She nodded, said nothing.
Now he reached up and caressed her face. “Sit tight for a minute, all right? I’m gonna rouse Danny.”
Rebekah buried her hands in her lynx muff and lowered her chin into the collar of her cape.
Danny’s cabin made Odd’s fish house seem opulent. It was dug into a hill with a low ceiling, plank walls and floors, just enough room for his traps and hunting gear and a bunk. He warmed it with a woodstove that, as Odd entered, was glowing. Danny had heard the truck pull up and was already out of bed, standing there in his long johns, wiping the sleep from his eyes, a lantern lit at his bedside. “Christ, it’s early,” he said.
“I need help,” Odd said.
Without pause Danny was sliding into his dungarees, into his chamois shirt and wool socks. As he sat on his bunk to lace his boots, Danny said, “You got a mind to tell me more?”
Odd had rolled a cigarette and he lit it and offered it to Danny. He started rolling one for himself, said, “I gotta get the motor on the boat.”
Danny looked up. “At six o’clock in the morning?”
Odd lit his own cigarette. “It’s Rebekah.”
“What’s Rebekah got to do with the boat?”
“We’re gone, Danny.”
“You’re gone?” He nodded, arched his eyebrows. “This ain’t the best time of year to set sail.”
“I know that.”
Danny tied his second boot and stood up. He took his coat from a hook on the wall and put it on and said, “All right. Let’s get the motor.”
They stepped outside and Danny threw the latch on the cabin door, then climbed onto the bed of the truck.
By the time they got to Grimm’s the first sign of day was up on the eastern horizon. Odd parked behind the apothecary and Danny jumped out. Odd grabbed Rebekah’s arm before she could do the same.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“No.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m scared and confused. I’ve seen enough women deliver their babies to know to be scared.”
“But you’ve seen enough to know it usually turns out all right.”
“Usually,” she said. She bit her lip. “It’s not just the baby, Odd. It’s leaving all this.” She gestured up at the apothecary, out at the town. “I’ve lived here for twenty-five years. This is home. There’s Hosea.”
He took a deep breath, squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “We’re done with him now. We don’t need him. I’ll take care of you. You and our baby.” He put his hand to her face, caressed it gently. “You’re going to be there on Sunday morning.”
She turned her head slowly and looked at him. There was just enough morning light that she could see the wet in his good eye, could see the hard, cold, empty stare of his glass eye. She was grateful for that look, relieved that somewhere in her own fraying thoughts a voice told her yes. So she said, “Of course I am.” And then she slid from the truck and walked in the back door of the apothecary.
One of the first things Odd had done when he’d started on the boat was build a davit that could be attached to either of two posts he had set in the floor. From the davit he hung a three-pulley block and tackle and used it to hoist the keel onto the strongback. He’d used it for a dozen things since, and in the hazy light of that morning they rigged the largest of the motor crates with two twenty-foot lengths of chain and attached the chain to the hook of the block and tackle and pulled the crate up onto the boat’s deck.
Danny shouldered one of the smaller crates over the gunwale and then peered into the boat. It had been a while since he’d seen it. “You’re gonna have this thing in the water in two days?” he said.
Odd didn’t stop working. “Yup. That’s my plan.”
“It’s been an awful warm November, I’ll give you that. You’ve got time before the ice sets.”
“The main thing, besides the motor, is another coat of varnish.” Now he paused, stood with his hands on the gunwale looking over the edge at Danny. “I’ll pay you twenty dollars to do the painting.”
“Like I’d take your goddamn money.”
“Well, I ain’t gonna let you do it for free. I know you’ve got better things to do.”
“I got a couple days to spare. I’m here to help.”
“I ain’t asking you to do this,” Odd said. “I wouldn’t ever expect it.”
“I know that.”
Odd reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out his wad of
cash. He peeled back a five-dollar bill and handed it to Danny. “For turpentine. Klaus Hakonsson sells it out of his shop.” Odd checked his watch, peeled another fiver from his roll. “He must be open by now. Take the truck. Get the turpentine, then stop at the dry goods and buy us some things to eat for the next couple days. We’re gonna be a couple of hungry sons of bitches. Make sure you get coffee. And braunshweiger.”
“And onions, in that case.”
“We’ll be some fine-smelling soldiers.”
Danny was gone for two hours. When he returned Odd was out front of the fish house standing over an open fire. A charred pot hung from a cast-iron tripod over the flames. He had sawhorses set up off to the side, and on the plank that spanned the sawhorses buckets of pine tar and Japan drier sat ready. Danny put the cans of turpentine on the makeshift table and went back to the truck for the groceries. When he was done unloading he came and stood beside Odd.
“Some sort of witches’ brew?” Danny said.
“It’s linseed oil.” Odd pointed at the cans and buckets behind him. “That’s our varnish. It’s time to get the brushes going.” He looked up at the dull morning sky, judged the sun’s spot behind the clouds. “Must be about eleven. I’ll be sleepless these days.”
“I’ll keep you company. Got us a little something extra.”
“Something extra?”
“A case of Hakonsson’s home brew.”
“Maybe I ought to be stealing you away, Riverfish,” Odd said, a wry smile creeping.
“I don’t put out the way your gal does, be clear on that.”
Odd’s smile went full. “Not many do, brother. Not many do.”
By noon the boat was wiped down, the varnish brewed and cooling in an empty whiskey barrel. They worked in unison, Danny painting the hull while Odd puzzled out the motor. It came with a twenty-page manual that Odd had all but memorized over the previous days, and by suppertime of their first day working he had the main engine mounted in the motor box and the vanadium-steel shaft threaded through the skeg and coupled to the engine.
The fish house smelled of the varnish, pitchy and fresh but strong, so they opened windows and the big barn doors. At midnight they broke to eat and crack beers.
“When are you going to fill me in?” Danny said.
Odd had a mouthful of braunschweiger and onions so he finished chewing and took a long pull from the home brew and said, “Well, Rebekah’s in the family way.”
“Oh, hell.”
“Naw, it’s a good thing. It’s getting us out of here.”
“Rebekah wants out of here?”
Odd took another pull on his beer. “She’s scared.”
Danny shook his head. “Careful, making a lady do what she don’t want to.”
“Who said that?”
“Never mind. Where are you taking her?”
Odd nodded. “We’ll go to Duluth first. See what I can shake out. See what happens in the springtime.”
Danny nodded. “You better hope for no wind come Sunday and Monday.”
“I’m hoping.”
They ate in silence, popped a couple more beers. When Odd finished his sandwich he rolled a cigarette and pushed himself off the counter. He took a long drag on his smoke.
