The Lighthouse Road(43)
"I guess it goes without saying this stays between you and me?"
"If you insult me one more time, I'll kick your lily-white ass."
"I'm a bundle of nerves. You can forgive me," Odd said.
"One last time." Danny finished his sandwich. "Anyway, most folks around here got their own secrets. They don't need yours any sooner than they need another month of winter."
Odd smiled.
Danny said, "I got no idea where you went, brother."
"Then I've got one more favor to ask."
"Shoot."
"How'd you like to squat here? Keep an eye on the place till I can figure out what to do with it?"
Danny looked appraisingly into the four dark corners of the fish house. "I wouldn't know what to do with all this luxury."
"Hey, now," Odd snapped. He smiled. "This is your chance to move to the big city. This place makes your bear's den look worse than it is."
"You'd know about bears' dens, wouldn't you?"
"I guess I would. I guess I would."
Danny smirked. "What are you going to do with this place?"
"I reckon I'll have to sell it. The farm, too. Maybe not. I don't know. Maybe we'll come back. Hopefully we will. I'm gonna talk to Mayfair before I leave." Odd finished his cigarette and stubbed it out. "I don't want to leave the fish house sitting here in the meantime, though. What if I said it's yours to keep if I don't have it figured out next year at this time? I could have Mayfair draw up some papers."
"What in the hell is with you? I don't need goddamn papers drawn up or money from your pocket."
"I'm sorry, Danny. I guess life seems a little more official the last couple of days."
Danny stood up. He looked again into the dark corners. "Hell, yes, I'll squat here. And you take all the time you need to decide what to do."
Odd offered his hand, which Danny shook firmly.
They worked through the night, Odd on his back under the boat, fumbling the propeller into place, caulking everything. Danny finished with the varnish. They'd switched from Hakonsson's home brew to coffee sometime in the middle of the night and between the fumes of the varnish and the caffeine both were jittery and twitchy.
As dawn neared Danny broke for a couple hours' sleep. Odd stoked the stove and closed the doors, hoping to warm the place up and hasten the drying of the varnish. He spent the time Danny slept working on the engine. He installed the ignition and battery, the twelve-volt generator, the starter. He double-checked everything against the manual, sealed for a second time the propeller shaft. Finally he poured a couple gallons of fuel into the fifty-gallon tank. He added the motor oil and primed the engine and stood in the cockpit, his hand on the ignition. The smell of varnish was still heavy in the air, but he'd moved all the rags and brushes outside, hefted the whiskey barrel out back and covered it. He thought he was safe. Thought there wasn't much to worry about.
He started her up, let her run for thirty seconds. The Buda coughed and sputtered but caught and ran smooth. Odd knelt at the motor box and adjusted the choke. Despite her purring he was full of doubt. He saw himself rowing the last ninety miles up to Duluth, or worse. But he also believed more than ever in his sense of urgency. Believed that leaving before the next daybreak was essential in a way that he never could have figured. Thought if they didn't he'd lose Rebekah forever.
The engine woke Danny and he stepped to the boat, his hair matted and damp from the heat of the stove. "You trying to cook me alive?" he said.
Odd had a distant and pleased look on his face. "It's time to put this thing in the water. I'll lay the ways, you get your brothers."
Danny donned his coat and left to fetch his four older brothers. Odd threw open the barn doors on Danny's heels. It was a gentle thirty-foot slope from the fish house to the boat slide. Between what was left of the Thanksgiving snow and the overgrown grass the ways sat up high. He had twenty cedar logs piled on the north side of the fish house, and he spaced them a foot apart. His original plan had included building a custom set of rails to winch the boat down to the water. But building such a contraption would have taken a full day and he didn't have the lumber for it anyway.
When Danny returned with his brothers they got right to work. As he removed the braces, Odd explained how they'd go three men on either side of the boat, shoulder it off the strongback and out the barn doors, then set the starboard hull onto the ways. Once they had it resting there, they'd tie lines fore and aft and use the winch to lower it down to the water. The hard part would be getting it onto the ways. He asked were they ready and lined them up under the boat and said, "Once we get this thing off the strongback, there's no setting it down until we have it on the ways, got it?" They all grunted and Odd said, "All right, on the count of three."