Blood Kin

by Judith E. French

  “Maria’s my husband’s sister,” Cathy explained as she pointed out her nephew Eric, seven, wandering along the water’s edge with a crab net, and her niece, Julie, a toddler who was being carried around the yard, being “spoiled rotten by Maggie and the other girls.”

  “And this is Joel.” Amy shifted her newborn to her right shoulder and patted his back. “Come on, little man, I know you have a burp in that tummy somewhere.”

  Joel expelled a small burst of air, and Cathy laughed. “Isn’t he precious? I can’t wait for my baby to get here.”

  “When he starts crying in the middle of the night, you’ll wish he was still inside,” Amy teased, tucking Joel back into his infant seat and popping a pacifier in his mouth.

  “Not a chance.”

  Bailey looked at the pile of steamed crabs heaped on the table. “I warn you, I’m a novice at this,” she said as she accepted a tall glass of iced tea.

  “You’ll catch on fast enough,” Amy assured her. “If you’re a Tawes, it’s born in you.”

  Cathy handed her a wooden mallet. “This is to crack the claws.”

  “Don’t smash the crabs with it,” Amy said.

  “You break them apart like this,” Cathy explained, demonstrating. “And don’t break the claws until last, because they’re better than a knife to extract the white meat, here and here.”

  Amy nodded. “Easy as catching frogs in a rain barrel.”

  “We don’t eat these things.” Maria indicated a yellowish glob. “They’re eggs. And these are lungs,” Maria said. “We throw them away.”

  “When we’re finished picking these, we’ll show you how Amy’s mother makes crab cakes.” Cathy put a finger to her lips. “And not a word to Emma.”

  Amy giggled. “She thinks we’re using her recipe.”

  Within a few minutes Bailey not only felt at ease with the group but thought she had the knack of crab picking. And although she was a lot slower than the others, she soon was adding a respectable amount of crabmeat to the large mixing bowl.

  Soon more women and children arrived, most carrying pitchers of tea or lemonade, platters of baked ham, roast turkey, salads, pies, biscuits, and cooked vegetables. Two teenagers staggered under the weight of a glorious four-layer cake crowned with a spray of yellow confectionary roses, a cake so large and professionally done that it could easily have served two hundred wedding guests.

  “Inside with that cake,” Emma ordered. “Put that on the dining room table. If we set it up on the outside table, we’ll have more flies than roses.”

  “I don’t know why that would bother you.” Amy chuckled. “It’s what happened to my anniversary cake.”

  “Yes, and who ate it?” Emma propped fisted hands on her hips and struck a pose. “My hens. We’re not taking that chance with Mama’s birthday cake. She’d have our heads in a bushel basket.” She pointed toward the kitchen door, and the cake transporters cheerfully obeyed her instructions.

  Children ran in and out of the house. The baby fussed; Amy fed him, and he dropped off to sleep amid all the chaos. Old men wandered by with frosty tall glasses. Women rescued toddlers from certain disaster, soothed them, and pushed them into waiting arms. And through it all, Emma remained calm and cheerful.

  Bailey was both amazed and content. Here on Emma’s porch, she found a completely different reception from the one she’d received earlier on Tawes. Cathy, Maria, Amy, and Emma’s easy acceptance seemed to bridge the gap between her and the islanders. Soon she found herself laughing and talking as freely as if she’d known them all for months.

  Once the crabs were picked, the women fashioned them into crab cakes, secretly adding spices other than the ones Emma had ordered. Then Maria and Amy took control of the kitchen range, heating cast-iron frying pans, adding oil, and frying half of the crab cakes while putting others in the oven to broil.

  Cathy motioned Bailey toward the kitchen door, but Emma wasn’t to be fooled a second time. “It doesn’t take four of you to do up crab cakes,” she pronounced, pressing both Cathy and Bailey into Grace’s service. The pastor’s wife gave them a huge bowl of macaroni salad to finish and containers of raw vegetables to be washed and cut for serving with dip.

  By five o’clock the working men began to arrive: Matthew, Forest McCready, and Creed appeared first. Forest and Matthew brought extra chairs and tables from the church social hall, and Creed was weighed down with a violin and two buckets of oysters in their shells. Daniel appeared with Emma’s mother, the guest of honor.

