High Tide at Noon (22 page)

The hawk was suddenly evil to her. He was like a symbol, sign of the evil that was here, on her Island. She had seen it herself, and the knowledge of it was a burden.

A
T SUPPER TIME IT WAS
almost oppressively hot. The sun streamed across the Island and through the kitchen windows, beating in with unusual strength until Donna lowered the shades.

Beyond a few remarks on the unseasonal heat—even in midsummer the Island rarely had such weather—the family ate in silence. They seemed to be caught in a spell, as if the scene at dinner still possessed them. At first Philip talked courteously with his parents. Owen looked steadily at his plate. Joanna, refilling plates, bringing more bread, pouring coffee, was grateful for the chance to move around. There was oppression indoors and out, tonight.

Suddenly, when the silence was becoming intolerable, Philip said in a quiet, unsurprised voice: “Look at the barometer.”

Heads turned swiftly. All eyes lifted to the instrument hanging by the window that looked harborward; all eyes saw the needle gone crazy all at once, quivering madly back and forth.

“It's going to blow,” Stephen said. “Westerly, I shouldn't be surprised. And soon.”

Owen put down his fork. “That's fine, isn't it? Everything's hunky-dory. Boats and traps all stove to hell! When do we get that breakwater?”

“Never mind arguing. Just get through your supper. We've got work ahead of us.”

It was then that the wind struck the house, with so violent a blow that Joanna's hands jerked and the coffee cup in her hand spilled hot liquid over her wrist. Donna said mildly, “Good heavens.”

The windows rattled, the wind shrieked, the world was full of noise for one long instant, and then the roar subsided slightly. Joanna hurried to set the hot gingerbread on the table. Owen pushed back his chair noisily and went to the window that looked down across the meadow; the trees at the foot were tossing wildly, and the harbor, like polished glass a few minutes ago, lay open and defenseless to the wind. Now it was choppy and dark under a huge mass of scudding cloud that hid the sun; far to the west'ard there was a narrow brilliant line of silver on the horizon, but everywhere the sea was coldly gray.

The gulls soared high in hysterical arcs. Gust after gust crashed against the Bennett house, high and unprotected on its slope. The men finished supper in wordless haste, their faces unmoved. Donna, too, seemed undisturbed; she had been an Island wife too long to show alarm when a crazy westerly threatened the boats. It didn't help to be afraid. You needed more than fear to make the moorings hold.

While they were putting on their boots, Alec came in. His hair was wind-roughened, his eyes alight.

“I just lost my hat,” he said cheerfully. “She went sailing out over the point.”

“How's your mooring?” Stephen asked sharply.

“All right, I guess. Grant said the pennant was fairly new.”

“Fairly new!” Owen snorted. “I guess you better keep your eye on it. You just got Jud Gray between you and the harbor mouth, and the way that old sea's pounding in—”

“Sure, I'll watch her,” said Alec easily. His faint smile touched his eyes as he looked at Joanna, and she suppressed an impulse to ask him how he enjoyed his supper at Nate Bennett's last week. He leaned lazily against the doorframe, running a lean hand through his hair—the soft light brown hair that turned to bronze as the sun came out again and streamed through the kitchen.

“Well, let's be on our way, boys,” Stephen said, and they went out, all four of them. Joanna and her mother watched them from the window as they went down through the meadow. The heavy clouds driving across the sky were storm-black, edged with silver; they hid the sun, then uncovered it again, and the long yellow light fell across the meadow and the four men, throwing their long black shadows behind them. Before them the harbor held a threatening darkness, lashing over the ledges, tossing the boats like chips.

Joanna's heart pounded with her excitement. “I'm going down! They'll need another pair of hands to help move the gear!”

“I need another pair of hands to clean up this gear,” said Donna. Joanna flew at the sink like a whirlwind, and Donna laughed. “Too bad you couldn't have been a boy.”

“That's what I always wanted,” Joanna said, “but now . . . I don't know . . . ” She was assailed by a sudden dreaminess, her hands were slow on the dishes.

“Oh, it's not too bad, being a girl.” There was soft laughter in Donna's eyes as she looked at her daughter, and Joanna felt the color rise in her face, without knowing why.

