Season of Storm (21 page)

"It's you!" she croaked thankfully, running to the companionway as he came down, to touch him, to hold him, to be sure he was there safe. "You've been gone
hours!
What happened?"
 

Johnny smiled at her and shook his head. "Nothing happened," he said. He handed her a plastic shopping bag from a grocery chain. "Here's your handbag. And your passport."

She closed her eyes. "My God, you did it!" she cried, feeling suddenly light-headed. "How did you do it?"

But she knew how he had done it, just as they had planned: he had rented a car, a big Cadillac that would not seem out of place at her father's house; he had waited till dark, then driven to the front door, found the key and gone in as though he owned the place. He had turned on the hall light, and then he had gone quickly upstairs and into her father's bedroom and then her own, then back downstairs and into the car before anyone could come to investigate.

"Just as planned?" she asked, and Johnny nodded.

"I didn't realize it would take so long!" she chattered in relief. "I was afraid you weren't coming back!" Johnny stroked her hair and smiled.

"That's fair," he said. "I was afraid you wouldn't be waiting for me."

She had wanted to go with him, but he had said the risk would be far greater if she did. He had left her unguarded on the
Outcast
at a public dock by a restaurant. He hadn't tried to lock her in. She could have left at any time. She hadn't wanted to. The world was as much her enemy as Johnny's now....
 

They applied for the license at noon the next day, in the Robson Square court buildings. Smith had wanted to sail to a small town up the coast, but Johnny's arguments had convinced her that no town was cut off from radio and television, and as strangers they would be more noticeable in a small town than in the crowded lunch-hour traffic of Robson Square, where a marriage license was probably issued every five minutes.

"You see?" Johnny said as, nervously entering the license office at twenty past twelve, they saw a number of people filling out forms and more standing at the desk to pay.

"We aren't out of the woods yet," Smith said, feeling extraordinarily conspicuous in her baggy clothes and handmade moccasins and, to hide her striking hair, Johnny's navy boating cap. As Johnny led her to a seat by the wall she giggled nervously. "Aren't you afraid they'll ask you why you're marrying a lumberjack?"

"That's good," Johnny smiled approvingly. "You look as though you've got bridal jitters already. Keep it up."

The mission was accomplished without mishap; the woman behind the desk scarcely reading their names, simply smiling in kindly but impersonal congratulation as she took their money and handed them the license.

As they moved through the doors they passed another couple coming in: a young girl of no more than sixteen, heavily pregnant, and a boy not much older, petulantly angry about something.

"Geez, Middy, I
told
you I wanted..." they heard, before his voice was lost in the general babble, and the door shut behind them. Shulamith shivered.
 

"I guess you have to be a real optimist for a job like that," she said in a quiet voice.

Johnny understood what she meant.

"Yes," he said. "When I look at you I'm an optimist." And the moment of fear was drowned in the smile in his dark eyes.

Twenty

They chose a simple wedding ring together. That seemed to make it real, and then Shulamith insisted on going shopping for some clothes. "I'm not going to get married in your baggy old sweatshirt!" she said. "You've never seen me in anything nice. I want to look nice for a change."

"I've seen you naked in my bed," said Johnny softly. "Nothing and no one could be more beautiful than that."

Her cheeks burned faintly. "You're trying to put me off," she laughed. "But I want some clothes!"

She wasn't spendthrift, but she was used to buying what she needed, and Smith needed the lot. After a preliminary stop in lingerie and then shoes, she moved into the women's wear department of a store she rarely patronized and found herself a wedding outfit, then chose a few more necessary items, including jeans and shirt, which she decided to wear.

As they walked to the cash register behind an overburdened saleswoman, Smith, rooting in her handbag for her wallet, felt a certain confidence returning to her. The clothes   made her feel herself again and reminded her of who she was—and who she was not.

Just being able to hold her handbag seemed to bolster her, to give her a sense of herself. She was not a penniless, helpless nonentity, after all. She was Shulamith St. John.

She had paid for the shoes and underwear with cash, but now the bill was too high for cash, and she pulled out a credit card. To her surprise Johnny covered her hand and held it back, reaching for his wallet with his other hand.

"I'll get this," he said, and she was bridled at the tone in his voice. She had been earning an excellent salary for years and she was used to paying her own way.

"No, Johnny," she said evenly, twisting her hand in his grasp. "I want to pay."

"I'll pay for it," he said flatly. His grip tightened, and his dark eyes flashed a warning at her.

Smith began to burn. "They're my clothes," she said, "and I'll—"

"They're your wedding trousseau," he said, with an arrogance that made her gasp, "and I'll pay for my bride."

Her credit card dropped to the floor, and Johnny slipped his foot over it, then casually bent and picked it up, passing his own to the curious saleswoman.

"Johnny, will you—" Smith began, and then broke off, her eyes following his thumb as he stroked it over her name raised in plastic: SHULAMITH ST. JOHN.

"Okay, thank you!" she said quietly, and took back her card and slipped it into her wallet.

"Sorry," she said later, her arm through his as they left the store laden with packages.

He said, "What the hell difference does it make who pays for what? We might have—"

"Well, we didn't," Smith said, "and you know it makes a difference! I earn my money, and I want to spend it. I don't need a husband to buy me
clothes
, that's for sure!"
 

But it had been a dangerous moment, and Johnny was still seething with reaction. "Well, congratulations! What
do
you need a husband for? I want to be sure of getting it right on my application!"
 

