by Dawn Tripp
They meet at Albert Devereaux’s house, down a gated lane off Horseneck Road. A young woman, the housekeeper, opens the door. She leads Bridge and Luce down a high-ceilinged hall, through a library and into a smoking room. Two men sit at a gaming table in blue plush gentleman’s chairs. They are dressed in work clothes, dark jackets. There are caps and oilers in a pile on a chair. The work clothes sit oddly on them, and Bridge notices they are wearing dress shoes.
Albert Devereaux stands up as Luce and Bridge enter the room. “Hello there,” he says. Bridge can see that he is nervous. “Here you are then. So we’re ready. This is Borden. Will Borden.”
Luce nods. “You have guns?”
“Guns?”
“Each man needs a gun.”
“I didn’t realize—”
“That’s how it is,” Luce says coolly as he walks around to the couch.
“I might have pistols,” Albert says. “Would that be adequate?”
Luce smiles. “A gun’s a gun.”
“I didn’t realize we would need—”
“Oh hell, Al,” Will Borden breaks in. “Don’t be such a chump. Go dig around and see what you have. Where did Henry get off to?”
“Here,” says a voice from the doorway. Henry Vonniker comes into the room. He doesn’t seem to see Bridge at first. He doesn’t seem to register her presence. She stands by her brother, just behind Luce’s shoulder, her face shadowed by the brim of her cap.
“Luce, this is Henry Vonniker,” Will Borden says. “ ‘Our Henry,’ as my wife Alyssia has named him. I suppose we all assume some ownership. Henry, may I introduce Luce Weld, our host for tonight’s escapade.”
Henry extends his hand. Luce takes it. Their eyes lock for a moment. Bridge can see that Luce is sizing him up.
“I’m not going tonight,” Henry says quickly, withdrawing his hand. He offers an affable smile.
Luce shrugs. “Fine.”
“I apologize. Just before you arrived, I was informed my friends gave you my name, signed me up as it were, but I can assure you I would be no use out there.”
Luce takes a long look at him. “Are you the one who works in the mills?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“See much of the strike?”
“No,” Henry says. “The mill where I work did not cut wages. We’re still in operation.”
“But you must see it. The strike, I mean. Driving through the city. I hear it’s been bad.”
“I don’t actually know,” says Henry. “That particular area of the city is not on my way to work, so in fact, I really haven’t seen much of the strike at all.” He doesn’t mention that he has gone out of his way not to see it. He keeps himself removed. He avoids what he can to the extent that he can. He drives a roundabout route to the mill so he does not have to pass through the strike zone. The details that he does take in—either from the papers or from what he overhears—he notices only from a distance, from one corner of an eye, the way he might observe early light gathering at the edges of the marsh, spilling through the tall grass on an incoming tide.
“Henry works in Bowes’s mill,” Will Borden says.
“Oh right,” says Luce. “Bowes. Isn’t he the one stepping up production—making a profit all summer while everyone else’s workers are out on their bread lines?”
“Where did Al get off to?” Henry asks Borden.
“He’s gone to get guns.”
Bridge, who has been watching Henry, sees him flinch.
“I hear you were in the war,” Luce is saying now.
Henry nods. “I was.”
“Where?”
“France.”
“At the front?”
“For a time.”
“Must have seen some big things over there.”
Henry hesitates for a moment, and when he speaks his voice is measured, composed. He fingers a line of piping on the sofa. “War is like anything else,” he says. “You see what you see. Do what you do. You adjust.”
“Like anything else?” Luce asks wryly.
“Like anything else.”
They are standing on either side of the sofa, facing each other. They are close to the same height, Henry a shade taller. Luce studies the other man’s face, and Bridge can feel a small envy, a small hatred rippling off her brother. It is something no one else in the room might notice, but she can feel it. Her eyes shift again to Henry. There are dashes of light sweat at his temples.
“I hear you’re a doctor,” Luce goes on.
“I was a doctor.”
“Ever work on a brain?”
