Storm Tide (46 page)

I'll teach Ellen myself before I'll let her go back
, she promised herself in a wild fury.
They shan't tell her those things, ; they shan't touch her
. . . . A new idea sickened and chilled her. “Ellen, has anyone slapped you, or—tried to hurt you?”

“No, nobody touched me,” Ellen said. “Only I wish Nils would come. He'd go over there and tell all those kids—” She stopped.

“Tell them what?” Joanna urged.

“That he never killed Winslow Fowler and then threw him overboard!” It was out, in a weeping rush, and Ellen's face was burrowing into Joanna's neck, her tears were soaking Joanna's collar. She held to her mother with a wild, frantic strength, and Joanna hugged her close. She didn't try to soothe her. Ellen would have to cry it out, the shock and anxiety she'd been carrying by herself for so long. It had been a tremendous burden for such a small person.

Over Ellen's head and the sound of her crying, Joanna's mind raced back to the day when Nils had told her and the boys at dinner about finding the
Janet F
. She saw him towing the empty boat back to Brigport; the men standing awkwardly silent on the wharf as Randolph Fowler came down to look into the empty cockpit and then at Nils, and realized his son was really gone.

Ellen was quieter now, but Joanna's arms tightened around her. So this was what Fowler had done, when he could think of nothing else. He'd talked, he'd cast suspicion with a word; her mind said it, shuddering—the word was
murder
.

But how could anyone on Brigport believe it? It was so impossible that for a moment she felt almost like laughing at the absurdity of it. And then, with an intolerable sensation of dread, she knew that people did believe such things—even of men like Nils.

She wondered with a morbid fascination when the idea had come into Randolph's mind that Nils had killed Winslow; or perhaps he didn't really believe it, perhaps he had seen a new weapon to use against the people of Bennett's Island. That was worse, for then he wasn't a man—he was a devil, if he could use his boy's death like this.

Joanna looked around at her familiar kitchen, at the food growing cold on the table, the teakettle steaming, the pendulum swinging in the clock on the shelf; now they had all grown strange under the shadow of a new thing, a new word. Brigport was whispering the word; it hadn't yet become loud enough for the other islands to hear. But if it had reached the schoolyard, how long would it be before the whisper became a cry? A cry that would go the whole ragged stretch of the Maine coast—Nils Sorensen had killed a man and thrown him overboard.

Her arms were so tight around Ellen now that the child stirred against her. “Don't, Mother! You're hurting me!”

“I'm sorry, dear,” she said, and loosened her arms. Hurting! That was it—there had been too much hurting, too much pain, too much holding in against the people who caused it. Ellen slid off her lap and stood looking at her. “Mother, what did they want to say that about Nils for?”

Joanna tried to appear calm. “I think somebody was just trying to make you mad. You know how some people like to tease.”

“But that's an awful thing to say—”

“I know it is. But don't think about it any more. Sit up and have some dinner.”

Having laid her burden upon Joanna's heart, the child was relieved, and now she sat up to the table, eating with the enjoyment that only children can know. But Joanna couldn't eat; she made herself a cup of coffee and drank it black.

“Aren't you hungry, Mother?” Ellen asked her.

“I think I've got a little pain, dear,” Joanna told her lightly. “Maybe I've been eating too much these days.”

“Perhaps you ought to take some medicine.” Ellen wrinkled her forehead and looked anxious.

“I think if I just go without my dinner, I'll feel fine,” Joanna said reassuringly. “So you go ahead and eat, dear, and I'll tidy up the sitting room.”

She had to get away from the child. She felt so futile and helpless when she sat still; here, at least, she could do something with her two hands, if it was only beating the cushions into fluffiness, or taking the braided rugs out on the front doorstep and shaking them into the raw, bright day until her arms ached.

