Kathryn Albright - The Angel and the Outlaw

The light keeper leveled his gaze at her and she felt a twinge of remorse.

“Isn’t there something in the Bible about gossip, Reverend?” he asked. Suddenly, with the flat of his hand, he struck Jericho’s rump. The horse bolted.

“Oh!” Rachel grabbed her hat with one hand and the edge of her seat with the other, holding on tight as the carriage careened away from the yard.

Reverend Crouse struggled with the reins for control and finally maneuvered Jericho into a jerky canter down the dirt road. They neared the rise and Rachel glanced back, fervently hoping Mr. Taylor’s palm stung like the bite of a ruler against bare skin. To her keen disappointment, he snapped an obviously fine-feeling hand to his brow in a mocking salute.

Stuart descended the circular stairway after checking the lamp. It should be good until dawn when he would extinguish it. He sat at the parlor table. Through the window in front of him, he could see the beam from the light above sweep across the peninsula and then out across the moon-dappled water. The strong smell of ocean and sage permeated the room. Opening his logbook, he wrote:

September 16, 1873

11:45 p.m. Mild wind from the northwest. Clear night.

Visitors—Reverend Crouse. Rachel Houston.

He straightened in his chair, stretching his back as he considered how much he should write about the visit. Invitation to church? No. It was no one’s business but his own. And the less he mentioned about Hannah, the better.

He swiped his hand across his face. Lord, he was tired. Hannah had been moody and difficult about everything until Miss Houston had come and given her that doll. Then she had disappeared into her room to play.

Miss Houston. Now there was an interesting woman. Outspoken to be sure, but then, words meant only so much. Actions told a lot more about the character of a person—man or woman. And she had character to spare. She sure didn’t back down. First, at the mercantile when she stood up to Terrance and then today, when he was her problem.

His head started to nod and he jerked. What the heck were people saying about him in town? He wanted to keep a quiet existence here, not have people talking about him. He’d had little experience with such things before moving here, finding it easier to hide out in more populated areas. He was getting a fast introduction to small-town nosiness.

His head nodded. The pen fell from his hand. He lowered his head to the desk and closed his eyes. Just for a minute….

Stuart pushed open the heavy oak door to the captain’s cabin. A soft light from the whale-oil lantern illuminated the nooks and crannies of the small room, spilling a rich golden hue on the wooden beams overhead. Linnea sat at the end of his bunk and leaned over a makeshift bed, singing in a low chant to her daughter.

“Linnea?” he whispered.

She placed her finger against her lips. “Hush. She’s nearly asleep.” She smiled at him briefly, then continued her song. The dark bruising along her chin had healed to a yellow color but the shadows beneath her eyes confirmed his worry that this voyage had not healed her spirit. She wasn’t sleeping. But she hadn’t complained. She never complained anymore.

A thrill rippled through him at the scene in the small cabin. Three-year-old Hannah lay curled on her side, a white cotton nightgown covering her chubby limbs and a matching sleeping bonnet taming her fine blond wisps of hair. Wet spiked lashes quieted against pale cheeks. So there had been another battle of wills about bedtime. He smiled to himself.

Assured that all was well, he returned to the deck. The last pink rays of sunlight sparkled across the water as he barked out orders to adjust the sails and take full account of the northern winds. On the ship’s port side the purple outline of California’s southern coast rose above the sea, the hazy mountains familiar sentinels on his journey to San Pedro.

Linnea came to his side, pulling her shawl tighter around her for warmth. The breeze whipped golden tendrils of her hair across her neck and cheeks.

“She’s asleep now.”

He nodded his acknowledgment.

“Do you think John’s family will come after us?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“My father, too?”

“Especially your father. We left a mess in San Francisco. They will want to set it right.”

“By condemning you.”

He kept silent a moment, looking at but not seeing the water. “I killed him. John’s family will want revenge, or payment in some way. So will the law.”

“Oh, Matthew. I’m sorry to have dragged you into this. I just didn’t know where to turn.”

Stuart pulled her close, his arm around her shoulder. “You did the right thing. Never doubt that.” He felt the rise and fall of her shoulders as she took a deep breath.

“Yet there is one more favor I must ask of you.”

He waited.

“Promise me you’ll take care of Hannah if anything happens to me.”

“Lin—”

“No. I mean it. I’ve thought about this a lot. We don’t know what will happen. John’s family and my father have the law on their side. They have all the resources. Our running away looks like we planned John’s death. They’ll think we are lovers. John accused me of that so many times—I think to rationalize his own lack of fidelity.”

“He didn’t deserve you.”

Her chin trembled. “I should have waited for you, Matthew. I was weak and lonely at that school. I ruined everything.”

He squeezed her arm. “We’re together now. And don’t worry about Hannah. I’ll stand by both of you.” He looked over the water, subconsciously noting the increase in whitecaps while he tried to figure out what they should do after delivering the cargo to San Pedro. The voyage had given him time, but a reckoning was swiftly catching up.

