Root of His Evil by James M. Cain Read Free Book Online

tiller, swearing at me in a way I wouldn’t have believed him capable of. He ordered me back at once, but I took my time, and finally he pulled me over the side. Then he explained that I had done a very dangerous thing in going so far, as a sailboat can’t be maneuvered like a motorboat, and especially requires that one person always remain aboard it. So if anything had happened, and he had had to go overboard after me, a puff of wind might drift the boat away, and there both of us would be, out there in the Sound, two miles from land. I knew he was right, but didn’t feel at all guilty, so I merely made a fresh remark: “And besides, the water is nice.”
    He sulked for a time, then unwound a rope and dropped the sail, then took another rope and tied it to a small wooden grating on the bottom of the boat and dropped the grating overboard, so it trailed in the water. “What’s that?”
    “That’s our lifeline, so we don’t get separated from our ship.”
    “How would we get separated from our ship?”
    “Swimming.”
    “Are we going to swim?”
    “Didn’t you say the water was nice?”
    He lifted his foot, put it square in the middle of my chest and pushed me over backwards. When I came up he was in the water beside me. We both laughed and splashed water at each other, but he made me hold onto the lifeline, and wouldn’t let me swim off at all. I didn’t mind. We both held onto the rope and floated side by side, looking up at the sky. Then he went under me and when he came up he floated facing me, so my head was at his feet, and our hands came together under water. I could feel his toes sticking out behind my head, but my toes stuck out near his ear, as he was a great deal taller than I. I moved my toe in front of his face and wobbled it, and he pretended he was going to bite it. So I pulled it away quick, but that pulled me off balance, and when I got straightened out again we floated for a little while, facing each other. Then he gave my hand a little tug, and my toes went past his head and his face began to come nearer and nearer. We hardly moved but our lips met and then he put his hand up to keep me from floating past him, and we lay there, his face against mine, just looking up at the sky. Then a swell lifted us, and to me it was heavenly, but he whipped away from me as though he had been shot. He looked off to the west and then began going up the rope, hand over hand, and he was hardly in the boat before he motioned to me and pulled me in after him. “Get all that stuff in the basket. Hurry up.”
    I still didn’t know what was bothering him, but there seemed to be a great deal of activity in the boats that were near us. A man on the nearest one yelled at Grant. “What you going to do?”
    “I’m going to run for it.”
    “You can’t make it. I’m riding it out.”
    “Suit yourself. I’m going to run.”
    I was much mystified, and did as I was told, getting all our things in the basket, and yet I noticed that the water, while it was still green and the sun was out, was running long swells. By this time Grant was laboring to get up the sail. Pretty soon it was up and while there didn’t seem to be any wind, it was flapping in a queer sort of way. He came back and put the tiller over, and suddenly we came about. The sail filled with a jerk, and once more we were running before the wind, except that this time we were lifting along with big swells that went past us, and yet carried us along. As we went past the nearest boat they were dropping the sail and running around highly excited. The man again called to Grant. “You can’t make it, you’ll crack, up sure as hell on that shore.”
    “All right, so I crack up.”
    “Well, will you please tell me what it is?”
    “Squall.”
    He was very grim, but except for the water I couldn’t see any signs of a squall. Then, however, all of a sudden the sun wasn’t shining any more and almost at once it turned cold as an icebox. Between the time