It was while she stood there, the stinging cold striking through her clothes to her skin, that she saw Caleb's boat come into the harbor. He was home from hauling, then. As soon as he had his dinner, he'd go to Brigport and get Joey—

Joey
. Joey would know just what was being said, and in more detail. At least it seemed impossible that he wouldn't know in a school of some fifteen children.

She went back into the house, its warmth replacing the chill on her flesh. She would go down and talk to Joey as soon as she knew he was home. But, after she talked to Joey—what then?

*   *   *

She didn't have to go down to the harbor to find Joey. In midafternoon she saw Caleb and his young son coming up the road. Ellen saw them too.

“Joey must have got out of school early today,” she said wonderingly. “And what's he coming up here for?”

“I don't know,” said Joanna, but she did know, and she sought frantically for an excuse to get Ellen out of the house. Now that the child's mind was free again, after a fashion, she didn't want her to hear the review of the whole sordid business.
Murder
. She couldn't get the word out of her head. And Caleb was bringing Joey up to tell her what he'd heard. Caleb thought she ought to know. . . . They were halfway up through the meadow now, man and boy swinging along with a curious likeness to one another in their gait.

She put her arm around Ellen and heard herself speaking; the Mother, unhurried, unalarmed. “I think Caleb wants to talk to me about Stevie's traps, he probably wants to buy them. Joey must have come along for the walk.” She looked candidly into her daughter's face. “You haven't been out today. How about doing an errand for me?”

“All right.” Only a very small sigh came with the words. “I don't think Joey would play dominoes with me, anyway. He prob'ly thinks he's too big.”

“That's the way with boys. Now you get into your ski suit and hustle down to Marion's and ask her if Mother can please borrow the—” inspiration came to her—“the last four issues of
Good Housekeeping”
. It was a shame to bother Marion, but she had to keep Ellen out for half an hour, anyway. . . .

She glanced out the window. Joey and his father had almost reached the house.

“Hurry, darling, so you'll be back before dark,” she said, and Ellen obediently hurried. She was going out when Caleb and Joey came in.

Caleb's lantern-jawed face was set. He nodded briefly to Ellen as she slipped past him, and pushed Joey into the kitchen before him with a big hand on his shoulder. It was a protective hand, and Joanna could see why. For Joey looked at her uncomfortably; one of his eyes was blackened and nearly closed in his pale face.

“Hello, Joey,” she said briskly. “Hello, Caleb. Won't you sit down?”

“Guess we better,” said Caleb. He added abruptly, “Guess you've heard somethin' already, so you know why we're here, don't you?”

“I've heard—from Ellen.” Her eyes met his calmly. “I wanted to see Joey, and find out what else had been said.”

“You can see his eye. . . . Set down, Joey. Don't look so scared.” His mouth twitched. “He tells me the other feller looks pretty awful. Lost one of his front teeth.”

“Good for you, Joey,” Joanna applauded him. It was surprisingly easy to smile at the boy and see the strained look begin to leave his face. You had to keep up appearances before children; they must think you were serene and unbothered, that gossip was nothing, it left you untouched. . . . She hoped that was how she looked. It would not be easy to fool Caleb, though. She felt as though his cavernous eyes saw all the tiny twitches she felt in her skin, and could see past her skin and hair and guess at the turmoil in her brain.

She sat down and looked at Joey. “Tell me when they started and what they said,” she commanded. “I just want to get it straight, Joey. Ellen was muddled. You know how little girls are.”

Joey wet his dry lips, and a faint color came into his cheeks. “Yes'm. . . . It started this week, at recess one day. One of the boys—Willy Pierce it was—he was talkin' about Winslow, and then he said it was funny about Nils bringin' the boat in.'Cause one day on the wharf Nils told Winslow he better shut up, or he'd tend to him.” Another gulp. “Willy Pierce's father heard them fightin'.”

“I remember that, Joey,” she said easily. “It wasn't a fight. Winslow was—fresh, that's all. Nils told him to be careful.” She looked over at Caleb's lined, attentive face. “You remember the time they interfered when Mark and Nils were putting the oil on. Jonas Pierce was standing there.”

