The Shore (32 page)

“It has been right lonely since my Kit passed on, but I'm not thinking that's exactly what you're meaning,” he said.

I shook my head in a no, and sipped again. He knew what I was after, but I didn't want to be so direct about it right off. He shook his head at me sadlike. “Weigh it may, but no man could ask it of a Halfman to hold and raise children, and no man could ask it of his love to go without.” He'd kenned my purpose so
I changed tack sharpish, not quite certain how I was going to bring him about.

“Well,” I said, “Keeper's a right high place to hold on the Island, wouldn't you say?”

“Right high,” he said back and emptied the little cup.

“There's them that say no one can mend and make nets as fine as Wink,” I added, and he nodded smartish. “And of course the Keeper gets his hut built fine for him of weathered wood, and has fish and fowl and all he would need set at his door, besides.” He nodded at this too. “Well then, sir. I know Wink. He's a steady man, and set up comfortlike. It crushes him lifeless, being all alone through the cold.”

“Never been a Keeper with a love before,” he said slow, but I could see the thought working in his head like bread rising in the sun.

“True, but no reason it shouldn't be. Wink could hold and love her good as any, perhaps better, since he's so fair set up and doesn't have the eyes to be tempted away by other men's loves.”

He nodded at this, then sat still a moment. “Mal died of gangrene this spring, you recall, and his motherless Floss has been resting in my hut since, quieter than a cotton boll. Man with hands that magic could tease out the words again, wouldn't you say?” he asked, and I could see a touch of mischief in his eye. The tears must have clumb up to his head, and got him in the temper I needed him to be.

“Fair plan enough,” I answered back. “He'll be right happy.”

“But now I wonder—” he turned back—“why you're frettin' on a love for the Keeper and not yourself? You've not brung me up here sole from your heart's kindness, Simian.” I blushed at that. “What's preying on your mind?”

“You've said it, sir. What woman would have a Halfman?”

“Find the right woman, and all she'll fret on is whether she'll get a brood by you.” He looked at me slantwise and grinning saying this.

“I'm right certain I can give that at least,” I laughed it off. Truth was, I didn't know if I could, as many Halfmen couldn't, but I didn't want to even think it.

“Then the worry would be provisioning the brood you got, and keeping them comfortlike?” I nodded at that. “No Halfman I know of has ever done so.”

“I know it,” I said.

“Keeper would be one thing, but you…” He didn't say I was a nothing to the Keeper, but I couldn't deny it. He thought on more.

“But no Halfman has ever had this—” he raised his little cup, which I had filled yet again—“nor had the making of it. That could be the keepin' of you and yours.”

“Keeper says it has its uses,” I said. “Besides the warming and the softening of your aches.”

“Simian,” he said most sternlike, “you have the kenning of a marvelous gift, and the only man to have it. That's a treasure least as high as the Keeper's, and men will trade fish'n'fowl'n'what-have-you for a measure. What love you want can be yours.”

He started out rattling off the girls of the Island, and for every one he named I had a reason or three why I wouldn't do for them. Some too tall, others too broad, some too small, others flitlike and deserving lively husbands. We were playful about it, and he rocked a bit in his speaking, but I was in dead earnest. Was scared about this part, truth to tell, but the thought in the
back of my head of Jillet with another, of being a burthen at my brother's hearth, with a young love and all the sweetness between them turning me lonesome'n'bitter, drove me on. Came to the end of the girls, and he shook his head.

“Halfman, you are hard to please,” he laughed.

“There's one you haven't sung out,” I said. “Think this gift would be good enough to keep your Jillet?”

He started up at this, but unsteady. “My Jillet stays where she is.”

I didn't answer right off, just poured out his cup again. I'd had time with the tears, learned how much softened my aches and how much tipped me over, so I was firm and steady yet.

“These here gods' tears are worth their weight and more in fish'n'fowl, didn't you say?” I asked softlike, and he nodded warm. “Time'll be, naught but the Keeper will have more laid at his door in trade, and never could I brew enough to keep every house with a full pot.” I looked up at him, slowlike. “Wouldn't it be fitsome for the Bigman's pot to be everfull, without a fish nor a fowl changing hands?” He turned his cup in his hands, and thought on this. “T'would be a fitting gift for a new-bought son to give his father, a full gourd of tears, with the promise of as much as he could want without the bother of kenning the craft. And a goodly gift to have in the snow, when even a new-mint brood of grandbabbies won't keep out the cold.”

