A Christmas Promise

by Wendy Lindstrom

“My crew and I will get it cleared out. You take care of Fairplay.” Adam said, nodding toward the ship in repair.

  Anchored in the bay, tethered to the pier by thick ropes and a plank bridge, the regal ship sat high in the water, her expansive sails drawn and lashed tight to the masts to keep her stationary for repairs. Swing stage scaffolding hung off her starboard bow as two men worked on the damaged wooden hull. The sight both awed and saddened Adam. Vessels of live oak and white pine were fast becoming extinct. Instead of wood and wind, ships were now being made of steel and powered by steam.

  “All right then. I’ll meet you at The Crowe’s Nest tonight,” Leo said, referring to the tavern on Main Street where he and Adam and their crews spent a good amount of time. He crossed the long plank-and-rope bridge with the agility of a sailor.

  The staccato banging of hammers and shouts from the ship’s crew were loud as Adam appraised the four-thousand-ton ship. The crew aboard the Fairplay created a hive of activity and noise. Seagulls screeched and swooped around the rigging, gliding through air tinged with the scent of fish and ocean grass.

  “Enough loafing about you lazy hounds,” Leo shouted to the crew as he leapt onto the pine deck of the ship.

  From the pier, Adam heard laughter and ribald shouts fill the air. Leo was at home here. He would master the shipbuilding trade as Adam had mastered the intricacies of running a busy, profitable sawmill.

  During the playful scuffle on Fairplay’s sun-washed deck, the scaffolding dropped sharply as one of its stirrups slipped free of the supporting lines. One man clung to the dangling scaffold, shouting for help and struggling to climb to safety. Another man fell into the heaving snarl of timber and debris trapped between the pier and the Fairplay. His head snapped back and Adam knew instantly the man was injured.

  Whistling to the crew, Adam gestured to the man hanging from the scaffolding and then to the water below. As he rapidly unlaced his boots, he watched the unconscious man sink into the water between the timbers—and heard the clock ticking away the last seconds of the man’s life.

  One boot off...

  The crew, alerted to the accident and the potential demise of their friends, snapped into action, dropping manropes and a rope ladder from the starboard bow into the water below.

  Two boots off...

  As Adam kicked aside his boots, two crew members slipped over the side of the Fairplay and slid down one of the three remaining hawsers holding the dangling scaffold. Leo rapidly descended a manrope as other crew members began to lower a small skiff, but none of them would reach the man in the water soon enough.

  Scanning the timber-littered bay, Adam sought a safe point of entry, knowing there wasn’t one. With a hard leap from the pier, he dropped into the bay feet first, praying nothing was hiding beneath the surface that would break his legs or worse.

  The frigid, murky water swallowed him.

  The roar of the ocean filled his ears. His chest compressed as the cold water gripped him and forced out some of his precious stock of oxygen.

  Fanning his arms, he clamped down the urge to gasp at the cold jolt to his body. He surveyed the area around him, seeing little in the storm-churned water.

  Where are you?

  With a hard sweep of his arms, he propelled himself in the direction of the ship, to where the man had slipped beneath those long, deadly timbers.

  Flashes of broken planks and ocean grass caught his eye, and he maneuvered around them.

  The man was wearing boots. He may as well have sandbags strapped to his feet.

  Adam looked deeper, swam closer to the ship’s hull, felt his lungs bursting... saw nothing.

  He surfaced with a gasp, gulped a lungful of air, and dove deep, stroking hard, looking harder. Around and down... around and down... there!

  Limp, lifeless, weighted by his boots, the man drifted slowly toward the ocean floor.

  Adam’s lungs cramped, commanding him to surface and suck in a lungful of life-sustaining air.

  But he dove deeper.

  Down he went, pushing hard, regretting that he hadn’t shucked his clothes. With each stroke his shirt and dungarees created a drag, slowing him down, forcing him to work harder.

  And all he could hear was the clock ticking away the man’s life. Hurry... hurry... hurry...

  Lungs on fire, arms fatigued, Adam snagged the young man’s shirt collar and pulled him toward the surface that was too far away.

