Cry for the Strangers

by John Saul

  “I don’t see why you came to me,” he said. “You froze at the wheel for a couple of seconds. Everybody does that now and then.”

  “But it’s more than that, Doc.” Harney hesitated. “I have spells.”

  “Spells? What do you mean, spells? Sounds like a little old lady’s symptom.”

  “It’s the only way I can describe them. It’s almost like blacking out for a while, I guess. They don’t happen very often, or at least I don’t think they do, but when they start my hands start to twitch and I feel funny. Then there’s nothing until I wake up.”

  Phelps frowned. “When was the last time you had one?”

  “Last night,” Whalen admitted. “I was watching television and I felt it coming on. I don’t remember anything until this morning. I was in bed, but I don’t remember going to bed.”

  “Hmm,” Phelps said noncommittally. “Well, we’d better look you over.” He took Whalen’s blood pressure and pulse, tested his reflexes, and went over him with a stethoscope. Then he took a blood sample and had Whalen produce a urine sample as well.

  “I’ll have to send these down to a lab in Aberdeen, but we should find out if there’s anything there in a couple of days. Apart from the ‘spells’ how do you feel?”

  “Fine. Same as ever. When have I ever been sick?”

  Phelps nodded. “Well, everything looks normal so far. If nothing turns up in the samples, how would you feel about going into a hospital for a couple of days?”

  “Forget it,” Whalen said. “I’ve got too much to do.”

  Phelps rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Harn. You and I are the most underworked people in town. Or we were until recently.”

  “It’s the strangers,” Whalen murmured. “Every time strangers come we have trouble.”

  “You mean the Palmers?” Phelps asked.

  “Them and the new ones. Randall’s the name. They moved into my old house out at the beach.”

  Now Phelps’s interest was definitely piqued. “The Baron house? I thought you weren’t going to rent it anymore.”

  Whalen smiled bitterly. “I wasn’t. But it seems I did.” He frowned, searching for the best way to explain what had happened. “I guess I had one of my spells while I was showing the place to Randall and his wife. Anyway, they showed up with a signed lease, and I don’t remember signing it.” He stood up, and began buttoning his shirt. “Well, what about it? Am I going to live?”

  “As far as I can tell,” Phelps said slowly. “But what you just said bothers me. I have a good mind to send you to Aberdeen right now.”

  Whalen shook his head. “Not a chance. If you can’t find anything wrong, that’s that. Never been in a hospital. I don’t intend to start now.”

  “Suit yourself,” Phelps said. “But if you won’t follow my advice, don’t ask me what’s wrong with you.”

  “Maybe nothing’s wrong with me,” Whalen said amiably. “Maybe I’m just getting old.”

  “Maybe so,” Phelps replied tartly. “And maybe something is wrong with you and you just don’t want to know about it.”

  “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.”

  “Can’t help you either,” Phelps countered. “And what about other people? You might hurt someone—you almost did yesterday.”

  “But I didn’t,” Whalen reminded him. “And I won’t.”

  As Harney Whalen left his office Dr. Phelps wished he were as confident as Whalen seemed to be. But he wasn’t. The idea of Harney Whalen having “spells” worried him. It worried him very much.

  * * *

  Glen Palmer arrived home to find the cabin deserted. A note from Rebecca said she had gone down to the Randalls’ to see if she could give them a hand. He could fix his own lunch or come and get her. Since it was still early Glen decided to walk down the beach.

  The leaden sky showed no signs of clearing; the sky to the west was almost black, and near the horizon storm clouds were scudding back and forth, swirling among themselves as if grouping for an attack on the coast. The light rain that had been coming down all night and all morning still fell softly, soaking into the beach immediately, leaving the sand close-packed and solid. The tide was for out, and the level beach, exposed far beyond its normal width, glistened wetly.

  Glen walked out toward the surf line, then turned south, moving slowly, almost reluctantly. He was trying to decide how to break the news to Rebecca and what her response would be.

