Voyage of the Dreadnaught: Four Stella Madison Capers (18 page)

“I thought you said only part of it would
get blown up. Otherwise what's the point of collecting so much food
for? You've got enough in your famine chest to last ten years,
already. What with the way you've been packing away fish and
canning berries.”

“Depends on how many people you end up
having to share with. Seems I collect people the same way furniture
collects dust.”

Stella laughed at that, because it was so
true. Especially since she had to admit she was one of those “dust
people,” herself. She and Millie had gone over many
end-of-the-world scenarios on this trip. It was one of the subjects
she could always count on to get a good conversation going when one
was desperately needed. Like now. Except just when she would have
been perfectly content to let Millie sail into her favorite
subject, and out of the swamps of despair that had been coming on,
Stella was suddenly struck with a most brilliant idea. She gasped,
set her cup down on the wood stump between their two deck chairs,
and jumped to her feet.

“What!” Millie sprung to her feet, too, and
began fumbling out of her leather work gloves to unzip her jacket
and get at her gun. “Oh, dear God—is it a bear?”

“No, of course not. I haven't seen one this
close since you fired off that first shot and we started keeping
the signal fire. “It's just that—”

“Stel, you almost gave me another heart
attack!”

“Well, it caught me off guard.”

“What did.”

“The
Dreadnaught
. Sitting there like
some big hulking elephant with a broken leg.”

“But it's looked like that for ages, now.”
Millie sighed and sat down in her chair, again. “It's one of the
things that's so depressing about all this. Even shored up to
level, again, it looks like some ramshackle tenement building in
downtown L.A. I've never had to live so low in my life—I never
have. I'm not cut out for it. Every improvement Mason adds onto
it—for our comfort, he says—makes it look worse and worse.” She
picked up her tea, again. “He used to do beautiful work back at the
Villa Nofre
. He's just in too big a hurry, here. Never takes
time to finish anything.”

“That's the idea I had this very minute,
Millie. Why don't you and I finish it?”

“Me? I couldn't hammer a nail straight if
you paid me.”

“Not the carpentry part. The painting part.
Let's paint the whole thing from top to bottom. Just think how much
better it will make everyone feel.”

“Well... it would definitely give me
something else to do besides knitting one sock over and over to
settle my nerves.” She pursed her lips together for a moment and
thought about it. “There's plenty of paint, too. Did you notice how
many cans Stuart had to drag out of the pantry just to get all our
food in?”

“I certainly did.”

“That's all that was in there was paint.
Most of it in those big five-gallon cans, too.”

“Paint, paint, and more paint.”

“Let's do it.”

A resolve that lost a bit of enthusiasm,
later on, when they realized there were only three colors in all
those cans. Black, white, and a rather rusty red color that had
something of a metallic smell to it. However, their spirits rose,
again, when they realized how much better things would look with a
fresh coat of anything on the outside cabin areas (which hadn't
been painted in so long they were grease-stained and gray), and
over the new wooden additions Mason had enclosed several of the
decks with. Living in a rainforest had made it necessary to add
more covered areas.

Since nearly a third of the outside decks on
the starboard side of the ship had now been turned into a
greenhouse (something that went a long way toward making Gerald's
cabin look less like a jungle, and actually brought him out into
the sun more often), and the entire stern deck had been screened in
with netting to keep out mosquitoes, their comfort levels had risen
considerably. Not to mention the addition to the wheelhouse on the
upper deck, that nearly tripled the space where Stuart lived, since
he moved out of the chief engineer's cabin, next to the engine
room. Now, he had large windows on three sides, and could see for
miles all around. Right from his comfortable leather chair behind
the wheel. He even had a door to the outside decks. Comforts,
indeed!

