Eddie seemed to recover himself. He looked at his buddy and then he started to laugh. “Man, you should see yourself. You look so pissed off. But I don’t think you’re so tough without your crew of friends. And you’re definitely not so tough without the old man there to take care of everything for you.” He shuffled sideways until he was near the cabin. “It’s hard work, you know. I thought it would be kind of fun, pulling traps, working the water, but I’d forgotten how much work it really is. Oswald and I argued about it. You remember Oswald, right? I hear you’re the one who found him. And Joey’s finger.” He laughed. “So scared you had to call in your daddy. Shame Daddy’s not here to come to the rescue?”
“Fuck you, Eddie.”
He grinned. “You’ve already said that. Nice cast, by the way. Must be hard pulling traps with a broken arm. I guess I made your life easier by cutting some of your daddy’s traps.” His buddy laughed at that and Eddie tilted his head to him. “Yeah, I’m funny, aren’t I? It really is hard work. That was Oswald’s problem. He wasn’t willing to work for it, and then he just thought he’d go off and do his own thing, and that didn’t play so well with me.” Eddie stared at me, trying to intimidate me. “But we’re doing just fine without Oswald. Hard work, but nothing taking a few bumps can’t help us get through. We’ve both been tweaking the last couple of days, and I know that when I come down I’m going to be sore as shit.”
“You know what, Eddie? Just do yourself a favour and get out of here before somebody gets hurt. You’re right. It’s a lot of work, and I don’t think you want to be out here any more than I want you to be out here.”
He looked down at the hand that he’d kept below the rail, and when he looked up at me again his face carried an aggrieved look. “It’s not your waters, you know. It’s not just for you. You aren’t anything special. Who gives a shit that your last name is Kings? Who gives a shit that you’ve been on the island for a hundred years or whatever? And you make it sound like being a lobsterman is some noble pursuit. You all are full of shit. It’s just work. Hell, I don’t even want to be out here. I just went along with it when the other boys in the harbour said we should make a play, because I thought it would be worth it to show you and your friends what’s what. And then they all pussied out, said it wasn’t worth the heat. Well, fuck them. Fuck you. Yeah, it’s hard work hauling, but hell, it’s worth it just to see the look on your face when I said I was cutting your daddy’s traps. I make more money in a day of moving meth than I do in a week on the water, but it’s been worth it. Oh, poor Cordelia, her sainted fucking father’s dead. He wasn’t such a good man, you know. Everybody makes him out to be such a perfect guy, Mr. Loosewood Island, but he was nothing more than a bully. Like you.”
Eddie touched his fingers to his cheek. I wasn’t sure that he even realized he was doing it, and even though we were closer, we weren’t close enough for me to see the small scar that I knew was still there from when Daddy had punched him. Eddie dropped his hand again. “I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for this,” Eddie said. “Wish I could have seen his face.” He showed his teeth. “Shame the old fucker stroked out.”
The boats had drifted closer together, closing the distance to half a boat length, and I was able to drop my voice into something akin to a normal conversation. “What? You’ve been circling around just waiting to, what, to get back at us? Is that what this is about, Eddie? You’re cutting traps because your feelings were hurt? Because you couldn’t hack it? Is this some sort of temper tantrum? You want me to say I’m sorry?” I took a step closer to the rail and leaned toward him. “Sorry because you couldn’t hack it as a sternman? Sorry that you started dealing meth on the island? These are my waters and you aren’t welcome here.”
“Your daddy ain’t here anymore,” Eddie said. “I don’t take orders from a cunt like you.”
“Fuck you,” I said, lifting my left arm and pointing my finger at him.
“No,” Eddie said, “fuck you.” And what Eddie pointed back at me wasn’t his finger. And suddenly I thought that I didn’t want to take my chances, even if it was only a pistol.
