Authors: Lynn D'urso
Heartbroke Bay (12 page)
Blue eyes paled from staring into fires of Irish peat look out from an open and friendly face. Michael’s nose is straight, finely proportioned, and his features perfectly balanced. His lips are full and red as a girl’s, and there is a slight, smiling lift to one corner of his mouth that implies a scoundrel’s charming willingness to laugh at himself. The only imperfection in his appearance is a tendency to hold one shoulder a bit higher than the other and a slight cock to his head, the result of a back injury that has plagued him since an accident with a jumpy cart horse during his early years. Rather than detract from his looks, the imperfect stance serves only to give him a slight air of vulnerability, which makes women want to draw him to their breast.
The sum of his looks and movements is such that he draws the attention of women wherever he goes, and men find themselves buying him drinks. Hans, having the experience of his own good looks, has some understanding of humanity’s ever-willingness to impute unlikely virtues to the attractive. And it is this that imparts a small cock of suspicion to his eyebrows as he looks the mariner over.
Michael is equally cautious. He celebrated Dutch’s possession of gold because he has none of his own and nights are for fun and whiskey. The drunken idea of partnering with the odd Dutchman was simply bar talk, a way to keep the drinks flowing. Now the uneven fellow is here shouting, accompanied by a glowering giant and a man giving Michael the skeptical up-and-down appraisal of a policeman.
Dutch launches in, oblivious to the awkward silence, pumping furiously at Severts’s hand, saying, “Hiya there, Captain,” and “Meet yer new partners.” Turning to the others, he pulls them forward by their sleeves. “Harky, Hans, this here’s Michael, fellow I was tellin’ you about.”
Hans shakes hands briefly, then stands with his arms crossed, unspeaking.
Dutch points at Michael’s boat. “There she is, there’s the boat,” inaccurately parroting what he remembers of Michael’s description. “She’s the slickest kind o’ cutter, all orchard cedar.”
Harky squints at the anchored cutter with the uneasy eyes of a landsman, rubs his nose, and says with succinct doubt, “Sorta small.”
Like any good sailor, Michael bristles to the defense of his ship, forgetting for a moment his intention to scuttle any partnership agreement. “Forty-two feet. Plenty of boat. Got me here all the way from Oregon, didn’t she? In good hands, she’ll do whatever is needed.”
“And you’re the good hands, are you?” asks Hans. “Think that boat’ll get us and all our gear up the coast?”
“She’ll do anything I ask her,” replies Michael, forgetting in the senseless allegiance all boat owners feel for the imagined, feminine qualities of indifferent canvas and wood how a dozen nights of storm-inspired terror and exhaustion can make any vessel seem wildly inadequate.
“And you?” asks Hans, lifting one eyebrow. “What is it makes you such a sailor?”
Michael pauses at the question, considering if he wants to justify himself to this stranger, then shrugs, too hungover for the work of taking offense. “Learned the trade young on packets between Ireland and Scotland. Always figured if a man can follow the stars in the North Sea, he can sail anywhere. It’s not so different here.”
“How’s about we take a look aboard?” asks Dutch, eager to pose with his hand on the tiller.
Michael stalls. He is not eager to have this gang see the firm young woman—perhaps a tad too young—whose name he cannot remember, and who sleeps this morning beneath his blankets.
“Well, it’s a bit of a mess now. I’ve got the head off the engine. The valves, you know.”
Michael looks pointedly from Harky to the small dinghy, as if measuring his great bulk against the freeboard of the punt.
“Maybe it’d be better if I get her cleaned up and move in to the dock. Save ferrying back and forth in the small boat.”
Harky nods, imagining the wet rush of the delicate row-boat overturning. He has not swum since the Yankees turned General Hammond’s flank at Franklin’s Ford, and his tattered company was forced to swim for their lives, with the whip-crack and whine of bullets about their heads and the salt taste of blood in the water.
“Tomorrow then?” asks Hans.
There is agreement all around.
Michael Severts sits alone in the cockpit of the
Tara Keane
over early morning tea and resolves firmly to decline incorporation into the company of miners. He is unafraid of hard work and enjoys well enough the fantasy of gold, but the prospect of summering far up the coast in some back bay, without the conviviality of women or whiskey is not attractive. He takes a last decisive swig at his mug and goes forward to haul the anchor. As Harky and Dutch lead the way to the dock, seaweed scattered along the edge of the tide glows in the morning sun. Hans and Hannah come behind, her arm linked through his on the dew-slicked stones. Everything is hazed in radiant amber light, coloring their faces warm and ruddy. Along the horizon, anvil-shaped clouds billow and swell like anemones on the ocean bottom. The air is cool in the shadows, warm in the light, and the long, buzzing trill of a varied thrush calls heed to the imminence of spring.
