Spooner Read Online Free PDF Page A

self-satisfied.
    “Commander Ottosson,” he said, “may I present Mrs. Toebox. She has asked to be with her husband.”
    She smiled and offered Calmer her hand. Pale, tapered fingers lay cool and light against his palm. Her wedding ring had been
     moved to her right hand, which he remembered was the custom of widows back in his part of South Dakota, too.
    He tried not to look at Jensen, afraid he might strangle him. “Allow me to offer you my quarters, Mrs. Toebox,” he said, and
     now he did glance quickly at Jensen. “It’s warmer, and there’s something to drink. I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable.”
    “Thank you,” she said, “but I prefer to be with my husband.”
    She spoke directly and evenly, and her voice did not begin to break as he thought it might. She waited a moment longer, then
     smiled politely and looked back at Jensen. “This way, you said?”
    “Yes ma’am,” and he nodded at Calmer as if he had everything under control. She started around him in the direction of the
     storage room. She was smooth and perfectly balanced, giving nothing away. Bereaved as a house cat, from her outward appearance.
    He stood a moment watching her from behind, aching to protect her—always his first impulse with women who attracted him. He
     realized this was not an ordinary impulse, not even faintly tangent to sexual intercourse, but there it was and had always
     been. Except this time there were birds and the ache to protect her mingled with the woman’s scent.
    He got to the door first. “I’m afraid there was a small accident bringing the casket on board,” he said. She didn’t seem to
     hear that, just waited for him to open the door.
    It was colder inside than he remembered. The casket also seemed different now: lying over the tables against the far wall,
     tied up like a hostage. Moisture had condensed on the lid.
    He sent Jensen to get Mrs. Toebox a chair, and for a few minutes he was alone with her in cold storage, and the panicked birds
     pounded in his throat.
    She seemed to think he had other things on his mind. “I’m quite comfortable here, Captain,” she said. “I’m sure you have more
     important matters to address.”
    “Commander,” he said, “I’m only a commander.” He saw that she didn’t understand the difference, but he was satisfied just
     to have set the record straight. He noticed that she hadn’t remarked on the condition of the casket or asked what sort of
     accident he’d meant.
    He heard himself say, “I understand your husband was a navy man.” Polite conversation for Calmer was like dancing, trying
     to remember the steps.
    She gazed at the casket, and he couldn’t read her at all.
    “He was in the war,” she said. “He got the Purple Heart.”
    And then Jensen came back with a chair, and as time passed it occurred to Calmer that everything he had ever been and done
     was aimed at this single morning, that she was what he had come this far to find.

    The
Buck Whittemore
cleared port at Philadelphia at 0800 hours and headed for deep water. Calmer reluctantly left Iris in cold storage and went
     to the bridge, checking the course and the radar. A light fog lay over the water, but a breeze was coming up from the south,
     beginning to clear it off, and he could see into it almost to the curve of the earth. His eyesight was still exceptional;
     the doctors at flight school had never seen anything like it.
    He thought of the widow Toebox down in the storage room alone with the corpse, sitting next to it in the chair Jensen had
     brought, her legs crossed, feeling the roll and the size of the sea. And thought of the way she presented herself, even in
     mourning, as if nothing from life had laid a finger on her yet. In his experience the widow’s appearance was an oddity for
     a woman who had grown up on a ranch. As a rule, ranch work—like farmwork, there wasn’t much difference for the women—left
     its mark on them early, even if they married and moved