The sun burned a hole in my chest. High in my chest. It was up in my shoulder, under the collarbone. No, it wasn’t the sun. It was a fishhook. Somebody had slipped me onto a hook. Something banged, loud and popping. The sun was falling? Was that the sun crashing into the ocean? It fell again, and then again. I couldn’t open my eyes. I opened my eyes and I was under the water and I could see scales and flesh, a mermaid turning toward me. And then she wasn’t a mermaid, she was a selkie, and as she moved toward me she flickered from seal to woman to seal. I blinked, and then I couldn’t open my eyes again. The back of my head hurt, and there was something wrong with everything. I could hear Trudy whining and I could hear Trudy grunting, sniffing at something. There was a coughing sound. Laughing.
I tried opening my eyes again, and I saw Trudy crumpled against the gunwale. There was something dark and shiny matting the fur near her haunches. I could see her breathing coming fitful between her whines. Her eyes were open and she was watching me, but she didn’t try to get up. There was a coughing sound, coming from somewhere outside of my field of vision. I tried to turn my head to the side and had to close my eyes against the surge of light. I could feel a wet stickiness on the back of my head. I must have smashed my head on the deck when I went down. I’d need more stitches. But why had I smashed my head? I tried pushing myself up, and as soon as I moved my left arm I realized why I was lying on the deck. Eddie had shot me. The sharp hook in my chest—or shoulder, I wasn’t sure where it was exactly except high and left, high enough to have missed my heart, missed my breast—was a bullet hole.
I took a few seconds to catch my breath, and then I tried again, pushing myself up with my good right hand instead. I wanted to puke. I’d gotten a concussion out on the Kings’ Ransom a few days ago, on the night of the storm, and I was pretty sure I’d just gotten another one. Even propped up with one hand, it took me a few more seconds to be sure I wasn’t going to fall over.
I heard a man laughing, and then more grunting sounds. I realized they were coming from over the rail, from somewhere other than the Queen Jane. I heard talking and static coming from the radio, which was smashed and half off the console. I thought I recognized Timmy’s voice, even with the static.
The push against my calf scared the shit out of me, and I almost screamed. When I turned and saw that it was Kenny, I almost screamed in relief. He had his leg stretched as far as it could go, his toe against my calf. The first thing I saw was that his face was crusted in blood. His nose was bent, broken, and one of his eyes was swollen almost completely shut. Then I saw that his arms were pulled back, realized that his hands were zip-tied behind him, that he was tied to the base of the captain’s chair. And then I saw that the bottom of his shirt was soaked with blood. There was a ragged hole near his belly, and the blood there was darker. He was sweating, and every time he blinked his eyes it was slow and deliberate, as if he weren’t sure he could open them again. I started to move toward him, but he shook his head. The effort seemed to cost him, and then he motioned with his chin and his head toward the other boat. He mouthed her name, Stephanie.
I nodded, and even doing that almost sent me falling over. I knew that the water was calm, but it felt worse than any storm I’d ever been through. I tried getting on my knees, to crawl one-handed, but I couldn’t keep my balance. Instead I moved my legs until I was facing away from where I wanted to go and then scrunched my feet as close to my ass as I could, planted the soles of my boots on the deck, and then slid myself backward. Each time I did it, I felt something tearing in my chest, like the bullet was shifting inside me, but it only took a couple of pushes before my back hit against the locker. I reached up to open the locker. The latch seemed loud to me, the only sounds other than Eddie or his buddy’s laughter an occasional word from one of them, and the grunting that I had come to realize was from Stephanie.
The gun box with the
pistol in it was the easiest to get out, but I remembered trying to fire it when I was younger, the way it kicked back at me and opened a cut on my forehead. I wanted something I was familiar with, and I worked out one of the longer shotgun cases instead. I slid it out and across my lap and then made sure my back was still braced against something solid as I worked the latches. The snap, snap of the catches made me pause, but it didn’t seem to carry off the Queen Jane and over to the other boat. I opened the lid and found Daddy’s Remington Marine Magnum. I groaned to myself as I looked at the shotgun. It was a pump-action. It held six shots, but I wasn’t even sure that I’d be able to get to my feet, let alone that I could handle pumping a shotgun more than once.
Something changed in the tone of the grunts coming from Stephanie. One of the men said something, and even though I couldn’t understand what he’d said, there was a sharp laugh, and then the sound of what I recognized as a fist hitting a body.
