The Whiskey Tide (53 page)

     
Demand for liquor was high at the bonded warehouses, but after the wait the loading went smoothly. Kate worried, though, that Billy was starting to cough. When Joe returned from the brief stop he always made at a dockside tavern to pick up last minute news of traffic and weather, he likewise looked troubled.

     
"A couple of the old-timers say there's a storm coming that'll be hellish." He scratched the stubble covering his face and squinted at distant clouds. "If we wait it out here, it could be twelve hours or better before it hits, and maybe another day before we get out. Or they could be wrong. If we head out now, and it comes up fast, we could take a pounding. What do you think?"

     
She considered. "I don't have anything near your experience with the sea, Joe."

     
He frowned toward the mouth of the harbor and the Three Sisters. "Yeah, I know. And right now I'm wishing I had half the judgment about these things as my uncles." He settled his cap on his head with decision. "I don't like the way Billy's sounding. I'd just as soon not get stuck here. Let's get clear of Fundy. Without those currents to fight, we can manage."

     
Recognizing her tension, he touched her shoulder lightly. The sharpened alertness left his eyes for a moment and they smiled at her. "Try not to worry about it. There are good coves we can put up in if need be, and a time or two back the captain from another boat told me about a couple of caves where rummers can hole up."

     
His shortage of conversation and the way he pushed the engine for the next four hours communicated his tension. The brewing storm was likely heightening his sense of limited experience in navigating Fundy waters. He relaxed visibly when they finally passed North Head lighthouse marking the start of the Grand Manan Channel and, on one side, the U.S. border.

     
The sea grew choppy on Kate's watch that night and remained so throughout the following day. Clovis was slicing potatoes for supper when the storm swept down on them. One minute Joe pointed uneasily at clouds in the distance. The next, it seemed, rain sawed down in torrents.

     
Kate was half soaked by the time she got her oilskins over her. Joe ignored his, wrestling the wheel as whitecaps appeared. A gust of wind nearly lifted Kate off her feet. A wave broke over the side of the
Folly
.

     
"Tell Billy to stay below," Joe ordered sharply.

     
She slipped on the water-slick deck as she went to comply. Billy had managed nearly a full shift while Clovis slept, but now he was so groggy with fever he merely raised his head listlessly as she relayed instructions. Even belowdecks she could feel the boat pitching wildly. Emerging above she saw another wave break, this one towering over the bow of the boat. She caught a lifeline and held as the water smacked over them.

     
"Keep a tight grip on something, both of you," Joe shouted. He was in his slicker now, his shape at times obscured by the rain. She wondered if his orders to Billy had been based on the boy's illness or fear of losing him overboard. "There's a cove about four miles ahead," Joe encouraged, his words snatched by the wind. "We'll put in there."

     
Four miles. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Too far. The
Folly
heeled halfway over and hung suspended for an eternity. Kate gagged on fear. At the front of the boat she could see Clovis on his knees, braced against furled sail and clutching a tight-wrapped halyard with both hands. She wanted to call to him, to reassure, but no words came.

     
With agonizing slowness the
Folly
righted itself. It bounced from wave to wave, whether at the mercy of the storm or steered by Joe, she couldn't tell. Another swell caught it, tipping the deck until she could no longer stand and was forced to her knees like Clovis.

     
"She won't go over!" Joe yelled hoarsely. "She's got fine balance!"

     
But Kate wondered if he believed it, and a moment later she saw his head bow as if he were willing the vessel beneath them to right itself. Or maybe he was praying. She thought of the cross and small medal he wore on a chain at his neck.

     
Again the schooner returned to level and lurched ahead. To starboard she could just make out the smudge of shoreline. Then it started to vanish. She felt an even more vicious assault by the waves as, with wind abeam, Joe struggled to set course toward the spot where the shore disappeared. It was either the cove he sought, Kate thought with hammering heart, or he was putting to land in desperation — the chances of running aground in unknown waters less daunting than the prospect of going down at sea.

Thirty-eight

     
The rain still slashed at them and the force of the wind was at least twenty knots, but compared with what they had come through, the weather in the small cove seemed like a calm spring day. On deck the three survivors gasped for breath, too drained to speak. Having so far missed rock and reef, Joe now made no attempt to steer. He slumped half braced on outstretched arms. His knuckles were white.

     
"It's one of the places I heard about," he said at length. "Wasn't sure we were as close as I thought, or that I'd find it."

     
While Joe and Clovis stirred themselves to man the bilge pumps Kate checked on Billy. He slept feverishly, oblivious to how close they'd come to disaster. She roused him to take aspirin and dampened a towel for his forehead. Then, finding a bucket and rag, she sopped up the water which had forced its way under the closed cabin door. When she'd finished, Clovis, in his hoarse whisper, reported that although the vessel had standing water everywhere it showed no sign of leaks. Joe had gone ashore. Before she could wonder about it, he reappeared over the side. The three of them held council in the only sheltered place that would hold them all, the narrow passageway belowdecks.

     
"There's one of those caves I told you about set up by other rummers." Joe wiped rain from his face, though rivulets promptly ran from his hair and hood. "Couple of blankets and plenty of wood for a fire. We'll be warmer and dryer than we would here."

