Western Wind (11 page)

“He wouldn't get lost,” Gran said quietly. “He knows the island by this time.”

“How can anything help in this fog!” cried Mrs. Herkimer. She grabbed Deirdre's shoulder and began to shake it. “You were supposed to watch him, you miserable girl!” she accused her.

“Stop it, Helen,” Mr. Herkimer said, gathering his wife close to him.

“I was going to see him … but the weather … I was reading,” Elizabeth said faintly.

Mrs. Herkimer covered her frightened face with her large hands. When she took them away, she appeared to have gained some composure. “It's no one's fault,” she said.

“We'll all look for him,” Gran said briskly.

“Not you, Cora,” said Mr. Herkimer.

“But I will,” Gran said without even glancing at him. “Get the flashlights, Elizabeth. The slickers, too.”

He had wanted to be lost, Elizabeth remembered. Aaron, she cried silently. “We ought to try the cemetery first,” she said. “We usually met there.”

“The cemetery,” Mrs. Herkimer repeated dully.

Gran kicked down the last log in the hearth, and it broke into a shower of sparks. “We'll leave a light burning to come home to,” she said. She bent to turn up the wick in a kerosene lamp. Everyone watched her in silence.

As the wick caught and the chimney appeared to swell with the light, Deirdre said, “I'm scared.”

Mr. Herkimer put his other arm around her. He looked at Gran. “You mustn't, Cora. I really wish you'd stay here. We'll be glad of Elizabeth's help.”

“After we've done some searching, we'll report back to your house, John. I'll be fine. One of you ought to stay at home in case he comes back.”

“I'll stay,” Helen Herkimer said. In a despairing voice, she added, “I'm the clumsy one, anyhow.”

The Herkimers left.

“How can we find our way?” Elizabeth asked.

Gran hung a slicker over her shoulder and pressed a flashlight into her hand. “A step at a time,” she said.

They went out of the cottage. “Look, it's thinning,” Gran said. “You can see a bit of the sand spit.”

They went over the slope to the meadow and up past the Herkimer house. It took a long time. They had to move slowly. Each step was like a deep-drawn breath.

It was only because they knew the way so well that their feet found paths their eyes couldn't see.

The fog was denser in low places. The light brush of grass against her legs, the hard roots in the ground beneath her feet, a sudden strong smell of balsam—these things comforted Elizabeth.

But her mind was filled with terrible images: Aaron dazed, wedged between rocks or clutching at seaweed and stones, trying to pull himself out of the bitter cold water, or wandering in circles in the woods.

The flashlight seemed to concentrate the fog, to turn it a sour yellow that blinded her. She turned it off. When she looked down at the ground, she was able to recognize the low, thorny bramble she knew was close to the barn.

“I'm going toward the ridge,” Gran said. “You try the cemetery.”

Elizabeth went on. Without the flashlight, she could spot a familiar clump of flowers, or a fallen bough, or a pile of stones that Aaron had gathered. A web of dampness covered her face and hands. At moments, she held out her arms in front of her, her fingers brushing tree trunks and low branches. She stumbled constantly on roots. It was like moving through a sack filled with wet cotton. She heard a distant foghorn lowing mournfully like an immense cow.

She came out of the woods. The fog was thinner. She looked up and saw a narrow stretch of starry sky. After a few more steps, it disappeared. She had to burrow like a mole into the long meadow.

Suddenly, her right knee hit a gravestone. She stood still. “Aaron,” she called, as her fingers touched the grainy, rounded surface of the stone.

There was only silence. Were there ghosts? She wished there were. She felt so alone, so fog-chilled and helpless.

She went on. She heard waves breaking, withdrawing with their catch of pebbles and shells. She must be close to the farther end of Pring. There she could turn and go around the point and come back on the other shore. Then she remembered the great, black, jagged rocks.

The fog broke suddenly. She was on a point of land, looking at the ocean. The moon was nearly full. For a moment, she forgot why she was there. She looked at the water world, glinting, beautiful. The island was like a great ship. For a second, she had the illusion it was moving out to sea.

“Aaron!” she called urgently, again and again. There was no sound but the waves.

She went back past the cemetery. The fog still lingered in hollows like swaths of torn cloth. A low breeze sprang up. Soon, the Herkimer house loomed before her.