I took a deep breath and then, using the shotgun like a crutch, got to my feet, pushing myself up against the wall. I was glad to have the solidness against my back.
They’d tied their boat off to the Queen Jane, and Eddie’s friend stood with his back to me barely an arm’s length away. If I’d been able to walk, I could have taken two steps and then smashed his head in with the stock of the shotgun. He had a rifle in one hand, letting it dangle away from him. Past him, I could see Eddie on the deck, on top of Stephanie. He’d slid the pistol to the side, and was concentrating on fucking her. His pants were pushed down to his knees. Stephanie’s shirt was ripped, and her pants were hanging off one of her ankles. Eddie had forced his way between her legs. He had her wrists gathered up in one of his hands and pinned to the deck; the other hand covered her mouth. A dark bruise had already started forming on her cheek, and with each thrust of Eddie’s body, a burst of air was forced out of Stephanie’s body, the grunt pushing through where Eddie’s fingers covered her mouth. She had her eyes closed.
My head was swimming, and I could taste vomit in my mouth. The deck felt like it was bucking under my feet even though I could see that the water was barely moving. I let my eyes close in a slow blink, long enough for me to gather myself, and then I lifted the shotgun. I felt like everything I was doing was in slow motion. It was all I could do to raise the gun with my right hand and to try to steady it with my left. My wrist ached, and I noticed that there was a crack in the cast. The pain from the hole in my shoulder burned—I wasn’t sure how long I could hold the shotgun up—but worst of all was the dizziness. I didn’t think I could hold the gun up for long.
I thought I heard the sound of an engine. I looked to the side. I could see two boats powering toward me, and I let the shotgun waver. I was right. I’d heard Timmy’s voice, heard somebody familiar on the radio. I should have known that I wasn’t alone, that even with Daddy dead, as long as I was in the waters of Loosewood Island I’d never be alone. The cavalry was on their way, and it would be a few more minutes at most until they’d be here to rescue me.
I blinked long and slow again, and it was all I could do to open my eyes back up. When I did, I realized that I was looking out into the water, and that there was somebody looking back at me. It was a woman. Not a mermaid, not a seal, but a woman. She was under the surface of the water, and I could see her hair floating behind her, gathered in the current. She was upright, as if she were standing, but she was definitely below the ocean. Brumfitt’s bride. She was staring at me, and she was stunningly beautiful. She shimmered. I could understand why Brumfitt thought she’d been a gift from the sea. She stared at me like she was waiting for something. I wanted to apologize to her, because I didn’t know what she was waiting for. Did she want me to dive into the water to be with her? Should I head to land and wait for her to wash ashore? I stared at her, and she stared back at me, and when I blinked again, my eyes peeling back open, I realized that the woman I was staring at was Stephanie. And then she wavered back into Brumfitt’s bride, staring at me, waiting. I blinked hard one more time, and when I opened my eyes I was staring at the deck of the other boat, looking at Stephanie.
She saw me focus on her and her eyes brightened. She bit down hard on Eddie’s fingers. He screamed, pulled his hand back, balled it into a fist, and slammed it into her face.
And I realized what Brumfitt’s wife was waiting for. She was waiting for me. I was Cordelia Kings, the last of the Kings. I felt something harden in me. Despite the shakiness, the ache in my body, I knew what I had to do. I was done with the blessings of the sea, done with the curses. I was done with the weight of history, done with the old stories that carried the Kings name. It was time for me to do something. I flicked off the safety and pulled the trigger.
Even with my back braced against the cabin, I nearly fell over from the kick of the shotgun. The sound was ferocious, and my head buzzed. The man in front of me was still standing there, but he had a fist-sized hole in his lower back. Then, slowly, and then all at once, he crumpled.
I looked back at Stephanie lying on the deck. Eddie was scrambling toward the pistol that he’d left out of reach. He snaked across the deck. I was almost detached as I watched him reach for the pistol. Eddie was flickering, changing shapes, in front of me. And then he was solid again, and I could see his weak underbelly, could see the way he looked at me with a sudden realization that I was stronger than I looked.
