by Susan Wiggs
A log fell in the woodstove, and through the mica doors, a fountain of sparks flared up. The light grew for a moment, long enough for him to see that she had laundered her clothes in the bathwater and hung them up to dry. She sighed in her sleep and drew up her knees.
Tom told himself not to look, but of course he did. Beneath the heap of bedding, she was naked. Her movement caused the covers to slip down, baring a pale rounded shoulder. Her skin looked softer than silk, softer than a cloud, maybe. A small, dainty foot poked out of the other end, and though he had never before given much thought to a woman’s foot, the sight of Deborah’s made him wonder why he had gone through life ignoring that particular appendage. Her foot was a beautiful thing, with a pretty arch, a smooth heel and toenails that bore—he leaned closer to make sure he wasn’t seeing things—a coat of pink enamel paint. Fancy that. A woman who painted her toenails.
He grinned cynically. Not Deborah. She probably hired someone else to do it.
Yet the cynicism he employed to hold her at bay was failing him as he watched her sleep. It was the damnedest thing. She was the daughter of Arthur Sinclair. She had been raised like a hothouse rose—beautiful, fragile, untouchable, ultimately good for nothing but show, with a gloss that would fade like dropping petals. Yet he was drawn to her. He’d been feeling it for a while now, but he kept telling himself it was nothing, just his normal male desires kicking in. If the need became too great he could always take a boat over to Thunder Bay where a friendly widow woman didn’t mind company for a night or two.
Now he had to admit, though only to himself, that for some strange reason, the widow woman wouldn’t do. Nor would the saloon girls of Fraser, who had always been mighty friendly in the winter time. No, his current desires all centered on this one annoying, useless excuse for a female—Deborah Sinclair.
She kept surprising him. Every time he expected her to give up, to turn into a sniveling mass of womanly whining, she squared her shoulders and did something like volunteer to work at the fish house or to mind Jenny Nagel’s baby.
It had been easier to dislike her before she had made up her mind to be an asset to the community. And it was a lot easier before he had seen her naked, fast asleep, exhausted by a day of hard labor which she had endured without complaining.
Tom’s thoughts weighed heavy as he emptied the bathwater and went to fix himself some supper. This was bad. He couldn’t start wanting her in that way. In any way.
SEVENTEEN
The strangest thing happened. Deborah actually started to make herself useful to the small, busy community. She was more amazed than anyone that she had learned to clean and ice down a box of trout, to rock a baby to sleep or knead bread dough. She excelled at filling out bills of lading and interpreting invoices for the fishermen or the logging foreman.
She had been raised to believe she would never do a day of work in all her life. That had not struck her as odd, not in the least. It was simply the way things were. No one, not her father, her tutors, her dancing master, her social secretary, nor the faculty at Miss Boylan’s, had ever told her any differently. But being on Isle Royale challenged everything she had thought about her former life. Here, a woman worked, as hard or harder than a man. She thought for herself, made her own decisions and ultimately found value and fulfillment in what she was doing.
Deborah found solace in work and discovered within herself a hunger to deepen the bonds with these isolated island people. From Mabel Smith she learned to knit and crochet, and in exchange created fashionable bonnets for Mabel and her daughter, Betsy. Anna showed her innumerable ways to prepare fish, smoking it over a fire or roasting it on a birch plank. The village children taught her games that made her silly with laughter.
She was growing accustomed to the rhythm of the community. She awakened each day to the cock crow that brought out the men in the still dark dawn. She adapted to the smell of wood smoke and baking bread as fires were stoked and breakfast made. She learned to listen for the sound of small children playing. Some of the men whistled as they went down to the boats to start their day on the water. Some of the women sang as they busied themselves with shore work, mending gill nets and oiling cork bobbers. Into this mix, Deborah became an unlikely component.
Island children took her greenstoning and hiking during the day, and on the night Lightning Jack returned from the mainland, there was a sangerfest around a bonfire. He sat like a king before his subjects, smoking a pipe and dispensing gossip with great relish. He spoke of a near-drowning in Rock Harbor and a pack of marauding bears spotted at one of the inland lakes.
Deborah watched him from her seat on a log, her hands draped around her drawn-up knees. The children’s faces glowed with the colors of the fire, and their eyes shone like stars. How magical it must be to grow up here, she thought, natural and free, hardworking, surrounded by people who cared about each other, watched out for one another.
Before the singing started, the children begged for another story, and Lightning Jack waved his hand in mock weariness. “I have no more talking in me tonight,” he swore. “None at all.”
“How about the tale of Charlie and Angelique Mott, eh?” Jens suggested remorselessly.
“Charlie Mott,” the children yelled, though clearly they had heard it before, for even Deborah was familiar with it. “Charlie Mott!”
Thirty years before, the young Mott couple was sent to look after a copper mine over the winter. Their employer failed to send the supplies he’d promised, and Charlie and Angelique found themselves abandoned to the brutal cold and isolation of winter. Charlie starved to death, shrinking away to skin and bones even though Angelique tried to sustain him with bark tea and shoe leather. Unable to bury him in the frozen ground, his grieving wife couldn’t bear to throw him out into the snow for the carrion birds to get at. So she left him in their cabin where she could see him from time to time, and took her little campfire to a new hut she had built. Huddled alone over the fire, she slowly starved, all the while battling the terrible temptation to make a soup of her husband.
