Stern Men

  “The dress looks more authentic now,” Ruth said.

  “He was eating pudding this morning,” Opal said, shrugging. “Pudding always makes Eddie barf.”

  There was a short parade up Main Street, but there were more people in the parade than there were people to watch it. Senator Simon Addams recited the Gettysburg Address from memory, but he always recited the Gettysburg Address from memory, given any opportunity. Robin Pommeroy set off some cheap fireworks sent to him by his brother Chester. He burned his hand so severely that he would be unable to go fishing for two weeks. This made Ruth’s father angry enough to fire Robin and hire a new sternman, Duke Cobb’s ten-year-old grandson, who was skinny and weak as a third-grade girl and, unhelpfully, scared of lobsters. But the kid came cheap.

  “You could’ve hired me,” Ruth told her father. She sulked about it for a while, but she didn’t really mean it, and he knew that.

  So the month of July was almost passed, and then one afternoon Mrs. Pommeroy received a most unusual telephone call. The call came from Courne Haven Island. It was Pastor Toby Wishnell on the line.

  Pastor Wishnell wanted to know whether Mrs. Pommeroy would be available to spend a day or two on Courne Haven. It seemed there was to be a big wedding on the island, and the bride had confided to the pastor that she was concerned about her hair. There were no professional hairdressers on Courne Haven. The bride wasn’t young anymore, and she wanted to look her best.

  “I’m not a professional hairdresser, Pastor,” Mrs. Pommeroy said.

  Pastor Wishnell said that was quite all right. The bride had hired a photographer from Rockland, at considerable cost, to document the wedding, and she wanted to look pretty for the pictures. She was relying on the pastor to help her out. It was a strange request to be made to a pastor, Toby Wishnell readily admitted, but he had received stranger ones. People expected their pastors to be fonts of information on all manner of subjects, Pastor Wishnell told Mrs. Pommeroy, and this lady was no exception. The pastor explained, further, that this bride felt somewhat more entitled than others to ask the pastor so unusual and personal a favor, because she was a Wishnell. She was actually Pastor Wishnell’s second cousin, Dorothy Wishnell, known as Dotty. Dotty was to marry Fred Burden’s oldest son, Charlie, on July 30.

  In any case, the pastor went on, he had mentioned to Dotty that there was a gifted hair stylist right over on Fort Niles. That, at least, was what he had heard from Ruth Thomas. Ruth Thomas had told him that Mrs. Pommeroy was quite good with hair. Mrs. Pommeroy told the pastor that she was really nothing special, that she’d never been to school or anything.

  The pastor said, “You’ll do fine. And another thing . . .” Apparently, Dotty, having heard that Mrs. Pommeroy was so good at styling hair, wondered whether Mrs. Pommeroy would also cut the groom’s hair. And the best man’s, if she didn’t mind. And the hair of the maid of honor, the mother of the bride, the father of the bride, the flower girls, and some members of the groom’s family. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. And, said Pastor Wishnell, while he was thinking of it, he could use a little trim himself.

  “Since the professional photographer who is coming is known to be expensive,” the pastor continued, “and since almost everyone on the island will be at the wedding, they want to look their best. It’s not often that a professional photographer comes here. Of course, the bride will pay you well. Her father is Babe Wishnell.”

  “Ooh,” Mrs. Pommeroy said, impressed.

  “Will you do it, then?”

  “That’s a whole lot of haircuts, Pastor Wishnell.”

  “I can send Owney to pick you up in the New Hope,” the pastor said. “You can stay here as long as you are needed. It might be a nice way for you to make some extra money.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever cut so much hair at once. I don’t know that I could do it all in one day.”

  “You could bring a helper.”

  “May I bring one of my sisters?”

  “Certainly.”

  “May I bring Ruth Thomas?” Mrs. Pommeroy asked.

  This gave the pastor a moment’s pause. “I suppose so,” he said, after a cool beat. “If she’s not too busy.”

  “Ruth? Busy?” Mrs. Pommeroy found this idea hilarious. She laughed out loud, right into the pastor’s ear.

