by Jody Hedlund
“You can’t seriously be considering his offer,” Ryan whispered, his brown eyes wide with disbelief.
Arnie’s ears were apparently big enough to hear Ryan’s muffled words. The young man glanced up at Ryan, and for the first time he seemed to notice that Ryan was unclad down to his suspenders and undershirt, and that Caroline was wearing nothing but a quilt and nightgown. A rush of fresh red crawled up Arnie’s neck and ears.
Caroline hugged the quilt closer, inwardly berating herself for not having the foresight to put her clothes back on before stepping outside with Ryan. She hastily retreated to the stone steps of the house. “I’ll seriously consider your offer, Arnie,” she told him over her shoulder, though she was looking at Ryan rather than Arnie.
Ryan’s brows shot up.
“You’re a sweet man for caring what becomes of me and my family.” Her attention flitted back to Arnie. He stared at Ryan again, and this time there was the glint of a knife blade in his eyes. The hostility flashed for only an instant before getting lost in the usual simplicity of his expression.
It gave her pause since she’d never seen anything but kindness in Arnie. “Could I have a little time to think about your proposal, Arnie?”
He ducked his head and nodded. “I’ll d-do anything for you, Caroline.”
At least someone would. She gave him a smile before letting herself into the house. Once the door closed behind her, she sagged against it, and a sob welled up and drowned her smile.
The sob unleashed a flood of anxiety so strong it rose into her throat and choked her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm herself before she lost the ability to breathe.
“Oh, Father,” she whispered, “why did you have to leave us?”
If only her father hadn’t gone out that day in the storm. If only she’d been born a boy. If only she had more time to make plans . . .
Helplessness washed over her, making her want to slide to the floor and curl up into a ball.
At the voices of the others in the kitchen, she swiped at the wetness on her cheeks and straightened her shoulders. She had to stay strong for everyone else. They depended on her. They wouldn’t be able to survive without her.
“God is good.” Her father’s gentle voice seemed to whisper the words in the dark recesses of her mind. “All the time.”
If her father could believe it, even with all he’d suffered, then she could too. Couldn’t she?
Caroline paced in front of the boathouse and glanced again at the darkening sky. Now that summer was over, the nights were growing cooler and longer. Darkness was settling earlier each evening.
It was past time to light the lantern.
She halted and attempted to peek through the boathouse door, open only inches, but it was too dark and crowded inside for her to see anything clearly.
Where was Ryan, and why wasn’t he coming out to light the lantern?
She’d considered going up and lighting it herself, but she hadn’t wanted to overstep her bounds. She wasn’t the keeper anymore. He was.
She couldn’t chance angering him, not now, not when she needed to stay in his good graces so that they could continue living in the house temporarily.
“Mr. Chambers,” she said into the crack. “Are you awake?”
The only sounds were the low chirps of the crickets beginning their nightly chorus and the rattling of the wind among the long marsh grass. She looked up at the dark tower windows and nibbled her lower lip. She couldn’t wait much longer.
Had something happened to the man?
“Mr. Chambers,” she said louder, giving the door a shove. It creaked open. The mustiness of damp wood and the staleness of lake water greeted her. She raised her lantern over the interior of the shed.
Squeezed between crates and buoys, Ryan lay on a tattered army bedroll, his shirt bunched up for his pillow. He was on his back, one arm thrown across his eyes, with his injured hand resting gingerly next to him, draped over a wooden cross made out of driftwood.
She moved the lantern closer, casting light over his unmoving frame. The sleeve of his undershirt had risen up to his elbow, showing a dozen slashes and scars scattered across his arm above the puckered skin of what was left of his hand.
Her breath caught, and her own arm pinched with phantom pain at the thought of what he’d experienced. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the torture he’d suffered with his injury. From the stories she’d heard, she knew Ryan was relatively unscathed compared to many of the men coming home from the war.
Even so, she had to swallow and look away from his arm to quell the churning in her stomach.
“Mr. Chambers,” she said softly, focusing on his face instead of his arm.
He didn’t budge.
She pushed at his bare foot with her boot. He gave a soft moan but didn’t awaken. “You need to get up. It’s time to light the lantern.” She glanced around the tiny shack. Should she whack him with an oar? Maybe that would wake him.
Her attention landed upon his leather satchel lying on the pallet next to his injured hand. The flap was open, revealing a dark bottle.
She crouched, picked it up, and sniffed. At the pungent scent of whiskey, her nose wrinkled. She sloshed the bottle, guessing from the feel that it was more than half gone.
Her heart plummeted with a growing sadness she couldn’t explain. She returned the bottle to the satchel, and in the process her fingers grazed a smaller vial. Too curious to resist the temptation to pry, she slid it out and examined it.
The bottle had no label. But it rattled as if about half full of pills. She slid a glance toward Ryan’s sleeping face covered with his arm. Then she popped the cork off the vial, tipped it, and let several pills spill into her palm.
Opium pills.
Ryan gave another moan and removed his arm from his eyes, his hand automatically going to the cross at his side and clutching it, as if he were in the habit of holding it. But his eyes remained closed. And she could only surmise that he’d lost consciousness from the combination of whiskey and pain pills.
