Storm Tide (54 page)

“Why didn't you kick him?” demanded Joanna

“I didn't have to. In a minute he sat up in bed and said, ‘Did you say a
submarine?
' He jumped out of bed and went for his shotgun. By then the engines had stopped.” Her smile deepened. “In the morning there was a Coast Guard picket boat lying in the Cove. That was what we'd heard.”

Joanna sat down on the washboards, and let her breath out again. “All the same . . .” She looked toward the east. “They
could
come in this way—only I've got faith in the boys in the tower at Matinicus Rock, and the patrol planes. In the whole Coast Guard, in fact.”

“But have you ever thought the Army might order everybody to leave the Islands?” said Helmi. “If the submarine trouble became too bad?”

Joanna lifted her chin. “If the Army orders us out, that's one thing. But I don't care if the submarines surface in Goose Cove! They can't scare me away! I'll be like Mark and keep my shotgun loaded.” Her tenseness dissolved into laughter. “Listen to us, Helmi. Trying to scare ourselves to death.”

She sobered all at once, and looked ahead at Brigport; they had almost reached the mouth of the Gut that led into Brigport Harbor, and the boat was rolling in the swell. “We'll be there pretty soon, Helmi. We've got an even chance with Fowler. That's one thing the others haven't got.”

“What others?” said Helmi, but Joanna, watching the narrow, rocky gates of the Gut grow near, didn't answer her.

The Gut widened out and the two boats from Bennett's Island were running the length of Brigport Harbor, past the high wharves and weatherbeaten fish houses on the point; among the moorings, leaving the boats rolling drunkenly in first one wake and then the next, sending the seagulls up from the ledges in a flurry of beating white and gray wings. Owen didn't check the speed of the
White Lady
, but let her roar her way toward the big stone wharf at the end, and in the cloud-heavy air the echoes flung themselves back and forth between the shores, a hammering, throbbing, thunder that sounded loud enough to bring most of the Brigporters down to the wharf. The wakes threw water to both sides, to surge and break against the rocks. The whole gray silence and tranquillity of the harbor was shattered.

It was odd, after such a noisy entrance, to see no one on the big wharf. The fish houses were shut up; no smoke drifted down from the chimney of Cap'n Merrill's boatshop, or from the store. There was an uncanny sense of emptiness about the place, when the engines were shut off and the only sound was the dying whisper and hiss of the water against the spilings.

They tied up beside Cap'n Merrill's float and went up the slip to the wharf. It was strange, how much noise the feet of nine people can make upon a wharf, even when those people are suddenly imbued with the silence of a place or a day. This was a hushed day, and a hushed and preoccupied village. Joanna had to remind herself forcibly that the islanders were meeting simply to form a patrol system, that they didn't actually know what was about to take place; the stillness was so marked. If it had been a normally bright, windy, December day instead of a weather-breeder. . . . She looked behind her and saw how intent and unnaturally clear Jud's and Caleb's faces were, and Matthew's earnest, more youthful one. Joey caught her glance. He still looked strained and stern, the traces of his black eye vivid on the pointed pale face between the big ear-laps.

She felt like winking at him, but she was afraid he would object to her marring the solemnity of the moment. Beside her Helmi walked along, her hands in the deep pockets of her raincoat. Ahead of her Mark and Owen flanked Nils. Her brothers had talked all the way across in the
White Lady
, she had seen their savage gestures and their white grins, and guessed at what they had said. Now they, like the others, were quiet.

The ground sloped sharply upward from the shore, and the spruces grew on the slope, keeping their scanty foothold among the rough gray granite outcroppings. The men took the path from Cap'n Merrill's boatshop past his house, and reached the road that led up through the middle of Brigport. The sound of rubber boots on the frozen road was the only break in the quiet. It drowned out the girls' footsteps, and it sounded like many men.

It's all of Bennett's Islad
, Joanna thought, and the words kindled a fiery pride in her that drove out the day's raw chill. She would have liked to have been walking beside Nils, but Mark and Owen had pre-empted him. But later on, when it was all over, she would have Nils to herself. . . .