     
"But what about Billy?" Kate asked. He was the only one of them not soaked to the skin. He would be if he went out.

     
"Can't have us all getting sick, Kate."

     
She saw the wisdom in it. Except for two bunks, the head and the galley, liquor crates filled every space. If below had stayed dry, they might have managed a night with her and Billy in bunks and the other two on the floor. As it was, there wasn't so much as a blanket for them. The floor itself was wet and chill.

     
"I'll stay with the boy," Clovis whispered. "I'll mind the anchor don't drift. You go."

     
Joe looked at Kate. She nodded wearily. If she refused she'd be condemning Joe and Clovis to hardship. The thought of being warm was heavenly.

     
Outside, though it was at least an hour until nightfall, the storm had sucked light from the sky. The pebbled shore was roughly thirty feet away. The stern boat, which Joe had launched for his trip ashore, already sloshed with the rain it had caught. Their oilskins were next to useless but would be welcome in the morning if they were dry. The strokes of Joe's oars carried them unerringly toward shore despite the wind. They stowed the boat behind a boulder, well out of reach of waves and tide.

     
Joe switched on a battery lantern and led the way up a steep slope. Where they brushed against trees she smelled the fragrance of cedar. Then Joe caught her hand, helping her scramble across the slippery surface of a boulder to an opening between two rocks. A few feet in she realized she no longer was being pounded by rain. The change was so welcome it outweighed apprehension at the darkness around them.

     
The sturdy square lantern threw back feeble illumination. Setting it carefully on the ground Joe discarded his oilskins. While she caught her breath he peeled paraffin from a match, struck it and started the kindling of a well-laid fire. The first leaping flames disclosed a cave at least ten feet tall and more in diameter.

     
"Take off your slicker," he said as he got to his feet. He opened an oilcloth bag he'd brought from the boat. Removing a small towel he began to dry her face as he might a child's, and then her hair. Even through the towel she could feel the capability of his hands. "You're a hell of a good soldier, Kate."

     
"I hadn't much choice." She scarcely could move her jaws, she had set them so tightly to keep her teeth from chattering.

     
"You could have curled up and let fate take its course. Plenty would have." He smiled. "I never expected you would, though." He pressed the towel into her hands. "Get your ears."

     
It was his towel. The smell of his shaving cream clung to it. The fire had caught enough for her to see extra wood stacked in one corner. Joe shook out a vague shape next to the wood and spread a blanket close to the fire, then handed her a second one.

     
"I'll turn my back. Get out of your wet things and wrap this around you."

     
She obeyed, keeping only her step-ins under the scratchy wool. The fire burned steadily now, filling the space around them with warmth, casting misshapen shadows on an uneven wall. Joe had stripped to his trousers. She watched him spread her clothes beyond reach of the sparks with calm efficiency, and reflected how that calm had saved their lives today. If she mentioned it, he would be embarrassed. That was part of Joe too, his modesty.

     
So was kindness, she thought. And fairness. Seldom did a man's strength of character equal his physical strength as it did in Joe. The latter showed in the bare muscles of his shoulders. The other she might never have known had they not, throughout many months, glimpsed each other's minds; had they not reached beyond the bounds imposed by their separate worlds to forge a connectedness which had become as vital to her as breathing. Watching him, she didn't know which aspect of him made her ache to touch his face.

     
"Joe," she said suddenly. "Make love to me."

     
He looked up, speechless. Kate stood terrified, more frightened of failing at this than she'd ever been of anything in her life.

     
"Unless... you find me too plain."

     
Her shaking hands parted the blanket, revealing herself. He froze at first, then stumbled to his feet.

     
"Mother of God, Kate!" He reached her in two steps and tried clumsily to resettle the blanket around her. "You know that's not so! Can't you see I'm crazy in love with you? That I have been almost since I set eyes on you?"

     
The blanket slipped. He fumbled for it, but found her bare shoulder instead. Their mouths met with an intensity that left them motionless except for sharp breathing. The kiss ran molten. His hand which had sought to hold the blanket went behind her, pulling her against him, and Kate caught her breath at the shock of his bareness on hers. Sensations like the storm they had weathered surged in her.

     
"Kate," he said thickly. "Kate, I've wanted so to just...."

     
They were kneeling now. He kissed her eyes, her hair, her throat. Suddenly he caught her shoulders almost painfully.

     
"Kate. Are you sure?" His eyes swept hers.

     
In answer, Kate's fingers wound themselves in his curls. They sank to the blanket, oblivious to unyielding rock beneath. With no connection to civilization, no orientation to time or space, they became the only creatures in the universe. When he entered her, he cradled her against the pain, and whispered her name as though it were the most beautiful word in the world.

***

     
Joe awoke several hours short of dawn, shaken by the reality of what he had done. Looking down at the woman who slept in his arms, he felt as awed by knowledge of her body as he'd been by any sacrament. Receiving it had been a vow to him. Never to hurt her. Never to leave her. Lying in the darkness he was gripped by sudden fear Kate might not feel the same.
     
He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek and lay memorizing her, his agony nearly as great as the night she was shot and he sat in his aunties' apartment terrified she might die. Last night everything had seemed possible. A future. Together. What if it was only the erratic behavior that sometimes sprang from escaping death that had prompted her to give herself to him?