  “Mama, I think you know everybody here but Bailey,” Emma said as she settled the white-haired lady in the blue-striped cotton dress into a comfortable rocking chair on the porch. “Bailey, this is my mama. Her name is Maude Ellen McCready Parks, but most folks call her Aunt Birdy. She used to be the best fisherman on Tawes Island, but now she just tells other people how to fish.”

  “Somebody has to,” Maude said. The elderly woman stood just under five feet tall in her black lace-up shoes and weighed no more than a ten-year-old girl. Her childish voice was high and sweetly thin, like a small bird, the exact opposite of Emma’s low rasp.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Parks,” Bailey said.

  Maude turned her head and Bailey saw that her eyes were white with cataracts. “Come here, child,” she said. “Let me touch your face.”

  “Go on,” Emma urged. “She won’t rest until she sees what you look like.”

  Cathy gave Bailey a little push.

  Feeling self-conscious, Bailey did as she was instructed. She took Maude’s bony hand, closed her eyes, and brought the woman’s fingertips to her cheek. “Ah,” Maude crooned. “You’re little but mighty. Pretty as your mother.” Her touch was surprisingly light as she skimmed cheekbone, brow, the line of Bailey’s nose, and her lips. “She’s a Tawes, all right. No mistake. Got her aunt Elizabeth’s stubborn mouth.” She drew her hand back. “Welcome, child. Welcome home.”

  “Thank you,” Bailey murmured. Oddly, the old woman’s touch had been comforting, almost a caress. Satisfaction that she had been officially pronounced a Tawes gave her a curious but happy warm feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Some of the men set up long tables and benches in the yard, while others rolled a stump out from behind the house and placed it on end under an oak tree. Matthew and Daniel brought smaller stumps and set them around the larger one as stools. Creed drew a bow across his violin strings, and women and children stopped what they were doing and gathered near.

  “Forest is the fastest oyster shucker on the island,” Emma declared, settling on the largest of the stools. “Next to me.” She whipped a small knife out of her apron pocket and wagged it back and forth in challenge.

  “Don’t fill her head with lies.” The attorney grinned as he found a seat and took out his own oyster knife. “You were lucky last time. I wasn’t in my best form last fall, but this time you’ll see who the master shucker is.”

  “You tell her,” Maude teased. “Success has gone to her head.”

  “Now, Mama, you’re supposed to be on my side.”

  The violin sighed and Creed broke into an old tune, drawing the bow faster and faster until the strings seemed to take on life of their own as Emma and Forest began to open raw oysters. Each contestant had his or her own team, choosing bivalves from the bucket, washing them, and handing them one by one as the knives bit and twisted, releasing the succulent oysters into a common tub. Men began to whistle and cheer their favorites while the watching women clapped and taunted the two shuckers.

  Bailey watched in fascination as the piles of shells and the laughter grew. From the fringes of the crowd came the notes of a harmonica and then another violin joined in. Then, abruptly, Emma gave a final flick of her knife and stood up.

  “Finished!” she bellowed. “How about you, Forest?”

  The attorney glanced down at the bucket at his feet. His shoulders slumped, and his smile faded. “All I can say is, I’ve been robbed!”

  “Rob
bed, nothing!” Emma roared. “You been beat, fair and square.”

  “Well, then,” Matthew said, “what are we waiting for, ladies? Let’s eat.”

  Amid laughter and good-natured jibes between the rival teams, men, women, and children flowed toward the tables that the men had set up earlier in the yard. “What will they do with all the oysters?” Bailey asked Cathy as they joined the ranks of volunteers carrying bowls and plates of food and pitchers of iced tea, lemonade, and water outside.

  “Oyster stew. It doesn’t take long to cook, and Emma will slip inside and make a vat of it sometime after supper. That’s what all those clean quart jars are for. Nobody will feel like cooking dinner tomorrow, so each family will take home a jar or two of stew. Along with all the leftovers.” She laughed. “I won’t have to make supper for three days, and that’s fine with me.”

