“Are you all right, mister?”
Am I all right? I asked myself. Considering I had just had my entire life pulled out from under me the night before, no I was not any way near all right. For a moment, the futility of this trip to the Gulf Coast seemed overwhelming and I tried to convince myself it was best I get away for at least long enough to clear my head and sort out all that had happened back in Atlanta.
I watched as she turned to grab a canteen that was hanging from the horn of her saddle. She uncorked the cap and handed it to me. As I took the canteen I tried to estimate her age and came to the conclusion she was in her late teens or early twenties. I took a long drink, my hands shaking from exhaustion. Water dribbled down my chin and onto my stained shirt. The black bow tie was still around my neck from the night before, though untied. I finished drinking and handed the canteen back to her.
“Thank you,” I said as I gulped in air and tried to gather myself.
“My name’s Rebecca… Rebecca Bidwell,” she said, reaching out for my hand. I took hers and it was warm and the grip firm. Then she smiled at me.
“Mathew Coulter,” I said, continuing to hold her hand.
“You look like you’ve had a nasty trip,” she said.
I looked down at myself for a moment and then was able to barely manage a smile. Looking back up at Rebecca Bidwell, I said, “If you only knew.”
“How’d you get here?”
I glanced back and my car was out of sight around a bend in the road, if you could call it a road. I turned back to the girl and said, “I’m down from Atlanta, trying to get to a friend’s place in Grayton Beach.”
“You walked the whole way?” she said and then laughed.
“No, my car’s stuck up around the bend back there.”
“Happens all the time. Guess I’m not surprised. These roads around here are a nightmare.”
“How much further to Grayton Beach?” I asked.
“Oh, we’re just a ways to the beach there,” she said, looking down the road away from me. “Who are you coming to visit? Not many folks around here this time of year.”
“You know the Headley family from Atlanta?” I asked. “They’ve had a place down in here in Grayton Beach for some time now I guess.”
Her expression brightened some and she answered, “Yes, I know Jimmy Headley. I’ve seen him and his family down here in the summers. They have a nice old cottage near the beach, just down from the hotel.”
“That’s right, the Headley’s place,” I said, and then hesitated, not sure exactly how to explain why I was headed that way. “So, what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere, Rebecca?”
“Just giving Barley here a little run,” she said, turning to rub the soft muzzle of her horse’s nose. “Our family lives up at Point Washington. My daddy runs a sawmill and a little store up there on the bay.”
I nodded and said, “I just stopped through there.”
“That was Momma behind the counter. She was cordial, I expect?”
“Sure,” I said, thinking back about the stout woman shopkeeper that had helped me earlier. There certainly was a resemblance with this young girl, definitely in the eyes, although her mother had put on a generous number of pounds over the years.
“Can’t always be sure how she’ll treat visitors from the North. She’s plenty kind to the locals though,” Rebecca said.
“She was fine, really,” I said, not wishing to get into how the encounter had really gone. I took another drink from the canteen.
“Your bags back in the car?” she asked.
I thought for a moment and realized I had left town with nothing but the clothes I had on and about fifty dollars and change in my pocket. “No, didn’t bring much,” I answered.
“You want a ride into town?” she asked. “Me and Barley can take you down. Won’t be any trouble at all.” She turned and pulled herself up into the saddle and then reached for my hand. I couldn’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t take her offer. I was frankly about out of strength to continue on alone anyway. I put my right foot into the stirrup and she helped to pull me up behind her on the rump of old Barley, my stiff left leg pushing out at an unnatural angle to the side. I got myself situated and put an arm around her waist to hold on as she kicked the horse and made a little clicking sound in her mouth to get it moving.
