Sometime later, a loud creak woke me up. I thought a piece of roof was being pried off right over my head. I waited but nothing else happened. I’d decided I’d been imagining things again when a quieter sound started, a sort of gnawing or jimmying. It came from the window in my room. I heard whispering. Someone was trying to get in.
Suddenly, the window was raised. A wave of cold air blew in from outside. The shade buckled and was pushed aside, and a leg came in over the sill. Somebody was in the room with me. A black shape stood just inside the window, looking around, trying to get its bearings. I held my breath. After everything that had happened, I didn’t know if it was a friend or someone else out to get me.
At last, a voice whispered: “Ruben? Are you in here?”
“Mm-mm-mm,” I said through my gag.
The dark shape came forward and stooped over me. A cigarette lighter came on in my face. In its flash, I saw Billy Brady, and he saw me.
“Gotcha!” he whispered, and squeezed my arm. “Here, hang on to to this.”
He put the burning lighter into one of my hands that was tied to the bedpost, then set to work with a knife to cut through my ropes. One by one, he sliced them off. He pulled me up and unknotted the gag over my mouth. I was never so happy to see anyone in my life.
“How did you know I was here?” I said. I was groggy, still not sure if this was a dream or real life.
“Shh-shh!” Billy leaned close and said in my ear: “Don’t talk now. There’s a ladder set up outside the window. I’ll be right behind you. Move real slow.”
Slow was the only way I could move after being tied up for so long. I inched across the room, climbed out the window and went down that ladder one shivery leg at a time. It seemed an age before my foot hit the ground. Then Billy came down beside me and, hardly breathing, we went across the dark yard to the road. We were almost there when someone rushed at me from behind a bush and two arms went around my neck. A voice said, “Thank God!” in my ear.
I didn’t have to look to know who it was. Marina McKenzie. When she’d finished hugging me, she started up shaking me.
“Next time listen when someone tells you to watch out,” she hissed. “You could’ve ended up dead.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I think John Appleby set me up. He was playing both sides.”
“That skunk. No wonder his family was getting rich. Anyhow, we’ve got you back, so it’s all right.”
There was no more time to talk. We began sneaking away down the road behind the tall, dark form of Billy Brady. He wasn’t alone. Two men came up behind us carrying the ladder. Around the bend, two cars were waiting, idling with their headlights off.
Billy went over and talked to the driver of one and sent him off on some errand. Then we all piled into the other car, an old station wagon. Marina, Billy and I were in the backseat while the others sat up front with the driver.
“No talking till we get past these crooks,” Billy warned. The driver nudged the accelerator and started off coasting to keep the engine quiet. We drifted past the house where the New York mobsters had held me. Not a sign of movement came from inside.
“Out cold from celebrating too hard, most likely,” one of Billy’s friends snickered after a minute.
“Those New York goons thought they’d pulled a double whammy on the College Boys,” a second one said. “Ruben here wasn’t the only thing they hijacked. While the one bunch was holding everybody at gunpoint in the kitchen, the rest of the gang was out back with a truck, helping themselves to a shedful of the College Boys’ whiskey. Must be a hundred cases they brought back with them, stacked behind the house.”
“There was a hundred cases, you mean,” the first man said. “Rick, tell Billy what we did.”
“Alfred and I laid claim to a few while you were springing Ruben. We’ve got ’em in the back with the ladder.”
They all let loose and whooped at that.
“You fellas’ve got the stickiest rum-running fingers I ever saw!” Billy said. Turning to me, he added, “I hope you don’t mind a bunch of renegade smugglers being your angels of mercy.”
I grinned and said it was all right by me.
“Then I’d like to introduce you to the crew of the Black Duck. It’s thanks to them we could pull off this stunt.”
