Taste of Victory
Page 24
They were at the wharf, its grayed timbers looming above him. He bobbed less than fifteen feet below its top deck. Willing hands were hauling Sam up, up. When a looped rope fell into the water beside him, he simply grabbed it and hung on.
He rose out of the water slowly, steadily, gratefully. As he rotated on the end of the rope, he watched first the maze of beams in the wharf’s underbelly, then the bending river shore, then the open river. Out in the open river a steam fireboat was spraying water upon the stunned, crippled, smoking Echuca Charlene. Her green and slimy underside showed to starboard. The port wheel was gone, the upper-story wheelhouse was gone. Although it wasn’t patently obvious, Sloan knew the boat’s boiler was gone, too.
A few more rotations, and eager hands hauled Sloan up over the side. He was safe.
Beside him Sam had already struggled to a sitting position. “Gus!” she sobbed. She looked at Cole. “He fell over the side. I couldn’t hold him.”
“Was he alive?”
She nodded numbly and crawled the two feet over to him. He gathered her in against him and held her tight, and her warmth strengthened him.
Reginald had talked about the power of God. When chance did not permit Sloan to live, he lived. When chance decreed Sam’s sure death, she hugged against him now. Sloan could easily have been maimed or killed in those first seconds of the blast when the firewood was driven forward by the exploded firebox door. He could have been, but he wasn’t there.
All right. You win. Foolishly, God, I thought I wanted a sign from you. You’ve given it to me. I accept. I accept you, Jesus Christ—all of it. You’re real. You’re you. I ask you to forgive me for doubting your existence all these years. Thanks for not dealing with me any harsher than you did. Now I’m going to ask a favor from you. Bring Gus back. Don’t do this to Sam. Spare him. Bring Gus back, God.
Ah Loo hovered anxiously beside Sam. He looked at Sloan. “She all right?”
Sloan nodded. A Chinese man knelt beside Ah Loo and wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulders.
Ah Loo smiled through incipient tears. “She pulled me out of the water, and I belong to her. Now I helped save her, so I’m her papa? This is getting very confused.”
It wasn’t raining anymore, Sloan noticed. He watched the Charlene a few moments longer. Sagging hawse lines tied her securely to the fireboat and to another vessel off her starboard flank. She lay motionless, no longer at the mercy of the current. Most of the cloud billowing up off her now was white. Steam and water, not smoke.
Sam shuddered and burrowed deeper into his arms. “I saw his face, Cole, when he went over the side. ’Twas a sight I cannae—” She shuddered again.
Just then Sloan happened to look out beyond the Charlene. Two men were rowing toward the dock in a punt. A third fellow sat erect in the stern seat of the little boat, and Sloan’s heart leaped.
He gave Sam an extra squeeze. “His face looks a lot better when it’s washed.”
The sobbing became a startled breath caught in her throat. She lifted her head away to look at him. “Wha—?”
He dipped his head toward the punt.
Like the king himself out for a cruise upon the water, Augustus Runyan rode in regal splendor down the rushing brown current. Nearly all the town of Echuca stood crowded here on the wharf and along the muddy banks, watching the fireworks, watching the captain come ashore. As his rescuers brought the punt into the wharf, a few scattered “hurrahs” became a crescendo of applause.
In that moment Sloan’s mind worked out two lessons: one, prayer works; two, don’t ever ask for a sign. You might get it.
Chapter Twenty-one
Coda
Palm Sunday, 1907
Me dearest Linnet,
After the long, newsy letter I sent you some days ago, this will be short and uneventful. I am so grateful that it is uneventful! I’ve had quite enough events to last awhile, as you know.
Cole wishes that we marry in Sydney, and that is fine with me. So if you and Chris are able, remain in Sydney beyond Easter, at least long enough to attend the wedding.
I understand that Chris has been invited to be the new organist at the university. You described to me the wondrous two-story organ they have their conservatory. I be so pleased for him! A news release here in the Riverine Herald says you’ve been invited on a tour to England with Mr. Giambone’s group. How exciting! Will you go?
When Cole first described his visit to Barmah Mission, and his conversion, I was very skeptical. I thought perhaps he had said that to win my hand, or to somehow persuade me to grant some boon, for he was always so adamantly against Reginald’s religion. But it is very real, Linnet. He could not, I believe, maintain a false mien for this long—not when the whole idea was previously repugnant to him. He still does not use pious words and phrases. He has never learned them, and I love him all the more for that. Jesus is real in him. It amazes me.
Samantha paused and put down her pen. She linked her fingers together and stared vacantly across the room. So much had changed, so much…
Cole reached over her shoulder and took her hand in his own. Her eyes met his, full of warmth and promise.
“What are you thinking, luv?” he asked quietly.
Samantha smiled. “I be thinkin’ about trust,” she said simply. “Trust and love. Both can be learned, ye know…”
She picked up her pen and began to write again.
Linnet, and you, too, Chris: I pray daily that the two of you will know the completeness we have found. Incidentally, Chris, since I did not study Greek in school, I only just learned that your name, Christenikos, means Christ’s victory. I’m sure you knew all along.
Ah Loo sends greetings. We have decided that one rescue cancels another; I have lost a son and gained a friend.
Cole sends his greetings.
We stopped by the hospital this morning and learned that Gus’s steersman will survive. He will probably regain full use of his hand. Gus is healing well and has already begun whittling his wooden leg. He is considering wearing a patch over one eye so as to look even more like a pirate.
Mr. Wiersby and the commissioners made their verbal job offer a formal written one, but I refused it. Cole and I have decided we will live in Sydney. We will box my belongings and travel to Sydney by train. Praise God it will not be by stagecoach.
SANDY DENGLER is a freelance writer whose wide range of books have had a strong record in the Christian bookselling market Twenty-six published books over the last nine years include juvenile historical novels, biographies, and adult historical romances. She has a master’s degree in natural sciences and her husband is a national park ranger. They make their home in Ashford, Washington, and their family includes two grown daughters.
Books by Sandy Dengler
AUSTRALIAN DESTINY
Code of Honor
Power of Pinjarra
Taste of Victory
East of Outback