By Friday it had rained almost solidly for two days. It wasn’t the rain so much as the fact that he had lost all his cash in a card game on the first evening that caused the time to drag slowly for Logan. There was nothing to do, and the rain forbade any casual exploration. The weather notwithstanding, he had toyed with the notion of a walk up the hill to Stonewycke. But he ruled out the idea on the grounds that a man doesn’t brave a severe storm merely to enjoy casual conversation about a virtually unknown relative who has been dead some sixty-odd years.
Around midmorning, however, the clouds began to break up. Logan hurriedly finished his breakfast, grabbed his coat, and headed outdoors. That afternoon, if the weather held, he would walk up to Stonewycke. He’d simply excuse himself on the basis of needing to stretch his legs after the storm had forced him indoors for so long—a perfectly acceptable excuse. And he would time his visit so that he might be able to wheedle a dinner invitation in the process.
Until then, and with his encounter with Jesse Cameron in the back of his mind, he wandered down toward the harbor. Some thirty or forty boats, ranging from six-foot dories to hundred-foot vessels, were tied up to the docks, gently rocking up and down in the decreasing swell. Apparently he had not been the only one to notice the changes overhead, for the whole place was a bustle of activity, the fishing community apparently determined not to let this lull pass them by and go to waste. Shouts from dozens of fishermen, the clatter of gear being hauled aboard the boats, and the purring from some and the sputtering from other engines warming up filled the salty air. A few of the sailors who had been involved in the card game shouted friendly greetings to him. They had every reason to be friendly, thought Logan; they had each profited greatly from his foolishness. He would not underestimate their acumen at cards the next time.
Just then a more feminine call, though by no means softer, rose above the others.
“Weel, Logan!” called out Jesse Cameron. “So ye decided t’ give us a look. Welcome t’ ye!”
“Thank you,” replied Logan. “Trying to squeeze in some fishing between storms?”
“We got t’ make a run when we can,” she replied. “But they say it may hold fer a day or twa.”
Jesse was perched aft near the wheelhouse of a 50-foot double-ended craft called the Little Stevie. She momentarily turned from Logan and shouted to a crewman who was bent forward, with a frustrated scowl on his lined and weathered face, over the winch.
“Hoo’s it goin’, Buckie?” she called. “We dinna want t’ be the last ones oot.”
“I got it,” he drawled uncertainly. “But I dinna ken if it’ll hold wi’ the weight o’ the fish.”
“You’re about to be taking off?” interjected Logan.
“Aye, that we are!” answered Jesse. “We got t’ take advantage o’ e’ery minute possible.” Then swinging back toward Buckie, she said, “I’ll do it. Let’s get underway.”
Suddenly there was a flurry of activity as the crew of three sprang into action. “Hurry up, yoong fella!” Jesse called to Logan.
“What?” replied Logan, puzzled.
“Ye’re comin’ wi’ us, arena ye?”
“I . . . I don’t—”
“’Tis what ye’re here fer, ain’t it?”
“I hadn’t really intended—” began Logan, feeling very uncharacteristically like a tenderfoot whelp.
“Come along!” Jesse interrupted, and reaching out a sturdy arm, hauled Logan aboard the Little Stevie before he had a chance to object. Logan looked about him, feeling altogether useless and out of his element—and not enjoying the sensation. Even Luckie, favoring her injured foot but otherwise appearing none the worse for the wear, was scurrying about as if she were an invaluable member of the crew.
Jesse quickly took up her position in the wheelhouse, Buckie cast off the remaining lines, and Jesse began maneuvering the boat out of the narrow mouth of Port Strathy’s harbor. Logan braced his body against the starboard rail; he hoped he had not let himself in for more than a day at sea; he had heard of these boats spending days, even weeks, on the water before returning. But never one to brood over the lot life might cast him, if he was going to sea, he would enjoy himself.