  She would give up and demand that they leave Clark’s Harbor. Or she would be angry. Or prepared for a fight, ready to do anything to show that she could not be frightened off. The last, he thought, would be typical of Rebecca.

  He was wrong. Rebecca saw him coming when he was still fifty yards from the old house on the beach and went out to meet him.

  “It happened, didn’t it?” she asked softly.

  Glen looked up, startled. He hadn’t seen her coming—he’d been staring at the sand at his feet, preoccupied. He nodded mutely.

  “What was it?”

  “The gallery’s been vandalized,” Glen told her.

  “Vandalized? You mean someone broke in?”

  “They broke in, they wrecked the gallery, they smashed all your pottery, and they shredded all but one of my canvases.”

  “Which one?” Rebecca asked irrelevantly, and Glen realized that she was shutting out what he had said. Of all the possible reactions, this was one Glen hadn’t considered.

  “The one I gave Chip,” he said softly. Rebecca turned slowly and gazed at the old house that was the subject of Glen’s only surviving canvas.

  “Somehow that seems right,” she commented. Then she slipped her arm through Glen’s and stared up into his troubled eyes. “Let’s not worry about it now. Not this minute anyway. If I have to decide what to do right now I’ll make the wrong decision. So let’s wait, all right? We’ll talk it over with Brad and Elaine, then pretend nothing’s happened for the rest of the day. And tonight when we’re in bed we’ll make up our minds.”

  Glen pulled her closer and kissed her softly. “If we decide in bed I know what we’ll do: we’ll stick it out here. When we’re in bed anything seems possible.”

  “Then so be it,” Rebecca murmured. “But let’s not talk about it right now, all right?”

  The chaos in the Randalls’ house was only slightly more orderly than that in the gallery, and Glen tried to sound cheerful as he made the comparison. But as he listened to Glen’s story of what had happened the night before Brad wondered if Robby had stayed in bed last night: Glen’s description of the gallery sounded all too much like the havoc the boy had been known to create in the past. So when Robby and Missy arrived, scrambling over the driftwood on their way home from school, Brad quickly found an excuse to take Robby for a long walk on the beach.

  “Pretty out here, isn’t it?” he said casually when they were out of earshot of the house. Robby nodded noncommittally.

  “Your dad tells me you love it out here,” Brad prodded gently.

  “It’s all right. But I like it best when it rains.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Robby turned the question over in his mind. Nobody had ever asked him that before, and he hadn’t ever thought about it. Now, with the openness of childhood, he began thinking out loud. “I guess I feel excited when the storms come up,” he said slowly. “But it’s a funny land of excited. Not like Christmas, or my birthday, when I know something good’s going to happen. It’s more like a feeling in my body. I get sort of tingly, and sometimes it’s hard to move. But it’s not a bad feeling—it’s more like it’s what’s supposed to happen. It’s exciting and relaxing all at the same time. Sometimes when I’m out in the storms I feel like lying down on the ground and letting the rain fall all over me.”

  “You go out in the storms?” Brad tried to keep his voice casual but there was a note of concern in it that Robby detected immediately. He stared up at Brad, his eyes large and frightened.

  “Don’t tell Mom and Dad,” he begged. �
��They wouldn’t like it. They’d think I was still side, but I’m not. The storms make me well.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” Brad reassured the boy. “But I’d like to know what happens when you go out in the storms.”

  “Nothing, really. Missy thinks she sees things when we’re out together, but nothing ever happens. Sometimes I go by myself, but sometimes Missy comes with me,” he explained, though Brad hadn’t voiced the question that was in his mind. “But Missy never wants to go and I always have to talk her into it. She’s a scaredy-cat.”

  “What about the night I met you on the beach? Missy wasn’t with you then.”

  “I was looking for Snooker and Missy wouldn’t come. She said he was gone and wasn’t coming back and there wasn’t any use looking for him.” Robby looked dejected. “I guess she was right,” he said softly, as if the admission hurt him.

  “Do you ever see anyone else when you’re out in the storms?”

