“Speaking of Sawyer,” Roland said loudly as he stepped from behind the counter to greet Mr. Evans, “how are you doing, friend?”
The two men shook hands as if long parted instead of fellow business owners in the same small town.
Jesse scooped up his letters, ready to leave.
“Figured I’d better check in with you once I got the word.” Sawyer shook his head. “Dreadful news.”
“What news?” Jesse asked.
The two men stared at him.
“Didn’t you hear?” Roland asked, looking at Sawyer. He cleared his throat. “Are you from Chicago?”
“On the south side.”
“Beyond the river?”
In other words, away from the lakeshore and the wealthy homes, but Jesse sensed Roland wasn’t trying to shove him into a social class. “Yes.”
Roland breathed out what could only be a sigh of relief. “The city burned, but, from what the ship’s crew said, most of the area south of the river was spared.”
Jesse shook his head in disbelief. “What do you mean the city? A few buildings?”
“No. The heart of the city. It’s gone.”
Jesse tried to take it in. The shock was staggering. If only he could talk to Louise. Louise! For a second he wondered if she had family there, but then he remembered she hailed from New York.
Roland was talking to Sawyer. “I’m sure we’ll get word from your parents soon.”
Sawyer’s expression was grim. “If the reports are right, their home will be gone and the business will suffer. Any word on your extended family?”
Roland shook his head. “Not yet. It’s early. I’m just glad my mother and father weren’t alive to see this. It would have devastated them.”
Jesse couldn’t concentrate. If what Sawyer said was right, then Pa’s hovel would have been spared but had the shipyards survived? If his father was working at the time, then he could have perished. As great as their differences were, Jesse didn’t want his father to burn to death.
“The wharves?” he managed to choke out.
Both Roland and Jesse stared at him. Apparently he’d interrupted.
Sawyer answered. “From what I hear, the fire went out the government pier, but the wharves will be the first thing they get operating.” He looked to Roland again. “You know what this means.”
Roland nodded. “They’ll need lumber. Lots of it.”
“I expect Stockton will run both mills full-time and maybe add a third. It’ll be a boom like you’ve never seen before.”
Jesse was stuck back on the stunning news about Chicago. “I can’t believe it.” Again he wished for the comfort that Louise could offer.
“The lighthouse is going to be crucial,” Sawyer said. “Every ship available will be carrying wood to rebuild Chicago.”
All plans of marriage slipped away in the face of this news. He had to find out if his father was all right, and he had to find out now.
* * *
Days slipped past while many waited for word from Chicago. Not only Louise’s students, but also Sawyer Evans, the Deckers and half of Singapore had friends and family there. Every incoming ship sent people scrambling to the docks. Every messenger from Holland buoyed hope that a wire had gotten through.
Few could focus on the ordinary when their attention was riveted on the extraordinary happenings. Towns decimated, livelihoods erased, a great city nearly wiped out. At first the girls talked excitedly amongst themselves, as if to reassure each other that nothing had changed. Each sent a letter at first opportunity. Even Linore and Dinah, who had no parents to contact, wrote to someone in that great city whose welfare lay heavy on their hearts.
“Sawyer is beside himself,” Fiona confided to Louise as they waited for the latest steamboat to come alongside the wharf. “He can’t focus on anything and yet he doesn’t want to disappoint anyone. I told him we must cancel the Christmas festival. I hope you aren’t upset.”
“Of course you must cancel it.” Louise clasped her friend’s hand. “Family is far more important than business.”
Fiona breathed out a sigh of relief. “I told Sawyer that you would understand. Others have been equally understanding, especially Roland and Garrett.” She eyed the brothers standing with the rest at the dock.
“They’re from Chicago, aren’t they?”
“Nearly everyone here knows someone in Chicago.”
“Except us,” Louise pointed out. “We four all hail from New York.”
“Where is Jesse from?”
A flash of fear coursed through Louise. “I don’t know.” Odd that he had never mentioned where he grew up or lived before coming here. His father was still alive. Considering Jesse wasn’t pacing the docks like the rest, maybe he hailed from another town.
Fiona must have noted the same thing. “Maybe he’s from elsewhere.”
Louise hoped that was the case. Those with relations in Chicago had suffered mightily waiting for word.
A moment of silence passed while neither knew what to say next.
“If Sawyer receives bad news, I will have to go with him to Chicago,” Fiona said.
“I understand. You can count on me to keep the school operating.” Yet she could not look at her friend, could not bear to see the distress. How it must hurt to see the one you love suffering.
Fiona was strong, though, the strongest woman Louise had ever met. “If the students receive bad news and must leave, I will have to close the school, at least for a while.”
This was what Louise feared most, yet what could she say? Maybe the news would be good, and the school could continue as usual.
“We’ll pray for good news then.”
Fiona nodded, but Louise could see the strain in her expression. She wasn’t revealing everything.
“What happened?” Louise asked gently.