The sharp, pungent sea air proved invigorating, as if it could scrape clean the cloudy residue of a spotted city life. The sight of the great wave of fishing boats was moving indeed. Within twenty minutes they had broken free of the neck of the harbor and found themselves surrounded only by the white-capped azure sea below, and above, a blue sky, marked heavily with white and gray clouds which still seemed uncertain about their future. With the wind tossing his hair and beating against his face, Logan found that he could appreciate just such an outdoor life, however alien it was to him. There was the same freedom and challenge here that he relished on the streets of London.
He turned and watched Jesse through the window of the wheelhouse. Yes, he could see it in her eyes, that same flash of enthusiasm which he’d seen pass through old Skittles’ eyes as they embarked on their con in Pellam’s. It was a thirst for adventure, the love of the chase, the pursuit of the quarry with nothing to rely on but daring, wit, and skill.
Yes, he and Jesse Cameron could hardly appear more dissimilar on the surface. Yet down inside, they were the same. Her life was spent chasing the fish, and fighting against those who would take her self-respect and personhood from her because she was a woman. He, on the other hand, sought more elusive prey. But they were each driven in the same way, though perhaps toward different ends.
His thoughts were shattered as the mistress of the vessel shouted out several more orders. He could feel the excitement even in her voice. He could almost imagine that she was old Skits, setting up a con to lure the fish into their nets. In another couple of minutes Buckie replaced her at the wheel and she joined Logan where he stood.
“Ye’re a city fella, ain’t ye?” she asked.
Logan nodded.
“Weel, ye look as though ye can take the water. There canna be another life like it!”
“I half believe you,” replied Logan, laughing.
“Ye’ll be a believer by the time we dock this evenin’.”
“We’ll be out only a day?”
“Aye. We’re only rigged fer a short haul. What do ye ken aboot boats?”
“Very little,” said Logan. “I have gathered that this is a fishing vessel, however,” he added with a grin.
Jesse let forth a great, booming laugh, as hearty and invigorating as the crisp air. “Ye’re a good sport, mate!” she said.
“What kind of fish are we after?”
“We’ll take what we can get,” replied Jesse. “After a storm like this, wha knows what’ll blow oor way. The Little Stevie is a drifter, an’ we used t’ gill net the herrin’ wi’ her. But I converted her into a side-trawler so we can fish fer cod or haddock in the spring.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Doon in Aberdeen they’re findin’ trawlin’ t’ be more productive. I’m thinkin’ that after twa centuries or so, the herrin’s gettin’ wise. Some folks’ll keep gill nettin’ till they drop. But I’ve always kept my eyes open t’ new advances.” She paused and rubbed her hands together. “Come on in oot o’ the wind fer a spell, an’ I’ll pour ye a cup o’ hot coffee.”
They went into the wheelhouse where a wooden bench large enough to seat two or three was strung against the aft wall. Jesse found a large thermal flask and poured out three tin cups of steaming brew.
“I drink coffee at sea,” she said, handing one of the cups to Buckie at the wheel and the other to Logan. “These flasks are handy inventions, but they jist dinna do justice t’ tea. I’ll brew ye a proper pot o’ tea after we cast the net, if there be time.” She took a large gulp from her cup, apparently impervious to the burning of the liquid. Logan felt rather dainty by comparison as he cautiously sipped at his.
“I’m curious,” he said at length. “Most boats seem to have feminine names. How did yours come by such an unusual epithet?”
A soft smile enveloped Jesse’s lined mouth as a tender look filled her eyes. Logan would have thought from her expression that they were sailing on a glassy sea under a warm summer’s sun. And perhaps it was just such a day that now filled her memory. “My husband closed the deal on this boat the day after oor son was born. So we, o’ course, named it ‘Little Stevie’ after the boy.”
“And your husband was big Stevie?”
“’Twas the boy’s grandfather . . . my own father, Stevie Mackinaw.” She said the name almost dreamily, and with a touch of sorrow.
“Have you been in fishing all your life?”
