Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (22 page)

     
He heard Paul
Laflin
swear, and looked around. "Cut it," he said angrily.
"To hell with it.
Cut it. Get rid of it."

     
The boat, urged by the slow current of the
creek, began to swing back towards the dock. Branch waited unmoving, facing
forward, hearing the large young man swear in French as he sawed at the rope
with a small penknife. And in the middle of the bay, Branch thought, in this
wind, they expect to pick up a man in the water. God, talk about optimists. He
threw the boat into gear as the big man finished, opened the throttle wide, and
leaned hard on the wheel as water boiled noisily out from the stern into the
pilings of the dock. She gathered way smoothly towards the large dark shape of
the mooring post, and Mr. Hahn started up, saying something and reaching for
the wheel. Branch struck his hand aside. The rudder took hold and the creosoted
post swung across the bow and slipped past close aboard. Branch reversed the
wheel and looked back at the white are of wake foaming in the darkness behind
them. All boats were the same and if you could handle one you could handle all
of them.

HE
WATCHED THE WATER tumbling off the bow glow greenish-white with
phosphorescence; and astern the wake was a luminous path following them out of
the darkness. The boat, like all motorboats he had ever handled, had no
positive tendency to stay on course; and when she started to swing it took a
full turn of the wheel to check her. Hard-mouthed old bitch, he thought, I wish
I had some gloves. Christ, will you look at that phosphorescence, he thought.
When you stood like this behind the wheel, the engine filling the world with
sound and vibration, you were only a pair of eyes and a pair of hands and a
brain. He looked across the dark water at the serrated masses of reeds closing
in on them from either side as they neared the opening. Ahead, the water was
calm for a space beyond the reeds, but farther out he could see the dark
roughness, flecked with white, where the wind drove hard down the river.

     
The cabin doors opened and let a hood of
light into the cockpit, blinding him. You always thought she was swinging when
you could not see; he checked the panic impulse to throw the wheel hard over,
and turned out the light by the switch below the engine controls. She was still
on course, just starting a sheer to port; he steadied her. Glancing down he saw
the girl peering out at him, ridiculously like a dog in a kennel. He thrust
back the hatch. She straightened up and stood in the hatchway, watching the
reeds come closet in the darkness.

     
"Don't try it," he said.

     
"You wouldn't even do that for me,
darling?" she asked without turning her head. "Not even to save my
life? They are going to kill me."

     
The wake was breaking in shallow water to
either side and rolling on to make a sighing sound in the reeds, audible over
the clattering rumble of the motor; and he could not feel greatly concerned
over her impending death as he searched the water ahead for clues as to the
direction of the channel.

     
"You could
.. .
"
she said, turning and covering his hand with her hand. "You wouldn't have
to ..,"

     
He shifted his hand to a different spoke
of the wheel. She turned abruptly away from him and stood looking forward; her
long body in the shapeless yellow suit ungracefully hunched over her folded
arms. Paul
Laflin's
hand struck her across the
outthrust buttocks and she straightened up again and turned without surprise or
haste or resentment.

     
"Don't converse with the
motorman," the large young man said. "Sit down. Sit down and be
quiet."

     
The woman seated herself in the space to
the left of Branch that Mr. Hahn had occupied previously. They had held a
council of war behind him, but what they had decided did not matter. Everything
was fine. The engine was running well and everything was fine except the girl.
The woman watched her make her way to the opposite seat.

     
"What did she want?"

     
"Never mind what she wanted,"
Branch said without looking aside from the channel.

     
Madame
Faubel
moved into the angle between the cockpit
coaming
and
the cabin house, and tucked the fur coat about her. It enveloped her like a
cloak, reaching almost to the cockpit door as she sat there.

     
"You were to let her swim
ashore," she said presently. "You were to give her time to get ashore
before you turned the boat back."

     
"Don't sit there," Branch said
irritably. "You're in my way." He pushed her knees aside with his leg.
"She was kidding herself," he said. "She could no more make
herself go over the side into that water than she could fly. She's too
cold."

     
Madame
Faubel
raised her voice. "Watch the girl, Georges. See that she does not go
overboard."

     
The girl looked up sharply, staring at
Branch.

     
As they ran out of the shelter of the
creek, the boat came heavily to life, rolling regularly, like a pendulum, with
a fixed period of its own that was independent of the impact of the short,
steep, crested chop of the river. The wind took on weight and sharpness; and
Branch was aware of Paul
Laflin
turning up the collar
of his coat to reinforce the turtle-necked sweater; the man standing
spreadlegged
beyond the cabin door, prevented by some pride
from taking his hands from his pockets to steady himself, so that he weaved
from side to side, in a curious static dance movement, with the rolling of the
boat.

     
Beyond him, not so proud, Mr. Hahn clung
to the cockpit
coaming
with one hand while the other
gripped the arm of the girl, who huddled beside him holding the upturned collar
of her jacket closed at her throat, her back to the wind. The uncombed masses
of her hair, dividing
themselves
, were folded forward
along each side of her face by the wind. Branch felt the impact of the dull
bitterness of her stare.
Goddam
it, he told her
silently, as he stood at the wheel, I'd only have had to pick you up, damn it,
you'd only have got wet, that's all, sweetheart.

     
As they approached the center of the river
he let the boat swing gradually away to the left, downstream, and the rolling
stopped as they raced away before the wind, to be replaced by a slow pitching
motion as each wave raised the stern, forcing the boat ahead,
then
passed forward. With the wind astern, steering became a
monotonous cranking of the wheel from left to right and back again as the waves
passed. In the darkness the speed seemed tremendous, but the leisurely movement
of the lights on shore, that only slowly came abeam and fell astern, belied the
surging pounding confusion of sound in the boat. It was a little like creeping
down a broad highway in low gear.

