The Lighthouse Road (29 page)

   "I mean no offense, I've just never heard of anyone called Odd."

"My mother came from Norway."

"
There's
some folks can build boats," Sargent said.

   "I've heard that said." Odd turned now to the man in the boat club uniform. "I need to fetch a couple things before you cover her."

   "Give me a half hour to get her on the rack, then you can go aboard."

   "All right."

   Sargent said, "Come inside, have a cup of coffee with me while you wait."

   Again Odd said, "All right."

   They walked into a grand dining room. Thirty tables under white tablecloths, fine silverware, and napkins folded to look like swans. Sargent chose a table at random and hung his coat over the back of a chair and removed his hat. He sat down and motioned for Odd to join him. It wasn't more than a minute before a waiter appeared before them.

   "Gentlemen," he said.

   "I'd take a cup of coffee," Sargent said.

   "Two," Odd said.

   The waiter nodded and left.

   "I'm a boatwright myself," Sargent said. "Sloops and cutters, once in a while a runabout or skiff. Build a lot of boats for members here." He spread his hands before him, suggesting the boat club.

   "Is that right?"

   "For more than ten years now," Sargent said. He coupled his hands on the table in front of him, leaned in. "I've never seen a boat like that one out there. What's it for?"

   "I'm a fisherman," Odd said, the half truth of it caused his stomach to drop.

   "A fisherman from Gunflint wintering up in Duluth?"

"My wife and I, we're honeymooning." He felt his voice falter.

"I might have chose Key Largo," Sargent said.

"I never even heard of Key Largo."

"I suppose not."

   The waiter brought a tray with two cups of coffee. He set one before each of the men and then set a bowl of sugar cubes and a creamer between them.

   Sargent said to Odd, "You want a Danish? Some eggs?"

   "I'm fine with the coffee."

   Sargent turned to the waiter. "How about a couple of Danishes?"

   Again the waiter nodded and left. Sargent doctored his coffee with the cream and sugar. He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket, offered the pack to Odd, who took one. Sargent struck a match on his boot sole and lit his cigarette and offered the match to Odd. They both took long drags and sat back in their chairs.

   "Mostly it's yachtsmen and rowers belong to this club. You're paying ten dollars a month for what would cost ten dollars for the whole winter upriver."

   Odd looked through the cigarette smoke at Sargent, whose eyes were even more forbidding inside the boat club.

   "It was the first place I saw entering the harbor last night."

   "I see," Sargent said. He took another long drag from his cigarette. " Where are you and the missus staying?"

   "The Spalding Hotel."

   "Nice place."

   "Awfully so," Odd said.

   They sat in silence until the waiter brought the pastries. Sargent took an enormous bite, took a long drink of his steaming coffee.

   "What kind of motor's running that boat of yours?"

   "A Buda. Company out of Illinois."

" Six-stroke?"

   "Four. She don't speed along, but usually the fish are waiting for me in the nets."

   Sargent smiled. "Most of the fishermen I know between here and the Soo fish in skiffs. What you got is more like a lobsterman's boat."

   Odd took a final drag from the cigarette and stubbed it out. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Sargent. He was feeling defensive, as though Sargent suspected him of something. "I've been a herring choker almost as long as you been building boats. Spent enough time soaking wet to want a little dryness. So I built a bigger boat with a cockpit. Here I am."

   Harald Sargent only nodded, took another bite of his Danish.

   Now Odd shifted in his seat, leaned forward instead of back. "I'm not sure I understand you, Mister Sargent. I've got the feeling there's something you're wanting to say."

   "You should come take a look at my shop."

   "I'm not really in the market for a new boat."

   Odd felt pierced by the boatwright's gaze, by those eyes as heavy as granite seeing right through him. In a way it was a relief. Sargent stubbed out his own cigarette and finished his Danish. "Son, you're spending money faster than you could throw it into the lake. On a fisherman's wages— if fisherman is what you are — you're going to need a job. I make no judgments. I don't even want to know what you've left behind or where you think you're heading. But if you honestly built that boat, then I'm in some sort of company. I got a crew of seven and I need eight. Even if it's only for a few months, through the winter, I could use the help. I've got two dozen boats to deliver by springtime.

   "Now"—he leaned forward again, knocked the tabletop with his big knuckles—"you steal one single screwdriver, one drop of paint thinner, I'll throw you right out the back door." His look softened. "But if you're ready to live an honest life, making an honest buck, and if you can be up this early every day, then come see me." Sargent reached into his coat and withdrew his wallet and from a pocket in his wallet took a business card. He handed it to Odd. "We're the last stop on the Oneota-Superior line, on the west end, out at the mouth of the St. Louis River."

   Odd looked at the business card. He wanted to say thanks. Instead he flicked the card against his finger, said, "The coffee is on me, Mister Sargent."

   Harald Sargent stood up. He took his coat from the back of his chair and pulled it on. "Are you familiar with the good book, Mister Eide?"

   "We've got believers down the shore."

   "Are you one of them?"

   "There's plenty I believe in."

   "But plenty you don't?"

   Odd shrugged.

