Chapter 16 - ROGUE


Dunk was chewing on what Grammy Jones had said.

"You can't beat the devil at his own game," Gram had croaked.

She'd winkled the whole story out of Annie before Dunk had gotten there, of course. She might be blind to the bruises on his sister's face, but she could feel a bruised spirit across a room.

When Dunk came into Gram's kitchen, Annie was seated on the bed next to the old woman, who was brushing out the girl's riot of curly red hair. Tears were streaming down Annie's face, but she had on a great big grin.

"Thank you for the cigarettes, Dunk," Gram said, "that was thoughtful. Your Aunt Sal is determined to cut me off."

"Yeh," he replied. "I figured."

"Have some coffee and a tart," she proposed.

"Don't mind if I do," Dunk sat at the table, helped himself to the baked good, putting the dish towel back over the plate, and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the cookstove. The kitchen was stifling, but he kind of liked the smother after being out in the weather since before dawn.

"Gram?.." The old woman nodded. Now she was braiding Annie's hair, and Annie was massaging her greatgrandmother's feet.

"Was Buster always so mean?" Dunk asked.

"Oh, Lester. Don't you remember how he was before he went away?" Gram asked. Dunk hung his head and was silent.

"I kinda do," he finally said, "but it seems like I'm makin it up."

"Oh no, Lester. Somethin happened to him in Vietnam, and he came back all broken inside."

"Don't make it right," Dunk said.

"No. But it's not up to you to heal his wounds," Gram counseled. "Or bear them," she went on, almost to herself.

"Mama's goin crazy," Annie said very softly. Gram put her arms around the girl and held her.

"He just can't keep beatin on us," Dunk declared angrily.

"No," Gram said slowly. "But you aren't the one to stop him." Dunk's head snapped up and he stared daggers at Gram.

"Don't misunderstand me, son," Gram went on. "It's right for you to protect Annie and your mom. But it's not right for you to have to fight Buster." That's when she'd said you can't beat the devil.

"Annie can stay here tonight. I'll call over and say she's helpin me. And I'll see if I can't put a stick in Buster's wheel." Gram continued. "It's past due."

Dunk was still rigid with anger, but he felt a little bit of hope creeping in. The world had gone all silent when he'd thought about Buster beating his sister and his mom, and now he began to hear the sounds coming in the window. The day was declining, and lobstermen were converging on the Co-op with the day's catch, the sound of their motors filled the air. Dunk pushed back his chair.

"Gotta go, Gram. 'Nother tide to work," he said, standing up.

"That's good, Dunk. You let me worry on Buster for a spell," the old woman said. And it sounded good to Dunk. Annie jumped up and threw her arms around him.

"Careful," she invoked, and he grinned at her.

"OK," he said. "I may be back late, or not at all. OK to sleep in the barn, Gram?"

"Don't you dare, Lester. There's a bed upstairs in the front room when you need it. You know that," she chided. Dunk had a hard time holding his tears.

"Thanks, Gram," he mumbled, pushing his way out the back door.

Now he was planing up the reach, hair streaming, headed for the ledges off Rogue Island. He had just about enough time to get there before wrinkle country started to show.

The marine territory reachable by skiff from Smithport contains thousands of islands and tidal ledges, but they can be sorted into three domains. The Eastern Bay and the Western Bay were on either side of Carver's Island, and east of them all was an open passage, exposed to the open sea, before you got to the cluster of islands and ledges outside Rogue. It was a long run to the Rogue ledges, and there was always the chance of getting caught out, if the wind came up, but the pickins were fine, for the lack of attention. And there was Miss Marianne.

Side door to the Rogue Island cluster is a narrow slot between bold granite bluffs covered in circles of orange lichen, overhung with weathered oldgrowth spruce, draped in Spanish moss. A serpentine channel weaves between the high islands, first into Bunker Hole, a perfect protected anchorage out of all winds, where it diverges. Dunk took the left fork and ran along the narrow passage between Rogue and Big Spruce. Irish moss was beginning to show at the tide line, purple and pale white, below the zone of the olive green rockweeds.

"Just about right," Dunk observed to himself.

The gap widens as you approach the back cove, where Rogue Island hides her treasure -- a crescent sand beach almost a mile long protected by outer islands and ledges -- and long fingers of submerged granite poke out on either side, to trip the unwary. Just before you open out the beach to your left, the ancient shell heaps line the shore of Big Spruce, to your right. Dunk saw Miss Marianne's tent first. Then he could see her on the rocks, waving something in the air to get his attention. He veering into a passage headed her way, and throttled down as he came alongside Sum's whaler. He cut engine, lifted the leg, and let the skiff glide into a slot between rockweed covered boulders. The anthropologist was clambering over the wrack to meet him.

"I'm so glad it's you, Dunk," she announced, arriving breathlessly at the skiff. Dunk was suddenly breathless himself. Miss Marianne was wearing cutoff jeans, a sleeveless white oxford shirt tied up above her midriff, holey old tennis shoes, and she had a red plaid bandanna in her hand. She must have been wearing it to keep up her long black hair, but had pulled it off to wave at him, and now her locks spilled over her shoulders, framing the fine lines of her face. She was flushed from the sun, and her face was wet with sweat.

Marianne felt Dunk's examination, and laughed, wiping her face with the bandanna.
"I must look a sight," she said.

Dunk grinned. "You OK?" he asked, looking away.

"Oh, I'm fine," Marianne answered. "I just hadn't seen a soul to talk two for days, and was so hoping you'd come by." Dunk flushed.

"I got a tide to work," he mumbled gruffly, trying not to stare at the beautiful young woman in front of him. But she managed to catch his eye.

"Stop back when you're done?" she asked gently.

Dunk looked her squarely. "Be proud to," he said.

"It's a date," she announced, and there was a long silence.

"Well," Dunk sighed, "See ya." He pushed the skiff backwards with an oar, poled back into deeper water, lowered the leg, and fired her up. He looked over his shoulder at the anthropologist, who was still standing at the water's edge, arms folded, watching him motor away. He tipped his baseball cap, and she waved.

"My god, isn't he a hunk of a man," Marianne thought. Dunk tugged at his jeans.