High Tide at Noon (50 page)

By the time Joanna had finished her breakfast, there was no one left in the kitchen but herself and her mother.

“You never know what those boys will think of next,” Donna murmured. “And it's about time they thought of this.” She met Joanna's eyes, flushed deliciously, and added, “Not that I approve of violence! But sometimes, with people like the Birds, a little fear works wonders.”

In the middle of the morning Joanna carried a mug of hot coffee out to Philip, in the shop. He grinned as he took it from her hands.

“Well, you certainly took us over, last night. Got results, didn't you?”

Joanna put a stick of driftwood in the stove, and stood watching the blue and green flames. “Looks that way. What did you tell Father?”

“We left you out of it, darlin' mine. Doesn't sound exactly womanly, and besides, it doesn't make us exactly heroes, either—admitting we didn't think of it ourselves.” His thin face sobered abruptly. “Oh, hell, Jo, you know we've talked about it enough, but how in the devil did we know what tack the old man would take? How did you know?”

“I didn't. I just guessed.” She looked at him with a little smile. “I guessed right, didn't I?”

“Uh-huh.” Philip finished his coffee and lit up his pipe. Over the puffing flame he watched her closely. “Jo, what set you going against them, anyway? Simon holding the note on the house and turning you out?”

“I told you he didn't turn me out,” she said patiently. “I moved out because I wanted to. It wasn't the note, Philip.” For an instant the words quivered at her lips; if she let them go, it would all be spilled out, all the things that no one knew but herself. But she couldn't tell them and make anyone—even Philip—see what they really meant. She could perhaps tell him the things Simon had said at the house that night, and that he'd laid hands upon her; but there was no need of it now. She was getting her way, and that was all that counted.

“Well?” Philip said.

She grinned at him. “Remember what I said about washing fleas off a dog? That's all it is. Or like father spraying the orchard every year, to keep the trees healthy. The Island needs to be healthy now, more than ever.”

“I guess you're right there. Did you know Jeff's talking about shoving off? And Mark's got that lobster-peddling business on the brain.” Philip shook his head. “They've got the idea, along with a lot of other crape-hangers, that this place is just about wound up.”

“Fools! What if they are only getting twelve cents now? Wait till April and May—they'll be flocking back like ants after honey!”

“I don't know,” said Philip. “I don't know, Joanna.”

When she left the shop she went around the corner and looked out across the point at the sea. The scrub spruces were black against a pearly sky, the water quiet and leaden beyond the brown, wind­flattened grass. The rose bushes that were skeletons now would be flowering in six months, the hollows would be marshy, and blue with wild flag. And in July the strawberries would come. Her body strained against its burden, and for a moment it felt slender and free again, leaping ahead into summer. What right did Philip have to shake his head and say, “I don't know . . .” As long as summer still came to the Island, it must hold together. As long as the world still turned.

Alec, wherever you are, you must hear me, she thought. You must know what I'm doing. Can you imagine the Island without the Birds? And they'll go, they'll have to go, because they'll never be able to straighten out. They won't want to go, they love it here in their own way—Simon loves it with that twisted brain of his—but he's got to pay for everything he's tried to do to me, and for what he did to you.

They've got to get off this Island, Alec, Joanna thought, before your baby comes to it.

C
HRISTMAS CAME AND WENT
. It was Christmas on a smaller scale than usual, and the vivid illustrations in Montgomery's and Sears' gift catalogs were only an irritation to most of the Island. There was a run of bad weather so that the
Aurora B
. missed a couple of trips, and there were some bad moments when it looked as if the turkeys wouldn't arrive in time for dinner. But the
Aurora
chugged into the harbor after dark, Christmas Eve, all lit up like a steam yacht.

There'd been the party the teacher always gave the pupils before she went home for the holidays, and the party the whole Island went to, in the clubhouse, with Pete Grant for a Santa Claus who didn't fool anybody. They had carols and refreshments, and Owen and Hugo had gone halves on a goodly quantity of apple brandy, which had a mellowing influence on the men who sampled it. All in all, Christmas was successful.

