Bone River

by Chance, Megan

  “And he hasn’t let you have a drink since.”

  “It’s not like that, Daniel. You think he’s an ogre and—”

  He held up a hand to stop me. “You said you wouldn’t make excuses for him. I like it better when you don’t.”

  “All right.”

  “At least eat the chowder.”

  I put the money bag aside and did as he directed. By the time I finished the soup, I was beginning to feel my hands again.

  “Thank you for your help today,” I said. “You’re a good worker.”

  “So you’ve said. You pay me well enough to be,” he said. He took the last bite of his chowder and pushed the bowl aside.

  With deliberate lightness, I said, “How like an oysterman you look. Why, one would think you were born to it. What would your Eleanor think to see you now?”

  “I don’t think she would appreciate it.”

  “No?”

  “No.” He drank his whiskey and grimaced. “This may be the worst whiskey I’ve ever had.”

  “Will makes it himself.”

  “What does he use, lye?”

  “Why wouldn’t she appreciate it?” I asked. “Eleanor, I mean?”

  “She has some idea of me as a gentleman poet,” he said. “I suppose I shouldn’t have quoted Milton to her.”

  “I’m certain she found it very romantic.”

  His gaze came up. “Why do you say that?”

  “Don’t most women find it so?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?” His gaze was direct.

  I was suddenly flustered. I looked away.

  He played with his empty glass, spinning it a little between his fingers. “It’s only that she’s very...naive. I know she cares for me, but she’s a respectable woman from a godly family. Does she really want a man who must work hard for his living?”

  “But you’ve elevated yourself already. Surely the newspaper—”

  “Yes, the newspaper.” He laughed shortly.

  “It’s very impressive, you know, what you’ve done. How you’ve managed things given...” I couldn’t say the words.

  “Indeed. Risen from the ashes of poverty.” He lifted the whiskey in a mock toast. But he didn’t drink it. He stared into it. “I won’t be poor again.”

  “No, why should you be? What with the oystering money you’ve earned and the newspaper.”

  “Yes.” There was something hard in his eyes that I shrank from. “How strange to find that my father will provide after all.”

  I was uncomfortable. I had the sense he was talking about something more, something I didn’t know that reminded me of Junius’s warnings. “You’ve earned this, Daniel,” I said quietly. “You’ve worked for it. He respects that, even if he doesn’t say it.”

  “I don’t think it’s hard work he respects.”

  “Please don’t start this again—”

  “I think he takes what he wants. I think he always has.”

  “Daniel—”

  “And I think I’m more like him than you know.”

  He was looking at me so strangely. I shivered—dread again, or a presentiment, but of what I didn’t know, and I couldn’t grab hold of it.

  He looked away. The saloon was full now, men pressed into every nook. They brushed up against us on all sides. It was stifling, close with the scent of oysters and mud and sweat, coal smoke, chowder, and whiskey. Like being inside the basket, unable to move, elbows pressed against reeds, suffocating in darkness—

  “Leonie? Are you all right?”

  I blinked, coming back to myself. He was leaning forward, a look of concern on his face, and I swallowed and said, “I’m fine. It’s only...it’s too hot.” I was sweating. My face felt red and very warm.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He drained the last of his whiskey, and then he left the rest of the bottle on the table and rose, holding out his hand to help me to my feet. I grabbed it; his fingers closed warmly around mine, pulling me with him through the crowd while I smiled and said hello to those I knew, but I felt a little light-headed, not quite myself, not until we were outside again on the narrow porch, and then into the street, where there was no shelter, and the rain was coming down hard, puddling the street. It was dusk. Already I heard the music coming from McBride’s, the fiddlers again, and I thought, no, no dance at the same time I yearned for it, at the same time my heart leaped at the music.

  It was then I realized that Daniel was still holding my hand. I stepped away, disentangling my fingers, not looking at him. “We should go. It will be dark soon, and in the rain it will—”

  “You don’t want to go to the dance?” His voice was sharp, hard.