Caleb nodded. Joey went on, as if he was eager to get the story out. “He never said Nils—did anything to Winslow. Just said it was funny. It was somebody else said it, right afterward. Then we had to go into school. I was mad, and I was goin' to find those guys on the way home, but I couldn't. So next day—” his voice gathered color and momentum—“Next day I told 'em they shouldn't say things like that, or they'd get into trouble. And Bart Robey said, ‘Well, how come Nils went away the next day after he brought the boat in, and never come back yet?' ”

Joey had to stop for a breath. Again Joanna looked at Caleb. “So—” she prompted the boy.

“So that's when I got my black eye,” said Joey. “Bart Robey said a lot of stuff about Swedes bein' sneaks and never fightin' in the open—” he blushed and gazed at Joanna helplessly.

“Never mind, Joey. I want to know all they said. Don't hold anything back.”

“Well, he said his old man knows Swedes pretty well, and that's what
he
said—that Nils prob'ly'd been plannin' it ever since that day on the wharf. So I hit him. He busted me in the eye, but I knocked out his tooth, and he spit blood all over the place—”

“You can leave that part out, son,” Caleb said. “What happened next?”

“After that the kids talked about it all the time at recess . . . all of 'em. That's how Ellen heard it. One of the girls—she's an awful pain in the—I mean she's a pest, Peggy Bradford, she made up a kind of a song.”

Inside Joanna was cringing. Outwardly she spoke without hesitation. “What was it like, Joey?”

“Aw, you know how they kind of sing-song.” He contorted his face and chanted in a crude, nasal, caricature:

He began again, but Caleb said, “That'll do, son. She don't have to hear any more. You can run along home now.”

Joanna heard herself saying in a bright voice, “Joey, help yourself to some cookies. In that blue jar on the dresser.”

Joey said earnestly, “She was a girl and I couldn't smack her, but I told her a story and scared her foolish. I said there was a man buried in the cellar of her house, and some night he'd come up in her room, all drippin' blood, and—”

“You go on home, Joey,” said Caleb.

“Yessir.” Joey put a whole cookie in his mouth and went out.

“I hope Peggy has bad dreams for a month,” said Joanna, and began to laugh. But her laughter sounded so queer, and Caleb looked at her so oddly that she stifled the sound. She got up and walked around the kitchen. Caleb took out his pipe and began to fill it.

“I brought Joey up because you ought to know what's goin' on,” he said. “I don't know jest what anybody does in a case like this, but . . .” he put a match to his pipe. “Nils ought to be home pretty soon, hadn't he? It's nearly Christmas.”

She came to a stop before him. “Caleb, it's just possible a lot of people would believe that story, isn't it?”

“A lot of people are believin' it already, seems to me.” He shot her a quick glance from under his shaggy eyebrows. “When the kids start talkin' it over in the schoolyard, it looks like some folks are acceptin' it for gospel.”

“Nils wouldn't hurt anybody,” she said, trying not to sound desperate. “You can tell it by looking at him.”

Caleb shook his head. “You can't tell nothin' about a man by lookin' at him. I know Nils, you know him. But there's a pile of people who'd follow the line of reasonin' Joey told about—he's a Swede, and he's quiet, so it means he's got one hell of a temper that could turn him into a killer if the circumstances was just right. Like meetin' Winslow alone, down between Pudd'n Island and Tenpound.” He stopped, and puffed hard at his pipe.

“Anybody who knows Nils would know better than to think he'd kill a man.” She put her hands into her slacks pockets; they felt cold and weakly shaky, as if she'd been carrying a load in them that strained the muscles of her wrists. And there was a tiny hammering in the calves of her legs. She tried to tighten them. “But this story—if it gets around—can blacken Nils' name all along the coast. And his family's too. It isn't fair! Nils has always abided by the law, he's been kind and good—”