Chapter 32 - GLORY

After a cup of coffee, Dunk and Marianne had broken up her camp quickly, only leaving the site materials in place. Dunk suggested they pitch her tent in a sandy cove on East Ringer, in a place where they could keep their boats up in close against a steep-to ledge, hidden to view from the channel.

"That way they'd never see them unless they search the whole shore," Dunk advised. "I don't think they'd mess with those ledges in the fog, though. And I expect this to last."

"Whatever you think best, Dunk," Marianne had said, surprised at her willingness to let a man make decisions for her, but realizing he knew this world so much better, and besides she already trusted Dunk to worry about her needs first. "How do I just know that?" she wondered.

They'd loaded her camp gear in Dunk's flatiron. Then Dunk pulled in Sum's boat on the haul-out, untied it, and secured the haul-out line. He tied Sum's painter to his after thwart, and polled out the narrow channel until both boats were moving along together. He dropped the leg and was just about to pull the starter cord, when he stopped and cocked an ear toward Bunker's Hole. He thought he faintly heard the sound of another outboard, but it faded and disappeared.

Marianne looked a question. "Maybe another boat," Dunk explained.

He would have let the boats drift away from the Hole, but the tide was ebbing hard that way, so he started the motor, and ran slowly along the Big Spruce shore, then across the big cove of Rogue Island towing the whaler. Out in the middle of the cove the fog thinned and they saw a bit of bright blue sky above them, then the mist thickened again, streaming overhead in the wind. Then the fog seemed to lighten. Right where they were the white cloud got brighter and brighter. Suddenly they were surrounded by a rainbow.

Dunk shut off the motor, and they both stood together, holding hands, awestruck.

"It's a glory," Dunk said reverently. "That's what they call this."

"It's magic," Marianne whispered.

The glory rose up like lights touching the top of a tent, and faded away. They turned toward each other, and Dunk bent to kiss Marianne. He straightened up."A good sign, I'd say," Dunk prophesied.

Dunk restarted the motor and ran across to the far shore. A little way along it he turned the skiff sharply right, and towed Sum's whaler up a slot between high ledges, to a tiny sand beach. He and Marianne disembarked, unloaded, and made camp. Dunk secured the boats up against one of the overhanging ledges, tying them to trees which grew right down to the sheer face of the outcrop.

"Always wanted to camp here," he smiled at Marianne. "Never found the right girl before." She smiled back.

After they'd set up a fireplace behind a rockpile, facing into the woods, Marianne asked, "didn't I see wrinkles on those ledges coming in."

Dunk grinned. "Yeh, good pickin, too, it looks," he answered.

"Shall we pick some?" she asked. They had hours to wait until Liz might call on the CB, and he realized it was better to do something, rather than sit and fret.

"You really wanna?" he asked. "You've no boots."

"That's OK, I can do it in shorts and sneaks."

"Might get cold."

"I'd be colder sitting still," she said.

So they took buckets and bags down to the tidemark, and Dunk began explaining the ins and outs of wrinkling. Soon they were immersed in the quest for the perfect patch, scooping wrinks by the handsfull into their buckets. They'd only been at it for ten minutes when they heard a series of muffled reports coming down the wind. "Pop!..pop!" They both stopped, and heard four more. "Pop!.... pop! ..... pop.! .... pop!"

"Maybe a big handgun," Dunk suggested.

"It was from over by the Hole, wasn't it," Marianne asked, a little frightened.

"Yeh. I don't like the sound of it," Dunk answered.

After waiting for a few minutes, they went back to picking snails, but their minds were clouded with premonitions of evil. "Who, or what, were they shooting," Dunk worried.

The pair worked down to the bottom of the tide. Dunk saw that Marianne was both quick and smart on the ledges, and the wrinks were real good on these rocks. They would have an excellent haul, and he smiled.

"You'd make a great pickin partner," he called over to her as they both filled onion sacks on top of separate outcrops.

"Is that a proposal?" Marianne teased. Dunk blushed.

"Well, I guess. Sorta," he grinned.

"Best offer I've had all week," she grinned back, and they went back to rummaging under the rockweed.

"Ow," Marianne cried, jerking her hand. A good-sized crab scaled out and splashed in the water.

"They'll do that," Dunk said sympathetically. His hands were nothing but a mess of cuts and scrapes, and he felt bad about Marianne's getting all chewed up. She was determined to work the whole tide, though, or at least until 7 o'clock, and she kept on picking without complaint.

Soon they were about 50 yards apart, working down different fingers of granite, and Dunk paused to watch her hunting wrinks, bent over, her backside sticking up in the air. Wrinkles began to be a whole lot less interesting, and his jeans didn't fit so well.

"You are so beautiful," Dunk said in a quiet voice.

"Thank you, sir," Marianne said back softly. He could hear her clear as a bell, 150 feet away. They both started up and stared at each other across the ledges.

"Didn't know you could do that, too," he said.

"Neither did I, Dunk." Marianne replied in amazement. Dunk tipped his ball cap, and she made as if to curtsy.

"Almost time," he said, and they both cached their pickings on high spots, and scrambled over the ledges toward their hidden beach. Dunk helped Marianne down the slick ledge and into EQUAL'S. Marianne turned on the radio.

"SALAD QUEEN, SALAD QUEEN, this is TWO PLUS TWO, over." She tried repeatedly to get a reply, but the radio remained silent.

"Not a good sign," Dunk thought. He'd been speculating on the gunshots, if that's what they were. The reports might have been fireworks. It was almost the Fourth, after all. But Dunk had a bad feeling about them, and now he was more convinced that something bad had happened to Liz.. or Sum.

"I don't like it, Mary," Dunk said. "Liz and Sum aren't home. I think I better check on that yacht."

"O, Dunk. Don't leave me alone," Marianne said, but right away she realized Dunk felt he had to go, and she was worried about Lizzie, too.

"I don't ever want to leave you," Dunk said truthfully, "but I'm scared for Liz. I'll go by in my skiff, like I'm just finishing the tide. They won't suspect anything, and I might get a chance to see what's going on."

"I'd be very worried, if you didn't come back, Dunk," she said. She stretched up and kissed him long and hard, and they clung together, the tall gangly redhead, and the short raven-haired woman, still being very careful with one another. When they came up for air, Dunk helped Marianne back up the ledge. Then he untied his skiff, and polled around to their caches, picking up their bagged wrinks, and placing them strategically in the flatiron so the load was balanced.

"I love you," he said across the widening gap.

"I love you, too," she replied. Dunk started his motor, and idled into the fog.

But he didn't have to go all the way to Bunker's Hole to get an answer to his questions. Just as he entered the channel between Big Spruce and Rogue his sharp eye saw something tan and red drifting toward him on the tide. When he came alongside it and put his motor in neutral, he realized it was a dead puppy, trailing blood. It looked like the puppy Sumner had gotten for his son. Dunk's heart sank.

"They must have Liz on the sailboat," he reasoned, "and the little boy, too, maybe," He concluded. Why they'd shot the dog, he couldn't figure, unless it was to terrorize Liz, and that made him more uneasy. The dead dog and the skiff drifted back into the big cove side by side, while Dunk considered his options.