Stern Men (19 page)

“Pig?” Ruth said. “I never heard that one.”

“Well, it’s been said twice now,” Cal Cooley said. “Pig, pig, pig. We’ve got clergy; we’ve got women; we’ve got people shouting
pig.
So now we are doomed. Thank you to all who participated.”

“Cal Cooley is such an old salt,” Ruth said to Pastor Wishnell. “Being from
Missourah
and all, he’s just
steeped
in the lore of the sea.”

“I am an old salt, Ruth.”

“Actually, Cal, I believe you’re a farm boy,” Ruth corrected. “I believe you are a cracker.”

“Just because I was born in Missourah doesn’t mean I can’t be an island man at heart.”

“I don’t think the other island men would necessarily agree, Cal.”

Cal shrugged. “A man can’t help where he’s born. A cat can have kittens in the oven, but that don’t make ’em biscuits.”

Ruth laughed, although Cal Cooley did not. Pastor Wishnell was looking closely at Ruth.

“Ruth?” he said. “Is that your name? Ruth Thomas?”

“Yes, sir,” Ruth said, and stopped laughing. She coughed into her fist.

“You have a familiar face, Ruth.”

“If I look familiar, that’s only because I look exactly like everyone else on Fort Niles. We all look alike, sir. You know what they say about us—we’re too poor to buy new faces, so we share the same one. Ha.”

“Ruth is much prettier than anyone else on Fort Niles,” Cal contributed. “Much darker. Look at those pretty dark eyes. That’s the Italian in her. That’s from her Eye-talian grandpappy.”

“Cal,” Ruth snapped, “stop talking now.” He always seized the opportunity to remind her of her grandmother’s shame.

“Italian?” Pastor Wishnell said, with a frown. “On Fort Niles?”

“Tell the man about your grandpap, Ruth,” Cal said.

Ruth disregarded Cal, as did the pastor. Pastor Wishnell was still looking at Ruth with great attention. At last he said, “Ah . . .” He nodded. “I know now how it is that I recognize you. I believe I buried your father, Ruth, when you were a little girl. That’s it. I believe I presided over your father’s funeral. Didn’t I?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m quite sure of it.”

“No, sir. My father’s not dead.”

Pastor Wishnell considered this. “Your father did not drown? Almost ten years ago?”

“No, sir. I believe you’re thinking of a man named Ira Pommeroy. You presided over Mr. Pommeroy’s funeral about ten years ago. We passed my father baiting lobster as we left the harbor. He’s very much alive.”

“He was found caught up in another man’s fishing lines, that Ira Pommeroy?”

“That’s right.”

“And he had several children?”

“Seven sons.”

“And one daughter?”

“No.”

“But you were there, weren’t you? At the funeral?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So I was not imagining it.”

“No, sir. I was there. You were not imagining it.”

“You certainly seemed to be a member of the family.”

“Well, I’m not, Pastor Wishnell. I’m not a member of that family.”

“And that lovely widow . . . ?”

“Mrs. Pommeroy?”

“Yes. Mrs. Pommeroy. She’s not your mother?”

“No, sir. She’s not my mother.”

“Ruth is a member of the Ellis family,” Cal Cooley said.

“I am a member of the Thomas family,” Ruth corrected. She kept her voice level, but she was mad. What exactly was it about Cal Cooley that brought to her such immediate thoughts of homicide? She never had this reaction to anyone else. All Cal had to do was open his mouth, and she started imagining trucks running over him. Incredible.

“Ruth’s mother is Miss Vera Ellis’s devoted niece,” Cal Cooley explained. “Ruth’s mother lives with Miss Vera Ellis in the Ellis mansion in Concord.”

“My mother is Miss Vera Ellis’s handmaid,” Ruth said, her voice level.

“Ruth’s mother is Miss Vera Ellis’s devoted niece,” Cal Cooley repeated. “We’re going to visit them now.”

“Is that so?” said Pastor Wishnell. “I was certain that you were a Pommeroy, young lady. I was certain that the lovely young widow was your mother.”

“Well, I’m not. And she’s not.”

“Is she still on the island?”

“Yes,” Ruth said.

“With her sons?”

“A few of her sons joined the Army. One’s working on a farm in Orono. Three live at home.”

