Lightkeeper's Wife (22 page)

Hannah eyed the system of pulleys as Billy worked the rope to run the life ring toward the ship. She remembered how light she'd felt riding in the life seat above the ground and the solid feeling of the rig. But how would it feel to a man coming ashore over frothy seas with wind straining the rig and an unstable vessel? The canvas seat in the life ring had to hold the heavier weight of a man, the captain had to fasten the ropes properly, and the sailors had to be able to climb into the rig without fouling the lines or tearing the coarse stitches.
It's going to work. Don't worry. It'll work.
Hannah forced her mind to focus on the rig reaching across the water.

Once the life ring reached the wreck, Billy waited, attuned for the slightest vibration, but it was a man's weight sagging the line that let her know it was time to haul the rig to shore. She stood back to get leverage and work the ropes. The tattooed sailor stood behind her to haul on the lines, his body leaning forward with Billy and pulling back with all of his strength. Faster and faster they pulled. The sailors gathered around, watching the ropes strain the pulleys. “Keep going,” Billy said, out of breath, her arms rubbery and burning. “He's almost here.”

The sailor approached the beach, arms draped over the ring. He was alert, watchful. “Hurry up, bring him in,” one of his shipmates said. The rig carried him as far as the crossbar and he dangled there like a child in a swing.

Billy figured it had taken about twenty minutes to get the rig out to the ship and back ashore with the sailor. They had four more men to bring in, including the captain. That was over an hour to go, and the waves were getting huge. Hannah couldn't go out in the skiff now, not in these seas. They had to rely on the rig. “Get him out,” Hannah said.

“And make fast work of it,” Billy said. The crew swept into motion like a dark cloud, one indistinguishable from the next, with their wet clothes clinging to their bodies, their shoulders hunched and sticking together as if for warmth, but it was fear kept them close like that.

Billy lowered the life ring, and the crew yelled orders back and forth to each other as they helped the sailor from the seat. The man was at least six feet tall once he struggled to his feet, with rosy skin and a helmet of black hair. Billy recognized him at once, and when Briggs caught his breath and walked up the beach, she kept her eyes on her work. As soon as Hannah cleared the lines, Billy sent the life ring out again. The wind gathered from the northeast, and the rig creaked where it ran through the pulleys. The life seat swayed on the lines. Billy felt the vessel shift and jostle the rig. The lines lurched and then settled down again, and the men who were not tending the rescued sailor hovered around the rig.

“Is it okay?” one of the men asked, his black eyes reflecting the fire. The wreck shifted as the tide went out, which placed more weight on the keel. At some point the hull would crack, the schooner would go down and take the rig with it. They had to get the men to shore fast. Billy watched the life seat until it reached the schooner. When she felt a man on the other end, the tattooed man joined her on the ropes.

Hannah forced her way between them and stood behind Billy, then Briggs fell in line behind her. The four of them hove the weight in unison, bringing the rope in several feet at a time. The pulleys creaked and groaned with the weight of the sailor swaying the rig.

“Keep going,” Hannah said. “Don't stop.”

But the weight on the line felt heavier than before. When the buoy came into view, three men were clinging for their lives, one seated in the buoy as intended, one draped across him, and another dragged through the water on a rope. On shore, they fell from the life ring and told how the hull had cracked and the schooner was taking on water as the sea poured into the bilge. “There's only the captain,” one of the men said. “He ordered us all off the boat.”

Billy worked in a frenzy to clear the lines and get the life ring to the captain. She waited to feel a weight on the line, but the rope snapped, and she fell backward into the sand. The crossbar tipped forward, and the pulleys whirred as the ship tilted hard toward the beach. The crew ran into the surf and pulled the lines hand over fist, yelling at each other to get out of the way, and pull harder, and hurry up, hoping to find the captain, but all that came in was a frayed end of rope.

“Jesus Christ, do something,” one of the men yelled.

Hannah ordered the young sailor to help her push the boat into the water. When he tried to climb aboard with her, she shoved him away.

