The Sea is a Thief

by David Parmelee

  “Why, yes, sir, the very one. Thank you, sir. Lovey Copes’ pigpen was so run down that two of the pigs escaped the day after we arrived, and we had to chase after them and return them. Was it not you who brought one of them back, Mr. Dreher? And Mr. Watson the other?”

  “No, it was not I. I believe perhaps Mr. Watson caught both pigs.”

  “You may be correct, Mr. Dreher. I myself chased after the animals for some time without success, pursuing them into a marsh. I tell you, it took some effort to clean that marsh mud from my boots and uniform.”

  Bagwell chuckled. “Once you’ve been baptized in that mud, you’re an honorary ‘Teaguer’.” Ethan looked puzzled. “A Chincoteaguer, lad!”

  Ethan smiled. “I understand, sir! Yes, I suppose we would all qualify for that honor by now, except perhaps for Dreher here. He’s been most fortunate so far.”

  Bagwell smiled, stroking his mustache. “Your good fortune won’t last forever, sailor.”

  The Captain was delighted to see how well Bagwell was getting along with his two crewman. Platt was charming the man, though he was puzzled by Dreher’s unusual quietness. He was typically the more talkative of the two; not today. They reached Lovey Copes’ home, and he spotted her pigs, content in their new split-rail pen. He felt a twinge of pride as they rode by.

  “I am eager to show you a cabin that lies not far from here, after the road forks,” continued Ethan. “I must admit that it posed a challenge to us. The foundation had collapsed in one corner.”

  Suddenly Sam saw where they were. After the road forks! The opposite fork led to Anna’s home. He recalled hearing the sledgehammer blows when the crew was breaking rocks to repair that foundation.

  This was his chance to end Ethan’s game.

  “If I may suggest it, an even better choice might be Mrs. Mary Daisey’s home. Another widow, she is, Captain. No doubt you know her, Mr. Bagwell.”

  “I do.”

  “She and her family share a fine little home just on the other fork of that road. 'Twas in some disrepair when we arrived, but it’s as pretty a thing as you’ll see now that we’ve finished with it.”

  He had piqued the Captain’s interest. “Lead on, Dreher.”

  Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He could handle this one.

  When he stepped outside his house, Beau Daisey had not expected to encounter three Union sailors and Chincoteague’s most prominent citizen. Sam Dreher had not expected to encounter Beau, either. His face went cold when he saw him. Why hadn’t he thought of that possibility? During the many days he spent with Anna Daisey, he had exchanged few words with her older brother. Sam was grateful that Beau was almost always sleeping or out fishing when he was there. Their first meeting had left him with low expectations. Beau spoke little when their paths happened to cross. Thanks to Mary’s good words on Sam’s behalf he held his strongest feelings in check. Now they were face to face, and the wrong word from Beau could prove disastrous.

  Sam dismounted. “Mr. Daisey,” he began, with obvious deference. “The Captain of the USS Louisiana wishes to visit a few moments with you and your family.” The young man stood ramrod-straight, his face showing no emotion. Sam’s heart stood still. One of the horses whinnied, pawing the ground. Beau’s gaze shot from one man to the other.

  Bagwell knew Beau quite well. William Daisey had been the Bagwell Waterfowl and Provision Company’s best supplier. Since his death, Beau had worked many a day on the fishing boats and oyster tongers that traded at Bagwell’s wharf. He had never worked an entire week end to end. Two or three days appeared to be his limit, and then he wouldn’t be heard from for a while. The boat captains complained about him, but Bagwell knew his family’s situation, and encouraged them to hire him on when he appeared.

  Nancy Bagwell wanted to know Beau much better, though both her parents disapproved. Arinthia could understand her daughter’s interest. He was a roughly handsome young man, well-built, with curly hair and strong features. There was no half-way with Beau; he did everything with the sort of intensity he was showing at this moment, or he didn’t do it at all. A girl of sixteen could find him intoxicating. Still, both Bagwell parents felt that he was likely to offer nothing but heartache to any woman who shared his life. They discouraged their daughter’s interest. That didn’t stop her from seeking Beau out whenever she had the opportunity. Beau rebuffed her, showing no reaction to her little public flirtations. That didn’t stop her either. Relentlessness was perhaps Nancy’s greatest virtue.

