Susan Wiggs Great Chicago Fire Trilogy Complete Collection

by Susan Wiggs

  “Good for Ilsa.”

  She clapped her hands to get Smokey’s attention and they walked outside the gate. The dog scampered along the frozen roadway with his nose to the ground.

  “Hey, Princess,” Tom Silver called from the yard.

  “Yes?” She conveyed with her tone that she didn’t want to be delayed any longer.

  “Don’t be late boarding the Suzette. You miss the evacuation, you spend the winter on the island. You don’t want to wind up like Charlie Mott’s wife.”

  She shuddered. “Better than ending up like Charlie Mott.”

  As she walked along the main roadway of the nameless little settlement, Deborah felt an unexpected twist of emotion. She would never see this place again. Would never hear the wind in the tall trees or see the sun rise over the vast lake or listen to the hiss and howl of the waves beating against the rocky shore. She wouldn’t find the likes of Jens Eckel again, nor do anything so odd and disgusting as cleaning fish for a living. She wouldn’t see the island children chasing a kite, nor collect agates in the streams with them, nor cradle Jenny’s baby in her arms and have a cup of tea with the young mother.

  Never again.

  Watching the flurry of activity down at the landing, she wondered what Jens was feeling now. He, too, was leaving Isle Royale forever, only his departure was far more bittersweet than her own. Two nights earlier, at the town supper, he had stood up and announced that he was retiring. After fifty years of fishing the waters around the island, he was going to stay in his snug little bungalow on the mainland, where he could sit by the fire smoking his pipe. He’d finally have a chance to read all those books he had been saving up for years.

  He had fought tears as he made his announcement, because he loved this island. Others had cried, too, for Jens Eckel was a fixture here, the quiet strong center around which the entire community seemed to revolve. Yesterday he had gone for a walk with Deborah, and had shown her a rapid, sunlit creek with a bed of the most marvelous agate she had ever seen. Now she wished she had taken some of the brilliant tumbled stones as a memento.

  When she went down to the landing, she realized Tom Silver had not been exaggerating the fact that space was at a premium. The boats were laden to the gunwales with goods to be transported to the mainland for the winter. It was hard to imagine people so poor they had to travel with their iron stoves rather than buy two, but that seemed to be the case. The knowledge only firmed her decision to secure restitution for them.

  No matter what her father thought of her, she would stand up to him. It took an adventure like Isle Royale to teach her to stand up to him. She had been a leaf in the wind of his ambition, fluttering helplessly. Now she understood that she had a will of her own, if only she dared to obey her own heart rather than try to please him.

  A brisk wind blew in from the east, and she walked along the dock, Smokey trotting at her side. She said good morning to the Wicks and the Nagels, and held Jenny’s baby one last time. With the child in her arms, she turned to face the small settlement, hugged into the side of the towering rock ridges, where these people built their homes and raised their families and made a life for themselves. There was a simplicity in their ways that appealed to her, yet at the same time she understood that there was nothing so challenging as building a life in a close-knit community, with its infinitely impassioned relationships, rivalries and cooperation. The richness in their lives came, not from things they bought with money, but from the splendor around them and the fruits of their own hard work.

  She handed back the baby, then walked down the length of the Suzette, encountering a grinning Lightning Jack duBois at the stern.

  “Eh, ma’m’selle,” he said, inclining his head. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  She smiled, unaccountably gratified. “Am I that different?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He lashed a hogshead to the side. “You’re not whining.”

  In spite of the insult, she laughed. “Was I that bad?”

  “No,” Lightning Jack said.

  “Yes,” Tom Silver said at the same time, coming through a hatch to take on more firewood to stoke the boilers. “But we kept you because of your yellow hair.”

  “Very funny,” she muttered, shading her eyes to admire the ice-hung cliffs one last time. A few anemic strands of sunlight managed to filter through the clouds, touching the ice with fire. Dazzled by the sight, she stood and absorbed the magnificence of the island, a place like no other she would ever see again.

  Smokey leaped into the boat, scrabbling around the deck with excitement. Lightning Jack grabbed another keg from the dock. When he dragged it down into the hull, the lid came off, rolling across the deck. Deborah jumped back instinctively with a little cry of alarm.