As the car picked up speed, hands started coming out to me in the dark, and though I couldn’t see their faces very well, I tried to thank each one for coming to my rescue. There was Alfred Biggs, ship’s mechanic, with forearms the size of tree stumps. There was Rick Delucca, Billy’s partner and navigator on the Duck, who’d known Billy at Harveston High School and brought him in on the Black Duck’s operations after Billy’s dad was killed. Behind the wheel was Bernardo Rosario, the Black Duck’s radio man, even younger than Billy, though he had a wife and two kids at home.
“How did you find me?” I asked him. “I thought I was a goner.”
“You never were, Marina had you under surveillance,” Billy answered. “In case you don’t know, she’s our trusty watchdog on land,” he added, no doubt thinking he was paying her a compliment, much as he prized his friendship with those animals.
“Trusty watchdog!” she protested. “I certainly hope not!”
“Secret agent, then, or how about Director of Intelligence? We had a notion you were about to get snatched by those Boston foxes, Ruben, and were keeping an eye out. We would’ve rescued you quicker, except the New York gang beat us to it. I hadn’t figured on them. We were trailing you all over.”
I looked at Marina then, wondering if she had any idea of the part her father had played in my abduction. I suspected she didn’t, and kept quiet on that subject. The truth is, I wasn’t sure about the chief myself. He was into the racket so deep, on so many levels, it was impossible to guess what his game plan was. I could bet my safety wasn’t high on his scoreboard, though.
“So, you’re working for the Black Duck now?” I asked Marina. I knew she had a mind of her own, but that was the first I’d had an inkling she’d take it so far.
“Not at all,” she said. “I’m trying to keep them out of trouble.”
Everybody roared with laughter at that. (“Fat chance,” Alfred Biggs told her.) I was glad we’d gone a piece down the road or the New York gang might have been woken up and come after us. The Black Duck’s crew was a cheerful, wisecracking bunch. As for Captain Billy Brady, whatever I’d thought of him before, I changed my mind that night. I knew he’d risked his skin for me, and asked his friends to do the same. There’d never be a way I could properly thank him, even if his motives weren’t completely pure. Which they weren’t, as I found out a moment later.
“Now, Ruben,” Billy said, leaning toward me in the car. “Where is this ticket you’ve got? The word going around is it’s half a fifty-dollar bill, ready to match with the captain of the Firefly’s. You know that boat’s carrying over half a million dollars’ worth of goods.”
I was opening my mouth to announce exactly where it was, thinking it was the least I could do for him, when I felt a hand take mine under cover of dark.
“Ruben threw it out, didn’t you?” Marina said softly, looking straight ahead.
I didn’t know what was going on, so I kept quiet.
“You wouldn’t toss it!” Billy said. “Come on, Ruben, you didn’t do that.”
“He did. He told me,” Marina went on, keeping my hand deep in hers. “About a month ago, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“He didn’t know what it was,” Marina went on.
I nodded. “That’s what I told the Boston gang, too. What good’s half a fifty-dollar bill?”
“Wait a minute!” Billy yelled at Marina. “If you knew he’d tossed it, why didn’t you say so? You could’ve let me know before we went to all this trouble to snatch him.”
She locked eyes on him with that level gaze of hers. “Billy Brady, I’m astonished. What were you intending to rescue, Ruben or the ticket?”
Billy
sagged back against the seat, shaking his head.
“That beats all,” he groaned. “The Firefly’s finally coming in after all these months and now there’s no one to claim her cargo. Her captain will see there’s been a misfire and probably turn tail and head to Canada. Tony Mordello would have a good laugh over that. All his liquor going back out to sea. I guess he won the last round at that poker game after all.”
“I guess he did,” Marina answered, giving me a knowing smile. She squeezed my hand and let it go.
I never asked Marina why she made me tell that lie, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. Anyone could see that the Firefly’s shipment was too big and too hot for a small smuggling operation like the Black Duck’s. Billy Brady’s interest in profit had begun to get the better of his good sense. Marina was doing exactly what she’d said, trying to keep the Duck out of trouble, though even then she must have known she was playing against the odds.
