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.
Odd 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.
XX.
She’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.
It was late in the afternoon when Hosea came. Thea had been feeling qualmish since she’d watched the captive come up the Lighthouse Road earlier that day, and when Hosea stepped into the kitchen and said softly, “Miss Eide, Curtis Mayfair has sent word that the unlikely capture of Joshua Smith has come to pass. The Canadian authorities have brought him here. He wishes to interview Smith before he’s extradited to Duluth.”
He went to her side and continued, “He’d like to speak with you as
well. He’s summoning Selmer Gunnarson to help with the testimony.” He paused, looked at her. “Do you understand? You might have to see Smith.”
“I’ll go with her,” Rebekah said. “I’ll help her get herself together.”