Hurricane

Chapter 6

Hal Dorn and Malden inspected the house. The main room, the room they were in, was a long room on the northeast corner of the house. It had a low ceiling and was paneled in a dark, rough wood. The room was completely bare and there was a smell of wet rot. The wooden floor had heaved and buckled, and, near one wall, there were holes where the floorboards had rotted away. There was a small brick fireplace set into the south wall and, to the right of the fireplace a stairway to the second floor. The walls of the stairway had been plastered, and the plaster had fallen away from the lath and lay like dirty snow on the stairs. There was a door to the left of the fireplace that led to another room, and another doorway in the west wall that led to what had been the kitchen.

The impression of relative silence disappeared quickly. Hal could hear all the tones of the wind. The wind pressed against the rear of the house. It found small cracks where it could enter. As it came in the small cracks and as it twisted around the cornices, it made small wild sounds, full of a supersonic shrillness. The shrill sounds ebbed and pulsed with the changes of the wind. Hal thought that, if he had to listen to that sound too long, he would begin to howl like a dog.

Thin gray bands of light, diffused by dust, shafted into the house through the cracks in the ancient shutters. He could feel the stir of the bones of the old house when the wind swerved and smote it. Over the wind-sound there were other sounds from the wild world outside — remote and inexplicable thuddings, rattlings, crashings. Heads lifted when something cracked sharply against the back of the house.

Hal and Malden went up the stairs. There was a narrow central hallway, four small square bedrooms, no bath. The wind sounded stronger up there. The two men stood and listened to it. “What do you think?” Hal asked.

Malden merely shrugged. Hal looked at him closely and had the strange impression that the man was bored. “Got any ideas?” Malden asked.

Hal forced himself to consider the eventualities. “We must be four or five feet lower than the level of the highway here. My car radio conked out. I don’t know if it’s going to get worse than this. That water was coming up fast.”

“The hurricane is headed this way. I heard that much.”

“Then it’s going to blow a hell of a lot harder. I don’t know if this place will take it.” He paused. “We ought to do two things. Put somebody on a car radio and get what dope we can. And have somebody go out and see if they can find a good way back to the highway. I’ve got two little kids to think about.”

“So you won’t go.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Hal said. “I meant it has to be a way out of here where we can take the kids. But we have to find out which is more important — higher ground or shelter. I don’t remember much of anything along the highway — a gas station way back, too far back.”

They went back down the stairs. Jean had made a blanket nest in the corner for the children. She sat with them. Virginia Sherrel, in one of Jean’s blue work shirts and a pair of her dungarees, sat near her, and the two women talked. Flagan sat alone, his head still resting on his knees. Bunny and Betty Hollis stood close together looking out a horizontal crack in one of the blinds. His arm was around her.

Hal gave Jean what he hoped was a reassuring smile and said, loudly, “A snug house. Not exactly split level.” As he said the last few words the wind-sound unaccountably ceased, and his voice was too loud and strong in the room. Flagan raised his head. They all listened to the momentary silence, and then the wind came down upon them again, stronger than before. They felt the uneasy shift and creak of the old house. Stevie began to cry. Jan, who had been almost asleep, stared at him for a moment and then, as was her habit, joined in. Jean began to comfort Stevie, and Virginia Sherrel picked up Jan and held her closely, rocking her.

The couple at the window had turned around. Hal beckoned to Bunny and nodded at Malden and went with the two of them into the adjoining room. They stood close together to make talking easier. Hal felt frail standing with the two of them and thought that it was fine that there were some muscles in this group. They could just as easily have been stranded with three or four middle-aged couples.

Bunny said in a tense voice, “Man, you ought to see that water coming up! It’s about halfway to the house right now.”

“Then we shouldn’t wait too long,” Hal said. “Somebody had better go find out if we can walk out of here.”

“Every once in a while those trees go over,” Bunny said nervously.

