Leon Uris (47 page)

Ben sat back and studied a master of conspiracy in his illuminating moment.

“Let’s see if I’ve got this right,” Ben said. “First you dangle a high position before his eyes with the delicious promise of a partnership. Then they separate for two years. You pray, in a Protestant manner, that Captain O’Hara gets so caught up with his mission and his life that he will recognize the futility of marriage. During his absence, you can work on Amanda, say she is abandoned, Zach is never coming back . . .

“Or!” Ben went on. “He comes back and they marry. And you’ve got what you want anyhow.”

“It’s all rather decent, isn’t it!” Horace protested.

“Suppose she is pregnant now?” Ben asked pointedly. “You going to put a bastard in the mix?”

“Ben, don’t get out of hand. That was very nasty.”

Time for a topper.

Horace sighed sadly.

“If Amanda is pregnant, we could arrange an elopement and marriage and have that documented so that when he ships out she can return to Inverness and possibly arrange an annulment. In that way the boy . . . the child, would be legitimate and even have his name changed to Kerr. Or, on the other hand, if Amanda insists, she can wait for O’Hara to return.”

Ben’s heart cried. But Horace was off and running to the music of his own voice.

“I have lost my great dream, anyhow, if Amanda doesn’t marry Glen Constable. There will be no merger, no monopoly of the Chesapeake. In order to expand and buy Constable’s option on the tidal basin, I’d have to make a public stock offering. That would mean bankers on my board of directors, stockholders screaming at me, government regulators crawling through my books . . .

“Of course I don’t have room to build another rowboat at
Dutchman’s Hook and there is a nice flow of navy contracts for the next decade, but Jesus, the navy is going to build a battleship on the West Coast, without my bid, in order to save that voyage around Cape Horn. What the fuck do cowboys and miners know about forging fourteen-inch guns? Where will they get them done—at some Indian reservation?

“So, if worse comes to worst, O’Hara will return in a few years and become a director at Dutchman’s Hook, even though it portends a bitter struggle with my own class. I can only pray that Amanda has had her fill of him in Nebo. However, to cover all bets, I should present them with my offer, should I not? What?”

“Absolutely.”

“They won’t receive me in boogeyland.”

“That would be awkward.”

“Perhaps, well, you know, you do have a powerful influence on O’Hara,” Horace hinted.

“No way.”

Horace Kerr tottered. He wanted to ask Ben to write his own ticket, any ticket. The problem was that there are some sorts you simply can’t do business with.

“Why don’t you write your daughter a letter,” Ben said.

“Will you see that she gets it?”

When Major Boone became Uncle Ben, he knew he’d put his foot in it.

Did Horace Kerr realize he’d met his match in these two people?

“I’ll see to it.”

That damned tick overtook Horace’s left eye, again.

•
43
•

The day after Sunday church, they awakened to a mood that had drifted into Veda’s lodge. The fog outside somehow had found its way in and diffused throughout the room. Amanda was tight and Zach was tight, responding to each other’s affection with some stiffness. Nor could naughty whispers lighten them up.

Was it something the preacher had said at church, or was time on everyone’s mind? Their friends looked at them fairly hurting, like taking a step back and shaking their heads and lowering their eyes before those poor kids.

Zach went to the boat pier, working mucky on shoring up a pair of sagging pilings. Ned picked it up, quicklike, and when Ulysses came bubbling down the duckboard, he threw a glance to his son to indicate that Zach was in a mood.

The village wondered how long it would be before Zach and Amanda bent.

Amanda snapped string beans in the kitchen. Pearly shuffled about moaning low some sorrowful song and it annoyed Amanda, as if it were the only damned song she knew.

Even though the sun burned the fog off by noon, seemed like the whole of Nebo was still engulfed.

Enough string beans.

She chopped at the collard greens.

“Damn!”

Amanda dropped her knife and sucked at the finger she had nipped.

“You’d think they’d know how to sharpen a knife down at the boat shed.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with that knife,” Pearly said.

Amanda caught her breath, rocking on the stool, as though she’d just run a long distance.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” Pearly said touching her shoulder. Amanda threw her arms around Pearly and rested her head in that old flat place and stifled her sobs quickly.

“It’s okay, baby girl. Now, now. You two been so brave, we’ve all been wondering when the fears would start to take over.”

Amanda held on until she stopped reeling, said she was all right, and tried to jack up a smile.

“I told myself not to start counting days and we’ve tried so hard but so that—”

“Amanda, when you talk that fast, the end of what you’re saying overtake the front of what you’re saying and it sure comes out confusing.”

Amanda toughened. “I’ll be all right, now.”

“Anything in particular you’d care to let me know?” Pearly asked.

She thought about it a moment and shook her head and attacked the collards again.

“Pearly?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Is there a ghost in Veda’s cottage?”

“Everybody in Nebo got their own special ghost.”

Someone’s been in there with us for the last two nights.”

“It’s just the world calling you back.”

“No, it’s a ghost with a voice and I know Zach hears it. He wakes up suddenly and puts his hands to his face and gasps. He never says anything, but I feel his sweat when he lies back down and I can hear his heart pounding.”

“Here, let me cut these greens, you’re making a mess.”

“I’m dog tired,” Amanda said. “I spend the nights watching him, listening to him breathe. I’m going to excuse myself. I have to set a fire and have some hot water for his tub.”