All the time we were driving the dark roads back to town, I’d assumed I was headed home. Not until the car took a sharp turn and began to bump over a surface that was obviously not the road into my house did I look out. There, just visible in the faint light of what was now early dawn, I saw a span of choppy ocean that could only be the water off Coulter’s Point.
“Aren’t you taking me home?”
The car went silent.
“Not right away,” Billy said after a pause. “Your name’s out and around about this ticket. We think it’s best if you lay over with a friend of the family until things settle down. Your parents know you’re safe. I sent word by Doc Washburn in the car back there.”
“Doc Washburn! Was he in on this?”
“He was. The doc knows this town inside out. He’s no rumrunner, but we call on him if we need him. Your father’s been worried sick about you. I’ve been in touch about tonight. Our plan was, if we got you back, you’d be safer away from home. He said he’d spread a story you’ve gone to visit your brother in Providence. That should cover you for now.”
I tried to imagine my father being worried sick about me, but couldn’t bring up that picture. More likely, he’d be worrying about who he’d find on such short notice to do my work at the store.
At this point, the car slowed and rocked even more crazily over the ground, and a dog started barking.
“Sadie! Stop that racket!” Billy shouted out the window.
A second later, we came up on two chicken coops leaning together at an angle that looked as if a hurricane had been through. I knew what friend of the family he’d been talking about.
A SAFE HAVEN
TOM MORRISON WAS EXPECTING US. A LARGE oil lantern was hanging on a hook outside his door, casting a faint light across the cluttered yard. I was dead tired by this time. My head had started bleeding again and I had a hard time of it just to walk inside. I remember Marina sitting me down at Tom’s table and offering me a steaming cup of her very own clam chowder. She’d made up a batch at home and brought it to leave with Tom so I’d have something she knew I liked to eat. But that morning I could hardly stay upright in the chair.
“Leave him be for now,” I heard Tom say. “He’s gone through the grinder. You and Billy go along. I’ll look after him, don’t you worry.”
The next thing I knew, the room was empty, and Tom was taking off the towels that were wrapped around my head. He bathed my wound in warm water, and wrapped it again in some kind of cloth. Sadie tried to lay her head in my lap, but Tom told her to keep off me. I believe I finally ate a little, and drank a quantity of water before sleep took me out on a great dark tide. Not until evening did I open my eyes and find myself in Tom’s bunk. And there he was a minute later, looking down on me as gentle as a nurse.
“Looks like the three of us is going to be shipmates for a spell,” he said.
He was including Sadie in his count, and well he might. She was right there leaning over me with him, only lower down, drooling sympathetically on my face.
I pushed her snout away. “Is Sadie living with you now?”
“She’s consented to have me for the time being,” Tom replied, ruffling her ears so her feelings wouldn’t be hurt at being shoved off. “Billy don’t want her on the Duck no more. Says it’s getting too hot out on the water, what with the shooting and double-crossing going on these days.”
“Did she used to do his jobs with him?”
“Oh, Lordy, yes! She’s an old smuggling hand. Get Billy to tell you about her sometime. She can smell a Coast Guard cutter around a bend. Sets up to yipping. Out on West Island, there’s a drop she guards. The thieves keep away, knowing she’ll tear them to shreds if they so much as put one foot ashore.”
“The Black Duck’s got a place out on West Island?”
At this, Tom clapped his hand over his mouth. “I’m talking too much,” he said. “You just forget what I said. This isn’t your business and you don’t want to know about it.”
For once, I didn’t mind that at all. I really didn’t want to hear any more about smuggling or rumrunners at that moment. Tom went off to fix me a bowl of Marina’s chowder, leaving Sadie and me to start getting to know each other better.
