68 Knots (29 page)

“Should I be?” Dawn said, grinning.

“Maybe. Oh, shit,” Arthur said.

“Can you say that as a question?”

Arthur smiled. “Oh, shit?”

Dawn shook her head. “Can't you do better than that?”

“Why should I?”

“Shouldn't you always try to do better?” Dawn said.

“Hmmm . . . aren't goals overrated?” Arthur said. “Whatever happened to just doing what you wanted to do?”

“Can't you do that now?”

“Are
you
free to do anything you want to do?” Arthur said.

“To be free, do you have to be
totally
free?” Dawn said.

“Isn't ‘partial freedom' a contradiction in terms?”

“Why isn't it enough to be free in spirit?”

“Is that all you want to be?” Arthur asked.

“What else is there?” Dawn said.

“Can't you be free in body, too?” Arthur asked.

Dawn smiled. “Why are we talking about my body?” she said.

“Isn't it arrogant to think that freedom of body is the same thing as freedom of
your
body?” Arthur said.

“Do you object to arrogance?”

“Isn't arrogance just a defense against vulnerability?” Arthur said.

“Are you now objecting to vulnerability?”

“How do you feel about ‘vulnerability' and ‘your body' being talked about in the same discussion?” Arthur asked.

“Why do my feelings matter to you?” Dawn said.

“Damn, you're good at this,” Arthur said. “Okay, wait. Um . . . shouldn't your feelings matter to me?”

“Doesn't concern over someone's feelings imply a certain intimacy?” Dawn asked.

“Are you afraid of intimacy?” Arthur said.

“Are you?”

“No fair.”

“Okay,” Dawn said. “Would you be worried if I were afraid of intimacy?”

“Would it bother you if I were concerned about your feelings?”

“Weren't we talking about intimacy?” Dawn asked.

“Okay, would it bother you if we were intimate?” Arthur asked.

Dawn was silent for a moment. A long moment.

“No,” she said. “It wouldn't.”

They kissed for a long time, warm and safe inside their thick sweaters and oiled slickers. The air was cold, and the stars were fading to advancing light. From below came the sounds of people getting out of bed and Crystal clanking pots in the galley. The aroma of coffee and hot cocoa drifted upward.

Dawn smiled. “Does this mean what I think it means?” she said.

Arthur returned the smile. “Does it mean as much to you as it does to me?” he asked.

“Why do you suppose we took so long?”

“Shouldn't something like this take a long time?” Arthur asked.

Dawn nodded. “The best things always do,” she said.

Brimstone Island suffered from overstatement. It was an ordinary little island, a small green teardrop bobbing close to the southeast side of Vinalhaven. Its most impressive feature was a façade of steep cliffs that surged up from rocky ocean to pine woods above. The
Dreadnought
approached from the southwest side of the island, where the cliffs were especially steep and the water was deep close in to shore. Marietta was at the helm, and with sarcastic complaints and backhanded orders, she guided the ship into anchor position. The other sailors, stretching and yawning in the early morning chill, dropped and stowed the sails with automatic efficiency.

The cliffs were full of holes. Dozens of them. White-and-black terns swirled and darted through the air in a rapid-fire ballet, screaming at the unjust swiftness of insects.

Marietta scanned the coast for some kind of sign, but she found nothing. “It's a lie,” she said with a scowl. “That crazy bitch told us a lie. She just wanted to see whether we'd spend the rest of our lives crawling in and out of those stupid caves. Even if there is treasure in there, we'd spend the rest of the summer just trying to figure out which cave is the right one.”

“Not necessarily,” Dawn said, pulling her ponytail through her red cap. “Bonnie said we had to get here by eight o'clock, because that's when the extreme low tide would happen. It's six thirty now. I think we should wait a little while and keep our eyes on those cliffs.”

Logan glanced at Crystal. “We don't need, like, everyone for that,” he said, hoping to sound adventurous. “Let's leave a lookout or two and go ashore. I'm totally curious about this Brimstone Island.”