“You better rest some.”

“I will. I’ll curl up in the loft and take a nap. It’s nice up there.”

Pearly went to the cup nook, took a waiting envelope, and handed it to Amanda.

“This come early. Sheriff Bugg delivered it, personal. Folks are knocking at the door . . . knocking at the door.”

Amanda stared at the envelope, knowing Horace’s perfect flaring handwriting.

For Miss Amanda Blanton Kerr. Personal. Hand-Deliver to Ned Green.

She hesitated, fingering it, turned it over to its seal, and there was written
I Implore You to Read This.

“I’m going. If Zach stops by, tell him I’m napping in the loft and there is hot water on the stove by the tub and—”

“You better get some sleep, baby, you look like hell.”

It was dusk. Zach’s footsteps outside brought her to a half-conscious state, fighting her way out of a gray third of a hard dream. She sat up groggy in the loft as he opened the door downstairs.

“Amanda?” he called.

Before she could answer, she was shocked by his scream. “Amanda! Amanda!”

She could watch him through the railing, staggering, hit by a sudden rush of terror.

“Amanda!”

She did not answer, but waited, watching him fall against a wall. “Leave me alone, Da!” Zachary screamed.

And she waited till he quieted.

“Is that you, sweetheart?” she called down.

Zach groaned with relief.

“What are you doing up in the loft?”

“Taking a nap. There’s hot water on the stove. I’ll be right down.”

“All right . . . all right. I’ll take care of it.”

He drew the curtain to the tub alcove behind him and, in time, came out, a little melted and calm, and he dressed wordlessly.

She sat before a mirror and brushed her hair.

The grandmother’s clock chimed fading and squealy like baby birds in a nest squawking for food. Amanda went to the clock and opened the cabinet to reset the weights.

“Let the damned thing run down. I’m sick of hearing it,” he snapped. After a moment: “Somehow I was startled when you weren’t here. The cold at the pier went right through me, today. Sorry. Since when have you napped in the loft?”

“I like it up there. I feel safe, like a rail bird. No one can see me.”

“Sorry,” he repeated. “Sorry about my rotten mood.”

“This is going to be painful enough without us turning on each other. We’re going to have to get through these next days together,” she said.

He kissed her well, not desperately, but soothingly and comfortingly. “I must tell you something that I should have told you our first day in Nebo, but I was leery of saying anything that could upset that moment,” he said.

“Then?”

“I’m not much of a Catholic but I believe in God and God had something to do with us coming together here in Nebo.”

“Very much.”

“From the first time we made love, I knew that if you con
ceived, I would take it as a message from God and resign from the Corps without a backward glance and spend my life loving you and caring for our family.”

“I’ve always known that, Zach. But if we haven’t conceived, is it likewise a message from God?”

He was silenced.

“I’ve been fawned over all my life and that doubles as a curse,” she said. “If you’re fawned over, you also become the target of many hateful stings of envy. I built a space between myself and everyone else in order to protect myself and I played it very haughty. Willow was the only person to ever become a soul mate. All of the rest were under my control and some were afraid of me.

“And along came Zachary O’Hara, who was not going to serve the princess nor do her bidding. Therefore, I had to subjugate you. When you so rightly saw through my scheme and refused to escort me to the Constitution Ball, my rage at your rejection could have burned down a forest. I have inherited from my father the nature of imposing authority and could stand anyone down, including my father.”

She took the crystal top from the carafe and poured them wine.

“I wanted to hate you and hurt you last summer in Newport. However, when I hissed out my letter of dismissal to you, it brought me no solace. From the moment you took to Lilly, I knew no sleep without torment and I was determined to hate you more, until that day at the casino.

“You closed the curtain of our booth and gripped my arm. Well, Zachary, I received my message from God and it was orgasmic. I told God that I would settle for this month in Nebo and I also told Major Ben I would do nothing to make you leave the Marine Corps. I thought I could trick God and become pregnant so it would be your honorable decision to resign from the Corps and not mine. But God didn’t buy it. I’m not pregnant.”

Amanda took up the letter from Horace.

“This came early. It is from my father.” She broke the seal and read in a shivery voice.

My Beloved Daughter, Amanda,

Life shall remain unbearable for me until you grant me peace through your forgiveness.

I have wronged you and I have wronged Zachary O’Hara in a nefarious manner.

I will accept whatever decision the two of you make with no further high dudgeon on my part.

I have come to learn that Zachary is an outstanding young man with a brilliant career ahead.

If you wish to marry, I will not withhold my approval. If you feel it wise to wait, I shall wait with you.

When Zachary deems that his military service is completed, I shall welcome him as my son-in-law with an eye to him becoming in the future the director of Dutchman’s Hook.

Arrogance yet exists in us strongly from the time of slavery. The class system continues to linger, but I shall work ceaselessly for Zachary’s acceptance and recognition. I do this with the same passion that you have for your work in women’s education.

Yes, I have laid myself bare, so let us not dillydally. I respect the fact that he is a Roman Catholic and I certainly shall honor his decision not to convert. But please find this reasonable: The only thing I ask is that your offspring be raised in a Protestant manner. I cannot sign over my grandchildren (I thrill at that word) to the Roman clergy and still win over my establishment. I live as, and need to continue being, an industrialist. These are the facts of my life and I cannot change the order of things.