Something that made Stella wonder if the
captain had any idea how much better he had things, out in this
wilderness, than if he were jammed into some rehab center with
hundreds of other people. Not that Gerald wasn't right about him
needing therapy—he had a temper like a hornet, and about as much
patience as a wet cat. But it seemed to her that he was steadily
improving as the days went by. Even more so since he had been using
the walking stick. Why, he hadn't had a major blow-up in weeks.
Which is why it came as such a surprise when he discovered what she
and Millie had been doing with his paint. If he could have got only
one word out that was understandable... she was sure it would have
been a swear word.

Their only salvation was that they could
outrun him.

It was Cole who finally settled things, when
he explained that the rust-colored “bottom paint” was mixed with
copper to ward off sea-growth (and other living things) from
attaching to the wood. It was extremely expensive. In fact, it was
actually one of the reasons their hull had begun to rot in the
first place. The Captain had not painted the
Dreadnaught
's
bottom in nearly five years. He was on a fixed income since he
retired, and it had taken that long just to collect enough of the
stuff to cover such a large area. That, and to save up for the
expense of hauling a vessel that size (eighty feet long) out of the
water and into a commercial yard, to do it.

None of which had happened before they
embarked on their long voyage.

In the end, the women apologized (even
though Stuart should have been the one to apologize for chasing
them with a walking stick) and reluctantly agreed to use only the
black, or white. And, of course, the fifteen gallons of “taupe”
they had concocted by mixing all three colors together. And while
Stuart only agreed on that point because it was ruined for bottom
paint after diluting so much, anyway, he still grumbled every time
they brought it out to paint the trim.

“Oh, he'll get over it,” Millie reasoned,
“when he sees how much better it looks after we're done. I just
wish we could work faster. A grouch in the crowd is like having a
rotten potato in the bin. It only takes one to make the whole place
smell.”

That's when Stella came up with the idea of
using a mop, instead of brushes and rollers, for the larger areas.
Something that proved way too exhausting because of the weight
(even with the strings cut short), until Lou Edna pitched into the
project and took over that part. Leaving the other two to the more
artistic job of painting on trim in places where there wasn't any.
Which is how it came to be that such things as shutters and a bit
of Victorian Era “gingerbread” began to appear in various spots,
making the vessel look more like a floating hotel, instead of a
boat.

A transformation that so appealed to the
ladies, they even painted a fancy sign to hang off the stern rail
(where Stuart couldn't see it, but anyone who might come into their
inlet would) with the words “
The Last Resort
” painted on.
Then, in smaller letters underneath, “
Visitors Welcome.”
By
the time they were finished, and had even decorated with potted
ferns gathered from the woods (some hanging, and some set out on
the decks) it actually began to take on the atmosphere of a
wonderfully unique vacation spot rather than a shipwreck.

Something that not only went a long way
toward lifting Millie's spirits, but everyone else's, besides.
Including Captain Stuart's. Whose new favorite place turned out to
be a little covered area outside the wheelhouse (decorated with
deck furniture and potted ferns), where he could supervise the
construction of the
Mah-Bo II
from all angles, without
having to so much as leave his chair.

The new boat was set up on skids that would
allow it to slide right down into the water when it was ready to
launch. An event that happened at sunrise, sometime around the
middle of November, on a particularly clear, still, day before the
first snow. The crew of three (and a half) did not want to run into
heavy seas before they got away from the rocks, and out into the
middle of the strait. A place they at least hoped the weather
channels would start coming in again on the radio, and they would
be able to take some proper bearings.

The colonel said a prayer of blessing over
them all, and—after a few brief hugs—the
Mah-Bo II
chugged
out of the inlet under the power of the
Dreadnaught
's
cleaned-up engine,
fitted out with new hoses, filters, and anything else they could
replace from what they had spares for. The little craft looked
stout and nautical. Especially with its black hull, white cabin
top, and two coats of that expensive bottom paint below the
waterline (which couldn't be seen, but it was a comfort just
knowing it was there). And even though they all agreed it was
better not to drag out such times...

It was a sad parting.

