Teetoncey (12 page)

He looked over at Tee. She was studying the red embers in the bottom stove port.
Elizabeth Lansdowne, or whoever she was, would finally be headed somewhere soon.

He hadn't thought it would end like this, nor had he thought it would matter much, one way or another, when she did have to go. But suddenly, it did. He couldn't bring himself to say that the girl should be sent away. And he figured his mother would be the last one to do it.

He frowned. "Mebbe we should wait. Someone'll claim her."

"It's been almost a month now. I know it takes a long time for letters to get to England an' back but we mighten know for three months. Worst o' the winter hasn't hit ... she could get sick. At least, in Norfolk, they could take proper care of her. Not that I'm not tryin'."

Ben finally nodded. Yes, it was probably best.

He got up, tugged on his coat, and went outside. The Banks were bathed in moonlight, and he began crossing toward the beach, trying to think how his father might handle this. Like as not, he'd take it in stride, consider her a speechless critter, and go about doing what had to be done.

By the time Ben got back from the beach walk he'd made up his mind to brace himself and take it the way any surfman would. Had the castaway girl had some senses, it might be different.

Midmorning of the next day, Ben hitched Fid to the cart and then watched his mother drive off toward Heron station. She was wearing a black shawl on her head to keep her ears from smarting.

He went back into the house and said to Tee, "You'll be better off." Steel was the way to handle it.

Since it was Monday, at Heron station they were drilling with the beach apparatus and Filene was busy but Rachel called him up from the sands. The wind was brisk, cold, and the flag was flapping; the wave tops were white out to sea.

"Turned into a nice day, hasn't it, Filene?" Rachel greeted him.

He squinted at her. "So will tomorrow."

"I do think it's warmer this winter than last."

Filene kept squinting at her. The only time she ever came near a surf station was to borrow the doctor book or have a keeper make a call on the phone. "Might be."

"Well, we haven't had a good freeze yet."

"Not yet." Filene scanned down toward the beach and the men, then turned his blocky face back to Rachel. "You didn't ride up here to talk about freezes."

Rachel said, "Filene, I, uh, jus' wondered if you'd had any word from that British consul?"

"Not a word."

"I do deceive that it takes time, Filene, but I jus' wondered how long we might be havin' Teetoncey."

"She startin' to give you trouble?"

"Not a bit. She's good as gold. It's jus' that I didn't want Ben to get too attached to her."

"I see. You want me to call Mr. Timmons? Have him call the consul?"

Rachel swallowed and took a deep breath. "Not at all, Filene."

Filene nodded.

Pulling the shawl tighter around her head, Rachel said, "Well, I best go back home. Good day. I'll see you bye 'n' bye."

"You do that, Rachel," said Filene, as she walked back to the cart. He shook his head as she slapped the reins on Fid's back and turned him south.

In the living room, Rachel said to Ben, "I couldn't do it, Ben. I jus' couldn't turn my back on this girl."

It was certainly hard to know how to figure anything,
Ben thought. Elders could never make up their minds.

C
RISIS PASSED,
the O'Neal house settled down again and for the next week they kept a sharp eye on Teetoncey. But she didn't attempt to roam far. Once, she headed for the dock to watch the minnows and Ben quickly fell in behind her. He took her to the Burrus store twice and she sat quietly by the roaring stove, chin in her hands, as he worked.

Nothing much had changed. She was still having those nightmares and still silent as a mountain stone. There were moments when Ben felt sorry for her and equal moments when he wanted to kick her in the flanks and make her talk.

Then, for a day toward the end of the week, the sky was mackereled, gathering rolls of nimbus clouds by nightfall. Finally, the nor'easter set in during early morning hours, predictable by the barometer in the living room. The needle fell like a shot duck.

By noon, there was a forty-knot wind howling over the Banks, driving cold rain ahead of it; peppering the windows. It gusted now and then, shaking the silvered house.

As could be expected, soon as the weather hit, Rachel went into her usual gloom. Tee was even worse. She couldn't light anywhere for long, Ben noticed. She kept going to the windows; listening and looking.

