The Deepest Waters, A Novel Read online

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  © 2011 by Dan Walsh

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  E-book edition created 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-1429-4

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  To my sisters, Anne Dunlop and Mary Beth Cork,

  whose constant love and support

  are two gifts I treasure.

  Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death. . . . Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised.

  Song of Solomon 8:6–7

  A Few Ship Terms for the Landlubber

  1

  September, 1857

  Yesterday, when it had become a certainty their ship would sink, Laura and John Foster held hands, as they had on their wedding day three weeks ago, and made a vow: when that moment finally came, they would leap into the sea together and slip beneath the waves. One quick inhale of water. It wouldn’t be suicide. God had already determined it to be their last day on earth.

  But that’s not what happened.

  Laura was still here, alive and alone. By now, John had most certainly perished along with the rest.

  Her tears temporarily spent, Laura lifted her head and looked at the other women. Faces barely recognizable. Cold, wet, quietly weeping, or else staring at nothing, eyes locked in grief. All the men in their lives—husbands, brothers, fathers—were gone. The dim lantern light, shifting with the motion of the sea, moved them in and out of the shadows like phantoms.

  The ship creaked and moaned with each rise and fall of the waves, as if sharing their pain. From the darkest side of the room, Laura heard a new sound. Heavy feet scuffing across the wooden deck. As the sound grew louder, she waited for someone to emerge.

  “Pardon me, ladies. I surely don’t mean to disturb you.” The voice, aged and deep. “I can’t see y’all at the moment, and I hope I don’t step on nobody. I’ll just make my way toward that lantern up ahead.” She followed the sounds from right to left. “I brung something for ya. Those blankets we gave out gotta be damp by now. These ain’t much, but I remembered we had some old sails in stow. Captain said it’d be all right if I cut ’em up and pass ’em out.”

  His voice was caring and kind. As he came into the light, Laura recognized the old Negro slave. He’d helped them when they first boarded a few hours ago. She knew he was a slave by the way the crew treated him. He set down a stack of folded cloth. “Can’t see you ladies too good, but you hold up your hand, I’ll give you one. If you got chillun, I give ’em one too. You in the shadows, just say Micah as I come by, and I’ll get you one directly.”

  Several hands raised toward him. One by one, Micah handed out the cut sails. Laura’s blanket was damp but not badly. She waited, to make sure there were enough for the elderly women and mothers with small children.

  By his count, Micah ran short by twenty. “Don’t you worry, got plenty more. I’ll go cut me some and be right back.” Laura didn’t know how many had been rescued. She thought she’d heard just over a hundred. Maybe she should get up and help him. She wasn’t injured. “Micah?” she called out.

  “Yes’m?”

  She stood up. “Can I help you?” She could barely see a path between them.

  “That’s kind, ma’am, but I’ll be all right.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said.

  “I know, but truth is, I’m not sure what the cap’n say. With the ship bobbin’ up and down, and it bein’ dark, I’d be afraid you bang your head or worse. Tell you what. When I get back, you can help me pass ’em out.”

  “Anything I can do. You’ve been so kind.”

  “Well, y’all been through so much, wish there was more I could do.”

  Just then the ship jolted upward. Laura almost fell.

  “You all right, ma’am?”

  “Yes.”

  “See,” Micah said. “Just ain’t safe walkin’ around here in the dark. I’ll be right back.”

  Laura reached out and found a wall near the doorway, then slid down in place. She could just barely trace the outline of a woman holding two children near, tucked back a few feet in the shadows.

  “Mama,” said one child, “how much longer till Father joins us?”

  She heard the mother inhale deeply. “I’m not sure, son. Just try and sleep. We’ll see what comes in the morning.”

  What comes in the morning.

  Laura allowed the phrase to turn over once in her mind, but no more. She couldn’t bear to think beyond the next hour.

  2

  At some point during the night, Laura fell asleep.

  At some point after that, the sea calmed.

  The ship now rolled gently through the waves, making the slightest creaking sound. The moaning was gone. But within moments of waking, the moaning inside Laura had grown worse. Her heart felt like a roof about to cave in. She had an urge to flee, if only to assuage these dark feelings momentarily.

  Daylight poured through the hatch, allowing her to better see the hold where they’d spent the night. It was much larger than she’d imagined. Some ladies still slept, but the deck was covered with cut sails and wet blankets mingled together in piles. The ceiling wasn’t tall enough for a person to stand upright, but almost. A woman wearing a blanket like a shawl climbed the stairway toward the sunlight. Laura joined her.

  A warm wind blew from the southeast. The main deck was crowded with women and children. Most leaned on the railings and stared south toward the stern, looking back to where the two ships had parted last night. A handful of crew members busied themselves with the sails and rigging.

  Laura was startled by the overall size of the ship; so small, a third the length of the SS Vandervere.

  The Vandervere.