  “I see,” Bailey said. She’d supposed that such a large group would eat off paper plates, but sometime during the oyster-shucking contest, teenage girls and boys had brought real dishes, silverware, and cloth napkins from the house. In less time than she’d imagined possible, order reigned out of chaos: Everyone found seats, Matthew offered a blessing, and the guests began to eat.

  Later, after the main courses, and once Maude’s birthday cake had been admired and cut, some of the older boys organized games for the young children, and groups of guests broke away to play horseshoes and darts. When Bailey began to gather dirty dishes, Cathy shook her head. “Not tonight,” she said. “The rules here are that the ladies cook and the men do the cleanup. Besides, everyone will be back for seconds soon enough.” She motioned. “Come here. I want you to meet my mother-in-law. You’ll like her.”

  Creed began to play his violin again, and a middle-aged woman sang the words to an English ballad about a sailor who went away to sea and never returned to his waiting sweetheart. Her voice was sweet and clear, and when the final notes of the song faded, Bailey found that she had tears in her eyes.

  “Don’t have too much fun,” Daniel said, coming up behind her in the purple dusk. “You’re already an islander by blood. If you’re not careful, you might find it hard to leave.”

  “You’re a fine one to talk.”

  Daniel grinned and handed her another glass of iced tea. “Sorry I can’t offer you something stronger. There are sodas cooling in ice on the porch, but we don’t serve alcohol at gatherings. Too dangerous.”

  Bailey laughed. “The tea is fine. But your ‘no alcohol’ rule doesn’t seem to have stopped Creed. I think I smelled something stronger than lemonade on his breath.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.” He caught her hand and pulled her away from the chattering group of younger women. “Come on.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be washing dishes?”

  “Not this time. I put in five hours at Susan and Tom’s wedding in April. I washed so many pots that my hands shriveled up. I couldn’t drive a nail straight for a week.”

  They circled around a fire where children were toasting marshmallows on sticks and walked to the end of Emma’s dock. The moon was up, full and pale, spilling a path of shimmering light across the dark waters of the bay.

  “They say you can make a wish when the moon paints the waves,” Daniel said. “If you don’t tell, it will come true.”

  “Have you tried it?” She sat down on the end of the dock. The rough boards were still warm from the sun.

  “I’m not much on wishes. I used to wish that I lived in the days of the pirates and that my father was a buccaneer instead of a pastor.” He chuckled. “It never worked, but it’s probably because my father wished I was a preacher’s son instead of a pirate-in-training.”

  “You went to school here on the island?”

  “Until the eighth grade. Then my mother home-schooled me until I was eighteen.”

  “College?”

  “University of Delaware.”

  “You’re kidding. Me too.” He smelled faintly of after-shave. It was a good smell, not sickly sweet, but masculine. “I guess you’ve been to Deer Park?”

  He groaned. “My buddies carried me out of there one night. They said I was singing. Loudly.”

  “What was wrong with that?”

  “It was the Penn State fight song.”

  She laughed. “I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die. They threatened to drag me out and lay me on the train tracks if I didn’t shut up. Three guys—”

  “Enough. What was your major?”

  “History. Until I switched to political science, and then philosophy. It took me five years to graduate.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  They were still talking when Emma began to extinguish the lanterns and bid her guests a good night. “Hey, you two,” she shouted from the porch. “Come on! I won’t have you setting a bad example for the children.”

  “The children should be in bed,” Daniel protested.

  “And so should I,” Bailey murmured, yawning.

  “I agree.”

  “Alone, thank you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He assumed a hurt tone. “I know when I’ve been put in my place.” He bent his head and brushed her cheek with his lips. “Night.”

  “Night.” She took a few steps across the lawn. “Thank you,” she said. “It was fun.”

  “It was,” Daniel agreed. “You’re a nice lady. If things were . . .” He nodded. “It’s been a pleasure to know you, but . . .”

  “But?”

  “Remember what I said, Bailey. Tawes isn’t the place for you. Go home. If you don’t, you’ll regret it.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No, it’s not a threat. I’m the last person you need to be afraid of. Just take my advice and leave. Soon.”

  “I will,” she replied. “After I get what I came here for.”

  “You might get more than you bargained for,” he said. “I want you safely out of here. Before it’s too late.”