As she reached the screen door, Gran was walking slowly and heavily from around the barn. When she saw Elizabeth, she shook her head.

In the living room, the three Herkimers sat in a line on a sofa, each face like a pale, vacant mask. But as Gran and Elizabeth came in, they all stood up, and Mr. Herkimer bowed his head slightly as though this were some formal occasion. When he spoke, his voice was low, as though trying not to wake someone who had fallen asleep in some other part of the room.

“Our sailboat is gone. I've radioed the Coast Guard. There's a wind starting up and it'll blow the fog away, but it could blow a boat away, too. I'm sure Aaron took it. He always talked about sailing away. A boy's joke, I thought.”

“The wind …” muttered Mrs. Herkimer.

“You can't be sure he took it,” Gran said. She spoke with effort, as though out of breath.

“There was a coil of rope on the dock. Neatly done. The way I showed him how to do it,” Mr. Herkimer said.

“You could have been careless, not tied up the boat properly. Anyone can make a mistake,” Gran said.

“Go home, Cora. You must!” His voice rose, shockingly loud. “There's nothing we can do. The Coast Guard will find him … if the boat's afloat.…”

“It'll be all right,” said Deirdre. “Daddy, you taught him what to do. You know he remembers everything.”

Mrs. Herkimer began to cry soundlessly. Deirdre lifted herself onto her mother's lap. Her head covered most of Mrs. Herkimer's face, as though she could staunch her mother's tears with her mop of hair.

Gran stood. “We'll come back in a while,” she said softly to Mr. Herkimer. He wasn't listening. She and Elizabeth went outside.

“We can't really be sure he took the boat,” Gran said. “I want to keep looking.”

“I'll go to the other side of the ridge,” Elizabeth said. The fog was gone now, and she wasn't so afraid to chance the wild beach.

“And I have another place or two in mind,” Gran said, her voice sounding faint.

Elizabeth shone the flashlight at her. She looked so old, her face collapsed as though the bones beneath her flesh had softened. “Go home,” Elizabeth said. “Please! You look terrible.”

“I can't bear to stop yet,” Gran said. “I can't bear it.…”

They separated at the cottage. Elizabeth watched Gran walk past the dock and on toward the boulder where the cormorants came to dry their wings. She set out for the path up the ridge. At the top, the wind blew hard. But Elizabeth could hear the throb of an engine. Several hundred yards from the shore, a powerful searchlight cast its circle on the black water. It must be the Coast Guard boat.

She made her way down the ridge. The tide was high, the surface of rocks and stones wet. She struggled to keep above the waves that broke and foamed, gripping the roots and crooked branches of small trees, grabbing handfuls of sea grass, stepping on stones that rocked with her weight.

She passed above two coves, pools of moving darkness that absorbed at once the light of the flash she directed into them. She reached a farther cove just after passing the tidal pool where she and Aaron had watched the tiny, scurrying crabs.

Something bobbled, as a top does when it slows down. Before words could form in her mind, she knew it was the tip of a mast she had glimpsed below her. She shone the light.

The Herkimers' sailboat swung slowly from side to side, its bow caught between two rocks that rose from the water like canine teeth.

Tied to the mast by his shirt, his bare shoulders and chest luminous where moonlight touched, stood Aaron, his head fallen forward as though in sleep.

“I didn't find him,” Elizabeth said. “I just saw him before the Coast Guard did. They were almost as close to the boat as I was.”

“He did the right thing,” Mr. Herkimer was saying, “exactly as I taught him … he remembered what to do.…”

“You shouldn't have taught him to do anything,” Mrs. Herkimer said accusingly. “It put ideas into his head, as we have seen.”

“Anything puts ideas into your head,” remarked Deirdre, carrying a tray of mugs of tea from the kitchen.

Aaron lay beneath a blanket on the sofa where, only a couple of hours earlier, his parents and sister had sat in dread. His hair was in damp spikes. He looked at the circle of faces of those who gathered around him. He seemed dazed.

“Elizabeth and I'll go now,” Gran said.

“How can we ever thank you?” Mr. Herkimer said, and his voice was genuinely puzzled.