Working on a bufflehead decoy he'd roughed out of pine in October, he wondered again about Reuben. He was due up the coast about now from Trinidad, the Barbadoes, and wherever else he'd gone. For all Ben knew, he was off the Banks this very afternoon, reefed up and ploughing through; taking water over the decks.

He glanced at Tee again. She was now sitting in the straight chair, drumskin tight, staring at the door. The storm plainly worried her, he could see. She'd probably never been in a house that danced because of a gale. Well, it did.

He kept on carving.

What always bothered him most about being indoors during a blow was the terrible quiet, aside from the clock going
tick-tock
endlessly; the moan of the wind under the doors and windows.

He purposedly knocked the decoy off the edge of the table. It hit the floor with a bang.

Tee let out a gasp and jumped up.

Rachel looked at her a moment and then said, "I'll put some yeopon on."

Tee sat back down.

Ben noticed her hands were trembling now and his mother saw it, too. Whenever there'd be a big gust, she'd tense up like an edgy quail.

Most of the long afternoon was torturous and Ben knew his mother was turning something over in her mind. She'd keep looking at Tee out of the corners of her eyes, talking occasionally to her about things that didn't matter; had nothing to do with the weather. She also kept looking at the clock.

Ben was puzzled and could feel something in the air. His mother was back at her habit of chewing her lip; scratching alongside her jaw; weighing thoughts mentally. Then she read the Bible for a while.

At about five, storm still hammering the Banks, Rachel rose up and went into the kitchen, calling for Ben to follow. She seemed calm and organized, as
couthy
as she'd ever been.

Standing by the stove, she said quietly, "Ben, we're gonna try somethin'."

"What?"

"Try to unlodge whatever's in her mind. You see how she's acted all day?" His mother nodded toward the front room. "So skitterish. She's never been this way before. Only when the gale hit."

"She's jus' scared of it," Ben replied.

"Mebbe that's what it's all about, Ben," his mother said. "Mebbe what happened to her in that other gale put her mind in prison. It's worth a try."

"What is?"

"Takin her back to Heron Shoal. Let her see it all over again."

Ben was shocked. This wasn't anything to do with
penetrates.

"I know," Rachel said, reading his face. "But I've thought it all out."

"It'll jus' scare her worse, Mama." He swallowed. "It may even kill her."

"Or cure her, Ben. Now, you get dressed, an' I'll bundle Tee up."

Ben hesitated.

Rachel said confidently, "Lord above, I'm no doctor, but we've taken care o' ourselves out here for two hundred years without one, an' most of the time we've been right. Jus' usin' common sense an' whatever herbs there is aroun us..."

"But, Mama..."

"I'll take the blame for whatever happens. If she's a vegetable, as Doc says, then it can't hurt her. If she's not, we'll jus' see. Now, take her to the beach."

It did not make much "common sense" to Ben. All that was out there was breakers and cold rain; wind that would bend you double. But he went into the bedroom to get his oilskin.

He listened as his mother helped Tee get dressed. She was saying, gently but firmly, "You should see for yourself what's down there, Tee. Then mebbe you won't be frightened anymore. You'll get cold an' wet, but we can dry you off."

Ben went out to the living room.

Tee's eyes were wide. On her face was the same near panic of that second night when she'd tried to talk but found that she couldn't. Ben watched as his mother tightened the clasps on one of his old raincoats and then put her own sou'wester on Tee's head.

Rachel said soothingly, "You jus' hang on to Ben. Now, go, the both of you."

At the door, Rachel said to Ben, "You cut acrost straight to Heron Shoal. No other place. You jus' let her take a good long look an' then come back"

As he was closing the door, she added, with determination, "Ben, if you got to drag her, get her there. Make her look"

Outside, the rain was like icy birdshot, fired by the lancing wind.

At the end of the lane, when they passed the last live oak, Ben stopped to look at the girl. The small face was powder white. He took a firmer grip on her hand, not at all certain his mother was doing the right thing.

She held back Even in the darkness, her eyes seemed as big as grommets.

"You're goin'," Ben yelled, and pulled her along.

They doubled over, bucking into the gale. After a few hundred yards, she fell but Ben got her back on her feet again. Already, they were soaked.

