The Lighthouse Road (19 page)

   When Danny returned with his brothers they got right to work. As he removed the braces, Odd explained how they'd go three men on either side of the boat, shoulder it off the strongback and out the barn doors, then set the starboard hull onto the ways. Once they had it resting there, they'd tie lines fore and aft and use the winch to lower it down to the water. The hard part would be getting it onto the ways. He asked were they ready and lined them up under the boat and said, "Once we get this thing off the strongback, there's no setting it down until we have it on the ways, got it?" They all grunted and Odd said, "All right, on the count of three."

   It was a hell of a load, even for six brawny men, but they inched her out the barn doors and the six snow-covered feet to the first of the ways and laid her gently on her side. The Riverfish boys rolled smokes while Odd rigged two lines around the boat, spliced them, and fixed the rope to the winch. The winch was fastened to one of the supporting pillars in the fish house.

   "Danny, you winch her down. You boys help me guide her. We have to keep the skeg and rudder up off the ways. Something happens with the line and she starts sliding, you lay your goddamn lives down for her."

   So Odd stepped backward between the ways as Danny cranked the winch and Danny's brothers stood ready fore and aft. When the boat reached the last of the ways Odd hollered, "Wait!" and he and the Riverfish boys inched her up onto the boat slide. He walked backward down the slide, into the freezing water. When the port-side gunwale reached the shoreline he summoned the brothers again and asked them to hold her steady while he removed the lines.

   He was waist-deep in water when he got the rigging free. "All right, boys. This is it. Gently, now, slide her the last yard."

   There were ten Riverfish hands on the port-side gunwale as they lowered her into the water and ten wet boots when they were done. The boat bobbed for a moment and found her balance. Odd was by then in water up to his chest, his hands on the starboard hull. He walked through the water around the aft end of her. In knee-deep water he walked along her port side up to the prow. She looked even better in the water than he'd thought she would. He stepped aboard, whipped a line on the belaying cleat, and tossed it to Danny onshore. "Tie this to one of those gunnysacks." For good measure he fixed another line to another cleat and tossed it ashore, told Danny to tie it to the other gunnysack.

   He lifted the sole and checked to see if water was leaking into the bilge. It was as dry as it had been on the strongback. He walked around the cockpit and checked the bilge up front. All was sound. He went to the cockpit, punched the ignition, and felt the engine hum on. He stood there on the keel line, put his hands out to either side, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, felt the nearly imperceptible teeter ing, and whispered aloud for only himself to hear, "Goddamn, she's gonna float."

   He killed the engine, stepped ashore, and walked up the boat slide to where the Riverfish boys were stomping their cold feet.

   Danny said, "She taking any water?"

   "Not yet."

   "She looks good."

   Odd said, "She does, don't she?"

   And she did. Her sheer was gorgeous, rising gently from the cockpit. She had five feet of freeboard at her bow, three feet at the transom. The homemade varnish had dried almost black, a color to match the water at this time of day. He'd never thought for one minute he'd be using her to go on the lam, but she looked up for it, sleek and sharp, ready to run.

S
aturday afternoons usually found Curtis Mayfair receiving visitors. Odd arrived at twilight and saw the lamp glowing in Mayfair's office, one of the townsfolk sitting across from the magistrate. Odd sat on the steps outside and rolled a smoke while he waited his turn.

   He looked up and down the Lighthouse Road, taking stock of the only place he'd ever really been, realizing he might not be coming back. This thought filled him with gloom. He looked out at the harbor, at the breakwater and the wild waters beyond.
I was goddamn born
here,
he thought.
I got rights to it.
But then he thought of how complicated everything would be. He thought of Hosea's sense of entitlement, knew that Hosea believed he'd saved Odd and Rebekah from lives of deprivation that only he could imagine. Odd wanted his child to come into the world free of such nonsense, free of Hosea's strange grip. Odd looked up at the fat skies, shook his head in sadness and disgust, and stubbed out his cigarette.

   It wasn't long before Mayfair stepped outside. He bade Will Halvard good evening and turned to Odd. "There's a fellow I don't see often enough. How goes it, Mister Eide?"

   Odd stood and offered his hand and said, "I'm getting by, Curtis."

   "You're here to see me?"

   "Was hoping for a word or two. You have a minute to spare?"

   "I've always got time for the good people. Come on up."

   They climbed the stairs side by side and walked into Mayfair's office. Curtis stepped behind his desk and plopped into the big leather chair. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his desk, and said, "Aren't these your halcyon days, Odd? Days you sit around mending nets and chasing skirts? You look like you've not slept in a fortnight."

   "I've missed some sleep the last few days. It's true. Finished my boat. It's anchored in my cove as we speak."

   "It's a strange time to be launching her, isn't it?"

   "Something's come up."

   Mayfair sat back in his chair, looked over the tops of his glasses, and said, "All right. I'm listening."

   "I'm leaving town."

   " Where are you going?"

   "I can't say."

   Now Mayfair removed his glasses. "How long will you be gone?"

   "That I don't know."

   "Are you in trouble, son?"

   "A kind of trouble, I suppose."

   "Trouble with the law? Something I don't know about?"

   "Nothing like that, no."

   "All right."

   Odd sat up in the chair. "I need to know what I've got with my fish house and the farm."

   "You mean what it's worth? How much equity?"

   "That's what I'm wondering."

   Mayfair nodded sagely. "I see. Well. Roughly speaking, taken together, your holdings are worth some four or five thousand dollars, I suppose. Are you looking to sell?"