  Robby thought about it and decided that the only time he’d actually seen anyone was a few weeks earlier. “We met Old Man Riley once. He told us stories about the Indians, and how they used to kill people on the beach and hold ceremonies and all kinds of stuff. But that’s all.”

  They walked in silence for a while as Brad tried to make sense out of what Robby had said. It seemed, on the surface, as if nothing particularly unusual was happening. And yet, Brad was sure there was something else just beneath the surface. He decided to ask one more question.

  “Aren’t you ever frightened when you’re out by yourself and the storms are blowing?”

  Robby Palmar looked bewildered. “No,” he finally said. “Why should I? I belong here.” Then, before Brad could absorb what he had said or question him about the previous night, Robby turned and began running back to the house. Brad watched him go and wondered what he had meant. Wasn’t Robby, like the rest of his family, a stranger here? How could he “belong”?

  As soon as Brad returned to the house Glen drew him aside, his expression a mixture of curiosity and concern. “Well?” he asked expectantly.

  “I don’t know,” Brad said slowly, wishing he could come up with an easy explanation for the events that were ensnaring Clark’s Harbor. “It has something to do with the storms. Robby says they ‘excite’ him. And if they excite him they must do the same to other people. Only they don’t calm the other people down. The storms must turn them into monsters instead.”

  Brad didn’t tell Glen what Robby had said about Missy. For the moment, he decided, he would keep it to himself. At least until he had a chance to talk to Missy directly.

  As the afternoon light began to fade Dr. Bradford Randall stared out over the Pacific Ocean and tried to keep the dogs of fear that were nibbling at the edges of his consciousness at bay.

  There was an explanation for what was happening around him. He could find it.

  But even if he found it he wasn’t sure he could do anything about it. He remembered the old adage: everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

  Maybe there was nothing that could be done about it.

  23

  Elaine Randall hadn’t slept well. She was uneasy in their new surroundings, but there was something more—what Brad had told them the night before. It hadn’t sounded logical. And yet she knew that weather could affect people. Ionization, the Santa Ana winds, that sort of thing. But here, in Clark’s Harbor? It may not have made sense, but it was frightening. So she had lain awake most of the night, listening to the steady roar of the surf. And thinking.

  Twice she had gotten up, both times without disturbing Brad, and stared out at the beach. It was clear and she had seen the Big Dipper glowing brightly in the black sky. A half-moon had turned the beach a burnished pewter tone.

  Near dawn she had finally drifted into a fitful sleep.

  Now she was up, battling with the recalcitrant wood stove, poking at the remains of a dead fire. Rebecca had showed her how to bank the fire last night, but Elaine wasn’t sure it had worked. She grasped a poker in her right hand. A small bellows sat on top of the stove, ready for her to use in the unlikely event a spark should appear. She jabbed viciously at the largest chunk of wood remaining in the firebox, and was surprised when it broke in two and exposed its glowing interior.

  She crammed a wad of newspaper into the firebox, picked up the bellows, and began frantically pumping. She heard Brad come into the kitchen but was too intent on getting the fire going to offer more than a muttered “good morning.”

  Brad watched her for a few minutes, then took the bellows out of her hands.

  “You’re working too hard,” he said. “You’ll blow the fire out as fast as you feed it. Do it slowly.” He worked the bellows easily and a moment later a tiny flame leaped to life, igniting the paper. Brad put the bellows aside and tossed some chips of wood onto the tiny blaze, then some kindling. The fire grew steadily.

  “Nothing to it,” he announced.

  “Beginner’s luck,” Elaine said. “It was all set to go when you took over. Hand me the coffee.”

  She carefully measured out the coffee, then placed the basket inside the aluminum percolator that stood waiting on the stove. “I could learn to do without coffee at this rate,” she complained. “Any idea how long it’s supposed to perk, assuming it ever starts?”

  “Till it’s done,” Brad replied just as there was a knock at the kitchen door, followed by a voice.

  “Anybody home?” It was Rebecca Palmer, and she didn’t wait for a reply before coming in. She was carrying a thermos.

