Chapter 12
Chapter 12
In April, daily temperatures were on the rise, and the speed of the winter winds died down. The spring migration of shorebirds began, and sandpipers, sanderlings, and willets congregated around the freshwater ponds. But the marram grass was still brown.
Emma had been kept busy that winter caring for her father, doing more for him than ever before. It was the little things that took up most of her time. He often asked her to fetch small items for him—a glass of water from the kitchen or a book on the top shelf in his den when he was seated at his desk—simply because it was faster and more efficient for her to do it, rather than for him to rise laboriously, reach for his cane, and cross the room.
She’d ordered a book about depression due to chronic pain after an injury, and it arrived on the March supply ship. She found it immensely helpful, especially regarding her own enabling behaviors, which allowed her father to continue to feel sorry for himself. As time went on, she used many of the suggested techniques to motivate him to do things for himself and also to cope with the grief and anger over his reduced mobility. Some days, the techniques worked. Other days, they did not.
The phone rang in the kitchen, and Emma hurried from the great room to answer it. “Hello? Frank, I thought you’d never call. What’s the status?”
“The ship’s anchored, and the surfboats are on their way.”
“Wonderful. We’ll head down to the beach now. Papa wants to be there to greet the new man and see what he’s made of.”
The Sable Island lifesaving crew was a tight-knit lot. It was essential to morale that a new member was the right fit.
“He should come ashore within the hour,” Frank replied. “I’ll see you down there.”
“Right then.” Emma hung up the phone and grabbed the keys to the Jeep.
Emma drove the open-topped Jeep onto the beach so her father could supervise the unloading from the passenger seat. When the first surfboat finally came bounding over the frothy waves and slid onto the sand, four staff men ran to unburden the small craft of boxes and barrels. Emma got out of the Jeep to stretch her legs and chat with their neighbors, who gathered around.
It was not until the fourth boat arrived that the new employee, a man named Logan Baxter, stepped onto the beach. He brought a dark-red duffel bag, which he slung over his left shoulder, and shook hands with one of the staff men who pointed toward the Jeep.
“That must be him,” Emma said to her father, curious to get a closer look at him as she leaned against the passenger-side door, shading her eyes in the blinding sunshine.
As Mr. Baxter trudged through the deep sand toward them, she took in his appearance. He wore a gray wool jacket, black trousers, and a blue plaid cap, but it was his coloring that struck Emma the most. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and suntanned, freckled skin, which was different from the men on Sable, who all had brown or black hair with beards or mustaches. This man was clean shaven. He looked almost Nordic.
He stopped in front of the vehicle. “Are you John Clarkson?”
“I am,” her father replied in that deep, commanding voice that never failed to earn people’s respect in an instant. “You must be Logan Baxter. Welcome to Sable. This is my daughter, Emma.”
Logan dropped his duffel bag on the sand and moved to shake her hand, then her father’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
His eyes twinkled with friendly appeal, and she felt her cheeks flush with color. Oh dear. This one was a heartbreaker for sure. She turned away and resolved to be on her guard. No more blushing permitted.
She spoke with aloofness. “It’s nice to meet you as well. Grab your bag and hop in the back, and we’ll take you to Main Station.” She circled around the front of the Jeep to the driver’s seat and got behind the wheel.
While Logan hustled to retrieve his bag, her father leaned close to Emma and spoke quietly. “Do you think he’ll last?”
It never took long for new people to grow weary of the isolation.
“Only time will tell,” she replied, and turned the key in the ignition.
“This place isn’t at all what I expected,” Logan said as he followed Emma’s father into his den to fill out some papers.
“What were you expecting?” Emma asked as she entered behind them.
“For it to feel smaller. I’ve read a lot about Sable Island, and I imagined a sandbar. But now that I’m here, it feels so much bigger. Like a real island.”
“ Bigger? ” Her father chuckled cynically as he sat down behind his desk and rested his cane up against it. “It’s barely a mile wide from one beach to the other.”
“True,” Logan said, “but looking out your windows, everything’s so green, like a big meadow. You can’t even see the ocean from here.”
“But you can always hear it,” Emma assured him.
After an awkward pause, he set his duffel bag on the floor and riffled through it. “I have papers here. The office told me to give them to you as soon as I arrived.”
“Let’s have a look, then,” her father said.
Logan withdrew a large envelope and handed it to Emma. She felt his eyes on her as she carried it around the desk and passed it to her father, who laid it out on the tidy leather blotter.
He donned his reading glasses and read over the first page. Peering up at Logan over the rims of his glasses, he asked, “You’re a veterinarian?”
Emma leaned over her father’s shoulder to look at the file.
“I mostly treated horses and cows,” Logan explained.
“That’ll be an asset here,” her father replied. “And you’re from Saskatchewan?”
“Correct.”
Her father removed his glasses and dropped them onto the blotter. “What in the world brought you all the way to Nova Scotia? And even farther, to Sable Island?”
Logan removed his wool cap. He squeezed it, almost mangled it, in front of him. “I’m here because I don’t want to work on farms for the rest of my life. I’d like to teach.”
Suddenly curious, Emma inclined her head. “Teach what?”
He shifted his weight nervously. “I’m not sure yet. But I came here to study the wild horses, maybe even do a research project—in my spare time, of course. I thought that might help me get my foot in the door at a university.”
Emma’s father glanced over his shoulder at her. “Are you listening to this?”