  I shook my head. “I think it’s best if we go back home.”

  “You want to dance. I know you do.”

  “No, I—”

  “I won’t even dance with you if you don’t want. All right?”

  There it was, the tacit reference to something I did not want to admit, not to him and not to myself. I did not know what to do with it, or what to say.

  He held out his hand. “Come with me?”

  I thought of the darkness of the basket, my own hands withering, my sense of time passing, and it was as if I heard her voice whispering in my ear, urging me. I felt her as if she stood beside me. I felt her all around me.

  I gave in and let him lead me to the dance.

  McBride’s was full. There were many oystermen still at Dunn’s, but the schooner dances were not restricted to oystermen. Indians were already gathered on the porch, half-drunk, and inside the sawmen—half-drunk as well—and their families were already dancing, women beaming and flouncing their skirts, the pound of boots vibrating, and children dodging their parents and each other. The air was damp and hot and heavy, windows half-open so that the rain splashed in to wet the floor beneath. I had no time to regret coming or to change my mind, because almost the moment Daniel and I went inside Michael Johnson swooped down on us, laughing and saying, “Hello my fine Russells. Thought I saw you on the water today. Dance with me, Leonie?”

  I didn’t cast the slightest glance to Daniel as I took Michael’s hand and let him lead me into a rousing polka. Without Junius there urging me to correct behavior, and with my own confusion distracting me, urging solace of any kind, I did what I was not supposed to do; I became not Leonie Russell but that stranger again, who laughed and spun and flirted and cared nothing for oysters or science but was only a woman. I danced as I wanted to, until I was laughing and my hair was falling into my face. And with that freedom, something else bloomed too, something I did not like or expect, because when the polka was done, I saw Daniel across the room, dancing with Anna Parker, who was a rather heavy mother of four, but he was smiling at her and she looked flustered and charmed—how appealing he could be, how easy it was for him to make women love him. The thought surprised me, but not more than the stab of jealousy I felt. I gave myself back over to the dance, and I tried to keep from searching Daniel out.

  But I didn’t succeed very well. I knew where he was every moment, and I knew when he was watching me too, and I was conscious of performing for him, of laughing a little too loudly, flirting a bit too obviously. I enjoyed myself, but it was a show, too, and I didn’t ask myself what I was doing or why. He did as he’d promised; he didn’t once approach me or ask me to dance, and I was grateful for that at the same time I waited for it, both wanting it and afraid of it. As the night went on everything I did became about avoiding him, while at the same time I wanted him to notice me. I did not rest or sit out a single dance, even though I was breathing hard and sweating and my hair was falling from its pins. To rest meant to think, and I wanted not to think. I wanted to feel nothing but the music and my body. I wanted not to be aware of him at all.

  And then I saw Bibi.

  Twice now she’d come to a dance. And this time, too, I knew she’d come because of me. She stood at the edge of the floor, watching me, though she didn’t call me over and I didn’t go to her. I didn�
�t want to hear her witch words, not her warnings or her fears or her talk about the she who wanted something from me or about the things Daniel did or did not want.

  I looked down at the bracelet on my wrist—still there, because when the call for the schooner had come I’d forgotten my resolution. The rain was pounding; I heard it at every pause in the music, the rush of it upon the street, the growing pools of it beneath the windows that slicked the floor when people walked through it, leaving streaks of mud one had to be careful for or slip. When Jackson Anders asked me to dance, I turned deliberately away from Bibi and went into his arms. I pretended not to see her smile.

  But with her coming, my awareness of my stepson became overpowering. He was there, talking with a group of men at the table, eating a piece of cake as crumbs spilled from his fingers, and then, dancing with pretty young Celeste Martin, whose husband had just brought her from Yakima two months ago. Dark haired, limpid eyed. Younger than me by nearly two decades.

  I stumbled; Jackson tightened his hand on mine and said anxiously, “Did I step on you?”