“How does she survive? How does she make money?”

“Her sons send her money. And she cuts people’s hair.”

“She can survive on that?”

“Everyone on the island gets their hair cut by her. She’s excellent at it.”

“Perhaps I should get a haircut from her someday.”

“I’m sure you’d be satisfied,” Ruth said, formally. She couldn’t believe the way she was talking to this man.
I’m sure you’d be satisfied?
What was she
saying?
What did she care about Pastor Wishnell’s hair-related satisfaction?

“Interesting. And what about your family, Ruth? Is your father a lobsterman, then?”

“Yes.”

“A terrible profession.”

Ruth did not respond.

“Savage. Brings out the greed in a man. The way they defend their territory! I have never seen such greed! There have been more murders on these islands over lobster boundaries . . .”

The pastor trailed off. Ruth again did not answer. She’d been watching his nephew, Owney Wishnell, whose back was to her. Owney, standing at the wheel, was still sailing the
New Hope
toward Rockland. It would have been easy to assume that Owney Wishnell was deaf, the way he had disregarded them all morning. Yet now that Pastor Wishnell had begun to talk about lobstering, a change seemed to come over Owney’s body. His back seemed to draw steady, like that of a hunting cat. A subtle ripple of tension. He was listening.

“Naturally,” Pastor Wishnell resumed, “you would not see it as I do, Ruth. You see only the lobstermen of your island. I see many. I see men like your neighbors all up and down this coast. I see these savage dramas played out on—how many islands is it, Owney? How many islands do we minister to, Owney? How many lobster wars have we seen? How many of those lobster territory disputes have I mediated in the last decade alone?”

But Owney Wishnell did not reply. He stood perfectly still, his paint-can-shaped head facing forward, his big hands resting on the wheel of the
New Hope,
his big feet—big as shovels—planted in his clean, high lobsterman’s boots. The boat in his command beat down the waves.

“Owney knows how dreadful the lobstering life is,” Pastor Wishnell said after a while. “He was a child in 1965, when some of the fishermen on Courne Haven tried to form a collective. Do you remember that incident, Ruth?”

“I remember hearing about it.”

“It was a brilliant idea, of course, on paper. A fishermen’s collective is the only way to thrive in this business instead of starving. Collective bargaining with wholesalers, collective bargaining with bait dealers, price setting, agreements on trap limits. It would have been a very wise thing to do. But tell that to those blockheads who fish for a living.”

“It’s hard for them to trust each other,” Ruth said. Ruth’s father was dead against any idea of a fishermen’s collective. As was Angus Addams. As was Uncle Len Thomas. As were most of the fishermen she knew.

“As I said, they are blockheads.”

“No,” Ruth said. “They’re independent, and it’s hard for them to change their ways. They feel safer doing things the way they always have, taking care of themselves.”

“Your father?” Pastor Wishnell said. “How does he get his lobster catch to Rockland?”

“He takes it on his boat.” She wasn’t sure how this conversation had turned into an interrogation.

“And how does he get his bait and fuel?”

“He brings them back from Rockland on his boat.”

“And so do all the other men on the island, right? Each man in his own little boat, chugging away to Rockland alone because they can’t trust one another enough to combine the catch and take turns making the trip. Correct?”

“My dad doesn’t want everyone in the world to know how much lobster he’s catching, or what kind of price he’s getting. Why should he want everyone to know that?”

“So he’s enough of a blockhead never to go into partnership with his neighbors.”

“I prefer not to think of my father as a blockhead,” Ruth said, quietly. “Besides, nobody has the capital to start a cooperative.”

Cal Cooley snorted. “Shut up, Cal,” Ruth added, less quietly.

“Well, my nephew Owney saw, close up, the war that came of that last collective attempt, didn’t he? It was Dennis Burden who tried to form the cooperative on Courne Haven. He put his life out for it. And it was Dennis Burden’s little children to whom we brought food and clothing after his neighbors—his
own
neighbors—set his boat on fire and the poor man could no longer make a living.”

“I heard that Dennis Burden had made a secret deal with the Sandy Point wholesaler,” Ruth said. “I heard he cheated his neighbors.” She paused, then, imitating the pastor’s inflection, added, “His
own
neighbors.”

