The Forty Fathom Bank and Other Stories by Les Galloway

Author:Les Galloway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2004-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

Last Passenger North, or The Doppelganger

May the eye go to the sun, the breath to the wind.

~ RIG-VEDA X, 16, 3.

Look, look,

And thou shalt see

The great immensity

Enclosing thee.

1

The old wood-hulled steam schooner, Caspar, lay alongside the San Francisco Warehouse Company’s dock near the entrance to the Third Street channel. A dry north wind blowing steadily over the city stirred the dust in quick little eddies around the corners of the soot-blackened brick warehouse and ruffled the feathers of gulls squatting on the splintered planks. A broken piston rod that had delayed the Caspar’s departure by more than twelve hours had been replaced. From her rusted stack a twisting black trunk of crude oil smoke rose into the air to flatten into a dense cloud over the channel.

Captain Larson, or Midnight Larson, as he was known to his shipmates, stretched wearily on his canvas deck chair in the sheltered lee of the fo’c’sle head. The visor of his officer’s cap, pulled down to shade his eyes from the sun’s glare, cast a shadow over the gray stubble on his cheeks. The Collected Works of Dostoevsky, its dog-eared pages and margins filled with pencilled notes, lay open in his lap. He had given the deck crew time off while the engine was being repaired. He regretted having to keep his chief engineer and his two assistants below since he knew the inland heat carried by that unusual north wind made the engine room nearly unbearable. He planned to make up for their unpleasant overtime by extra shore leave in Eureka providing, he reflected anxiously, the engine did not break down again.

To add to his troubles, O’Hare, the company agent, had informed him there would be a passenger on the northbound trip.

“A passenger!” the Captain exclaimed. It was the first passenger the Caspar had booked in more than fifteen years.

“Where’s he going?”

“Eureka, or possibly as far as Astoria,” the agent said. “Beyond that, I can’t tell you much more than that he signed his name William Mueller. No local address and no next of kin.”

“Could he be going up north to find work in the woods?”

“Not likely. He looked pretty well off. Wore an expensive business suit and carried a briefcase.”

“Does he have any baggage? A suitcase, trunk?”

“Nothing but the briefcase. Why do you ask?”

“Seems a bit strange,” the Captain commented. “A well-dressed man heading north with no baggage, no particular destination. And on the Caspar? What’s he look like?”

“He’s about your height, gray haired, thin. He sounds educated and speaks in a very low voice.” The agent paused. “Come to think of it, I can’t remember his face except that it seemed kind of pale. He’ll be boarding around noon so you’ll see for yourself.” He paused again. “By the way, he wants a cabin to himself on the lee side of the ship. Says he has an aversion to the wind.”

The Captain explained that since he had never expected to see a passenger again, all the cabins had been taken over for use as paint lockers and general stowage rooms.

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