The Secret of Saturday Cove

by Barbee Oliver Carleton

  When David went down to the dory carrying his bait can he walked with his head held high. But for all the notice given him by the lobstermen, he might never have been there at all.

  That afternoon, and several times in the days to follow, David found himself off Tub Island. But he put the thought of treasure impatiently from his mind. If it had not been for Jonathan’s old chart and the merry chase it had led them, perhaps he would have seen trouble coming in time to prevent it. Certainly, until he had cleared his name, until he had met his obligation to Blake’s Island and to his college fund, he had no time for treasure hunting. It seemed to David that he was growing up, overnight, that he was becoming a man, engaged in a man’s livelihood filled with danger and competition. He thought often enough of Uncle Charlie’s warning, “If you keep on haulin’, they ain’t a-going to like it.”

  As the hot, clear days went by, David began to understand what the old man had meant. Everyone was getting a good catch. Prices were high. The traps apparently had not been tampered with of late. But day after day more of the townspeople left him strictly alone. By the end of the following week it seemed to David that Saturday Cove, lobstermen and townspeople together, had shrunk to his own family and the few friends who had stood by him — Poke, Mira Piper, and Poke’s Uncle Fred Kibbe at the Harbor Supply.

  “The men are afraid of you,” Poke told him one day as they sat mending trap heads on the doorstep of the shed. “They think that when lobsters get scarce they’ll find their traps hauled again.”

  “Do they ever say anything about how I get my bait?” David asked him curiously.

  “They make a remark now and then. But that sort of thing doesn’t bother Uncle Fred. Whenever your bait gets low Mira Piper seems to need some more, uh, rose fertilizer.”

  David shifted restlessly on the doorstep. What right, after all, did he have to ask Fred Kibbe to befriend him? Soon the lobstermen might decide not to trade at the Supply.

  “And Uncle Charlie always sticks up for you, too,” Poke went on. “Lately, though, he hasn’t been around very often.”

  Uncle Charlie isn’t happy hanging around the dock any more, David thought, because he’s ashamed. He taught me how to haul. And now that I have a bad record he thinks it’s his fault. “Things are mostly the way they look,” Uncle Charlie had said. And David Blake looked guilty.

  “Poke,” said David, suddenly desperate, “haven’t you seen anything yet? With the field glasses, I mean.”

  The older boy shook his dark head. “How about you?”

  “Whenever I haul,” said David in a tight voice, “I keep one eye on any other boat in sight. There just hasn’t been a thing wrong. No one even goes out of the cove late. Not regularly, anyway.”

  “I’ve been watching,” said Poke, “and I’ve been asking questions. If Roddie is the thief, there is nothing to prove it now. He has set a few traps in shoal water off Grindstone Point, and some mornings he goes out early to tend them. But mostly he neglects them.”

  “Does he ever bring in more than a dozen pounds or so?”

  Poke looked thoughtful. “I see what you mean. No, no more than he could haul from his own traps. The men say,” said Poke, “that Roddie knows very little about hauling and doesn’t bother to learn. They tell him that that boat of his is getting as messy as an osprey’s nest. But they seem to like him, and they don’t question his honesty. Of course,” said Poke, reaching for more twine, “he seems to have a good deal of spending money and he likes to treat. That helps, and it makes him feel like one of them, I suppose.”

  One of them, thought David with bitterness. “You don’t ever see him heading out after I come back in? Around sunset or later?”

  “From noon on, the Pirate lies off the yacht club as innocent as a lamb. Maybe,” said Poke, “we’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  David drew a heavy breath. “I’m beginning to think that getting proof I’m not guilty may take a long time, Poke.”

  “We can wait,” said his friend quietly.

  And wait they did through days grown short with the increased business of hauling. Twice each week David found a well-filled bait barrel in his shed. And bitter though he still felt at Perce’s refusal to sell him bait, he could smile at the thought that it was Mira Piper, fragrant with the scent of roses, who was helping to supply him with the nose-twisting redfish. Somehow, the thought of Mira Piper and Poke and his Uncle Fred, drawn together on his behalf, made the lonely days more bearable.