  For every upward tug on the man’s collar, it forced Adam’s cold, exhausted body in the opposite direction. Stroke after hard stroke seemed to bring little progress.

  Adam’s chest cramped.

  He released some air, trying to ease the fiery pressure in his chest and the edge of fear cutting into him. He lost his sense of direction in the murky water. Was he heading toward the surface or was he pulling the man deeper? Is that why his chest felt as if it would burst? Was the pressure building because he was heading down instead of up?

  He paused, indecisive, and then he panicked.

  The man floated past him, his face surprisingly youthful and pale as death—and familiar. Adam’s face would look like this too. Leo would fish him from the water. He would take the young man, barely out of boyhood, home to his parents... and Adam home to Rebecca.

  Rebecca.

  Adam clamped his fingers over the boy’s shirt collar and tugged. After sacrificing so many years to become a Grayson man, he would not let her down. He would not miss his chance to fulfill the dream they had shared since their teens.

  And he would return this young man, dead or alive, to his parents.

  He thrust hard with both arms. Bubbles of air burst from between his clenched teeth, but he couldn’t hold his breath another second.

  Tick... tick... tick... Time slipped away.

  They weren’t going to make it...

  The ocean’s song thrummed in his ears, beckoning him, rocking him like a babe... It’s all right... it’s all right... it’s all right...

  Executing another hard thrust with his arm and legs forced the rest of the air from his lungs. Adam glanced in apology at the boy he couldn’t save—and he heard the heartbroken sobs of that man’s family... of his own family—of Rebecca.

  With his remaining strength he shoved the boy toward the surface, forcing himself deeper, hoping the crew would be able to find both of their bodies.

  Making one final attempt to surface, Adam thrust his arms down to push his body upward.

  His head slammed into something hard. Water filled his mouth, choking him. He punched his fist upward between two soaked timbers. Raising his other fist, he shoved the massive pine logs away from each other, creating a gap.

  He burst above the surface coughing and belching and vomiting water and air. Clamping his lips to suppress his coughs, he immediately ducked beneath the surface and reached for the boy, who was drifting away. Adam hooked his stocking clad toes in the young man’s shirt and dragged him close.

  The opening in the logs was disappearing, forcing Adam to wedge them apart again. The door between life and death was barely open and he had to fight to stay on the living side.

  The logs could save them—or crush them, but they were Adam’s only option.

  Coughing and gagging, Adam gripped the young fella beneath the armpits and tried to lift him onto the large pine log. He succeeded only in shoving himself under water.

  When he surfaced, he heard shouts to hold on, but they seemed so far away—and he trembled from cold and fatigue.

  Exhausted, Adam struggled to keep the boy’s head above water while he dragged himself onto a long, bobbing log.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Leo and two others in a small skiff pushing aside logs, doing their best to navigate through the mess, but he couldn’t wait for them. He had to get the boy out of the frigid water—and get him breathing!

  Clenching his teeth, growling deep in his throat, Adam forced his trembling arms to haul the inert young man upward.

  He could only mana
ge to drape the boy’s torso across the log, face-down over the wet bark. But that was enough to keep the lad’s head above water.

  With that, Adam pounded the young man on the back until the boy vomited.

  An hour later, Adam scrubbed the chill from his bones in a hot bath. Then he dressed as quickly as his aching body would allow.

  Although Micah Crane had been breathing when Leo and the others rowed Adam and the young man ashore, he’d been unresponsive and bleeding from a gash beneath his chin. No one knew if Micah would survive. Dockhands had carted the boy home on a lumber wagon. Other workers went in search of Doc Samuel, who had been tending the residents and workers of Crane Landing for twenty years.

  Leo wanted Adam to see Doc Samuel, too, but Adam had waved him off.

  Other than a smattering of abrasions on his hands and knuckles and a bump on top of his head, Adam suffered no injuries that a hot bath and cool ale couldn’t remedy.

  The bath did succeed in ridding him of chills and stopping the chattering of his teeth, but Adam was still deeply shaken. He craved a stout tankard of yeasty ale to settle his nerves, but he needed to check on the Crane boy first.