Devereaux comes back into the room. “I could only find one— a pistol. Will that do?”
“We’ll have to scare up one more,” says Luce, still looking at Henry.
“You won’t really need guns out there, will you?” Henry asks.
“Might. Never know what you might need in this business. Might need a doctor.” Luce smiles. His teeth flash, rapid, white through his dark face.
“Anyone for a drink?” Borden says.
Luce turns away from Henry and sits down in one of the gentleman’s chairs. He runs his hands down the upholstered arm, leans back, stretches out his legs.
“Look, Albert,” Henry says, “I’ve got to get going.”
“Oh, come on, Henry, stay for a drink,” Will Borden says, pouring out whiskey into four tumblers. “A drink for your girl, Luce?”
“Sure, I suppose. She’s a good girl.”
And Henry looks at her then, takes her in for the first time. She sees the flash of recognition and something else she can’t quite name.
“You sure you don’t want to go with us, Doc?” Luce says to Henry, without looking up from the chair. But Henry doesn’t answer. His eyes are on Bridge, and she can see then that he does not know who she is to Luce. He does not know she is his sister. He has made the first assumption, the easy assumption, that she is his girl, his companion, his wife.
“Good whiskey,” Borden says. He drains his glass. “Is this your stuff, Luce?”
“Not mine. I just slob it in. I’m the nothing guy.”
Albert and Will Borden laugh.
“How did you put it just then, Doc?” Luce goes on. “You see what you see—was that it? Well then, here’s to what you don’t see.” He raises his glass. The two other men join him, still laughing. Henry is looking at Bridge, but Luce has not noticed. He is turned away, toward the low fire in the grate. Then his eyes play through the room, over the black iron fire tools, across the mantel, the gold-rimmed sea-clock with the jet face, the silver candlesticks, the inlaid mahogany card table, the Chinese lamp on the rat-foot pedestal, a blue and white china vase, a jade figurine, a Waterford crystal bowl. Bridge sees him do it. He is making his inventory, setting down a file of these objects in his brain. It is simply how he looks at the world—how he always has, perhaps how he always will—assessing the value of fine things, weighing their worth.
Luce drinks off his glass, stands, and straightens the collar on his coat. “We’ll be off then. Don’t want to miss the tide.” He turns toward Henry. “So are you in, Doc?”
“No.”
“Don’t like boats?”
“Boats are fine.”
“Don’t like liquor?”
“Like I said, I’d be no use to you.”
“Not even a fluty champagne?”
Henry doesn’t answer him. “Are you going out with them?” he asks, addressing Bridge.
“No,” she answers.
“Sure she’s going out,” Luce says sharply. “She’s my mate. Why? Does that change your mind?”
Henry shakes his head. “I have no intention of going out.” “What is it? You don’t like guns?”
“I don’t like guns.”
“Funny thing,” Luce says, “you of anyone, a big guy in the big war.”
“Exactly.”
“You aren’t any good with a gun, then?”
“Drop it, Luce,” says Bridge.
She
thinks of him on the ride out. It is a rough ride, a wind-chopped sea. The boat spanks the waves, and the damp night air stings her face. Just after midnight, they arrive at the ship, a Canadian bark, the Dara Lee. Bridge waits in the boat alongside as Luce and the other two men board. She watches the rum-ship crew. They are bunched together at first, but when they see her brother and recognize him, she notices that they begin to thin across the deck. She can see they don’t quite trust him. Their beards are unruly, grown out over the long days at sea. She sees two men off to the side. One points to Albert Devereaux’s dress shoes, bright, newly polished, poking out from under his oilers. They snicker, then catch her watching. They look away. The deck is piled with liquor, hundreds of cases and bursacks of whiskey, rum, gin. The rank, sharp smell of alcohol and the sweat of men is mixed in the cold salt air, and she notices suddenly that there is nothing in the scene that intrigues her. What she is witnessing is like any other trade of goods for cash. It is a business, like any other business, work like any other work. She smiles. She finds herself looking back toward land, thinking about Henry Vonniker. He is somewhere behind her in that darkness, beyond that paler skim of light that marks the shore.
