The Secret of Saturday Cove

by Barbee Oliver Carleton

  The breathing of the sea was more restless now. A nervous little wind ruffled the bay. The first raindrops began to fall, cooling their hot faces and dampening their hair. David pulled the oilskins from underneath the seat and they shrugged into them.

  “Life jacket, too, Sally,” he said.

  She caught the hated garment and tied it on. Then, facing the bay, she started. “There he is!”

  Beyond the shelter of Blake’s Island the Pirate was nosing into view, pitching in the rougher water. And Roddie McNeill, bared to the waist, was hauling in a trap.

  “That’s Willie Greenlaw’s,” David whispered. Silently, they watched as Roddie, working fast, emptied the trap and tossed it unbaited back into the water. Then came the powerful throb of his motor as the Pirate swung toward them.

  Sally cried, “David, he’ll see us!”

  But Roddie merely completed his turn and headed toward the traps set near The Graves.

  “Hurry up and follow him.” Sally stirred restlessly on the seat.

  But David shook his head. “The dory wouldn’t like it out there now.” The rising wind threatened to blow off David’s sou’wester. Impatiently, he cast it underneath the seat and took up the oars again. “We’ve seen what we came to see. We’d better get back.” Glancing once more toward the Pirate, he suddenly narrowed his eyes against the rain.

  “The fool! He isn’t stopping at The Graves, Sally. He’s making for Perce’s string out off Little Fox.”

  “Well, what do we care?” Sally snapped. She was beginning to feel wet and very uncomfortable.

  “The tide is coming in and there’s an offshore wind,” David told her bluntly. “Outside the tide rip that means trouble.”

  He was already rowing back. “He’ll probably be all right, but I’m going to keep an eye on him. I’m putting you off at Blake’s, Sally.”

  The girl was silent with horror. Alone on the island? And in a thunderstorm at night?

  “You’ll be all right. Just go up the path the way we did before. The door’s unlocked and the candle is on the sink. You can even light a fire and get dried out.”

  Bleakly, Sally watched the island cove draw near. David was counting on her, she thought. If Roddie needed help, then her extra weight in the dory would be a danger. Her chin went up and she managed a shaky grin.

  “Good girl.” David guided the dory into the cove and held it steady as Sally leaped out. He waited for a moment to watch her struggle up the wet path in the dusk. With a wave, she disappeared into the spruces.

  Then David headed the dory seaward. He kept just inside the tide rip, where merging currents formed a long and evil ribbon of froth. Often before, fascinated, he had watched the little whirlpools, spinning and funneling downward from the surface. Now he feared their trickery.

  Here, protected by the island, the dory rose and fell in comparative calm. But beyond the tide rip lay the bay, its seas running high before the storm wind. Here he would stay, David decided. He had no wish to do battle in the dory with his enemy, the wind.

  The Pirate had beat her way to the traps set in the lee of Little Fox Island. As Roddie cut back the motor she was pitching steeply. Yet even now it seemed that he would complete his work with nothing worse than a drenching from the rain.

  But then David strained forward. Roddie was having trouble with the trap. Holding the line in both hands, he was seeking a firm stance for hauling. Then on a steep wave the Pirate reared to one side. For a moment the boy struggled for balance and then went over, arms flung wide, into the sea.

  In one motion David drew in the oars and sprang to the outboard.

  Let her start right up, he prayed. He pulled the cord once, twice. Let her start! The motor caught, and David held to the stick as the Lobster Boy entered the tide rip.

  Snarling jaws seemed to tear at her, turning her first one way, then another. But slowly the dory struggled ahead, into the steep seas beyond.

  In a flash of lightning David caught a swift vision of Roddie in the water beside the Pirate. With both hands he had gripped the gunwale of the tossing boat and was clinging onto it desperately.

  “Hang on,” David called, and his words fell like whispers into the shouting wind.

  He had opened the motor wide and the dory surged ahead. Up each black hill of water she throbbed. Then, lifted forward on a following sea, she plunged down, down, her motor gasping. On through the rough water of the bay she labored. As the distance between them narrowed, the lightning flared again. David saw by the sharpened set of Roddie’s face that the boy could not hold out much longer.