  One blazing Saturday noon David reached town on his bicycle a little earlier than usual. It was a “dog day,” hot, David knew, even out on the bay. Already thirsty, he turned in at The Sandwich Shoppe near the dock for an orangeade. There in a fronth booth sat Roddie McNeill with Willis Greenlaw and the Dennetts. Seeing him, their conversation faltered. For a long moment David forced himself to meet the cool mockery of Roddie’s stare.

  “Hi, lobster boy,” Roddie said softly.

  Helpless, his face flaming, David sat down on a stool at the counter. Their dislike was a pillow held over his face, suffocating him. Then he heard Roddie’s short laugh, and moments later they left the shop together, a closely knit and friendly group. Blindly, David reached for his orangeade. Without tasting it he had half emptied his glass when he heard a familiar voice beside him.

  “Good morning, David. Aren’t you the lucky one to be going out on the water on a hot day like this.” Cheerfully, Mira Piper took the stool beside David and ordered an orangeade, too.

  At once David began to feel better. He wished that he might tell this talkative little woman how grateful he was for what she had done to help him get his bait. “I want to say thank you,” he began slowly.

  “Dear me, you must mean for the rose fertilizer.” Mira Piper’s laugh trilled out delightedly. “I haven’t had so much fun in years. I should thank you for letting me keep my fertilizer in your shed.”

  “You’re welcome,” said David with some confusion. “How are your roses doing?” he added politely.

  “They’re doing quite as well as your lobsters are,” she declared. “Elijah and his Uncle Fred have kept me informed, David. I am very, very happy indeed that I can help a little.”

  They sipped their drinks in silence for a moment. Then the little woman turned to study David briefly. She appeared to make up her mind about something. “I have a problem, David, and I should like your opinion,” she said briskly. “Do you remember that day when you came to the Society with Elijah and your sister, Sally?”

  David nodded.

  “And do you remember the glass case that holds the Revolutionary War relics? It stands in the reading room where you were,” she reminded him.

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “A button is missing, David, a very rare button.” Her bright eyes searched his. “It is a pewter button from the field dress of a minuteman. My father found it years ago on Blake’s Island and I myself had loaned it to the Society. Very likely it was the property of your ancestor, John Blake.”

  David felt the blood rise foolishly into his cheeks. Did Mira Piper imagine that he might have taken the button because it had once belonged to a Blake?

  “Somebody,” she went on clearly, “opened the case and took the button. It’s valuable in itself, but as part of the history of Saturday Cove it is priceless. Whoever has taken it must care nothing about the town.”

  Roddie. Roddie McNeill had visited the Historical Society that same day. Mira Piper herself had told them so. But what would Roddie want with an old button? David’s thoughts whirled.

  “I don’t suppose,” Mira went on, “that you have any idea of what might have become of it?”

  David thought. Surely Roddie did not collect such things. And since, as Poke had said, he had plenty of spending money, he would not have stolen it to sell it. No, there was no reason to suppose that Roddie had taken the button, either to keep or to sell. David shook his head.

  “No, I haven’t any idea,” he told her honestly.

/>   “I see. Well, we shall just have to keep hoping that it will turn up,” she told him. They finished their drinks companionably enough, but David felt ill at ease. Then, with a nod, Mira Piper was out of the shop and off down the street. Through the window he caught a swift glimpse of her face, friendly as ever, but thoughtful now, and troubled.

  Would there never be an end to problems? He would ask Poke and Sally about the missing button, of course. But he knew that their mystification would equal his own.

  Feeling hotter than before he had entered, David left the shop. The noon sun beat down upon Fishermen’s Dock and glanced in waves off the cars parked near the warehouse. The chairs in front of the Supply, David noted with relief, were empty. There would be no lowered voices behind his back today.

  With the sense of escaping a world that had grown too small, too harsh, David went off to haul, guiding the Lobster Boy steadily out of the harbor. The thwart felt blistering to his touch and the cove glared like copper. David raised his burning face, waiting to feel the first breeze off Grindstone Point. But today the air was still. Lifting the surface of the bay came the long, slow swells that told of storm winds raging somewhere south of them. “There’ll be a good blow by night,” David told himself.