Gerald smoothed down his mustache and then
jammed his hands into his coat pockets. “Well, I better go check
the temperature in my greenhouse... or, something.”

“Let's set on another pot of coffee.” Mason
put a comforting arm around Millie, who had rivers of silent tears
streaming down her face, as she watched half her family slip out of
sight.

“Stella and I brought ours in the thermos,”
said the colonel. “Thought it might be good to start the signal
fire early, today.”

Which is how it happened that everyone
drifted off into different places in order to get over those first
few hours of almost unbearable emptiness that comes from loved ones
having to depart under questionable circumstances. Even Stella and
the colonel—who never lacked for subjects to talk about—found it
difficult to make light conversation. Instead, she sat in one of
the deck chairs under the three-sided fireside shelter, and watched
him build and light the fire. In no particular hurry.

To tell the truth, it was all she could do
to keep from thinking about that toddler, as happy and bouncy as he
always was, looking more adorable than ever in his yellow slicker,
rain hat, and rubber boots. A miniature version of the foul-weather
gear fisherman wore. Oh, she missed him, already!

“Well, dearest,” the colonel finally sat
down in the chair next to her as the fire began to crackle and
roar, “I have a confession to make.”

“I can't imagine what it would be, Oliver.
You're about the most perfect person I've ever known.”

Which gave him a small chuckle and he
reached across to take hold of her hand. “Love is blind, as the
saying goes.”

“Rather a nice handicap, if you ask me.”

“Never-the-less, I think it only fair to
apologize for making decisions which could possibly lead us to
having to spend the rest of our lives here.”

“Seems I remember we all had a vote in
that,” she reminded him, “and it was unanimous, too. But, dear, you
don't—” Stella felt a sudden catch in her throat, and had to wait a
few seconds before she could even speak the words. “You're not
saying you think they won't make it, are you? Because I couldn't
bear that. Oh, why did we even let them—”

“Not in the least, not in the least.” He
gave her hand a squeeze for emphasis. “On the contrary, I'm more
impressed with that boat than I ever thought I could be. Turned out
surprisingly well.”

“What then. The weather?”

“I think even if they do hit bad weather,
it'll bear up fine enough to allow them to run into a cove
somewhere and wait it out. No...” He sighed a heavy sigh. “It's
nothing to do with the boat, or their capabilities. It's—”

A piece of kindling burned through and sent
a larger stick of wood tumbling from the pile. The colonel paused
long enough to get up and pick up another one to push it back into
the flames, again. “No, it's the possibility we might have set them
up with the opportunity to...” He returned to his seat. “Abscond
with everything we've got and, um... never tell a living soul we're
out here.”

Stella gasped. They had all turned over
debit cards and lists for things they needed to be brought back
(what with the holidays, and all). “But Oliver—dear! It was you who
suggested it. You even handed yours over, first. Now you're having
second thoughts?”

“No, not second thoughts. I knew right off
it would be a difficult temptation for Lou. At the same time, I
also knew she needed to feel the depth of our belief in the changes
she's made. Trusting her, it seemed to me, would have the biggest
impact. Anyway, I saw the chance and took it. Which I shouldn't
have done—I only just now realized—without consulting you. And
everyone else, as well.”

There was a long silence (she couldn't help
it, she was shocked).

“That said, I should probably also tell you
this isn't the first time I've made such hasty, ill-thought -out
decisions. I've made them all my life. It's one of the reasons my
first wife divorced me and married someone else.” He sighed, again.
“There. Better to have all that out in the open, than to go on
letting you think I'm so perfect. I really don't know why everyone
in this family believes I have the answers to everything. I never
did. And I'm not some prophet with a personal line to God's ear,
either. Nobody is.”

Stella thought for a few moments, breathed
in the fragrant woodsmoke, and then looked out across the meadow,
to where the sunlight was just beginning to touch the tops of the
far-off forest. It occurred to her just then that she actually
loved it here. “You know something, Oliver?”