It was successful in more ways than one. The Birds broke out in a rash of new and luxuriously thick work pants, leather jackets, bright wool plaid shirts. This was adding insult to injury, and it persuaded the last reluctant souls that it was to their common interest to join with the rest of the Islanders. If they demanded more evidence, this was it. Credit wasn't given easily to lobstermen nowadays, and if the Birds paid cash for everything—which was George's boast—how in hell did they get enough out of that handful of pots to spend money like drunken sailors?

Never had the Bennett boys been more persuasive with their gift of gab. “Look at how many years these Birds have been getting up so goddam early,” they said, “and going to haul before anyone else was stirring! Look at the hauls we're bringing in, and look what they get! How come lobsters crawl for them and not for the rest of us? And it's funny—
damned
funny—how much engine trouble their boats have lately, that keeps 'em out so much longer than anybody else!”

So it went, around the shore and in the fish houses, in the camps where the men yarned and played cards through the stormy afternoons, until right after New Year's, when a night was set for the “visit.” Forest Merrill, who had a permanent feud with his wife's cousin Sigurd, didn't join, because it smelled too much of the Sorensens for him, he said. Ned Foster stayed out, too. He said no one ever bothered him, and he didn't aim to bother anybody. Apparently he didn't know that Leah was supplied with her chocolates by Ash Bird, who kept Pete Grant's candy stock pretty well cleared out.

But two men didn't make much difference. Everybody else, including Gunnar Sorensen, was enthusiastic. Gunnar cautioned his sons and grandsons, however. “Dem Birds is clever. You t'reaten, dey can go to law. You lay one finger on dem, dey can go to law. You be careful, but give dem
hell!”

“They've picked out Karl to do the talkin', Father,” Eric said.

“You do what I say, Karl. Be careful, but scare dem good. Of course —” The russet-apple cheeks split into a grin —“of course, you take a gun along and clean em up, nobody left to go to law!”

They all met in Stephen Bennett's kitchen after supper on the chosen night. The wind was from the northeast, spitting snow. The men stood around the warm room in their mackinaws and boots. Joanna, in the sitting room, listened to their voices out in the kitchen. Old Johnny's dry, laughing, broken English, Nathan's wheezy chuckle, Jeff Bennett's deep brusque tones, Philip's quiet ones, and all the others.

The Trudeaus were there, the Sorensens, Marcus Yetton, as well as all the Bennetts but Uncle Nate. He'd have liked this, Joanna thought, feeling sorry that he was missing it. She didn't feel half so demure as she looked, with her head bent over her work and her hands busy with the needle. Excitement flooded her cheeks with color and her eyes with brightness. Her body resented its load. If only she could go with them! But she had to sit at home and possess her soul in patience, and she would know only from what they told her how Simon had looked.

“We'll have a mug-up ready when you come back,” Donna was telling them out there, and then they were going out. The younger boys were exuberant with a sense of high adventure. When the door closed behind the last one, Donna came into the sitting room with Winnie at her heels, and sat down. Her eyes were very bright in her clear pallor.

“This is a night we'll remember, Joanna,” she said.

The men weren't laughing as they went down the road. It was as if suddenly the meaning of their errand settled heavily upon them. They walked almost in silence, even the younger ones were quiet now. They were going to do something that never before had been done on the Island, and it stifled any desire for careless talk.

There was moonlight—winter moonlight picking out the boats in the harbor, and the long combers that broke on the harbor ledges gleamed and frothed like silver. The north wind whetted its edge against their faces. Chins dug into collars, caps and hats pulled low, they walked through the village. Sometimes from lamplit windows women and children looked out, and saw the silent procession, and understood it; were not their husbands and fathers there?

They walked across the moonlit clearing, past the well, and toward the Bird house, set back against the woods. They would go to the front door tonight; no back-door entrance for such a visit as this. Karl Sorensen and Stephen Bennett walked ahead, not speaking. The frozen boards creaked under their feet. Stephen knocked on the fancy glass panes in the door, and George Bird opened it.

