Trouble Cove

by Nancy Lindley-Gauthier

  A dot of light shone from the center of the beach. As I stared, I could make out the busy-bee shapes of men as they fed a fire. A flash revealed the presence of a mirror. I seized Daro’s arm and pointed.

  “It’s true,” I hissed, still not quite believing. “They are directing the light out to sea, imitating a lighthouse!”

  “And there are the lights of a ship!” I followed the direction of his binoculars. Faintly, a row of lights glimmered from distant waves.

  “It looks like she’s already turning. It’s a big one.” Daro dropped the binoculars and stared below with eyes full of horror. “We are too late.”

  “If only the fog would clear. If only the sailors could see shore.”

  Daro waved his hand toward the eastern horizon. “Sun will be up in a minute, but it won’t clear the fog fast enough for the ship’s crew to see their danger. We are too far to warn them!”

  No plan or effort of ours would change anything now. We would be only silent watchers to this horrendous, cruel act.

  “There might be children aboard.” Daro stood in the midst of the rock plateau, shaking with rage and helplessness. He lifted binoculars again. “She’s making slow headway. If only we could douse the false light. If only one of those men had a conscience.”

  “An hour’s climb down,” I said, desperately. “There’s no way to reach them. If only it were light.”

  “Light.” Daro swung round east. The standing stones, behind us, caught his attention. “The Sun. Quick! The fogbank—our canvas!” Daro ran to the standing stones, but the threshold of the stone monoliths sat well above his head.

  I scurried after him, confused.

  “Between the stones, between the standing stones.” He motioned wildly so I followed him to the foot of the great rocks. Without hesitation he hoisted me up into the gap between the two.

  The first true rays of sunlight burst over the eastern horizon as I straightened. A river of light poured around me and shone out to sea.

  The stone monoliths channeled the light, throwing my shadow against the glittering, brightly lit fogbank.

  An enormous specter rose up above the beach. Startled, I flung my arms wide and the giant, likewise, flung its arms out. I know I gasped. Daro gasped. To the men, it must have seemed a giant figure emerged from the fog itself and stood over them.

  From far, far below, we heard screams and then shouting as the figures ran away from the bonfire. The men dispersed in all directions.

  Perhaps those on the ship saw the glittering giant as well. More likely, they became alert when their guide light stopped. Without the man focusing the mirror in imitation of a lighthouse, the flash that signified a lighthouse beacon stopped, leaving only the odd flicker of flames on the beach.

  The ship’s progress slowed. After a few minutes, we could see by the change in the angle of the lights she had turned. The ship eased northward and avoided the waiting rocky shoals. It had taken only a moment’s interruption for them to realize it had not been a true navigational light. I watched the ship lights so carefully, I didn’t notice the giant’s shadow sink away before the sun’s rays.

  The giant being of light, crafted by one who knew the sky, had saved them all.

  Daro shouted the triumphant words of Wordworth, “in the vastness of Being…” as he rushed to me. I plunged down into his waiting arms and twirled there, my feet not even touching the ground.

  Finally, laughing, I asked, “Whatever did it look like to those at the foot of the shimmering giant shadow?”

  “Like The Almighty himself stood witness to their crime! They ran, they all ran!” Daro gently set me on my feet, laughing.

  I can hardly describe my emotion. Too much happened in the space of seconds. Daro’s understanding of light and atmosphere had given us this one weapon: Fear.

  The men had scattered, most of them southward. They had left dories on the beach and departed as if truly terrified. The quality of the light changed. Sunlight chased away the fog.

  One form still ran about the beach, gesticulating. The ring leader I guessed. Avery? It was too far to tell. He’d not be frightened off by a trick of the light, but it was too late for him to change anything. His trick had failed and the big ship has escaped his snare.

  “A glory on cloud bank,” Daro explained. “When I saw the direction of the standing stones, I guessed they were set to channel the dawn’s light. Some ancient builder saved that ship today.”

  “The ship is safe, isn’t it?” I leaned forward, gazing north. “How did you ever know?”