Three-quarters of the way there, she fell again over a piece of driftwood and started to cry. By this time, Ben could feel the sand shuddering from the surf slam; hear the water roaring.

He shouted, "It's not far now, Tee."

Suddenly, her free hand flashed out desperately, glancing off his chin, as she struggled to get away.

Surprised, Ben almost lost her but then took another hold on her wrist and pushed on, half dragging her. Once, he turned and saw that her eyelids were locked shut. He handled her with the only thing he thought he knew: strength.

Finally, he got her over the last rise and a few feet down the slope, almost to the foamy white water. The roar of the surf was deafening. It was every bit as high as the night the
Malta Empress
grounded. The breakers hit like cannon volleys.

Out there, somewhere, was Heron Shoal, wild and churning sending spray thirty to forty feet into the air.

Ben held her by the surf's edge, water washing around their feet, and shouted into her ear, "Look, Teetoncey. Look, I tell you."

She finally raised her head and opened her eyes, staring out toward the shoal. He saw terror come into them, and then her face knotted as a scream knifed out. He'd never heard anything like it.

He looked toward Heron and almost saw what he thought she was seeing as she relived it—the bare-masted ship, heeling over, crashing on the bar; her mother slamming against the deck housing and tumbling forward in debris; the icy curl of sea that had lifted her off the deck; her father towing her; then the breakers. At last, peaceful darkness and no memory.

The scream knifed out again and again, unlodging that wild night from her mind; releasing her from her own prison.

She lunged suddenly, breaking away from Ben, plunging out into the wash. Then she screamed hysterically, "Mother ... Father..."

For a few seconds, Ben was stunned; almost paralyzed but then plunged after her, grabbing at her shoulders before she reached the breaker line. She twisted away with a strength he didn't think possible, and he grabbed again, finally locking his arms around her waist as a surge of sea caught their legs, sweeping them in.

Still dinging to her, sputtering, Ben managed to rise to his feet when they grounded and struggled her through the foam at the tide line. He yelled at her angrily, "Dammit, you do that again an' I'll bust you one..." Then he was sorry.

Her head snapped around and up, water streaming over her face. Even in the dimness, he could see that her wide eyes were filled with horror and fright. And the way she was looking he was sure she didn't recognize him. Ben felt helpless.

Teetoncey looked back at the sea again and then her whole body began to shudder in sobs. Ben thought he heard, "My father ... my mother..."

He turned her around and started back, an arm tight over her shoulders; gale still buffeting their backs. She sobbed all the way home.

Rachel met them at the door and took Teetoncey into her arms.

Ben started to say something, but Rachel shook her head and led the girl into the bedroom.

Almost an hour passed.

Ben did not really want to go into the room and his mother had turned the knob behind them, anyway. But the sobbing had stopped and for almost twenty minutes he'd heard two different voices in there.

Boo Dog was sitting outside the door, his head cocking over one way, and the next, as he, too, heard the different voice.

Ben moved around restlessly, feeling strange. For reasons he could not quite understand, he was suddenly weary. It had been but a short walk to the beach and back, but he felt completely exhausted; as tired as when he'd been fished out of the Pamlico. His head seemed drained out, too. It was hard to think or know what to think.

Then Rachel opened the door. There was a soft satisfied smile on the bony face. She said, "Everthin's gonna be all right, I think, Ben. She don't really remember us, as yet. Things are still cloudy with her. Mebbe the Doc can explain it. But jus' act natural. Come on in..."

Ben moved slowly, almost with dread.

Tee was on his mother's bed, sitting up, a blanket around her shoulders; a pillow at her back. Her face was pale and worn; eyes puffy again like they were the first night, reddened, but open this time. Her hair was a little mussed up, wet around the edges.

Ben noticed that she wasn't smiling. Just looking curiously. Her eyes dropped to Boo Dog a moment and then came up.

Rachel said, "Ben, this is Wendy Lynn Appleton, of London, England."

Ben nodded shyly, not certain how to react.

Rachel went on as if she was making an introduction up at the Burrus store. "This is Ben, of course, who found you, along with this ol' hound."