Fiona tossed her head, sending her red curls dancing. “Good news, in a way. Mr. Stockton sent word that both mills will be running full steam by the end of the month. Roland expects new lumbering crews to arrive within the week. Sawyer is needed at the sawmill.” She hesitated. “It’s a good income.”
Louise knew what that meant. Fiona and Sawyer needed the money. “Then he should take the job.”
Fiona squeezed her hand. “I knew you would understand. But it means I’ll have to spend most of my time at the hotel. If the students stay, can you run the school?”
“Of course.” It would be a lot of work, but Louise didn’t fear labor. Moreover, it would only be for a short time. Soon winter ice would stop the logs from floating downstream. “It will all work out for the best.”
Once the ship was secured, the gangway was extended. The crowd pressed close. Though the store expected merchandise, the rest hoped for word from loved ones or business associates.
“Any mail?” one man shouted, issuing in a chorus of people asking the same question.
Soon no one voice could be distinguished from the rest, all speaking louder and louder to try to overcome the din.
Louise pressed a hand to her right ear, which ached in the cold and from the racket. “This is hopeless. I can’t hear a thing.”
She began to retreat, but a man elbowed past her, pushing her away from Fiona.
A loud whistle quieted the crowd long enough for Roland to shout out that any mail would be taken to the mercantile.
That only sent the crowd and Fiona in a new direction. A rough man, likely a lumberjack or sawyer, pushed past. Louise stumbled, and the loose sole on her shoe caught in between the dock planks. Down she went, to her hands and knees, while all around her the crowd rushed. A knee jolted her shoulder. A careless hand knocked off her hat. Louise hunched over, protecting her face with her arms, and the terrible memories returned.
Warren had come hom
e drunk and in a rage. When she set the warmed supper plate before him, having dismissed the housekeeper hours before, he threw the plate against the wall and then demanded a different meal. She was no cook and could not even attempt what he wanted. When she told him as much, he pummeled her with his fists until she crouched in the corner in much the same position as now. After flinging hateful slurs at her, he retired to his study and, she did not doubt, more drink.
That time she sobbed in the corner, bruised but alive. Today the unheeding crowds stampeded over and around her.
Then a single voice broke through the fear and the noise.
“Stop! Stop! You’re hurting her.”
Jesse.
The darkness of the past slipped away, brightened by a man of courage and valor. The crowds heeded him and moved away from her. Then she felt his hand on her shoulder and his presence as he knelt beside her.
“Are you injured?”
His gentle voice brought tears to her eyes. Jesse cared. He had rescued her from the fire. He had carried her to safety. No one else had cared if she lived or died since Papa’s death.
She nodded, her throat too constricted to speak.
“I’m sorry about your hat.” He handed her the trampled remains of what used to be her good hat.
She took the hat. The ribbon was detached, and the straw brim had been ripped. The crown was flattened, and the blackest dirt ground into the straw. It could not be salvaged. How on earth would she be able to afford another? She blinked furiously to keep back the tears. With tragedy all around, what was a hat? No one would look askance if she appeared in church with her everyday hat.
“Can you stand?” Jesse asked.
She took a deep breath. The crowd had largely gone. Doubtless they now filled the mercantile. “Yes. Yes, I can.”
Jesse stood and offered her his hand.
She put her hand in his, ruing for a moment that she wore gloves and could not feel the warmth of his skin against hers. Where had that thought come from? A moment before she had feared for her life, lost in the pain of the past. Now she dreamed of Jesse Hammond holding her hand. Heat dusted her cheeks with what she knew was a rosy glow.
“Thank you,” she breathed.
Jesse smiled at her and then brushed at her hair.
She caught her breath, surprised by the tenderness in that gesture.
“A stray lock,” he explained.
She couldn’t seem to look away from those deep blue eyes. A person could get lost in them. How he could smile at her was a mystery. She must look a lot like that trampled hat. She touched her hair and felt a tangled mess. “Oh, dear. I must look a sight.”
“A pretty sight.”
Now she truly was blushing. “You’re too kind.”
But instead of answering her, Jesse started and looked past her. “Pa? What are you doing here?”
* * *
After a moment of stunned silence in which Pa looked hurt by his question, Jesse managed to find a better greeting.
“You’re safe, Pa! We heard about the fire. Everyone’s been worried.” Jesse had never been one to reveal his emotions, but relief coursed through his veins, their longstanding differences forgotten.
Pa’s weather-beaten face stretched into a smile. “I am. Good to see you, son.”
The two men clasped hands and then ended up in a brief welcoming embrace that including clapping each other on the back. Pa’s “pat” would’ve knocked the wind out of a lesser man.
“Still working the wharves?” Jesse asked, wondering why his father had come so far just to let him know he had survived the fires.
“It’s gonna be busier’n ever pretty soon. Mason—that’s the mayor—is talking rebuilding as fast as they can get stone and lumber to the city.”
It was exactly as Roland had predicted.
“Then I’ll be busy here at the lighthouse.”