It was most likely the mention of those grandbabbies what won him over, and we sat up all through the night, sipping at my pot of tears and naming all the grandbabbies I'd give him. But I knew he wouldn't like it when the tears had flowed out of him, so when his eyes closed and the cup dropped from his hand, I nipped out across the Island.

The moon was shinin fair'n'full, but the cold burned up through my good leg and made me stumble. Bigman's hut was full across the Island, and I was winded when I dropped to my knees aside it. His dogs knew me well by then, and scarce stirred when I stepped over them to get to his hut. All his great hulking boys was stretched out inside, like the dogs without, but I moved around to the back without going in. Jillet had her own little space, curtained off with kidskin for privicy, and I slit the stitching near the ground and put my head inside. She was all stretched out on her rug, warm'n'deep asleep, but soon as I touched her she sprang up smartlike. I whispered to her that her father had given his go-ahead, and we had to go quicklike if we aimed to keep it. I feared that she'd set back down at that and wouldn't budge, but instead she moved sharpish to the edge of her rug, asking me what had taken me so long, and fetched out a bundle that I reckoned held everything she'd be wanting to take. That caught me sideways unexpected: she had no way of knowing that I'd be coming for her. But there's no explaining lovelies, so it's not worthwhile trying to understand.

We legged it back across the Island, her trailing her silvery laugh in the moonlight all the way behind her, making for the light-watch 'n' the gully 'n' the hidey-hole where first I'd found that copper gourd. When my arms were all covered in burns 'n' I was thinking I'd never get a love I'd swept it out clean and cut a pair of windows in the bank for air, and when I started on thinking it might actually happen I laid away fish'n'fowl 'n' the thickest, newest sleeping skins could be had over the Island.

I got her in there close on to sunrise, when the sky was its darkest. She looked around and said how clever a place it was, smart'n'neat'n'secretlike, and how none of the other Islandmen
would have set up a hidey-hole half as nice for his honeymonth. She took her bundle what I'd been carrying and began to unbundle it, and that's when my vinegar ran out. I dropped down and told her how I'd found the copper gourd and brewed up a liquor to turn a man's head, and used it to get her father's go-ahead, and how I expected he'd come for me when the sun rose. And I told her about all the nights I'd lain awake wanting to be settin'n'talkin' with her, and my fear of ending my days at another man's hearth without love nor child to call my own, and how I feared I'd never get her a child, till she stopped all my blathering with a kiss. It was the longest 'n' the sweetest 'n' the most comfortsome kiss I ever had, being the first one I'd ever tasted, and after that I shut my crying up tight.

She didn't stop at one, but kept on and showed me all the things no one'd ever bothered explaining, figuring I'd never have the needing of them. Wasn't nothing painsome about it, the two of us tucked away all snug and comfortlike there as the days ran along. Tradition went, we'd have a moon of privicy before we had to go out blushing to face the world, and I was glad of the time to let my new father simmer down. Wasn't nothing Trower Bell could do about it after that night; once a maid's been pierced there's no snitching her back, and he couldn't say I'd taken her against hers nor his nor anyman's will. Sometimes, curled up with her there, it got a bit mixed around in my head who'd been doing the piercing, as I'd felt like nothing more than an innocent maid that first night with only half an idea of what I was doing, and she as purposeful'n'knowing as they say a man is supposed to be. But about then she'd cuddle up and kiss my neck, and I figured I didn't care who did what to who, so long as I got to keep her.

Byandby, Trower Bell forgot his raging at being tricked out of his only daughter, and byandby we gave him a fat dumpling of a darling grandbabbie. He had naught but smiles for me and mine after that, and Jillet had never had naught but smiles for me from the start. I was just so full of sunshine from the knowing that I hadn't cursed Jillet to pass on without a brood that I wouldn've cared if it'd been a Halfman like me. Instead, I'd got her a perfect little daughter, nothing but smiles'n'sweetness. Everyone loved on her so much she barely touched ground between birth and her walking year.

I wasn't wrong about the tears of the gods I'd stewed up. Me and mine have all we need and more: a warm hut, thick skins, the best of the Island fish. It got me something I didn't expect to be getting, though: no one calls me “Halfman” no more, but talk up to me like I'm whole'n'sound as anyman.

Afternoons, I take myself sometimes over to Wink's hut in the dunes, and he'n'I sit quietsome, kenning how the grasses blow, sipping our silky-soft tears and whispering on the old times. His Floss works quietlike in'n'out 'n' all around us, but she never stops smiling, now. Our babbies crawl over our crisscrossed knees and tumble in the sand in front of us, and sometimes our hearts feel so full they're like to burst.