“Oh no,” laughed Jesse. “I’m new at it compared t’ most o’ the folks ye find hereaboot. My daddy came from a long line o’ crofters. They were tenants right on the Stonewycke lands fer generations. They herded sheep an’ scratched oot a few bushels o’ oats a year on the poorest piece o’ moorlan’ ye could imagine. Hoo they did I’ll ne’er ken. Finally when my daddy was but a lad an’ orphaned at that, the laird turned him oot.”
“Just like that? After generations?”
“Wasna a crueler, more arrogant man than James Duncan, the laird then. Figured he couldna turn a profit w’ jist a lad workin’ the land—an’ wha kens but maybe he was right. It might hae killed my daddy had he kept workin’ that rocky groun’. As it was he wandered aboot, homeless an’ penniless, an’ near t’ starvin’ ’cause he was too prood t’ take handoots. Finally, na that lang after James Duncan died, the Lady Atlanta found oot what had happened, an’ gave my daddy a small piece o’ land o’erlooking the coast, atween Strathy Summit an’ the toon.”
“These are the same Duncans that inhabit the estate now?” asked Logan innocently.
“Aye. But they’re a different breed, these are.” Jesse refilled the tin cups, then handed the flask to one of the other hands out on deck. Coming back inside she took up the end of the conversation where she had left off. “They love the land as much as the rest o’ us. An’ Lady Margaret always did care. Somethin’ different aboot that lady. Why, my daddy used t’ say that when he was a lad—”
“He knew Lady Margaret back then?” Logan nearly spilled his coffee, but struggled to keep up the nonchalance of his exterior.
“Only as weel’s a crofter could know the daughter o’ the laird. There werena all the mixin’ then like ye see nowadays. But Lady Margaret took a special likin’ t’ my daddy’s mother, an’ the family in general. He always said ’twas ’cause o’ her that he taught me the ways o’ the Lord as he did. T’ tell ye the truth, I always fancied that my daddy was a mite in love wi’ Lady Margaret. I think that’s why he married so late in life. But I guess fate was against him, though I’m sure the Lord’s hand was in’t as weel, ’cause a year after he married, his wife died havin’ me. I brought him sorrow from the day I was born.”
“You must be exaggerating,” said Logan, intrigued.
“I ne’er took t’ the land. I always sat on the cliffs an’ looked oot t’ sea. He shouldna hae been surprised when I married a fisherman. ’Course I was only a bairn, hardly sixteen at the time, an’ it meant me leavin’ home, ’cause Charlie was one o’ them itinerant fishers, hirin’ himsel’ oot fer seasonal work. My daddy was none too happy an’ I left wi’oot very frien’ly feelings atween us.”
“I’m sure he’s very proud of you now.”
“He’s been dead some four years noo,” said Jesse. “Luckily we patched it up when I came back after my Charlie died—that was in 1919, after the war, ye ken. We had some good years t’gether, Daddy an’ me. The Lord used the loss o’ my husban’ an’ son t’ mellow me oot some—made me learn t’ appreciate all the things a yoong girl used t’ scoff at.”
“You don’t mean you went back to a farming life like your father?”
“Na, na,” replied Jesse. “I meant the things my father used t’ tell me when I was yoong that I had nae use fer then. Things aboot God an’ nature, aboot God’s love fer His children, things we’ve all heard from oor mothers an’ fathers, but which we pay no attention t’. Till we get older an’ wiser, perhaps—an’ then we start rememberin’ an’ seein’ the truth o’ it. Or until some catastrophe smacks us in the face an’ makes us listen. I don’t know why we willna listen till we get oorsel’s int’ trouble. But it took the loss o’ my Charlie an’ my boy t’ wake me up.”
“And even after what happened to them, you stayed in fishing?” asked Logan, trying to change the direction of the conversation off this uncomfortable subject.
Jesse rose and crossed the small open space of floor to the wheel where she stood next to Buckie, looking out on the vast expanse of blue all about them.
“It grows on ye, Logan,” she said wistfully. Her gaze out toward the open sea, and her contented sigh said the rest.
