Lightkeeper's Wife

by Sarah Anne Johnson

  “We need to work on the lifesaving rig,” Billy said. “How long before we can test it on the water?”

  “How do you propose we do that?” She held Billy’s gaze.

  “You’ll anchor the old skiff offshore, then come in and run the line out to it. Even though there’s no mast, we can test the system for running the rig back and forth over the water.”

  “If that works, we’ll have to take our chances and use it on a rescue. There’s no further way to test it,” Hannah said. She stared into the fire, calm now and filled with thoughts of the lifesaving rig stretched over the water, running men from ship to shore while Billy maneuvered the ropes.

  ***

  The next morning, Hannah stormed the kitchen, her skirt flapping around long johns, jacket flailing around her body as if trying to get hold. Water ran down the drainpipes from the gutters, and rain pelted Billy as she rubbed at her eyes to wake herself up. “You can’t go out in this. We have to wait until it blows over.”

  “It’s not going to blow over. Hurry up.”

  Hannah waited by the door, checking the length of wick on the lantern. Billy stepped into a pair of damp trousers and scurried down the ladder from the loft. She stuffed a hunk of cheese into her pocket and drank from the remains of Hannah’s coffee. With one arm through the life ring, she carried it over her shoulder like a different kind of woman might carry a purse.

  Outside, the violence of the rain silenced them. Hannah signaled Billy with a nod of her head, this way, or a flick of her hand, over there. Billy followed Hannah down the swaying staircase, matching each footstep one to the other so that she didn’t slip on the small treads and fall to the beach below. The wind against the stairs terrified Billy. Rain ran down her jacket, chilling her through the oilskin. Hannah glided down the stairs as if there was no cold, no rain. She sailed on the wind, her skirt ballooning beneath her jacket.

  On the beach, wet sand sucked at Billy’s feet, and the weight of the life ring on her shoulder made walking strenuous. They patrolled to the north, heads down against the wind and rain. Billy scanned the waves for unfamiliar flecks of color, anything that should not be there, then her eyes drifted down to the beach where Hannah had pulled her from the wreck of the Cynthia Rose. Why was she following Hannah through the rain?

  “We’re not going to find anything,” Billy said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  A black wooden doll floated in on the wash. It stared out with startled white eyes, a yellow gash of a mouth, and red brush strokes of hair. Billy had seen dolls like this one. Ishema had put one on the shelf by her bed. The Jamaican children carried these dolls like totems. Women sold them in the streets and on the docks to travelers.

  “What’s that?” Hannah asked, stepping toward her, her breath hot, cheeks flushed with exercise. “Some kind of doll?”

  Billy nodded.

  “We ought to go out and take a look around, don’t you think?” Hannah waded in to pluck the doll from the surf. She scanned the surfboat where Billy had organized the ropes and the life ring. “C’mon, what are you waiting for?”

  They pushed the surfboat into the breakers, and Billy rowed them out past the surf to deep water. The sky smoldered. Billy matched the rhythm of the oars with the rise and fall of the boat. When the bow rose too high, she lifted herself up to avoid the shock of slamming down.

  “Keep your eye out,” Hannah said.

  A cluster of seagulls rose from the distance and dove near the boat, squawking like hungry children. There was the faintest snap of tattered sails. She held the oars still for a moment. The sounds of the wreck of the Cynthia Rose swam through her, the men crying out as they leapt into the water, and her holding on to the creaking mast so that she didn’t get swept into the cold. Then she’d found herself in the water all the same.

  Hannah slapped her on the leg. “Look alive. You want to do rescues, you have to stay alert.”

  “There’s something over there!” Billy pointed to the small brig with its decks tilted at a steep incline and the bottom rail underwater. Several men stood on the high rail waving, one of them holding a small child, a Negro girl in a pale blue shift who clung to the man like an animal. Surf battered the windward side of the boat. A wall of water splashed the rail and soaked the men who hunched against the cold. Sails fluttered overhead, shredded and regretful. As they rowed closer, the hull took on greater proportions, its size exaggerated by the strange angle it formed against the sea, like an iceberg with most of its bulk underwater.