That was the beginning of what I look back on now as one of the happiest times in my life. For the next couple of weeks, I stayed with Tom and he took care of me. I was up and about in a day or so, though I had to be careful not to move too fast or my head would spin. We’d crossed into December by then and the days had a frigid edge to them, though a bright sun seemed always to be beaming down around Tom Morrison’s chicken coops. Maybe it was just being out from under my old life, away from the humdrum of schoolwork and Riley’s General Store, but I felt like a bird escaped from a cage.
We spliced rope and wove crab traps on the stoop the first few days. Then, though the season was drawing to a close, I went out crabbing with Tom on his raft. Sadie came, too. He was teaching her to spot crabs underwater, the job Viola’d had.
“One-eyed folks like me don’t get a read on depth the way most people do,” Tom explained. “The world’s kind of flat to us, though you get so’s you fill it out with some imagination of your own. The trouble with crabs is, there’s no room to imagine ’em if you want to catch ’em. They’re either there or they’re not. Am I right, Sadie?”
She’d just then come out of the water after a dive off the raft, and her answer was to start shaking herself from head to tail, thoroughly dousing us with freezing pond water. It got so bad, we had to push her back in.
When we weren’t on the raft, we skulked around on the beach, looking for interesting objects that might’ve washed up. I told Tom about a bride’s hope chest Jeddy and I had found one time full of sheets and towels and ladies’ silk underthings. We were so embarrassed that we dug a hole and pushed the whole mess in before anyone could catch us with it.
Tom said that was by no means the most unusual thing. A crate of Florida oranges had washed up on his shore once, ripe and delicious. He’d eaten every one.
More darkly, he told me of a boot he found with a human foot still in it.
“Was it the mob, do you think?”
He said it might’ve been, though this was a few years before their kind of murderous activity was widespread.
“Could’ve been sharks or ocean currents or any number of things,” he went on. “You never know with the sea. It’s a place unto itself. There’s baby seals who get parked here on this beach by their mothers. They’ll be migrating down the coast, usually early in spring, and the little ones grow tired. The pup’ll be here a day or two, laying over, then the mother’ll come back to pick him up and they’ll start off on their travels again.
“Gives you a strange feeling coming across one of those pups. They’ve got a human child’s eyes, but how they look at you, it’s unnerving. Like they’re in touch with some wildness no human could ever know. They’re from an undersea world that’s far beyond our knowledge, with rules and reasons that have nothing to do with ours. A privilege it is to live alongside s
uch a mystery, and have the chance once in a while of staring it in the face.”
In the evenings, Tom would light his kerosene lantern and cook up some supper. There wasn’t ever much doubt what it would be. I had crab in just about every way a crab can be made edible, in soup, grilled, poached, stewed, steamed, fried, baked, fricasseed and then some. Sadie ate right along with us.
After dinner, we’d sit with our feet up on the warm cast-iron stove and talk or not, whatever we felt like. There was no need to be polite or say something you didn’t mean just to fill up space in the conversation. Nobody was harping on anyone to wash up or take off his boots. Nobody was watching the clock about when to go to bed. It was heaven to me, and an eye-opener, too, that Tom had found a way to live that was the right way for him, even if it wouldn’t agree with what other people might think.
Never once did Tom dig into the reason why I was there, and that was good of him since I didn’t want to think about the fool I’d been to get myself kidnapped. My head wound was healing and my heart was, too, I guess, because the darkness that had been in me for weeks, worrying about my father and the store and where I was headed in life, cleared off. I was whistling on my way to the woodpile—it was cold enough so the stove in Tom’s shack was going by then—and ruffling Sadie’s ears right along with Tom.
December moved on, and Christmas came and went without anyone bothering much about it. Tom had his own take on seasons and holidays that was completely out of time with the rest of the world. Billy’s crewman Alfred Biggs came down and brought me a sweater my mother had knitted for me, and a book from Aunt Grace, and that was about all there was to it. No tree or decorations or singing or turkey dinner. What I found out was, they didn’t matter to me as much as I’d thought they did. I was happy without. It occurred to me that some of Tom Morrison was beginning to rub off on me.
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