The Lightkeeper. Susan Wiggs
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disjointed and huge. “She probably lost her husband in the wreck.”
A knot of guilt formed in Jesse’s throat. He should have been more patient with the woman. “I left word with the harbormaster to find out the name of the ship that went down. We should hear something today.”
He hated this part of his job, hated it with a virulence that made him all the more determined to battle the sea for its victims. The waiting always got to him. He despised the course of events as it unfolded. The harbormaster would check all the schedules and manifests. Which ship was expected in the area? When was it due in port? Was it late? Then would come a list of the crew and passengers. And at each new stage of discovery, new grief would arise.
“She didn’t tell you the name of her ship?” Magnus asked.
“She didn’t even tell me her name.” Jesse set down the bucket of oil and sat on the floor, his feet resting on a rung of the ladder leading down to the mezzanine. “We barely had a chance to exchange words. Then she—I guess she overexerted herself and she sort of got dizzy and had to go back to bed.”
Magnus peered at him through so many layers of glass that it was hard to tell where the real Magnus was. “Overexerted? Now, what do you mean by that?”
The feeling of guilt sharpened. The sea—not a defenseless woman—was the enemy. He should be doing everything he could to help her. Instead, he’d let her presence stir up old, forgotten feelings inside him. None of this was her fault.
“She got upset,” he said.
“And what upset her?” Palina asked.
“The picture flash must have startled her. She has a bad temper.”
“Ah.” The tone of Palina’s voice spoke volumes.
“So you no longer hold the market on tempers,” Magnus added.
“I don’t have a goddamned temper,” Jesse said.
Palina rolled her eyes.
“Palina,” Jesse began.
She laughed. She was one of the few people who dared to laugh at him. “Captain Head Keeper, you would lose your temper if a leaf fell across your path. And this young woman is more than a leaf—”
“That’s it,” he said, getting up. “I’m moving her to your house today. You can take care of her. I clearly lack the proper temperament to minister to our delicate young guest.”
“No,” Magnus said. “You must keep her. When a man saves someone’s life, he is bound to ensure her survival. Whatever she needs, you must give her. Whatever it takes to heal her, you must provide. To disregard this would be terrible for you both—”
“—for you all,” Palina added.
“—in ways you cannot even imagine,” Magnus finished.
“That’s superstitious horseshit, and you know it,” Jesse said.
“It is the law of the sea, and I’ll not be the one to challenge it,” Magnus insisted. “Will you? Will you take that chance, risk losing her? Just so you can have your life back the way you want it?”
“Maybe I will.”
“Maybe you will not,” Palina said, thrusting her chin out stubbornly and dipping her polishing cloth. She attacked the next panel with savage relish. “What if you move her and she dies, eh? Then how will you feel? This woman is a gift, Jesse Morgan. You know why she came. Do not look fate in the face and deny it.”
A cold shaft of foreboding lanced through Jesse. He gazed out at the blue-gray horizon, then at the waves below the lighthouse. Foam creamed the rocks, seething in and out of the blackness.
A whistle sounded, startling him. It was Judson Espy, the harbormaster, riding up on a naggy-looking, dapple gray mare.
“The sea hasn’t given me a goddamned thing,” Jesse snarled. “Except a pain in the ass until we figure out who this woman is.” He clattered down the iron helix of stairs. Perhaps Judson had the answers he sought.
Judson met him halfway across the yard between the lighthouse and the forest. He waved a sheaf of papers. “Interesting irony here.”
“What’s that?” Jesse hung back, wondering what ill tidings he would hear.
“There was a schooner-rigged four-master bound for Shoalwater Bay for a load of oysters. It left San Francisco with some trade cargo and was supposed to call at Portland. Never arrived.”
Jesse crossed his arms, bracing himself for the news. He turned to look out at the sea, endless and infinite in its bounty—and in its power to destroy.
The story was all too common. The hungry maw of the Columbia River swallowed ships with great regularity, spitting out the remains like undigested skeletons along the beaches. “Do you have a list of passengers and crew?”
“Uh-huh.” Judson handed him a list. “Came over the telegraph wire.”
Jesse groped in his shirt pocket for his spectacles. Putting them on, he studied the list. Each time he did this, he was hurled back to the day he had stood on the river dock, frantically scanning a ship’s manifest, hoping against hope that a mistake had been made, then feeling the world explode when he saw his wife’s name.
“You all right?” Judson asked.
Jesse swallowed hard and glared through his spectacles. “All crew. No passengers?”
“Nope. That’s the entire list.”
He scanned the names, seeking something overtly Irish, like O’Malley or Flanagan. “You think she could be a seaman’s wife and they just forgot—”
“They never forget. Look at the name of the ship. At the shipping company.”
His gaze drifted to the bottom of the page. Jesse felt as if a noose were tightening around his throat. The noose of a past he wanted to forget. “It was the Blind Chance.”
“You remember it well, don’t you?”
“The Blind Chance is a ship-of-the-line for the Shoalwater Bay Company.”
“Your own company, Jesse. They never make mistakes on the ship’s manifest.”
“It’s not my company,” he said dully.
“Not anymore, I guess.” Judson took the list from him. “But it hasn’t changed much since you left. That partner of yours keeps everything shipshape. What was his name again? Flapp?”
“Clapp. Granger Clapp.” Jesse hadn’t thought about Clapp in years. But then again, he hadn’t thought about anything in years. Not Granger. Not his sister, who had married Clapp. Not his parents, away on a two-year grand tour of Europe. Not anyone.
Jesse wouldn’t let himself care.
“So,” Judson said, peering inquisitively at Jesse. “What do you think it means?”
“Either the woman was aboard unauthorized—”
“A stowaway!” Judson snapped his fingers. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Or she wasn’t on the Blind Chance, at all.”
“She had to have been.” Judson showed him another page. “Look. The keeper at Cape Meares recorded seeing the ship’s stern lights at one-twenty in the morning on Sunday. She was logged in at Tillamook Light at four-forty. And you found the woman at what time, six? Seven?”
“Thereabouts.”
“She was on that ship. On the Blind Chance. Had to be. As a stowaway.” Judson shifted from one foot to the other. “Damn, this is a hell of a story.”
Jesse put away his eyeglasses. “We ought to let the papers make the most of it, then. I took her picture. Have Bert Palais run it. And send it