  He worked fast in spite of the heat, pausing now and then to dash the chill water over his face and arms and chest. As the afternoon lengthened the air grew more breathless.

  A pleasure craft not unlike the Pirate passed close by. “Looks like we’re in for it,” called its skipper cheerfully.

  “That ought to cool it off,” David told him, grateful for the man’s friendliness.

  But although a few of the lobstermen neared him occasionally, hauling extra hours as they were during the peak season, there was no greeting from them, not the slightest sign of recognition. At the end of that sweltering afternoon, David felt depressed and weary as never before in his life. His affairs seemed to have reached a low ebb, and there was no sign that the tide would ever turn.

  After supper he sat with his father on the lawn. Together, they watched the distant thunderheads roil up out of the south. “I feel as if I didn’t have a friend in the world,” David told him.

  His father’s calm face gave no hint of the long talks with his wife as David lay asleep after his hours of hauling. “Sometimes good men make bad mistakes,” he said. “It takes character, David, not to become bitter when you are falsely accused.”

  David mopped at his damp forehead. “But suppose I never do find out who robbed those traps? Whoever did it has stopped, for the time being, anyway. There just isn’t any way to prove it, now, Dad.”

  Mr. Blake polished his glasses. “I thought that might happen.”

  “The men think I’m the thief. They’re probably saying I stopped because of their warning.” Despair shook the boy’s voice.

  “Fortunately,” said his father clearly, “you haven’t time for self-pity. Just keep on doing the best you can, and things will straighten out in time, son.”

  Time, thought David listlessly. Time could mean years and years. The sea, it was true, was as filled with wonder and beauty as it ever had been. But somehow the challenge had gone from it. Whether he did well or poorly seemed to matter less with each passing day.

  His thoughts were interrupted when Sally, doing the dishes with her mother, called him to the telephone.

  “Hurry up!” she cried. “It’s Poke, and he sounds sort of queer.”

  It was Poke’s voice all right, unnaturally tense, and so hurried that David strained to hear. “I’m down at the yacht club waiting on tables,” said Poke. “Can you hear me?”

  “Sure,” said David.

  “Get on your bike and come down here fast.”

  “Tonight? Now?” David broke in, surprised.

  “Tonight. Now. Roddie just made a big scene over dessert. It began when someone asked him about his lobster business. Roddie said he had been top man for weeks and had made a pot of money.”

  “Top man!” said David in bewilderment. With only eight or ten traps? He listened and his heart began to pound.

  “Then Mr. McNeill made a remark about how the successful people stay on top once they get there. He asked Roddie what had happened lately, since he was bringing in only enough lobsters for a couple of tea sandwiches. He meant it as a joke, I think, but Roddie was hot and he said too much. He said that his father knew nothing when it came to lobstering. Roddie claimed he could be top man again any time he liked. Mr. McNeill turned as purple as a grape and told him to prove it if he wanted to keep his fancy boat.”

  David whistled.

  “Then Roddie shouted, ‘I’ll prove it, right now! I’ll be back before the dance is over, and I’ll have a couple of dozen!’ And he slammed out of here and headed for the float.” Poke paused for breath. “Listen!”

  David could hear the mingled sounds of voices and laughter, then the faint beat of a motor.

  “Poke,” he cried, “Roddie can’t count on getting a couple of dozen from his own traps, or even half that many!”

  “Exactly what I thought,” said Poke. “But nobody here knows that. If you’re waiting at the yacht club for him when he comes in, perhaps you can start a few people thinking . . . .”

  Swiftly David made up his mind. “Meet me at the town landing, Poke. Not the yacht club. The town landing!” he repeated clearly before he broke the connection.

  Then he turned to Sally. “Tell Dad I’m off for town. And tell him,” he called back over his shoulder, “I think we’ve got us a lobster thief!”