“I am.” She clasped her hands loosely behind her back. “What would be the focus of your research project, specifically?”
“Well ...” Seeming nervous, Logan continued to wring his cap in his hands. “I’m curious about natural herd behavior, how the stallions behave as alpha males, whether the herds take on any family dynamics, and, if so, if the families stay together for life.”
Her father wagged a finger at Logan. “My daughter will be a great help to you. She’s been studying the herds since she was ten years old. It’s her passion.”
Logan’s eyebrows lifted. When he spoke, his voice was animated. “No kidding. I’d love to talk to you about it sometime, if you’re willing to share what you’ve learned.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but her father spoke first. “She already has pages of written notes. You wouldn’t believe it. A whole box full of scribblers in her bedroom. Do you know where they are, Emma?”
“Yes, but . . .”
Her father continued presumptuously. “You can read over what’s she’s already jotted down. But don’t forget that you have a job to do here. That’ll always take priority. Understood?”
“Absolutely,” Logan replied. “That goes without saying.”
Her father picked up his pen and leaned forward over the desk. “Good. Now let’s fill out some forms. Then Emma can take you to the staff house and introduce you to your supervisor, Joseph. After the supplies are dealt with, you’ll start your training with lifesaving techniques. I hope you’re a good swimmer in rough currents, because if we have any more shipwrecks like we had last spring, you’ll be up to your ears in salt water.”
Emma met Logan’s apprehensive gaze and considered the fact that he’d grown up on the prairies. Had he ever experienced the full force of the ocean in a storm? Did he have any idea what he’d gotten himself into?
Since it was too late for him to back out now, she endeavored to ease his fears. Emma shook her head and crinkled her nose because there was no point inducing unnecessary anxiety—and potentially a sleepless night—when the poor man hadn’t even set foot in the boat shed yet.
She hoped he wouldn’t be too put off by the skull collection.
“I never saw so many brazen birds in one spot,” Logan said as Emma steered the Jeep through a colony of terns. They flitted about and screeched constantly. One landed on the road, directly in front of her left tire, so she hit the brakes.
“This is their territory,” she explained, “so they have the right of way.”
“Is that a Sable Island bylaw?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” she replied, “but it’s an Emma Clarkson law, and everyone on the island respects it.”
Logan leaned over the side of the open vehicle to keep watch on the sandy path. “Slow down—there’s a stubborn one just ahead of your right tire.”
Emma touched the brakes and waited for an all clear.
“There he goes. Out of harm’s way now.” Logan sat back. “Carry on, soldier.”
Emma gently hit the gas and drove slowly.
“How long have you been living here?” he asked, looking up at the noisy birds teeming about.
“All my life. I was born here.”
“I didn’t think anyone lived here permanently,” he replied. “I thought it was always a one- or two-year posting.”
“There aren’t many of us who have been here this long. Most come and go. After they’ve been here awhile, they find the isolation more difficult than they expect.”
“But not you?”
She shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
The road opened to the wide sandy beach, and Emma shifted into a higher gear.
“How did he get along at the staff house?” Emma’s father asked when she returned and hung the keys to the Jeep on the hook by the door.
“He hasn’t met the men yet,” she explained. “They’re still unloading supplies. I took him to drop off his bag at the staff house and returned him to the beach. He’s Joseph’s problem now.”
“I suspect he put him straight to work.”
“He did,” Emma replied.
“Good.” Her father leaned on his cane as he limped from the kitchen to the great room. With a groan of annoyance, he sank onto his chair. “I wish I could be out there.”
Emma remembered how he loved to roll up his sleeves and help with the deliveries. She squeezed his shoulder as she moved to the sofa. “Is there anything you’d like me to do on your behalf? I could go back out.”
“I’m sure Joseph has it all under control,” he replied. Then a shadow moved across his expression, and he frowned at the window. “Let’s face it. They don’t need me anymore.”
Emma sensed an oncoming wave of depression, and wished she knew how to head it off at the pass. Some days it was easy to redirect his thoughts. Other days, his mood spiraled fast and there was no way to prevent him from falling into a dark and distressing melancholy.
“That’s not true,” she swore to him. “They look to you for leadership.”
He dismissed her comment, and they sat in silence for a moment or two.
“That new man isn’t like the other staff men,” her father said. “I hope he can survive.”
“I think he will. He seems intelligent.”
Her father nodded. “That’s what makes him so different. Half the men who come here don’t even have a high school diploma, and he’s talking about a university-level research project.”
“He’s ambitious.” Emma scratched the back of her head. “How old is he?”
“Twenty-eight. Single. Never been married.”
She gave him a look. “Don’t start, Papa.”
He reclined in his chair and sighed dejectedly. “Oh, you can’t blame me for trying. Anything to help you forget you-know-who.”
Emma pressed both hands to her heart. “I give you my solemn word, I’m over that. Because you were right. It was a childish pipe dream. All I want now is to get through the summer and start my program in the fall.”
“Good,” her father said. “Because the last thing I want is for you to spend the rest of your days being my nursemaid. Your mother would come back to haunt me.”
The return of his wit and humor came as a relief to Emma. “You don’t need a nursemaid,” she assured him. “You’ve come leaps and bounds since the surgery, and you continue to improve every day.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.” He reached for his book and opened it.
Emma rose from the sofa and kissed the top of his head.