Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (3 page)

She turned and scrambled up the outcroppings, picking up the hatchet that was to have been splitting kindling all this time. But she could hardly help it if there was something so much better to do, like watching the tide come in. She balanced the hatchet on her finger as she walked, carefully keeping herself under it while her feet guided her through the scrub and tripping roots. When she came to the pines that stood as close to the ocean as they could and still reach sweet water, she tipped the hatchet into the air, caught it by the handle, and swung it back over her shoulder. She set her eye on the heart of a youngster pine and flashed the hatchet through the scented air; it tumbled over and over itself in jerks, like a crab caught in a ripple, until it slapped high up into the trunk. Lizzie looked around to see if anyone might be nearby, half wanting to show off, half wanting to be sure that no one had seen Preacher Griffin's granddaughter throwing a hatchet around. No one had, and Lizzie slicked up the tree, her feet finding the branches easily.

She jerked out the hatchet and let it fall to the soft pine needles beneath her. Then, since she was already partway up, and since the set of the branches made it so easy, and since the pine was young enough that she could get it swaying pretty good if she got close to the top, she kept climbing until she felt the tree moving with her from side to side. She let her weight into it, back and forth, and the whole heap of Malaga Island rushed beneath her—ocean, sand, rock, scrub, mudflat, pale little crab, all rushing back and forth as the soft boughs laid their gentle, dry hands against her laughing face.

The day might come, she thought, when she would take her grandfather's dory and row to the mouth of the New Meadows. She'd take it out past West Point, past Hermit, past Bald Head, and drift until she was alone with the whales in the open water. Then she'd come back in close and follow the coast, maybe row all the way to Portland, maybe even to Boston.

And then she'd row home. She would always come back to Malaga Island, just as sure as the tide always came back.

And that was when Lizzie looked across the water to the mainland and saw the group of men gathered high on the granite ledge above the tide. If Lizzie had been down on the beach, they would have towered above her, but up in the pine, she was just about eye level with them. They wore dark frock coats, top hats they held against the sea breeze, and shiny shoes that probably hadn't walked on honest granite ever before. Standing there, they all looked alike: too much weight in the front—for that matter, too much weight in the behind—and dressed for a deacon's funeral. All except one. A boy wearing a shirt so white it hurt to look at it. Why would a boy wear a shirt so white this side of paradise?

One of the frock coats pointed, and then another, and Lizzie knew where they were looking. At the turn of the island, where the slack water let the tide in soft and easy, where the clams buried themselves so thick you could gather a meal with just one rake, Lizzie's house watched New Meadows with weathered eyes. Its boards were warped beyond hope, and its roof slumped in the middle like a fallen pudding— and there wasn't a house in Phippsburg where she'd rather live.

The afternoon bell of First Congregational tolled, and one of the men turned his eyes toward Phippsburg. When he looked back, he saw Lizzie. He said something to the others, who turned with him and stared, some smiling. Then he pulled back the side of his frock coat and laid his hand on the pistol it had hidden.

The gorged sound of their laughter stained the sea breeze that came in over the tide.

"W
OULD
you look at that monkey go? Look at her go. She climbing down or falling?" Deacon Hurd watched the last leap to the ground. "Sheriff Elwell, I believe she thought you might shoot her."

"Wouldn't have been any trouble, Mr. Hurd. One less colored in the world."

Standing beside the frock-coated men, Turner shivered with the sea breeze that had come up to him and circled his feet. The gulls that rode it screeched overhead.

"More to the point," said the tallest of the group—the one with the most expensive frock coat, the most expensive top hat, and the most expensive shiny shoes—"one less colored on Malaga Island." Laughter from the group, louder than the gulls. "Though the issue is much larger than one colored." His eye searched the pine shadows across the water for the girl, as if he sensed her watching him. His hands moved to the lapels of his coat. "The issue is how to relieve Malaga Island of the girl, her family, her neighbors, what she would call her house, what they would call their town."

"All it should take is a good sound storm." Sheriff Elwell pointed down to the turn of the island. "Good high tide running up there, lift that shanty right on out to sea, Mr. Stonecrop."