   "Not now. Dan Riverfish is going to squat in the fish house until I figure things out. I'd like to make it so anything needs doing, Dan's in charge."

   "It sounds like you're talking about power of attorney. What about Hosea? Why not leave Mister Grimm control?"

   Odd arched his eyebrows the way Danny always did. He couldn't help but smile. "I don't think Hosea's gonna be happy about my leaving."

   "Odd, you're being cagey."

   "I don't mean to be. It's just complicated."

   "If you insist on making Daniel Riverfish your attorney-in-fact, that's easy enough to do. And of course, I've always got your best interests at heart."

   "I've never doubted that for one minute."

   The magistrate pulled open one of his desk drawers and withdrew a piece of letterhead. "I gather that time is of the essence?"

   "It is."

   He took a fountain pen from another desk drawer and put his glasses back on and began writing. He spoke as he wrote. "This letter declares that Daniel Riverfish is your attorney-in-fact and as such able to conduct legal and fiduciary matters on your behalf. It takes for granted Mister Riverfish's willingness to act as such. It will expire in one year, at which time you'll need to renew the agreement." He fin ished writing and slid the letter across his desk, offered Odd the pen. "Sign across the bottom."

   Odd did so without reading the letter. He slid it back across the desk. "Let's say something happened to me, would my property go to Danny?"

   "No. Nor would he be able to execute your estate. The power of attorney terminates upon the death of the principal. If you want your estate to go to Mister Riverfish, we'd need to write a will and testament. Do you wish to make Riverfish your beneficiary?"

   "No. Anything happens to me, I'd like everything to go to Rebekah."

   Again Mayfair took off his glasses. "Mister Eide, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask if there's something I can do. You have my confidence, you understand?"

   "I appreciate it, but no help's needed, not beyond what we're writing up here."

   Mayfair took a long, deep breath, withdrew another piece of letterhead from the drawer, and wrote Odd's will.

   After Odd signed the will the two men stood and walked together outside. The town was hushed, the harbor water bristling. It was too warm for the end of November. Odd thought of the weather as cautionary.

   Mayfair put his hand on Odd's shoulder.

   "Sometimes I look at this place and wonder why I don't leave myself," he said.

   "This town would fall into the water if you left."

   "Aw, hell, don't tell an old man stories. I've heard them all."

   They walked down the steps and stood on the Lighthouse Road. Mayfair said, "I still remember the day your mother landed here. She came walking up that road the prettiest thing this town ever saw. Could have been carried away by any old breeze, she was so lithesome, but my goodness. Even Missus Mayfair said so." Curtis turned and looked the opposite direction, toward the apothecary. "Was Hosea that took her in. Was Hosea that found her a life here. Hell, was Hosea that brought you into the world. Just remember that."

   "With all due respect, was my mother that did the bringing. Besides, since when are you in the Saint Hosea Society?"

   "Listen, Odd. I know Hosea's got his eccentricities. We all do. But that man raised his daughter without help. He as much as raised you."

   Curtis Mayfair led Odd to the railing on the other side of the Lighthouse Road. They stood there on the water's edge. " Hosea Grimm arrived on the first boat in the spring of ninety-three. He stood over there on the beach with his hand shielding the sun, watching the tender go. He was wearing orange jodhpurs and knee-high boots, one of his damn hats. He looked even then like both a clown and a high prince. He gives us folks watching from here a wave, then gets to work. Raised a big canvas tent, gathered firewood, hung his foodstuffs in a tree. He dug two fire pits, fashioned a rotisserie of green spruce limbs over one of them, built a strange cairn five feet tall that looked for all the world like some troll's quaint hovel over the second. In two hours he had a campsite that would last the season.

   "The next morning he tramped into the woods, a pack over his shoulders, a Winchester in his hand. Newcomers always aroused interest around here, but this man come ashore in orange pants and circus hat the day before set a new standard for strangeness. We couldn't stop wondering about him. Anyway, it was hardly past lunchtime when he walks out of the forest, a tumpline around his forehead, trailing a travois. Tied to the travois was a field-dressed caribou. Two hundred pounds. He brought it to his camp, inverted the travois, and tied it off on a boulder and two trees. Hung the buck from up high. Before he butchered it, he started driftwood fires in both the pit and the cairn. He spent an hour skinning and the time before supper carving the meat off the bones.

   "All night he stayed up, stoking his cairn with the green birch wood, smoking the venison. The next morning he walked into the Traveler's, doffed his hat, and went from table to table introducing himself. Charmed the hell out of a bunch of people not easily charmed. Then he invited us all to his campsite that evening.

   "You've got to understand, we weren't much more than a dozen fishing families back then. The Indians living up in the wigwam village. A hundred people in all. Every single one of us gathered at Hosea Grimm's campsite for his proffered feast. A giant vat of pemmican. We stood there, spooning the grub, listening to Grimm.

   "He told us the Minnesota and Dakota Lumber Company had procured twenty thousand acres of land up along the Burnt Wood. Said the next year a hundred lumberjacks, thirty men to run a mill, thirty more to oversee distribution of the lumber, they'd all be moving into Gunflint come springtime. They'd bring their families and build houses and schools and bibelot shops to sell whatever people would buy. He reckoned the town would quadruple in size. It would take some years to fell the forests. Then the same interests would mine the ore and copper in the hills to the west. They'd build railroads and highways. A harbor breakwater would be needed, and a quay to accommodate the great ships soon to arrive. If necessary, the harbor would be dredged so those ships might sail right to the shore. Times were changing, he said, and he was there to help usher in that change. All he asked for in return was a place among us.