  “I can hardly believe it worked.” Daro clasped his hands together and stared heavenward. I too, could only think to send thanks. How long we stood, there on this great granite crest between sea and sky, I can hardly tell.

  We stood hand-in-hand. And, I thought to give my thanks right then for him, as well all the events of our day.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Lighthouse

  Unbelievably, we were not done. I stumbled down the path after Daro, though I could not guess what more we could accomplish. Avery’s chance was gone. He would have to wait weeks for the right combination of approaching ship and poor light conditions. I would make darn sure he never got ahold of those letters with the ship schedules, again.

  “Perhaps we should go back?” I called. “We can warn everyone. He’ll not get another chance!”

  Daro strode straight down the slope at impossible speed. “This was no less than attempted murder. You’re right he’ll never get another chance. We’ll not just be hoping. We’ll stop him for good.”

  A chill touched me as he spoke. My Daro aimed to make an end to it, at whatever cost.

  The north face of the granite hills was steeper and shorter than the southern side. A plain path ran down between the scraggily trees, and loose rocks made it treacherous in a different way from our climb up. I fell behind.

  Daro made it to the beach first and did not wait. No telling when the group of men might return. Alone, even he was no match for all those we had seen on the beach. I had to reason with Daro. I scurried out onto the beach in time to see Daro charge like a bull at someone coming along from the keeper’s cottage. The someone, as I had expected, looked tall and thin. Avery.

  Avery plunged forward with unusual bravado. I glanced all around, sure someone must be about to help him. He would never challenge someone the size of Daro. Still, I saw no one and suspected something worse; he had a weapon of some kind.

  I grabbed up an abandoned oar from the beach and ran headlong toward the two men. They’d stopped within inches of one another. Avery yanked out a long, wicked-looking knife. Daro angled around, as if ready to tackle him, risking being cut.

  I barreled straight at them, swung my oar violently at Avery and—though I did not connect—Avery let out a gasping scream, jerked back and allowed the knife to fall to the sands. He must have recalled the unfortunate moment when he met the business end of my fireplace poker.

  Daro plowed straight into him and knocked him down.

  “No,” someone screeched. “No, no, no!” I saw I had been right about Genevieve, as well. Still far off, she came scrambling down the wooden walkway from the cottage. “Stop, stop.”

  Avery curled up in a ball, refusing to get up.

  Daro kicked over remnants of bonfire on the beach, and grabbed the mirror they had mounted on a crate. In one swift motion, he smashed it. “Murderer! The false light.” He shook the crate at Avery’s head. “You could have killed people.”

  “Stop!” Gen came racing across the beach, her winter furs flowing out like some sort of ancient warrior princess. She was gorgeous and beautiful and I could not imagine how she could have been party to this horror.

  What had she imagined? This ship would have turned too early and crashed onto the treacherous shoals well south of the real, northernmost lighthouse. The vessel and people and all a manner of goods would have been plunging in the waves, while men went out to retrieve items of value. Had she known? Ho
w could she not?

  How could she ignore the Trouble Cove lighthouse, far out on the point, burnt into a blackened shell?

  Seeing the remnants of the light, I recalled there should have been a lighthouse keeper. Poor man, I hadn’t even given the keeper a thought. Avery’s group must have prevented him from protecting the light.

  Daro grabbed Avery’s elbow and hauled him to his feet.

  Genevieve thundered up to us. “What do you think you are doing? We’ll report you to the police!”

  Daro stared down at her then turned to look at me.

  “And explain about causing a shipwreck?” I snapped as I stepped in between them.

  “You don’t understand! It’s our patriotic duty! We’re out here to help the war effort. We are tricking the enemy submarines!” She smacked her hand into the back of her palm. “Avery is a hero, don’t you see?”

  Daro snorted.

  Genevieve only then thought to look around. “Where are all the volunteers?”

  “Volunteers? Genevieve, those men were out here to wreck and rob a passenger ship.”