  A stream of Gallic oaths spewed from Lightning Jack as the entire contents of the barrel spread across the deck. The mongrel retreated with a whimper into the pilothouse. A terrible stench filled the air.

  “Oh, dear,” Deborah said, wondering how on earth she could help. “Is that…?”

  “Fish liver oil,” Tom Silver spat in disgust, hoisting himself up through the hatch.

  “C’est dégueulasse.” Lightning Jack watched the fetid liquid pooling around his moccasins. “Who is the jackass responsible for sealing that barrel?”

  When Deborah took a step toward the boat, Tom waved her off. “We’ll clean it up on our own. No sense in all of us getting covered in this stuff.” He pointed at the Koenig, docked at the other side of the harbor. “You’ll have to sail to the mainland with the Wicks and the Ibbotsens.”

  The prospect of traveling without Tom Silver should have held enormous appeal for her. She reminded herself that her goal should always be to escape him. He was her captor, she was his hostage. Yet to think of the situation in those terms seemed absurd to her now. “All right,” she said.

  Tom nodded distractedly and waved her off. He was already swabbing the reeking deck with an old, gray mop. Deborah went to the Koenig to tell them of the change in arrangements. While the men laughed about the spilled oil, Ilsa beamed at her. “Last day on the island, eh?” she asked.

  “So it appears. For me and Jens both.”

  “We been trying to get rid of the old coot for years,” Henry Wick said, speaking over his shoulder as he worked. “Should have left him here to freeze to death.”

  Jens chuckled. “Then you’d have no one left to tease, Henry. There’s ways to keep from freezing, you know,” he said to Deborah.

  “Another one of his whoppers,” Henry warned.

  “I heard tell of two men stuck in a blizzard. They were half-froze when they managed to kill a moose. They gutted the body and sheltered inside the carcass.”

  “See? A whopper.” Henry cranked in a shore anchor.

  “Maybe it was a caribou.”

  “Maybe it never happened.”

  “Way I heard it,” Ilsa said, joining the silliness, “is the two men got naked under a moose hide and stayed warm skin to skin.”

  Jens and Henry made gagging sounds and spat over the side. “I’d rather die, eh?” Jens said.

  Deborah blushed, but she was laughing.

  “You’re such a lady,” Ilsa said admiringly, eyeing her bonnet. “I wish I could be so fashionable.”

  Deborah was amazed that simple, contented Ilsa could wish to be anything like her. Ilsa had a husband and son who adored her and needed nothing else. But one thing a woman always possessed, Deborah reflected, was a bit of vanity. On impulse, she said, “I have something for you.”

  When she reached to untie the bonnet, Ilsa stood in the boat. “Ah no. I can’t let you—”

  “You must. I’ll be insulted if you don’t.” Deborah heard the firmness in her own voice. Now, where had that come from? She sounded like a different person. Sure of herself. Bossy, even. She took off the mulberry velvet bonnet and made Ilsa take off her plain gray wool one. “We’ll trade. I’ll be warm, and you’ll be fashionable.”

  “That would be a f
irst for me.”

  The truth was, the deep purplish fabric and black trim were enormously becoming on Ilsa, a perfect foil for her blond hair and Nordic coloring. She preened for old Jens, who sat quietly astern, his pipe clamped between his teeth, his weather-beaten hand nervously toying with his bear claw necklace.

  “You’re too damned pretty for me, Ilsa,” he said, but he seemed distracted as he spoke. His blue eyes had the soft, washed-out look of decades of wind and weather, and his way of life was etched in every line of his face. He was a fisherman of the island. Now that he was moving to the mainland, what would he be?

  It was a bold move, embarking on a new life, but a necessary step, thought Deborah, both for Jens and for herself. Yet her heart went out to him, because he looked so lost, so desperate, already lonely as he contemplated the winter maples in the high hills, stripped bare by the icy wind, the blanket of new snow across the land and the gleaming surface of the lake spreading out before him.

  “What will you do on the mainland with all your time?” she asked, hoping to distract him.