“Evenin', Steve!” he said heartily. “Come in! Hello, Karl—who's that with ye—Eric?” The heartiness ebbed away a little as he saw them all on his porch. “Say, this is quite a crew. But nothin' I like better than lots of company! Come in, boys, all of ye!”

He stood back and they filed in past him, through the dark sitting room into the kitchen, where Mrs. Bird and Ash were, and Simon, who was reading. George brought up the rear, rubbing his hands together and smiling. But it was as if he were only pretending he thought this was a social call. Surely he must have known, when almost every man on the Island stood now in his kitchen and met his smile with a grim silence. If there had been anything likable about George, any slight redeeming feature, they might have felt a stirring of pity for him. But they didn't.

After a moment of awkward silence, he moistened his lips. “You fellas come for something special?” he asked huskily.

Karl stood facing him; Stephen was slightly behind Karl. The other men and boys filled in the room behind them. There was no lounging against walls or dresser, no foot propped on the stove hearth, no lighting of cigarettes. Quiet and straight in their heavy clothing, they waited. The lamp on the table threw their crowded shadows on the cupboards and the ceiling.

Mrs. Bird tried to keep on with her mending, but her hands trembled. Ash sat down again. But Simon, in a rocking chair at the end of the stove, hardly looked up from his magazine. George said again, “Come for something special, boys?”

“Yes,” said Karl. “Pretty special, George. I'll be short about it.” His eyes were cold and steel-blue, holding George in one place. “There was a time when we didn't miss—much—what we lost out of our pots. But things are different now. We need every lobster that's coming to us. Nobody's got a lot of pots overboard, and nobody can afford to lose anything that crawled into 'em and didn't crawl out again of its own free will.”

George was suddenly the color of a codfish belly. “What do you mean?” he got out at last.

Karl said quietly, “I mean you and your boys either start out to haul when the rest of us do, instead of a couple hours earlier,
and tend your own pots
, or you'll stay to hell ashore. Is that clear?”

“You can't talk to me like this in my own house.” The sweat was easy to see on George's forehead. He looked around wildly at Ash, who stared down at the floor, biting his lips, and then at Simon, who didn't glance up from his magazine. “You can't walk into a man's house and accuse him and his boys of stealin' —”

“Nobody's accusing you of anything,” Karl said. “We're just telling you, George. Just telling you what we'd tell any other man who'd been going to haul hours ahead of the rest of us for years, and bringing in lobsters when the rest of us find our pots as empty as if they'd just been hauled.” Karl's eyes were like blue ice. “Nobody's saying you or Ash or Simon hauled those pots, George. But they look mighty empty sometimes when a man's paid out money for gas, and goes out five, ten miles in a stiff wind, with vapor freezing his face, and then gets nothing.”

“By God, it's goin' some when a man gets abused like this just because he's not one of these lazy bastards who lays abed half the mornin' instead of doin' his work!”

“Save your breath, George,” Karl advised him. “And just remember what I told you. If nobody else starts hauling before noon, you and the boys will wait till noon, too. Understand? Then nobody can say you bothered his string.” Karl looked over at Ash, who was trying to smoke an unlighted cigarette. “Got it straight, Ash?”

Ash drew his light brows together in a scowl, thought better of it, swallowed his Adam's apple. “Yes,” he muttered sullenly. Karl looked at Simon.

“You too, Simon?” he asked pleasantly. Simon looked up and blew a perfect smoke ring at the ceiling. Then he returned to his magazine.

“I guess Simon's got it straight,” said Stephen Bennett. “He's no fool.”

There was nothing more to say. The men filed out again. Most of them nodded and murmured, “Evenin',” to Mrs. Bird. There was something piteous about the way she stared up at them from her bloodless face. She looked terrified, Stephen Bennett told Donna and Joanna later.

They went back to the Bennett house in the winter moonlight, the frozen ground ringing under their feet. Some of the men dropped out and went home. The others began to talk, gradually. The way George and Ash had behaved was no more than they had expected; it was Simon who puzzled them. Surely he wouldn't have the brass to go ahead as if nothing had happened.