She says his name quietly to herself and feels a small trip in her heart. He had left the house when they did. He had stood with Bridge in the drive as Luce and Will Borden checked to see that they had everything they needed in the truck. They were waiting on Albert who was still inside.
“You don’t have to go with them, you know,” Henry had said to her in a low voice. He was standing near her and she could smell his skin—a fresh clean scent. He avoided her gaze, looking straight ahead. The light off the truck’s headlamps played over his face. She marked the deep forks at the corners of his eyes and she could sense a brokenness in him as the darkness spun around them and they stood together on the smooth dirt drive in a soft imperfect ring of light.
“Do you know that you don’t have to go?” he asked.
Of course she knew. She also knew that now there was no way to explain to Luce why she might not want to go anymore, why she might have changed her mind.
“I’m going,” she answered simply, then she walked to the truck and climbed in.
But now, standing in the wheelhouse of the boat, she feels a sadness. She feels, perhaps for the first time in her life, regret. She looks away from the shore back to the ship. She can hear her brother’s voice, placing the order, issuing commands. He strides across the deck toward the first mate. The hem of his coat strikes out behind him. They are coming to the rail. Luce tells Devereaux and Borden to get back on the boat, and then Luce and a man from the Dara Lee’s crew pass the crates over the side. Luce boards and throws open the door to the false hold, and they load it until it is full. They push the few remaining cases to the stern, and Luce covers them with a tarp.
He comes back to the wheelhouse, revs the engine, and tells Will Borden to push them off. Bridge draws in the bowline, then comes to stand next to her brother, and they ride, the sea wind at their backs, the waves softer now underneath them. They speed through the cool black night toward shore.
Johnny Clyde meets them at Charlton Wharf just past the Knubble Rock at the end of Boathouse Row. Bridge says nothing, but she knows that on a regular night, on a real job, her brother would never have chosen that particular wharf. He would never be slack enough to unload in such a visible spot. He has grafted someone’s help. Paid the Coast Guard off.
She will stay in the boat with him, and they will run it upriver. Devereaux and Borden squeeze into the cab of the truck with Johnny Clyde. He will bring them home with the booze.
The headlamps back out and swing around. The truck turns and heads down Boathouse Row. Luce keeps the boat on a soft idle as Bridge unties them off the cleat. She holds their port side tight against the pier until the truck’s taillights have disappeared and the sound of the engine has eased into the night. She pushes them off. She coils the line four times around her arm and drops it on the deck of the boat. As Luce heads upriver on the flood tide, she comes to stand beside him at the wheel. He works the craft between Bailey Flat and Cory’s Island, then swings back into the channel. They weave through the sailboats set at mooring in the harbor and press north toward the Point Bridge. She can see the new electric lamps set on the wharf, the dock house and the Shuckers Club, the Sinclair gasoline sign outside of Blackwood’s store, the boats tied up at the town pier, the quiet dark shapes of trucks and cars. Farther up on the hill, by the pale spike of the Methodist Church steeple, she can see the windmill, its yellow arms lit like knives turning slowly through the moon.
They pass under the bridge, and Luce guns both engines. They speed through the steep black water. Bridge grips her brother’s arm. He smells of the river. He smells of the salt and of the marsh. They press faster into the darkness up the open channel, the night soft and wet and cool around them, and she has the sense that they are moving away from what they have always known, hurtling forward toward some pitch black future, and this is the night that lies between. This night belongs to them, this end-of-the-summer darkness. This night is full of every moment of their past that they have spent together, and it is full of every possibility ahead. The wind rakes her hair and nips the corners of her eyes.
Luce veers around Ship Rock, a long deliberate right turn that circles them back behind the marsh islands. They pass the entrance to Crooked Creek, then Taber Point. The moon is ahead of them, a white deep line, whole and driven through the surface. Luce follows it, but driving slower now. Bridge leans over the side of the boat, her hand stretched out into the smooth warm riverwater. She can see the moon jellies, their startling green iridescence. They pass and break and spin out through her fingers.
