The Drifter

by Susan Wiggs

  Another shrug. “I’m not good with babies.”

  The dryness in his throat started to burn. “Can you just tell me one thing, Carrie? Can you tell me who the father was?”

  Her expression never changed. She was as serene as a Madonna, pale and perfect. She tapped the toe of her red shoe against the porch step. Jackson was about to apologize for asking when she said, “Don’t you know?”

  “I guess I don’t.”

  “He’s dead.”

  It all came clear to him now. The shouting, the accusations. The mayor of Rising Star in a place he shouldn’t have been, with a woman he shouldn’t have known. Her admission sat like a rock in Jackson’s gut. It had happened the night they’d fled.

  “I told Adam,” she said quietly, with simple directness.

  “Jesus Christ!” Jackson started to sweat. He thought about Adam Armstrong. Polite and refined, wearing clothes that cost more than an ordinary man would see in a lifetime, he exuded confidence. He took Leah to the magic-lantern show; he pushed Carrie on the bench swing in the yard. Jackson could imagine a woman wanting to confide in him. “What did you tell him, Carrie?” he asked in a low voice.

  She dropped her gaze. “I told him everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “I told him you and I were raised in a poorhouse. That we suffered many hardships, that you were forced to do some things society might not approve of.”

  He narrowed his eyes, remembering the reek of blood and gun smoke, the sharp sound of the slamming door. Carrie rarely talked about her time in Texas, even though it had changed the course of their lives. He was beginning to suspect that she had managed to put their final night in Rising Star out of her mind.

  “Adam says I’m not responsible for misfortunes that befell me when I was young and defenseless.”

  “He’s right about that.”

  She smiled softly, sweetly. “I know.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss Jackson’s cheek. “Thank you for everything,” she whispered into his ear.

  And this time he knew she meant everything.

  It was time to go. The Fairhaven blew its whistle, and the skipper shouted orders. Jackson bent and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I’ll bring you a present, honey.”

  “That would be nice. Jackson?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, anxious to get aboard. “What?”

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  Not until he was aboard the Seattle-bound side-wheeler did he think it was an odd thing to say.

  * * *

  The sun rode high, and Jackson’s pockets bulged with his winnings when he returned from Seattle the next day. His luck had been so good it was almost frightening. In the salon of the Diller Hotel, he’d played smoothly and confidently, garnering rueful admiration from the other gamblers and bawdy looks from the women.

  Seattle had become the terminus for the Great Northern Railroad, and men with high ambitions flocked to the city to set up shop. Money, whiskey and grandiose plans flowed freely in the taverns, and Jackson had gotten more than his share. He could have had more than that—a fancy lady or two had offered her favors. It wasn’t like him to refuse such an offer, but last night he’d said a polite “no, thank you.”

  It was a bit late in life to be turning decent, he reflected. And then he had a thought that wasn’t decent at all. A forbidden anticipation caught at him; he was going to see Leah. Quit that, he told himself. You got no business thinking like that.

  He went out onto the upper level deck. He’d never get tired of the view in these parts, and the run from Seattle to Whidbey, with a stop at La Conner, was as pleasant as anything he’d known. The undulating water was as clear and deep as eternity, and the islands had the sort of placid beauty that made a man—even Jackson—believe in everything good. Taking out a tin of Fancy Shred tobacco, he started to roll a smoke.

  He felt rather than saw the Fairhaven change course. The big side-wheeler churned northward. In a moment, Jackson saw why.

  Boots clattering on the metal steps, he rushed down to the lower level to have a better look. Already, people were gathered around. “Damned shame,” someone said. “Looks like there were no survivors.”

  Quiet horror settled over the passengers as they surveyed the burned-out wreckage of a pleasure boat.

  “I guess there was an explosion or something,” a man in Mosquito Fleet livery said. “Must’ve been the engine. Look at that mess.”

  Barrels, crate tops, decking, line, tarpaulins—they all floated helplessly through a tangle of burned timber.

  “Nobody could’ve survived that. There ain’t a piece left bigger than a splinter.”