Tara Keane
over early morning tea and resolves firmly to decline incorporation into the company of miners. He is unafraid of hard work and enjoys well enough the fantasy of gold, but the prospect of summering far up the coast in some back bay, without the conviviality of women or whiskey is not attractive. He takes a last decisive swig at his mug and goes forward to haul the anchor. As Harky and Dutch lead the way to the dock, seaweed scattered along the edge of the tide glows in the morning sun. Hans and Hannah come behind, her arm linked through his on the dew-slicked stones. Everything is hazed in radiant amber light, coloring their faces warm and ruddy. Along the horizon, anvil-shaped clouds billow and swell like anemones on the ocean bottom. The air is cool in the shadows, warm in the light, and the long, buzzing trill of a varied thrush calls heed to the imminence of spring.
Hannah wears a waist-length jacket over a white blouse of ribbed cotton and a skirt of light wool. Her hair, gleaming from the hundred brush strokes it receives every morning, catches Michael’s eye as he coasts the
Tara Keane
into the pier under jib alone. When close by the pier, he eases a sheet and throws the tiller hard over, and the cutter spins slowly round, backing the jib to take all way off the boat. The dinghy on its tow rope bumps against the broad transom as
Tara
stalls, stops, and begins to move broadside, slowly nudging into the pier as the tide sweeping along the beach eases her into place. His neat exhibition of seamanship brings a smile to Hannah’s face, but passes without remark from the others.
Tara Keane
into the pier under jib alone. When close by the pier, he eases a sheet and throws the tiller hard over, and the cutter spins slowly round, backing the jib to take all way off the boat. The dinghy on its tow rope bumps against the broad transom as
Tara
stalls, stops, and begins to move broadside, slowly nudging into the pier as the tide sweeping along the beach eases her into place. His neat exhibition of seamanship brings a smile to Hannah’s face, but passes without remark from the others.
Michael steps from deck to dock and passes a breast line round a cleat, securing the boat to the pier. Something stirs through Hannah’s veins at the lithe motion with which he bends to the line. She holds out a gloved hand as Hans introduces her. “Mrs. Nelson, my wife,” Hans says.
“Pleased, Mrs. Nelson.” Michael takes her hand briefly, squeezing lightly without shaking. There is a flutter under Hannah’s breastbone at the Irishman’s full, dark eyelashes. Michael’s decision to beg out of the deal wavers as he takes in the slope of Hannah’s bosom, her creamy skin and shining eyes.
Michael invites them aboard, reaching out to Hannah, who gathers her skirt in one hand before taking his offer with the other. The deck tilts and heels under Harky’s weight as he clambers across, and he has to grab at a shroud for balance. Surprised at the motion, Dutch, too, is awkward, and teeters on the pier like a reluctant hound.
Once aboard, the miners stand stiffly, as if attending a party where they are unsure of their welcome. But Hannah shields her eyes and looks about at the details of
Tara Keane
’s rigging. The child of a chandler, she has an understanding of the qualities that make a ship and takes note of its strengths and shortcomings.
Tara Keane
’s rigging. The child of a chandler, she has an understanding of the qualities that make a ship and takes note of its strengths and shortcomings.
She notes a stretch of the bulwarks has been recently replaced, in a neat, workmanlike job that is in conflict with the general air of patch-and-promise that dominates the boat. The standing rigging is done up neatly, with splices and eyes well served with tarred twine, but the deck seams show crawled caulking that has been touched up rudely with pitch.
Michael watches as Hannah takes inventory. He sees the approval in her eyes as she fingers a line properly coiled and hung from a belaying pin and bends down to give the bulwark repair an approving pat. The curve of her waist enthralls him.
Hans paces the deck as if measuring it for cargo. Dutch peers about with what he assumes to be a sea dog’s squint. Harky perches gently on the low cabin top and looks concerned.
Hannah turns to Michael. “Who is she named for? Tara Keane is an Irish name, isn’t it?”
Michael is pleased by Hannah’s use of the feminine. The others—landsmen, obviously—are untouched by the rhythm of the oceans and refer to his boat as it.
“Aye. It’s my mother’s name, Tara. She was Keane before she married Francis Severts. We’re from Inishbofin, a bit of rock off the west coast of Ireland.”