“Two of us would be better than one,” Malden said. “Hollis, let’s us go take a look. If we find a good way to higher ground, I can go on ahead and get help, and you can come back here and lead them on out to the highway.”

“Doesn’t it make more sense to wait it out right here?” Hollis asked.

“The water is coming up,” Hal said. “Suppose it gets to be six feet deep here, with a current from the Gulf. The sills under this place are rotten. If it shifts off the foundation it’s going to roll, and if it rolls, it’s going to collapse like a house of cards.”

“Okay, okay,” Hollis said without enthusiasm. “So we duck the trees.”

“I’ll get on a car radio and see what I can find out,” Hal said.

They went into the larger room and explained to the three women what they were going to do. Betty Hollis was alarmed. She objected to Bunny’s going. He quieted her.

When they went outside, Hal was awed by the new ferocity of the wind. The Cadillac was closer than the Plymouth. He saw it had a radio aerial. And he remembered leaving the keys in ft. He caught the door handle as the wind tried to push him away. He got in and shut the door. The water was coming up the road from both directions. It was no longer possible to tell where the bridges had been. He watched Malden and Hollis. They moved slowly with the wind, heading due east toward where the highway should be. They were soon out of sight in the brush. Hal turned on the radio and waited for it to warm up.

Betty Hollis stared at the closed door after Bunny had left with the other two men. She hurried to the window, but she could not see them. The direction was wrong.

She felt that somehow the magic was being taken away from her. If only there had been more time, just the two of them together. Then perhaps she could have learned all the ways to bind him to her so he would never leave.

She knew that she could never have or keep the things she most wanted. Even from the very beginning, when all of childhood and young girlhood seemed to be compressed into one unending scene — where she walked alone down a street while all the others watched from steps and porches, scornfully amused by the soft awkward body, the rhythmless stride. There goes the Oldbern girl.

She had known from as early as she could remember that she was not the sort of girl Daddy wanted. Not the kind of girl he had hoped for. The brown, sunny, laughing ones. The girls who could do things and talk to anyone in the bright, pert way she had never been able to manage. When she had tried to imitate those girls, people had looked at her so peculiarly that she had wanted to run and hide from all the world.

That was why Daddy had sent her away, of course. To all those far-away schools. It was something you had to accept. You weren’t what was wanted, what had been expected, and so you had to go away. And she had sent back the very best marks she could — and the medals she earned with those marks. It was a small gift, but the only one she could give.

Eating was a part of it, too. Only lately had she begun to understand how that was so much a part of it. Eating had been the only fun. Pastries and chocolate and fudge and starches, with the soft pounds adding higher and higher, and then you knew you didn’t have to worry about men or marriage because, in the intense pleasure of eating, you had made yourself so gross. And the slim girl you were in your heart was hidden and safe, underneath the wabbling pounds.

But you had never expected to fall in love. Certainly not in love with anyone as magical and unattainable as Bunny. And you could never understand how you acquired the courage to start taking the tennis lessons from him.

It had happened all of a sudden.

It was a still, hot day, and she was at the club under an umbrella eating a sundae and watching Bunny teach two brown boys of thirteen. She noticed absently that day that he seemed like a nice man. So patient and anxious to have the kids learn. She was aware of him, but not specifically aware. Then he sent both boys to the far court and volleyed with them. And she saw how he moved like a big blond cat, saw the line of his back and the shape of his shoulders and the way his head was set on the round strong column of his neck.

She looked at him and felt the rising of a strange warmth within her, a slow stirring that she had never felt before. She had had crushes, but they were not like this. And then she saw the absurdity of her position. Fat girl in the umbrella shade going all sticky over the tennis instructor at the club. He was so old. He must be nearly thirty.

Making the appointment for lessons later on was by far the bravest and boldest thing she had ever done. He had played a few games with her to find out how well she could play. And then he had called her, panting, up to the net. His smile took the sting out of his words. “I think I can help your game, but I have to be rude to you, Miss Oldbern. The first exercise I am going to give you is pushing yourself away from the table before dessert. That will help your game more than anything.”