  “Just as well,” the Mosquito Fleet official said. “You don’t want to be alive when the orcas come.”

  Only the aft end of the hull was visible. Jackson stared at it, mesmerized, waiting. Waiting for the steamer to chug around so he could read the name of the hapless boat.

  But he already knew. Something inside him already knew. He felt no surprise when he saw the first four letters painted on the upside-down stern: La Tache.

  That was Adam Armstrong’s boat.

  A woman’s shoe floated by. A red shoe. One that Jackson recognized.

  “Carrie,” he said under his breath, already striding toward the rail of the steamer. With his gaze fixed on the shoe, he peeled away his coat, kicked off his boots, and dove in. The frigid water seared him. His emotions and his extremities were already going numb as he surged toward the wreck and surfaced near the half-submerged hull. Carrie had been on this boat. Damn it. He should have seen it coming, should have realized she’d go off with her new friend. Faintly, he could hear people shouting to him from the steamer, but he ignored them as he pawed through the wreckage. Her straw bonnet, torn in two. A man’s waistcoat. A book, the waterlogged pages fanned out.

  “Come on, mister,” someone yelled. “You’ll freeze to death.”

  A life ring splashed into the water near him. Feeling half-dead, he allowed himself to be helped aboard. Someone threw a horsehair blanket around his shoulders. Dripping wet and shivering, he stood at the rail. The truth sank in like a cold iron spike. Gone. Carrie was gone.

  He spied the shoe again and fixed on it, studying the dainty ribbons that flowed out on each side like water wings. A jeweled red heel caught the afternoon sunlight like the facets of a garnet.

  He kept staring at that shoe even though the steamer, its skipper certain there was no aid to be rendered, steered toward the west. The sparkling red heel kept glaring right in his eye. In his mind, he heard piano music, and he remembered a day in San Francisco.

  “Of course I want to go dancing, Jackson,” Carrie had said. “But I haven’t a thing to wear.”

  “I’ll get you something, honey. Don’t you worry.”

  He’d bought her a dress and a pair of dancing shoes with satin ribbons and jeweled red heels.

  Jackson wasn’t sure what sort of sound he made, but people noticed, getting a look at his face, stepping out of the way.

  “You all right, mister?” someone asked.

  Jackson didn’t answer. There wasn’t any answer.

  * * *

  The morning after Carrie’s death, Jackson had breakfast with Bowie Dawson. Fidgeting in his rolling chair, the boy peered across the table. “So what’re you going to do on the boat today? Jackson? What are you going to do? Jackson.”

  He blinked. “Oh. Sorry.” He couldn’t stop thinking about Carrie. Had she burned to death or drowned? Or had the orcas gotten her? For some reason, he supposed that she burned. She was hot, short-lived, a flash of lightning. She’d always been that way. He should feel crazy with horror and grief right about now.

  But all he felt was empty.

  For years, the search for Carrie had given s
hape to his life. Meaning to his existence. After he found her, caring for her had been his goal, his purpose. Keeping her safe had been his mission.

  Now what would shape his life?

  A Wanted poster, he thought grimly.

  He used to be like a knight on a quest, and Carrie was the grail he sought. Now he had nothing to quest for. He truly was a drifter.

  “Jackson?” Bowie sounded annoyed. “Are you going to be working on the boat, Jackson?”

  He dragged his mind back to the present. “Yeah, I’ve got to fix the aft pumps.”

  “Can I come? Can I, Jackson? Huh?”

  He ruffled the youngster’s silky fair hair. “I’m going to be extra busy today. Maybe you’d better stick around here and help your ma.”

  Bowie’s narrow shoulders sagged. “I won’t get in the way—promise. You can just put my chair out of the way, and I’ll watch, maybe practice my knots. I’ll be quiet as a mouse, Jackson. Promise! Swear on a stack of Bibles, I’ll button my lip and—”

  “Right.” Resigned, Jackson went around behind Bowie and wheeled his chair toward the kitchen. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all, having the little mite around to fill the silences. When the steamer had docked yesterday, Leah and Perpetua and Iona had been waiting. They confirmed what he’d known all along—that Carrie had gone off with Adam.

