still wrapped in protective material against the vicious winter winds. The place looked abandoned. The Senator climbed the broad, black granite steps to the dark front doors and rang the bell. And knocked. And called. There was no answer. In the noose-shaped driveway was parked a green pickup truck, which the three recognized as Cal Cooley’s.
“Well, it looks like old Cal Cooley is here,” the Senator said.
He walked around to the back of the house, and Ruth and Webster followed. They walked past the gardens, which were not gardens anymore so much as unkempt brush piles. They walked past the tennis court, which was overgrown and wet. They walked past the fountain, which was overgrown and dry. They walked toward the stable, and found its wide, sliding door gaping open. The entrance was big enough for two carriages, side by side. It was a beautiful stable, but it had been so long out of use that it no longer even had a trace of the smell of horses.
“Cal Cooley!” Senator Simon called. “Mr. Cooley?”
Inside the stable, with its stone floors and cool, empty, odorless stalls, was Cal Cooley, sitting in the middle of the floor. He was sitting on a simple stool before something enormous and was polishing the object with a rag.
“My God!” the Senator said. “Look what you’ve got!”
What Cal Cooley had was a huge piece of a lighthouse, the top piece of a lighthouse. It was, in fact, the magnificent glass-and-brass circular lens of a lighthouse. It was probably seven feet tall. Cal Cooley stood up from his stool, and he was close to seven feet tall, too. Cal Cooley had thick, combed-back blue-black hair and oversized blue-black eyes. He had a big square frame and a thick nose and a huge chin and a deep, straight line right across his forehead that made him look as if he’d run into a clothesline. He looked as if he might be part Indian. Cal Cooley had been with the Ellis family for about twenty years, but he hadn’t seemed to age a day, and it would have been difficult for a stranger to guess whether he was forty years old or sixty.
“Why, it’s my good friend the Senator,” Cal Cooley drawled.
Cal Cooley was originally from Missouri, a place he insisted on pronouncing Missourah. He had a prominent Southern accent, which—although Ruth Thomas had never been to the South—she believed he had a tendency to exaggerate. She believed, for the most part, that Cal Cooley’s whole demeanor was phony. There were many things about Cal Cooley that she hated, but she was particularly offended by his phony accent and his habit of referring to himself as Old Cal Cooley. As in “Old Cal Cooley can’t wait for spring,” or “Old Cal Cooley looks like he needs another drink.”
Ruth could not tolerate this affectation.
“And look! It’s Miss Ruth Thomas!” Cal Cooley drawled on. “She is always such an oasis to behold. And look who’s with her: a savage.”
Webster Pommeroy, muddied and silent under Cal Cooley’s gaze, stood with the elephant’s tusk in his hand. His feet shifted about quickly, nervously, as if he were preparing to race.
“I know what this is,” Senator Simon Addams said, approaching the huge and magnificent glass that Cal Cooley had been polishing. “I know exactly what this is!”
“Can you guess, my friend?” Cal Cooley asked, winking at Ruth Thomas as if they had a wonderful shared secret. She looked away. She felt her face get hot. She wondered if there was some way she could arrange her life so that she could live on Fort Niles forever without ever seeing Cal Cooley again.
“It’s the Fresnel lens from the Goat’s Rock lighthouse, isn’t it?” the Senator asked.
“Yes, it is. Exactly right. Have you ever visited it? You must have been to Goat’s Rock, eh?”
“Well, no,” the Senator admitted, flushing. “I can never go out to a place like Goat’s Rock. I don’t go on boats, you know.”
Which Cal Cooley knew perfectly well, Ruth thought.
“Is that so?” Cal asked innocently.
“I have a fear of water, you see.”
“What a terrible affliction,” Cal Cooley murmured.
Ruth wondered whether Cal Cooley had ever been severely beaten up in his life. She would have enjoyed seeing it.
“My goodness,” the Senator marveled. “My goodness. How did you ever acquire the lighthouse from Goat’s Rock? It’s a remarkable lighthouse. It’s one of the oldest lighthouses in the country.”
“Well, my friend. We bought it. Mr. Ellis has always fancied it. So we bought it.”