He could have said anything to her without offending her. She was in the first stage of worship.

She took many lessons. She worked on her weight. Sometimes they talked. It was a long time before she overcame her painful shyness of him. Then she could talk almost naturally, telling him about herself and her nineteen years. He seemed gentle and thoughtful. He told her how he had lived for his thirty-three years. Fourteen years’ difference in age didn’t seem so much if you said it quickly. When she was fifty he would be only sixty-four; they would both be old, then.

When it turned cold, the lessons were given on the indoor courts. Her days were filled by him. There was nothing else worth flunking about. She adored him. She could not tell him of her love. It was too ridiculous. He would laugh. This was another of the things in life she would never have. But it was good to dream about for a little time.

On one gray November day after a lesson, he turned out the court lights, and they walked toward the door. The building was empty. She clumsily dropped her racket. They both bent to pick it up. They straightened up, close together. She was without breath or will when he put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her close and kissed her. From far away she heard the racket fall to the floor again.

Within the next month they began to talk cautiously of marriage. She was not a fool. There had been all the usual family warnings about fortune hunters. She knew the need of caution. She would not have the right of decision until she was twenty-one. She knew the world was full of men who would pretend love in order to win that much money. And she knew Bunny was one of those. But she did not care. If that was the price, it was a price she would gladly pay.

She appraised herself dispassionately. Lumpy figure, still too heavy after all the reducing. Nondescript face. A quick, clear intelligence that was somehow always defeated when it came to putting thoughts into words. Nothing there for Bunny. Except the money. And all the money could not buy a return of the love she felt for him. And even all the money did not add up to a fair exchange. She felt grateful to him for providing this oblique chance at life. And, of course, it was the only way the money would ever be of any use to her.

They waited until she had passed twenty-one. The family blunted all weapons against her passive determination. On her wedding day she was down to one hundred and thirty-seven pounds. The softness was gone, but the remaining excess was firm, durable, discouraging.

She had made her bargain and accepted a marriage where the love was only on one side. But she had not known about the magic. She had not known that the magic could transform her until she could almost believe herself worthy of love. And he seemed to be in love with her. She flowered in that warm light and could almost come to believe herself beautiful. She pushed the cool skepticism back into a remote corner of her mind. That skepticism which said Bunny was earning a great deal of money and was at least honorable enough to play the part of husband with as much sincerity as he could muster. As she came to believe that he could love her as a person, as the Betty he had married, there came a new confidence. She knew the confidence had an effect on her walk, her talk, the way she carried herself. And for the first time the quick mind grasped the awkward handles of speech, and she could be wry and funny and make him laugh.

She was becoming Betty Hollis, and Betty Oldbern was someone unpleasant who had existed in a faraway, unpleasant world, someone dead and not worthy of grief. A fat, stupid, awkward one, wolfing pastries, talking dully, winning tiny gold medals for excellence in French composition.

And she had forgotten what she had originally known: Bunny would stay with her for just so long and then there would be some sort of “arrangement” — some amicable separation and an allowance for him which, out of gratitude, she would make generous. And then she could settle back into the lethargy of the soft thickening flesh.

There should have been more time to be alone with him. More time to make him in some small way dependent on her. Now the closeness was fading. Her claim was losing its strength. He had no need of her, no real need. The money, yes. But not her. Ever since it had become clear to them that they were trapped here, he had been distracted from her, absent-minded with her. When they had seen the dreadful fall of the tree that had smashed the little man, she had cried out and drawn close to him and taken his hand. But there had been no answering pressure in his hand. And when he had looked at her, he had seemed a stranger to her. Later when they had stood by the window, she had drawn his arm around her waist, but it had merely rested there, weight without closeness or emotion.