It had always seemed a long walk up to the schoolhouse, but today they came to the last gate almost before they knew it; they had left the road that twisted between silent spruce woods, looking like a deep-country road instead of an island one, and were on the high part of the island, where they could look out and see horizon beyond Pirate Island, and could almost see over the head of Bennett's. They could look southward and westward too, and see the faint shimmer of gold that was the sun's mark on the gray sea as the veil of cloud thinned for an instant.

The land had been so thoroughly cleared here that it looked barren. The schoolhouse sat alone beside the long straight road, and the little boxlike building behind it stood out in ludicrous clarity. There was smoke streaming vigorously from the schoolhouse chimney, and a handful of children playing on the swings, apparently brought along by their parents. They froze into stillness like startled wild animals as they watched the Bennett's Islanders walk across the yard to the steps.

“Hello, kids,” Nils said. He halted on the top step.

Coming up behind him, Joanna heard a timid, “Hi, Joey.”

There was an aloof silence from Joey. It made Joanna's mouth twitch. Nils, his hand already on the knob, turned to look down at her. His eyes reached out for her in a way that made her heart jump.

“How's your courage?” he said softly.

“Finest kind! How's yours?”

“When he gets through keelhauling those bastards,” said Mark between his teeth, “nobody'll give two hoots in hell for 'em.”

“Amen,” came Caleb's deep voice. Nils smiled at Joanna and opened the door.

They filed quietly into the dark entry. Beyond the closed door that led into the schoolroom, someone was talking; it was Cap'n Merrill, who'd apparently been appointed chairman of the meeting. There was an occasional throat-clearing, or a cough. A baby piped up and was quickly hushed. Outside in the schoolyard the children had resumed their play.

In the moment of waiting in the dimness, Joanna reached for Nils' hand and gripped it hard. Jud muttered uneasily. “Why don't we get on with it?”

“Yeah, what are we waiting for?” said Owen in a normal voice. Nils' fingers crushed Joanna's for a second and let them go. At the same time the door opened into the schoolroom. Beyond her brothers' heads and shoulders Joanna had an impression of much light from the big windows, of the acrid smell of the fire, of a startled murmur, of Cap'n Merrill standing up by the teacher's desk; then she had followed Nils into the room.

Cap'n Merrill's hair and mustache were very white against his ruddy face. It seemed a shade ruddier than usual. He glanced sharply at Mark, and then his voice, made rich and penetrating with years of giving orders from the quarter-deck, rolled out in welcome.

“Well, it looks like Bennett's is int'rested in makin' up a patrol, and they've all come over to see how we're goin' to do it! Come in, come in, all of ye—glad to have ye aboard! Set down now, and make yourselves comfortable.” Ralph Fowler, sitting near the front, spoke under his breath, and the Cap'n frowned at him.

“Seems to me
I
was elected chairman o' this little assemblage, Ralph.” He raised his voice. “Don't think any of you'll find it hard to set in these school seats, unless maybe it's Jud there. . . . Hello, there, Cap'n Joey! Thought you wouldn't be makin' port here till after New Year's.” He sat down at the desk.

Joanna looked at Nils. There was a moment when they all looked at Nils, who stood among them tranquilly, his cap in his hand. He reached his other hand up to unzip his leather jacket, and then he walked down the aisle between the desks to the teacher's platform. Everybody in the room was watching him; the women who had come with their husbands whispered to each other, and to Joanna it was a furtive, uneasy, whispering. Had
they
carried the story of murder? The seats creaked as the men shifted in them. She saw faces she had known all her life. A few smiled and nodded at her group.
They didn't talk
, she thought.
But it looks as if most of the others did
.

Nils had almost reached the platform now. Randolph Fowler sat on a bench at one side of the room, his dark, smooth-featured face impassive. His wife wasn't there, though Ralph's wife sat with her husband. Randy sat beside his father, staring fixedly across the room and through the opposite windows.

Nils stepped up on the low platform and spoke to Cap'n Merrill. The uneasy whispering gave way to an uneasy hush, as if all ears were straining to hear. Cap'n Merrill's forehead creased into deep furrows. He looked dubiously at his gavel. Nils, his hands flat on the desk, leaned toward the older man again. There was no knowing what he said, but there was a quiet emphasis in the way his lips moved, and came together hard on the last word.

