They walked into a grand dining room. Thirty tables under white tablecloths, fine silverware, and napkins folded to look like swans. Sargent chose a table at random and hung his coat over the back of a chair and removed his hat. He sat down and motioned for Odd to join him. It wasn’t more than a minute before a waiter appeared before them.
“Gentlemen,” he said.
“I’d take a cup of coffee,” Sargent said.
“Two,” Odd said.
The waiter nodded and left.
“I’m a boatwright myself,” Sargent said. “Sloops and cutters, once in a while a runabout or skiff. Build a lot of boats for members here.” He spread his hands before him, suggesting the boat club.
“Is that right?”
“For more than ten years now,” Sargent said. He coupled his hands on the table in front of him, leaned in. “I’ve never seen a boat like that one out there. What’s it for?”
“I’m a fisherman,” Odd said, the half truth of it caused his stomach to drop.
“A fisherman from Gunflint wintering up in Duluth?”
“My wife and I, we’re honeymooning.” He felt his voice falter.
“I might have chose Key Largo,” Sargent said.
“I never even heard of Key Largo.”
“I suppose not.”
The waiter brought a tray with two cups of coffee. He set one before each of the men and then set a bowl of sugar cubes and a creamer between them.
Sargent said to Odd, “You want a Danish? Some eggs?”
“I’m fine with the coffee.”
Sargent turned to the waiter. “How about a couple of Danishes?”
Again the waiter nodded and left. Sargent doctored his coffee with the cream and sugar. He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket, offered the pack to Odd, who took one. Sargent struck a match on his boot sole and lit his cigarette and offered the match to Odd. They both took long drags and sat back in their chairs.
“Mostly it’s yachtsmen and rowers belong to this club. You’re paying ten dollars a month for what would cost ten dollars for the whole winter upriver.”
Odd looked through the cigarette smoke at Sargent, whose eyes were even more forbidding inside the boat club.
“It was the first place I saw entering the harbor last night.”
“I see,” Sargent said. He took another long drag from his cigarette. “Where are you and the missus staying?”
“The Spalding Hotel.”
“Nice place.”
“Awfully so,” Odd said.
They sat in silence until the waiter brought the pastries. Sargent took an enormous bite, took a long drink of his steaming coffee.
“What kind of motor’s running that boat of yours?”
“A Buda. Company out of Illinois.”
“Six-stroke?”
“Four. She don’t speed along, but usually the fish are waiting for me in the nets.”
Sargent smiled. “Most of the fishermen I know between here and the Soo fish in skiffs. What you got is more like a lobsterman’s boat.”
Odd took a final drag from the cigarette and stubbed it out. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Sargent. He was feeling defensive, as though Sargent suspected him of something. “I’ve been a herring choker almost as long as you been building boats. Spent enough time soaking wet to want a little dryness. So I built a bigger boat with a cockpit. Here I am.”
Harald Sargent only nodded, took another bite of his Danish.
Now Odd shifted in his seat, leaned forward instead of back. “I’m not sure I understand you, Mister Sargent. I’ve got the feeling there’s something you’re wanting to say.”
“You should come take a look at my shop.”
“I’m not really in the market for a new boat.”
Odd felt pierced by the boatwright’s gaze, by those eyes as heavy as granite seeing right through him. In a way it was a relief. Sargent stubbed out his own cigarette and finished his Danish. “Son, you’re spending money faster than you could throw it into the lake. On a fisherman’s wages — if fisherman is what you are — you’re going to need a job. I make no judgments. I don’t even want to know what you’ve left behind or where you think you’re heading. But if you honestly built that boat, then I’m in some sort of company. I got a crew of seven and I need eight. Even if it’s only for a few months, through the winter, I could use the help. I’ve got two dozen boats to deliver by springtime.
“Now'—he leaned forward again, knocked the tabletop with his big knuckles—'you steal one single screwdriver, one drop of paint thinner, I’ll throw you right out the back door.” His look softened. “But if you’re ready to live an honest life, making an honest buck, and if you can be up this early every day, then come see me.” Sargent reached into his coat and withdrew his wallet and from a pocket in his wallet took a business card. He handed it to Odd. “We’re the last stop on the Oneota-Superior line, on the west end, out at the mouth of the St. Louis River.”
Odd looked at the business card. He wanted to say thanks. Instead he flicked the card against his finger, said, “The coffee is on me, Mister Sargent.”
Harald Sargent stood up. He took his coat from the back of his chair and pulled it on. “Are you familiar with the good book, Mister Eide?”
“We’ve got believers down the shore.”
“Are you one of them?”
“There’s plenty I believe in.”
“But plenty you don’t?”
Odd shrugged.
“Because I’ve seen that boat of yours, and because I can tell you’re a decent fellow, I forgive your mother for not showing you the way of the Lord. But the words of scripture are succor in the worst of times, and I’ll leave you with this wisdom from King Solomon.” Sargent raised three fingers. “
Odd wanted to say something, anything, but Sargent’s words and his look steadier than ever made him dumb. Instead of speaking he nodded, knowing certainly, as he watched Sargent walk away, that he would find the shop the next morning.
Odd was still sitting there when the boatyard custodian came into the dining room. He told Odd that his boat was on the rack and that he could now retrieve whatever it was he needed. Odd thanked him and laid some coins on the tabletop and followed the custodian out into the boatyard. There was a ladder leaning against his boat and Odd climbed it and went to the thwart before the motor box. He lifted the seat and removed the lid from the false floor inside and from within that secret compartment he removed a small metal box that held within it a roll of cash money and the diamond ring he’d bought off old man Veilleux when his ancient wife had passed in July of that year.
He climbed down off the boat and watched as a crew of three boatyard custodians covered his boat with a canvas tarp that flapped in the stiff breeze until thirty or more cords of rope held it tight. Then he walked back toward the gondola, where he waited to cross the canal again. By the time he returned to the Spalding Hotel there was two or three inches of snow on the ground and no sign of it lightening.