  I smiled up at him and shook my head. My hair fell into my face and I tossed it back, and I was so determined not to catch Bibi’s glance that I looked everywhere but her direction, and that was how I caught Daniel’s.

  He stood at the edge of the crowd, and he looked up just as I looked over, and then I could not look away. It was as if something held me there, some pull I could not release. He went still as well; the moment held until Jackson said something, and I turned back to him.

  I did not want the dance to end because I knew what would happen when it did. When the music stopped, and Jackson released me with a little bow, I thought about fleeing. The porch was not so far. Only across the main room. Except that I would need to make it through the crowd without being asked to dance. And I would need to make it past Bibi, who guarded the entrance like some sentinel.

  Daniel came as if I’d summoned him. His hair gleamed golden in the lamplight, there was the fine sheen of sweat on his skin. He looked reluctant, uncomfortable, wanting and not wanting in equal measure, and I thought how foolish we both were, how ridiculous. I looked up at him, and he said, “I know I said you didn’t have to...just tell me if you don’t want to dance with me. I won’t insist.”

  I held out my hand. The music started, a waltz, and he hesitated as if he were surprised. When his fingers closed around mine and I went into his arms, we kept stonily distant from each other. He did not try to bring me closer. It was as if desire had created a wall between us, one neither dared cross, and I saw him fight it even as I did. And all the time, that pull, that irresistible pull, and the music soared and dipped—oh, how good the Jansen brothers were at fiddling a waltz, how sweet it was!—and I closed my eyes and let the music invade me, let it urge me into playing along, let myself sway, and pretended it was not Daniel I danced with at the same time I knew his every movement. And then, suddenly, he dragged me close, almost violently, as if he hated to do it but could not resist, and I was up hard against him, feeling his warmth and mine answering it, and everything shifted. I heard the music and his breath and my own, one body, one motion, a place I fit that belonged just to me, a desire that took prisoners, that took me. I had never felt anything like it, and I knew it was wrong, but I did not want to let it go. In that moment I would have fought the world to keep feeling it, and then the music ended and I looked up at him, and when I saw the way he was looking at me I came back to myself.

  I disengaged from him so quickly it was awkward and unseemly, untangling my fingers from his, which did not seem to want to release me. Desperately I looked away toward the door, toward Bibi, who was no longer there. She had disappeared.

  I dodged across the dance floor, quickly and purposefully enough that no one stopped me. I had no thought beyond leaving. I was on the porch without my coat or hat before I knew it, stumbling into a group of Indians playing a rather drunken game of La-hull, barely avoiding the wooden disks rolling across the planked floor. And once I was there I had no idea what to do or where to go. I crossed my arms over my chest and stood freezing and staring out at the curtain of rain, and a wind that blew it at an angle, not sideways yet, not a storm. The only storm was the one raging in me.

  I heard the footsteps behind me. I knew who it was before he spoke a word; I knew also that I would pretend I hadn’t felt the things I had, that I would deny him.

  I moved to the edge of the porch, beyond the Indians, and he came up beside me. I didn’t look at him. I said, “We should think about heading home.”

  He let out his breath. “In this weather?”

  “It’s not so bad. We’ll only get wet.”

  “It’s going to storm.”

  I shook my head. “We’ll beat it if we go now.”

  He said quietly, “I asked McBride if there was a room to be had and there is. We should stay here tonight. Go in the morning.”

  “No!” Too vehement, I knew. I swallowed and said more calmly, “No.”

  He paused. Hoarsely, he said, “I promise I won’t...” The rest died, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say the words, and I did not finish the sentence, even in my head. I pretended he hadn’t said what we both knew he meant. He went on, “In fact, you should take the room for yourself. I’ll...sleep in the hall or...something.”

  “I’m leaving,” I said. “You can go back with me now or stay and make your own way home tomorrow morning.”

  “Leonie.” His voice was very low. “Let’s not compound one mistake with another.”

  “The only mistake would be in staying,” I said. “I’m going to get my coat. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I can’t let you go alone. Not like this.”