  At that very moment, Ruth was down at Potter Beach with Senator Simon Addams again. She was beginning to be depressed when she spent time down there, but she didn’t know what else to do with herself. So she continued to stop at the beach a few hours every day to keep the Senator company. She also liked to keep an eye on Webster, for the sake of Mrs. Pommeroy, who constantly worried about her oldest, strangest boy. And she also went there because it was difficult to talk with anyone else on the island. She couldn’t very well hang out with Mrs. Pommeroy all the time.

  Not that watching Webster dig in the mud was still fun. It was painful and sad to watch. He’d lost all his grace. He floundered. He was searching for that second tusk as if he was both dying to find it and terrified of finding it. Ruth thought Webster might sink down in the mud one day and never show up again. She wondered whether that was, in fact, his plan. She wondered whether Webster Pommeroy was plotting the world’s most awkward suicide.

  “Webster needs a purpose in life,” the Senator said.

  The thought of Webster Pommeroy seeking a purpose in life depressed Ruth Thomas even more. “Isn’t there anything else you can have him do with his time?”

  “What else, Ruth?”

  “Isn’t there something he can do for the museum?”

  The Senator sighed. “We have everything we need for the museum, except a building. Until we get that, there’s nothing we can do. Digging in the mud, Ruth, is what he’s good at.”

  “He’s not so good at it anymore.”

  “He’s having some trouble with it now, yes.”

  “What are you going to do if Webster finds the other tusk? Throw another elephant in there for him?”

  “We’ll take that as it comes, Ruth.”

  Webster hadn’t found anything good in the mudflats lately. He hadn’t turned up anything other than a lot of junk. He did find an oar, but it wasn’t an old oar. It was aluminum. (“This is magnificent!” the Senator had raved to Webster, who looked frantic when he handed it over. “What a rare oar this is!”) Also, Webster had uncovered a vast number of single boots under the mud, and single gloves, kicked and and tossed off by years of lobstermen. And bottles, too. Webster had found a lot of bottles in recent days, and not old ones. Plastic laundry detergent bottles. He hadn’t, though, found anything worth all the time spent in that cold, loose mud. He looked thinner and more anxious every day.

  “Do you think he’ll die?” Ruth asked the Senator.

  “I hope not.”

  “Could he snap completely and kill somebody?”

  “I don’t think so,” the Senator said.

  On the day Pastor Wishnell called Mrs. Pommeroy, Ruth had already been at Potter Beach with the Senator and Webster for several hours. She and the Senator were looking at a book, a book Ruth had purchased for the Senator at a Salvation Army store in Concord a month earlier. She’d given it to him as soon as she returned from visiting her mother, but he hadn’t yet read it. He said he was finding it difficult to concentrate because he was so concerned about Webster.

  “I’m sure it’s a super book, Ruth,” he said. “Thanks for bringing it down here today.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I saw it sitting on your porch, and I thought you might want to look at it. You know, if you got bored or something.”

  The book was called Hidden Treasure: How and Where to Find It. A Finder’s Guide to the World’s Missing Treasures. It was something that, under normal circumstances, would have brought the Senator all sorts of excitement.

  “You do like it?” Ruth asked.

  “Oh, yes, Ruth. It’s a swell book.”

  “Are you learning anything?”

  “Not too much, R
uth, to be honest. I haven’t finished it. I was expecting a little more information from the author, to tell you the truth. You’d think from the title,” Senator Simon said, turning the book over in his hands, “that the author would tell you how to find specific treasures, but she doesn’t give much information about that. So far, she says that if you do find anything, it’s an accident. And she gives some examples of people who got lucky and found treasures when they weren’t looking for anything. That doesn’t seem to me like much of a system.”

  “How far have you read?”

  “Just the first chapter.”

  “Oh. I thought you might like it because of the nice color illustrations. Lots of photographs of lost treasures. Did you see those? Did you see those pictures of the Fabergé eggs? I thought you’d like those.”

  “If there are photographs of the objects, Ruth, then they aren’t really lost. Now, are they?”

  “Well, Senator, I see what you mean. But the photographs are pictures of lost treasures that regular people already found, on their own. Like that guy who found the Paul Revere goblet. Did you get to that part yet?”

