The Lightkeeper

Magnus spoke in Icelandic to his wife, who nodded sagely and touched her neat kerchief. “Moving her would be a terrible risk after the shock she has suffered.”

“But—” Jesse clamped his mouth shut until his jaw ached. He pinched the bridge of his nose hard as if trying to squeeze out a simple solution. If Palina was right, and something terrible befell the woman as a result of moving her, he would feel responsible.

Again. Always.

“It is the law of the sea,” Magnus said, running his weathered right hand through his bushy hair. “God has given her to you.”

They stood together on the tiled hearth in front of the massive black stove, Palina absently tugging at a thread on Magnus’s empty white sleeve. Yet her gaze never left Jesse’s, and he saw again a spark of faith, ancient and obstinate, in the depths of her eyes.

Faith.

“I don’t believe in the old sea legends,” he said. “Never have.”

“It does not matter what you believe. It is still true,” Magnus said.

Palina set her hands on her hips. “There are things that come to us from beyond eternity, things we have no right to question. This is one of them.”

Every aching fiber that made up Jesse Morgan leaped and tensed in painful denial. He would not, could not, accept this stranger into his house, into his world.

“She can’t stay.” Fear turned his voice to a whiplash of anger. “I can’t give her anything. Can’t give her help or hope or healing. There’s nothing here for her, don’t you understand that? She’d stand a better chance in hell.”

The words were out before he realized what he was saying. They came from the poisoned darkness inside him, and they rang with undeniable truth.

Magnus and Palina exchanged a glance and some low words. Then Palina tilted her head to one side. “You will do what you must for the sake of this woman. This child.” Her eyes sharpened with insight. “Twelve years ago, the sea took from you everything you held dear.” Her words dropped heavily into the silence. “Now, perhaps, it has given something back.”

The couple left the house. Jesse had no doubt that Palina was aware of what she had just done. She had breached the bounds of their association. In twelve years, no one—no one—had dared to speak to him of what had happened. That was the way he had coped—by not speaking of something that lived with him through each breath he took.

He stalked out to the porch. “Get back here, goddammit!” he yelled across the yard. He had never yelled at these people, never sworn at them. But their stubborn refusal to help him set off his temper. “Get the hell back here and help me with this—this—”

Palina turned to him as she reached the bend in the path. “Woman is the word you want, Jesse. A woman who is with child.”

“Can you believe this, D’Artagnan?” Jesse asked in annoyance. He dismounted and tethered his horse to the hitch rail in front of the Ilwaco Mercantile. “The Jonssons think I have to keep that infernal woman because of some legend of the sea. I never heard of such a damned cockamamy thing. It’s about as crazy as—”

“As talking to your horse?” asked someone on the boardwalk behind Jesse.

He turned, already feeling a scowl settle between his brows. “D’Artagnan gets skittish in town, Judson.”

Judson Espy, the harbormaster, folded his arms across his chest, rocked back on his heels and nodded solemnly. “I’d be skittish, too, if you named me after some Frenchy.”

“D’Artagnan is the hero of The Three Musketeers.”

Judson looked blank.

“It’s a novel.”

“Uh-huh. Well, if the poor nag is so damned nervous, you ought to let me take him off your hands.”

“You’ve been trying to buy this horse for ten years.”

“And you’ve been saying no for ten years.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t caught on yet.” Jesse skimmed his hand across the gelding’s muscular neck. D’Artagnan had come into his life at a low point, when he had just about decided to give up…on everything. A Chinook trader had sold him the half-wild yearling, and Jesse had raised it to be the best horse the territory had ever seen. Over the years, he’d added three more to the herd at the lighthouse station—Athos, Porthos and Aramis completed the cast of the Musketeers.

He joined Judson on the walkway. Their boots clumped as the two men passed the mercantile. As stately as a river barge, the widow Hestia Swann came out of the shop. Touching a bonnet that was more flower arrangement than hat, she lifted a gloved hand with a tiny wisp of handkerchief pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

“Hello, Mr. Espy. And Mr. Morgan. This is a surprise.” She hung back, keeping a polite distance.

Jesse didn’t take offense. He was a stranger to most of these people, even after twelve years. He didn’t blame them for being wary of him.

“Mrs. Swann,” he said, lifting his oiled-canvas hat.

A smile forced its way across her lips. Famous for her social pretensions, Mrs. Swann was unfailingly cordial to him—because of his family in Portland.

As if that mattered anymore.

“How do, ma’am?” Judson said. Jesse started to edge away.

She waved the handkerchief limply at her face. “Not so well, Mr. Espy, but bless you for asking. Ever since Sherman was lost at sea, I’ve been suffering from melancholia. It’s been two years, but it feels like an eternity.”

“Sorry to hear that, ma’am. You take care, now.” Judson turned to Jesse as they started walking again. “What’s this about you keeping a woman at your house?”

He’d raised his voice deliberately; Jesse was sure of it. Hestia Swann, who had been heading for her Studebaker buggy in the road, stopped and stiffened as if someone had rammed a broomstick up the back of her dress. With a loud creaking of whalebone corsets, she turned and bore down on them.

“What?” she demanded. “Mr. Morgan’s got a woman at the lightkeeper’s house?”

Judson nodded. Mischief gleamed in his eye. “Ay-uh. That’s what he said. I just heard him telling his horse.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Why would he be talking to his horse?”

“Because he’s Jesse Morgan.”

“And he’s not deaf,” Jesse said in irritation.

“You hush up,” snapped Mrs. Swann. “This is serious business, keeping a woman—”

“I’m not keeping her—”

“Ah! So there is a woman!” Mrs. Swann exclaimed.

“What’s that?” Abner Cobb came out of the mercantile, his apron clanking with its load of penny nails and brass tacks.

Jesse fought an urge to jump on D’Artagnan and head for the hills to the south of town.

“Jesse Morgan is keeping a woman at his house,” Hestia Swann announced in her most tattle-sharp voice.

Grinning, Abner thumped Jesse on the back. “’Bout time, I’d say. You haven’t had female company since we’ve known you.”

“She’s not company,” Jesse said, but no one heard him. A babble of voices rose as others came out to the boardwalk to hear about this extraordinary development at the lighthouse station. Abner’s wife joined them, closely followed by Bert Palais, editor of the Ilwaco Journal.