"Looks like you're going to have some fun around here," said Homer.
"You bet we are. The eye of the storm is supposed to go right over us."
"No news?" said Homer.
"News? Oh, you mean—no, nary a sign of him. He was at home this morning, but nobody's seen him since. And he's not at his office. Don't worry. He'll turn up."
"Everybody's all right, I suppose? Nobody else has turned up stabbed or throttled, nobody's tipped any more statues on anybody?"
"Nope."
That was a relief. But he'd just make sure. Homer got back in his car. His fingers had to grip the wheel. It needed all his strength just to keep the car on the street. Along Barrett's Mill Road the wind tried to blow it off into the Assabet. Homer decided that once he got to Mary's house he might as well hole up and ride out the storm with the family. He bit his lip, struggling with the steering wheel. What would she say to him?
He saw Tom first. Tom was dragging bushel baskets of apples off the truck and heaving them into the barn. He had sent the children into the house. Homer pulled up beside him. For some reason the question about Mary came out first. He had to yell to make Tom hear.
"What?" said Tom. "Mary? I dunno. Is she up at the house?"
But she wasn't. And Gwen seemed preoccupied, when Homer appeared suddenly in the kitchen, with a great windy slamming of doors. Her mind was somewhere else. She supposed that Mary was still at the library. "Tell her to come home, will you? It won't be safe out on the road much longer. Or else both of you just stay there."
Homer climbed grimly back in his car, and hurtled back down the road toward town. A big branch had fallen across Lowell Road at one place, and a bunch of men from the lumber company by the Red Bridge were tugging at it. Homer fumed. He got out of the car and helped. Nothing to it. What had they been stalling around for? He got back in his car and made a jackrabbit start. One of the men from the lumber company looked at the other and flexed his biceps. "Muscleman," he yelled.
The library looked shut up tight. Damnation. Mary's car was nowhere in sight. Just to be sure, Homer got out and dodged around to the back. He had to climb up on the wall beside the delivery ramp to look in the office window. There was no one in the office. What was that pink thing on Mary's desk? Like a hat? It was a hat. It was that crazy hat Alice Herpitude used to wear.
There was a cracking sound above the roar of the wind, and the feathery top of an elm tree went sailing past, sliding and bounding up the street. Where in the hell was Mary?
Homer teetered on the top of the wall and looked again at Alice's hat. Mary wouldn't have gone down to Alice's place, would she? Yes, she might very well have gone to Alice's, to ready it for the storm, because it was her own house now. There would be things a property owner would want to lash down, to take care of. Homer made a run for his car. His was the only one on the road now, the wind was so high. It was behind him as he flew along Sudbury Road, turned on Fairhaven and crossed the turnpike. It was a mad business, charging down a narrow wood road with trees tossing right and left. Twice he had to stop his car and drag branches out of the way. At last he came down the steep descent at the edge of the river and pulled up at Alice's house. There was Mary's car. Thank God. He would find her in the house, and in a moment she would be safe again, safe in his arms. Leaning forward against the wind, Homer struggled up the steps and banged on the door. No one answered. He peered inside. All dark, the door locked. Where in God's name was she? Homer turned wildly and looked out at the river. There was no little boat at the landing, but there was something else. Homer's heart jumped into his throat. He ran to the landing. There were her shoes, in the lee of a big rock. One of her stockings was fluttering in a tree, the other had blown away.
The river had gone wild. The wind stormed over the black bay, hurling up quick frightened waves, with white spume threshing from their tops, rushing away from him. There was no sign of Mary, not anywhere. But there was something there in the water, way out in the middle of the bay near the island. It was—oh, God—it was a boat, overturned, upside-down. It must be hers, it could only be hers. Homer stumbled along the shore, looking for something to go out in, a rowboat or canoe, or something, anything. He shouted "Mary," but he couldn't even hear his own voice. Then he cursed himself for a fool, and turned and struggled in the other direction. Teddy's house was on the other side, and there would be some sort of canoe in his boathouse, if the police had only left it there.
They had. There were two of them, a canoe and a rowboat, resting upside-down on sawhorses. Homer hauled on the canoe clumsily and dragged it to the water's edge, righted it, stepped into the boggy ground, shoved off and climbed in. He was instantaneously swamped. The waves twisted the canoe sideways and washed over it. It tipped over, dumping him into the river. He grabbed at the paddle and doggedly sloshed out of the river again. Turn the canoe over, dump out the water and try again, only you've got to do some fast work with the paddle.
This time it was better. Homer dug choppily with his paddle, and managed to keep headed across the wind-torn waves. The spume streaked past him. The sun had gone out, and it was raining. Before he knew it the gale and the gale-driven water had carried him as far as the middle of the bay. Chop, chop, quick now, the other side, chop, chop. Nearly had him that time. Homer blinked the deluge out of his eyelashes and tried to see ahead. It was impossible to do anything but try to keep abreast of the waves. Any other kind of steering was out of the question. He was being carried to the east side of the island. The little boat was nowhere in sight. Homer glanced to right and left, fearfully, half expecting to see Mary's poor drowned face floating above the water. Why had she come out in this, the crazy fool girl? Then something caught Homer a terrible blow across the left shoulder, and he cried out and nearly lost control. A giant object hurtled past him, turning end over end, and foundered in the river a few yards away. It was the wooden slat-backed swing from Miss Herpitude's place, torn from the ground by the savage strength of the tempest. Branches went scudding past him. On the island the cracking trees sounded like tiny snaps of a scissors above the locomotive roar of the storm.
Suddenly the water quieted a little. He was in the lee of the island, and he could stop plowing at the water for a minute and look around. Water streamed from his hair down across his face. His shirt clung to him. His lap was full of water. If he didn't bail the water out of the bottom of the canoe it would sink. There was nothing to bail with. He had better try to land. Homer looked over his shoulder at the island.
There she was! She was running along the shore of the island, bowed over, stooping, racing, looking like a child, her hair loose and blowing in front of her, her feet bare. Oh, thank God, thank God. What was the matter with her foot? Homer shouted at her, but his words were blown back in his mouth. He lifted his paddle and tried to turn the canoe, but it wouldn't budge. It was those buttonbushes, damn them. The water between the island and the mainland was thick with them, and what had looked like a clear channel was a sunken morass of bushes. Homer looked for Mary again. Where was she? And who was that? Someone with a great heavy spade in his hand was struggling from one tree to another, moving in pouncing rushes, ducking across the point to cut her off. It was Howard! Oh, God, it was Howard! Homer clawed with his hands at the bushes, tearing at them, inching forward. Too slow, too slow! Why in the name of God didn't he have a gun?
The storm had passed its height, and the force of the wind was abating slightly. For a moment the squalling winds died. But deep down in the muddy roots of the giant pine that stood in the clearing the thickened clods supporting the last clinging root-strands began to be waterlogged by the rising watertable, and slowly—slowly—the old tree began to tremble loose. It leaned a little way toward the clearing, where there was nothing to stay its fall, and began to topple.