Fall from Grace

by L. R. Wright

  Soon Alberg poked her and said encouragingly, “Go on out to the pointy part.”

  Cassandra felt herself challenged. And besides, she wanted to feel alone; she wanted to get a sense of being all by herself on the big ocean in only a sailboat.

  She made her way forward, clutching at the lifelines and the shrouds, and sat down with her back against the mast.

  It was very quiet out on the water. But it was a quietness full of exuberance and motion; it was a quietness made conspicuous by what could be heard: the rippling of the water as the sailboat sliced through it, the motors of far-off powerboats, the lazy shrieks of seagulls.

  Suddenly a flock of small birds appeared, swooping and swirling in perfect unison, as though they comprised a single being; their concentration absolute, their wings creating a soft, fervent whir.

  Twice a seal popped a gray-brown head above water and watched with large calm eyes as the boat swept by.

  Cassandra marveled at herself. Here she sat, right up in the front of the damn boat, hardly nervous at all, exhilarated by the blueness of the ocean and the panorama of sea, sky and islands that stretched before her.

  “Hey!” called Alberg, and she turned to see him grinning at her from the cockpit. He gestured, vigorously, and she made her way cautiously back to the stern. “Gotta lower the sail,” he said, starting the motor. “See there?” He pointed. “We’re going in there.”

  “What is it?” said Cassandra.

  “North and South Thormanby Islands,” said Alberg. “Here. Take hold of the tiller.”

  “Oh God,” said Cassandra. “I can’t steer this thing.”

  “You don’t have to steer. Just keep it going into the wind.”

  “What do you mean, ‘into the wind’? What’s ‘into the wind’?”

  Alberg changed course slightly and the sail emptied and began to flap.

  “Oh God,” said Cassandra.

  “Find yourself something on land to aim at and just keep it there, right where it is,” said Alberg, and he climbed up onto the cabin top to haul down the sail.

  “Oh God,” said Cassandra, gazing blindly, fixedly shoreward.

  “It’s hard to believe you’ve never been here before,” said Alberg a few minutes later. They were passing a group of small islands on their left.

  “I haven’t been here,” said Cassandra, “because it isn’t a place you get to in a car.”

  “Anybody who decides to live in this part of the world ought to have a boat,” said Alberg.

  As they proceeded into the bay, drawing closer to land, Cassandra saw that the gap between North and South Thormanby Islands was spanned by a long, wide isthmus of sand. Several sailboats and powerboats were anchored offshore, and there were people sunbathing on the beach. Beyond the sandy isthmus Cassandra saw the broad, deep waters of the Gulf of Georgia winking in the sun.

  Cassandra took the tiller again while Alberg went forward to drop the anchor. When he cut the motor she could hear children laughing on the beach. They had anchored next to a green sailboat; Cassandra saw swimming clothes and towels hung over the lifelines to dry, and she realized again how hot it was.

  Children were splashing in tidal pools on the isthmus, and adults were swimming in the bay. South Thormanby, to the left, was much the bigger of the two islands, with rolling, rocky hills; North Thormanby presented to the sandy isthmus, and the children playing there, a steep cliff face with a thick forest crowding the top. The cliff was pale, like the sandy beach at its foot.

  Alberg beamed fondly upon the landscape, as if he had created it. “Buccaneer Bay,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you? Is this the most beautiful beach in the world, or what?”

  Cassandra, smiling, gazed at the children playing in the sand, and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare—and something caught her eye. She looked quickly to the right; her eye had captured a memory; a sharp streak of movement. “Karl,” she said.

  He turned quickly, hearing something in her voice.

  “The cliff,” she said.

  And they both watched, and saw sunbathers sit up, uncertain, and somebody wearing brightly patterned shorts clambered to his feet and began to walk, tentatively, toward the base of the cliff. Halfway there he beckoned urgently; something in his hand flashed in the sun; Cassandra thought it was maybe a can of beer. Two more men got up from the sand and started toward him.

  Alberg hauled the dinghy up from below and inflated it. He tied it to the stern pulpit and dropped it overboard. They climbed down the ladder into the dinghy, first Alberg, then Cassandra.

  It was strange to be suddenly so much closer to the water, thought Cassandra.

  It was very hot. She felt trickles of sweat on her temples, and there were beads of it on her forehead, and the small of her back was damp.

  She looked apprehensively toward the land, where everyone, it seemed, was being drawn slowly but inexorably to the cliff.

  They beached the dinghy and splashed up onto the sand. Alberg strode off toward the small crowd, and Cassandra followed.

  When they got there, Cassandra saw a shape covered by an orange tarpaulin. All she could see was the shape’s left arm; it was smooth and brown, obviously male, obviously young.

  People stood around quietly, some holding children by the shoulders, pressing the children’s faces to their thighs. The place was a jumble of bare limbs, brown or reddened or freckled. Cassandra felt the oiliness of sunscreen and smelled the sweet innocent smell of summer sweat, and she knew that the children huddled against their parents would never forget this sight, and that neither would she.

  Alberg identified himself to the crowd and shouldered his way gently through it. He hunkered down next to the body. He lifted the tarp, and felt in vain for a pulse.

  “What happened?” said Alberg, studying the body closely. There was a wide, thick, zippered, belt-like thing around the waist of the dead man.