The pastor frowned. “That is a myth.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“Would you have burned the man’s boat?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“No. You were not there. But I was there and Owney was there. And it was a good lesson for Owney on the realities of the lobster business. He’s seen these medieval battles and disputes on every island from here to Canada. He understands the depravity, the danger, the greed. And he knows better than to become involved in such a profession.”

Owney Wishnell made no comment.

At last, the pastor said to Ruth, “You’re a bright girl, Ruth.”

“Thank you.”

“It seems you’ve had a good education.”

Cal Cooley put in, “Too much of an education. Cost a fucking fortune.”

The pastor gave Cal such a hard look, it almost made Ruth wince. Cal turned his face. Ruth sensed that this was the last time she’d be hearing the word
fuck
spoken on the
New Hope.

“And what will become of you, Ruth?” Pastor Toby Wishnell asked. “You have good sense, don’t you? What will you do with your life?”

Ruth Thomas looked at the back and the neck of Owney Wishnell, who, she could tell, was still listening closely.

“College?” Pastor Toby Wishnell suggested.

What urgency there was in Owney Wishnell’s posture!

So Ruth decided to engage. She said, “More than anything else, sir, I would like to become a lobster fisherman.”

Pastor Toby Wishnell gazed at her, coolly. She returned the gaze.

“Because it’s such a noble calling, sir,” she said.

That was the end of the conversation. Ruth had shut it right up. She couldn’t help herself. She could never help herself from mouthing off. She was mortified at the way she had spoken to this man. Mortified, and a little proud. Yeah! She could sass the best of them! But, good God, what an awkward silence. Maybe she should have minded her manners.

The
New Hope
rocked and bumped on the rough sea. Cal Cooley looked pallid, and he quickly went out on deck, where he clung to the railing. Owney sailed on, silent, the back of his neck flushed plum. Ruth Thomas was deeply uncomfortable alone in the presence of Pastor Wishnell, but she hoped that her discomfort was not apparent. She tried to look relaxed. She did not try to converse further with the pastor. Although he did have one last thing to say to her. They were still an hour from Rockland when Pastor Toby Wishnell told Ruth one last thing.

He leaned toward her and said, “Did you know that I was the first man in the Wishnell family not to become a lobster fisherman, Ruth? Did you know that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “Then you’ll understand when I tell you this. My nephew Owney will be the second Wishnell not to fish.”

He smiled, leaned back, and watched her carefully for the rest of the trip. She maintained a small, defiant smile. She wasn’t going to show this man her discomfort. No, sir. He fixed his cool, intelligent gaze on her for the next hour. She just smiled away at him. She was miserable.

 

Cal Cooley drove Ruth Thomas to Concord in the two-tone Buick the Ellis family had owned since Ruth was a little girl. After telling Cal she was tired, she lay down on the back seat and pretended to sleep. He literally whistled “Dixie” during the entire drive. He knew Ruth was awake, and he knew he was annoying her intensely.

They arrived in Concord around dusk. It was raining lightly, and the Buick made a sweet hissing sound on the wet macadam—a sound that Ruth never heard on a Fort Niles dirt road. Cal turned into the long driveway of the Ellis mansion and let the car coast to a stop. Ruth still pretended to be asleep, and Cal pretended to wake her up. He twisted around in the front seat and poked her hip.

“Try to drag yourself back into consciousness.”

She opened her eyes slowly and stretched with great drama. “Are we here already?”

They got out of the car, walked to the front door, and Cal rang the bell. He put his hands in his jacket pockets.

“You are so goddamned pissed off about being here,” Cal said, and laughed. “You hate me so much.”

The door opened, and there was Ruth’s mother. She gave a little gasp and stepped out on the doorstep to put her arms around her daughter. Ruth laid her head on her mother’s shoulder and said, “Here I am.”

“I’m never sure if you’ll really come.”

“Here I am.”

They held each other.

Ruth’s mother said, “You look wonderful, Ruth,” although, with her daughter’s head lying on her shoulder, she could not really see.

“Here I am,” Ruth said. “Here I am.”

Cal Cooley coughed decorously.

The young animals that issue from the eggs of the lobster are distinct in every way, including shape, habits, and mode of transportation, from the adult.