  “I thought you might be able to use this,” she said cheerfully. “The first couple of days we were here I couldn’t get the coffee to perk at all.” She pulled the top off the thermos and the room filled with the aroma of fresh, strong coffee. Elaine poured three cups and immediately took a sip from one of them.

  “I may live,” she sighed. Then she looked questioningly at Rebecca. “Did you see Jeff?”

  “Jeff? Isn’t he here?”

  “I thought I heard him go out just before I got up,” Elaine replied. “I think he was going out to look for wreckage.”

  “He’s not on the beach,” Rebecca said.

  “Probably went the other way,” Brad suggested. “But I don’t think he’ll find anything.”

  Chip Connor found Harney at his desk, sourly going over the report Chip had left there the night before. The chief looked up at him and pushed the file aside.

  “You expect me to do anything about that?” he asked.

  “It’s our job,” Chip pointed out.

  “Anything stolen?”

  “Not as far as Glen could tell. But you should see the place,” Chip added. “It’s a mess.”

  “Well, that’s the way things go sometimes,” Whalen said, unconcerned. “If nothing was stolen then what’s the big deal?”

  “You mean you aren’t going to do anything?” Chip couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “No,” Whalen said heavily, “I’m not.”

  Chip’s eyes narrowed angrily. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Harn. It seems like lately you just don’t give a damn what goes on around here.”

  “I don’t give a damn about what happens to outsiders,” Whalen corrected. “And I have my reasons.”

  “I know about your reasons,” Chip replied. “Granddad told me all about it. But the past is the past, Harney. All that happened years ago. Things change.”

  “Some things change. Some don’t.= Some things can be forgiven, and some can’t. I haven’t forgotten what happened to my grandparents. Never will. And as far as I’m concerned, I don’t want any outsiders hanging around this town. They’re dangerous.”

  “It seems to me that this town’s more dangerous for them than they are for us,” Chip countered.

  “That’s the way things are here.” A hatred came into Whalen’s voice, a tone that Chip had never heard before. “When my grandparents first came here it was dangerous for them. The Indians d
idn’t like what was going on and they did their damnedest to get rid of all the whites. But my grandparents hung on and they learned to live here. My daddy even married a girl who was part Indian, but I guess you know about that, don’t you?”

  Chip nodded, wondering what Whalen was getting at.

  “Well, the Indians went away after a while, up north, and left us alone. But they always said the place would be no good for strangers. And it hasn’t been. The lumbermen tried to come in here, but it wasn’t any good for them.”

  “That was your doing,” Chip said. “First your grandfather’s, then yours.”

  “I didn’t renew a lease, that’s all,” Whalen said mildly. “But they should have gone away then. They didn’t. They tried to stay and fish. And it didn’t work.”

  “I heard,” Chip said dully.

  “Well, it’s been that way ever since,” Whalen said. “Every now and then strangers come, and they always bring trouble. But it’s just like the Indians said. The trouble always flies back in their faces. And you know something, Chip? There’s not a damned thing we can do about it.”

  “You don’t even try.”

  “Not anymore, no,” Whalen agreed. “I used to but it never did any good. So I live with it. Can’t say it bothers me particularly.” He picked up the folder containing Chip’s report on the vandalism at Glen Palmer’s gallery. “So don’t expect me to do anything about this. I won’t find anything—anybody could have done it and there’s nothing to look for. If I were you I’d forget it. You just tell Palmer, if he wants to stay in Clark’s Harbor, he’d better expect things like this.”

  Chip nodded his head absently and started to leave. But before he got to the door he remembered something and turned back.

  “Did you see Doc Phelps yesterday?”

  “Yeah.” Whalen said the word tonelessly, as if there were nothing more to add, but Chip pressed him.

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “Nothing he could find. I just didn’t feel very well the other night, so I decided to have him take a look. Must have been indigestion.”

  Whalen wondered briefly why he was lying to Chip, why he didn’t want to tell Chip about his “spells,” then decided it was just none of Chip’s business. Besides, the spells weren’t serious. If Phelps couldn’t find out what was causing them there wasn’t any point in talking about them.