  Midnight found Daniel not in his bed or Bailey’s but on the site of his unfinished cabin. He lit a kerosene lantern and built a fire in the hearth to boil water in an old tin coffeepot for tea. He did his best thinking when he drank tea. He liked Assam, loose tea leaves, brewed in a proper pot. He liked his tea strong, without milk or sugar, but if he had clover honey to stir in, that was good too. Here, in the night, he had no honey so he drank it black. He was savoring the last sips in his cup when he heard the front door open.

  “Evening,” he said.

  Hard footsteps. Quick. He rose to face a red-faced Will Tawes, anger radiating off him like heat from the hearth bricks.

  “You’re about early. Or late?”

  “Who sent her to my house?”

  “Sent who?”

  “Beth’s girl. Is it Emma’s doing?”

  Daniel motioned to the coffeepot. “Tea? We missed you at Aunt Birdy’s birthday party.”

  Will shook his head. “Beth’s girl had no business coming here.”

  “Her name is Bailey. Bailey Elliott. I tried to tell her to stay away, but she’s stubborn. Like someone else I could mention.”

  “I want to know if this is Emma’s meddling.”

  Daniel shrugged. “I doubt it. She’s afraid that the old trouble will start up. That folks will talk. She likes Bailey. So do I. She deserves better.”

  “So did Beth.”

  “You should tell her. Tell her before someone else does.”

  “Stay out of this. You’re the only Catlin worth your salt, and we’ve been friends a long time, but this runs too deep.”

  “You’re dragging me into it by coming here. People are scared. Not just Emma. Other people. Some think that Joe Marshall’s death wasn’t an accident . . . that you took justice into your own hands.”

  “If folks want to accuse me of killing him, they should say it to my face or keep their mouths shut.”

  “Did you do it, Will? Did you shoot him?”

  “If I did, if I could murde
r a man in cold blood, would I be foolish enough to admit it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Lucky for you, you won’t find out if I am that dumb. Because if I did kill him, and I told you I did, then I’d have to make certain you didn’t live to tell the tale, wouldn’t I?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  My belly burns with white-hot anger. Once again Beth’s returned to shame me. I won’t stand for it. I killed the sniveling little bitch, but I think now maybe she died too easily. I stand here, at the start of Hessian’s Redoubt near the old settlers’ cemetery, thinking longer than I should about the past. I know I shouldn’t waste too much time on things that can’t be changed.

  The lane, what there is of it, peters out at Creed Somers’s place. It never amounted to much more than hard-packed ruts, and last winter’s storms washed out a whole section when the high tide rose up over the road.

  Most islanders who want to visit Creed leave the main trail at McCready’s old homeplace and follow the shoreline a half mile to Creed’s dock. He never does, but he’s nothing but a sorry excuse for a drunk who always was too stubborn for his own good. Just because his mother drowned herself on that stretch of beach is no reason for him not to take the shortcut forty years later. He claims her ghost walks there, but half the time he sees the world through a haze of cheap wine or homemade white lightning.

  Earlier tonight, the moon was shining bright enough to crab by, but sometime after midnight the wind shifted and thick clouds moved in. Still, moonlight or not, I can find my way in the dark. I fear neither God nor the devil. A lantern would show where I was stepping, but you never know who’s out, who might spot you. And after a lifetime on this island, if I can’t find my way, day or night, fog or snow, then I deserve to sink in the marsh quicksand or trip over a beached log and break my neck.

  Walking along the high-tide mark, I don’t make much noise, but I can hear plenty. Owls, rails, cicadas, frogs, and the occasional nasal ee-nt, ee-nt, ee-nt cry of a nighthawk make such a ruckus that it’s hard to keep your thinking straight. I don’t carry a gun with me. I’d thought about bringing my rifle just to show Creed how serious I am about him staying clear of Beth’s bastard, but I thought better of it. Most people on Tawes respect me—even fear me. I doubt that many can say they like me, but that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t always that way—there was a time when I never lacked for company—but it’s true now. I’m not so heartless as some claim. I abhor violence. I’ll avoid it if I can. If I can’t, then heaven pity the poor misguided soul who stands in my way.