  No survivors.

  Jackson hadn’t been able to speak. He just shook off their sympathy, stalked to the Teatime, and got quietly drunk.

  “Well?” Bowie said. “Let’s go, Jackson.”

  “We’ll ask your mother. If it’s all right with her, it’s fine with me.”

  They found Perpetua dressing a chicken for supper. The smell of sage and garlic filled the room. “Mama!” Bowie called. “Jackson said I can watch him work on the boat. Can I, Mama? Can I?”

  “Certainly not.” She didn’t hesitate in her work, just kept on rubbing the chicken with sage leaves.

  Jackson wondered what was so automatic with the woman—her distrust of him or her overprotectiveness of the boy. “Ma’am, he’ll be fine on the docks with me. The weather’s so hot, it’d be a shame to keep him cooped up indoors all day.”

  She aimed a grudging glance out the window and blinked as if this was the first time she’d seen such a perfect summer day.

  “I’d welcome the company, Mrs. Dawson.”

  She fell still, looked at him. He allowed a brief smile and saw the moment she gave in. Her eyes filled; he knew she was thinking of what had happened to Carrie.

  “I imagine you would,” she said quietly. Then she launched into a long litany of cautions for Bowie, wrapping him in blankets and a muffler as if a blizzard raged outside. Through it all, the boy stayed quiet, clearly awed that his mother would allow such a privilege.

  At last they were on their way to the harbor. Bowie chattered the whole way. “Jackson, are you sad because Miz Carrie went out on that boat and died?”

  The blunt question, asked by a guileless child, ripped into him, causing a pain he wasn’t ready for, wasn’t used to. Damn, the kid was honest. “Yeah, I guess I’m real sad.”

  “Aunt Leafy says Miz Carrie wasn’t fit to be a seaman’s wife. Says she was too del-i-cate.”

  “I suppose that’s so,” Jackson admitted. In the whirlwind and mayhem of the life he and Carrie had led, he had never expected her to behave like a wife. It didn’t seem necessary under the circumstances. He wondered what else she’d told the old busybody.

  “Aunt Leafy says Mr. Armstrong was really, really rich.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jackson didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He parked the chair on the dock. Now that they were out of sight of the house, Bowie removed the plaid blanket, the muffler and the woolen cap. “It’s hot as Hades out today,” he remarked. He twisted around to see Jackson’s reaction to the forbidden word.

  Jackson merely nodded. “That it is.”

  He took out his tin of tobacco, and Bowie squinted up at him. “Underhill Fancy Shred,” the boy read. “Underhill, just like your name, Jackson. What a coincidence, huh?”

  “Yeah. A coincidence.” Jackson lifted his face to the sky. The air, fresh washed by a brief shower, had a crystalline quality that was acute in its intensity. The sun brought out the colors of sea and sky, grass and wildflowers in all their eye-smarting brilliance. Jackson inhaled deeply, letting the air tingle in his chest. As he boarded the Teatime, preparing to tackle the repairs before him, he had an uncanny sense of well-being.

  He refused to examine the reason for it.

  * * *

  Leah set her jaw in a grim line and faced the patient who sat on the examining table in her surgery. “Ilsa, I have other people to see today. Now, you either open your mouth and let me have a look at that tooth, or I’ll have to send you home still hurting.”

  Ilsa Gillespie, the butcher’s daughter, set her own jaw with equal obstinance. At nine years old, she already had her father’s bulldog jowls and stubborn countenance. She wore two fat yellow braids crisscrossed over the top of her head and glared at Leah with eyes as blue as a bird’s egg. One side of her face stood out, swollen and tender from a bad tooth, but the girl wasn’t about to let Leah near it.

  “If I pull the tooth,” Leah said, “it’ll just hurt for a minute. But if you don’t let me, then it’ll be hurting for days and days, maybe forever.”

  Ilsa’s eyes widened. She clapped both hands over her mouth.