  Genevieve dismissed my words. She clutched Avery’s arm and chattered along about how we didn’t understand. She sported a sparkling engagement ring and clung to him like she had found her dream. How sad for poor Gen.

  Avery, in a phony, soft voice, said, “I told you to stay in the cottage, my dear. It could be dangerous.”

  Dangerous! I thought of the men on the beach. Some of them might not have gone all that far. They’d left so quickly, they had left behind all their supplies. Indeed, dories still sat on the sand, along with hand-carts and empty crates and all a manner of items.

  Tire prints marked where the Packard had turned and retreated. Osten? Oh, it was simply a nightmare to contemplate who else might be involved. The manager might have assisted Avery, and maybe some of the other men. I worried that silly Mark DeLaMore might have followed his cousin into this horror, to say nothing of the other society boys.

  Daro stood looking down at the couple, his face unreadable. He could certainly beat the hell out of Avery, but he’d no idea what to with Gen. For that matter, what could we really do with Avery? We were miles from any authority we might turn him in to. I looked around the beach. The ship was safely away—there was only our word for what he had been up to.

  Avery clutched his jaw with one hand and leaned toward Gen.

  “What is wrong with you?” she scolded Daro.

  Daro looked at me again.

  “That was a passenger ship out there, Gen,” I repeated.

  “Nonsense.” She patted Avery’s back and glared at me. “You’re horrible—disgraceful, that’s what you are! Out here wandering around with, with the delivery man!”

  “Gen, aren’t you here alone with Avery?”

  “Of course not! At least, we were escorted by several gentlemen until they all ran off. I can’t imagine what happened.”

  “Submarine targeted the beach. Panicked our patriotic crew.” Avery jerked his head to us. “You can’t reason with them. They have no any idea of how difficult it is to protect Canada.”

  “Attacking you! And only to cover up their own bad behavior.” She caught Avery under the arm to help him along.

  Avery, still holding his face with one hand, smirked. “No one will believe a word you say.”

  Daro took one step forward. Both of them staggered back.

  “I know what you were about here.” Daro stared straight into Avery’s face. “I don’t need anyone to believe me. I could throw you straight off the cliff face onto the rocks and watch the gulls rip your innards out, piece by piece.”

  Genevieve, as pale as the snow itself, gaped. Avery, pale as a ghost, grimly kept a grip on her arm.

  “If I catch you at it again, it’ll be a cliff for you. Understand?”

  Avery kept backing away. “We’ll call this a misunderstanding. We’ll go, we’ll leave it all alone.”

  Genevieve sneered at me. “Aren’t you ashamed?”

  The two of them walked slowly away from us and then toward the coast road in the chilly morning light.

  “Those men,” I wondered aloud.

  “Gone, I’d say.” Daro scanned the edges of the forest. “Even if they aren’t afraid to return to the beach, they’re probably afraid to return and face Avery.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  Daro touched my shoulder, soft as a sea breeze. “I’m glad you sailed with me again, Captain.”

  “The keeper?”

  He plainly had not thought of the man, either. He stumbled off toward the keeper’s cottage. He felt tired and sore, I guessed, beyond all the imagining.

  After all the events of the day, it was hard to believe it was little more than morning. We had done it, after all. I, exhausted beyond all measure myself, went to sit on a sun-warmed rock left high and dry by the retreating tide. Two fair-sized crab picked around a shallow tidal pond at my feet. A third scuttled around a bit of a puddle.

  After a while, Daro sank down in the sand beside me and hunched forward, eyes half-closed against the sun’s glare. “I could not find the keeper. He’s the only one who might have backed up our claims.”

  “What about those other men? Did you recognize anyone?”

  “None of them were locals. No one from around here would have thought anything about the odd effects of light on fog.” Daro leaned heavily against the granite boulder. “No islander would have run off in a panic because of a reflection.”

  “It startled me,” I admitted.