He would obviously not be waking up any time soon.
She stared at his unshaven face, at the blond strands of hair that fell across his forehead. On the one hand, she had the urge to smooth the hair back. From the brief encounter she’d had with him, she guessed he was suffering from more than just physical wounds, that his pains went much deeper.
But on the other hand, she had the overwhelming urge to slap his cheek and give him a rude awakening. It was his sacred duty to light the lantern each night. If he couldn’t manage to pick himself up off the ground and do his job, then he shouldn’t have agreed to take it.
She dropped the vial of pills, not bothering to put it back in his satchel, not caring if they spilled all over his bedroll. She pushed down the anger that had been building inside her all day.
It wasn’t fair. She’d done a nearly flawless job lighting the lantern. She’d taken care of it with the tenderness of a mother with her babe. Everyone for miles around could attest to her unswerving duty these past months. And here was this newcomer, this intruder, who couldn’t get himself up the tower steps to light the lantern the first night on the job.
She wanted to scream at the unfairness of the situation.
Somehow he was supposed to be better than her, more suited to the work, simply because he was a man?
She spun away from him, strode out into the fading evening, and slammed the shed door shut with a force that caused several shingles to fall.
“He’s worthless!” she cried, her chest aching with frustration. “Absolutely worthless. And he probably doesn’t know a thing about how to work a light either.”
She crossed the grassy yard to the tower. Her ire swelled with each step, until she was stomping like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum. But she didn’t care.
Ryan Chambers didn’t deserve the keeper position at Windmill Point Lighthouse. And she most certainly hadn’t deserved to be fired from the job, only to be replaced by someone as
inept as him.
“It’s not fair!” she cried again before yanking open the passageway door.
She stepped inside, but then halted at the base of the staircase that led up the tower. Maybe she should just go back into the house and let Ryan take responsibility for his job. If he didn’t want to make a point of lighting the lantern, then that was his problem. Not hers. Maybe then Mr. Finick would hear about Ryan’s irresponsibility and decide to let her stay after all.
With one foot on the bottom step, Caroline stared up at the underside of the winding metal stairway.
A battle raged in her heart for only a few seconds before the anger dissipated like a storm after it had unleashed its fury.
She felt strangely tired and old. With a sigh she forced one foot up after the other, the cast-iron steps pinging with each slap of her boots.
If Mr. Finick fired Ryan, he wouldn’t let her stay. He’d only find another man to take the job. The truth was, her time at the lighthouse was through. And she needed to accept that, no matter how hard it was.
The other truth was that she couldn’t leave the lantern unlit—not as long as she had breath and the ability to climb the stairs. She would go up and keep the light burning, no matter what. Sea captains and sailing vessels depended upon the Windmill Point Light for their safety. And she’d never willingly put them in danger. Not even to spite the man who’d taken her job away from her.
She loved the light too much to ever neglect it.
She halted halfway up and pressed her hand against the cool brick wall. For a moment she imagined that she could feel its pulse, the tower’s lifeblood pumping through the walls, beckoning her to remain strong and steady.
Her legs trembled, but she nodded and then continued up the stairs. She needed to stay strong.
Chapter 7
Ryan’s mouth stunk, like a rat had climbed inside and built a nest there. His throat was parched, and his head pounded. He stumbled across the grass toward the tower. “Idiot,” he berated himself. “You idiot.”
The faint light of dawn was showing pink on the eastern side of the lake. And he’d shirked his duties by hours.
When he’d awoken from his medicated stupor, his heart had squeezed with panic. First he’d realized someone had rummaged through his satchel and taken out his pills. The clinking of pills against the glass indicated they were still there. He’d been relieved, but only for a moment, until he’d remembered where he was and why. The panic had returned like a cavalry stampeding toward the front line.
He’d forgotten to light the lantern last night.
“How could you be such an idiot?” He cursed himself again and paused at the causeway door to glance up to the lantern room. The flashing beam prevented him from seeing anything inside the room. He knew right away who had been responsible for lighting it, even though it was now his job.
He hesitated at the doorway. Should he knock? It wasn’t his home yet. And after last night’s neglect of his duty, he wasn’t sure it should ever be.
A fresh burst of remorse pushed him forward through the door. He forced himself into the tower and up the stairs, each step jarring him and sending shards of pain through his head. When he reached the ladder that led the last distance up, he paused and pressed his hand against his temple to fight off dizziness. How would he be able to climb the stairs each day on multiple occasions without causing himself intense pain?
His heart sank at the thought, but he forced himself forward. One-handed, he started up the ladder and hesitantly poked his head through the hatch. The lantern room was empty.
He released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and finished ascending. He didn’t know much about lighthouses, but he knew enough to understand that the light at the center of the room was a small sixth-order lens, the smallest light designed for lighthouses. He’d expected a larger lens for a station located in such a strategic position, one that handled the heavy commerce of boats traveling around the horseshoe of Michigan from Chicago to Detroit and on to Buffalo.