“So am I,” Arthur said, “but I'm going to bed. I need a nap before we explore the cave.”

“I need some time to meditate,” Dawn said, flashing a smile at Arthur. “It's much more refreshing than a nap.”

“I'll go to the island with you, Logan,” Joy said. Several others—Crystal, BillFi, and Jesse—pulled on their sneakers and agreed to join the shore party. With a dismissive wave of her hand, Marietta stretched out on deck and oiled her skin with a perfumed tanning lotion despite the sun's faint gleam from low across the water.

The dinghy shoved off, and the oarlocks screeched as Jesse pulled against the oars.

“Be back by 7:45,” Dawn called after them. “We'll need everyone here to watch for our mysterious cave.”

Logan smiled. “Wouldn't, like, miss it for the world.”

When the dinghy bumped against the base of the cliffs, the reality of this side trip set in. The cliffs rose almost straight up a good ninety feet, and while cracks and ledges made climbing seem possible, one mistake would cause a body to plummet to a swift death on the rocks below. Dark-green moss clung to the rocks at the base. A stiff breeze rustled the pine branches far overhead.

“Oh, well,” Logan said. “Maybe there's, like, an easier way on the other side of the island.”

“Not likely,” Crystal said. “This whole island is steep. Besides, this doesn't look all that bad.” She grabbed two large coils of rope from the bottom of the dinghy and looped them over her head and one shoulder. Then she kicked off her shoes and vaulted nimbly out onto a rock. Without another word, she began to climb the cliff.

“You're crazy!” Logan shouted. “You'll totally get yourself killed.”

Crystal said nothing. She climbed slowly, scanning the coarse face for handholds and ledges. Her long legs were an asset; at times, to get into the best position, she would reach one foot nearly up to her shoulders, bending with a supple grace that complimented her physical strength. The dusty ledges left white marks on her callused feet. When she was thirty feet up, she paused for a moment on a wide ledge, her breathing hard but controlled. Then she climbed on, disappearing from time to time behind outcroppings, then emerging again as the rock face jutted into the air.

“She made it!” Logan shouted when he saw Crystal wave from the top. “I wonder what it's like up there.”

“Only one way to find out,” BillFi said with a grin. From above, Crystal's rope tumbled down in a coil, unfurling as it fell. The last few feet of the rope splashed into the water just a short distance from the dinghy.

“It's tied off!” Crystal shouted down. “Use it to climb! The view is incredible!”

Logan studied the cliff, the crumbling ledges, the gull droppings, the lichen and weeds. He watched as a small pebble bounced and popped down the cliff, spinning wildly and
crashing into one rock after another, then landing with a dull clack against the granite that barely rose out of the ocean nearby. His stomach churned sourly from nerves and last night's gin. But at the top of that cliff was Crystal, and this morning might represent his only chance to be alone with her.

The climb would be long, and he knew it wouldn't stop at the cliff's rim. Logan had found Crystal attractive from the start, with her tight muscles and her short blond hair. Even while McKinley was screaming orders and the “campers” were enduring soggy sleeping bags and incessant “demotions,” Logan had admired Crystal's coolness, her confidence, and her willingness to keep herself just a bit distant from the rest of the crew. Early in the second week of McKinley's cruise, a squall had swept through, catching McKinley and the crew off guard, and everyone had to scramble to keep the ship from heeling too far or taking on too much water. The crew was doing reasonably well for a young and inexperienced team, but everyone on board was getting tired. Then without warning, a gust hit that caused the ship to lean sharply. BillFi lost his balance and slipped on the wet deck—and his thick, plastic-rimmed glasses skittered across the floorboards, through a scupper, and over the side of the ship.