  He nosed dangerously close to the Pirate and swung as much of his weight to starboard as he dared. Then, leaning forward, he thrust a wet hand toward Roddie.

  The boy grasped and missed, lost his hold on the gunwale and went down. Then, kicking hysterically, he rose again to the surface. In another moment, David knew, the two boats would close together. He watched the approaching wave mount to its peak, fall, swing the dory alongside the Pirate. Swiftly, he hooked a leg under the seat, and leaning over, seized Roddie by the shoulder.

  The boy struck out blindly, seeking a hold on David, on the dory, on anything solid in this cold nightmare of rushing water.

  “Help me!” David cried between clenched teeth.

  With a final, heartbreaking effort he half hauled, half lifted Roddie into the dory where the boy sprawled, spent and gasping, across the seat.

  Then the sea, like a mighty arm, thrust against them and over them. It spun the dory half about and carried her swiftly on past the larger boat. The two boats had not come together. They still had a chance.

  “Get down,” panted David.

  Weakly, Roddie dragged his legs off the thwart. Then he lay back, sobbing, on the bottom of the boat.

  The little dory was bucking like a whipped colt, and David gave her his whole attention. Opening the throttle, he made a careful arc around the Pirate. Behind them the new boat tossed helplessly, riding the waves and the wind straight to her doom on the ledges of Little Fox Island.

  Roddie raised his head. “The boat . . . .” he gasped.

  “Can’t help it,” David shouted.

  Then he ignored Roddie and turned his face toward Blake’s Island and safety.

  Although the rain beat through their thin clothes more heavily than ever, the squall wind had weakened. Wearily, David held the dory on her homeward course, back through the boiling tide rip to the calmer water of the cove.

  Roddie, his eyes tightly closed, held fast to the slats on the dory’s bottom. It was only when David cut off the motor that he opened his eyes again. Then, slowly, he struggled up out of the dory to help David beach the Lobster Boy in the driving rain and the darkness.

  David waited through a roll of thunder that seemed to tear from the very heart of the island. Then he demanded, “Why did you go outside on a night like this?”

  “That’s my business,” said Roddie bitterly. “What are we doing here? Why don’t we go back to town?”

  “And that’s my business,” David snapped. Then with a kindness which he could not have explained, he added, “My sister’s waiting for me in the old house.” He paused. “You coming?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You’ll get soaked.”

  “That’s my worry, isn’t it?” Roddie was shivering uncontrollably. He lacked a shirt, and his pants clung wetly to his long legs. Yet David knew that he meant to remain here alone on the beach. Much in the same way David had remained alone with his own shame these past few weeks.

  David took off his oilskin coat and threw it to Roddie. “Here. I can’t be any wetter. This will keep the wind off.”

  Roddie caught it and tossed it scornfully into the dory.

  David shrugged as he fought down his fury. Then he started up the path to the house.

  Not so very long before, Sally, too, had come this way, reluctant, her head lowered against the storm. Just short of the house she paused. There it stood, rain-streake
d and solitary, staring seaward like an old man with empty eyes.

  “I won’t go in there all alone,” she decided. “I’ll stand under something till David comes back.”

  On a gust of wind she heard the beat of his motor, indistinct and uncertain. Ashamed, Sally thought of the real danger which her brother was at this moment facing for Roddie McNeill. David had said to wait for him in the homestead, so there she would wait.

  She reached the house, and with some relief pushed open the door. As before the old kitchen was dark. It smelled musty and long closed. She left the door wide open and the rain blew in and pelted upon the floor.

  “Now,” she told herself very firmly, “all I have to do is find the candle.” She made out the dim outline of the wooden sink. David had said the candle was here somewhere. Cautiously, Sally reached out an exploring hand and came into contact with a spiderweb. Swiftly recoiling, her hand hit the old candle bottle and sent it crashing into the sink.

