The Lighthouse Road (18 page)

   "I need help," Odd said.

   Without pause Danny was sliding into his dungarees, into his chamois shirt and wool socks. As he sat on his bunk to lace his boots, Danny said, "You got a mind to tell me more?"

   Odd had rolled a cigarette and he lit it and offered it to Danny. He started rolling one for himself, said, "I gotta get the motor on the boat."

Danny looked up. "At six o'clock in the morning?"

Odd lit his own cigarette. "It's Rebekah."

"What's Rebekah got to do with the boat?"

"We're gone, Danny."

   "You're gone?" He nodded, arched his eyebrows. "This ain't the best time of year to set sail."

   "I know that."

   Danny tied his second boot and stood up. He took his coat from a hook on the wall and put it on and said, "All right. Let's get the motor."

   They stepped outside and Danny threw the latch on the cabin door, then climbed onto the bed of the truck.

   By the time they got to Grimm's the first sign of day was up on the eastern horizon. Odd parked behind the apothecary and Danny jumped out. Odd grabbed Rebekah's arm before she could do the same.

   "Are you okay?" he asked.

   "No."

   "What's wrong?"

   "I'm scared and confused. I've seen enough women deliver their babies to know to be scared."

   "But you've seen enough to know it usually turns out all right."

   "Usually," she said. She bit her lip. "It's not just the baby, Odd. It's leaving all this." She gestured up at the apothecary, out at the town. "I've lived here for twenty-five years. This is home. There's Hosea."

   He took a deep breath, squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. "We're done with him now. We don't need him. I'll take care of you. You and our baby." He put his hand to her face, caressed it gently. "You're going to be there on Sunday morning."

   She turned her head slowly and looked at him. There was just enough morning light that she could see the wet in his good eye, could see the hard, cold, empty stare of his glass eye. She was grateful for that look, relieved that somewhere in her own fraying thoughts a voice told her yes. So she said, "Of course I am." And then she slid from the truck and walked in the back door of the apothecary.

O
ne of the first things Odd had done when he'd started on the boat was build a davit that could be attached to either of two posts he had set in the floor. From the davit he hung a three-pulley block and tackle and used it to hoist the keel onto the strongback. He'd used it for a dozen things since, and in the hazy light of that morning they rigged the largest of the motor crates with two twenty-foot lengths of chain and attached the chain to the hook of the block and tackle and pulled the crate up onto the boat's deck.

   Danny shouldered one of the smaller crates over the gunwale and then peered into the boat. It had been a while since he'd seen it. "You're gonna have this thing in the water in two days?" he said.

   Odd didn't stop working. "Yup. That's my plan."

   "It's been an awful warm November, I'll give you that. You've got time before the ice sets."

   "The main thing, besides the motor, is another coat of varnish." Now he paused, stood with his hands on the gunwale looking over the edge at Danny. "I'll pay you twenty dollars to do the painting."

   "Like I'd take your goddamn money."

   "Well, I ain't gonna let you do it for free. I know you've got better things to do."

   "I got a couple days to spare. I'm here to help."

   "I ain't asking you to do this," Odd said. "I wouldn't ever expect it."

   "I know that."

   Odd reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out his wad of

cash. He peeled back a five-dollar bill and handed it to Danny. "For turpentine. Klaus Hakonsson sells it out of his shop." Odd checked his watch, peeled another fiver from his roll. "He must be open by now. Take the truck. Get the turpentine, then stop at the dry goods and buy us some things to eat for the next couple days. We're gonna be a couple of hungry sons of bitches. Make sure you get coffee. And braunshweiger."

   "And onions, in that case."

   "We'll be some fine-smelling soldiers."

D
anny was gone for two hours. When he returned Odd was out front of the fish house standing over an open fire. A charred pot hung from a cast-iron tripod over the flames. He had sawhorses set up off to the side, and on the plank that spanned the sawhorses buckets of pine tar and Japan drier sat ready. Danny put the cans of turpentine on the makeshift table and went back to the truck for the groceries. When he was done unloading he came and stood beside Odd.

   "Some sort of witches' brew?" Danny said.

   "It's linseed oil." Odd pointed at the cans and buckets behind him. "That's our varnish. It's time to get the brushes going." He looked up at the dull morning sky, judged the sun's spot behind the clouds. "Must be about eleven. I'll be sleepless these days."

   "I'll keep you company. Got us a little something extra."

   "Something extra?"

   "A case of Hakonsson's home brew."

   " Maybe I ought to be stealing you away, Riverfish," Odd said, a wry smile creeping.

   "I don't put out the way your gal does, be clear on that."

   Odd's smile went full. "Not many do, brother. Not many do."

   By noon the boat was wiped down, the varnish brewed and cooling in an empty whiskey barrel. They worked in unison, Danny painting the hull while Odd puzzled out the motor. It came with a twenty-page manual that Odd had all but memorized over the previous days, and by suppertime of their first day working he had the main engine mounted in the motor box and the vanadium-steel shaft threaded through the skeg and coupled to the engine.