A woman passed them, her mouth twitching with suppressed amusement, and Smith realized with a start that for all the extraordinary circumstances surrounding them, here they were having a most ordinary lovers' spat. Suddenly the issue seemed foolishly unimportant. She stopped in the street, pulling Johnny to a halt beside her, then reached up on her toes to mutter in his ear.

"Sex," she said softly. "That's what I need a husband for. And you got it right on your application." Johnny Winterhawk choked and dropped a parcel, and Smith went into a fit of laughter. She had never felt so free. In all her life she hadn't flirted like this with a man; she had never had the confidence. Loving Johnny had given her a new confidence. Looking into his heavily message-laden eyes she understood, but only dimly, that there was a huge difference between the confidence she felt being reunited with her handbag and credit cards, and what she felt now, with Johnny. Smith puzzled over the discovery for a vague moment and then let it wash away in the slipstream of Johnny's smile.

"Wait till I get you home," he was saying, and her heart skipped an anticipatory beat.

The mandatory two days of waiting between the time of getting the license and being able to get married passed in a golden glow of loving. They sailed back to their secluded cove and swam and lazed in the sun and ate milk and honey, and in the small aft cabin they reached a rapture of passion that answered every yearning and shook Shulamith to the roots of her soul.

On Saturday evening, in the small washroom attached to the aft cabin, she showered and made up, then went next door to dress, with an intense, solemn excitement in the pit of her stomach.

I am committing myself to you for life,
she thought, in soft wonder that the idea could give so much pleasure.
 

Her lacy underthings were new, as was the beautiful, silky cream-coloured dress and full-sleeved jacket she had chosen. Gold thread shot through the material and on the left jacket cuff formed a tiny horseshoe.

"For good luck," she smiled, pointing it out to Johnny. "I have to remember to hold my arm down so the luck won't run out."

For "blue" and "old," she had a neckerchief of Johnny's that she would tuck into her stocking. She had planned to make that do for "borrowed" as well, but then she found something in her handbag she had forgotten—a gold bracelet she had bought for Valerie Middleton in Zurich and hadn't given to her yet. It made everything seem right, somehow, that her "borrowed" should be from a good woman friend.

Johnny, very dark in a black suit, smiled at her satisfaction. "Where would we be without ritual?" he asked ironically.

"Marriage is a ritual," Shulamith pointed out softly, and he looked momentarily shaken.

"Yes," he said, "you're right." And she wondered if his own need to engage in society's ritual of mutual commitment had somehow escaped his notice.

They were married in a small chapel maintained by a marriage service, at eight o'clock on a balmy Saturday night. Never having had a religion, she chose the only service she knew, that began "Dearly beloved"; and as the ritual words flowed out into the tiny chapel and bound her irrevocably to Johnny, as they had bound so many thousands—millions—of people before them, Shulamith was filled with a deep, comforting certainty that she had never experienced before.
I believe in God,
she thought with distant surprise, as though she had always believed, but had never known it before. She looked into Johnny's stern face as he repeated his vows and felt the blur of inexplicable tears.
I have to believe in God,
she was thinking,
because love like this is only possible if God exists. Because science can never explain what I know in every pore—that what I feel for you is a reflection of the face of God.
 

A tear rolled softly, secretly down her cheek, and she turned to the warm bright gaze of their minister.

"I, Shulamith," she repeated softly, "take thee, John..." and each word was a perfect crystalization of what she wanted to say.

***

Neither the official nor the professional witnesses took any notice of the signatures they were witness to. She wondered if they would find out one day, the professional marrying man and the professional witnesses. Would they read it in a paper or hear it on a radio and remember? Or was it all just a meaningless blur to them, another job done—this moment that was of such crystal clarity to her?

Johnny's face as he signed was stern and tightly drawn, but she couldn't read what emotion pulled him. Not until he took her arm to lead her out of the chapel did she sense in him the barely controlled pride of possession and the need to get her away from their smiling well-wishers—alone.

In the taxi she sat back in his hold and felt his lips brush her brow. "Wife," he whispered possessively, and she turned and gripped his black lapel and raised her face almost desperately for his kiss.

"And in Vancouver," said the taxi's radio, snapping them both to awareness, "a lumber giant gives in to an unusual ransom demand. That story first." They stared at each other, listening.

"St. John Forest Products has apparently acceded to an Indian rights group's unusual ransom demand. Roland Middleton, senior vice-president at St. John Forest Products, this evening denied rumours that timbering operations in Cat Bite Valley and the surrounding areas were scheduled to begin as early as next week. He said no firm schedule had ever been drawn up for cutting in the area, and that such a decision would be delayed until company president Cordwainer St. John is released from hospital.

"Mr. St. John suffered a heart attack over a week ago, on the same night that his daughter disappeared. Later, at his hospital bed, he received a telephone call demanding, as the price of her safe return, that he cancel planned timbering operations in Cat Bite Valley. The area is the traditional hunting and fishing grounds of the Chopa tribe, and the subject of a provincially appointed commission of inquiry, which began Monday in Vancouver.

"Mr. Middleton said that no decision had been made regarding the kidnappers' ultimatum and that the announcement was being made merely to clarify the issue regarding Cat Bite Valley. Cordwainer St. John remains in serious condition in the hospital."

Neither said a word until they stood on the deserted dock by
Outcast
and the taxi's lights had gone winking off into the distance. Then Smith let go the excitement that bubbled in her, and laughed a triumphant laugh.
 

"We've won!" she said delightedly, suppressing a need to shout. "I don't believe it, we've won!" She kicked off her delicate heels, stepped up on the gunwale and leapt aboard. "The old phony!" she laughed. Johnny was grimly quiet as he unlocked and opened the hatch, but she didn't notice. "He must love me after all!"