Part 10 (1/2)

Dennis clicked his tongue as though he'd heard her say a dirty word.

”Talk to Alvin Yark. See if he'd make you something. He makes good boats. I'd make something for you, but he'll do it quicker and it'll cost you less. I'll put a bulkhead in, long as n.o.body sees me doing it, touching this thing, but you better talk with Alvin. You got to have a boat. That's certain.”

Bunny ran up to the house, thumb and forefinger pinched together.

”Aunt, the sky is the biggest thing in the world. Guess what's the littlest?”

”I don't know, my dear. What?”

”This.” And extended her finger to show a minute grain of sand.

”I want to see.” Suns.h.i.+ne charged up and the particle of sand was lost in a hurricane of breath.

”No, no, no,” said the aunt, seizing Bunny's balled fist. ”There's more without number. There's enough sand for everybody.”

13.

The Dutch Cringle ”A cringle will make an excellent emergency handle for a suitcase.”

THE ASHLEY BOOK OF KNOTS.

”BOY, there's a sight down here to the wharf. Never the like of it in these waters.” The booming voice rattled out of the wire and into Quoyle's ear. ”With the smell of evil on it. I wouldn't put to sea in it for all the cod in the world. Better take a look, boy. You'll never see anything like it again.”

”What is it, Mr. Shovel? The flags.h.i.+p of the Spanish Armada?”

”No, boy. But you bring your pencil and your camera. I think you can write more than arrival and departure times.” He hung up.

Quoyle was not glad. A gusting rain fell at a hard angle, rattling the windowpanes, drumming on the roof. The wind bucked and buffeted. It was comfortable leaning his elbow on the desk and rewriting a Los Angeles wreck story Nutbeem had pulled off the [113] radio. An elderly man stripped naked by barroom toughs, blindfolded and shoved into freeway traffic. The man had just left the hospital after visiting a relative, had gone into a nearby bar for a gla.s.s of beer when five men with blue-painted heads seized him. Tert Card said it showed the demented style of life in the States. A favorite story with Gammy Bird Gammy Bird readers, the lunacy of those from away. Quoyle called back. readers, the lunacy of those from away. Quoyle called back.

”Mr. Shovel, I sort of hate to drop what I'm doing.”

”Tell you, it's. .h.i.tler's boat. A pleasure boat built for Hitler. A Dutch barge. You never seen anything like it. The owner's on board. They says the paper's welcome to look her over.”

”My G.o.d. Be there in about half an hour.”

Billy Pretty stared at Quoyle. ”What's he got, then?” he whispered.

”He says there's a Dutch boat that belonged to Hitler down at the public wharf.”

”Naw!” said Billy, ”I'd like to see that. Those old days, boy, we had the Germans prowling up and down this coast, torpedoed s.h.i.+ps they did right up there in the straits. The Allies got a submarine, captured a German sub. Took it down to St. John's.

”We had spies. Oh, some clever! This one, a woman, I can see her now in a old duckety-mud coat, used to pedal her squeaky old bike up the coast once a week from Rough Shop Harbor to Killick-Claw, then go back down the ferry. I forget what she gave out for a story why she had to do all that bikin', but come to find out she was a German spy, countin' the boats all up and down, and she'd radio the information out to German subs lurking offsh.o.r.e.”

”Get your slicker then and come on.”

”We always heard they shot her. Just didn't show up one week. They said she was caught down at Rough Shop Harbor and executed. Said she dodged her bike through the paths, screaming like a crazy thing, the men after her, run like engines before they run her down.”

Quoyle made a sucking noise with the side of his mouth. He did not believe a word.

There was a hole in the station wagon's floor and through it spurted occasional geysers of dirty rainwater. Quoyle thought enviously of the aunt's pickup. He couldn't afford a new truck. Frightening how fast the insurance money was going. He didn't know where the aunt got it. She'd paid for all the house repairs, put in her share for groceries. He'd paid for the road, the new dock. For the girls' beds, clothes, the motel bill, gas for the station wagon. And the new transmission.

”Wish I'd worn me logans,” shouted Billy Pretty. ”Didn't know the bottom half of your car was missin'.”

Quoyle slowed not to splash the graceful, straight-backed woman in the green slicker. G.o.d, did it rain every day? The child was with her. Her eyes straight to Quoyle. His to her.

”Who is that? Seems like I see her walking along the road every time I come out.”

”That's Wavey. Wavey Prowse. She's takin' her boy back from the special cla.s.s at the school. There's a bunch of them goes. She got it started, the special cla.s.s. He's not right. It was grief caused the boy to be like he is. Wavey was carrying him when Sevenseas Hector went over. Lost her husband. We should of give her a ride, boy.

”She was going the other way.”

”Wouldn't take a minute to turn round. Rain coming down like stair rods,” said Billy.

Quoyle pulled in at the cemetery entrance, turned, drove back. As the woman and child got in Billy said their names. Wavey Prowse. Herry. The woman apologized for their wetness, sat silent the rest of the way to a small house half a mile beyond the Gammy Bird Gammy Bird. Didn't look at Quoyle. The yard beyond the small house held a phantasmagoria of painted wooden figures, galloping horses, dogs balanced on wheels, a row of chrome hubcaps on sticks. A zoo of the mind.

”That's some yard,” said Quoyle.

”Dad's stuff,” said Wavey Prowse and slammed the door.

Back along the flooding road again toward Killick-Claw.

[115] ”You ought to see the chair he made out of moose antlers,” said Billy. ”You set in it, it's comfortable enough, but to the others it looks like you sprouted golden wings.”

”She has very good posture,” said Quoyle. Tried to cancel the stupid remark. ”What I mean is, she has a good stride. I mean, tall. She seems tall.” Man Sounds Like Fatuous Fool. In a way he could not explain she seized his attention; because she seemed sprung from wet stones, the stench of fish and tide.

”Maybe she's the tall and quiet woman, boy.”

”What does that mean?”

”A thing me old dad used to say.”

”There she is.” They peered through the streaming winds.h.i.+eld. The Botterjacht stood out from every other boat at the wharf, tied up between a sailing yacht whose Australian owners had been there for two weeks, and the cadet training s.h.i.+p. From above, the barge looked like a low tub with strange and gigantic shoehorns on its sides. A crewman in a black slicker bent over something near the cabin door, then walked swiftly aft and disappeared.

”What are those things on the side? Looks like a big beetle with a set of undersize wings.”

”Lee boards. Work like a centerboard. You know. You raise and lower a centerboard in a sailing boat so as to add keel. Some calls it a 'drop keel.' You got a shoal draft boat, my boy, she has to work to windward, you'll bless your centerboard. Now, with your lee boards, see, you don't loose any stowage s.p.a.ce. The things is hung out on the side instead of down in the gut of the boat. A centerboard trunk takes up s.p.a.ce.” Billy's worn shape down to the bones, cast Quoyle as a sliding ma.s.s.

A light shone in the cabin. Even through the roaring rain they could see the boat was a treasure.

”Oak hull, I guess,” said Billy Pretty. ”Look at her! Look at the mast on her! Look at that cabin! Teak decks. Flat and low and wide. Never saw a shape like that on a boat in me life-look at them bluff bows. Look how she points up on the stem like a Eskimo knife. See the carving?” Her name was painted on an elaborately [116] carved and gilded ribbon of mahogany-Tough Baby, Puerta Malacca. They could hear m.u.f.fled voices.