The wind crashed against the house, and she hurried. Donna took pity on her when she had almost finished, and began to wipe the dishes. “Go on, go on!” she ordered when Joanna protested, without much conviction. “No sense trying to keep a gull inside four walls.”

“You're—you're
swell!
” Joanna cried, and hugged her mother with all her hard young strength, before she grabbed her jacket from its hook and ran out, with Winnie barking behind her in furious excitement.

Down at the shore the men were working against time. Traps that had been apparently safe above the high-water line must be moved to the other side of the board walk; it took two men to carry a heavy trap with any degree of speed, so everywhere they worked together, brothers and cousins, fathers and sons, friends and enemies—Joanna saw Nils and Simon pulling up a dory together, with never a word between them.

The whole Island was there; women with coats hugged around their necks to keep out the chill wind as they watched their men, and talked in high, excited voices to each other, and lent a hand when they could. Children ran wild underfoot, shrieking; the steadily rising wind, the roar of water, touched them with the exhilarated madness of young animals. As Joanna stood in the shelter of Nathan Parr's camp, one of Marcus Yetton's little boys tripped, and sprawled at her feet with a startled squawk.

She set him on his feet. “Whose boots have you got on, Julian?”

“Pop's old ones!” With a whoop he was off again, darting among the men like a little harbor pollack among the moorings.

Peter Gray stood near her, smoking nervously; his new dory was safe, but he was worried about his traps, set out brand-new in April. Gunnar moved deliberately across the beach, his eyes blue pinpoints as he watched Karl and Eric work. Sigurd and Nils and young David didn't escape him, either. He saw Thea, too; she was taking an incredibly long time to pass the beach with the milk, and she was in Philip's way, or Alec's, or Tim Gray's, every time one of them came up the slope.

Gunnar approached her, smiling with deadly benevolence. “Ha, you come to help? Vall, I tell you. Get home, you young hussy! If you vass mine, I'd put the whip to you!”

Thea pulled back from the rosy, grinning face so close to hers, her eyes full of terrified tears, her lips trembling. Hugo grinned at her; she turned red, and hurried along the road.

Now the tide was racing in, a tumble and rumble of foaming waters up the beach where it usually crept so silently. Overhead the clouds scudded from the west, a violent, flaming west above a stormy sea whose waves were crested with fire. It was at once beautiful and terrible. The small boats leaped frantically at their moorings. Joanna felt pity for them; it seemed to her they were afraid. The
Donna
alone rolled gently, her masts brave against the sky.

Behind Joanna, as she watched, Nathan Parr and Johnny Fernandez carried on a stoical conversation.

“Last westerly we had,” Nathan drawled, “I kinda thought I heard someone at the door. So I opened it, and pretty damn near the hull Atlantic came in.”

“You boys better move out some of your stuff.” That was Jud Gray, with no hint in his easy voice that his boat rode the outermost mooring. “Plenty of room in my shop.”

“Me, I taka da chance!“ Johnny exploded. “No storm scare old Johnny, after Grand Banks. Me I
speet
at it!” He did so, with emphasis.

Marcus Yetton came along the boardwalk in oilskins. “Three­quarters my traps set on the west side,” he said, his face scared and old in the dusk. “And every one of 'em'll be stove to hell. I'm gonna bring some in.”

Stephen stopped him. “Don't be so dumb, man!” he exclaimed. “Better the traps be stove up than you.”

“Maybe you don't mind losin' gear,” said Marcus bitterly. “You got money to build new with. Me, I got nothin'!”

“Susie'll have even less if you go out there.” Stephen clapped the younger man on the back and smiled his quick, warming smile. “If it hits you bad, Marcus—well, don't worry.”

Marcus will be another one of Father's lame ducks, Joanna thought with loving impatience. Another one to “borrow” money that would never be repaid. Not that Stephen ever expected it back . . . Marcus walked away, still sullen, but he didn't untie his skiff.

Joanna looked across the beach at the old wharf, staunch under the battering onslaughts of water. Spray flew over the spilings and touched the boys who stood with their backs against the boat shop. They had done what they could, and now they must watch the boats until the roaring dusk shut down. They would go home then, and not a man wouldn't start up in the middle of the night, wondering if his boat was safe.