     
With the wind astern it was not so cold,
but presently the girl rose and, her hand still at her throat gripping the
folded lapels of her jacket, pulled herself free of Mr. Hahn, speaking to him.
She was visibly shaking with cold. The chinless man nodded. She made her way
towards the shelter of the cabin, pushing her way between Branch and Paul
Laflin
into the hatchway; then turning, the wind blowing
the hair free of her face.

     
"Don't think they're not going to
kill you, too, darling," she said to Branch, her voice clear and loud
above the roar of the engine. "Do you think they're going to let you go,
afterwards
? "
She
was too cold
to laugh, but her eyes, narrowed against the wind, laughed, hating
I
him. "Maybe they promised they would let you go?"

     
Paul
Laflin
struck her and the laughter went out of her eyes. She drew back against the
hatch
coaming
, trapped in the narrow opening, while a
dark thread of blood made its way down her upper lip. She tasted it with her
tongue and touched her finger to it, smearing it, watching the man.

     
"Well, it's true, isn't it?" she
gasped and, as he seized her, dropped to her knees and bit at his hand, he
snatching the hand back; and she pushed herself backwards into the darkness of
the cabin. Paul
Laflin
made as if to follow her,
changed his mind, and drew back. The boat continued to race loudly down the
river. Branch felt rather than heard the scraping sounds as the girl in the
cabin picked herself off the floor. He felt cold and a little bitter. You
couldn't
wait,
he told her silently, you couldn't
wait, could you? You had to shoot off your big mouth.

     
Paul
Laflin
touched him on the shoulder. He turned and saw Mr. Hahn behind him, leaning
against the engine box, one hand buried in the pocket of the gray overcoat with
the velvet collar.

     
Paul
Laflin
said, "I'll take it now, thank you."

     
Madame
Faubel
stirred. "Paul," she said. "Georges ..."

     
They did not look at her, and Branch did
not look at her, but shoved the throttle back to idling and put the gears in
neutral. It was very quiet with the motor idling.

     
"Paul," said the woman urgently,
"Are you sure
... ?"

     
"I have been watching him," the
large young man said. "It is no more complicated than driving a car."

     
The boat took a sheer to starboard as the
momentum died away and, receiving the waves on the quarter instead of dead
astern, began to roll again. Branch turned the wheel to straighten her out;
then let it spin free and turned on the cabin lights instead. Let them figure
it out, he thought, damn the bitch, anyway. He was wryly amused at the thought
that she had not told him he was to be killed until after learning he would not
help her get away. The faces that surrounded him in the lighted cockpit looked
strange and barely human.

     
Madame
Faubel
said reluctantly, "All right, Paul.
All right.
If
you are sure you really can...."

     
Mr. Hahn said, "Put him in the cabin.
We may need him if something goes wrong."

     
It was quite warm inside the cabin after
the doors and the hatch had been closed against the wind. He steadied himself
against the miniature galvanized sink and heard the engine thrown noisily into
gear; and felt the slow thrusting acceleration, and the sharpened roll of the
boat, as the propeller began to turn. You never really knew what was happening,
down in the cabin. You could imagine what you wanted to imagine.

     
He made his way forward, bent double under
the beams, and sat down on the unoccupied berth to port. With the doors closed
and all parts clearly visible in the yellow light from the single bulb at the
head of each berth, the cabin seemed incredibly small and the two of them
occupying it like giants in a dwarf's house, except that the berths were full
length. The girl lay face down on the starboard berth and he could without
rising have reached out and touched her, the space between the berths not more
than eighteen inches wide. She held a handkerchief pressed to her face and her
clothes were untidily bunched about her. Presently she sat up and some instinct
of tidiness or modesty that seemed to derive from another existence made her
raise herself in the familiar feminine gesture of drawing down her skirt to her
knees.

     
"Well, you certainly fouled things
up, sweetheart," Branch said. She looked at him over the bloody
handkerchief, her shirt and the lapels of her jacket also spotted with blood.
He recognized the handkerchief as his own.

     
"What difference does it make?"
she whispered.

     
In the cabin the sound of the engine was
weakened but you could hear the water gurgling and splashing as it rushed by
just outside.

     
"Shooting off your big mouth,"
Branch said. He took the handkerchief from her as she lowered it, crawled aft
and let water into the sink from the tank above it, and rinsed out the stained
cloth, the water sloshing from side to side with the motion of the boat. The
girl sat on the edge of the berth with a finger pressed to her nose to contain
the blood. Her face was a streaked mask. Bitch, he thought, bitch, bitch,
bitch. The wheel ropes made an insistent squealing and he let himself think
that the large young man was steering all over the river,
then
put the thought away. What you thought in the cabin never meant anything.

     
"I just told you the truth," the
girl said angrily. "I can't see why that should be so terrible."

     
He sat down again and began to clean her
face with the damp handkerchief, she leaning a little forward to help him.

     
"They wanted to trust me," he
said presently. "They knew it wasn't safe, but they wanted to very much,
because it made everything easy for them, if they could trust me. But how the
hell are they going to trust me with you telling me
...
?"

     
She moved impatiently to speak and he took
away the handkerchief. The engine stopped. He silenced her with an angry sound,
listening. The engine started again.

     
"All I needed was to get out
there," he said after a moment, more to himself than to the girl.
"Just to get out there, you understand," he said savagely, looking
up.
"Out of this damned river.
Anybody can handle
a boat in here." He threw the handkerchief into her lap. "God, wash
your face."

     
She touched the handkerchief gingerly:
looked at it, and left it lying on her skirt.

     
"Why didn't you tell me,
Phillip?" she murmured. Then her expression changed and her voice was
incredulously angry when she spoke again. "You mean that all the time you
were going to ... And you let me--!"