  For almost a month the name had brought her instant joy, like a fairy tale. Sailing away on a steamship, a first-class cabin, pockets laden with gold, beautiful sunrises, breathtaking sunsets, traveling with the man she loved. Even more surprising, a man who loved her back. Before John, Laura had decided she was past the marrying age and must content herself with living alone.

  Better that than a loveless marriage of duty and servitude.

  Even toward that end, there had only ever been two prospects. None in her teen years or early twenties. But when she’d reached twenty-five a widower had come around looking for a woman to care for his children and clean house. Love and romance, out of the question. The second prospect had been an enormous, wealthy businessman. He’d built a brand new mansion in San Francisco. He’d taken her to a nice restaurant, then quickly by the house. As if to say, “Yes, but there is a house.” She thought, “Yes, but you can’t even make it up the stairs.”

  Nearly two years later, in a span of time when she’d banished any thoughts of love, John had bumped into her as she walked along South Park near Brannan Street, a book in hand. That should have been the end of it, a polite “excuse me.” The book had fallen. They both bent to pick it up, and John caught her glance as they stood. Somet
hing in his eyes, something she’d never seen before. He handed her the book, then smiled. She thanked him and smiled back.

  She walked to the nearest bench and sat down. She tried reading her book but had the strange sense that he had not moved, that his eyes were still upon her. She looked up, and it was so. And the smile had remained.

  “I’m sorry,” he’d said. “I don’t . . . I want . . . oh bother,” he said. “May I introduce myself?”

  He did, and then he asked the most peculiar thing. “May I sit beside you?”

  Before long, he’d asked if they could walk together. And then, would she join him for dinner. That night he walked her home and politely shook her hand by the porch, clasping just her fingers. “I am so glad to have bumped into you this afternoon,” he said.

  Laura didn’t know what to say; she just smiled. He walked a few steps down the walk, turned, and looked at her. But it was the way he looked at her. She had never seen such a look in a man’s eyes; it was something she had only cherished in books.

  “May I call on you again?”

  “Yes,” she said, barely containing her joy.

  “And when I do, may I call you . . . Laura?”

  She nodded.

  “I am working at the store all day tomorrow. May I call on you after dinner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes . . . what?”

  Laura was confused.

  “May I hear you call me by name?”

  “Yes . . . John,” she said.

  From that day on, they were Laura and John. And Laura had known a love more splendid than her best books dared promise, a happiness beyond even girlhood dreams.

  “Mother, do you think any other ships came to the Vandervere’s aid last night, or maybe this morning?”

  Laura turned toward the child’s voice. A little girl, maybe seven or eight, a few steps away. Laura looked up at the mother and saw the tears in her eyes as she gazed out to sea. “Perhaps, my dear. That is my fervent prayer.”

  Laura thought back to the moment John had held out the tickets for their voyage. “Look, Laura, I got them, for the day after we wed. No turning back now. We sail down the West Coast on the SS Sonora, hop a train across Panama, then take the SS Vandervere straight up to New York.” His eyes had been wider than when a miner struck gold. He’d picked her up and swung her around.

  But for Laura, heading back East was all and only about John.

  His family lived there. Her family, what was left of it, was back in San Francisco. She’d never met John’s parents, didn’t even know what they looked like. She realized they’d be expecting to see him when the ship came in, the two of them, arm in arm, coming down the companionway. That’s how they would know who Laura was: the one standing beside John.

  But she wouldn’t be standing beside him. She’d be standing there alone, just one of a hundred grieving women, strangers all. The sudden realization stole her strength away, and she slumped to the deck where she stood.

  “Miss, miss, you okay?”

  Her dark red hair fell about her face like a veil. She recognized the voice. It was Micah.

  “Did you fall, miss? Can I help you up?”

  “I’ll be all right, Micah. Thank you. Just a little dizzy.” She shifted her weight and wiped her tears on her sleeve. Out of nowhere a dog came from behind her and gently nudged her with its nose. She lifted her face to see it. It sat down and wagged its tail.

  “Crabby, you leave her be,” Micah scolded softly.

  The dog was clearly a mutt, but it had the sweetest face. Muddy brown with a white stripe between its eyes that faded symmetrically on its forehead. Still sitting on deck, Laura reached up and petted its head. The dog shivered with joy at her touch. “He’s all right,” Laura said. “I love dogs.”

  “He be a she,” Micah said, bending down to pet her.

  “Did you say Crabby?”

  “That’s the name I give ’er. Most a’ the crew just calls her dumb dog. And they kick her about. Weren’t for the cap’n, I expect she’d be over the side. They all hate her, ’cept the cap’n and me.”

  “Why Crabby?” Laura asked. “She seems so sweet.”

  “She be more than sweet,” Micah said. “Best friend I got on this earth. Sometimes . . .” He looked away. “Crabby the only thing on this ship remind me . . . God do love me.”