   "Because I've seen that boat of yours, and because I can tell you're a decent fellow, I forgive your mother for not showing you the way of the Lord. But the words of scripture are succor in the worst of times, and I'll leave you with this wisdom from King Solomon." Sargent raised three fingers. "
There be three things which are too wonderful for
me, yea"
—now he raised a fourth finger—"
four which I know not: the
way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a
ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid."
He pulled his fingers into a fist. "You puzzle over that, you think about my offer, and then come see me. I'm there every day but the Sabbath. I thank you for the coffee."

   Odd wanted to say something, anything, but Sargent's words and his look steadier than ever made him dumb. Instead of speaking he nodded, knowing certainly, as he watched Sargent walk away, that he would find the shop the next morning.

O
dd was still sitting there when the boatyard custodian came into the dining room. He told Odd that his boat was on the rack and that he could now retrieve whatever it was he needed. Odd thanked him and laid some coins on the tabletop and followed the custodian out into the boatyard. There was a ladder leaning against his boat and Odd climbed it and went to the thwart before the motor box. He lifted the seat and removed the lid from the false floor inside and from within that secret compartment he removed a small metal box that held within it a roll of cash money and the diamond ring he'd bought off old man Veilleux when his ancient wife had passed in July of that year.

   He climbed down off the boat and watched as a crew of three boatyard custodians covered his boat with a canvas tarp that flapped in the stiff breeze until thirty or more cords of rope held it tight. Then he walked back toward the gondola, where he waited to cross the canal again. By the time he returned to the Spalding Hotel there was two or three inches of snow on the ground and no sign of it lightening.

S
he'd begun measuring the passage of time by the movements of the baby in her belly. Each morning she'd wake to the fluttering below her ribs and reach her hand to settle the child, to settle herself. She'd rise and change from her nightdress to housedress and brush her hair and go to the kitchen and in the first light of the day would make breakfast for Hosea and Rebekah. Often as not Hosea was already up, a kettle of coffee warm on the stove and his footfalls soft on the floor below her. Rebekah would only wake with the smell of the bacon and biscuits.

   Together they'd take breakfast, Hosea reading the Ax
& Beacon
while Rebekah and Thea sat in silence. After the biscuits and bacon, the canned fruit and coffee, the buttered oatmeal and poached eggs, Hosea would adjourn to the store on the first floor while Rebekah tended to her exhaustive toilet. Thea, meanwhile, would clear the breakfast dishes and wash them in the porcelain sink. After the cleaning, she'd simply retire to the davenport under the bay window and take up her crocheting needles. The morning moved slowly and in those halcyon hours the only thing to distract her from her ease was her lingering fear regarding the whereabouts of Joshua Smith. Of the father of this child.

   It had been Rebekah who'd first noticed Thea's rounding belly. One morning in June, after Hosea had gone downstairs to open the apothecary, in the privacy of their shared bedroom, Rebekah rose from the bed while Thea was changing her dress. Rebekah crossed the carpet and put her hand on Thea's belly.

   "Look at this," she whispered.

   Thea did look down. She'd been missing her monthlies all that spring and so knew what was coming to life inside her. But her knowing was surreal, and it took Rebekah's noticing to bring the dream to life.

   Rebekah was wide-eyed. She looked from Thea's belly to her eyes and back again. "It's scandalous," she said, still whispering, a devious grin turning up on her lips.

   Thea felt the color rising in her cheeks. She removed Rebekah's hand and quickly dressed.

   Rebekah, from the other side of the room, wide-eyed and calculating, said, "Is this from the watch salesman? Is this Joshua Smith's child?"

   Thea, with Hosea's help, had been learning English those days, but the bedlam in her mind left her uncomprehending.

   "Your child will be a bastard," Rebekah said. "The son or daughter of a fugitive." She was walking toward Thea, who stood before the mirror attempting to gather herself. Rebekah's voice was barely above a whisper now. "What will you do, Thea?"

   Thea turned to face Rebekah. She felt her eyes welling. But it was not sadness stirring in her. On the contrary, it was elation, as though her privation this last half year was being rewarded, as though her meager life was now as large as these woods and wide waters.

   Now the baby kicked. She set her needlepoint down and rested her hand on the wiggling child. She closed her eyes in a kind of ecstasy and thought only of the feeling coming up into her hands. When the tremors ceased she took her hand from her belly and wiped her eyes and looked out the window onto the harbor and the Lighthouse Road. There was traffic in and outside the marina, like Hammerfest during the fishing season.

   While she sat there a thirty-foot boat flying a Canadian ensign entered the safe water. She stood at the window as it motored along the breakwater to the Lighthouse Road. An officer of the North-West Mounted Police stepped ashore and tied the boat fore and aft to the cleats on the road. Two other Mounties stepped from the boat and were greeted by the county constable, whose shabby garb cut a marked contrast to the sharp red coats of the Canadians.

   The four of them stood on the Lighthouse Road and lit their pipes and seemed as jolly as they were official, and after several minutes one of the Mounties stepped back aboard the boat and disappeared belowdecks. Thea could not say why, but an uneasy feeling had settled on her and to quell it she put both of her hands on her belly. The Mountie emerged again, this time trailing his prisoner. Thea knew who that shackled man was by the gooseflesh on her arms.