  “Bring us alongside, but not close enough for them to climb aboard. They’ll swamp us,” Hannah shouted, making sure the lifeline was available to run free and clear.

  “Hallo! Over here! We’re saved!” one of the men shouted in desperation and relief.

  Hannah surveyed the group of people, noting their size and weight and shape, their physical condition. The mast tilted over waves that sloshed the ship’s remains as the men braced their feet against the bulwark for balance. Billy scanned the crew for reasons of her own, her head down but her eyes furtive, always alert.

  Hannah yelled through her cupped hands. “Listen, all you there! We’ve only room for four or five at a time,” Hannah said. “We’ll come back for the last of you.”

  “Drag us behind the boat,” a thin, shivering man hollered. “I’ll gladly be dragged through the water than left to sink on this barge.”

  “You can’t. You’ll freeze,” Hannah said.

  The man raised his arms up and shouted louder now, using his entire body to propel his voice across the water. “I’ll take my chances. I’ll not lose my life to this ship. I’d rather drown a different way if I’m to drown at all.”

  “Who’s the captain here?” Hannah called. Billy held the oars steady, and understanding that there was some order to Hannah’s line of reasoning, she let Hannah lead the rescue.

  “He’s drowned.”

  “All right then. You’ll listen to me and obey my command, or you’ll be left behind. We’ll take one aboard at a time as long as we stay afloat. The rest of you we’ll drag on a line with the life ring. You first, sir, you with the child. Sit right in front there.”

  The man clambered down off the rail, leaving the girl to drop herself into the bow of the boat where she scrambled and tucked her small body into the curve of the stem. The man took the seat Hannah indicated and watched as the second man climbed down and sat beside him. “We’re floating good,” Hannah said, “you two next.” She waved her arms to hurry them across. The short, bearded man nearly leapt into the air and landed in the stern seat, followed by another seemingly identical sailor. The last man Hannah chose was a young sailor who looked malnourished and blue around the lips. “You, come on. You two who are last, wait there while I set the lines,” and she fastened the life line off the transom so the life ring floated not more than thirty feet aft of them.

  Billy noted that she’d chosen the two sturdiest men to ride in the water, figuring they had the best chances of surviving. “I want the bigger of you to lie across the top of the ring, and then the next one to lie across him. That way you won’t be directly in the water.” Hannah held the life ring where the first sailor could lay himself across, and once the two were situated awkwardly upon their makeshift raft, she set them adrift behind the surfboat.

  “Are you sure you’re the only survivors? Have you checked belowdecks?”

  The survivors nodded. As the wreck tilted in the waves, the ship’s bell clanged.

  “They’ve perished, the lot of them,” a young fellow said, his voice so despondent that Hannah took him at his word. She sat on the seat beside Billy. “It’ll take both of us pulling on the oars,” she said, and Billy nodded and they set themselves to rowing. With the weight of the men, the boat sat lower in the water, and they had to work harder to make headway. They each worked an oar, matching their motion one to the other, should
ers pressing into each other, breathing synchronized. The closer they drew to shore, the more the riptide dragged the boat north of the lighthouse. The men remained quiet, shifting and grunting, whispering and pointing.

  “Will we make it?” one of the men cried out.

  “We gotta keep rowing through it.”

  Hannah and Billy didn’t speak but moved in unison, bodies pressed hard against each other on the small seat, inhaling as they pushed the oars forward, exhaling as they pulled back. The men and the child sat quietly, turning to spy the lighthouse then casting their glances down to empty, puckered hands. Their breath cast clouds that drifted over their heads. There was no talking now, just the sound of the oars in the water and the heavy breathing of Hannah and Billy as they rowed. From their perch amidships, they watched the two sailors in the water on the life ring; they waved every so often to signal their well-being.