  Like this. The world felt swollen, ready to burst and change, and I was afraid.

  “Then get your things,” I managed.

  We went inside to get our coats and our hats and say our good-byes. It took longer than I’d hoped, and when we came out again, the wind had strengthened, the rain blowing sideways after all. I didn’t hesitate, but went straight into it. I didn’t want to give him the time to ask me to change my mind. I was determined to cross the bay, as if home were some safe refuge, and that was ridiculous too because we would only be more alone there, without society to watch the gates. But I refused to think of that. I thought of a closed bedroom door, of Junius’s things all around me, of my life all around me, a buffer to remind me of my obligations and my promises.

  The wind threatened to lift my hat from my head, and I shoved it down again and bent into the rain, nearly running toward the beach and the plunger. I was nearly soaked through by the time we reached Dunn’s, where there was still a crowd, shadows falling across the street from the windows and men in the lamplight. Daniel said nothing but only hurried with me over the raft of driftwood to the plunger. The ropes—the main sheet and that of the jib—whipped in the wind, uncoiling and bouncing against the mast with little thuds. Neither of us spoke a word as we folded up the oilcloth and pushed the sloop out, sloshing through the shallow water to climb aboard. The boat rocked until we were deep enough for me to plunge in the centerboard, and then it steadied. Daniel struggled to light the lamp, and by the third try had it. I raised the sails and he went forward to hang the lantern, which lent so little light through the gray of the blowing rain that it was wasted.

  There was a compass stowed away; we rarely used it, but I needed it tonight. I could see no single landmark, and there were no stars. I pulled it from its leather case beneath the seat and held it up to the lamplight to see the direction, and then I took hold of the rudder and pointed us there.

  I was cold and wet through already. But we had barely got properly into the bay before the storm that had been threatening hit hard—and I realized what a fool I had been to insist upon this.

  The wind howled and the rain came down like thunder. I could see nothing beyond the deck and the sails. The boat rocked in the waves; handling the rudder took all my strength. W
ithout the compass we could have sailed into the ocean; the wind was so fierce I would not have been able to see enough through the blowing rain to know it. I’d raised the jib, but the storm was too much for it, so I lowered it again, but it caught, the sheets snapping and striking out, tangling furiously about the mast, and the wind filled it and the boat heeled so far over we began to take in water. I let the mainsail go slack, but even so I knew the wind was so strong that the jib would take us under if I didn’t get it completely down.

  I shouted at Daniel to take the rudder, and when he did I tried to climb to the bow to release the jib, but then we were hit by something—a wave, a burst of wind, and the boat went nearly up onto its side, and I slipped and fell. Daniel caught me by my sleeve, jerking me back so hard I fell into him, saving me from plunging overboard. Water splashed over the side, a wave that soaked us both, a mouthful of saltwater that made me choke and sputter. The wind screamed.

  “I’ve got to get the jib down,” I shouted at him, but the wind tore my voice away. I tried to get loose, but he held me fast with one arm, his other shaking with the effort of holding the rudder steady.

  “Stay here!” he shouted back at me. “What are you doing?”

  “The jib!” I pointed to the sail, fat with wind, the sheets slapping noisily on the deck and the mast.

  “Let me do it!”

  I shook my head. “Can you swim?”

  He let me go, and I tried to find my step. The boat jerked again; I grabbed his shoulder to steady myself and grabbed a mooring line, tying it about my waist in case I fell. The deck was slick with rain, and angled so steeply my boots were half in water as I crept around the hold, nearly crawling to the bow. One of the sheets whipped my cheek; I grabbed it only just before it lashed my eyes, pulling myself upright by holding on to the mast, trying to avoid the slapping mainsail. The jib sheets whipped about like snakes, the rain coming down so hard I could barely see. I reached out blindly, flailing. The wind whipped my hat from my head and it flew off into the darkness, and I made another lunge, grasping the rope at last, untangling it so it was free. I reached to pull the jib loose—