  Edmund Bagwell dismounted. “Are your mother and sister in, Beau? Captain Sharpe here would like to meet them. Captain Sharpe?” He held the reins of the Captain’s mount as he stepped to the ground.

  The Captain removed his glove and extended his hand. “Henry D. Sharpe,” he announced. For a moment the words hung in the air.

  Bagwell broke the silence. “Beau Daisey here is a capable fisherman. All the boat captains here on the island tell me so. You could do far worse than to have him aboard your ship, Captain.” Beau cocked an eyebrow at Bagwell and showed a tight smile as he took Sharpe’s hand.

  “I’ll enlist in the morning,” he said. “Captain.” He broke the handshake and turned towards the house. “I’ll tell my mother…” With that the door opened, and Mary Daisey stepped forward.

  “Gentlemen,” she greeted them. “Won’t you please come in?”

  Sam could breathe again. Perhaps this visit might proceed without incident. The group climbed the steps into the house.

  Anna Daisey could not recall hosting a group of visitors to equal this one. When Mary spied the approaching men through the parlor curtains, she dispatched Anna to boil the kettle while she hastily put away her sewing. This Sunday was a working day like any other. Two dresses with petticoats were stowed upstairs to clear the room for guests. As the teakettle heated, Anna measured out black tea and brought the good china cups and saucers down from their roost in the kitchen cupboard. There weren’t many, but they would have to do. Before she knew it, her mother swept into the kitchen to collect the tea tray, beckoning her into the front parlor. She arrived to find Beau glaring uneasily at three men in Federal uniforms. Among them was Sam Dreher.

  On this day he seemed to be standing a bit taller. His jaw was squarer and his eyes more bright. He smiled a quick smile that spoke only to her, silently whispering: Shhh. They must not know. Her eyes retuned his confidence. She knew Sam had not told his shipmates of the days they had spent together. His good friend Ethan had guarded their secret. Sam had told her how Ethan would take his part so that he could visit her. Here indeed were Ethan, and Mr. Bagwell, and Sam’s Captain. Her mother introduced her to Captain Sharpe. She took his hand. She curtsied to each gentleman in turn, then poured the tea and excused herself to the kitchen. She was grateful for a few moments to collect her thoughts.

  Henry Sharpe was charmed by the Daiseys’ little cottage, the first such he had entered on Chincoteague. It was modest by any standard, but orderly and clean. Everywhere there seemed to be carvings of ducks. He took hold of one, a hooded merganser, with flaring neck feathers and a thin, hooked bill.

  “Most well done,” he said, turning it over in his hands. “Who is the carver?”

  “It’s mine,” Beau replied. “They’re all mine.” The Captain surveyed the room with its array of wooden ducks.

  “Is this your trade?”

  Beau folded his arms across his broad chest. “It would be my trade, sir, if men would give a dollar for any of them. Many of us on Chincoteague carve ducks. Others carve them only well enough to lure birds to their guns.”

  The Captain raised an eyebrow. “Your skill is commendable.”

  How easy it would have been for most young men to utter a simple word of thanks for the sake of courtesy. For Beau it was not easy. He silence was like a thunderclap in the small, crowded room. Henry Sharpe turned to face Beau. “Commendable.”

  “I am told I make them better than they need to be,” he muttered. The Captain replaced the mergans
er on its table.

  Suddenly Beau’s eyes were full of fire. “Not everyone on this island finds you Union troops welcome,” he hissed. “I myself have friends in the Confederate Army!”

  Edmund Bagwell stepped between the Captain and Beau, placing a calloused hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “We are well aware of the few of our citizens who have taken that unfortunate step,” said Bagwell, with deliberate slowness. “And the Captain and his generous crew are well aware of the good faith and gratitude of the rest of us, including you and your family. Is that not so, Beau Daisey?”

  Beau cast his eyes downward. “It is.” he said.

  “As indeed I thought!” said Bagwell, suddenly jovial, and in a mood to leave. The tea was forgotten. “Mrs. Daisey, we are most indebted to you for your hospitality.”

  “As we are to you, Captain Sharpe, for the invaluable assistance of your crew,” Mary replied. She curtsied as the group began its departure. Anna came to her side.