Joanna took a long breath and plunged into the wind. But she was too late to join the crowd, for suddenly someone was shouting like a madman and the boys were running the length of the wharf, jumping down to the beach. Philip untied a dory and Alec and Owen came pell-mell behind him. Tim Gray and Hugo lent a hand, and almost instantly the dory was in the water.

No one, watching them go out, with Owen and Philip rowing and Alec in the stern, needed explanation. A boat was dragging her mooring. The Islanders thronged the old wharf and the whole wild harbor lay before them, ledges boiling with surf, boats dancing.

It was Alec's boat that had broken loose. The pennant was still fast to the paulpost, but one end of the ground line had given way and the boat had moved down the harbor until she had come up against Owen's boat. With each sea the two boats came together hard. The dory seemed small and impotent, fighting its way across the waves. Joanna watched it with parted lips, her heart big with pride. Those were her brothers out there, bringing such indomitable drive to the oars, sending the boat over the blown white crests and down into the gray-green valleys, and then up again, never failing . . . and spray flying all around them, and the wind catching viciously at the oars.

Alec crouched in the stern, his eyes never leaving his boat as it crashed again and again into the
Old Girl
. Let them bump long enough to start the caulking, and there'd be two boats lost in the harbor to­night. Joanna held her breath, thinking of it. The dory took an eternity to cover the last few yards, and it seemed as if the wind threw all its devilish strength into a final attempt to turn the small boat back.

Another dory fought its way toward the harbor mouth. Joanna heard someone say, “There's Jud and his boys goin' out!” She gave only a quick glance at jud's boat, on the other end of the chafed ground line. Another boat to be brought in before the storm tore her loose altogether.

Stephen was beside her; she slipped her arm through his and held tight. Neither spoke, as they watched the boys approach the shabby gray boat that bucked like a wild horse. The dory slid alongside, the plunging bow reared high above them, paused for a second, and Alec was aboard in one scrambling leap, hanging on with a ferocity that must have broken more than one fingernail, while his long legs clambered over the gunwale and down into the cockpit. He had the painter in his hands, and pulled the dory alongside, holding it while the other two climbed aboard. Owen made the painter fast to the bit on the stern deck, and Alec started the engine. Philip went cautiously along the dripping washboards to the bow, and cast off the mooring.

The boat was no longer a wild thing, but something docile and trustworthy under Alec's hands. He swung her around until Owen could jump across into the
Old Girl
. Those on the wharf saw him as he dropped on his knees in the rolling craft, looking for a place where the caulking might have been started. After a few minutes he stood up again, shaking his head and laughing, and scrambled over into Alec's cockpit again. The gray boat shot forward across the water, making straight for the wharf.

Joanna felt her father's arm relax. “Now if Jud gets in all right—”

“He's making it,” said Joanna. They stared out through the dusk, and the wind carried to them the sound of another engine, sure and strong. One by one the watchers left the wharf. Joanna was driven by a tremendous and jubilant excitement. She felt as if she were alive again, after the taut days of worry; it seemed as if she could never again be worried, or sad, or anxious. Nothing mattered now except that her brothers and Alec Douglass had conquered the sea, she had seen it happen before her very eyes. To the others it meant only that a boat had been brought in when she dragged her mooring; to Joanna it was living proof of the invincibility of her men.

Her men
. She tasted the words on her lips, and knew shock; only two of them had been her men, her brothers. Her face began to burn, but she thought it was the wind.

They were hauling the dory up when she came along the beach. Alec's boat was made snugly fast, lines forward and astern, in the lee of the wharf.

“Did you leave some coffee on the stove?” said Philip, looming out of the dusk. “We want some.”

“There's plenty. And fresh doughnuts, too.”

“Come on, lads,” said Philip, and Owen and Alec joined them. Owen was laughing and excited, and Joanna felt a deep wave of joy when she saw his hand close around Philip's arm, heard him say, laughing, “What's better than one Bennett in a tight spot?”

Alec said promptly, 'Two Bennetts and a Douglass. Where's that coffee?”