  “I think I shall never forget the blue glow around you, casting a spectral form out onto the bank of fog.” Daro stared out over the open ocean, as if the strange form might conjure up before us again. “Not one witness will ever forget.”

  I wanted to ask what came next, if we should pursue the other men we had seen, or if we might somehow replace the lighthouse’s beacon. I could not bring myself to trouble his rest, and remained silent, thinking of the long, long road home.

  Some hours before the turn of the tide, Daro and I sat cross-legged in the sand and cooked crab in the remnants of the bonfire. I think I have never tasted anything so fine.

  At last, we set off on the long walk toward McLellan’s Harbor. The fog lifted as the sea breeze came up. Daro offered me his arm. “I gave no thought to the return trip.”

  Nor had I—nor had I. We had run off to save the world and hadn’t given the return a thought. We began to walk. We strolled over the beach sands and went by the long crescent of rock ledge that held the keeper’s cottage, poised on a spit of land to the south.

  I paused. “The true light is ruined. It’s a danger, isn’t it? No navigational light.”

  “I’ll report it to coastal patrol. I’ll worry about the keeper, though.”

  I feared he had met some terrible harm, and at the same time, I couldn’t help walking out on the spit of land, toward the keeper’s cottage.

  “Wouldn’t it be magical to live right here, with a view out over the sea? It would almost be like living on board a ship, with waves right at your feet.”

  “Live here,” he repeated. “So far? No neighbors, no stores?”

  “It is near enough to visit.” I eased around the cottage for the eastern view. Our artist might never tire of this one place, had he but the chance to see it. White crested waves curled into a jagged rock barely yards from the shore. I eased around the building and southward, looking not over beach sands, but over a grassy bluff that plunged directly down to the sea.

  I waved at the magnificence before us. “There is a different view from every window of this cottage.”

  A call answered my words at once. “Help!”

  I think we both jumped.

  “The well!” Daro ran forward, calling as he went.

  The voice answered, croaking out ‘help’ again and again, until Daro suddenly shouted, “Donnall! Is that you?”

  It took man minutes to find rope and urge Donn to tie himself in and for us
to find some point of leverage, but at last, Daro had his friend safely up and out of the well.

  We were a long time getting ready to go, after that. Poor Donnall had been thrown down the well by the gang and had been scarcely able to keep above the frigid waters. Until he heard our voices, he had no idea the huge group of men had departed.

  To think he might not have called out, if we hadn’t wandered around the little cottage, instead of taking the road! Sheer chance brought us close to the keeper’s cottage and its fresh water well.

  Once Donn seemed able, we set off south. Poor Donnall! His temporary job had nearly killed him. I hoped poor Alma wouldn’t think of that. At least we would get him home, assuming we managed to get ourselves there.

  We followed the road inland, hopeful despite the distance.

  All at once, Daro turned around and pointed to the keeper’s charming dwelling. “What you said, about the lighthouse cottage? Did you mean it…truly?”

  “It would be like living on a ship, wouldn’t it? With waves crashing right at the doorstep. Like the day aboard the Thistle. I have so often wished our sail never ended.”

  He strode head-down with the silhouette of the rocky hill face behind him. He might have been made of the same granite. He didn’t look at me, but began speaking in a low, flat voice, filled with doom. “I wanted to be free. I want to look at the sky whenever I want.”

  I could only trot after him, wondering what he meant.

  “Captain, you’ve been a good friend, but meant so much more. I’ve been afraid. Afraid I can’t be good enough to be the sort of man…” he broke off.

  The blue of sky and sea swirled together through my mist of tears as I stumbled on. I could not let him see, as I struggle with my heart heavy and nothing before me but the road.

  “Fact is, I can hardly imagine a better life than a lighthouse keeper.” He stomped even faster. “Fact is, I cannot imagine you leaving.”

  I still scurried, fairly panting, as I said, “Well it’s a beautiful spot…” Wait. What?

  “I expected Oceanside to shut its doors and you’d go back to city and society, where you came from. I could resign myself to it. I steeled myself for it. I told myself it would be a relief.”