  “Ah, not yet,” the Senator said. He was shading his eyes and looking out over the mudflats. “I think it’s going to rain. I hope it doesn’t, because Webster won’t come in when it rains. He’s already got a terrible cold. You should hear his chest rattle.”

  Ruth took the book from the Senator. She said, “I saw a part in here—where is it? It says a kid found a marker in California that Sir Francis Drake left. It was made of iron, and it claimed the land as belonging to Queen Elizabeth. It had been there for, like, three centuries.”

  “Isn’t that something?”

  Ruth offered the Senator a stick of chewing gum. He refused it, so she chewed it herself. “The author says the greatest site of buried treasure anywhere in the world is on Cocos Island.”

  “That’s what your book says?”

  “It’s your book, Senator. I was thumbing through it when I was coming back from Concord and I saw that thing about Cocos Island. The author says Cocos Island is a real bonanza for people looking for buried treasure. She says Captain James Cook stopped at Cocos Island all the time with loot. The great circumnavigator!

  “The great circumnavigator.”

  “So did the pirate Benito Bonito. So did Captain Richard Davis and the pirate Jean Lafitte. I thought you’d be interested . . .”

  “Oh, I am interested, Ruth.”

  “You know what I thought you’d be interested in? About Cocos Island, I mean? The island is only about as big as Fort Niles. How about that? Wouldn’t that be ironic? Wouldn’t you be right at home there? And with all that buried treasure to find. You and Webster could go there and dig it up together. How about that, Senator?”

  It started to rain, big heavy drops.

  “I bet the weather’s better on Cocos Island, anyhow,” she said, and laughed.

  The Senator said, “Oh, Ruth, we’re not going anywhere, Webster and I. You know that. You shouldn’t say such things, even as a joke.”

  Ruth was stung. She recovered and said, “I’m sure you two would come home rich as kings if you ever got to Cocos Island.”

  He did not reply.

  She wondered why she was pursuing this. Christ, how desperate she sounded. How starved for conversation. It was pathetic, but she missed sitting on the beach with the Senator for hours and hours of uninterrupted drivel, and she wasn’t used to being ignored by him. She was suddenly jealous of Webster Pommeroy for getting all the attention. That’s when she really started to feel pathetic. She stood and pulled up the hood of her jacket and asked, “Are you coming in?”

  “It’s up to Webster. I don’t think he’s noticed that it’s raining.”

  “You don’t have a waterproof jacket on, do you? Do you want me to get you one?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You and Webster should both come in before you get soaked.”

  “Sometimes Webster comes in when it rains, but sometimes he stays out there and gets wetter and wetter. It depends on his mood. I guess I’ll stay until he wants to come in. I’ve got sheets on the line at home, Ruth. Would you take them in for me before they get wet?”

  The rain was coming down now at a fast, slicing pace.

  “I think the sheets are already wet, Senator.”

  “You’re probably right. Forget it.”

  Ruth ran back to Mrs. Pommeroy’s house through the rain, which was now pounding down. She found Mrs. Pommeroy with her sister Kitty, upstairs in the big bedroom, pulling clothes out of the closet. Kitty, watching her sister, was sitting on the bed. She was drinking coffee, which Ruth knew to be spiked with gin. Ruth rolled her eyes. She was getting fed up with Kitty’s drinking.

  “I should just sew something new,” Mrs. Pommeroy was saying. “But I don’t have the time!” Then, “There’s my Ruth. Oh, you’re soaking wet.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for a pretty dress.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “I’ve been invited somewhere.”

  “Where?” Ruth asked.

  Kitty Pommeroy started laughing, followed by Mrs. Pommeroy.

  “Ruth,” she said, “you’ll never believe it. We’re going to a wedding on Courne Haven. Tomorrow!”

  “Tell her who said so!” Kitty Pommeroy shouted.

  “Pastor Wishnell!” Mrs. Pommeroy said. “He’s invited us over.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “I am getting out of here!”

  “You and Kitty are going to Courne Haven?”

  “Sure. And you, too.”