Earl Robey was finding the room too warm. His pimpled forehead was wetly shiny. Rich Bradford, who had refused to speak to Nils in Limerock, looked, granite-faced, at the blackboard, where the words of “Good King Wenceslas” had been written. And Cap'n Merrill stood up; the gavel came down with a sharp crack that made everyone start.

“The meetin' will come to order. . . . Will you folks at the back be seated, please.” He waited while the Bennett's Islanders found places. Jud tried to squeeze behind a desk, but couldn't. Red-faced and sweating, and tip-toeing with a whale-sized daintiness, he sat down on the same bench that held Randolph Fowler and Randy.

Cap'n Merrill went on. “Looks like we've got some business to be discussed before anything else . . . seems like it's more urgent. At least that's what Nils tells me, and I'm inclined to agree with him. So without fubbin' around any longer, I'll turn the meetin' over to Nils Sorensen.”

Randolph Fowler stood up. “Mr. Chairman,
nothing
is more important than the submarine menace. I came here to discuss the war effort, and if you're passing that up, I refuse to waste any more of my valuable time.”

“Randolph, you better sit down again,” said the Cap'n without expression. “Stop talkin' like one of them executives, and listen. . . . Unless your boy Winslow don't matter to you any more, now he's dead.”

There was an audible hiss of indrawn breath. A woman said loudly, “Well, I never!” Randolph sat down again. Randy was lighting a cigarette. Joanna saw with astonishment that the hand which held the match was shaking. There were hollows like dirty smudges under his eyes.

She looked no longer, for Cap'n Merrill had left the teacher's desk, and it was Nils who stood there now, looking out over the room. Her hands closed tightly on each other in her lap, and they were sweating.
Go ahead, darling
, she told him silently.

“I'm not going to take up any more of your time than I can help,” Nils said. His voice was quiet and unimpressive, after Cap'n Merrill's. And it reached out into a silence that fairly ached in its intensity. “The sooner we get this matter cleared up, the sooner you can get on with your business. . . . I guess most of you know what I'm talking about. But if anybody
doesn't
know, I'll tell you.”

He looked around the room. His eyes held a chill, darkening blue. “You all know that I brought the
Janet F
. in, the day Winslow Fowler disappeared. The next day I went away on business. Somewhere, between then and now, I've been accused of killing Winslow Fowler and throwing him overboard. Nobody came and told
me
about it. But they told me through my little girl. She was little enough not to hit back,” he added gently.

Mrs. Whit Robey, halfway along the aisle, cried out, “If anybody teased that child, I wish I'd known it! I'd have tended to 'em, Nils!”

For a moment Nils' smile warmed his eyes. “I know that, Mrs. Robey.” He lifted his head, the smile was gone. “I'm not going into a lot of long-winded explanations. Every one of you here knows—or ought to know—that the story's made up out of whole cloth.”

“If that's all it is, what are you over here makin' a stink about it for?” demanded Randy Fowler. He was on his feet, staring at Nils. There were assenting murmurs, rising like the sound of a wave. Randolph Fowler pulled his son down beside him.

“If it was any other story, I wouldn't be here,” said Nils. “But this is the kind of yarn that a man doesn't turn his back on, if he's got a family, and a name that's clean.” His voice grew colder, more incisive. It would be cutting deep, Joanna thought—very deep in some places. If only she weren't at the back of the room, near the door; all she could see were the backs of their heads. . . .

“If a seagull drops something on my deck,” Nils said, “I don't expect him to come back and clean it up. He's a wild bird, and he doesn't know any better. But if a man smears my deck with gurry, he'll clean it up if I have to take him by the back of the neck to make him do it. So I'm here to find out who started this story. . . . Anybody want to give me an idea, to start with?”

There was an indignant hush in the schoolroom. The clock ticked noisily and impudently on the wall behind Nils' head. “If nobody can think of anything,” he said, “I'll start with Rich Bradford. I could start with almost anybody, I suppose, but I'll take you, Rich. I know you've heard the yarn, because you didn't feel like speaking to me in Limerock a couple of nights ago.”