We started off at a slow walk, the horse making its way easily in the loose sand. The girl’s hair blew in my face and I had to keep brushing it away. There were scents of soap and pine boughs. From this high perch, I could see through the trees. Off ahead, the barrier dunes along the beach began to come into view. The sand hills were nearly as white as snow, shadowed across the ridges by the dark entanglements of the low scrub brush and grasses and shaped over the years by the winds off the Gulf of Mexico. Then I could see the waters of a large lake leading up to the far dunes, laying calm, sheltered by the hills and trees. A line of tall pines rose up along the far east shore of the lake, the trunks bare of any limbs nearly three quarters of the way up. Rebecca just looked ahead like this panoramic view was nothing out of the ordinary.
We traveled on in silence as we came into the settlement of Grayton Beach. The first small house sat on the left, tucked into the trees. It was not much more than a one-room cabin built up on low stilts with a shallow pitched roof over a porch that ran all across the front. Two old wood chairs rested there with a small table with empty bottles scattered about. A large black dog ran out from the back of the house and Barley didn’t even seem to notice as it ran up and barked at us.
Rebecca looked down and scolded the dog. “You stay back now, Pepper. Don’t want you gettin’ stomped.” The dog stopped barking and followed alongside, wagging its tail. A woman came to the door of the cabin. She pushed open the screen and walked out onto the porch.
“Hey Becky,” she called and then waved. She was dressed in a sleeveless white dress open at the neck and her feet were bare. A small boy came out wearing only short white pants and wrapped his arms around his mother’s leg to watch the horse go by.
“Morning, Mrs. Elliott,” Rebecca said.
“Who’ve you got there?” the woman asked about my place on the back of the horse.
“This is Mr. Coulter. Down from Atlanta to stay at the Headley’s cottage,” she answered.
The woman waved back. “Welcome, sir,” she said. “Hope you enjoy your stay. I’m sure we’ll see you around town. We’re from Birmingham, but know a lot of folks up in Atlanta. We’ll have to have you over for a drink.”
I nodded and said, “Thank you.” The little boy kept looking at me as we rode away.
Closer to the main street in the little village I began to hear the low rumble of the waves breaking onshore past the sand hills ahead. The sky was still a clear blue with only a few feathered white clouds high off to the south. We came to a stop where the road turned in both directions. A larger building sat off to our left, two stories in height and painted a bright white as many of the other structures in town were. There was a small sign across the roofline that read, The Beach Hotel. Just down the road there was an old water tower and a windmill turning with a slight rattle in the afternoon breeze. A few other cottages were scattered along the road and through the dunes toward the beach.
The porch on the hotel was lined with wooden rocking chairs, weathered by the salt air and wind. A little girl was sitting in one of the chairs. Her sunburned legs and bare feet were too short to reach the floor and stuck out from a green print dress. Her curly brown hair moved some in the soft breeze and I guessed she was near ten or twelve years of age.
Rebecca turned the horse to the left and as we walked past the hotel she turned to the girl who was staring off across the street as if she didn’t even see us. “Hello, Melanee,” she said. The girl looked up and smiled, although her gaze was still off to the side.
“Hi Rebecca,” she said. “I thought that was Barley coming around the corner.”
“How are you today, Melanee?”
“Oh, I’m just wonderful, thanks Rebecca. Grandma just finished up with my piano lesson and we’re going down to the beach in a bit.”
“Well, I’ll see you down there, honey?”
Then Melanee asked, “Who’s that with you?”
Rebecca introduced us and let the little girl know where I was staying as we passed. She said she would stop by later down at the beach.
“Yes, please come down,” the little girl said with an excited lift in her voice. “The water’s been so nice and warm since the spring rains let up.”
“You say hi to Miss Lila for us now, dear,” Rebecca said as we continued on. It was then I first realized that the girl couldn’t see us at all, that she was blind and I whispered my observation to Rebecca in front of me. She nodded and said, “Little Melanee’s been blind since birth. Her momma left her here a few years back with her grandma, Lila Dalton, who runs the hotel there. The woman’s never come back for her and I’ve heard folks say she’s over in New Orleans up to no good.”
I looked back at the little girl who still sat patiently on the porch waiting for her grandmother to take her down to the beach. “How did she know I was riding with you?” I asked.
