Season of Storm (20 page)

"Yes, Johnny," she said.

Nineteen

"Outcast, Outcast, Outcast, this is White Dolphin. Over."

It was early.  They were sitting over coffee in the saloon. Johnny raised  an eyebrow, got up and moved to the nav station and picked up the mike.

"White Dolphin, this is Outcast. Over."

"Is that your dinghy we see up against the cliff over there, Outcast? Over."

Johnny swore, dropped the mike and went up the companionway stairs into the morning mist.  A moment later he returned and picked up the mike again.

"Uh, yeah, White Dolphin, that looks like mine. Guess I didn't do a very good job with the knot.  Thanks for the heads-up. Over."

"Well, Vicky tells me on his honeymoon a man's allowed to forget his knots!"
the man's voice said jovially.
"I'll be by in five to run you over there. Over."
 

When Johnny signed off a minute later, he turned with a smile to meet Shulamith's horrified gaze.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Don't worry, I won't invite him aboard. They told me last night they wanted to get away early."

 "How do you know those people?" Smith began, jumping up. She pulled at the hem of the baggy old grey sweatshirt she was wearing. It covered to nearly halfway down her thighs, and she had pushed the sleeves up above her elbows. She had been perfectly comfortable—till now. Now she felt naked and vulnerable and afraid.

Now he was aware that something was wrong. Johnny's dark heavy brows snapped together. "What is it?" he demanded.

Smith stood straight. "Who were those people?" she demanded.

"What people? On the
Dolphin?
" Shulamith looked at him steadily in answer, and he shrugged. "I told you as much as I know last night. Vicky and Henry Mehan, from the States."
 

"Harvey," she corrected in a rigidly emotionless tone, her wide eyes riveted to his face. "Last night you said Harvey."

"Harvey," he agreed with a nod. "Why? Do you know them?" His look was suddenly intent. "You recognized his voice?"

She brushed that aside. "The first time you ever saw them was last night?"

"What the hell is the matter?" Johnny demanded, moving to her side and grasping her arm above the elbow.  

She eyed him stonily. "You're good, you really are!" she snapped. "What a pity your friends aren't so word perfect in their parts! What a pity they've given the game away! What a pity—" But the stony control that served her so well in business meetings and sawmills deserted her suddenly. A forlorn ache gripped her throat, and she choked on something that threatened to be tears.

Johnny caught her in his arms. "Love, what is it?" His voice was thick with concern, but she pushed him away and stood straight and alone as she had always been, as she would always be.

"Let go of me!" she ordered hotly. "Leave me alone!"  

"I will not leave you alone," he growled. "Now will you please tell me what the damn hell is going on?"

"Will you please tell me," she countered, "why the damn hell Harvey Mehan can be talking about our honeymoon when you only proposed to me at four o'clock this morning?"

"Oh, Peaceable Woman," he breathed, and she felt the laughter shake his frame. Threading his hand into the tangle of her hair he drew her in against his chest, and she knew suddenly that everything was all right. She was safe with Johnny....

He said, "Last night, the Mehans were looking for a nice friendly drink. I didn't want to be rude or attract their attention, but I had to make them go."

There was a pulse beating at the base of his throat, and she was filled with the need to kiss him there.

"Yes," she said. "I asked you last night what you'd told them. You said never mind."

"I told them—" Johnny swallowed "—I told them it was our wedding night, Peaceable Woman." She gasped, and laughed a breathless laugh. "That's why they left us the wine." He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek.

"Why didn't you tell me when I asked?"

He bent and kissed her. "I was about to tell you," he said, "and then I looked at you, and suddenly I was wishing more than I've ever wished anything that it was true. I wanted you to be my wife. I wanted to be able to pick you up and carry you to bed and..." His mouth covered hers with a desperate urgency that melted her being. "Marry me, Shulamith," he whispered against her lips. "I need you so much."

As long as she was in his arms, she was home. "Yes, Johnny," she said, and clung to him in the certain knowledge that without him she would die.

***

"From CBC Radio News, World Report with...." Smith sat up alertly as Johnny adjusted the dial.  

The headline stories were all political or international, with no mention of kidnapping or St. John's Wood, and Shulamith picked up the comb and resumed her attempts to straighten out the thousand tangles that last night had caused.

Nothing. Not a peep, not a mention of her father or herself. They listened right to the end, looking at each other in the abstracted way of people whose attention is focussed on their hearing, Johnny with one eyebrow raised and his full, perfectly sculpted mouth relaxed.

When the sports report began he reached out a slow hand and flicked the knob to silence. "Interesting," he said.

On last night's news there had at least been a mention of her case, if no real news, and to Smith this morning's lack was not so much interesting as disturbing.

"Johnny, what do you think it means?" She grimaced as a particularly nasty tangle met the comb she was absentmindedly pulling through her hair.

"It means we don't know what the hell is going on, doesn't it? It means we're not getting any clues about whether they've taken anyone in for questioning yet."

"The Mounties? Could they keep it secret from the media?"

He laughed without mirth. "Oh, they could."

"Who would they have taken in?"

"They probably have a pretty good idea who of the band might be behind a stunt like this." He was leaning back on the nav-station bench, but his fingers were restlessly flicking the edges of the charts on the table. "The big question is, have my four cohorts in crime kept their mouths shut, or does the entire band now know who's responsible?"

Smith frowned. "Your friends have done something like this before?"

"No," Johnny said shortly. He was deep in thought.