Come spring, the miners found her half out of her mind, but alive. The story left even the noisiest child silent with horror and awe, until Lightning Jack clapped his hands and roared “boo!” to startle them out of their spellbound state. Relieved laughter rang across the water.
To break the tension of the dark tale, the singing began. Deborah taught them “Camptown Races,” and the islanders led a round of “Skoal, Skoal, Skoal.”
From the corner of her eye, Deborah saw Pastor Ibbotsen come up behind Ilsa and steal a kiss. Ilsa laughed and cupped his cheek in her hand, a gesture of honest, uncomplicated affection. Love was so easy for some people, Deborah reflected. She wanted to talk about it, but there was no one to tell.
Though she lived in indecently close quarters with Tom Silver, he was as distant from her as the stars. He was living proof that some hurts could never be forgotten. The way he had lost Asa had made a wound of anger too deep to heal. His condemning gaze stalked her through each day, darkening each time someone acknowledged her, thanked her, laughed with her. His disapproval made her more determined than ever to prove that she was not the spoiled, overprivileged article he thought she was, that she was a person of substance deep in her core.
She excused herself from the gathering, walking to the edge of the marsh at the end of the road. The evening air held a sharp chill. The winter season was coming on strong and cold, etching the edges of the marsh with frost.
* * *
One evening, when the wind off the lake lashed at the windows and roared through the trees on the ridges above the settlement, Deborah decided to fix supper to show Tom Silver that she was no longer a woman who didn’t even know enough not to touch a hot coffeepot. Donning an old carpenter’s apron, she stoked the stove to what she thought to be a proper cooking temperature. Then she put two potatoes in a pot of water to boil and heated the frying pan for the fish.
That wasn’t so difficult, she thought, watching
the potatoes simmer. She stepped back and tapped her foot, wondering what to do next. Ah. She must lay the table. At home this was done by a servant, perhaps more than one, who decked the formal table with Limoges china, Irish crystal goblets and Florentine flatware. Tom Silver had nothing of the sort, of course, but she made do with the speckled enamel plates and pewter forks and spoons. She hurried outside and plucked some dried Queen Anne’s lace from the hedge by the garden fence and stuck the wispy sprigs in a jar on the table. He had never been much for napkins, so she improvised with a pair of faded clean cloths with ragged edges. Perhaps later tonight she would hem them.
She shook her head at her own foolishness. It wasn’t as if these things mattered. In a short while, she would leave Isle Royale, never to return.
Making certain a thick towel was at hand for the hot pan, she laid a cleaned trout in the skillet. The browned fat sizzled and spat at her, and she jumped back with a yelp.
The pan on the stove caught fire at the precise instant that Tom Silver came into the house. He looked tired, his face and hands chapped by the wind, but he moved swiftly toward the blaze. Deborah was quicker, dumping some of the hot water from the potatoes onto the fire even as Tom shouted, “Don’t do that!”
In a split second, she understood why. Some alchemy between water and burning fat made the flames flare even higher, licking black tongues of soot onto the ceiling.
Swearing, Tom grabbed the frying pan and rushed outside with it. She heard more cursing, then silence. He returned, holding the pan with the charred fish in it.
“I take it supper’s ready,” he said.
She poked her nose in the air. “Truite flambé,” she said. “It’s a new recipe.”
She could tell he was trying to scowl, but as he set the pan on the side of the stove, his mouth was tight, the corners upturned as he fought a smile. She acted equally disdainful as she dipped out the boiled potatoes and put them on the plates. He boned the trout and peeled away the blackened skin. The cooked fish within was surprisingly edible.
They ate in silence, yet it was oddly companionable. He didn’t thank her, but he ate every bite of fish and potatoes, and she found herself strangely gratified by that.
“What’re you staring at?” he asked, noticing her gaze.
“I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Feeding someone. I’ve never done it before.”
“So I guessed.”
“It wasn’t such a horrible chore. There is something very elemental about it, about…nourishing another person.” Embarrassed by her own words, she blushed and looked away.
He leaned back with great ease into a long-bodied position, ankles crossed, arms folded over his chest. “You can nourish me anytime you want, Princess.”
She drew away, growing even hotter and redder with her blush. “I must clean the dishes,” she said, hastily getting up from the table. She felt his stare boring into her as she poured hot water from the kettle into the dry sink and began scrubbing the dishes.
“Is there anything that doesn’t make you nervous as a cat?” he asked.
“I am not nervous.”
“Right.”
She continued working in silence. She heard him walk over to the hearth, give the embers a stir and add a log.
“Winter evacuation’ll start in two days,” he said. “Some of the harbors are already iced in.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. Winter evacuation. The residents of Isle Royale would leave the island to freeze up. They would all return in the spring to light fires in their little houses, bringing the village to life again. But not Deborah. She would go back to civilization at last, back to—
She didn’t finish the thought. Didn’t know how, didn’t want to. Since the moment Tom Silver had kidnaped her, she had thought of nothing but escape, nothing but going back to her former life. Now she was worried. She didn’t know if she even had a life there. Chicago had burned. Her father’s house had burned. The conflagration might have traveled as far as Miss Boylan’s, or Avalon in Lake View. Besides that, her father had declared her to be without value to him.