  “Me?”

  “He wants you there. Babe Wishnell’s daughter is getting married, and I’m doing her hair! And you two are my helpers. We’re going to open a little temporary salon.”

  “Well, la-di-dah,” Ruth said.

  “Exactly,” said Mrs. Pommeroy.

  That night, Ruth asked her father whether she could go to Courne Haven for a big Wishnell wedding. He did not answer right away. They were talking less and less lately, the father and daughter.

  “Pastor Wishnell invited me,” she said.

  “Do whatever you want,” Stan Thomas said. “I don’t care who you spend your time with.”

  Pastor Wishnell sent Owney to pick up everyone the next day, which was Saturday. At seven in the morning of Dotty Wishnell and Charlie Burden’s wedding, Mrs. Pommeroy and Kitty Pommeroy and Ruth Thomas walked to the end of the dock and found Owney waiting for them. He rowed Kitty and Mrs. Pommeroy out to the New Hope. Ruth enjoyed watching him. He came back for her, and she climbed down the ladder and hopped into his rowboat. He was looking at the bottom of the boat, not at her, and Ruth could not think of a single thing to say to him. But she did like looking at him. He rowed toward his uncle’s gleaming mission boat, where Mrs. Pommeroy and Kitty, leaning over the rail, were waving like tourists on a cruise. Kitty shouted, “Looking good, kid!”

  “How’s everything going?” Ruth asked Owney.

  He was so startled by her question that he stopped rowing; he just let the oars sit on the water.

  “I’m fine,” he said. He was staring at her. He wasn’t blushing, and he didn’t seem embarrassed.

  “Good,” said Ruth.

  They bobbed on the water for a moment.

  “I’m fine, too,” said Ruth.

  “OK,” said Owney.

  “You can keep rowing if you want.”

  “OK,” said Owney, and he started to row again.

  “Are you related to the bride?” Ruth asked, and Owney stopped rowing.

  “She’s my cousin,” Owney said. They bobbed on the water.

  “You can row and talk to me at the same time,” Ruth said, and now Owney did blush. He took her out to the boat without saying another word.

  “He’s cute,” Mrs. Pommeroy whispered to Ruth when she climbed onto the deck of the New Hope.

  “Look who’s here!” Kitty Pommeroy shrieked
, and Ruth turned around to see Cal Cooley stepping out of the captain’s bridge.

  Ruth let out a scream of horror that was only partly a joke. “For God’s sake,” she said. “He’s everywhere.”

  Kitty threw her arms around her old lover, and Cal extricated himself. “That’s quite enough.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Ruth asked.

  “Supervising,” Cal said. “And nice to see you, too.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Owney rowed me out earlier. Old Cal Cooley certainly did not swim.”

  It was a quick trip to Courne Haven Island, and when they got off the boat, Owney led them to a lemon-yellow Cadillac parked by the dock.

  “Whose car is this?” Ruth asked.

  “My uncle’s.”

  It matched the house, as it turned out. Pastor Wishnell lived a short drive from the Courne Haven dock, in a beautiful house, yellow with lavender trim. It was a three-story Victorian with a tower and a circular porch; bright blooming plants hung from hooks, placed three feet apart, around the entire porch. The slate walkway to the house was lined with lilies. The pastor’s garden, in the back of the house, was a little museum of roses, surrounded by a low brick wall. On the drive over, Ruth had noticed a few other homes on Courne Haven Island, equally nice. Ruth hadn’t been to Courne Haven since she was a little girl, too young to notice the differences between it and Fort Niles.

  “Who lives in the big houses?” she asked Owney.

  “Summer people,” Cal Cooley answered. “You’re lucky not to have them on Fort Niles. Mr. Ellis keeps them away. One of the many nice things Mr. Ellis does for you. Summer people are vermin.”

  It was summer people, too, who owned the sailboats and the speedboats that surrounded the island. On the trip over, Ruth had seen two silvery speedboats darting across the water. They were so close to each other, the head of one boat seemed to be kissing the ass of the other. They looked like two dragonflies, chasing each other around, trying to have sex in the salty air.