  Billy knew they cleared the riptide when the thunder of waves on the beach reached her, and they rowed south again. Near the lighthouse, the men looked to Hannah to give word before they climbed out of the boat and hurried ashore. They hovered in a tight group by the base of the stairs as if no amount of land would ever be enough. Hannah and Billy pulled in the lifeline and the last two men stumbled onto the beach shivering with cold. The young girl stood in the center of the men, her thin arms at her sides, while Hannah and Billy coiled the lines and hauled the surfboat back to the dunes. The men watched and waited, uncertain of what they were waiting for beyond some signal that they should move from their huddled position. With no words, Hannah led them up the stairs and they followed one at a time, each waiting for the next and pulling themselves up on the railing when the strength of their legs couldn’t match the task. Billy lifted the small girl onto her back and carried her. “You’re okay,” she said, but the girl said nothing.

  ***

  The men skulked into the house like a pack of animals. The tallest among them had been the one to ride in the bottom of the life ring against the water. His lips were blue, his jaw hammering with cold as he removed his jacket and stood by the fire. The rest followed suit, looking into each other’s faces for confirmation of their survival. How lucky they were to be in this good woman’s house. In spite of their bruises and scrapes and the gash over one man’s eye, they couldn’t believe their luck. They were almost afraid to speak for fear of breaking their lucky streak, or so it appeared to Billy as she stoked the fire and pointed to a set of hooks where the men could hang their coats to dry.

  The little girl sat on the floor against the hearth, her long limbs like crooked branches knobbed at the knees and elbows, eyes pegged on one of the sailors, fat enough to bust his jacket, his red, puffy face frothing with cold and rage.

  “What are you staring at, girl?” he said, loosening the buttons at the collar.

  She leaned one shoulder forward as if to protect herself, her brown eyes cast down. She looked so slight and stricken.

  The doll jabbed Billy from where it was stuffed in the waist of her pants, and she held it out, but the girl only stared at it. “Is this yours?” Billy said. The girl reached for the doll and clutched it in her fist.

  “Me go on drop now,” she said quietly. “Mi neva been so col.”

  Hannah watched Billy navigate the room with ease, comfortable among the sailors as she handed out blankets and stuck the bellows into the fire. When Billy stood up, the candlelight cast the hollows of her cheeks in shadow and reflected in her gray eyes. Hannah was drawn to her then, to her gentle voice and lithe body moving gently among the sailors, as if any abrupt motion would only traumatize them further. Billy understood the men’s distress firsthand. At the stove, she poured hot tea into cups and instructed the girl to set them on the table, but the girl shook her head no. Tears trailed down her salt-crusted cheeks.

  The man who’d carried the girl from the wreck rubbed the sphere of his belly and belched into the room. “Where’s the privy at? Eh?”

  “Round back,” Hannah said.

  The men hung about the fire, exhausted and spent, sitting on the floor with knees drawn up, bare feet blue from the cold. Those with boots pulled them off to dry on the hot bricks. One of the older sailors banged on a younger crew member’s chest as he coughed, then moved on to wrap a cut hand in a makeshift bandage until Hannah came with her medicine box and settled herself among them. Those who complained she tended to first. A bandage, a splint, alcohol poured across a wound to prevent infection. It was not the time to hold back on adding a shot of whiskey to the coffee, and she left the bottle on the counter for any one of them to take a shot. Right there on the counter. Light through the bottle cast an amber shadow that Billy could taste, but she ignored it as she poured drams to warm the sailors.

  Hannah passed blankets around to the men and brought the bag of hand-me-down clothes. The men sorted through the clothes for something dry to wear. Their noises stirred the room, the quiet and thankful murmuring after a rescue, all these strangers amazed at their survival, obvious in their cohesion as a crew. With the exception of miscreant sailor, they were comfortable in the proximity of each other’s bodies as they huddled together and tried to find an easy position on the floor.

  Billy had moved to the kitchen and was adding potatoes and carrots to a large pot of chicken soup, stretching the meal for two into one large meal for six men, a child, and themselves, until Tom showed up with a chicken, two loaves of bread, butter, and bourbon in a large basket. Hannah welcomed him with his supplies and his flashing green eyes, and Billy put him to work cutting the chicken into small pieces.

