The Whiskey Tide (20 page)

     
"Furl sails," Joe ordered.

     
The great sheets of canvas flapped in an indifferent wind and were quickly secured. Joe took the helm and tinkered a moment. The sound that split the morning silence wasn't as loud as Kate had feared. It was strong and steady and, she recognized, its pitch was high. The
Folly
began to glide through the water as if drawn by a giant magnet. Its speed increased. She held her breath until her lungs were clamoring and then let it out in small stages.

     
"You can stop looking worried," Joe said with amusement. "It's not going to sink.

     
Satisfaction shone in every inch of his face. He adjusted the lever and the schooner settled back into a steady pace that was at least as fast as they'd get with full wind, and which could be depended on, unlike the wind.

     
Kate felt the tangible proof of their new swiftness press at her face. The
Folly
danced across blue-green swells.

     
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's amazing, the engine. It's just that... the boat was my father's."

     
Her words explained nothing at all, yet Joe was silent.

     
"I saw him killed," he said abruptly. "I was waiting for him on the courthouse steps. I don't think he felt anything, if that helps."

     
"Oh." Kate felt oddly numb. As if she'd been hit and her breath knocked out. The engine hummed, a faint vibration trembling through the vessel. "Why... were you waiting?"

     
"There's a cousin of mine got into some trouble. I promised my great-aunts I'd find a lawyer to help him. I'd read about your father in the paper — knew he'd represented working class people."

     
"Yes." Kate cleared her throat. "He often took on cases where people couldn't pay— "

     
"They could pay," Joe said sharply.

     
She bit her lip, aware she'd offended him. He adjusted the lever again and loosened his grip on the wheel.

     
"That why your family's in a corner over money? Too many cases where he didn't get paid?"

     
"Mostly I think it was my brother's medical bills. Woody. He's almost ten." There was a curious relief in talking about it. Joe's candor about his cousin seemed to make it acceptable. "Mostly it was my uncle's duplicity," she said bitterly.

     
His expression grew curious, but he was polite enough not to ask. Kate hugged herself, watching the ocean, while anger inside her welled out.

     
"He'd borrowed fifteen thousand dollars to invest in some stock tip. He never repaid it. I heard my father discussing it with him. He denies it."

     
Joe whistled softly. A comment formed on his lips, but he held it back. Kate looked at him levelly, inviting it.

     
"My family doesn't have much," he said slowly. "But they share what they do have. They don't cheat each other."

     
"No," she agreed, suddenly self-conscious. She turned away and gave unnecessary attention to the sail locker.

     
By mid-day they were much further north than they had been last time. By nightfall, when they'd eaten potatoes fried with onions and sausage that Joe fixed over the kerosene stove, and Billy had finished the last of the sugar cookies Rosalie had provided, they were nearing Bar Harbor.

     
"We'll hoist the sails when I finish here," Joe said nearing the end of a mug of bitter coffee. He kept one eye on Billy who was joyously trying his hand at the motorized helm. "Seems safer to me when we can't see what's around us and half the traffic we pass will be running dark."

     
Kate nodded. Clovis had carried his plate of food to the bow and eaten alone. She wondered if it was his lack of speech which made him shun their company. When Joe had drained his coffee he switched off the motor and she took the helm while the three men unfurled and raised the yard upon yard of canvas which gave Kate back the
Folly
she loved. They'd be less likely to crash into something at eight knots than at eighteen, and without their own motor they'd be more likely to hear sounds on the water around them.

     
Admiring Joe Santayna's reasoning abilities, she left him to take the first watch while she went below and curled on the bunk that was nearest the door, within easy earshot. Clovis was an odd man, but she felt at ease by now with Joe and Billy. If their lives were different from hers, and they sometimes talked about things that seemed to exclude her, it was no matter. She trusted them, and the awkwardness she felt in their presence was less acute than she felt around her mother's friends. She closed her eyes and slept soundly.

     
"Kate!" The sound of her name penetrated her consciousness, and she sensed she had heard it before.
"Kate!"
It was Joe's voice, sharp and insistent.

     
Flinging her blanket aside she reached the companionway stairs in two groggy steps. She half ran up them, stumbling once, reached the spot where they met the deck and gasped.

     
She couldn't
see
the deck. Couldn't see anything. She screwed her eyes tight and opened them, wondering if she still slept. The world around her had vanished. She stood lost in fog. She could not even make out the masts, or the wheel which must be just a few feet away.

     
"Kate!" Joe called again.

     
"I'm here!" Her voice came out unnaturally high.

     
"Take the wheel. We've got to furl sail!" The tips of his fingers appeared in the white brightness, reaching to guide her.