As they come into the Let, Luce cuts off the engine and they drift. He draws a bottle of whiskey from one of the crates still left in the boat. He breaks the seal, hands it to her, and she drinks. It is good whiskey, strong. It burns her throat. It runs hot and fast to her brain. The river is full of stars. They drink and laugh about the night, the circus of it, the roguishness of it. They joke about the expression on Devereaux’s face when Luce told them they would need guns—and about how Borden was nearly seasick by the time they came back in.
“More money than Heddy Green,” she remarks. “But no sea legs.”
Neither one of them mentions Henry.
They drink more, and she gets a little smart. She asks him how much he got paid for the night, and he tells her, and she threatens him with blackmail if he doesn’t give her half.
“Come out with me again, and then I’ll pay you.”
“I want my money first.”
“You have a taste for it, don’t you?”
“For the money?”
“For the work.”
She shakes her head. “It’s dull.”
“Nothing dull about this work, and you know it.”
“Dull to me,” she says, “but I suppose it’s good enough to keep me out of trouble.”
He laughs. “What kind of trouble you planning to get into?”
“Any kind that finds me on the road.”
He looks at her carefully for a moment, sensing something, without knowing exactly what. “Come out with me again next week,” he says. “I’ve got a good job.”
“No. I’m on vacation.”
“Come on, Bridge. I’m just breaking you in.”
“Forget about it.”
“I need you,” he says.
She doesn’t answer. She closes her eyes and leans her head against his shoulder. On the south wind that comes from over the dunes, she can hear the boneless sound of the surf.
Noel
When Noel goes out with Bridge the next morning to pull the potatoes, he can smell the liquor on her. He can smell it as clear as if someone had stuck his head in a piss-pot full of gin. He can smell it through the stink of perfume she has doused herself with to hide it. He can smell it through the reek of soap, through the sun-scrubbed scent of her
clothes.
It is the first day of September. The potato vines have died back and turned brown. He works down the furrow ahead of her, pulling up the vines. He grips them close to the ground and the leaves droop around his hand. He picks off the baby potatoes stuck to the root and leaves the hill for her to work over with the fork. He is downwind of her, and the smell of the liquor leaking out of her young skin bristles in his nose. He says nothing. Asks her nothing. He listens to the scrape of the tines against the flesh of the potatoes. She moves slowly. From the corner of his eye, he glimpses her hands, tough with the dirt and strong. She wedges the fork down into the side of the hill, then levers it up, heavy with the weight of the potatoes. She shakes the earth loose and it falls away through the gaps between the tines. She lays the potatoes down beside the dug row to dry. She lays them down gently, the way he has taught her, with enough distance between them for the air to pass between their skins. He gets another whiff of the liquor.
This is not what he wants for her.
From the day she was born, she had awakened all of his old superstitions. Even in the first few months of her life, he had tried to keep a collar on her soul. When he put her down to sleep in her cradle, he would sneak a scrap of tin under her swaddling blanket. He placed it between the folds on her chest as a shield so that nothing evil in the night could take her. When she was older, the first time he took her out in the skiff, out onto open water, he smudged her face with ash so she would not be blown away.
Hannah told him once that Kauai and the other Sandwich Isles were born out of volcanoes. Each one had come from a crack under the sea and pushed its way up from those depths to grow thousands of feet above the surface. She told him that at one point every species of tree on Kauai had come from a seed blown at random across oceans on the trade winds; every species of bird had arrived there by mistake, having lost its way. She told him that before the first tribes arrived in their canoes, Kauai and the other islands had been home only to insects, birds, trees. There were no mammals— no rodents, no cattle or wild boar—until the first pigs were brought by man. Before then, those islands had been a veritable Eden, a territory of silence and beauty, untempered, untouched—as the Arctic must have been before the coming of the whaler—as his granddaughter was.