  The men broke bits of bread and dunked it into the broth. They ate noisily. They didn’t seem to notice anything different about Billy. She was a man among men, and they accepted her. Hannah watched Billy as she spoke to one of the sailors about the wreck, leaning into the man with an intimacy only men shared. “Many’s lost,” the man said. “Can’t even count ’em all yet.”

  “You’re here. That’s all that matters,” Tom said.

  “I never been so afraid. Like a little girl. I woulda cried for my mother if I thought there was a chance in hell she’d come to save me.”

  “There’s no shame in it,” Billy said. “You were waiting to die. Fear like that, it’s natural.”

  “I’ll never get over it.”

  “Have some soup,” Tom said. “Get yourself warmed up.”

  The girl clutched the doll in one hand. She held her lips together and shook her head, refusing food. “See him dea? Look pon dat man how im pack up im mout when im a nyam.” The girl indicated the fat man who had been holding on to her at the wreck, telling Billy that he packed his mouth full when he was eating.

  “You think I don’t understand that darkie voodoo horseshit?” the man said, soup spilling from his mouth down his rotund belly.

  Tom stood from the table and hovered over the man.

  “You will not talk like that in this house,” Hannah said, her voice like a hammer thrown down. “What is your name?” she asked the girl.

  “Mesha,” the girl said.

  “You come sit here next to me. No one will bother you here. Not while they are in my house.”

  Tom sat, his fists clenched. Billy did not take her eyes from the man, and when he met her gaze, she saw his wickedness exposed like the bottom of a board pulled from the dirt, rotten with wormholes and nothing good left to build on. This man was ruin itself. He watched her leave the table, eyeing her face, her hands. She felt his eyes on her back as she placed her bowl in the sink. He’d saved the girl, probably because he owned her. Less feeling for her than for that silver buckle on his belt, which he was about to lose. She’d see to that.

  18

  Billy woke with a start, kicked in the head by bad dreams and a flash of anger hot enough to remind her where she’d been in this world. The lighthouse beam swooped over the room. She was here in Dangerfield now, but the shipwrecke
d men’s snores and coughing, their mutterings in sleep brought Billy belowdecks on the Alice K. She strode into the living room as if across a ship’s deck and kicked the fat man awake. In his sleep and confusion he swatted her away. She kicked him harder and he scrambled to his feet. “What the—?”

  “Get up, follow me,” Billy said, stabbing words that held the command of her rage. She shoved him toward the passageway that led to the barn and closed the door behind them so that no one would hear. “You’re a coward. I should kill you.”

  The man’s eyes, watery and red, stared out at her, not comprehending what he’d done to upset her. “But you just rescued me. What do you want to kill me for?”

  “You took that Jamaican girl from her family. You took her from where she belonged.”

  “For good money,” he said.

  Billy caught her breath and reconsidered her line of reasoning. “What did she cost you? Tell me!” When the man hesitated, Billy punched him in the stomach so that he fell onto his knees, doubled over. “You were going to use her for yourself.”

  Billy kicked him, throwing him back on the floor. Blood ran from his nose. “I could kill you! Go on. Get up, you worthless dog. Get out of here! You’re a pig.” She spat the words at him like bullets.

  “Where will I go? I’ve no money. I’ve lost everything ’cept what I got in the house,” he said, wiping the snot and blood from his nose with his filthy hand.

  “Get up, get out. Now! Follow the road and I’ll spare your life.”

  He stared into her blue eyes with a familiarity she wanted to smack off his face. Who did he think he was looking at her like that?

  “I know who you are, that lady pirate! There’s a bounty on your head. They’ll hang you when I come back for you, me and the men you’ve robbed! You think you can escape what you’ve done? You think you save a few poor sods and you’re free? You’ll never be free. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder, wondering when or where that one knowing face has come to claim you. Then it will be over and I hope I’m there to see the day, you sanctimonious, no-good—”