean. “May I offer you these, ma'am?—I'll wait outside while you put them on.” Chuck went up on deck.

At that moment, Captain Bif gave a shout—his customary “
Hey!
” which could mean anything. Chuck didn't respond; there were other men on board.

Sam left Filip and went to answer. The captain wanted to see Chuck. Sam, finding Chuck on deck by the cabin, told him this.

“Tell Bif he can come to see me,” said Chuck.

Sam relayed this message to Bif.