She could only assume Philip did not want her either. That thought, at least, provided her with some comfort.
“You hear what I said?” Tom’s voice broke in on her thoughts. “Folks’ll be leaving the island for the winter pretty soon.”
“I heard you.”
“You don’t seem too interested in the news.”
“I’ve known this was coming. It snowed yesterday. Everyone’s been busy packing for days.” She finished washing the dishes and used a towel to dry them, piece by piece.
“I reckon Lightning Jack will want to weigh anchor as soon as the weather quiets.”
“Is that how the evacuation is done? On Jack’s boat?” she asked.
“Yeah. His steamer, a couple of the skipjacks and a schooner. When the weather lets up, the fleet will head for Fraser or Duluth.”
Finally she turned to face him. “And then what?” she asked. “What happens on the mainland?”
“Most families have winter quarters with relatives and friends. The bachelors might take rooms in town, hire on at the shipyards or at Decker’s brewery for day labor.”
She pressed her lips together. He was going to make her ask, she realized. “I mean, what do you intend for me to do? I certainly don’t see how you can hold me hostage on the mainland, for heaven’s sake.”
He pushed back his shirtsleeves, leaning his bulky, muscular forearms on the table. “I can hold you any way I damn well please.”
She ground her teeth in fury. “Your scheme failed because my father doesn’t want me back. Meanwhile, I have done my utmost to cooperate with you. I understand the depth of your loss. My heart breaks with it. I’ve offered to exact restitution from my father. I’ve promised not to press charges against you, and to convince my father not to, either. I’ve worked until blisters formed on my hands.” She turned them palms-out to show him. “What more do you expect of me?”
A quick lightness flickered in his eyes, but the look was so fleeting she thought she had imagined it. “Just be ready to sail when the weather calms,” he said.
“I deserve to know what’s in store for me.”
“You’ll know when we get there,” he shot back.
“You are a poor excuse for a kidnaper, then,” she retorted. Aggravated, she made short work of the after-supper washing up, scrubbing the table with extra vigor and putting up the pans and dishes with a satisfying clatter. He sat impassively, watching her, and she pretended not to notice. When she finished, she took out the mulberry hat she had been working on, holding it out at arm’s length and regarding it with a critical eye.
“Do you think the brim is too wide?” she asked, somehow having spent her irritation in the washing-up.
“Will anyone care?” he asked with a shrug.
She sniffed. The oaf would never understand. “If I am going on a voyage, I should have a new hat.”
EIGHTEEN
The day of the evacuation dawned bright, clear and cold, the water as flat and glossy as a polished mirror. An invisible sense of urgency sharpened the air, for ice-up was coming on faster than anyone had predicted. Snow dusted the ground. Already the island wore a brittle lace collar of white frost, the lake frozen at the edges and around the pilings of the docks. The cliffs were hung with ice that sparkled like crystal in the sunlight. Beyond the sharp blue sky, an ominous low brow of clouds weighted the atmosphere in the west. Jens Eckel swore he tasted a blizzard in the air, and the skippers decided to head for the rough encampment at Fraser rather than risk the longer voyage to Duluth.
Deborah took out the smooth velvet bonnet she had recently finished and put it on, tying an artful bow to one side of her chin. The brim was too deep, shadowing her face and hair, but it was too late to change it now. She pulled on her only pair of gloves and took Smokey out into the yard. Tom was coming out of the shop as she wrestled with the i
mpossibly tiny glove buttons while the dog leaped impatiently around her feet.
“We sail in an hour,” he said. His breath made frozen puffs in the air. “Don’t wander far from the landing.”
“I won’t even get out of this yard if I don’t get these gloves buttoned.”
He hesitated for half a second, then said, “Hold out your hand.”
It would be foolish, childish to refuse him. Swallowing past a surge of nervousness, she offered her hand. His big, blunt fingers fumbled with the dainty mother-of-pearl buttons.
“No idea why you have to button on a pair of gloves, anyway,” he grumbled. “It’s not like they’ll fall off if you don’t do up all these buttons.”
“It’s a matter of fashion,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Wouldn’t want to,” he replied, finishing with the first glove and grabbing her other hand.
When he was near, when he touched her, her heart sped up.
“Your hand’s shaking,” he said. “Hold still.”
“It’s not shaking.”
“Is so.” He took her elbow and held out her hand. “Look.”
She scowled. “It’s the cold,” she said, ducking her head. The bill of her bonnet caught him on the chin.
“Jesus, woman, you’re a menace,” he said with laughter in his voice. “I reckon that purple hat’s a matter of fashion, too.”
“It’s mulberry, not purple, and it’s a bonnet. And yes, it happens to be very fashionable.” She snatched her hand away. “I’ll get Ilsa to finish buttoning me. She’ll do it without any impudent remarks.”