  Cutting through the kitchen, David lost no time in getting his bicycle out of the barn. Then, head low and heart racing, he headed for town. It was not until he rattled across the wooden bridge over Goose Creek that he was aware of something behind him.

  He threw a quick glance over his shoulder. There was Sally, pigtails flying, pedaling for all she was worth.

  Chapter

  8

  THE BIG BLOW

  TIME was running out. There was no time to stop, no time to argue the matter. Without a word, the two sped on and the hot evening air winged against their faces. Low in the south the heat lightning flared, and now and then thunder rumbled long in the distance.

  One by one they passed the familiar landmarks — the salt marsh, the spruce woods, the dim fields alight with fireflies. Breathing hard, they pushed their bicycles up the hill past Lookout Rock. With the wind whistling in their hair they coasted down Harbor Road, then through Main Street and onto the dock.

  Poke was waiting at the town landing.

  “Roddie just went around Grindstone Point,” he reported. “And so far, he’s been hauling only his own traps.”

  Sally was still breathless from her ride to town. But she was beginning to understand and her eyes were wide with wonder. “What are we going to do?” she panted.

  “We’re going to catch a fox,” Poke told her gravely. “But Fishermen’s Dock is the last place Roddie will land with a load of illegal lobsters. Why didn’t you two come over to the yacht club?”

  “Because I’m going out,” said David, already untying the Lobster Boy’s bow line. “This is what we’ve been waiting for, Poke. And with or without the warden, I’m going to catch Roddie in the act of hauling someone’s traps.”

  “Without another witness,” Poke said slowly, “it will be your word against Roddie’s.”

  David looked up at his friend. “Will you come, Poke?”

  Without answering, Poke moved toward the dory. Then he faltered and stopped. His face was pale in the dusk, his dark eyes tortured.

  “I can’t,” he whispered.

  Only Sally standing beside him heard, and pity for him tightened in her throat. At the same time she had no intention of being left behind.

  “David Blake,” she said clearly. “I’ve pedaled all the way to town and I’m as hot as a baked potato, and I’m coming out with you myself.”

  “Then get in and push her off.” Anger with Poke, and s
omething more than anger, made David’s voice short. He had already uncovered the motor, had swiftly checked it. Now, his lips locked tightly together, David took up the oars without another glance at his friend.

  From the bow Sally looked back at the lanky figure standing on the float. Poke stood shamed and hurt, as if someone had struck him hard.

  It was Poke who told us about Roddie tonight, she thought miserably, and we didn’t even say thank you. But now it was too late. They were already too far from the dock.

  Sally moved her legs over the thwart and faced the long cove. Somewhere out there was Roddie. She leaned forward as if to move the dory faster by her eagerness. “Can’t we use the outboard yet?” she asked.

  “We don’t want him to hear us,” said David in a low voice. “The motor’s ready if we need it.”

  Sally nodded, and excitement mounted inside her.

  “If Roddie robs any traps,” David continued, “he’ll probably haul those near the ledges where it’s darkest. So keep your eyes and ears open and don’t talk, especially when he cuts back his motor to haul.”

  David pulled steadily at the oars. Past the silent shapes of lobster boats they moved, under the taut anchor lines of the schooners. And always they kept well within the shadows. As if to aid them, the clouds had overspread the sky and blotted out the early stars.

  They passed the yacht club, gay with music, dancing with lights. When they rounded Grindstone Point the lights disappeared behind them and the music faded, lost in the growing rumble of thunder.

  Here by the ledges the buoys bobbed more plentifully. They glanced at them, wondering if Roddie had hauled them moments before.

  And then they heard the slow beat of an idling motor.

  “He’s out beyond Blake’s, I think,” David said softly. He leaned forward on the oars to listen, to wait.

  They were just off Tub Island. Sally caught the glint of water from behind the solid cove which people called The Bite. A trick of the failing daylight, she thought. With the storm moving up, it would very soon be dark. If only, before it got any darker, they might witness Roddie hauling someone’s traps. Then they could call in the warden and clear David of the charge against him. Then, at last, they would be free to search Tub Island for the treasure, just as they had planned to do that last happy morning in the fog.