She looked across the dim room at Virginia Sherrel. As the woman talked to the child called Jan, her face was tilted so that it caught the yellow-gray light, and her face was luminous and lovely. Betty looked at the woman without envy, with a feeling of hopelessness. Here was a woman who in body, face and poise was a far better match for Bunny. They were both of that alien race of the highly endowed. The other women Bunny had known had been like that, Betty imagined. And that was the sort of woman he would go back to, one day. The day after she inevitably lost him. And the long painful process of losing him seemed to have started on this day...

Flagan gathered himself and stood up slowly. He looked around dully, as though awakening from sleep. The three women and the children looked at him. He looked at the three women in turn and chose Virginia Sherrel to address himself to. “Where’d they go, honey?”

“The other men? They went to find a way back to the road.”

He pursed his lips, nodded judiciously. “Good idea. Sorry about your car, honey. What’s your name?”

“My name is Mrs. Sherrel. And being sorry isn’t going to be quite enough, Mr. Flagan.”

“Who told you my name?”

Virginia Sherrel stood up and took a step toward him. “Mr. Himbermark told us your name.”

Flagan looked at her appraisingly, approvingly. “Charlie zigged when he shoulda zagged. Don’t worry about your car, honey.”

“What do you plan to do about it? I lost my clothes, everything.”

He shrugged. “You got comprehensive, haven’t you? Let the insurance take care of the car. I’ll pay for the other stuff.”

Virginia Sherrel lifted her chin and spoke clearly above the wind whine. “I don’t think you understand, Mr. Flagan. You assaulted me physically in front of witnesses. You dragged me out of my car, knocked me down and drove my car into the river.”

He grinned at her. “And Johnny Flagan has to pay for that, too? You got a lot of spirit. I like that. Honey, I did what I had to do. And I got set back a little. Johnny Flagan always gets these little setbacks, and he always comes out of it. Now I’m going to be on my way because I’ve got places to go and things to do.”

Betty Hollis watched the man curiously. There was too much bluster. And his eyes didn’t match the smile and the confident voice. His eyes were afraid.

Virginia Sherrel said, “I want your address. I’ll want to give it to my lawyers.”

Johnny Flagan checked again on the money in his pocket. “Lady, you just copy down the license number on my Cad. Give that to your lawyers. They can trace me. It’s my car. That way they earn their money.”

Betty Hollis watched Virginia’s face, and she saw that the woman was furiously angry. It was as though emotions had been constrained for a long time and were now breaking free.

“How do I know that’s your car? Who do you think you are?”

“Just simple old Johnny Flagan,” he said and turned toward the door. Virginia Sherrel took quick long strides and caught at his arm. He wrenched free, his red face almost purple. As the door opened behind him, he flicked the back of his hand across her face. She staggered back, her eyes wide with shock.

Hal Dorn came in just as Flagan struck the woman. He grabbed the heavy man’s shoulder and wrenched him around. “What’s going on here?” he yelled.

Flagan in his youth had been a brawler, a squat bull of a man. The softened muscles were still heavy, and as quick as they needed to be. Quick enough to club Dorn solidly in the ribs and follow it up with a heavy fist against the side of the neck. Dorn fell and both children began to scream with fear. As Dorn struggled to get up, Flagan moved quickly around him to get out the door, but met Malden coming in, Bunny Hollis right behind him. Flagan tried to shove by him. Malden saw Dorn trying to get up. He thrust Flagan violently back into the room. Flagan made the mistake of trying to hit him.

Dorn got to his feet just in time to see Flagan swing a ponderous fist at Steve Malden. Hal Dorn felt dazed, slightly ill and enormously angry. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been as angry. His lean muscles had been toughened by the warehouse labor. His hands were hard, and he wanted to feel the impact of his fists against the red face of Flagan.

It seemed to him the final indignity that he should be knocked down so readily in front of Jean and the kids by a man twenty years older, a man with a big belly. The incident seemed to underline and italicize the final months of defeat. He stumbled forward, ignoring the great ache in his left side, intent on helping Malden sudue the man.

