The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Part 70

"I'll go with you," he said.

Then again for a half minute n.o.body spoke. Captain Hammar glared, letting us see what was in his dark mind. Old Conboy shrunk into himself and Deolda sat with her wild eyes going from one to the other, but not moving. We were all thinking of what old Conboy had said just before Captain Hammar had flung open the door. A sudden impulse seized me; I wanted to cry out: "Don't go, Johnny. He'll shove you overboard." For I knew that was what was in "Nick" Hammar's mind as well as if he had told me. A terrible excitement went through me. I wanted to fling myself at "Nick" Hammar and beat him with my fists and say, "He sha'n't go--he sha'n't, he sha'n't!" But I sat there unable to move or speak. Then suddenly into the frozen silence came the voice of "Nick" Hammar. This is what he said in his easy and tranquil way:

"Well, I'm goin' along. Are you coming, Conboy?" He spoke as though nothing had happened. "I'll meet you down at the wharf, Johnny, in a half hour. I'll leave you to say good-by to Deolda." They went out, the wind blowing the door shut behind them.

Deolda got up and so did Johnny. They stood facing each other in the queer yellow light of the coming storm. They didn't notice my aunt or me.

"_You going?_" asked Deolda.

They looked into each other's eyes, and he answered so I could barely hear:

"Sure."

"_You know what he's thinking about?_" said Deolda.

Again Johnny waited before he answered in a voice hardly above a whisper:

"I can guess."

Deolda went up slowly to him and put one of her long hands on each of his shoulders. She looked deep into his eyes. She didn't speak; she just looked. And he looked back, as though trying to find out what she had in her heart, and as he looked a little flicker of horror went over his face. Then he smiled a slow smile, as though he had understood something and consented to it--and it was a queer smile to see on the face of a young fellow. It was as if the youth of Johnny Deutra had pa.s.sed away forever. Then Deolda said to him:

"Good for you, Johnny Deutra!" and put out her hand, and he laid his in hers and they shook on it, though no word had pa.s.sed between them. And all this time my aunt and I sat motionless on the haircloth sofa next to the wall. And I tell you as I watched them my blood ran cold, though I didn't understand what it was about. But later I understood well enough.

There never was so long an evening. The squall blew over and a heavy blow set in. I could hear the pounding of the waves on the outside sh.o.r.e. Deolda sat outside the circle of the lamp in a horrible tense quiet. My aunt tried to make talk, and made a failure of it. It was awful to hear the clatter of her voice trying to sound natural in the face of the whistle of the storm, and out wallowing in it the gasoline dory with its freight of hatred. I hated to go to bed, for my room gave on the sea, and it seemed as if the night and the tragedy which I had glimpsed would come peering in at me with ghastly eyes.

I had just got under the blanket when the door opened quietly.

"Who is that?" I asked.

"It's me--Deolda."

She went to the window and peered out into the storm, as though she were trying to penetrate its mystery. I couldn't bear her standing there; it was as if I could hear her heart bleed. It was as if for a while I had become fused with her and her love for Johnny Deutra and with all the dark things that had happened in our house this afternoon. I got out of bed and went to her and put my hand in hers. If she'd only cried, or if she'd only spoken I could have stood it; if she'd said in words what was going on inside her mind. But she sat there with her hand cold in mine, staring into the storm through all the long hours of the night.

Toward the end I was so tired that my mind went to sleep in that way your mind can when your body stays awake and everything seems far off and like things happening in a nightmare except that you know they're real. At last daylight broke, very pale, threatening, and slate colored.

Deolda got up and began padding up and down the floor, back and forth, like a soul in torment.

About ten o'clock old Conboy came in.

"I got the license, Deolda," he said.

"All right," said Deolda, "all right--go away." And she kept on padding up and down the room like a leopard in a cage.

Conboy beckoned my aunt out into the entry. I followed.

"What ails her?" he asked.

"I guess she thinks she sent Johnny Deutra to his grave," said my aunt.

Conboy peered in the door at Deolda. Her face looked like a yellow mask of death with her black hair hanging around her.

"G.o.d!" he said, in a whisper. "_She cares!_" I don't believe it had dawned on him before that she was anything but a wild devil.

All that day the _Anita_ wasn't heard from. That night I was tired out and went to bed. But I couldn't sleep; Deolda sat staring out into the dark as she had the night before.

Next morning I was standing outside the house when one of Deolda's brothers came tearing along. It was Joe, the youngest of one-armed Manel's brood, a boy of sixteen who worked in the fish factory.

"Deolda!" he yelled. "Deolda, Johnny's all right!"

She caught him by the wrist. "Tell me what's happened!"

"The other feller--he's lost."

"_Lost?_" said Deolda, her breath drawn in sharply. "Lost--how?"

"Washed overboard," said Joe. "See--looka here. When Johnny got ash.o.r.e this is what he says." He read aloud from the newspaper he had brought, a word at a time, like a grammar-school kid:

"With a lame propeller and driven out of her course, the _Anita_ made Plymouth this morning without her Captain, Mark Hammar. John Deutra, who brought her in, made the following statement:

"'I was lying in my bunk unable to sleep, for we were being combed by waves again and again. Suddenly I noticed we were wallowing in the trough of the sea, and went on deck to see what was wrong. I groped my way to the wheel. It swung empty. Captain Hammar was gone, washed overboard in the storm. How I made port myself I don't know--'"

Here his reading was interrupted by an awful noise--Deolda laughing, Deolda laughing and sobbing, her hands above her head, a wild thing, terrible.

"Go on," my aunt told the boy. "Go home!" And she and Deolda went into the house, her laughter filling it with awful sound.

After a time she quieted down. She stood staring out of the window, hands clenched.

"Well?" she said, defiantly. "Well?" She looked at us, and what was in her eyes made chills go down me. Triumph was what was in her eyes. Then suddenly she flung her arms around my aunt and kissed her. "Oh," she cried, "kiss me, Auntie, kiss me! He's not dead, my Johnny--not dead!"

"Go up to your room, Deolda," said my aunt, "and rest." She patted her shoulder just as though she were a little girl, for all the thoughts that were crawling around our hearts.

When later in the day Conboy came, "Where's Deolda?" he asked.

"I'll call her," I said. But Deolda wasn't anywhere; not a sign of her.

She'd vanished. Conboy and Aunt Josephine looked at each other.

"She's gone to him," said Conboy.

My aunt leaned toward him and whispered, "_What do you think?_"

"Hus.h.!.+" said Conboy, sternly. "_Don't think_, Josephine! _Don't speak.

Don't even dream!_ Don't let your mind stray. You know that crew couldn't have made port in fair weather together. The strongest man won--that's all!"

"Then you believe--" my aunt began.

"Hus.h.!.+" he said, and put his hand over her mouth. Then he laughed suddenly and slapped his thigh. "G.o.d!" he said. "Deolda--Can you beat her? She's got luck--by gorry, she's got luck! You got a pen and ink?"

"What for?" said my aunt.