  Laura didn’t know what to say. “She’s beautiful, Micah.”

  “Yes’m,” he said, looking back at her.

  “But why Crabby?”

  “She love to eat them crabs,” he said. “Funniest sight to see, her run off with one of them things in her mouth, legs danglin’ out the side.”

  Laura smiled and started getting up.

  “Can I help you?” Micah asked.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Micah reached beneath her elbow and lifted her to her feet. “Deck’s mighty slippery at this hour, but the sun come up a little more, and it’ll dry out just fine.”

  He helped her until she regained her footing. “Thank you so much.”

  “You need Micah, just ask. Or tell Crabby, she always know where to find me.”

  She grabbed hold of the rail and looked out to the horizon. It really was a beautiful day, the air so fresh. No land in sight. She had no idea where they were. She heard yelling from the front, toward the bow, and turned. A large man stood on the forecastle deck, looking down. Several women were yelling up at him. “Why?” one screamed. “You don’t know that!”

  “Ladies, I won’t argue the point with you. This isn’t a democracy. You are guests aboard the Cutlass, and we’ll treat you as such. But don’t begin to imagine you can dictate to me or order me about.”

  The women fell silent.

  “But I do see a need to set things straight.” He cleared his throat. “Ladies,” he shouted, “gather about, please. All of you. Men, gather the ladies by the stern. Micah, move those ropes to the side.”

  “Yessuh.”

  “All right, ladies,” he yelled like a preacher. “My name is Captain Meade. Let me say how sorry I am for your loss. But you’re learning what those who traverse the sea have always known. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

  Instantly mothers drew their children close and covered their ears.

  “There’s no getting around that,” Captain Meade continued. “But it does seem Providence has paid some attention to your fates, because here you are, and here we are. The sea is vast, and the storm blew us all miles off course. Your ship, as mighty as she was, lost power and was adrift. But God saw fit to have our paths cross, and so your lives were spared. This is where you must find comfort. We had no control of our first meeting and have no way to find the Vandervere again. One of my men had a word with your captain before the lifeboats parted. Your captain stated he didn’t see how the Vandervere would last till midnight.”

  Gasps and cries spread throughout the deck. Laura felt nothing, emptiness.

  “I’m sorry to say this, but it’s the way things are, and you must accept it. There is no going back. The Cutlass has only eleven in its crew. We were on our way back home to Wilmington, low on provisions. But you ladies and your children are welcome to share them, such as they are. If the winds allow, we could be in New York harbor in three days.”

  A wave rolled the ship high. A few children fell; those by the rails took a firmer hold. Captain Meade remained steady.

  “From now until then, I’ll hear no more talk of turning back. By now the Vandervere is surely lost. You must accept this. The sooner you do, the better you’ll be.”

  3

  The SS Vandervere lasted through the night, but it was no use. Every man still conscious and onboard knew this. No one would say it. John Foster would not be the first.

  His arms and shoulders ached, almost to the point of madness. Had he been in any other setting, he could not have restrained his cries. Another bucket passed up the line. He could barely grasp the handle. Surely the next one would fall to the deck. />
  But he took the next one—as he had for the last two days—from a Latin man in his midforties, an ambassador from Peru. He passed it up to an old miner, who’d spent his last nuggets buying passage back East. Beside the miner was a man who owned two banks—one in Oakland, another in Sacramento. John found this a matter of some wonder, how the storm had reduced men down to one social class: anyone who could hold a bucket.

  He looked at the men in the line up ahead. Although the ship never stopped moving, the bow now pointed skyward, as if frozen upon some invisible wave. The men at the rear stood shin-deep in water that John was certain had just been passed up the line. The captain in his finest uniform had been shouting exhortations, over and over, insisting this was no fool’s errand. It was buying them time. Until he gave orders that all was lost, they must continue. A second ship might still appear on the horizon and come to their aid.

  They had known since the second day of the storm that the Vandervere had been dealt a mortal blow. A leak had sprung below the waterline, and they couldn’t stop it. Then, this bucket brigade seemed to be doing some good. Now the ocean rose up the deck exponentially faster than a thousand, ten thousand buckets could withstand.

  John looked out at the sea once more. The winds had slowed since yesterday, but he longed to see a placid, calming scene, if only for a moment. Still the waves rose and fell without ceasing, roving blue hills slamming into each other and into them. Every so often one great wave leapt above the rest and poured over the deck, knocking men down, sweeping some into the sea.

  Those still able would find a bucket, stumble back into place, and begin bailing again.

  So much water, coming at them from every side. John was certain that before long the ship must be swallowed whole.

  Thirty minutes later, the Vandervere lurched violently, tossing men every which way. Dozens went over the rail. The rest slid down the deck toward the base of the ship, colliding so hard that some were knocked unconscious. Shouts and fearful cries to the Almighty rang through the air. John was still conscious but felt blows from several elbows and feet about his head and sides.