   The fish house smelled of the varnish, pitchy and fresh but strong, so they opened windows and the big barn doors. At midnight they broke to eat and crack beers.

   "When are you going to fill me in?" Danny said.

   Odd had a mouthful of braunschweiger and onions so he finished chewing and took a long pull from the home brew and said, "Well, Rebekah's in the family way."

   "Oh, hell."

   "Naw, it's a good thing. It's getting us out of here."

   "Rebekah wants out of here?"

   Odd took another pull on his beer. "She's scared."

   Danny shook his head. "Careful, making a lady do what she don't want to."

   "Who said that?"

   " Never mind. Where are you taking her?"

   Odd nodded. "We'll go to Duluth first. See what I can shake out. See what happens in the springtime."

   Danny nodded. "You better hope for no wind come Sunday and Monday."

   "I'm hoping."

   They ate in silence, popped a couple more beers. When Odd finished his sandwich he rolled a cigarette and pushed himself off the counter. He took a long drag on his smoke.

"I guess it goes without saying this stays between you and me?"

"If you insult me one more time, I'll kick your lily-white ass."

"I'm a bundle of nerves. You can forgive me," Odd said.

   "One last time." Danny finished his sandwich. "Anyway, most folks around here got their own secrets. They don't need yours any sooner than they need another month of winter."

   Odd smiled.

   Danny said, "I got no idea where you went, brother."

   "Then I've got one more favor to ask."

   "Shoot."

   "How'd you like to squat here? Keep an eye on the place till I can figure out what to do with it?"

   Danny looked appraisingly into the four dark corners of the fish house. "I wouldn't know what to do with all this luxury."

   "Hey, now," Odd snapped. He smiled. "This is your chance to move to the big city. This place makes your bear's den look worse than it is."

   "You'd know about bears' dens, wouldn't you?"

   "I guess I would. I guess I would."

   Danny smirked. "What are you going to do with this place?"

   "I reckon I'll have to sell it. The farm, too. Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe we'll come back. Hopefully we will. I'm gonna talk to Mayfair before I leave." Odd finished his cigarette and stubbed it out. "I don't want to leave the fish house sitting here in the meantime, though. What if I said it's yours to keep if I don't have it figured out next year at this time? I could have Mayfair draw up some papers."

   "What in the hell is with you? I don't need goddamn papers drawn up or money from your pocket."

   "I'm sorry, Danny. I guess life seems a little more official the last couple of days."

   Danny stood up. He looked again into the dark corners. "Hell, yes, I'll squat here. And you take all the time you need to decide what to do."

Odd offered his hand, which Danny shook firmly.

T
hey worked through the night, Odd on his back under the boat, fumbling the propeller into place, caulking everything. Danny finished with the varnish. They'd switched from Hakonsson's home brew to coffee sometime in the middle of the night and between the fumes of the varnish and the caffeine both were jittery and twitchy.

   As dawn neared Danny broke for a couple hours' sleep. Odd stoked the stove and closed the doors, hoping to warm the place up and hasten the drying of the varnish. He spent the time Danny slept working on the engine. He installed the ignition and battery, the twelve-volt generator, the starter. He double-checked everything against the manual, sealed for a second time the propeller shaft. Finally he poured a couple gallons of fuel into the fifty-gallon tank. He added the motor oil and primed the engine and stood in the cockpit, his hand on the ignition. The smell of varnish was still heavy in the air, but he'd moved all the rags and brushes outside, hefted the whiskey barrel out back and covered it. He thought he was safe. Thought there wasn't much to worry about.

   He started her up, let her run for thirty seconds. The Buda coughed and sputtered but caught and ran smooth. Odd knelt at the motor box and adjusted the choke. Despite her purring he was full of doubt. He saw himself rowing the last ninety miles up to Duluth, or worse. But he also believed more than ever in his sense of urgency. Believed that leaving before the next daybreak was essential in a way that he never could have figured. Thought if they didn't he'd lose Rebekah forever.

   The engine woke Danny and he stepped to the boat, his hair matted and damp from the heat of the stove. "You trying to cook me alive?" he said.

   Odd had a distant and pleased look on his face. "It's time to put this thing in the water. I'll lay the ways, you get your brothers."

   Danny donned his coat and left to fetch his four older brothers. Odd threw open the barn doors on Danny's heels. It was a gentle thirty-foot slope from the fish house to the boat slide. Between what was left of the Thanksgiving snow and the overgrown grass the ways sat up high. He had twenty cedar logs piled on the north side of the fish house, and he spaced them a foot apart. His original plan had included building a custom set of rails to winch the boat down to the water. But building such a contraption would have taken a full day and he didn't have the lumber for it anyway.