"Well, then, how would the police know anybody's name? How would they even know who's a Chopa and who isn't? They can't just arrest every—"

Johnny's brow unfurrowed as he focussed on her. "Because they agitate for tribal rights. Don't be naive," he said flatly.

"Yes, but unless someone has a criminal record how are the police—"

She stopped because he was laughing. "Come on, Shulamith, where have you been all your life? You know as well as I do that the Mounties have a file on just about anybody that moves in this country. Particularly if they move against the stream."

Smith set down the comb. Of course he was right. One of the things that the McDonald Commission into RCMP wrongdoing had disclosed was that the RCMP maintained hundreds of thousands of files on law-abiding citizens who were deemed to be "potential" threats because of their political or sexual leanings. But somehow that had all seemed so far away....

"I...do you think they've got one on you?"

He laughed as though he understood her question better than she did. "It strikes closer to home than that, Peaceable Woman," he said. "I'd be very surprised if they didn't have one on you."

She jumped as though he had burned her. "On
me!
"
she protested in a squeak. "Why would they want a file on
me
?"
 

"You've just spent a year in Europe," he said, his dark eyes watching her levelly. "Visit any Communist countries?"

"No. Well, only Yugoslavia...."

"Bingo," said Johnny softly.

She felt her breathing stop. Beyond the silence of their little cove she heard the distant roar of a motorboat going past.

Smith swallowed. "But I...that's ridiculous! I was on business! Why would they..."

She faltered to a stop, feeling the world shake under her feet, just as it had when she stood in his study and he told her about justice and his people.

She stood up without grace and walked over to the open hatch to stand in the sunlight and the clean sea breeze. She felt more threatened than she had ever felt in her life.

"Nothing's safe, is it?" she whispered. "Nothing in the world." And Johnny stood and moved behind her and took her in his arms.

"I used to think that nothing was safe," he said softly, powerful emotion threading his voice. "But that isn't true. Love is safe, if you can find it. I found that out the first time I looked at you." He turned her to face him. "Love is safe, if you can be sure of it before they take it away from you. Let me be sure of you, Shulamith, before they take it away from us. You'll be safe with me. I love you. I'll always love you. Marry me now, before they take you away from me."

***

Johnny dropped lightly through the hatch and moved past Smith in the galley to fling himself down on the settee.

"Where were you baptized?" he asked. She goggled at him.

"Where was I
what?
"
 

"Baptized."

"I was afraid you'd said that. Why? Anyway, I wasn't."

"To get a marriage license," said Johnny, gratefully taking the cup of coffee she passed him. "Weren't what?"

"Baptized. At least I don't think I was. Is that the only thing we can use?"

Outcast
was sitting in the marina dock where Johnny had taken on gas and water and then gone to phone for information.
 

"Or passport or birth certificate. I thought the baptismal might be easiest to get at short notice. Why weren't you baptized?"

 "My father's an atheist, and my mother was Israeli."  She sat down opposite him, sipping her coffee. "I don't think they even thought of it."

"Birth certificate, then," Johnny said purposefully.

She looked at him. "You mean apply for one?"

"Mm-hmm." He nodded.

"It would take weeks. I was born in Paris."

There was a pause. "France," he said flatly, making it a statement.

"There's another one?"

As though he could not keep still, Johnny pulled himself to his feet and walked to the companionway. "There's a Paris, Ontario," he said, turning to lean his shoulders against the ladder. "You sure you weren't—"

She interrupted with a laugh, "Sorry, no can do." Johnny smiled at her, but their humour was a lie. The saloon was filled with a sense of urgency, of a battle against overwhelming odds.

"That leaves passport," said Johnny.

"I can't apply for a new passport," she protested. "I've already got a valid one. It's against the law to have two."

"Where's your passport now?" he asked, following some trail behind his dark eyes that she couldn't fathom.

"At home. Unless they took it as part of their investigation."

"Where at home?"

She paused to consider. "In the safe in Daddy's bedroom. I think. That's where it's always kept, but he was in the hospital when I got back and—why?" she demanded suddenly.

"Do you have the combination?"

"You aren't thinking of
going
there?"
 

Her shrillness broke through his reverie. "Why not?"  

"Because you—what if they caught you? What if they've got someone watching the house?"

"Do you keep an emergency key anywhere?"

She sat bolt upright, staring at him. "Johnny, they'd arrest you! It's not worth the risk!"

"If I've got a key, what are they going to arrest me for?" He spoke as though there were no danger, no possibility anything could go wrong.

"Johnny, please! Can't we go somewhere else and get married? Can't we go to another province, fly down to Las Vegas or somewhere? Isn't it supposed to be easier there?"

"You think anyone anywhere will marry us without identification?"

"There must—"

"And how the hell are you going to get into the States, anyway, without identification?"

"I...oh."

"So where's the key, and what's the combination?"

Of course it would be impossible to get married without some sort of identification. And she wanted to marry him; before they found her and dragged her back to the world she wanted to be assured of always belonging to Johnny.

She was not aware that she thought of it in terms of being dragged back to the world, nor was she aware of how limited her scope was. The logic seemed irrefutable: she loved Johnny, she must marry him immediately before the outside world could interfere.

And she told him.

***

Smith sat terrified in the saloon, without light, without movement, biting her lip each time a boat sailed near, each time she heard a footfall on the dock.

When the footsteps stopped beside
Outcast
and she heard someone come aboard, she got nervously to her feet, then thought better of making any noise. Caught between the need to hide and the necessity for silence, she stood stupidly immobile, staring at the slowly opening hatch.