  Panic swept over her like a chill wind. Light! She must have some light! Sally was tense, her breathing harsh, when her hands found the match dish. In a moment her little candle flame was dancing in the draft. She hastened to close the door.

  Then she threw off the bulky life jacket and sat on the nail keg where she had sat so many days before. Now, as then, the rain beat hard against the shutters. Just as before, the thunder crashed and crashed again and fled echoing down the cove. Then, however, it had been daytime, and David had been with her. But now the night was falling fast and Sally was alone before a cold hearth. She found herself holding her breath, eyeing the shadows in the still rooms beyond.

  Then she leaped angrily to her feet. “You’re a big girl now, Sally Blake,” she told herself. She started to lay a fire from the materials which David kept on hand in the wood box. “Think of something else. Think of David.”

  In the act of crumpling the paper, she paused to listen for the sound of his motor. She heard the restless wind driving the rain against the house; a chattering of thunder; and, borne on a gust, the faint tolling of the bell buoy out in the channel. But there was no sound of a motor. Crouched and tense, Sally pictured the old dory swamping in the bay and David struggling alone in the black water with nobody to help him. She caught her breath audibly. She must not think of David.

  Think of the Blake treasure, then. Mechanically, Sally arranged the driftwood tepee-fashion, as her brother did. Somewhere on Tub Island was the treasure. That much they had decided that terrible day when the men had accused David of hauling their traps.

  She remembered her walk home, despairing, from the dock, and her resolve to explore Tub Island all by herself if need be. But there had been no way. As she had feared, David had had no time, no heart, for the hunt.

  But now there was a way — she was on Blake’s Island at last. It was not yet high tide — the sand bar to Tub Island would be, for a little while, free. Only now, of course, she had to wait for David. Besides, it was raining very hard. It was not the time to explore.

  Sally rose from her knees and brushed off her dungarees. Strange, she thought. The Bite, as they had rowed past it at dusk, had seemed to wink and twinkle with water, almost as though the tide were wearing away a little cave inside the ledge. It would take a long, long time, thought Sally, reaching for the matches, for the sea to wear away all that granite.

  A quick little chill chased up her spine and she stiffened, forgetting the matches. Her mind did a dizzy somersault. What if there should be a tunnel there behind The Bite? Poke had told them something once about the tide making tunnels in the softer rock. Suppose, then, that there was such a tunnel on Tub Island, a tunnel where a treasure might be taken and hidden, and no one the wiser.

  Sally shivered with excitement and hugged her arms. “If only I had a flashlight,” she told herself, “I could cross the bar before the tide comes in and just take one quick look. Then when David gets back I might have the whole mystery solved all by myself. That would more than make up for losing Jonathan’s old chart.” Hopefully, she looked around the empty room, but there was only her little candle beside her on the hearth.

  The buttery. There were lanterns stored in the buttery, she remembered. Snatching up the candle, Sally darted into the musty room. In triumph, she bore the largest of the lanterns into the kitchen and filled it from the can of kerosene left there by the lobstermen. She knew about oil lamps. Her mother kept them in the house in case the electricity went off during a thunderstorm. You turn up the wick, like this. Light it. Adjust it. There!

  Sally snapped shut the door of the lantern and hurried out into the storm, leaving her life jacket behind her on the nail keg where, for a while, it continued to drip, forming a little puddle on the floor.

  Down through the uncut island field went Sally, tall grass whipping about her legs and soaking her jeans. The field became an alder thicket, reaching with wet, laced fingers for her lantern. Then at last she was on the path that led through the spruces to the sand bar. Sally was grateful for the lightning now. It warned her of low-hanging branches that would wrench the lantern from her hand.

  Ahead glistened the dark arm of the sand bar leading to Tub Island. Sally hurried across, holding the lantern high. Beneath her feet the narrow strip of sand was firm enough, but the dark water frothed and curled on either side.

  “The tide is coming in,” she warned herself. “But there’s time to take a look at The Bite and get back again before the bar is underwater.” She wished that she had thought to leave a note for David, but she hadn’t had a pencil. Anyway, it was too late now to worry about it.