     
Gratefully Kate caught them. Agile and callused, they drew her toward the wheel. Terror was lapping at her. She willed it away. Even with Joe next to her she could not see his features, only his shape. By the brightness around them she guessed it was morning.

     
"Just hold her steady and do the best you can if we hit anything," he ordered. "It came down fast."

     
Then he was gone and she heard him making his way along the rope that served as railing. Her hands gripped the wheel so tightly they ached. The whiteness thinned for an instant and she saw a shape by the mainmast she thought must be Clovis. Then she was alone again. She tried to concentrate on the water beneath her. A gentle rise and fall. No strong currents, thank God. She had only the feel of the wheel to reassure her they were holding course.
     
Again the fog parted and she glimpsed Joe's tall shape reaching up by the foremast. Terse voices floated back to her. A sudden slowing told her when the sails were down. They were creeping, hoping other traffic in the fog would do the same, but she knew with sick certainty that some of that traffic, including large freighters, would keep bearing toward them. She wouldn't think about the rocks which cropped up everywhere here.

     
The sound that commenced at the bow repeated several times before she took notice of it. In the utter stillness surrounding them it sounded like the plunk of rocks heaved into water. It was near the schooner and made the hair at the back of her neck stand up. Twice she thought it had ceased only to hear the plunk again as near as before. It appeared to come at regular intervals. Kate began to count seconds, marking the minutes on her fingers. Almost twenty minutes had passed when the fog thinned enough for her to see the front of the boat. Joe stood at the bowsprit heaving potatoes into the whiteness ahead of them.

     
At first she wondered whether he had taken leave of his senses. As the whiteness thinned enough to see a boat's length ahead, he stopped reaching into the basket beside him. Another ten minutes crept by and visibility returned by inches. Shafts of sunlight split the mist. Blue water came into view.

     
Joe glanced back at her and gave a wave. He jumped down, handing the potato basket to Billy, then made his way toward her.

     
"You okay?"

     
Kate nodded, sure if she let go the wheel she wouldn't be able to stand.

     
"Sit down for a minute," he said.

     
She sank to the deck, a coil of rope at her back, and swallowed for what seemed the first time that morning.

     
"That's what... the potatoes were for?"

     
"An old salt told me a tale about it. I think it was meant as a joke." He managed a smile. "I figured it was worth trying if we got in a pinch. You listen for the splash, and if you hear a different sound, you know you're in trouble."

     
Kate drew a hand across her mouth. Her upper lip was damp with sweat. Joe was gripping the wheel much more tightly than was necessary. She saw his fingers slip into the open neck of his shirt and touch a small gold oval hanging around his neck.

***

     
Aggie gave the carved leg of the dining table a halfhearted swipe and rose to her feet with a dustcloth held arm's length away.

     
"This polish is giving me a blinding headache," she complained making a face. "I don't see how you stand it."

     
Rosalie laughed. "It is a bit sharper than when we used to just flit through a room and say how nice and clean it smelled. I'm afraid I appreciate Ethel more than I ever did while she was here. But think about it — we're saving twenty dollars a month by doing without her. And I expect we'll get better at this as time goes by."

     
"Twenty dollars a month is nothing," Aggie said crossly. "Kate's going to bring back plenty of money. The little dab we spent on Ethel doesn't amount to anything!"

     
Rosalie had tied a large white tea towel around her waist to protect her skirt. She pushed at a strand of escaping hair and lowered her voice.

     
"You do realize Kate could get caught, Aggie."

     
"Mr. Garrison would bail her out. She'd never go to jail."

     
"I keep telling myself that — but Mama would still be mortified. It's bad enough being broke. Can you imagine having to face her friends if there was a scandal?"

     
The worry on Rosalie's face called forth guilt that Aggie found unwelcome. She applied her cloth to the back of a chair, trying to match the thoroughness, if not the enthusiasm, of her sister's dusting.

     
"I really don't get it. Every time I turn around Mama scolds me about being too impulsive, but she hardly blinked when you told her Kate had run into some college chum and gone sailing off with her and her family for a couple of days."

     
"Mama worries about Kate being too shy socially, if you must know. I was sure she'd say I'd done the right thing." Rosalie moved the silver tea service as she spoke and began to polish the sideboard with vigor. It bothered her that she'd lied to Mama, Aggie guessed; Rosalie had never been good at lying.

     
They had planned rather brilliantly this time. The morning Kate sailed, before her absence was noted, Aggie had offered to drive their mother to the cemetery. Rosalie stayed behind, and on their return reported that Kate had come back from running an errand excited about the invitation to go to Bar Harbor with a friend she'd chanced to meet. Now Aggie reflected that Rosalie's casual mention of the friend's older brother had been calculated rather than casual embellishment.

     
"It was for a good cause," she reassured. "Do you— "

     
The sound of her mother's voice in the hall cut short her words.