Voyage of the Dreadnaught: Four Stella Madison Capers (21 page)

They were fairly sure Stuart was no longer
with the young couple, or he would have insisted on being taken
back to his boat, no matter what Cole and Lou Edna decided do.
Which he probably had no idea of, since they would have taken him
to a hospital, first. By this time, their former Captain was no
doubt wondering where everyone was, and giving care workers a hard
time in some rehab center he had been transferred to. Maybe even
having to go to a “quiet room” —or worse—if he didn't behave.

Stella worried a lot about that. Because
she knew for a fact the most independent patients often lost heart
the quickest, when they could see no way out of their situation,
and simply gave up. Which would be a sad end for the man who had
not only made all their dreams possible, but had sacrificed his own
most precious thing in the world to do it. Considering the
Dreadnaught
would never go to sea, again, it had truly been
his “finest hour.”

So, it was on a late afternoon, only two
days before Christmas, while Stella and Millie were stringing the
last of their Christmas lights around the galley porthole, and
waiting for a ham to finish baking, that they heard the drone of
another motor in the distance.

“Stuart and the kids!” Millie cried,
dropping her end of the lights and grabbing her yellow knit hat and
ski jacket from the hooks by the door. “They've come back! Oh, I
knew I didn't have Mason make that little wooden train set for
nothing!”

Stella climbed down off the counter and
reached for her jacket, too (periwinkle blue, with a hood), and had
barely joined Millie on the foredeck when she saw that it was just
another snow machine, coming through the pass. They had been having
quite a few visitors from the village since Sammy and Mary Robert
had discovered them. Word had definitely gotten around about
Millie's cooking, and it was still hunting season.

“Maybe it's Gerald,” she offered. “Wouldn't
it be wonderful if he at least heard some news about them?”

“Well, he's—” Her friend reached into her
pocket for a tissue and blew her nose. “He's sure had enough time
to, he's been gone over a week!”

It was Gerald.

A very excited Gerald who came barreling
down through the meadow with some sort of sled in tow, bounced up
over a berm, and down again in a puff of powdered snow that caused
a delighted feminine laugh to escape the passenger holding onto him
from behind. By the time they came to a stop, in front of the
bridge, Mason and the colonel had come out to see who it was,
too.

“You'll never believe it!” His voice was
muffled before he got the helmet off. “Wait till you hear what I
found out! This is Sarie, by the way.”

By that time his passenger had climbed down
and taken her helmet off, as well. “That's short-for Sarah,” she
informed them. “But he calls-me that.” Then she laughed. It was a
musical, contagious giggle that set her dark eyes dancing in her
round face, and the short black ponytail on top of her head
quivering.

“Come and warm up,” said the colonel. “I'm
sure we've got a kettle on the stove.”

“We've got hot apple cider and eggnog,
too,” Millie boasted. “This being the holidays, and all. But don't
keep me in suspense, Gerry—have you heard anything about Lou?”

“In sort of a round about way, Mil,” her
cousin replied as he undid the bungee cords on the sled and began
taking off bundles.

“What is all this stuff?” Mason handed one
to the colonel, and then the took another for himself as they
followed the group inside.

“Fresh meat for Millie's freezer. Enough to
last all winter!”

“Must of cost a fortune.”

“Not really. I'll tell you about it when we
get inside.”

“That's some jacket, too, Gerry. What—was
there an ATM machine in that village? It's a good sign Shortcake
didn't clean us all out, anyway.”

“No, no ATM, I'm afraid. And this is a
Native-sewn fur parka,” he explained. “Made in one of the villages,
up north.”

“Must have cost a fortune.”

“It was a gift, really. From my...” He set
his bundle down once they were inside the mud room and put an arm
around Sarie (who was wearing a similar one). “My fianc
e
e!”

“What?” Millie had been halfway to the
companionway stairs when she heard it, and turned around to hurry
back, again. “What?”

“Congratulations! Oh, Oliver, isn't it
wonderful?” Stella felt delighted over the news. Having spent so
many years alone and lonely, she wouldn't wish the same fate on
anyone.