Mrs. Herkimer, her pearls restored, grabbed them up with one hand. “We would have found him by daylight—or the Coast Guard would have,” Mrs. Herkimer said.

“Mother!” exclaimed Deirdre.

“I'm a realist,” said Mrs. Herkimer. “I'm simply saying he would have been safe inside the cove. Of course, Elizabeth's finding him saved us a great deal of worry.”

“Let's go home, Elizabeth,” Gran said very quietly.

“Cora, you're worn out,” Mr. Herkimer said. “I'll walk with you to the cottage.”

“I'll be fine,” Gran said. Then she added urgently, “I want to go home.”

They started toward the door. “Elizabeth!” called Aaron.

She turned. Brother and sister were gazing after her. She saw how much alike they were—the same deep-set eyes and straight, dark eyebrows. Deirdre's expression was mild, even pensive. Aaron's mouth widened in a slow smile. At that moment, his face emitted a kind of radiance. Then he closed his eyes, and the light went out of his face.

The fog was entirely gone. The sky was cloudless. The moon in the pale dawn sky painted a path across the water, which was already fading away even as Elizabeth looked at it. Beside the Herkimer dock, the sailboat, returned by the Coast Guard, rocked gently.

“When Mrs. Herkimer thought Aaron was in danger, she was almost nice,” Elizabeth said.

“She's regained her usual self,” Gran said. “Back to a dose of self-congratulation every twenty minutes.”

When they entered the cottage, Gran walked to the round table, where she sat down heavily and lowered her head to rest on her hands.

“Gran?”

She sat up with effort. “It was wonderful that you found him,” she said. “Even if he was safe in the cove, he was out of his head with fear.” Grace came to her and stood up with her paws resting on Gran's knees. “Not now, Grace,” she said, and clumsily pushed the cat away. “I miss plumbing at times like these.…” Her voice faltered.

Elizabeth went to her quickly and touched her hair.

“Are you sick? What can I do?”

“Help me upstairs. There's a chamber pot beneath my bed. Take it out. You'll have to go back to the Herkimers. Tell John to reach Jake.…” She said something indistinct. For a moment, her voice rose. “If he can't, he must call the Coast Guard again. I have to get to the hospital. I'm sorry, sorry.…”

Elizabeth's stomach seemed to sink, to fall out of her body. Her hands tingled and broke into a sweat as she helped Gran up. She kept her arm around her waist as they slowly ascended the stairs. In the small, bare room, she lowered Gran onto her bed.

“Blessed bed,” she murmured.

Elizabeth stood irresolutely, afraid to leave, afraid to stay.

“Go now. Fast as you can.” Gran's breathing was so uneven, Elizabeth had to guess at most of what she was saying. “I'll be all right.…” The last words were barely audible.

The dinosaur spine of the ridge flamed with the rays of the rising sun. The sky above was liquid with the rose light of morning.

She knocked only once on the door before John Herkimer, still dressed, looking exhausted, opened it to her.

“Gran,” she uttered. A sob rose in her throat. “She's sick. She wants Jake to come and take her to the hospital.”

Mr. Herkimer took her arm and drew her into the dining room. “It's too early to reach Jake. Anyhow, she'll need the Coast Guard. I'll radio them. You go and drink the tea I was about to have.” He led her to the dining table, and she was grateful to be told what to do, where to go. He left her at once, running into the kitchen where he kept the radio.

“They're sending out a motor lifeboat,” he told her when he returned a few minutes later. “They have some medical equipment, oxygen … she'll need that. And they're going to call the hospital in Ellsworth. She's got an emergency doctor there. Blystone.”

Why would he know the doctor's name? Why hadn't he been surprised when she'd come to his door with such news?

He was looking at her closely, and he seemed to sense her confusion. “Your grandmother didn't want to tell me but she had to, especially with you being here. I should have insisted she not search for Aaron with the rest of us. But when I found the sailboat was missing, everything flew out of my head. I couldn't think about anyone but Aaron.”

“She didn't want to tell you what?”

“She's very sick,” he said. “In the spring, she was in the hospital several weeks—”

“No one told me!” she cried.

He looked up at the ceiling nervously. They must all be asleep upstairs. For a second, she didn't care if she woke the whole household.