The Lighthouse Road

by Peter Geye

“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.

  One 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.”

  Danny 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.

  They 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 d
awn 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.

  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.

  Saturday 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?”