As he wrapped his hand around the grip of the pistol, I raised the shotgun again, hammered the pump back despite the way it made my wrist and shoulder scream, and took careful aim at the top of his chest.
And then I shot Eddie Glouster.
If I had still been on my feet I would have shot him again, but for some reason I was sitting on the deck under the wheel. It took me a few seconds to realize that the kickback had knocked me on my ass. I was leaning against Kenny. I felt something heavy on my leg. The shotgun was resting across my thigh. “Fuck,” I said, because it was the only word that seemed appropriate.
Kenny coughed, and I looked at him. He had passed out.
I didn’t hear any movement on the other ship. Stephanie was unconscious, and I hoped I’d finished Eddie off, because I couldn’t stand up again. I turned my head to look at the console and eyed the radio. It was too far for me to reach on my own. I looked down at the shotgun. I grabbed the barrel, which was warm in my hand, and then used it to knock the microphone from the clip. It swung on its twisted cord, bouncing back and forth. I missed it on the first pass, but grabbed it the second time. I keyed the mic, opened my mouth, and then closed it again. I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t matter, because I could hear the engines coming closer, could hear the boats of Loosewood Island burning furiously toward me.
Trudy whined behind me, and I tried to look at her, but I couldn’t get my head around. “Good girl, Trudy,” I said. “You’re a good girl.” And then I passed out.
Guppy flopped on top of me. “Wake up, Aunt Cordelia. It snowed.”
“Snow?” I opened my eyes to see her brother standing next to the bed. Fatty looked at me and then patted my head like I was a dog and said, “Happy Christmas. It snowed.”
I groaned and pulled the pillow over my eyes. “I know,” I said. “Your sister told me.” I was warm under the blanket, and despite Guppy pressing down on my bladder, I didn’t particularly feel like hopping out of bed.
I heard Rena laughing. I moved the pillow back and squinted at my sister. She leaned in the doorway, her bathrobe cinched tight around her waist. She had carpet throughout the upstairs, and even with the woodstove, she had the furnace set to kick in early enough that on the nights I slept at her house I never woke to a cold house. “Fatty is asking for pancakes,” Rena said. “I’d planned on making waffles and bacon, but Fatty wants pancakes. That okay with you?”
I rolled Guppy beside me on the bed and then sat up. “I get a say in what’s for breakfast?”
Rena shrugged. “Not really. You’re the last one up, which means you get what I feed you, but I wanted you to
feel like you’re part of the process.”
Fatty climbed into the bed and laid himself over my legs, half on me, half on his sister. “Can we open presents now?”
“Nope,” I said, and then I tickled both of them until they slid off me and bumped up against the wall. I swung my legs to the floor. Trudy looked at me from the corner, where I’d stuffed her dog bed, and then she curled her head back against her side, in no hurry to get up. She still had a limp, couldn’t get up on the bed or the couch by herself, and didn’t have as much energy as she had before, but the fur had grown back from where the veterinarian had had to shave it for the surgery. She was doing okay. She’d be wagging herself silly once she got outside. She always loved it when it snowed, and Fifth would be waiting downstairs for her so they could go out together and play. I wiggled my toes into the carpet and then stood up. I lifted the blanket, pulling it out from under Guppy and Fatty, and then let it drop over my niece and nephew.
“You going to eat?” Rena asked.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“It’s supposed to get better in the second trimester, isn’t it?”
“It’s weird that you can’t keep food down while you’re on land, but you feel just fine when you’re on a boat.”
“And I still think it’s weird,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper so that Guppy and Fatty couldn’t hear me, “that I only sleep with him once and I end up pregnant.”
“With twins,” she said, giving me a squeeze. “Well, you know, Christmas miracles and all that.”
I slipped past Rena and closed the door to the bathroom behind me. I kept working the shower hotter and hotter. It felt good, the steam and the water, and I stayed under until I’d used enough of the hot water that it started running cold. Doing my hair didn’t take much more than running the towel over it. The doctor had to clip so much of it off to put the stitches in the back of my head that there was barely anything to save. It looked okay short, but I missed the familiar feel of it hanging down.
The Lobster Kings Page 30