But Malden needed no help. Malden didn’t fight the man. It was not at all like a fight. Malden merely walked Flagan back against the wall, punishing the man deftly, coldly, mercilessly, as he moved him back, hurting him with hands, elbows, knees, roughing him up in a quiet and highly professional manner that ended when Flagan stood against the wall whimpering with each exhalation, the thin sound nearly lost in an increased roar of wind.

Malden looked at the others. “What’s it about?” Mrs. Dorn stood by her husband, talking to him in a low tone. Bunny Hollis was standing by his bride, holding her hand.

Virginia Sherrel told him.

Malden turned back to Flagan, patted his pockets lightly, deftly lifted a thick manila envelope out of the inside jacket pocket. Flagan made a wild grab for the envelope. Malden put a hand against his chest and pushed him forcibly back against the wall.

“Hold it!”

“That’s mine. You can’t take that.”

“Shut up, Flagan.” He opened the envelope, looked at the thick pad of soaked bills. He did not change expression. He folded the packet once, compressed it between his hands, put it in his hip pocket.

“You got to give that back! I got to have it back. I’ve got to go now, and I got to take that along.”

“You’re not going anyplace.”

Flagan gathered himself with an effort. His manner changed. He was no longer frantic. There was something almost pleasant about his smile. He spoke loudly enough to include all of them in the conversation. “Okay. I know I’ve got some explanations to make. I’ve been a damn fool. I guess this storm is getting me down. Here. Here’s my wallet. Open it and take a look at some of the identification, friend. Among other things, I’m a banker. I’m on my way to Georgia. There’s a... a deadline in getting that cash up there. It’s important to me and a lot of other people. I got off on the wrong foot. I didn’t mean to be so rough on the lady, but I thought I could get across before that bridge sagged any more, and there just wasn’t time to explain to her. You can see that, can’t you? When she grabbed me, I lost my head, I guess. I’ve always had a bad temper. It’s a terrible burden to me. I do things I’m ashamed of. Now give it back like a good fella, and I’ll be on my way. You can look at those cards. They’ll tell you who I am.”

Malden handed the wallet back. “They tell who John Flagan is. You’re not going anywhere.”

“You can’t take it. That’s theft!”

“I’ll keep it until we can get this straightened out. Listen, Flagan. We’re on an island. It’s getting smaller by the minute. This house is on the highest point of land. You can’t tell anymore where the old river channels were. Unless you can swim like an otter and duck trees and branches, you’re staying right here.”

Flagan’s voice became more shrill. “But I got to get out of here. I’m John Flagan.”

“A respectable banker. You try to steal cars and knock women down, and you carry all the bank’s funds in your pocket.”

“But just ask Charl...”

Flagan stopped abruptly and closed his eyes and seemed to dwindle. His mouth worked. He pushed himself away from the wall and walked to the doorway that opened into the next room. His face was set in an odd expression, the corners of his mouth pulled down. Hal Dorn suddenly realized he had seen the same expression on Stevie’s face when Stevie was trying with all his might not to cry.

The children had quieted down. Jean said to him, “Come on, darling. Come and sit down.”

“I’m all right,” he said irritably. But he let her lead him over to the comer. He sat on the blankets near the children. Jean sat beside him. The children stared at him.

“I bet, after you got up, you could have hit him maybe a hundred million times,” Stevie said. “I bet you were going to beat him to a pulp.”

Hal looked at the tear tracks on his son’s face and saw the tremor of the underlip. “To a bloody pulp,” he agreed wearily.

“Hush, honey,” Jean said to Stevie.

“I bet he was going to,” Stevie said loyally.

“That man hit your Daddy when your Daddy didn’t expect it, that’s all. He’s a bad man.”