Crystal didn't miss a beat. She leapt up from her position tending one of the sheets—Logan swore she had started moving before the glasses left BillFi's head—and she grabbed a tied-off halyard and bounded over the side. No one was quite sure whether she actually hit the water or not, but an instant later she was standing near the bow with the halyard in one hand and the eyeglasses in the other.

When she handed the glasses back to BillFi, he nearly cried. Without them, he was blind, and their loss would mean
an end to his summer at sea. Crystal didn't say a word—she acted like she did this sort of thing every now and then just to pass the time. She just coiled the halyard, returned it to its cleat, and once again took her position at the main sheet. Logan had pulled the sheet as tight as he could, but Crystal braced her feet against a support and pulled it even tighter.

McKinley glowered toward the crew.

“What are you all staring at?” he had bellowed. “Don't you have work to do?”

Standing at the bottom of the cliff, Logan knew he'd have a lot of work to do trying to keep up with Crystal. But he thought he saw Crystal wave at him, encouraging him to climb. It was the only encouragement she had ever given him, so he clambered over the side of the dinghy, wobbled gracelessly across the short expanse of rock, and grabbed the cliff.

At first the rope was unnecessary and in the way. Cracks and shelves in the rocks made climbing easy, and Logan—despite jeans too tight for his soft and rounded frame, despite high-top sneakers that were never laced up, despite the skein of red hair that harassed his eyes, and despite the geyser in his belly that boiled in protest against a long stretch of over-drinking and a short burst of adrenaline-fueled acid—groped clumsily for large handholds and luxuriously solid footholds. He ignored the rope and pulled himself upward, grunting higher and higher off the ground until his body wavered and quivered fully five feet above the rocks. He looked up at the spinning cliff above him. He looked down at the surging waves below. He looked straight ahead at the tiny spider that moved with inefficient flailing across the knuckles of his right hand.

It was all too much. He let go of the cliff and shook off the spider. Then, reeling for balance, he twirled around and
grabbed the rope. At that moment—with his feet wedged in a notch in the rock and his sweaty hands clinging to the coarse and solid rope—his stomach, sick from days of abuse with sugar and nights of abuse with alcohol, emptied itself into the air. He vomited from five feet up, waited until the heaves were finished, and then lowered himself awkwardly down. He staggered back to the dinghy and flopped into its cool bottom, his face twisted into an embarrassed grimace. “I hate this shit!” he wheezed out loud.

From the top of the cliff, Crystal waited to see whether her friends would join her. She peered over the edge of the cliff and saw the others still sitting in the dinghy, Logan lying on his side. She watched for a moment, then knew she was alone.

She looked around. The view from the top was indeed incredible. To the northwest, the island of Vinalhaven, with houses and roads and radio towers. To the east, Isle au Haut, a dark-green mass silhouetted against the sun. To the southwest, the low shapes of Matinicus and Wooden Ball. And to the south, nothing but open ocean and misty sky. Some gulls flew by, off in the distance, unfazed by altitude and gravity and travel in three dimensions.

Crystal looked around. The top of the island was a large bluff covered with low pines and shrubs, interrupted here and there by grassy meadows filled with short briars and small bright-yellow flowers. She followed a narrow break in the trees. No people moved among the bushes, but a shallow, mossy cellar hole showed that someone, a long time ago, had tried to make a life here. Crystal jumped down into the depression.

The ground was cool and damp, the earth a rich and pungent black.

Probably the rotten old boards of the house, Crystal thought. Why would some idiot build a house clear out here? And how did they get up here?

She imagined a small cottage, tidy but unpainted, with a porch that faced the morning light. A living room, a kitchen with a wood stove for cooking and heating, a low sleeping loft overhead with a narrow ladder and a kerosene lamp. Outside, a root cellar and a small garden with carrots, potatoes, snow peas, and onions. Long dark winters, bitter and desolate, followed by the salvation of spring and the warm caress of the summer sun. Then brief, brilliant autumn, and yet another winter. An endless cycle of seasons in a dollop of acreage bound in by the sea. And the mainland so far away.