"God has not seen fit to be so helpful." Mr. Stonecrop stared down across the water. "Reverend Buckminster, behold the cross we bear in Phippsburg: a ragtag collection of hovels and shacks, filled with thieves and lazy sots, eking out a life by eating clams from the ocean mud, heedless of offers of help from either state or church, a blight on the town's aspirations, a hopeless barrier to its future."

Mr. Stonecrop said this mouthful without taking a breath. It was, Turner thought, quite a trick.

"If the shanties were gone, think what a resort site this very cliff might be." Mr. Stonecrop spread his arms out wide. "Imagine the white porticoes of the place, the gracious stairway, the glass doors open to bring in the sea breeze, the red carpet of the lobby, the tinkling of the glass chandelier. I tell you, Reverend, a resort here would be the salvation of Phippsburg."

"Still," said Deacon Hurd, grasping Reverend Buckminster's elbow, "if the governor takes them off the island, he'll add every blessed one onto Phippsburg's pauper rolls. Before we know it, the town will be paying for them to live somewhere else, and paying a proper penny year in, year out. Phippsburg couldn't afford it—and not a single soul will stand for it."

Mr. Stonecrop began to shine his rings against his lapels. "The days of shipbuilding are coming to an end here, Reverend. Traditions change, and we must change with them. If Phippsburg is to survive long enough for your boy to grow up here, it needs new capital, new investment."

"Tourists," said Reverend Buckminster.

"Exactly so. Tourists from Boston, New York, Philadelphia."

"And tourists will not come if there are shanties by their hotel doors."

"You see the situation precisely. The question that remains is, How to do it?" Mr. Stonecrop leaned toward Turner. "Perhaps you would enjoy exploring the coastline, young Buckminster. Take a half hour. You may find some tidal pools to wade in."

"It's high tide," said Turner. "There are no tidal pools at high tide."

"Another quick study, just like his father," said Mr. Stonecrop. "Deacon, he's figured out the tides already. And you said he wasn't very bright."

Shame filled Turner, and his heart beat against his chest so loudly that he imagined it could be heard above the waves.

"Go on along," said Reverend Buckminster, his voice tight. "Things may be different along this coast."

Things would not be different along this coast, Turner thought. Tidal pools came at low tide in Boston, in Phippsburg, in Timbuktu. It didn't take someone very bright to figure that out.

He climbed down the ledges, his heart still beating loudly. The afternoon had become as hot as meanness, and since the shirt he was wearing had enough starch in it to mummify two, maybe three, pharaohs, he began to feel he could hardly breathe. The only thing that saved him from absolute suffocation was the sea breeze somersaulting and fooling, first ahead, then behind, running and panting like a dog ready to play. And he followed it, pulling at his collar, trying not to wish what a minister's son should not wish.

Beneath the granite ledges, Turner found two gnarled pines that begged to be shinnied up, a cave that would just about die to be explored, and mudflats where herons longed to be chased. But he was wearing his white shirt. He felt the starch stiffening against his sides, felt his sweat accumulating in places he could not reach.

So it wasn't exactly fair that when he and his white shirt climbed back up the ledges—after thirty-seven minutes—Mrs. Cobb had appeared among the frock coats. He wasn't surprised that God hadn't given him much of a reprieve. His father's face was red, and Turner knew that supper would be very quiet that night, and that sometime later he would hear about his sins, repent sincerely, and learn what he should do to make amends.

He groaned, quietly.

Reverend Buckminster glared once at his son as they followed the frock coats and a satisfied Mrs. Cobb back into town. Turner wondered if he should grab the Sears, Roebuck catalogue and hide in the outhouse when they got back to the parsonage, even though the day's heat might give it a ripeness he wouldn't care for.

No one spoke to him.

On Parker Head Road, Mrs. Cobb took her outrage into her house, but Turner looked across the road, and there, sure enough, was Mrs. Elia Hurd, watching by her yellow shutters. He waved, then felt his father's hand on his arm.

"You don't want to be getting to know her," said Deacon Hurd. "She's daft as a loon. Will say anything to anyone—not that it will make much sense." Turner heard Sheriff Elwell laughing behind him.