“We both-like gardens.” Sarie giggled,
again. “I sell vegetables out of my greenhouse. It's called
Garden by-the Sea
. The whole village buys my vegetables. I
brought some for Millie.”

“For me?”

“Yeah, it's a present from
Huckleberry
Mary's Place
, with a recipe for bear-meat stew.”

“Huckleberry Mary? I don't know anybody
like that, but it's awful nice of her.”

“Oh, you know her, Mil.” Gerald helped
Sarie out of her parka and hung it up on a peg next to his. “It's
Sammy and Mary Robert's new place. She made herself famous using
the Huckleberry Betty recipe you gave her.”

“She what?”

“From that cookbook you and Stella are
working on. The first day they came here. Remember? Let's go
upstairs, I'm starved.”

“OK, but Gerry don't keep me in suspense.
If you know anything at all about Lou and the baby, I want to hear
it first thing. I've been half out of my mind worrying about
them.”

“They're all fine, they're in Ketchikan.
Going to try to be home by Christmas.”

“Christmas—that's day after tomorrow—Mase
did you hear that? By Christmas!”

“That girl's gonna hear it from me, giving
us a scare like that,” he grumbled as they all filed into the
galley. “What have they been doing all this time?”

“Waiting on some tests for Stuart, along
with his physical therapy. He was supposed to be released this
week, so they should be here any time.”

“How did you find this all out?” the
Colonel settled into his place at the table while Stella put the
kettle on for hot cider, and Millie got out the eggnog. “Talk to
them on the phone, somehow?”

“No phone service in-the village,” said
Sarie. “It's just a little village. Only about twenty-five
people.”

“That's the thing!” Gerald smacked his hand
on the table and laughed. “You better sit down, Mason.”

“Now, what did she do.” He slid one of the
counter stools over and sank down onto it. “Better give it to me
straight.”

“She did just what she said she would!”
Then he turned to his cousin. “What do you think of that, Millie?
She hasn't run off or stolen a thing since she left here. She and
Cole went looking for the lodge—like we asked them to—and we just
missed each other. Well, they were there two weeks, ago. They're
back in Ketchikan to shop, and pick up old Stuart, now.”

“They were at the village?” Mason rubbed a
hand over his whiskers. “How did they end up there? Get stuck in
weather and have to duck in somewhere close by? That would be a
coincidence, all right.”

“No, it's even a bigger coincidence. Brace
yourself, Mase.” Gerald slid behind the table, on the bench next to
Sarie. He smoothed down his mustache, laughed a bit (which made
Sarie giggle), then finally smacked his hand on the table and shook
his head before declaring, "The lodge... is the village.”

“What?”

“I could hardly believe it, either! I mean,
what are the odds?”

Millie suddenly stopped shaking nutmeg into
a pitcher of eggnog, as if the realization only just registered.
“Are you saying Mason owns the whole village?”

“Holy Mackerel—all those twenty-five
village people are, up there, living in my lodge?”

“Well, there's a couple cabins scattered
around it, but for the most part, yes.”

“They said some old man owned it.”

“We're not exactly spring chickens,” the
colonel reminded him. “But I have to say it is hard to believe
we've been sitting on our own land all this time. Harder still to
imagine it stretches all the way from the village to here.”

“But the village isn't that far away,”
insisted Gerald. “Just over the hill. Right Sarie?”

“Yeah, and that's the long-way. On the
beach, it's just around-the point. Nobody likes to go that way,
though. Too many rocks. This side is good hunting, but there has to
be lots-of snow. Too much muskeg to get over-that pass the rest of
the year.”

There was quiet for a moment as all this
new information sank in.

Mason realized he still had his hat on,
snatched it off, and slid it under his stool. “Guy I got it from
told me it was about seventy-eight acres. Last of one of those big
homestead plots the state used to give away by lottery. All you had
to do was make improvements, and live there for five years, to own
it free and clear. So, he built the lodge. After that, he just came
back to hunt and fish every year.”

“They don't do it that way anymore,” said
Sarie. “Only sell little pieces around-the towns, now. For lots-of
money.”

“Way he told it, only a small part of the
property was really usable.”

“Muskeg and rocks,” agreed Sarie.