Rebecca turned over her shoulder and smiled at me. “Melanee Dalton is a special one. You’ll see.”
We turned on another narrow sand road and Rebecca Bidwell pulled the horse up in front of the Headley’s cottage, similar in size and construction to the others we had seen along the way. An unpainted and weathered gray picket fence ran across the front along the road with a small gate in the middle. The house had been painted white years ago, but the seasons had taken their toll and much of the wood siding was covered in cracked and peeling paint. Heavy wood shutters, painted black, covered the windows for protection against storms while the Headleys were away. It seemed a paint scraper and a few cans of paint would keep me busy for a few weeks and help to keep my mind off Atlanta. Live oak trees framed the house on both sides and in back and low branches hung over the rusting metal roof.
“Here we are, Mr. Coulter,” she said as she turned to make room for me to slide off. Before I could there was a shout from the path up from the beach and we both turned to see two young men coming our way. Rebecca waved and said, “That’s my brother Jonas there on the left, and that’s Seth, Seth Howard…”
She couldn’t finish her explanation before the one named Seth yelled out, “Becky, who you got there?” They walked up closer and stopped a few feet away. I slid carefully down off the horse and walked in my stiff and angled way around to be introduced, my hand tracing the back haunches of old Barley. I watched as the two men sized-up my appearance with a not so surprising disapproval on their faces. I started to reach out to say hello when Seth said in a heavy north Florida accent, just short of a snarl, “Who the hell are you and what in hell’d you run into?” Before I could answer he looked up at Rebecca Bidwell. “Where’d you find this piece a road kill, darlin’?”
“This is Mr. Mathew Coulter, boys,” she said. “He’s down from Atlanta to stay for a while here at the Headley’s place. His car got stuck up the road there, so I gave him a ride in.”
“How are you doing, fellas?” I said, reaching out my hand. Jonas Bidwell took it in a sweaty weak grip and just nodded back. Both were as tall as I and of sizable proportions. They were dressed in denim coveralls worn over short-sleeved shirts that were rolled up nearly to their shoulders. When I turned to Seth he looked past me to Rebecca. His hair was brown, but bleached from the sun and long over his ears and down his forehead, wet apparently from a recent swim.
“You need to stop picking up strangers on the trail, girl,” Seth said. “I been telling you that for some time now, haven’t I?” Then he looked back at me and just stared for a moment. His eyes were pinched at the sides and his mouth was a hard line across his weathered face.
I heard Rebecca’s voice behind me. “This is Seth. His family owns the hog farm over across Western Lake there. They’ve got a few hundred acres, but you’ll see their pigs wandering through town from time to time. Not much need for fences around here.”
“She tell you we’re engaged to be married, Mr.… what was your name?”
I turned and looked at Rebecca, still up on her horse. “No, she didn’t tell me.” I looked back to Seth Howard. “Congratulations, and the name’s Mathew.” I was quickly growing very tired of all this. He didn’t answer and just continued to stare at me. A few awkward moments passed and I finally decided there was not much more need for introductions and small talk. “Well, I should probably get this place opened up,” I said. “Rebecca, thanks again for the ride in.”
She smiled back and said to her brother and fiancé, “Boys, maybe the two of you can get out on the road there and help get Mathew’s car into town later today.”
“Yeah, we can run out there with a couple of horses,” Jonas said.
I thanked them both and told them the key was still in the car. Seth Howard started past me without speaking, and with clear intent, bumped my shoulder as he passed. He walked over to the horse and put his hand on Rebecca’s thigh. “You best get on over to the house. Momma’s been expecting you to help out in the kitchen for the party tonight.”
“The Howard’s are throwing an engagement party for us tonight down at the beach,” Rebecca said. “Everybody in town will be there. You’ll have to come down, Mathew.”
“Thank you,” I answered, ignoring the strained look on Seth’s face. “I‘ll try my best to come down,” I said, but thinking the last thing I wanted was being around a lot of people at a party, trying to explain who I was and why I was in town.