***

Turner was right about the ripeness of the outhouse, so he came out for supper, which was as quiet as he had expected. Later on, he heard about his sins, and he repented sincerely, but he thought the amending was harder than it had any right to be.

Even Mrs. Buckminster was surprised. "Does that seem fair?" she asked.

"Yes," said Reverend Buckminster.

"For the rest of the summer?"

"Yes," said Reverend Buckminster, and that was all.

So the next afternoon when it was hot and close, Turner climbed the steps to Mrs. Cobb's house with the sea breeze at his heels, urging him to play. The green door jerked open before he even knocked—as if Mrs. Cobb had been watching for him. "So you're here," she said.

"I'm here to to read to you ... every day ... for the rest of the summer ... if you like," Turner said. He wondered if he was supposed to say something about being sinful and hoping for forgiveness and grace. But he wasn't sure he could muster any real hope in this heat.

Mrs. Cobb eyed him. "So you want to read to me."

Turner nodded. He hoped a nod wasn't the same as an out-loud lie, since he might need one in the near future and didn't want to waste it when things weren't too awful.

"Did you know my grandfather built that picket fence?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, he did. And it's stood all this time and not a single scratch to it. Not until you started stoning it." She took a step back. "You may as well come in."

With a sigh, Turner decided he might as well. The sea breeze rolled in before him and stirred the fern by the front door. But then it fell panting in the hall, gasping for breath.

Mrs. Cobb strode on in front of him, passing a stairway that rose up too steeply, and then a library hoarding shelves of dark volumes—the arts of necromancy, Turner figured. Though probably they weren't nearly so interesting.

She followed the worn tread in the throw rugs, and Turner went after her into a house as hot as it could possibly be without the whole place flaring up. He looked back, hoping the sea breeze might revive, but it lay in the hallway, stricken and still.

They went into a parlor where no one but Mrs. Cobb had stepped since the century had turned over. The windows had been shut against sea breezes long ago, and they let in only a little sunlight. An organ with yellow ivory keys and threadbare pedals leaned back in the shadows beside a black leather chair whose horsehair stuffing cantered out from every crack. Another chair, straight-backed, cushionless, waited beside a dark round table with a dark book on it. Turner picked up the book—
Lives of the English Poets
—and the red dust of its leather cover came off in his hand.

Mrs. Cobb sat down on the leather chair and the horsehair galloped out. "I thought you'd enjoy reading something entertaining," she said.

"Yes, ma'am." He sat down on the straight-backed chair.

Silence. It was too hot for words.

"Would you like me to read now?"Turner asked, almost as if he meant it.

"I'm going to die in this room," said Mrs. Cobb.

Turner stared at her.

"I said, I'm going to die in this room."

"Today?"

"Not today," she snapped.

"No, ma'am," agreed Turner. He was relieved.

"I'll be sitting here reading and I'll set the book aside on that table and lay my head back right here." She laid her head back. "And then I'll fall asleep. Just like that. Fall asleep." She closed her eyes.

Yes, ma am.

"The only thing I'll regret is that nobody will hear my last words. People are always remembered for their last words. They're almost like a message from beyond the grave."

Turner nodded. He wondered if his father had known that Mrs. Cobb was absolutely and completely crazy when he'd sent him to read to her. He guessed that he probably hadn't.

Suddenly, her eyes opened and she lifted her head. "Have you thought about what your last words might be?You're never too young to know what your last words might be. Death could come along at any moment and thrust his dart right through you." She jerked her arm out at him, and Turner shot back against the organ.

"I suppose,"he whispered,"something like,'The Lord is my shepherd.'"

"Too expected," she said, shaking her head. "Nobody would care to remember that, and you'd have wasted your one opportunity. You don't get two chances to say your last words, you know."

Turner suddenly felt sick with sadness, as sick as when he had been standing on the rock ledges waiting for the sea to come crashing in on him. Mrs. Cobb was so alone, sitting in a dark room as hot as Beelzebub and waiting for Death's dart to come so that she could say the one thing people would remember her for—knowing all the while that there would be no one there to hear it.