He could tell that Caroline was an immaculate keeper. The floor was swept, the windows were spotless, and the brass base polished until it shone. Even the oil can sitting on the floor near the light had been buffed to a coppery glow.
The half door that led to the gallery swung open, and he took a quick step back, bumping into the round metal wall. Caroline stooped to enter through the low door. Once inside, she straightened and flipped her loose hair over her shoulders before she caught sight of him.
She gave a start, and her eyes rounded. “Mr. Chambers.” The surprise was then replaced with a look of censure.
“Aye. It’s me.” He squirmed and wished he’d thought to run a comb through his hair or soap down his face. He could only imagine how he must appear. “I’m sure I look like a dead man who’s risen from the grave.”
She didn’t respond except to purse her lips together.
“I probably smell like one too.” He wasn’t sure why he was attempting humor. In fact, he was certain he’d lost his sense of humor when he’d lost over half his company that bloody day at Gettysburg.
She held a long nautical spyglass in her hands and had obviously been out on the gallery scanning the lake, keeping watch on the ships that relied upon the light for their safety. Her cheeks were pink from the coolness of dawn, her hair mussed from the wind. She was entirely too pretty.
He couldn’t resist sliding a hand through his hair, although he knew it was a feeble attempt to make himself presentable. He was as disheveled on the outside as he was within. He hadn’t cared before, hadn’t given his appearance a second thought for months.
But under this woman’s scrutiny, he couldn’t keep from fidgeting. Had she been the one to come into the boathouse and rifle through his satchel? If so, she would have seen the awful truth about the kind of man he’d become.
“I overslept,” he offered. “I guess the ride out here from Detroit wore me out.”
Her eyes only narrowed at his weak excuse.
Aye, he had no excuse. He should have woken up in time to light the lantern. “It won’t happen again.”
“I hope not.” Then she shrugged almost as if she didn’t believe him.
“Thank you for lighting it for me.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for them.” She nodded curtly toward the lake.
The condemnation in her tone added to the guilt already weighing upon him. He couldn’t keep from thinking about the oath he’d taken when he’d accepted the appointment to Windmill Point Lighthouse. He’d promised to carry out the assigned duties with energy and enthusiasm, and to serve loyally and honorably. So far he’d failed on all accounts. Caroline had every right to scold him, even though she was obviously refraining from doing so.
“Since you’re here now, I’ll leave you to your work.” She bent to retrieve the oil can and then stepped toward the hatch.
He glanced at the lantern, to its gears, weights, and wick. How was he supposed to turn it off? And when?
She brushed past him and lowered herself through the narrow hatch in the floor.
“Wait,” he said, unable to stop the panic from creeping into his voice.
She paused on the top rung and refused to look at him.
He couldn’t very well admit he had no idea what he was supposed to do, could he? She was already angry enough that he’d taken away her job. She’d hate him if she realized Mr. Finick had replaced her with an idiot. Sure, his sister, Emma, had shown him how to turn off the Presque Isle Light. But he’d never done it himself.
“What?” she asked, finally lifting her eyes. The sadness in their depths socked his stomach.
He wanted to tell her he was sorry. But he already had, and saying the words again wouldn’t make the situation any better.
There wasn’t anything that could make the situation better . . . except maybe if he left. But he couldn’t leave. Not yet. Based on the salary Mr. Finick had quoted, Ryan figured he needed to work about a year to s
ave up enough. And even then, he’d probably not have all that he owed.
“I need this job,” he said, the deathly white face of the nameless boy rising up to taunt him.
Caroline’s eyes radiated with accusation. “You’re not the only one who needs a job, Mr. Chambers.” And with that she disappeared through the hatch.
He stared after her, fighting the urge to retreat, to give in, to let her have the post. He didn’t really want it. All he wanted to do was go back to the shed, quench his thirst, and return to a world where he didn’t have to think or feel anything.
Shame heaped onto the guilt and made his knees weak. What kind of man had he become? He muttered a low curse at himself. He was exactly the kind of man he’d sworn he would never become. He’d always told himself he’d never end up a no-good drunk like his dad. He’d always told himself he wouldn’t hang on to the pains of the past and let them control him like his father had.
Yet here he was, a wretched excuse for a man.
Anguish smoldered inside him. “Oh, God, why didn’t you take me? Why didn’t you let a better man than me live?”
He’d asked himself a thousand times why God had spared him when so many of his comrades had died. He hadn’t deserved to make it through the war when there were men with wives and children waiting for them back home, better men who were far more deserving of life.
“I can’t do it,” he said aloud with a bitter tone. “I’ve already injured one family. I can’t bring heartache to another.” He would leave. He’d go down and tell Caroline she could have her job back.
He took a wavering step toward the ladder, but the faint light spreading over the horizon stopped him with its beauty. Slowly he moved to the east window, rested his forehead against the cold glass, and stared into the distance. The swirls of pink and orange broke through the darkness and cast a warm glow upon the still waters of the lake.
He stood motionless and stared at the beauty of light in the darkness. The peace of the sunrise cracked through the storm clouds in his soul. Turn to me, a gentle voice seemed to whisper. I’m all you need.