  Sally was relieved to reach Tub Island. The Bite was not much farther from here. Outwardly, she was aware of the gravelly beach beneath her feet, of the storm and the sounds of the storm. Once she thought she heard the dim beat of an outboard motor nearby.

  But more real and pressing than these things was her vision of a tunnel and, head down, she hurried on. She soon began to tire. It was not easy to climb over the slippery rocks and, at the same time, keep her lantern upright. Then she drew a sigh of relief. She had reached The Bite, that boulder-cluttered nook of coast so familiar to everyone in Saturday Cove.

  Tonight, however, there seemed to be more boulders than usual, and the ledge looked knife-sharp. Sally saw with triumph how now a narrow inlet flowed on behind the tumbled rocks. Half afraid, but too curious to turn back, she followed the shoreline into an opening between the ledges.

  Then she stood and stared and stared. Here was a tunnel, just as she had thought. Here was a tunnel that must lead into the heart of Tub Island!

  Chapter

  9

  TO CATCH A FOX

  A FEW cautious steps, and Sally walked in a different world. In this place the wind did not exist. The voices of the storm and sea grew distant and were still. Overhead, ledge rock and tree roots formed a dark, fantastic roof, and at her feet the somber tide wound peacefully along. Beyond the light of the lantern the granite walls, the tide, were lost in blackness. The very air was hushed, as if time had just begun.

  She was inside the island. Surely she had found the hiding-place of the Blake treasure!

  Filled with wonder, Sally moved on, her lantern suddenly vital in this deep and nightbound cavern. At one point the tide thinned to a licking tongue and ended. Now, she could walk directly in the bed of the ancient creek. Eagerly, she studied the solid walls, the watermarks, the floor worn smooth by ancient tides. Surely this stone passage deep inside Tub Island was the best hiding-place in Saturday Cove. Perhaps, if the water was high enough, Jonathan had rowed his skiff up to this very spot.

  After a while Sally sat down, placing her lantern carefully beside her. The boys would be proud of her. Why, she might even discover the treasure, just as she had found this tunnel, all by herself. Only where, in this passage of stone, could Jonathan have dug a hole and hidden anything?

  The toe of her sneaker felt suddenly cold. Curiously, she glanced down to see the tide rubbing at her feet like a silen
t cat. With horror, she snatched up the lantern and sprang back. The water was rising. Already, it had covered an ancient mark which she had thought was the high water line.

  She must get out of here! Downstream, the tide stretched wet and black toward the distant opening. She must reach the outside before it filled the entrance or she would be trapped in this place without a boat, without even a life jacket.

  Sally ran unsteadily toward the opening. But the broad bank had narrowed. The swelling tide was already cutting her off. With a little cry, she swung around. Deep within the tunnel, perhaps, she could escape the oncoming tide. But would there be air at that inner end? It seemed that the heavy roof pressed down and down upon her, even as the tide reached hungrily upward.

  Panic rose in her throat and she turned back toward the black mouth of the inlet. Better to return to the air, even if she must wade shoulder-deep to get out. Once Sally slipped and fell to her knees at the edge of the cold water. The lantern! She must keep it dry. Her arm ached and sobs caught at her throat. The bank had narrowed to a ledge that disappeared just ahead beneath the water. In another moment she must enter the stream and start wading toward the opening.

  Then she saw something strange and unreal. There seemed to be two eyes of fire that moved slowly toward her out of the mouth of the channel. She froze in a crouching position. Nightmare visions of a sea monster sprang into her mind. Now, she heard the stealthy sounds of its movement through the water.

  With a chill of fear she realized that her lantern gave away her position, and she hurled it from her. It fell with a hissing splash into the tide. Then she whipped about and was running, running. Losing her footing on the slippery bank, she clutched once at the darkness. Then she fell full-length into the black water. Coldly, it flashed over her head. Sally fought to the surface and screamed. Under again. Up again, choking for air. Flatten out, David had said. Move your arms, kick your legs! Flatten out! Desperately, Sally flattened her body, thrashed her arms and legs — and stayed afloat. She did not again go under. She stayed afloat!