Good Night
Binnacle: the post that houses the vessel’s
compass and sometimes also the wheel
The crowd on the dock whooped their delight. The cannon boomed the winner.
Fathom and Wave Goodbye sailed into the harbour, barely four metres apart.
Daniel eased his sails and she righted. William and Harley fell on the banquettes.
Trenton pulled abreast and shook his head in disbelief. “You, you McCoys. You manage to … you always …”
Harley tossed him the magnet he’d used to throw off the binnacle’s compass.
William added softly, “Mr. Trenton, if you win, say little. If you lose, say less.”
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing. You’ll never find McCoy’s gold. If my father couldn’t find it, you sure won’t.”
“It wasn’t his to find, Mr. Trenton,” said William. “And it wasn’t your race to win.”
Trenton couldn’t answer. The weight of his defeat and treachery slumped him down on the banquette. His crewman spun them away from the harbour’s cheering masses.
The second wave of applause washed over the winning boat. Emmett brought the committee boat alongside. Reverend Straw- bridge handed Daniel the sailing trophy. William touched the silver band with his father’s name on it. Grandfather and grandson exchanged a smile.
Emmett gave his cousin a bear hug. “You sweet, righteous, hellraising reprobate. You have more nerve than a toothache.” Then he realized what he’d said in front of Reverend Strawbridge. “Sorry, Reverend, I just —”
“No, no, Emmett, you’re right. He is a sweet, righteous … reprobate.”
Harley gave her cousin a bear hug. “Thanks for, for saving the loft and everything.”
Daniel gestured to a nasty scrape Harley had taken when she fell overboard. “You best get that tended to.”
“Let’s all go ashore and have a pint at the Taffrail,” invited Emmett.
William was worried he wouldn’t make his meeting with McCoy. Daniel saved him. “Actually, Emmett, I’d like to get back and see Mary. Her husband hasn’t been around much of late. We’ll be there for tomorrow’s big dockside lunch and presentation.”
Harley jumped aboard the committee boat. Daniel, the quiet warrior, waved to the applauding crowd. He nodded his thanks for their support before sailing home.
-
The spokes on Fathom’s helm were tethered to keep her on course. William and Daniel stood together in her foredeck’s faint moonlight. Daniel’s house rose in the distance. The wind was light but steady, as if tired from the day’s efforts and emotions.
The wooden boat creaked. Daniel shot a glance up the mast. “He really did leave me a beauty of a schooner, didn’t he? A real winner?” He cleared his chest of a decades-old weight when he said, “I was afraid. That telegram he sent me in 1947? The one that said he was coming? I was afraid … to meet him. He was a father I’d longed to meet for so long. Then they said he killed Cavendish. A hero and a killer all wrapped up in one. I think you and Jack are right. He wasn’t the kind of man to kill someone. And I never gave him a chance to explain because I panicked. Something you didn’t do today when we were stuck on the mudbanks.” He gave William a sidelong smile.
“You don’t look frightened when you sail, Granddad.”
“Never afraid when I sail. Got that from my father too.”
A wistful look came over Daniel. He leaned into her stays. “He left me this beauty. It was all the affection time allowed him.” He looked to the sky and said, “Thanks for caring when you could.”
Where was the Real McCoy? Why was he taking so long to show up now that Daniel was willing to make up? What if he didn’t show up at all?
William rubbed his hands together nervously. Daniel misread it as William being chilled. “I’ll go below and get some food to warm us up. Mary gave us a Thermos of soup. Keep an eye open for any hazards,” he said, flicking his index to the bow that pushed further into the night’s darkness.
William sighed. McCoy materialized beside him.
“You took your time.”
McCoy winked at him. “After all these years of yearning to be set free, I indulged a few more minutes — my last aboard this grand, floating prison.” He patted the mast in a goodbye gesture. He ran his finger in the furrow dug by Cavendish’s bullet — so much history.
William untied the rigging knife. “I’ve got something of yours.”
“You keep it. You’ll have more use for it now. Nice race today. I’m glad to see you’re not afraid of the water anymore, William.”
William nodded.
“Thanks for setting me free.” McCoy started to fade.
William reached out to his waning image. “Wait!”
“It doesn’t work that way. Even pain and sorrow have a limited life.”
“But Granddad needs to see you!” cried William.
“No. I needed him to understand that — how did he put it, I cared when I could. He’s at peace with who I was. Now I can be too.”
“Hey, what about our deal?” asked William. “What did you hide for Granddad?”
“You’re standing on it — as sure as your father was his father’s son. And you yours.”
The Real McCoy’s image grew even fainter.
“Tell my father …,” started William.
The Real McCoy looked at him intently.
“I miss him,” blurted William.
“He knows.”
“Tell him I’m sorry I didn’t pull him out … even if it was too late.”
“He knows. Farewell. Fair wind.” The Real McCoy was gone.
William had so many questions. What had he meant with his message, Keelhaul?
Daniel came up the hatchway with two mugs of steaming soup. William wove his way back to the cockpit with the rolling gait of an old salt.
Daniel put the mugs down and hugged William. And William, in turn, wrapped his arms firmly around his grandfather, who gave William the triple-pat his father had given him.
“You and me, finding ourselves after all this time … is quite a haul. Quite a haul,” said Daniel with a smile.
William’s mouth dropped open. “It is a haul. It’s … Keelhaul, keelhaul. I think I’ve figured out the riddle. We have to pull Fathom out of the water. Right now, Granddad. Right now.”
They pressed her home through the Funnel.
A few minutes later, William and his grandfather dropped Fathom’s sails. They snugged her up into the boat cradle; Harley had winched down the rails for them.
“Okay, Harley!” yelled William. “Pull us in.”
The winch motor started up. The cable inched forward. Then a crack sounded in the night and the cradle listed slightly to starboard and stopped.