  “It has been a pleasure, ladies,” said Sharpe, replacing his cap.

  They gathered for a few moments outside to examine Sam’s handiwork: the shutters, the siding, and the rain barrel. Sam Dreher was the last to leave. As goodbyes were said and the leads of the horses untied, Anna approached him, unnoticed. Her voice was barely audible, but her eyes spoke more strongly.

  “Would you like to see the ponies on Assateague Island?” she asked.

  Time rushes past young men and women unnoticed and unheeded, like a breeze on their faces. Rarely, it pauses to offer them a moment to hold, as one keeps a butterfly found in a spiderweb. Sam would forever see Anna’s face at that moment: the autumn light on her shining hair, parted over her smooth forehead. Her eyes, deep-set under graceful brows, meeting his gaze unwaveringly. Her strong, slender neck, framed by the simplest lace. Her lips closed on the final word she had spoken, and he heard it all in a rush: Assateague Island.

  “Yes, Anna,” he answered. “I believe I would.”

  The party was not far down the road when the Captain expressed his concern to Edmund Bagwell. He was not given to anger, but he had commanded men for fifteen years, and was unaccustomed to impertinence such as Beau Daisey’s. He told Bagwell that, in so many words.

  “Understood, Captain Sharpe,” Bagwell reassured him. “We all know him. Allow me to offer you an apology on his behalf. You’ve nothing to fear. His father was a fine man, and he’s good at heart. All talk and temper, that one!”

  Sharpe turned to Sam Dreher. “Watch that young man.”

  Normally, Sam was very attentive to his Captain’s words, but if he heard them at all on that occasion, he did not remember it. He was already rowing a sneak skiff to Assateague Island, Anna Daisey in the bow. They were going to see the ponies.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Other Island

  In the autumn of the year, Elizabeth Reynolds harvested honey. The keeper of the Assateague lighthouse was a beekeeper as well; rows of circular hives supplied her with fine golden honey, and enough beeswax to make the many candles that powered the light. The bees prospered throughout the long summer among the lush wildflowers of Assateague. They made far more honey than they needed to endure the short island winter; sticky orange gobs of it, fragrant of blossoms, carefully stored in their man-made warehouses. Now, their labors concluded, they clustered together for warmth inside their grass hives, offering their surplus to Elizabeth. The bees liked her, in their way. They barely noticed as she worked among the hives, a thin veil covering her face, her smoke-pot fueled by smoldering hay and pitch. She worked quickly, scraping the honey into a clay pot. The air had cooled in the past week. The winds that skimmed the ocean brought a chill to her face. Her shoulders were wrapped in a homespun woolen shawl, and she wore her tall winter boots.

  Soon the time would come for Elizabeth to move inside. While the warm sun shone and the fresh breezes cooled her, she lived outdoors in a billowing tent alongside the lighthouse. She had sewn it of sturdy canvas, with sheer linen sides that let in light but kept away the ever-present bugs. Its tall supporting poles stood strong against the storms that swept in from the sea. Of all the places a person could live on the island, it was the most pleasant. Only a few souls called Assateague Island home. No one could cultivate the marshy soil. Assateague was useful only as a place to graze cattle and horses. Herds of both animals roamed the island; they were Elizabeth’s closest neighbors.

  To the United States government, she was a lighthouse keeper, but she was a medicine woman by trade. In the cool of the morning she roamed the dunes and creeks, sprigs of citronella grass pinned to her skirts to ward off mosquitoes, gathering the herbs that she used to treat the islanders’ illnesses. In the heat of the afternoon she reclined on a twig bench, sorting and grinding the dried plants and smoking her pipe. When her work was done, she drew. She drew on rough brown paper with little sticks of charcoal from her fire, sharpened with her penknife. She drew during every idle hour. When a drawing pleased her, it found a home inside the lighthouse tower, fixed to the heavy brick walls with a dab of pitch. Visitors did not go inside the lighthouse. It served as her private gallery.

  At twilight she climbed the winding wooden staircase forty feet to the top of the tower, carrying a single candle. She lit in turn twenty-four larger candles, their small, valiant light focused by a thick glass lens. They burned throughout the night, warning ship captains as best they could of the barrier island’s presence. Her task completed, she took her rest, awakened each day by the sun rising over the surf.