  With his damp hair combed back, Adam stepped out of the private bathing chambers attached to the bunkhouse at the mill where he’d lived the past two years. Twenty cots and wooden footlockers filled the long corridor. Four windows on either side let in negligible light, too much cold air in the winter months and not enough fresh air in the summer months, but that dingy room had fostered many great friendships during Adam’s stay.

  His fellow bunkmates began filing in after another long day of sawing and moving timber.

  To a man, his bunkmates surrounded Adam, applauding his quick thinking and asking after his health. Their admiration and concern was real, but it made Adam grossly uncomfortable. He’d done nothing more than any of the men around him would have done. To be lauded a hero for a simple act of decency seemed... sad. Was helping others not a natural instinct or the decent and honorable thing to do?

  After asking about the other man on the scaffolding and learning he had been pulled to safety, Adam excused himself from the gathering. He lifted a light jacket off a wall hook beside his cot, and slipped away from his friends who were still talking about the accident. Outside, he stuffed his arms into the sleeves and headed into town at a brisk pace.

  Crane Landing had grown up around Crane’s shipbuilding works. When Jack Crane navigated his ship into the deep bay in 1763, he had found the perfect place to build ships and merchant vessels. To supply the Cranes with timber for their ships, Benjamin Grayson located his lumber mill adjacent to the shipyard. Other business quickly sprawled outward from the massive shipyard, creating a string of shops and a full mile of wharves along the harbor. A blacksmith and a sailmaker both set up shop close to the shipyard. A large livery provided strong, healthy horses for moving and hauling timber between the sawmill and shipyard. Soon after a general mercantile opened, followed by a woodworker who plied their trades alongside the harbor. As the number of workers increased at the shipyard and the sawmill other businesses flourished, and Bay Street was created.

  The business Adam frequented most often was the Crowe’s Nest. The tavern had become a second home for him and many other men. At the end of a long, hard day of work, he and his friends would gather at the tavern to wash down the dust and slake their thirst while talking about the business of building ships. Nearby the Beacon Inn provided respite for the weary travelers. Doc Samuel’s residence was a block over, near the church and school.

  Adam hoped that smart doctor could keep Micah Crane alive.

  The bustling little town reminded Adam of Fredonia... and Rebecca... and all he could have lost in those final seconds beneath the cold Atlantic water.

  The ocean still called to him, swirled around him, pulled his mind back to those final seconds when his lungs burned and his failure seemed assured. He tried to shake the dark, frantic thoughts as he entered the Crowe’s Nest. Boisterous piano music filled the smoky tavern and assaulted his ears. The world of the living might be noisy but it was a welcome symphony for Adam.

  He’d barely cleared the door when Leo hooked his arm around Adam’s shoulders. “It’s about time you got here.”

  “I’m not staying,” Adam said. “I just stopped in to let you know I’ll come by later.”

  Strong as a bull, Leo hauled him to the oak bar where men waited three deep for their nightly sustenance. “I know where you’re headed,” Leo said, “because I’m going to check on Micah, too. But we need to salve our nerves before we meet with Elias Crane.” Leo nodded for the rotund barkeep to bring them ale.

  “Thanks,” Adam said, turning to face his longtime friend, “but it’ll take forever to get served tonight. I can’t wait. I’ve got to find out if Micah is all right.”

  “No waiting for you, young man!” Hiram’s voice boomed from the other side of the bar. “You and Mr. Leo earned these ales.” He thunked two heavy mugs onto the bar. “On the house, my brave friends.”

  Adam opened his mouth to argue his hero status, but Leo jabbed an elbow into his ribs. “Just thank the man and drink the ale, Adam.”

  Seeing that any debate was futile, Adam raised his mug to the barkeep and to the men looking on with admiration glowing in their eyes. “Thank you. I’m going to miss seeing your ugly faces every night.”

  Their laughter rolled through the tavern like a wave, washing away the awkwardness and leaving behind the easy friendship Adam had known with most of the men gathered around them.

  He and Leo moved to a small table away from the bar. They took their usual seats near a large wood stove where they had spent many hours together, talking and warming their bones from early fall through the last of the spring freshets. The big potbelly stove seemed to draw them like a mother’s arms, even when she sat cold and silent as she was now, her warmth unnecessary on this May evening.