First Shipmate Saunders approached with a worried look on his face. “Captain, I don’t like the looks o’ that horizon.” He raised his thick wiry brows toward the stern of the vessel indicating billowing clouds in the distance. A line of dark gray in their belly foretold of the rain within.

“I see it,” Stuart said grimly. “If it heads this way we won’t be able to use the stars tonight to guide us. We may have a swift race to port. Make sure the crew is prepared.”

“Aye, sir.” Saunders hesitated.

“What is it?”

“Touhy stands watch tonight.”

Stuart considered the level of experience of the younger man. “Have him wake me if the wind changes course.”

“Aye, sir. Can’t help thinkin’ one of Mr. Lansing’s steamers would have been a better choice for this trip.”

“Only our ten-year friendship makes it possible for you to say that, Saunders,” Stuart said with a sternness he knew his first shipmate would see right through. “The Maiden is old, but fit. Rather like you,” he teased lightly. “And she’s mine, not Dorian’s. That makes all the difference on this particular voyage.”

With a salute—and a wink—Saunders left.

That night Stuart awoke from his makeshift pallet on the floor. He sensed a change, a creaking of the ship as though forced on a new course. In the bed, Linnea slept fitfully, her soft breath puffing against the sheets. He rose and dressed quickly.

Above deck the light breeze of the evening before had transformed into a bitter gale. Stuart searched the black skies for any sign of lightness, anything to mark his bearings. The darkness was so thick he could only guess at the horizon, where sky dissolved into ocean without a trace. It would be time for the third watch—Touhy should be in charge. Why hadn’t the man woken him?

He grabbed the rail to steady himself and walked aft. When he neared the binnacle that housed the compass, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky. In that instant he recognized the familiar peaks of Santa Catalina Island rising not five hundred yards off the port bow. In the few moments the wind had grabbed control of their ship it had blown them far south of their plotted course.

“Bear away before the wind!” he shouted above the gale. Shipmen raced to obey his commands. “One thirty-five on a broad reach! Touhy! Get Saunders! Then take position in the stern!”

The Frisco Maiden surged ahead, her bow lifting high in the inky water, running on the forefront of the storm. Suddenly, sheets of rain plastered his shirt to his skin, chilling him to the bone. The storm had overtaken them. He glanced astern and his heart turned to ice at the sight of the monstrous waves forming. The vessel began to pitch and yaw, a toothpick in the violent, churning waters. Mast and foremast alike, weighed down with wet sails, creaked and groaned, protesting the strain as though alive.

No storm that Stuart had ever seen possessed such fury. Linnea! Hannah! He had to make them safe. Should the ship not clear the island—He refused to think of what might happen. He clung to the thick wooden railing along the gangway and made his way toward his cabin. Sailors ran before him, jumping to the bark of his commands.

Another bright, jagged flash of lightning coursed through the rain. The craggy islands stood behind them now. A wave crashed over the stern adding to the deck’s slickness as though layering it with whale oil. At the boom he joined his men pulling on the rigging to lower the foresail. If only he could get a few sails down before the next gigantic wave overtook them.

A deafening crack pounded his ears.

He looked up and found the main topmast hanging at right angle to the lower main mast. The eerie blue-white glow of Saint Elmo’s fire raced the length of the yardarms and danced along the top of the two standing masts. The light wavered and then disappeared against the backdrop of black.

Suddenly a swell, which had to have measured as large as the island itself, lifted the Frisco Maiden high into the air, high enough that Stuart could see the end of the storm front approaching from the north. For one brief, suspended moment he thought he saw a beacon of light shining from the mainland. It had to be his imagination. No lighthouse beam was that powerful. Then the swell curled over, crashing in upon itself and swallowed the ship.

Stuart clung to the railing with all his might. Frigid seawater swirled over him, alternately pushing and then pulling him. The salt stung his eyes, blinding him.

When he could drag a deep breath of air into his lungs, he straightened and took note of his surroundings as best he could in the dark. The ship listed to its side and he knew without being told that she was taking on water. How could he order his men into the small lifeboats in such a wild sea? But if they remained on the schooner, there would be no hope for them at all.

“Lower the lifeboats!”

The words rasped out of his throat, raw from the constant abuse of the storm and brine. Single-minded now, he made his way grasping at rigging and railing until he entered his cabin.

“Linnea!”

A mewling sound came from the bunk. He groped his way there, touching upon Linnea’s ankle. She sat huddled on the far side of the bed.

“Are you all right? Is Hannah?”

“She’s here, Stuart. I have her.” Seawater soaked the bed and the two shivered in their wet nightgowns.

“The Maiden’s taking on water,” he said, hugging them to him. “I must get you to the lifeboat.”

Lightning flashed outside, illuminating a small portion of the cabin through its only porthole. He could see the terror in both their eyes, see the white-knuckled death grip with which Linnea held to her bedpost anchor.

There was no time to waste. Stuart peeled her hand loose and immediately she grasped his arm, surprising him with her strength. He snatched Hannah to him and together they made their way above deck.