But the woman was Rake’s sister Clara and she didn’t give Mary a second look. “Elwood wants to see you. Flip called about tonight.”
“Where’s Billy?”
“Gone clammin’.”
Rake told her to go get him, told Mary to sit tight because she might get her ride to Provincetown, then started toward the big house. But Clara didn’t move.
“What’s wrong?” Rake took Clara by the arm and kicked the barn door shut, leaving Mary inside.
What did he think she was going to do? Eavesdrop? She lifted another beer out of the burlap sack and tiptoed to the open window.
They were arguing—something about a shipment that night and Rake needing his little brother to help. But his sister didn’t want their little brother getting arrested.
“Ain’t been arrested yet,” Rake said. “Want him waitin’ tables at Harvard, feelin’ poor ’cause he comes from a hardworkin’ family? There ain’t no quicker way to make money than what we been doin’.”
“We could always ask Elwood about the sailin’ camp.”
Rake just laughed and held up his hand. “Five dollars a case, two hundred and fifty cases.
That’s
money. But I can’t do it by myself.”
“Get somebody else,” said Clara.
“Can’t
trust
somebody else.”
“Trust me,” Mary said through the window, “for three hundred and a ride to P-town.”
And so began the rumrunning partnership of Rake Hilyard and Mary Muldowney.
Clara gave her a pair of men’s trousers and some flat-heeled shoes. Rake gave her a baseball cap and asked her if she had any strength in those skinny arms.
“I grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, me and four brothers in two rooms. I’m stronger’n most
guys.
”
And she was. The sailors on the rum ship laughed when they saw her, but they weren’t laughing when Rake’s boat rumbled away. “As strong as a stevedore and tits that bounce,” muttered one awestruck sailor.
Mary liked the money. Three hundred dollars cash was more than she had ever made in a single night. And the run went so well that she couldn’t imagine quitting. A week later, they were still working. The most Rake would admit was that he had found a partner, but that was enough.
One night they were held up an extra hour at the landing and missed the tide on the way back to Jack’s Island. Rake’s boat, the
Paintin’ Tom
, had a bit over two hours on either side of high tide to cross the Brewster flats. So Rake came in as close as he could and threw out the anchor.
Then they walked, barefoot and cuffs rolled up, through the receding water.
In some places, the bottom was firm and sandy, but in others, Mary sank to her ankles in mud that sounded like a fart when she pulled a foot free—and didn’t smell much better. And there were night creatures scuttling about in the wash—crabs, brine shrimp, panicked minnows splattering before their feet.
It was the sort of midnight stroll a girl could have bitched about, but Mary kept her mouth shut. The money was too good, and she wanted to impress this fisherman, whether she would have admitted it or not. Anything he could take, she could take—until a crab bit her toe, and her scream echoed across the flats.
“Kick him off. Kick him,” said Rake. “Don’t scream or you’ll have every busybody in Brewster down here.”
“The little shit’s drawin’ blood!” She danced about on one leg in the moonlight until the crab flew off and she fell against Rake. He smelled of gasoline and boat exhaust.
“You been doin’ good. Don’t spoil it.” In his whisper he sounded more like a lover than a mentor. “These flats are a tough test.”
“Huh?” She felt his arms closing around her waist.
“Gettin’ to like havin’ you around. So you better know what the mud feels like ’tween your toes, what crabs feel like when they bite. They’re a part of this life.”
“This life?” She laughed nervously. “I’m kind of independent, Rake. Matter of fact, I’m about as independent as a… a Cape Cod fisherman.”
When he kissed her, she told herself to pull away, to say she wasn’t interested, but she was. Even if “this life” wasn’t for her.
v.
Aggie Dickerson Bigelow looked out at her father-in-law, who sat on the lawn in his bathrobe. While his sons stalked back and forth before him, Charles methodically cleaned his shotgun, as though preparing to use it on himself… or them.
Unseemly, that’s what it was. Downright unseemly for them to be treating him so. He had risen high in his life, all the way to the Massachusetts State House, and now they were fighting over his leavings before he was even gone.
Clarence wanted him to sign a permission so that they could exercise the subdivision plan that he and Elwood had agreed upon in 1904: a cottage colony from marsh to beach to creek. Agnes’s husband, Ethan, wanted a more stately development, something they could propose to Rake as well.