Some time before noon the Little Stevie crept to a stop. Jesse told Logan they were ready to shoot the net over the side.
He found a place well out of the way, then watched as the crew expertly lowered the trawl, by means of rope suspended on gallows hitched to the starboard side of the boat. Jesse and Buckie were giving particular attention to the troublesome winch located amidship. To Logan’s untrained eye everything appeared to be going smoothly, but Buckie looked none too pleased. Once again he attempted some adjustments on the winch, this time with screwdriver in hand.
When the net was finally in place, Jesse disappeared and Logan guessed by the steam emitted from the smokestack that she was firing up the engines. When she rejoined him, the Little Stevie was again underway, this time with one of the other crew members at the wheel.
“Noo we can relax a wee,” she said. “We’ll trawl fer three or so hours afore we haul in the catch. Time t’ give oor attention t’ the galley—I hope ye’re hungry.”
Logan had hardly thought about food until that moment. But with the suggestion of a meal he realized he was starving. At the same time it dawned on him that the undulating sea had in no way affected his insides as it had on the schooner. Mentally he patted himself on the back and began to wonder what fortunes a man of his unique talents might make aboard luxury ocean liners.
Jesse set a fine table, even in the cramped galley, which was located directly under the wheelhouse. Smoked fish, oatcakes, and fresh tea heated over the engine boiler, at that moment tasted as fine to Logan as any meal he had taken in London.
He liked the company too. If Jesse had an occasionally overbearing nature, her warmth and forthrightness softened any other rough edges. Perhaps she was just a coarse version of Molly Ludlowe. No doubt that was why he had in this short time felt such an attachment to her. He found himself talking to her as he would have to Molly or Skittles, and a time or two caught himself just as he was about to reveal too much of who he was and what he was about in Port Strathy.
And when he slipped back into his familiar ruse of hypocrisy, he could not keep back a surge of unfamiliar guilt, as if he were—of all things!—actually lying. The experience was novel to him, and most disconcerting. But he managed to salve these pricks of conscience by telling himself that when he found Digory’s treasure, he’d buy Jesse Cameron a new boat—one with a modern diesel engine and motorized winches and even radio equipment. She had talked about them, and had gone so far as to show him a picture of one she had clipped from a magazine and pinned up in the wheelhouse.
“Dinna ken what I’d do wi’ a radio, though,” she had laughed. “Don’t know who else in the fleet’d be able t’ talk t’ me. Not a single one o’ them has radios neither, except the MacD, an’ he’s never oot when the fish are runnin’, anyway.”
But Logan thought to himself, I’ll get the whole fleet radios!
That morning he hadn’t given the welfare of Port Strathy’s fishing fleet a moment’s thought. But now he felt oddly bound up in their well-being. Shortly, that bond was to grow yet stronger, as the invisible forces working upon the soul of young Logan Macintyre zeroed in on him ever more closely.
It came about two hours after they had eaten.
Buckie had earlier noted that the wind seemed to be picking up, though at the time all had agreed they still had time for another hour or two’s trawl. And the few other boats they could see in the distance seemed to be holding. But by half past two the sky had blackened and the Little Stevie was riding ten-foot swells. There was nothing else to do but haul in the net and head for home. Every hand was needed by this time, as the wind now suddenly whipped up to double its force. The battle of net, fish, and human strength pitted against wind, wave, and rocking boat was a torturous and dangerous one. As Logan lent his inexperienced hands to the task, he noticed for the first time in his life how soft they were.
Halfway through the job the rain began to fall. Now the ropes became twice as difficult to handle, and the decks too slippery to get a strong foothold. To seasoned fishers, such hazards were commonplace enough, and with one’s wits firmly intact, presented no obstacle which could not be dealt with. Logan, however, was hard pressed merely to remain upright, and all the more to shoulder his share of the increasingly heavy and cumbersome load.
