Гарднер Дозуа - Mermaids!

She was combing her hair with an old ivory-toothed comb that had been my grandmother's. Malifees hardly ever throw away anything. Her hair was like a buried walnut gun stock when you've rubbed it with the heel of your hand about a century. She shook her head. "I want to gather a few more before I send what I have. There aren't many good days for it left this year."

I couldn't argue with that. She was so set in her mind she'd have made a good selectman. But I told her not to try that five-mile jaunt again. "The weather stations do what they can. But a squall line can come up so fast it's around you before you can see it's there."

She looked at me like she knew more than generations of seagoing Malifees had ever fathomed. She said, soft, "You are a good man. Born here among the cruel men in this place."

When I left with my tool bag and the plastering gear, she waved till I was past the blueberry brambles. Then I couldn't see her any longer, though she stayed in my mind all morning, while I shored Molly's and went on to middle-island where the stores were and where people like Abel Masterson were breathing slower after the summer rush. The usual bunch of old islanders were gathered like numbers circling a clock dial around the octagon bench under the maple in front of Abel's place, cutting up their neighbors and gently spitting.

I was working on Abel's entrance wall, with the door open, when Ed Bigbee's truck roared up and his big-bellied self and his sons poured out.

I suppose as I listened to him—you could hear him half the block—he was what she meant by a cruel man. He wasn't that, though. Just crafty and stupid, the usual mix. I knew he'd wanted to get those whales for a long time, and now here it was; he and some of his buddies were grabbing the full advantage of no outlanders being left on the island, no ecology and wildlife champions. I stepped to the door in time to hear him boom it out: "We got her all rented and set for morning, boys! Cutter like a Coast Guard's, with a sharper bow. This crew knows what they're doing, and they'll split the meat with us. All we do is pay for the time and trouble. Hell, they done it before, plenty of times—maybe a ton of equipment on board with these depth-propelled harpoons like a torpedo. Sneak up on Mister Leviathan and jab him in the giblets."

Bailee Bigbee, Ed's oldest son, caught my eye. His own glistened. "You comin', Jeb? We're just trustin' people from here who can keep their mouths shut. This ever got out, those fancy straphangers'd nail us to the wall. All we got to do is go out to meet 'em and watch the fun. They ain't even coming in the cove. Just cruising straight to the feeding grounds."

"Yeah, join us, Jeb," Ed said. "We're goin' in my dory. Give you a whaleburger later. Save you puttin' your own dory back in the water."

I said something that made no promises. Then I finished up the plastering, ate half a lead-heavy egg sandwich at the drug-store, and walked by myself through reams of Indian summer light to the rocks. I took my shirt off there and stretched out. With the sun on my eyelids I thought about Marna, if that was her name, and I didn't care if it was or wasn't. I thought about her claim that the whales brought up special seashells for her. I thought about the high average of people who'd been drowned when they'd bothered those whales this past year, too. When I dropped off to sleep I had a drowning dream—which happens sometimes if you're island-born and have seen enough men washed in.

I woke up at dusk, the rock under me cooling.

At first I didn't see her coming in. It could have been a sleek piece of driftwood. Then just as the Bradford Point light came on I could make out her arms and legs slicing along, no tiredness in them. When she reached the shallows and waded in I could see three new shells, the strange kind, draped around her neck on a rope of what looked like seaweed. They showed like odd diamonds under and across her breasts.

I went down off the rocks and took her free hand and walked her into the rock chink where she'd left her dress and bag. She took off the shells and stood back and shook herself, then slid into the dress, and I didn't say a word. I didn't want to break the spell she held around her. Then she moved to me, still wet, the dress sponging, and when I kissed her I thought I'd go on keeping quiet.

She clung close on the way back to the shack. As if the sand and trees and rocks happened to be alien and the shadows threats. When we passed Molly's windows I could see Ed Bigbee's jutting head as he tipped a beer toward somebody and explained how smart he was to revive the sport and business of whale-killing in this Year of our Lord.

In the shack you could see the fog creeping up outside. And feel it. You could almost taste it. Our lovemaking was so fierce it was like hitting each other, or being in a nor'easier, and behind her eyes I could see the faces of all the men I'd known who'd been lost in the deep. The Davy Jones men. They were all there, from this past summer and way back, my relatives among them.

About midnight I got up and went outside. The fog was a pea-souper. By the time I had my dory off the tubs and on rollers and to the inlet creek my hair and pants were soaked. It wasn't an ice chill but it was winter waiting. Inside, I rubbed down and folded myself beside her. I could hear that secret singing of hers. I could feel it through my hands like a harp.

In the morning the fog was still there, hanging on but starting to lift a little. Which it would do when the sun played through. I didn't make breakfast, just told her, "Take me where the whales are."

She fixed my eyes with hers a second, and nodded. Then we had the dory worked out in the cove. The sun started coming through when we hit the open water. I could hear others setting off behind us now. A lot of happy shouting with that shut-in sound it gets across the water. There were soft swells now and where the light patched the patches were blue as a robin's egg. I started my dory engine and gave her the gun. Marna stooped at my shoulder and guided my hand on the engine tiller for direction. It was wanning now with the sun as far as you could look and the last fog wisps traveling up into the sky. Now and then when I looked back I could see just the specks of other island-craft coming, and I hoped to God my engine would hold out and not blow from all I was giving it. I kept squinting back through the spray. Then she said, calling above the engine's racket, "Here." I cut the engine and we wallowed ahead a few seconds and then were alone in near silence. Except for the lap of water on the strake-boards.

When I held to the gunwale with my knuckles going white and looked down, I could see the first of the whales. It was a gray-blue shape far below, coming up through brightening layers of light, getting so big you felt when it broke the surface it would shut out the world. Around it in its upward passage silver green fire flew. Behind it came eight more, all the same, all rising and looking up to Mama who'd cast off her dress and stood in the bow. Then the first one checked just under the dory. It made a curving wave that rippled the dory-length and seemed to hold it like a chip on a bubble. They were all just a few feet under and around us now, not sounding, just waiting, in wonderful islands with their darkness solid and glistening and their tiny port-wine-colored eyes holding the sun. The understanding was what reached upward, more important than the size. One rolled a little to see Mama better. Weed wrapped its flanks like a green lace shawl. Marna was calling now, and they were answering. The noises were high and clean above the water. Below, they must have been heard for fathoms.

I raised my head when Marna pointed. I saw the hired whaleboat coming directly over us. It had a high flat bow with a knife-shaped pitch, and behind it, off in the blaze of daylight, lighter craft were bobbing like waterbugs against the blue. Its hull was battleship gray, and guns were bearing down on us from the foredeck. Its rigging cut the sun in tight black lines.