Grinding metal shrieked louder than a flock of seagulls. Smoke billowed out of the winch housing. Harley turned it off and shrugged.
William bolted down the hatchway. He came back up pulling on the mask and flippers Harley had used. With the flashlight in hand, he leapt off the deck with a splash and disappeared. He surfaced a moment later and called out, “One of the wheels on the cradle snapped.”
“Will,” Harley said, smiling, “you’re swimming.” He smiled and climbed back aboard.
Emmett yelled, “The motor’s not strong enough. She’ll blow a bearing.”
“Uncle Emmett, we need the tractor. Please,” shouted William. He tied a line off the bow and threw it to shore.
From up the hill came the roar of the tractor. Emmett was partway down the hill when the motor sputtered to a stop. Emmett threw his arms up in a gesture of resignation. “She’s out of fuel.” He jumped off. Mary left the veranda and walked down with him.
Harley hurried to the water’s edge. “Sorry, Will. There’s nothing strong enough to help the winch overcome that stupid broken wheel.”
William scanned the schooner. He studied the telltales on the stays. “Granddad, there’s an onshore breeze blowing, right?”
“A good one, yes,” said Daniel, not sure where William was going with all of this.
“Then we do have something strong enough: the wind and my father’s sails.” He patted his father’s blue and red stitching for luck.
Daniel watched him hoist the main. Realizing what he was about, he helped lay out as much sail as possible.
“Start the winch, Harley,” William yelled over his shoulder. Harley put it in gear. The boat didn’t move and the winch let out another cry of protest. The wind picked up. The sails stretched full out in support of William’s idea.
The power of the sails allowed the cradle to limp onto to dry land. Harley killed the winch. She tromped over to Mary and Emmett, who stood watching from shore. William and Daniel lowered the sails. William dropped to the wet sand glinting in the tractor’s headlights.
He crouched by a gash in Fathom’s keel. “Here! Look at this. I was right, Granddad.” They gathered around the keel where it had hit the ocean floor. A strip of gold shone in the gash. McCoy’s gold had been melted down and hidden in the keel.
“We must have cut the keel on a rock in the Funnel or the Gut,” explained William. “It was a riddle. He didn’t mean Keelhaul as in ‘he should be keelhauled.’ He wanted to tell you the ‘haul’ was in the keel.”
Harley added, “It went up and down and was hidden six feet deep.”
Daniel draped an arm around Mary’s shoulders. “Fathom! He wanted me to figure out that he’d hidden the gold six feet below deck in the keel.”
William nodded. “That’s why he wouldn’t let you sell it.”
With the tip of his knife, Emmett peeled back thin strips of wood. McCoy had fitted his melted gold into the keel. Emmett marvelled, “My God, I’ve never seen so much gold.”
William looked at Emmett and asked, “Do you think it’s worth as much as Dingle’s bank loan for Dad’s sail loft?”
Emmett shook his head no. “No, sir. No, sir, it’s worth more. A lot more than he needs to pay back the loan.”
“So we won’t need Trenton’s mortgage,” marvelled Mary.
“Daniel, what are you going to do with all this?” asked Emmett.
Daniel looked to Mary, then to William. “Well, the first thing we’re going to do is spruce up William’s bedroom.”
William, Mary, Emmett, and Harley stared at Daniel.
“Well, it’s not really geared up for him to move into — during the summer months. And holidays, if he wants to come. Should be a good place for a young man to come to if he wants to appren- tice in the sailmaking business.”
Everyone was quiet.
“And, if we did that, your mother might like to come more often. We would want your mother to feel welcome here, William. Wouldn’t we? We should call in the morning and ask her what she thinks.”
William grinned at Harley. “Shall we have some … hot chocolate?”
They burst into Daniel’s kitchen in a fit of nervous laughter, no one really able to take in the fact that they had found the phantom’s gold.
Emmett passed the bottle of rum they’d found to Daniel. He held it aloft and looked to his grandson. “Here’s to Jack McCoy … who made sails as strong as his son.”
Emmett and Harley joined in with a hearty, “Hear, hear!”
His grandmother had her arms around his grandfather’s left arm and leaned on it. She smiled to William as she wiped away a tear of happiness.
William thought back to his father’s words about his mother, the ones he’d read in his father’s diary. He thought back to his father’s sail loft. He was maybe eight, wearing the sou’wester, stand- ing on a chair in front of an old ship’s wheel on a binnacle his father had bolted to the floor. His father stood behind him. Both sang “Down by the Bay.” They pretended to sail in heavy weather as rain beat on the windows.
He remembered his father draping an arm over his shoulder. He recalled his father’s advice as he did homework in the loft on weekends and Wednesdays before Scrabble dinners at the pub. He remembered the man who had laughed as they’d driven to Lunenburg. They had come for William’s first race on that fateful trip with the man who had loved him as best he could for as long as he could. It wasn’t all the affection that William had wanted. It was all the affection time had allowed his father.
He looked up at the ceiling.
“I’ll be back in a while.” He patted his grandmother’s shoulder as he sprang from the room.
The moon had risen above the treetops and bathed the highway in a soft light. William brought his bike to a stop a few miles from his grandparents’ house. This was where the pickup had left the road and plunged into the ocean, where his father had died.
William dropped his bike by the side of the road. He looked out into the darkness. Waves clickety-clacked the stones up and down. He no longer hated or feared the ocean. He opened the box he had tied to his carrier and gently removed its contents.
He kicked off his sandals and rolled his pant legs. He waded in and placed his father’s model sailing dinghy on the water. “Thanks for caring all the times you could.”
The model’s sails filled. She pulled away from shore. He triple-patted the ocean and said, “Good night, Dad, I love you.”
A flow of emotion rippled the surface of this big, impartial body of water.