“Elwood will go for anything, especially if we call it Elwood Manor. But Rake, he likes his privacy.”
“I’ve decided I like this island just like it is,” said Charles. “In a few months, you can do whatever you want.”
“But, Pa”—Ethan sat his heavy ass down on the chair next to his father—“your name on a plan will mean a lot to the Hilyards. They respect you.”
Charles went on cleaning, oiling, polishing, checking the sight. His sons talked at him for a time, then turned their attention to each other, and the argument grew hotter. Many cottages or a few houses? Several small gambles or a few big ones? Summer hordes or people of quality? And finally—
boom!
Aggie went running out the door, half expecting to see someone dead on the lawn. A gray puff of smoke was blowing off toward the beach. The two sons were standing like trophy animals, stuffed and mounted. The subdivision blueprint for Pilgrim’s Rest at Jack’s Island was fluttering on the little table between them. And Charles stood over it, gun in hand. “I am still the master of this place, and I will agree to nothing that chews it up while I’m alive.”
Now his grandsons came running over the dune, drawn by the sound of the gun.
“Grampa!” shouted Dickerson. “What are you shootin’ at?”
“Buzzards, boy, comin’ to feast on your birthright.” Charles looked at his sons, then bored his eyes into Aggie. “I’ve seen a lot of changes on this Cape. I brought some of ’em about myself. It might be good to leave this island
un
changed, make it a gift to the future.”
“Ethan and Clarence are
plannin’
for the future,” said Aggie, “for Dickerson and Hiram and Clarence’s boys, too.”
Just then the blueprint flew off the table and went tumbling across the lawn. Little Dickerson chased after it and stopped it before it blew into the creek.
vi.
One hot night in August, Mary put on her cloche hat and heels, Rake donned a starched shirt and straw boater, they bundled their old clothes below, and they took the
Paintin’ Tom
to Provincetown.
In a little café they had bouillabaisse, floating with fish, mussels, lobster, and linguiça. They soaked up the broth with thick, crusty Portuguese bread and wished they had some wine. They bought tickets for the Provincetown Players, then strolled along the streets.
There were artists, actors, someone who looked like John Dos Passos, more sophisticated-looking people than Mary had seen in months. And from every other door came the jazzy wail of a sax or a clarinet. She relished the long, lonely rum runs with Rake, but Provincetown throbbed with the kind of life that a New York girl loved.
She told Rake she wanted to meet someone famous, so he introduced her to Perez Nance, who was sitting on a bench in front of Town Hall, watching the world go by.
“The best rumrunner in Provincetown,” said Rake.
“Shhh. My little one don’t know that.” Perez pointed to the baby carriage beside him. “But your lady friend, I hear she’s a better rumrunner than most men.”
Rake put an arm around her. “Better to look at, too.”
Mary liked the compliment, but this was a cosmopolitan place, and a girl of her talents should have been on the arm of someone fancier than a fisherman, talking to someone who didn’t smell so much of garlic and sweat. The thought shamed her as soon as she thought it. But she slipped out of Rake’s grasp and pretended to be interested in Nance’s baby.
“John M. Nance,” Perez said proudly. “M. for Manuel. Someday he’ll go to Harvard, like Rake’s brother. Be whatever he wants. Lawyer, doctor, fisherman—”
“Rumrunner?” said Rake.
Perez laughed. He and Rake were part of a brotherhood. They stayed out of one another’s way, helped if someone was in trouble, and passed words to the wise when they might be sufficient. They were fishermen before anything else, and they lived by the rules of the sea, not the syndicates.
Perez asked, “You goin’ out tonight?”
“Never come to P-town without goin’ on to Rum Row.”
“Watch yourself. It’s gettin’ dangerous.”
“Too dangerous for Iron Axe?”
Perez tapped his knuckles against Rake’s chest. “Too dangerous for you, too, my friend.”
“How dangerous?” Mary’s interest in the baby faded. She didn’t mind tempting the Coast Guard and risking a few months in jail. But this sounded serious.
Rake looked into the Portagee’s eyes and laughed. That made her feel better. Rake was daring, but no fool. And when he told Mary not to worry, she stopped worrying. She couldn’t think of another man who could do that to her.