Billy ran into the water. She lunged to get hold of the surfboat, then grabbed Hannah by the elbow. Billy pulled Hannah out of the surfboat so hard they both fell back into the water. “It's too rough,” Billy said, gasping. “You're not going out.”

Hannah struggled to get free of her. “Let go of me. I won't leave him out there.”

Billy shoved Hannah away from the boat and struggled up from the waves. Hannah reached for her. Her eyes squinted through the mist and blast of the sea while Billy swung one leg over the side of the boat and climbed aboard. Hannah tried to reach her against the suck of the water, but she staggered back and fell into the waves.

Billy pushed the boat from the beach with one oar, then sat on the center seat and rowed hard.

***

Hannah watched the surfboat rise and bow in the air over each rolling wave until it disappeared into the mist of the storm. White foam crashed on the beach at Hannah's feet. She ran to her supply bag by the base of the stairs for the spyglass. With an eye to the glass, she brought the wreck into focus, but in the rolling surf she could only make out a blur of Billy as she rose and fell near the wreck. There was no sign of the captain.

She watched through the glass, struggling for some indication of what was happening, but she lost sight of Billy and the surfboat. A bare edge of the schooner was visible above the waves, a hairline on the horizon. The waves grew taller and rolled harder onto the beach. She dropped the spyglass in the sand and ran to the little skiff.

“Come on, help me get the skiff in the water,” Hannah said to the sailors.

“You can't go out, ma'am, not in that.”

“I can and I will and you will help me or your captain will drown. Do you want that on your conscience?”

“No, ma'am,” one of the sailors said, looking away from her like a scolded dog.

The men made light work of lifting the skiff into the water. It looked small amid the waves and Hannah knew she shouldn't take it out, but where was Billy? With two hard pulls against the waves Hannah was in deep water. The boat rose nearly vertical then dropped hard into a trough, and then lifted up again. Hannah pressed her feet against the back seat for balance and leaned her body into the rise of the boat. She could do this, she told herself, even as the skiff shivered and creaked beneath her. Never had she rowed into such a wind.

When one of the seams began to leak, she ignored it and turned to get her bearings on the wreck while a thin stream of water trickled up through the boards. She still couldn't see Billy. When a giant wave swept the boat up high in the air, Hannah's stomach dropped. She hovered over the sea, so high she could see white crested waves rolling toward shore in every direction. She clenched the oars so that she wouldn't lose them. Time stopped and held her in its hands, and she turned to search for Billy, but there was only the tilting mass of the wreck, and she was afraid. Her boat was small and the beach far away. She wanted Billy.

Then the wave began to move and her mind came back to her task. Feet against the stern seat, she set the oars. The boat dropped vertically, as if down a shaft, and slammed onto the surface of water. The bones in Hannah's buttocks yelped, her neck screamed as the boat began to take on water through a split seam. She bent forward to eye the damage. The plank on the bottom of the boat was going to go. She had to reach the surfboat if she was going to make it. She set her oars and rowed toward the wreck. She was close. She had to keep rowing, and when the wreck came into view, she pulled against the pain in her body, pulled until her body was numb and pain was a white light that surged through her limbs. Water leaked into the boat through the split seam, and the boat grew heavy.

She heard the wreck, heard the way the waves crashed against the hull then splashed into the air in the sound of defeat. Hannah rowed against the increasing weight in the skiff, telling herself it was no different than carrying a boatload of men. She didn't consider the danger. She couldn't, or she wouldn't be able to find Billy.

When she saw the surfboat, Billy wasn't in it. Hannah's stomach clutched, as if she'd been lifted from a wave and then dropped. The captain sat hunched over in the stern seat with a life jacket on, one hand on either side of the rail for balance as the boat tossed in the waves. Hannah rowed up close to him and pulled in her oars. She reached back for the bow line and tossed it to the captain so that he could fasten it to the stern of the surfboat and she could float behind.

“Where's Billy?”

“He came aboard to help me. He's there behind the mast.”

Hannah leaned across the boat until she spotted Billy.

“What's taking so long?”