Hal moved his head gingerly. His neck was beginning to stiffen. The time of command was over. It had been short. Now Malden was in charge. Hal was willing to accept that. His own brief moments of decision had been like the last touch of flame in a dying fire. Even Stevie had sensed the defeat, the resignation. And was trying to fight against it with loyalty and love. When the loss of faith came to a man, sharp and unexpected and bitter, it permeated to every part of him. And Hal sat gray and sour with self-loathing, knowing that he had deliberately taken longer than necessary to get back onto his feet. It had been self-doubt that had kept him down and a fear of the pain those heavy fists could inflict. Yet pride had insisted that he make the struggle to stand up.

Stevie said, “I bet you could have just hit that old...”

“Shut up!” Hal yelled at him. He saw the tears come and stand on the long lashes, and he looked away.

Malden and Virginia Sherrel came over. The Hollis couple moved closer. Malden squatted on his heels and said, “Get anything on the radio?”

Hal nodded. “It’s bad. Local stations are using emergency power. Long lists of places that should be evacuated. The hurricane is pushing flood tides ahead of it. It is going to hit this part of the coast about four o’clock they think.”

“Hollis and I didn’t get very far,” Malden said. “It’s rough out there. Water is spread all over the flats. No telling how far it is to the highway. Wind knocked us down I don’t know how many times. Big branches sailing by. Hollis nearly got one on the head.” He paused as though waiting for Hal to make a suggestion, then said, “I guess we ought to cart the stuff upstairs. And get any flashlights out of the cars. Put what food we got in a pool. Try to do something about drinking water. There’s some kind of a big tank out back.”

Hal nodded. Malden stood up.

Jean Dorn sat on the blankets with her husband and her children and listened to the sound of the wind. It was a rhythm that could not be predicted. There were moments when it seemed to die, only to return stronger than before. The hard gusts came more frequently, and now there were times when it blew steadily for long seconds. The bolted shutters on the rear of the house shuddered and banged.

She wanted to touch Hal, to give him some kind of comfort. During the first hour they had been trapped in this place he had come out of his apathy and had seemed to her to be more alive than at any time during the past year. As in the days when his had been the strength she had leaned upon. Now the demand was upon her strength, and yet she could not give of herself to him. She knew she had to wait and hope and love him.

Far back in the misty simple beginnings of mankind, man killed meat with lusty swing of stone axe. With club and spear he fed himself and his family, and he built the fire that filled the mouth of the cave and kept the night creatures away. The weak ones and the fearful ones could not and did not survive.

Jean sensed that Hal’s defeat was as elemental as though it had happened a million years ago. She traced the analogy. He had been a good hunter in his own country. Then he had trekked to another land and found the game more scarce. He had hunted tirelessly, with all possible concentration of cunning. They had brought food with them, but, overconfident of success, they had eaten their supplies too rapidly. So the new land had defeated him before he had had time to learn the game paths, the new hunter’s tricks essential in this new place. So now they must trek back to the land they knew.

But the hunter felt that hand and eye had lost their cunning. He could resent these other mouths he must feed. He would equate them with his own survival.

On the way back they ran into trouble. And the hunter forgot for a time his uncertainty about himself, and responded instinctively with manliness and decision. Until an older man felled him too easily. Then he related this defeat to the defeat in the new land. He felt small and unworthy and inept.

Unless he could regain his pride and his confidence, the return home would do them little good, because the animals in the familiar region were also dangerous.

She shook her head to clear it of the odd dream, half amused at herself, and half depressed to tears. She looked at Hal’s thin, strong hands and slumped shoulders and wanted to touch him, to impart some of her own useless strength. These were not the years of club and fang, but the basic desires and emotions were the same. He had been unable to conceal his defeat from her. She had watched it. So this, too, could be a part of his resentment, because he felt shame.

He looked at her, his expression wooden. He patted Stevie clumsily on the shoulder. “Sorry I yelled at you.”

“Okay,” Stevie said with rigid dignity.

Hal stood up. “I got to help with the stuff.”

She smiled at him and nodded. He went to help Malden and Hollis carry the luggage upstairs.