The Lighthouse Road(5)

He spent those hours fighting sleep and swearing there had to be a better way. Hosea had it all figured out. Send a sap like him out to fetch the goods, give him a hundred dollars for his trouble, then turn around and distribute the rye for ten times the runner's share. That was five hundred dollars a week easy in Hosea's purse. And that on top of his other schemes.



"I just need my boat," Odd said to himself. Now he was using the sound of his voice to keep him company. "A bigger boat and I can fish more and deeper and make the run up to Port Arthur myself. Pocket the five hundred and to hell with Hosea Grimm." He even figured he could work with Marcus Aas and his brother, figured they'd be damn near friendly if they weren't tussling for the same scant share of Grimm's whiskey dollars.



The lightning quivered again and he could see the hills above town. He could see, from the top of the next wave, the lights of town. Twice as many now in the hour before light as there'd been in the hour of his leaving. No doubt the other herring chokers were up now, standing on the shore, taking stock of the lake. Most of them would leave their nets for another day. He would if he were standing ashore, reading the water.



But he'd been out in worse than this, he told himself. Last March, his first haul, northerly seas so sudden he'd been thrown half from his boat. He'd lost a boot in the bargain. Theo Wren's boat had come back without him that day. He'd orphaned two little boys and widowed his wife, Theo had. "Yes, sir," Odd said aloud, "that storm was worse. I'll be home in half an hour."



And he was. His watch read four forty-five behind the blurry crystal. As blurry as he himself was. He managed to navigate the skiff into the cove. But even as he coasted across the gentler sheltered waters he could still feel the swells lifting and settling him. He steered the nose of his skiff onto the boat slide and tied her quickly to the winch line and on unsteady legs hauled her out of the water.



He removed the Evinrude from the boat and set it on the grass ashore and then one at a time he rolled the whiskey barrels up and over the transom, let them roll into the cove and then floated them in knee-deep water to the very crux of the cove and the large boulders that sat there. He wrestled the barrels ashore and then rolled them behind the rocks. He'd deliver them that night. Now he sat atop one of the barrels and caught his breath. For a moment he looked at the dark silhouette of his fish house, sitting under the tall pines, his place in the world. He'd built it himself. Paid for it and built it with his dollars and his sweat. And him come from nothing.



Before he went inside he put the Evinrude back on the transom. He brought the gas can up to the fish house and set it at the foot of the steps. He walked to the boat slide and checked the knot and line holding the skiff. And last thing, he took the teakettle from under the slide, walked the hundred paces to the whiskey barrels, and cut the oakum from the top of one of them. He pried the lid from the barrel, the aroma oaky and fine. He dipped his finger into the hooch and brought it to his lips and licked his finger. That taste alone made the whole night worthwhile, he felt sure of that.



"But we'll take this for good measure," he said aloud, and he dipped the teakettle into the barrel, filling it to the brim.



He hammered the lid back onto the barrel and carried the whiskey to the fish house.





He wasn't expecting to see her inside but was glad when he did. Sitting under the open window, in the guttering candlelight, her hair down the way he liked. There she was. He stood in the dark corner of the fish house looking at her, she looking back. Neither spoke. It occurred to him, as he untied his bootlaces and kicked them off, that the candlelight was doing the same work inside that the lightning had been doing out: throwing just enough light to lead him where he needed to be.



Before he went to her he stopped at the end of the workbench he used as his kitchen counter and found two clean coffee cups. He poured a finger of hooch into a cup, swallowed it quickly, then poured another finger in each.



He stopped short of her, stopped short of the light from the candle, stood there with the coffee cups. His very favorite thing was to watch her rise, to watch her long arms and legs and hair simply move. She moved— in the middle of the night, in candlelight— with the almost imperceptible slowness and suppleness of the seiches.



When she flipped her hair and looked down, he said, "What's this, Rebekah?"



She glanced up at him, pouted. "Only a fool who didn't care about anything would have gone out on that lake tonight."



"A fool, you say?"



"A proper fool. Yes."



He stepped to her, set the coffee cups on the floor, and lifted her from the chair on which she sat. "I'd never convince you or anyone I wasn't a fool, but I didn't have a choice. I don't make that run and Marcus Aas does, then he wins favor. Aas wins favor and I lose the skiff. I lose the fish house —" his voice trailed off. He thought better of saying, I lose the fish house and we've got nowhere to go.