“We’ll be there about an hour before sundown,” she said. “You just have to be there to see the sunset.”
“I’ll do my best, and boys, are you going to need some help with that car?”
Jonas said, “No, not a problem. We’ll bring her in for ya.”
Seth came around and took Barley’s bridle and began to pull the horse away. I watched as the three of them headed back in the direction of the hotel. Rebecca looked over her shoulder once and waved.
Chapter Six
I scanned across the panorama of the little village of Grayton Beach, a few rustic cottages tucked into the white sand bluffs and rugged vegetation of wild scrub and live oak, wind-tossed magnolia trees and slash pines; the town’s water tower and windmill rising up into the sky. Through a gap in the sand hills to the south I could see the deep blue and green shades of the Gulf of Mexico shimmering in the afternoon sun. Low swells of waves swept up onto the beach in a cadence of muted rumbling. Further offshore a large ketch-rigged sailboat pushed along under full sail toward the east. A flock of a dozen pelicans flew in just above the waves along the shoreline in a V-formation, their wings spread wide to float on the wind currents. The faint smell of salt and stale fish hung in the air.
Rebecca Bidwell and her brother and boyfriend had disappeared around a corner. My heart grew heavy again as I thought about the two young lovers, an engagement party being held for them tonight and how quickly my own plans for the love of a young woman had been dashed on the rocks of my family’s intolerance and betrayal. I tried to put the images of Jess and Hanna out of my mind, but I knew of course they would be forever imprinted there, a grating reminder of misplaced trust. Again, I had to force down the rising anger with Hanna and my family, and the frustration with my own response to all that had occurred the past evening. Would I ever be able to live with the humiliation of just running away, of letting them have their way with my life? The indignity of it all left a sour knot in my gut.
I turned and looked at the Headley cottage, boarded up and lifeless in the warm spring sunshine. Two old fishing poles had been left leaning against the wall on the broad covered porch. There was some welcome relief in the knowledge I did have friends like James Headley in this world that would be there for me, even as troubles loo
med large all around.
As I walked around the cottage to the back, my feet sunk deeply into the soft white sand, the heat from the sun causing beads of sweat to form across all exposed patches of skin. The old wooden outhouse stood at the back of the clearing behind the house against a cluster of tall oleander bushes, flush with bright red flowers. Hummingbirds darted around in quick bursts of flight, jostling for position among the blooms. The privy needed a coat of paint far more than the main house and beneath the peeling white flakes the grain of worn gray pine lumber stood, battered for years by the harsh elements of weather and wind-blown sand.
Inside the little structure, I found two keys hung on a nail as my friend had instructed. I removed one quickly to extricate myself from the heavy stench of the place. I walked around behind into the bushes to relieve myself, knowing eventually I would have to endure a more prolonged visit inside the tiny wooden outdoor commode. When I came back around I was startled by the presence of three small black pigs that had wandered onto the property. As they rooted around in the sand for any morsel of nourishment, I listened to the soft grunts and snorts they made. They seemed to have no fear or problem with my presence as they slowly moved past and on into the heavy woods; some of Seth Howard’s herd, no doubt.
There was a small porch and door on the back of the cottage and I walked up the two steps and tried the key in the padlock. Like most metallic surfaces exposed to the beach elements it was corroded some, but with a little shaking and pounding against the wood door it soon popped open.
I hung the lock on the latch and opened the door into the cottage. The close and musty smell of stagnant air and old leather furniture greeted me as I walked into the shadowy room. All of the windows were shuttered and closed tight. As my eyes adjusted the dim light from the open door revealed a large single room open to the exposed rafters above. Wood siding from the outside was nailed to the vertical studs, all painted white, but in somewhat better condition than the exterior. To the left, a small cluster of cupboards and shelves covered one wall. A round table was surrounded by four brown-stained wood chairs with woven wicker seats. The last visitor had left a covered glass jar on the table which I suspected to be moonshine liquor, about half full. Later, I thought to myself.
Grayton Winds Page 6