  For a minute Adam said nothing. He simply let his gaze take in the tavern that had become a second home to him in the absence of everything he’d left behind in Fredonia. His friends met nightly in this two-story building of worn pine floors and high tin plated ceilings. They shared stories and secrets and sometimes just solitude. They played cards and billiards at the farthest end of the large room, each game approached with the same gusto the men gave to their work in the sawmill and to building ships.

  Around him, men lounged at low wooden tables, leaning their chairs back on two legs until Hiram slapped them across the head with his bar towel. Tonight it was Walter who got smacked.

  “You break my chair, you buy it, mister,” Hiram warned.

  Adam exchanged a grin with Leo. “How many times have we heard him say that?”

  “At least ten times a night every night I’ve been here.” Leo planted his elbow on the table and leaned in to be heard over the piano. “You sure you’re all right?”

  That Adam’s jangled nerves were so apparent was disturbing, but something had happened in those final minutes underwater that he couldn’t seem to shake. Rather than try to slough it off, he told Leo the truth. “I didn’t think I was going to make it.” He told Leo about his struggle, about his fear of failing the boy, about the temptation of letting the ocean rock him into death. Adam shook his head. “I thought I wouldn’t save the boy... that I’d break Rebecca’s heart.”

  Leo gripped Adam’s forearm. “Well, you did save him and you’ll be going home to Rebecca tomorrow just like you promised you would. And for the record, Adam, I was about to jump in after you, and would have if I hadn’t spotted your fist punching up between the timber. You wouldn’t have been alone for long because I’d have fought a shark or a hurricane to find you.”

  Adam didn’t doubt Leo for a second. “That explains why your boots were tumbling around the bottom of the skiff. It seemed odd at the time, but my brain was filled with seaweed and I couldn’t think clearly until after I’d warmed up and drained the ocean out of my ears.”

 
; Leo grinned and sat back in his chair. “I was about to shuck my dungarees and jump in when I saw you surface.” He shook his head. “Hard to believe you’re going home tomorrow. Sure won’t be the same without you here.”

  Adam nodded. “I’ll miss this place, and even your nightly harassment.”

  Leo tugged off his hat. His hair—three inches below his collar and as dark and straight as the native Penobscots that worked for the mill as river drivers—swung freely across his shoulders. He slanted a wry grin at Adam. “You sure want to give all this up for a woman?”

  “I would give up everything for Rebecca, and you know it.”

  Leo sobered, his dark eyes filled with understanding. “She’s worth it,” he said, “but I’ll miss having you around every day.”

  Adam would miss Leo’s daily heckling and friendship. He and Leo had grown up together in Fredonia. Both of them had found their way out of hard times into loving families, and later into an apprenticeship at Crane and Grayson that any man would envy. If not for Leo’s friendship, Adam’s time away from Rebecca would have been unbearable.

  He emptied his mug. “We should go.”

  “Agreed,” Leo said. “Elias Crane is expecting us at seven o’clock.”

  Adam met his eyes. “He’s expecting us?”

  “Yes sir. While you were draining your ears, Elias sent a man to request our presence at their home this evening.”

  Adam’s stomach rolled. “Is Micah... did the kid...?” He couldn’t even say the word.

  Leo got to his feet. “His man didn’t know, but I sure can’t wait any longer to find out.”

  Adam and Leo followed the right fork of the river to Elias Crane’s mansion. The Crane River began high in the mountains, cut its way across the land, and split into two smaller rivers—the Doe and the Crane—before emptying into the bay and flowing out into the Atlantic Ocean. The twin rivers brought goods and trade and power, and carried the huge timbers that were sawed at the Grayson mill and used in the merchant vessels built by Crane.

  Elias, his twin brother Ezra, and their elder brother Dawson were the surviving sons of George Crane. The twins had mansions on the bucolic shore of Crane Landing where the river met the bay. Dawson lived in a modest home a short walk upriver where he, his dog Tuck and a cat named Sir John kept each other company.