  His hands worked over his necklace as if it were a seine. “Same’s I’ve always done every winter of my life. Sit by the fire, smoke my pipe, read some. Maybe have a game of cribbage with another old fisherman, and we can tell each other lies about our glory days.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Yeah. It’ll be like winter, but a winter with no end.”

  “But—”

  Jens stood up in agitation. At the same moment, the bear claw necklace fell from his grasp and hit the water with a soft ping. Deborah gasped as it sank out of sight.

  “Oh, Jens,” she said. “Your necklace.”

  He looked bleak. “Not mine anymore. It belongs to the lake.” His voice sounded thin and fearful. “Eventually, the lake takes back its own.”

  She didn’t like seeing this hopeless attitude in a man she admired.

  Henry Wick heaved a long-suffering sigh. “God forbid that you should leave without a keepsake, Jens,” he said, then took out a fingerling net and leaned over the side. The water was thick and slushy with ice. “Another night like the last one,” he said over his shoulder, “and the harbor’ll be frozen up solid.” After several minutes of fishing around, he managed to snag the necklace and handed it, dripping and cold, to the old man.

  Jens grinned from ear to ear. “You earned a bottle of schnapps,” he declared.

  “What about you, Deborah?” asked Alice Wick. “What keepsake will you take back with you?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about one.” Deborah was surprised at herself. She had always been a sentimental sort. Always one to want a memento. Unconsciously her hand went to her throat, and she wished Tom Silver had not sent her mother’s lavaliere to her father.

  A keepsake. Perhaps she should take something of the island with her. Otherwise, years from now, it might be as if this adventure had not happened at all. Some memories she wanted to keep. Isle Royale, surprisingly, was one of them.

  She knew what she wanted. She had seen it just the other day, walking with Jens. “You’re right,” she said to Alice. “I should bring something back with me. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “We’re about to cast off,” Henry Wick objected, one rubber-booted foot on the dock, the other on the boat.

  “I’ll go on the Suzette,” she said, resigning herself to a rough voyage on a deck slippery with fish oil. Even so, she admitted to herself that she wanted to make the crossing with Tom and Lightning Jack. “It’s fine. My dog is probably insane without me, anyway.”

  “See you on the mainland, then,” said Henry.

  She picked up her skirts, straightened Ilsa’s scratchy gray wool bonnet on her head and climbed up on the dock. Then, running, she headed for the streambed she had found the other day.

  As she ran, she felt unaccountably wild and free. Ah, she would miss this place in all its splendor and isolation. Perhaps one day she would return, not as a hostage but as a visitor. Yes, that’s what she would do. Secure the financial reparation from her father, even if she had to battle him in the courts to do it and deliver the money in person come spring.

  What a perfect idea, she thought, disappearing into the woods and cutting through the tall, clacking reeds for a shortcut to the rapids. She heard the rush of the stream before she parted the reeds and saw it. A skin of ice coated the rocks at the edge of the water. In the middle of the shallows lay a gleaming treasure of agates.

  Deborah unfastened the buttons of one glove and peeled it off. Then, holding back her skirts, she bent to gather the small, smooth stones. The water was terrifically cold, the rocks coated with ice, and her fingers went numb by the time she had fished out the tenth stone. She knew she should work faster, but she might never again get this chance. The trail of gemlike stones led halfway across the stream. Holding out her arms for balance, she attempted to step from rock to rock in order to get to the middle.

  She fell, of course. Her skinny-soled shoes, the ones Tom Silver so delighted in making fun of, slipped on an icy rock and she went down hard in the middle of the stream. The shock of the cold water drove everything—breath, thought, feeling—out of her and she couldn’t even cry out. She was that cold.

  It took all of her energy to drag herself out of the stream and slog her way to shore. She sat in a frozen daze, her mind moving sluggishly. Had she hit her head on something? What a clumsy oaf she was. She knew she would endure extra scorn from Tom and Lightning Jack during the voyage.

  Just then a boat whistle pierced the air. Deborah looked down to see that the hem of her skirt was already frozen. Her teeth chattered out of control as she put the stones into her pocket and struggled to put her glove on over her stiff, nerveless fingers. She started back through the woods toward the landing, knowing she’d better hurry. She had wasted enough time already.