“That's what he told me. Most up the side
of a mountain...”

“Where-the pass is,” she added.

“And the other part nothing but rocks and
trees. Smack in the middle of a wilderness, with no roads. That's
what he said. Had to come inland by boat for a few miles, then hike
in a few miles more to some lake. That's where the only livable
land was.”

“Fish Eagle Lake,” she said.

“By the hoagie—that's the one. He built his
hunter's lodge next to it.”

“Old-man Dunny's lodge. He let the families
set up fish camp on his-place, every year, too. Then when he
stopped coming, we just stayed-anyway.”

“That was him, all right. Elmer Dunstan. By
the Hoagie!”

“I think it's a miracle,” said Stella.
“Even though we overshot and came in on the back end, we weren't as
far away as we thought we were. Just seemed like it in all that
fog.”

“Things do seem farther in a fog,” the
colonel agreed. “Especially if you have to inch along the way we
did. And we should remember what an excellent navigator Captain
Stuart has always been, too.”

“Shortcake sure did a good job of tracking
the place down for us,” said Mason. “It's a real twist about the
village, though.” He looked over at Sarie. “You people been out
there a long time.”

“We had to start our own corporation, we're
so far away-from the others. Lots of paperwork. Had to elect a
president, too. That's-the rules.”

“Certainly sounds permanent,” said the
colonel. “And if I know Mason...”

“I wouldn't feel right kicking anybody off
land they grew up on.” The carpenter rubbed another thoughtful hand
over his whiskers. “Maybe we can make some kind of deal.”

“I already did,” said Gerald. “Didn't think
you'd mind, old man, considering we'll all be in-laws, once Sarie
and I get married. We want to live here at
The Last Resort
,
anyway. Right?”

“What kind of deal?”

Gerald laughed (which made Sarie laugh),
“That's the beauty of it!” He shook his head, and smacked the
table, again. “They keep on living the way they like, on their
side, and we keep living the way we like, over here on ours! If we
do that—and this was the president's offer, after talking it over
with the elders—they'll keep us in supply of all the fish, crab,
and meat we'll ever need. What I brought over today, is enough to
last all winter.”

“Sounds fair enough. Even seems a little
heavy on our end, considering the condition of the land. Maybe he
just meant for a couple years, then we'd call it even. What with
the price of meat these days.”

“For as long as they're there, and we're
here. Talked it over, myself. Right Sarie?”

She smiled and nodded her head.

“I'd feel better if we could meet and shake
hands on it.” Mason rubbed at his whiskers, again.

At which point, Gerald's new
fianc
e
e stood up, leaned over the table,
and held out her hand to him.

“Sarie's the president, Mase!” He smacked
the table, again. “Nobody else wanted the job.”

“Too much paperwork,” said Sarie. “We like
to share-meat, anyway. Specially, with in-laws.”

“Oh, it all seems too good to be true!”
Stella set the steaming kettle on a decorative ceramic tile in the
center of the table, in case anyone wanted hot cider, or tea.
“Except for you not getting the restaurant you wanted to start
there, Millie.”

“I've got enough of a restaurant, right
here,” she declared. “Look how many customers we've had, already,
and the hunting season's still not over, yet. Besides, with Sammy
and Mary making my Huckleberry Betty famous, that's all the
advertising I need. Almost like having a franchise going in the
next town, if you ask me. But how did Lou get anybody to believe
her?”

“She looked up the property records over in
Ketchikan, to find out the exact location, then brought along a
copy of the deed. Which, of course, has Mason's name on it. Then
when she recognized your Huckleberry Betty recipe at the
restaurant, Mil... that's when Sammy Robert told them they found
all of us out here. She even left a letter for you, before she
left, so you wouldn't worry.”

“Lou wrote me a letter? Before Mase?”

“Yes, there's something in it she wanted
you to be the first to know.” Gerald reached into his pocket and
retrieved a piece of paper that was simply folded over. “Of course,
it's been read by the whole village, already. Without an envelope
and all.”

“I read-it twice,” Sarie admitted, and
giggled, again.

Millie sat down on the end of the bench and
started to read, then burst into tears, and handed it off to Mason,
to read out loud.