At 2:00 A.M. the trucks were waiting for
Paintin’ Tom
at Ballston Beach in Truro. This was the back shore, with sandbars and surf that made for the most dangerous landing of all. On a rough night, Rake would have refused, but heat and humidity were like a weight smoothing out the surf, so he ran right onto the beach, as bold as a gull.
The lead trucker, a burly Irishman named Malloy, had been needling Rake since he first saw Mary. But tonight he stood on the dark beach and applauded as the tide gently lifted the
Paintin’ Tom
off. “Mary, that’s one helluva rumrunner you got. Only man I ever met could land liquor on the back shore. A helluva catch, darlin’.”
“And you’re a helluva truck driver,” she called.
Rake went fast along the shore and didn’t muffle the engine, because all they carried now was three bottles of scotch. “ ’Nother great night. ’Nother twelve hundred and fifty dollars, cash money.” He handed her the roll. “Count out three—make it four hundred.”
She threw her arms around his neck and gave him another kiss. “Like the man says, one helluva rumrunner.”
“And one helluva catch.”
She took her arms away. “But, Rake—”
“But, but, but. You like me well enough out here, when we’re on the boat, in rumrunner’s rags, but when we go to P-town, you twitch every time I touch you.”
“Rake—”
“Well, honey, watch this.” He sped up the beach until they were about a mile south of Race Point Light. Then he ran the boat onto the sand. There were half a dozen shacks along the rim of the dune, others scattered through the great desert beyond, and kerosene lamps lit the darkness in spite of the hour. “Writers, mostly, thinkin’ great thoughts.”
He grabbed two bottles of scotch, took her by the hand, and without a word, went toward a big cottage.
“Rake, that’s a Coast Guard station.”
“
Was.
” He marched her right up to the door. “Gene! Gene! It’s Rake Hilyard.”
An intensely thin man with a black mustache appeared at the screen door. “Rake Hilyard?”
“Brung some Haig and Haig. Gen-u-ine pinch bottle.”
“I haven’t seen you since last summer.”
“Been workin’ for a syndicate.” Rake shoved the bottles into the man’s hand. “But was thinkin’, when I come by and seen your light, what a good customer Eugene O’Neill always was, back when I was independent.”
Mary made a funny noise and stiffened like a bluefish left in the sun.
“Can’t stay, Gene, but wanted you to meet Mary Muldowney. Fine actress.”
O’Neill studied her with his dark, sad eyes.
And she overcame her shock enough to mumble, “I… I like your work, very much, Mr. O’Neill. I think it’s very… uh, entertaining.”
“She’s good, Gene. Take it from me.”
O’Neill was already retreating behind the screen. They said he was shy, and a visit in the middle of the night could not have made him more gregarious. “Get in touch with me in New York this fall,” he said to Mary. “Mention Rake’s name, we’ll see what you can do.”
They were halfway back to the boat before Mary could say anything else. “You look awful smug, Rake Hilyard.”
“ ‘I like your work, Mr. O’Neill. I think it’s very
entertaining.
’ His plays’d depress Will Rogers.”
“He’s the greatest dramatist in America.”
“Who introduced him to you?
Hank
, or a fisherman?”
“A fisherman” She agreed, but she didn’t like to surrender without a fight. So she stopped and unbuttoned her blouse. “But
Hank
went skinny-dippin’.”
“Skinny-dippin’?”
“What’s wrong?” She let the shirt drop in the sand, then unbuttoned her baggy borrowed trousers. “You afraid?”
“Well, uh, the water’s cold.”
“The night’s hot.” She unhooked her brassiere.
He kicked off his shoes.
“That’s a start.” She slipped off the brassiere and stood frankly before him, her exquisite breasts round and white, tipped with delicate buds of flesh.
“Should be ready if the undertow gets you.” The words caught in his throat. “It’s dangerous.”
“Don’t you like a little danger?” And as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she slipped her hands into her bloomers and pushed them down. “I’m goin’ swimmin’.”
He watched the white body glisten in the black water. He felt the warm southwest wind on his face. Was she enticing him or showing him that a fisherman and a New York actress could never be well matched, even on a beach at night? Or was it both? There was only one way to find out. So he stripped and waded in.
He chased her through the waves. She swam away. He caught her, and she laughed and swam away again. And then again. And then she rode a wave to the shore, where he caught her again and threw his arms around her.