  Leah folded her arms and took a deep breath for patience. After the scene at the Babcock house, Jackson had suggested a truce with the butcher. This was part of their agreement. She had tainted his reputation as surely as he had tainted his meat, and after talking to Jackson, she felt guilty. She’d gone to Gillespie in private and vowed to treat his children at no charge. On top of that, she’d made a point of going into his shop at the busiest time of day and making several purchases.

  Since then, she’d seen at least one of the Gillespie children a day, treating everything from warts to a runny nose. Ilsa was actually one of the easier ones.

  Though Leah rarely let her attention wander from a patient, her mind kept drifting to Jackson. Carrie was gone, gone forever. What was he feeling?

  She recalled her grief when her father had died. Even now, it was hard to admit that a tiny sense of relief gleamed through the sadness. Her father, who had spent his life searching for wealth and luxury, had never attained it. Perhaps he was at peace. She remembered thinking that she was completely alone and feeling the strangeness of it. And the sense that, even in the final moments, she and her father had left something incomplete. She wondered if Jackson had those feelings today.

  “Come on, honey,” she tried cajoling, turning her attention back to her patient. “If you just hold your mouth open for the count of ten, I’ll make it all better.”

  Hands still pressed protectively over her mouth, the child lifted her chin in haughty refusal.

  “Would you do it for a prize? How about a shiny new penny?” Good Lord, she was resorting to bribery.

  The chubby hands came down. “Make it ten pennies.” Ilsa surely was her father’s daughter.

  “Five,” Leah countered.

  “Done,” the child shot back.

  A minute later, she was whimpering in Leah’s arms, blue eyes fastened on the abscessed tooth in the enameled tray by the table and five pennies clenched in her fist.

  Leah smiled. In the distance, the harbor bell clanged. “All better now. I’ll send you home with some oil of cloves to—”

  A terrified scream pierced the air. Setting Ilsa aside, Leah rushed out of the surgery. The kitchen door of the boardinghouse was flung wide open, and Perpetua Dawson, her skirts hiked up above her knees, was racing like mad across the lawn.

  Aunt Leafy, on her wicker rocker on the porch, had gone whi
te as a sheet. “Something happened at the harbor,” she said. “Bowie fell into the water!”

  Six

  Leah ran so fast that the pins came out of her hair, and her surgical smock came untied. The salty-sharp air tore at her lungs as she raced down to the harbor. Perpetua sobbed Bowie’s name.

  Shoved off to one side, the wicker wheelchair looked sadly empty and abandoned with a pile of clothes and blankets on it. Davy Morgan came running from the harbormaster’s office. Bob Rapsilver followed close behind.

  “Bowie! Where’s my baby? My baby!” Perpetua teetered at the end of the dock.

  Rapsilver pointed a thick finger out to sea. “Went over the side. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Leah froze, her gaze following the line of the pointing finger. There was Bowie, in the water just as she’d feared. But...

  “Heavenly days,” Perpetua panted between sobs. “What’s he doing?”

  A pale, thin arm rose from the water. “Swimming, Mama! Look at me! I’m swimming!” His arm came down, and he propelled himself forward with surprisingly strong—if clumsy—strokes.

  “But he doesn’t know how to swim.” Perpetua sagged against Davy Morgan.

  “He’s swimming,” Leah said. Her heart rate and breathing gradually returned to normal. The noonday sun beat down on her head, and she savored a sweet rush of relief.

  Someone else emerged close to Bowie. Pale hair slicked back from a tanned face. Muscular shoulders and arms breaking the surface. Leah felt a smile playing upon her lips. “Mr. Underhill taught him.”

  “The kid’s taking to it like a chum salmon leaving the river,” Davy said.

  Now that the emergency was over, Perpetua’s anxiety turned to anger. She mopped her brow with her apron. “Bowie!” she called. “Bowie Dawson, you come here right this minute! You scared your mama half to death!”

  “Aw, Mama. You’ll spoil all the fun,” the boy protested.

  “Now,” Perpetua yelled. Her inflection brooked no argument.