“He wanted to see how the rope held and if we fastened it correctly, something about the instructions on that little board you sent out. He said something about trying to understand what happened with the lifesaving rig.”

“Billy!” Hannah yelled as loud as she could. She cupped her hands to her mouth and called into the wind. “Billy!”

When Billy heard Hannah's voice, she climbed along the rail toward the two boats tossing wildly in the waves. Hannah's feet were covered with water now, and she reached down for the baler. She scooped out water as fast as she could to empty the bilge, but the water came in fast. When a tall wave crashed over its side, a wall of water landed in the skiff, the seam split wide open, and the plank on the bottom of the boat tore from the stern seat to the bow in a sound like thunder. No baler would help her now. Another plank gave way, and the sea rushed into the boat, which went under stern first. The bow lifted then sank until only the rope rail showed beneath the surface of water. Hannah was pulled down in the rush of water as she swam toward the surfboat, toward Billy.

Waves carried her away from safety, and she watched the surfboat's white hull, full and promising, grow smaller as she drifted away on the tide.

Billy screamed from the schooner. “Hannah, swim!” She yelled at the captain, “Get the life ring.”

Billy leapt from the schooner into the surfboat and untied it from the wreck, then she untied the sinking skiff and rowed toward Hannah. Hannah felt the weight of her clothes, and she struggled to remove her jacket, then her sweater, kicking her feet to keep herself afloat, but for all her strength, she wasn't a good enough swimmer.

Billy rowed parallel to the waves to avoid the rise and fall. She saw Hannah's coat, drifting just beneath the surface. Billy ordered the captain to get the life ring at the ready. Hannah had floated out of sight, and Billy rowed frantically in the direction of the tide, searching over the waves and yelling at the captain to crawl to the bow of the boat and scan the water.

“There, she's there!” He leaned forward as if his entire body could indicate the direction.

Hannah struggled against the sea, her arms already so exhausted from rowing the boat, she could barely move them. A deep ache began to settle into her. She was tired, more tired than she had ever been, and she let herself drift beneath the waves for moments at a time, until the surface was the light of another world that she could watch as if from a dream. When the pressure in her chest compelled her, she kicked herself up into the air and the relief of breathing, until she exhausted herself once again and let herself sink, deeper this time into the ease of not swimming.

“Where is she?” Billy yelled at the captain.

“She was right there.”

When Hannah's head bobbed up, Billy called to her. “Hannah, Hannah!”

But Hannah didn't hear her over the sound of the wind, and she let herself sink below the surface. It wasn't so bad, she told herself. She could see the surface right there. She didn't let herself go too deep, just enough to rest. She closed her eyes to the darkness of the water and felt that she could sleep if not for the pull in her chest, the pull that exploded and made her kick to the surface for air.

“Hannah, grab the life ring!”

The captain threw the ring with remarkable precision to Hannah's flailing arms, but she sank out of sight before she could grab it. He pulled the life ring in again and held it at the ready.

Billy maneuvered the boat as close as she could get to where she'd seen Hannah. She didn't want to get too close. What if Hannah came up, and the boat blocked her effort to get into the air? What if she knocked her head on the bottom of the boat and lost consciousness? Billy's mind raced with all of the things that could go wrong. They had to get her out of the water. The cold water alone could kill her.

This time when Hannah came up, it was only for a second, as if she only had time for a single, quick breath before she went under again. Billy kicked off her shoes, removed her jacket, and took the life ring from the captain. She jumped into the water and swam. The waves lifted her up while she struggled against them, but the current carried her toward Hannah.

She treaded water around the spot where Hannah had risen, and when Hannah came up, she kicked toward her. “Wait!” But Hannah was gone. Billy, against her better judgment and everything she knew to be true, let go of the life ring and dove below the surface of the water. She kicked down into the blur of the ocean, her eyes open and searching until she saw a sinking shape. She kicked against the pull of her trousers, kicked until she reached Hannah, drifting with her eyes closed. Billy grabbed her from behind. She reached beneath Hannah's arms and around her chest to get a firm hold before kicking toward the surface.