John Casey - Spartina

The tug stopped at the state pier. Dick went on up the salt pond slowly. All the little islands had been engulfed. It was hard to tell the ones that had had cottages on them from the ones that hadn’t — every islet was evenly littered with broken lumber.

Dick had to feel his way. The channel had been redredged to eight feet the year before, but he wasn’t sure what the storm might have done. Some of the channel markers had survived, but they were so few and far between he had to piece out a lot of the zigs and zags from memory.

The moorings in front of the boatyard were swept clean. The boats that hadn’t been hauled had either broken loose or gone to the bottom. He saw a couple of submerged boats tugging heavily on their half-submerged mooring buoys. Dick could also see from far off that the water had surged at least twenty feet. Some of the boats that had torn loose were splattered against the abutments of the Route 1 bridge over the north finger of the pond.

He wouldn’t have to argue with the manager about finding a vacant mooring. What he might have trouble with was finding a loose dinghy to get himself in from the mooring. The docks and the sheds were in pieces. The office was caved in on the near side. He wondered if the phone worked. He went into neutral and looked for a safe mooring, well clear of any hulk.

He saw his pickup moving slowly across the bridge, followed by a Natural Resources jeep. They stopped way up in the parking lot, unable to find a way through the scatter of boats, some still in their cradles, some toppled but whole, some stove in, and some snapped in half.

Dick pulled up to a fragment of dock. He thought he might hose off some of the salt from Spartina , but he was relieved when he found the dockside spigot didn’t work. He leaned against a pile, a little dizzy from fatigue and the phantom motion of Spartina in his legs. May and Charlie and Tom stood on the bulkhead, unable to get down to him because the gangplank was gone. Charlie finally jumped down. The piece of floating dock lurched. Charlie got to his feet and hugged him.

Dick said, “Yeah, I’m back,” and Charlie made way for Tom.

Dick said, “You boys see if you can get your mother down.”

Eddie swung May down by her hands and the boys caught her. May found her footing and stood for a second. Dick folded her in. For a moment he was giddy with the feel of her back under her dress, her hair against his face, the real gladness with which she held on to him.

She raised her head. He could see her go back to being of two minds. He said, “She did fine. It was the only thing to do. I got her out past the worst.”

May studied his face but didn’t say anything. Eddie jumped and grabbed his hand. “By God, you did it, Dick.”

“She did fine. She’s a good boat.”

“Well, by God. You must be tired.”

“Tired enough.” Dick turned to Charlie. “You boys see if you can find some kind of dinghy so I can put her on her mooring.”

Elsie was standing on the edge of the bulkhead. She was in her uniform, and had her movie camera on her shoulder. She said, “Welcome home, Captain Pierce.”

Dick nodded. “Well, I kept your investment afloat. Yours and Miss Perry’s.”

Elsie shook her head. “Good God.”

Charlie and Tom shinnied back up a pile next to the bulkhead. Eddie made a stirrup of his hands and hoisted May so she could reach the top of the wall. The boys pulled her up. Eddie came back and cast off Spartina ’s lines, and Dick backed her off the float, picked up the mooring, and shut her down. The boys pulled an aluminum johnboat down the ramp and paddled it with pieces of plank out to Spartina ’s stern, laughing and splashing.

“God,” Dick said, “what kind of a Chinese fire drill you boys running here?”

Dick looked down at them. They were glad to see him, no two minds about it.

“Come on, Dad, get in.”

“Well, hold her steady, Tom. I didn’t go through a goddamn hurricane to come home and capsize.”

“Come on, Dad. We’re holding on.”

Dick lowered himself in and thudded onto the seat. His ribs hurt. His legs felt like barrels. “Now, don’t you boys do anything rash. I’m too old to get wet.”

Tom said, “You could use a bath, Dad. I thought you put a shower on Spartina. ”

“You just tend to your paddling.”

The boys churned away, and the johnboat wobbled her way toward shore. Dick turned sideways and touched them both, Tom on his knees as he sat in the stern, Charlie’s back as he knelt in the bow.

“You boys get Miss Perry’s books out?”

“Yes.”

“You sink the big skiff like I said?”

“Yes.”

“You took your little skiff to Eddie’s?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t think to bring it down here to get me off.”

Charlie said, “Oh.”

Tom said, “Jees, Dad. Elsie came by and told us you were coming in. We just came.”

“Never mind about the skiff, then. You did fine.” Dick felt he should say more, but he also felt blocked. What was wrong with him? He made an effort. “And you got you and your mother safe to Eddie’s.”

Charlie said, “Yeah. There’s no phone and no electricity, but we were okay.”

“You ought to see the road,” Tom said. “There’s stuff all over it.”

“But you were okay at Eddie’s, were you?”

“Yeah,” Tom said, “it was neat. The eye went right over us. We were down in the cellar and you could hear trees cracking and the wind blowing and then it got all quiet.”

“But you were all okay.”

“Mom was worried,” Charlie said. “She was worried about you. I explained it to her, how you were out beyond it. Even down in the cellar you could feel the whole house shake, and it was hard to think there was someplace where it wasn’t stormy.”

Dick nodded. May had a right to be mad at him. The thought tired him.

They hauled the johnboat up the ramp and walked up to the pickup. Elsie pulled up alongside in her jeep. “They got you back on the job,” Dick said. “I guess that was your jeep I saw on the beach.”

“Yes, I recognized Spartina. I almost drove into the sea. I—”

“Thank you for bringing May and the boys.”

Elsie said, “It’s good to see you back. I’ll go tell Miss Perry. She asked after you.” Elsie laughed. “It’s odd. The hurricane seems to have snapped her out of her spell. You didn’t hear anything about Captain Texeira, did you?”

“Not for a while. My radio went out. But the Lydia was well east of Spartina. She should be okay. You could ask the Coast Guard.”

“Okay.” She paused. “See you later. I’ll be driving around all day, but you can get me on my CB.”

The boys climbed into the bed of the pickup. Dick let Eddie drive. They had to run a slalom course along Route 1. There were trees down, bits of fence, roofs, brush. There were tongues of silt in a couple of low places where the water had licked across.

“You seen the house?” Dick asked May.

“No.”

Eddie said, “I’ll go take a look with you after you get some rest. I got to help clear some roads this morning.”

Eddie drove right on by when they passed Dick’s driveway on the other side of Route 1. Dick craned his head to see, but the grove of bushes in the median strip cut him off.

“I’ll take you down later,” Eddie said. “Let’s go get some breakfast.”

Dick figured Eddie had taken a look and it was pretty bad. For some reason this didn’t dismay Dick. Maybe he was too tired to worry anymore. He felt odd. He recognized he’d been his old crusty self with the boys, but he felt different. It just didn’t show yet. This was fine with him, he didn’t believe in sudden change. What he did like was the idea that feelings already in him had been laid bare to himself by the storm, some bare rock of what he really cared about.