Chapter 21 - FOG

The mewling of gulls woke Dunk, and he came upright with a start, pressing his head against the wall of Marianne's tent. Condensation wet his hair making him duck and shake his head.

"Jeesum, I've missed the tide," he thought. Then he remembered where he was, that he didn't have a long run to the ledges, and he saw it was still before sunrise. Then it all came back to him, and he looked over at the sleeping anthropologist with wonder.

He'd hardly slept all night, in excited joy and confusion. After they'd cleaned the supper pots last night, they'd poked up the fire and talked for hours. About anthropology and marine biology, about their families, and about college. Dunk had never dared even dream about going to college, but Mary.. he now thought of her as Mary.. said that he was a shoe-in at any school if he kept up the grades he'd been getting since Mrs. Dow.. Mary called her Lizzie.. had inspired him. Mary said there were even scholarships which would pay all the bills. It sounded too good to be true.

And just being with her was even better. When she got excited about an idea her eyes flashed and her color rose and she flung her hands about as she talked. Oh he'd wanted to hug her and smother her beautiful face with kisses, and run his fingers through her long black hair, and... but he'd held himself back from doing or saying anything which might spoil the moment. And she hadn't grabbed him, or kissed him again, either, so he didn't know what to think. She had impulsively touched his hands a few times, and that same electric shock had galvanized him.

Then the fire had burned down, and the stars turned, and they were too tired even to talk. She suggested she get into the tent first, and get into her sleeping bag, then call for him to come in. He was shaking like a leaf, waiting out in the mild starlight. When she called, he'd slipped into the tent, finding which side she was on by feeling the lumps of her feet, then he'd zipped the tent, and stretched himself out as far from her as he could, pulling the blanket she offered over himself.

"Thank you, Dunk," she whispered. "Thank you for being such a wonderful friend."

Dunk stammered, finally got out: "Good night Mary." Then he'd lain there in his clothes, wide awake, for hours. The sweet smell of her so close, the thought of her lying naked beside him, within arm's reach, the soft sighing of her breath, had him so turned on he could have walked on fire and not felt a thing. It was like heaven and hell all together, and his angels struggled until the wee hours.

Lying there he'd heard a boat come thundering into Bunker Hole, and then back out a short while later, and wondered what that was all about. He could almost swear it sounded like the SUZY-Q.

Later in the night he thought he heard another boat, with a much smaller engine, somewhere toward the hole, but he couldn't be sure, the way sounds echo off the islands.

Then he'd heard an owl calling in the trees above the middens. "Hoot.. hoot ..HOOOT. Hoot.. hoot .. HOOT." And he'd finally fallen asleep.

Now Dunk quietly folded himself and got his knees under, brushing the wet canvas with his shoulder and head. He paused, looking down at the young woman sprawled on her back in sleep. He could just see her in the gloaming. Mary's sleeping bag had worked its way down so that her shoulders were exposed, and the top of her chest, showing the tan lines of her halter top, and the whites swellings where her breasts began. Dunk's breath stuck in his throat. Her hair spilled out on the sleeping pad between them, and Dunk carefully reached down, lifted a lock, and pressed his lips to it.

"I love you, Mary," he whispered. Then the blood rushed to his face, and he hastily unzipped the tent and staggered out. Closed the tent behind him.

The world was all adrip. Pluming fog was streaming in the channel, and all he could see of Rogue was an occasional glimpse of the tops of the trees. Dunk shivered, pulled on his soaking wet boots, and went over to the dead fire. He helped himself to a cup of cold coffee, and lit his first Camel of the morning. He wasn't late at all. The tide was just exposing winkle country. Dunk hauled in the boats, untied his skiff, and returned the whaler to deep water. Then he got in and poled his boat out into the channel, where the current grabbed it, before he lowered the leg and fired the Merc.

"Ringer West here we come," he said, shaking himself to clear away all of last nights confusions.

Marianne heard the sound of Dunk's outboard starting, then the snarl of it retreating. She lay there slowly coming to consciousness. When her mind turned to Dunk, she sat up quickly, saw he was gone, sighed, and put it all together.

"What an astonishing and wonderful man," she thought. Their conversations had been wide and deep, revealing the hidden resources of Dunk's mind, and her heart had ached when he talked about Buster and his mother and sister. No matter how cruel and abusive her father had been, he'd never laid a hand on her, or her mother.

The fact that they had lain together all night without his once making a move on her, blew her mind. She had ached for him to touch her. She too had been wide awake for a long time, torn between her yearning to invite him into her arms, and the desire to honor his sensibility. His chivalry. She had finally drifted into passionate dreams of pursuit and escape and capture. In the last one she remembered, Dunk had kissed her hair and said he loved her.

Marianne shook out her hair, lifted her arms out of the sleeping bag , and stretched them in front of her. "I think I DO love him," she declared. "Or I want to. Next time there'll be nothing between us. I owe him that." Then she slipped out of the bag, struggled into her clothes, and went out into the foggy morning.

It took Marianne a while to get a fire going, everything was so wet. She decided to wait breakfast until Dunk came back. She hoped he'd come back after the tide. She brewed up a fresh pot of coffee, and was on her second cup, catching up on her site log, when she noticed the time.

"Oop, almost forgot," she mumbled, putting down her log. She clambered down the ledges and hauled EQUAL'S up to the tidemark. Stepping aboard, she reached under the center console and flipped on the CB radio.

Marianne keyed the mike: "SALAD QUEEN, SALAD QUEEN this is TWO PLUS TWO. Over."

A moment later the radio barked into life. Lizzie's voice, all distorted by the transmission, came back: "TWO PLUS TWO this is SALAD QUEEN. Just beginning to wonder. Everything OK? Over."

"SALAD QUEEN, everything is super peachy keen. How about you? Over." There was a pause.

"TWO PLUS TWO, we have some trouble here, but we're working on it. You coming in for the races? Over."

"Trouble?" Mary wondered. She replied: "SALAD QUEEN, your boys OK? Over."

"Tenfour, TWO PLUS TWO, that's affirmative," Mary chuckled to hear her sophisticated cousin using CB jargon. "You going to take a break for the Fab Fourth? Over," Liz went on.

"SALAD QUEEN, I could sure use a bath and some of your home cooking. Could I bring a friend? Over."

The radio sputtered as Liz laughed into the mike. "TWO PLUS TWO, or is it one plus one, cuz? A friend, yet? Anyone I know? Over."

"SALAD QUEEN, you'll just have to wait and see, sweetie. Over."

"TWO PLUS TWO, can you find your way in the fog? Over."

"SALAD QUEEN, my friend knows the way. Over."

"I sure hope Dunk comes back," Mary thought. "Maybe this is a terrible idea."

"TWO PLUS TWO, so you coming in today or tomorrow? Over."

"SALAD QUEEN, let's make it tomorrow. I'll come early, before the races. I'll call again tonight, if plans change. Over."

"Give me time to see how Dunk feels about all this," Mary thought. "I sure don't want to rush THIS man."

"TWO PLUS TWO, tenfour. Talk again tonight at 7. SALAD QUEEN out."

"TWO PLUS TWO out." Mary said, and hung the mike on the CB. She sat on the rail of the whaler, and dragged her hand in the water.

"I don't want to spook Dunk," she thought. "Lizzie IS his teacher, after all. But the more I'm with him, the more I want him to be with me. Am I going way too fast?"