The foul weather had one positive point, though. The fishing grounds that day had been especially fertile, and the net was bulging. Logan had taken a position near the starboard rail, holding a rope fast while two of the other men swung the net past the starboard stanchion in order to lift it in—all the while the wind swinging it murderously overhead. At the very moment when the heavy load was at its apex over the deck, the winch gave way from the weight and added tension of movement.
Suddenly the rope gripped in Logan’s hand lurched forward without warning.
“Let go!”
Scarcely hearing the shout, Logan found himself yanked off his feet; even the rubber boots Jesse had fitted him with could offer no traction on the wet deck to prevent him from altogether losing his footing.
In another instant he was flying overboard, then plunged into the icy sea.
As an angry wave engulfed him and pulled him under, his first thought was that now he wouldn’t be able to get Jesse a new boat. His second was the realization that he couldn’t swim. And the third, following almost instantly in succession after the others as his head broke through the surface only to be overwhelmed by another wave, was that he was going to die and never see his mother again.
Again his head bobbed to the surface. Logan gulped for air, but took in little more than a mouthful of the freezing salt water. Frantically he looked around for the Little Stevie, but could see nothing except water and sky. He tried to yell, but only a sputtering gurgle emerged; his panic-stricken lungs were already filling with the salty water. Another huge wave crashed over him, and all went black. Floundering and flailing to reach the surface, the only sensation he could afterward recall was the sense of being pulled upon by an evil force intent upon drawing him down . . . down . . . down.
Gradually the will to fight slackened. He could feel the downward force tightening its grip. He began to relax. It would be so much easier to give in . . . to let it have its way with him. If only he could just go to sleep . . . then he could be warm again . . . then he could wake up and everything would be—
Suddenly a strong pair of arms wrapped themselves around him. These were not the arms of the downward force. These arms, though he barely felt them, were strong and were pulling him up . . . up . . . out of the sea!
Within seconds after he had gone over, Jesse had a life rope around her waist and had plunged over the side after him. And though Logan’s benumbed senses told him he was not being rescued because he was still surrounded by thousands of fish, in fact he now lay on the deck in the midst of the catch of the day.
He must have lost consciousness for only two or three minutes, for Jesse was still pounding his back and pumping sea water from him when he awoke. He rolled over, then coughed and gagged for a few moments, but it was some time before he could speak. When words finally came out, they were little more then a weak wheeze.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped.
“Hoots!” exclaimed Jesse. “’Tis my own fault. I should hae known better than t’ place ye there!”
The incident had given the toughened sea woman a scare as nothing else could. It had been many years since her husband and son were lost to the sea, but she still had occasional nightmares in which she pictured them floundering helplessly in the icy North Sea waters. Her son had been but ten at the time, and he’d now be nearly Logan’s age if he had lived. The thought made her shudder, and also angry with herself for not taking better care of her young guest. Thus her gruff tone contained more hidden meaning than Logan could have guessed. As Jesse looked at Logan lying before her, in her mind’s eye he was her own son. And it would be a sensation she would long remember.
She and Buckie helped Logan below, where Buckie found him some blankets and dry clothes, then poured him a cup of hot tea. After changing out of her own drenched things in the wheelhouse, Jesse poked her head in to see how he was doing. He looked up over his second cup of hot tea with a solemn expression he seldom wore.
“I owe you, Jesse,” he said in a tone to match his look. “I’ll repay you somehow. I won’t forget.”
“There’ll be nae talk o’ repayin’,” she replied crustily. “At sea everyone gives their all—that’s what’s expected o’ us. Couldn’t survive no other way.” But beneath her words, the voice of Jesse Cameron betrayed that she, too, had been touched by the emotion of the incident. To save a fragile human being’s life, for the fragile human animal, may be just as awesome a thing as to see your own snatched from the very door of death. In any case, neither would Jesse soon forget this day. Perhaps the heartaches of her own life had prepared her for this moment when she would become a vessel in God’s hands, instigating the purifying work of redemption in the heart of this boy who could almost be her own son.
Logan watched as she poured a cup of tea, recalling what Alec had said about her. He had to agree. A remarkable woman she was, indeed.