“A salute to your mother, hey Michael?” asks Dutch. He looks to Hannah as he continues. “The Irish always love their mothers, don’t they, Mrs. Nelson?”
“I’m sure they do, Dutch.”
Severts holds Hannah’s gaze for a long pause, breathes a bit deeper, and his brogue grows thicker as he continues. “It’s an Irish name, but me mother is half English. Her own mother being from Coventry, that is.” His head cocks a degree to the left, and he stares at Hannah without blinking, as if waiting for a response to this miscegenation. Receiving none, he adds, “And that gives me own blood a pint of English, doesn’t it?”
He cocks a crooked grin. “I wrote her that I’d named a boat for her. Thought that might please her.” Then he kicks with his toe at a shaving on the deck. “Might’ve exaggerated some of this tub’s qualities a bit, I guess.” He leaves out that he writes her often, long letters full of fantastic promises to return home rich and pry his mother from the grip of his father, a violent, illiterate man who suffers a permanent hunch upon his back.
The residents of Inishboffin had been used to seeing the faces of Tara Keane and her children decorated with welts and bruises, and it had been as much to escape the ravaging of their father as it was to earn their own way in the world that Michael and his brother had run for America. But Liam soon grew pale with homesickness and returned, while Michael stayed on, working his way across the country as far as Oregon, where he found himself tending bar when news of the gold rush broke loose. And when word came to Michael that an outraged husband had been seen buying a fresh box of shotgun shells, he briefly regretted entertaining the saloon’s patrons with the quip, “What’s another slice off a cut loaf?” That had so deeply bruised the cuckolded fellow, that Michael quickly allowed the threat of buckshot and the promise of gold to propel him out of Portland in search of a way north. Two days later, at the mouth of the Columbia River, a few dollars and a dollop of charm had won him possession of the long-neglected cutter upon whose deck they now stand.
He goes on to explain, “She was wasting away with moss on her topsides when I found her. I fix a bit here and there as we go, but it’s a long race to the finish.”
Harky thinks for a moment that Michael means his mother was growing mossy and old, then realizes his error and marvels at the foreign language of sailors.
“Could we see below, Mr. Severts?” asks Hannah.
Michael leads the way, sliding back a hatch over the companionway. “Watch the ladder. There’s a hand grip to port here, if you need it.”
Belowdecks,
Tara
is spartan and neat, with settees that double as berths to port and starboard in a main salon. There is another, wider berth forward over lockers and chests. A stove squats in the middle of the cabin, bolted to a sole of unpainted pine. Dishcloths and socks hang drying from a line above the stovepipe, which runs sideways beneath the overhead to exit through a portlight. Hans must duck to clear the roof beams as he looks into the forepeak, and Harky stands immobilized, afraid to move. Everything smells of cooking, kerosene, and dampness. When Hannah opens a cupboard, the odor of mildew leaps out.
Tara
is spartan and neat, with settees that double as berths to port and starboard in a main salon. There is another, wider berth forward over lockers and chests. A stove squats in the middle of the cabin, bolted to a sole of unpainted pine. Dishcloths and socks hang drying from a line above the stovepipe, which runs sideways beneath the overhead to exit through a portlight. Hans must duck to clear the roof beams as he looks into the forepeak, and Harky stands immobilized, afraid to move. Everything smells of cooking, kerosene, and dampness. When Hannah opens a cupboard, the odor of mildew leaps out.
Michael pulls aside a tarp, revealing a cast-iron engine. “A two-cylinder, twelve-horsepower Hundsted,” he says proudly. “Feeds on petrol or oil.”
Picking up a crank, he demonstrates the starting procedure, which is to fiddle with a gas pressure torch until it is burning well, then apply the flame to a glow-plug in the cylinder head until it glows cherry red. The heavy flywheel is turned over with a bar and screw until a piston is at its apogee, after which a fuel valve is opened, the flywheel kicked over, and the hopeful operator leaps back out of harm’s way—a process repeated over and over until with luck and the proper combination of mass, motion, heat, and compression, the Hundsted roars into action. A grooved wheel on the engine rotates a belt pulleyed to the inboard end of the propeller shaft.
“And she has the advantage of being able to reverse her propulsion,” says Michael, demonstrating how this is achieved by removing the drive belt, twisting it into a figure eight, and reinstalling it. “It can be done with the engine running, but you best be a regular pickpocket with your fingers, or you might come up short one or two.”
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