Christine Johnson - Mail Order Sweetheart

The wind tore at his open coat and bit into his neck. He hopped up the steps to the mercantile and pushed open the door. The bell rang. He looked around. The place was empty except for Pearl Decker, who stood behind the sales counter.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Evans. May I help you?”

Pearl had come to Singapore as the new schoolteacher, but it didn’t take long for Roland Decker, the mercantile manager, to fall for her. The big fire last November that leveled the schoolhouse had sealed things between them. He proposed. She accepted. And in January, when the itinerant preacher came around, they married.

Sawyer stepped a little farther inside and looked toward the back. No one was gathered around the stove. No one was shopping. “Where’s Roland?”

“He headed up to the lighthouse. Word arrived that there’s a ship headed for trouble. Mr. Blackthorn lit the light early, trying to warn them off. Naturally, every able-bodied man went to have a look.”

“You don’t say. Maybe I ought to go too. But first I need to ask you something.”

“Oh?”

His palms sweated. Why did he get nervous around women? It had been that way ever since his fiancée, Julia, rejected him.

He cleared his throat. “That, uh, advertisement we were joking about earlier this afternoon... I, uh, wondered if I could have it?” The few scraps of paper in his pocket didn’t contain any of the words.

Pearl blinked. “Oh! Of course.”

She moved the ledger, then looked under the counter. Then she disappeared from view.

Sawyer moved to the counter and peered over. She was on her hands and knees.

“What are you doing, Mrs. Decker?”

She looked up, her faced flushed. “I don’t know where it went.”

“It? There were just scraps.” He pulled the few he had from his pocket.

“Well, uh, not exactly.” She stood, squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “I owe you an apology, it seems. I rewrote the advertisement, hoping to persuade you, but now it’s gone.”

Sawyer got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Gone where?”

She swallowed. “There’s only one place it could have gone. It must have gotten mixed up with the advertisements for the store that I gave to Mr. Hennigan earlier.”

“What?” Sawyer gulped as his mind spun with possibilities. “Are you saying that it will be printed?” But he knew the answer. The presses would already be whirring at this hour. By morning, all of Singapore would think he was in the market for a wife.

“I’m so sorry,” Pearl said again. “Perhaps nothing will come of it.”

“I hope so.” Scowling, he tipped a finger to his hat and hustled back out into the wind, where he could concentrate on something much easier to handle. The biting cold was real. That advertisement wasn’t. He’d just ignore it. It didn’t give his name, after all. Maybe the whole thing would blow over in a few days.

A mournful whistle drew his attention toward Lake Michigan. What was a misplaced advertisement compared to a ship in trouble? One or two vessels had lost propulsion since he arrived in Singapore. Most got into port safely, but some had grounded on the shifting sandbars. With the southwesterly gale blowing in and the sandbars that formed over winter, a ship could easily find itself aground.

He squinted at the lighthouse and made out the light. The sun must be near the horizon by now, but heavy clouds obscured it. Soon enough it would get dark. Hopefully the ship would reach the river mouth before then.

The lighthouse was perched atop the big dune that separated Singapore from the shores of Lake Michigan. Since the first lighthouse had been undercut and toppled into the river, this one was built farther from the water, and the dune had been reinforced with slabs of limestone to stop the seas from eroding the sands beneath it.

The town was nestled between the growing lakeshore dunes and older ones that had once been covered with trees. These days, any gale filled the streets with sand. It even worked its way into the buildings and had to be swept out and shoveled away constantly.

He hurried up the dune. Roland Decker and a handful of men were gathered near the lighthouse, peering at the lake. Already the waves were crashing onshore. Six to eight footers, he’d judge, and they would only build. A passenger steamer rolled in the trough maybe a quarter mile offshore. No smoke trickled from the stack.

“Engines must be down,” Sawyer noted to the group, which included mill workers Edwards and Tuggman plus Ernie Calloway from the boardinghouse and Roland’s brother, Garrett. The lighthouse keeper, Blackthorn, must be up in the tower, but two of his boys had gathered with the men.

“That’s what we figure,” Roland confirmed. “Mr. Blackthorn says there’s a sandbar about a hundred yards from shore, directly in their path. If they ground, the waves will tear them apart, and that water’s too cold for anyone to survive.”

Sawyer whistled. “Better hope they get their engines going.” How many people were aboard? It looked like the ship that had brought Fiona to town. The thought of women and children going down made him ill. “Have they put up any sail?” He couldn’t see if the ship had masts, not without looking through the glass.

“Don’t think they got any,” Edwards muttered.

Sawyer clenched his hands, visions of Fiona flailing in stiff seas flashing through his mind. “They need something to generate enough power so they can steer toward the river mouth.”

“That’s something we can pray for,” Roland said. “Let’s do it.”

Sawyer hesitated. Like most, he tossed up the occasional plea, but the barbarities of war had dimmed his belief that God answered every prayer. This was crucial, though, so after Roland led the prayer, Sawyer answered amen.

God often worked through men, so he pointed out, “We need to be ready to rescue them.”

The keeper appeared at his elbow. “Too dangerous. We can’t go risking people’s lives when there’s not much chance we could reach ’em.”

Sawyer couldn’t accept that. “What boats are available?”

Roland shrugged. “We could launch a rowboat.”

Even the strongest men couldn’t row into that sea. “We need sail or steam. Anything around?”

“My mackinaw boat,” Blackthorn offered.

Sawyer was familiar with the small sailing craft. “That’s got an awfully shallow draft. It’ll struggle to make any headway in these waves.”

They all knew it.

“We need a deep-draft sailboat or, better yet, a steam tug,” Sawyer pointed out. “Can we get the Donnie Belle down from upriver?”

“She must be all the way up to Allegan by now,” Edwards said. “She left here Monday and don’t come back this way for another week.”

Sawyer frowned. Singapore didn’t have a steam tug. Neither did Saugatuck, not one that was running this time of year. Without a tug, the people on that steamer didn’t stand a chance.

Chapter Three

“There’s a passenger ship in trouble,” Mrs. Calloway announced to Fiona as she hurried through the dining room on her way to the kitchen. “We’re going to need every bed in the place made up and every spare blanket brought over to the lighthouse.”

A passenger ship! Fiona’s heart leaped into her throat. Mary Clare. What if her niece was on that ship? She pushed aside the newspapers, husband-hunting forgotten, and raced to the entry hall. In a second, she donned her cloak.

“Where are you going?” the boardinghouse proprietress asked.

“I have to do something to help.” Fiona couldn’t bring herself to mention the fear that was building in her chest. A seven-year-old girl. A sinking ship. Icy water. What if?

“You can help right here. We need to carry blankets to the lighthouse.”