  When the winds turned sharp, Elizabeth packed up her tent and moved her belongings into the lighthouse for the winter. She sensed that the day would not be long in coming. She did not look forward to it. A small room had been built on the lee side for the keeper, all of brick, with a wood stove for heat and cooking. In the summer the brick room felt like an oven; in the winter it was snug and safe. Already she was spending her nights there, emerging outdoors into the autumn sun after mid-morning.

  For her efforts, the lighthouse keeper was paid a small fee by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Few would have considered it fair compensation for their constant vigilance in that lonely place, but Elizabeth’s needs were small. Twice a year, she called on the Postmaster in Chincoteague to collect her stipend. She crossed Main Street to the Bagwell Dry Goods and Grocery to turn it into store credit. Edmund Bagwell made sure that the credit covered her needs until the next letter from the government arrived. At times her ledger ran into the red, but whatever the tally showed, the proprietor’s initials on Elizabeth’s account ensured that she never left the store empty-handed.

  When a Chincoteaguer fell ill, his first recourse was to Elizabeth Reynolds. A messenger, usually a boy from the family, would be sent in a boat to fetch her from her outpost on Assateague. She would question him thoroughly about the sick person’s symptoms and then fill a canvas bag with preparations from her stores. Elizabeth did not read, but had no fear of choosing the wrong herb for her purpose. Each sack and jar was carefully labeled with a drawing of its contents. Her preparations complete, she would be taken to the home of the suffering person, where she would stay until he recovered or went to be with the Lord. A real doctor was available off-island, but that was a more difficult trip, and more expensive as well. Doctors usually did not accept payment in tobacco or cornmeal. Elizabeth did, when a family had no money to pay her. On other occasions she would leave with coins in her pockets. High up in the lighthouse, nearly at the top of the staircase, a brick could be worked loose with a little effort. There in a hollow behind the wall lay the medicine woman’s earthly treasure.

  Often her cures worked when the doctor’s failed. More than one elderly citizen swore that he owed his longevity to Elizabeth Reynolds. No one could explain it precisely, for Elizabeth would not reveal the source of her remedies. Some said she was part Chincoteague or Kickotank Indian, and her knowledge had been handed down from her ancient native forebears. If she was, she didn’t know it. Her parents ha
d never spoken of they ancestry, and they were gone. No Indians had lived on the island for a hundred years. Perhaps the secret of her success was nothing more than the confidence of the islanders. Whatever the source of her talents, she profited by them, living as she wished in her solitary place. She was solid and strong, browned by the sun and toughened by the wind, her face a map of lines. Her hair, once black as a mussel shell, was heavy with grey. She wore it in a long braid, twisted into a circle at the back of her neck. She did not possess a mirror. God, she liked to say, could look upon her whenever he wished.

  Anna Daisey could see the smile on Elizabeth Reynolds’ face from a great distance. Her smiles were rare, but appeared quickly, like rays of sun from behind a cloud. She was in the meadow tending her beehives when Anna approached in the sneak skiff, emerging from Swan’s Cove Pond by a little creek. Anna drew the skiff onto the muddy bank and beached it, running towards her friend. Elizabeth set her smoke pot on a flat stone and lifted the veil from her face. Leaving the bees, she joined Anna in an embrace. Anna kissed her brown cheek. “It’s your father’s boat, child!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  “Yes, we’ve repaired the skiff, as sound as before!”

  “You and your brother?”

  “No, Elizabeth, Sam and I.”

  “Sam?”

  Elizabeth held Anna at arm’s length, searching her rosy face for a clue. Her hair was covered by a woolen bonnet, and over her long-sleeved dress she wore a canvas jacket with a heavy collar. “And who is Sam?”

  Anna collapsed into the arms of her friend once again, her features dissolved into smiles. “There is so much to tell!”

  “There must be, child. I haven’t seen you for weeks!”

  “Yes, yes. Elizabeth. I’ve missed you. I’m sorry.”

  “Come along, Anna. Come and eat something.”

  The two friends walked together towards the tent, Elizabeth’s work forgotten.

  “Where is Willow?” Anna asked. “Is he about?”