  NINETEEN

  “This damned boat reeks,” Tom grumbled as they hauled out past Rock Harbor. He had to raise his voice above the insane yapping of Deborah’s dog.

  “Wasn’t my idea to take on those kegs of fish oil,” Lightning Jack said defensively. “You were the one. Parbleu, I’ll be swabbing my deck with it for the next three seasons.”

  “I’ll work on it.” Tom swirled an ancient mop in the oil.

  “You might not have to worry about working in the future,” Lightning Jack pointed out. “If la jolie demoiselle gets her father to come through like she promised, we’ll all be rich as kings.”

  “Sinclair wouldn’t ransom her. Hell, the old bastard didn’t even send a boat for her. What makes you think she’ll get a copper cent out of him?”

  “He will come to see reason. Even now, he has probably realized none of this is his daughter’s fault.”

  “He’s had plenty of time to realize that I’m to blame, and I’ll be the first to claim it.” The whole matter left a bad taste in Tom’s mouth. He had taken Deborah without a single thought of what it would do to her, how it would affect her future. “So where the hell is he?”

  Lightning Jack kept his eyes on the deep gray horizon. “He needs time. Some men, you know, have a head like a rock. It takes them a long time to see what is right before their eyes.” He cleared his throat. “You can tell me, mon gars. You have been sleeping with her, haven’t you?”

  For a moment, Tom couldn’t speak. “Why the hell would you say a thing like that, you old bugger?”

  “I see the way you look at her when she doesn’t know you’re looking. I see the way she looks at you.”

  “You’re dead wrong,” Tom said, his heart knocking in alarm at the very idea.

  A troubled skepticism shadowed the older man’s face. “But those other symptoms of hers…”

  “What other symptoms?”

  “She gets tired, you know. And sick. I just assumed…she was enceinte.”

  Deborah? Tom thought incredulously. Pregnant? The very mention of the word would make her swoon with embarrassment. “You’re way off, L
ightning. She has a delicate constitution, is all. She’s not cut out for what we put her through.”

  “Then maybe that fiancé she mentioned,” Lightning Jack ventured. “Perhaps he—”

  “Not Deborah.” Tom scowled into the icy, harsh wind, discomfited by Lightning Jack’s wild assumption. It was preposterous to imagine himself with a woman like that. And yet he did imagine it—far too often. He’d best put it out of his mind and concentrate on bringing this to an end. The trouble was, he didn’t know how to end it. Neither did Deborah, he suspected.

  She was simply fragile, just didn’t know the way of the world. What did she think she was going back to, anyway? What did a man like Sinclair do to a ruined daughter returned? He hoped Lightning Jack was right, that Sinclair would get over his anger. The son of a bitch didn’t deserve her, but she loved him. And he was her father. Tom recalled a time or two he’d been mad enough at Asa to tan his hide, like when the boy had sailed a leaky little skiff all the way up to Rock Harbor and stayed gone for two days, or the time he had drunk half a pint of corn whiskey and puked all over the floor. Tom had always been furious…and he had always forgiven the boy. It was what a father did.

  Until that last quarrel. Tom had forbidden Asa to work at the mine. Asa’s beautiful, sullen face had darkened to an angry red and he’d stormed out, determined to choose his own path. He had been offered a position as bellows boy at double the pay he earned fishing. He and Tom had parted in anger that day, and there had been no chance for forgiveness.

  Arthur Sinclair had damned well better learn to forgive his daughter.

  Preoccupied, Tom watched the foolish mongrel racing up and down the decks from stem to stern, facing the fast-disappearing island and barking his head off. He and Smokey barely tolerated each other, but coexisted under an unspoken truce due to Deborah’s presence. The dog was never far from her side. That was probably why he was so upset, stuck aboard the Suzette while Deborah sailed on the Koenig. Taking care not to slip on the oily decks, he picked up Lightning Jack’s spyglass and climbed to the high bridge of the boat. The Koenig, the Queen and the Little Winyah were well ahead of them, puffed-out sails bearing them along more briskly than the engine of the trawler. The wind was almost too brisk, blowing just shy of a gale.