Pa glanced at Louise who was still standing near, though she had moved a few steps back.
“That’s what I come to talk to you about,” Pa said. “Care to introduce me to your lady friend?”
Jesse’s chest tightened. Louise wasn’t the kind of “lady friend” the men on the wharves talked about. Neither could he let on how much she meant to him, not until he knew where she stood.
“Mrs. Smythe is a friend,” he said carefully, sticking to the facts. “She stumbled, and I helped her up.”
Louise’s expression tightened, and the spark went out of her eyes. She turned to Pa. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hammond. I must rejoin my friend.”
After a nod at Jesse, she hurried off, leaving him to wonder if he’d thoroughly botched matters. He’d have to explain later. Pa was a rough man. He’d always been that way. Jesse had never understood what his gentle, cultured mother saw in him. Perhaps Pa had been dashing as a younger man. Maybe he’d once spoken of dreams with the starry-eyed hope of youth. Maybe he’d simply been so opposite from her upbringing that she rebelled against her strict parents. Whatever the reason, that gentle woman had wed a man whose rough edges only got sharper after marriage. Life in a two-room flat became reality. Cursing, drinking and frustration followed. Then she died, and Jesse had only his father.
“Got someplace we can talk in private?” Pa said. “This town must have a tavern.”
Jesse clenched his fists. “You know I won’t go in those.”
“Then at your lighthouse?”
“It’s not mine,” Jesse pointed out while trying to envision where on the property he could get any semblance of privacy. For that matter, the town didn’t have any place private either, aside from the hotel dining room. “Are you hungry? We could get supper at the hotel after getting you a room.”
“Don’t you have a spot for your pa at your place?”
Jesse gritted his teeth. “I only have a single bed. You can sleep while I’m working, but the room’s not big enough for two.”
“We can make do, son.” Pa clapped him on the shoulder again. “We always did.”
“I was a boy then.” He quickly calculated his father’s objection. “I’ll pay for the room at the hotel. You’ll be more comfortable there, since I work the midnight shift.” He eyed his father. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“Tryin’ to get rid of me already?”
“No, I’m busy.”
He and Pa had never gotten along. Pa considered him too soft, too much like his mother. He insisted Jesse needed toughening up, which meant hard labor, rough language and drinking. Jesse didn’t mind the hard work, but he had no use for the rest.
“Don’t worry, son. I’ll be catching the first lumber boat back to the city.” He picked up a canvas sack that had been leaning against a dock post. “Let’s get that grub and go over my big news.”
Jesse looked around. No one except the ship’s crew was near. They’d all gone to the mercantile. He led his father toward the hotel.
Once they were out of earshot of anyone, Jesse said, “This is as alone as we’re going to get. What’s your big news?”
Pa grinned, revealing crooked teeth and a gap where one had either been pulled or knocked out in a brawl. “I been working for the customs collector lately. He let me know, all confidential-like, that there’s an opening comin’ up at the South Manitou Island Light.”
Jesse halted as the impact hit. “A head keeper position?”
“That it is.”
Jesse marveled that his father had come all this way to give him this news when a letter would have sufficed.
“Thank you,” he choked out.
Pa grinned. “I kin get your name at the top of the list, if you know what I mean.” He jingled some coin in his pocket.
Jesse set his jaw. Bribery. Something very much like that had sent 1700 to their death near Memphis. “I don
’t pay bribes.”
“Who said anythin’ about bribin’ anyone?” Pa whined. “I’m talkin’ a little incentive, is all. You’ll never get nowhere if you don’t give a man a reason ta choose you over the others.”
“I don’t have that kind of money.”
A wealthy man could easily outspend the paltry amount Jesse could provide.
“It’s a good post. Pays plenty since it’s one of them island lighthouses you’re so keen on.”
It was tempting. The dream that had lurked for so long in the fringes of memory could become a reality. Head keeper at a remote lighthouse. There he could escape the world and all its troubles. There he could make his own life, alone. Except no man could operate a lighthouse by himself. He would need an assistant or a wife.
“Is there an assistant there?”
“Don’t think so.”
“When does the post come available?”
“I heard the man’s retirin’ next month, at the end o’ the shippin’ season.”
That soon. Jesse drew in a breath, and with it came a flood of excitement. He could begin anew, but to get prime consideration he needed a wife—and soon. That eliminated all those letters and made the path crystal clear.
At last he had something of substance to offer a woman like Louise. As head keeper, he would have more than a room. He would have a house and ample provisions, not to mention a better wage. It might not be all she’d been accustomed to back home, but he hoped it would be enough.
Chapter Eighteen
At the school, the long-anticipated letters arrived, and each brought good news. Priscilla’s family had escaped unscathed. The fire had burnt near their home but had not touched it. Adeline and Esther’s homes weren’t as fortunate, but no one was injured. Adeline’s home had suffered damage while Esther’s had been leveled. Both families had retreated to their summer cottages.
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