  “Nothing. I mean, I don’t know. I heard this great jeezly thunk and there he was. He fell, I guess. He must’ve fallen. Jesus, man—”

  “Take it easy,” said Alberg. He pulled the zipper. The belt was stuffed with money. Alberg looked quickly around him; nobody but the kid wearing the bright flowered shorts was close enough to see, and he was looking resolutely away. Alberg pulled the zipper closed and replaced the tarp.

  “I covered him up as quick as I could,” said the young man. “I didn’t want anybody else seeing it. Kids. Jesus.”

  Alberg beckoned to Cassandra. People looked at her curiously as she made her way through them to get to him.

  “Go back to the boat,” he said. “Get on the radio to the detachment, tell them we need the police boat with a full crew, and the doctor, right away. I’ve got to stay here. Okay?”

  Cassandra couldn’t speak. She couldn’t remember how to operate the radio. She nodded, feeling sick and helpless.

  “You got a dinghy?” said the young man, looking at her.

  “Yes,” said Cassandra, and cleared her throat.

  “I’ll row you over.” He turned to Alberg. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Alberg. “Thanks.” He watched them traipse across the sand together, Cassandra and the young man wearing the flower-patterned shorts.

  He turned to the small, shaken crowd. “Better get back to your boats, folks. But don’t go anywhere. We’ll need to get statements from you.”

  They drifted off to pick up blankets and picnic baskets, herding their children toward the dinghies scattered along the water’s edge.

  Alberg sat down on the sand next to the body.

  He thought it a very strange thing, this accident. The kid was carrying at least ten or fifteen thousand dollars. Who the hell came to Buccaneer Bay wearing ten or fifteen thousand dollars?

  Beneath the orange tarpaulin the young man’s blood trickled into the sand.

  Alberg listened to the soft lap of the sea, and felt the heat of the summer sun.

  It was a dazzling day.

  Chapter 17


  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER Alberg was still sitting by the body, waiting for reinforcements.

  “The tide’s gonna come in, you know,” said the young man in the bright shorts, who had hair the color of straw.

  “I know.”

  “How long will it take your guys to get here? Should we move him?”

  “They’ll be here soon. It’ll be okay.” He looked at the young man, sizing him up. “What do you do, kid?”

  “I’m a student.”

  “What kind of student?”

  “U.B.C. Economics.”

  They were sitting side by side on the sand. Alberg’s sunblock had long since worn off and he was red wherever his skin was exposed—legs, arms, face, neck. He was wearing deck shoes and socks, and brown shorts, and a yellow T-shirt. He sat there in the sand next to the tanned student from the University of British Columbia and felt himself burning, and tried to ignore it. He picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through his fingers. “What’s your name?”

  “Joseph Dunn. Joe.”

  Alberg studied Joseph Dunn. He was a big, sturdy kid. He didn’t look like he ought to be so pale and nervous. By now he should be recovering; getting his confidence back.

  As casually as possible, Alberg asked, “Was he still alive when you got to him, Joe?”

  The young man gave him a swift look. “Yeah.”

  “How come you didn’t mention that?”

  Joe held up a hand. He was sitting with his legs crossed. He looked down at the sand and took a deep, ragged breath. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing, right? All of a sudden there’s this thump, and out of nowhere a guy’s lying on the sand—he’s bounced down those rocks, he’s all battered and bleeding. So I figured—he’s gotta be dead. And all I can think of—I want to make sure nobody else has to look at this, the place is crawling with kids.” He shuddered, and hunched his shoulders. “So I turn around and wave the other guys back. So they stay back, and they keep other people back, too, and I go over to the guy…”

  Alberg said, “Go on.”

  Joe clasped his hands, which were broad and strong and brown, with big knuckles. “So I’m leaning over him, he’s lying sort of on his side and…shit.” He shuddered again. “And then, I see his eyes open. And I see he’s still breathing. So I get down on my hands and knees next to him.” He looked at Alberg again, horrified. “I’m thinking, like—what the hell do I do? I start hollering for first-aid stuff, does anybody on the beach have a first-aid kit, but he reaches out to me and he’s trying to say something to me, see?”

  “Take it easy,” said Alberg.

  “So I get down there right next to him,” said Joe. “ ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him. Okay, shit, the guy’s dying, I know it, he’s a totally broken person. But I tell him it’s okay. ‘You’re gonna be okay,’ I say. He doesn’t move anymore. But he says, ‘Help me.’ Oh Jesus.”

  Alberg reached over and gripped his shoulder.

  “ ‘Sure I’ll help you,’ ” said Joe, rushing it now. “And then he says, ‘Hold my head. Help me.’ And I know what he means, see? That’s the thing. He doesn’t mean, ‘Help me,’ he means, ‘Help me die.’ ” Joe swiped at his face, at the tears there. “So I put my hand on the back of his neck and in a minute he was dead.”

  Alberg gave his shoulder a hard squeeze, and let go. He looked out into the bay, where his rented sloop was anchored, and saw Cassandra leaning on the stern pulpit.

  “Is that all he said? Are you sure?” He lifted his hand, and Cassandra waved back.

  Joe nodded. “Positive.”

  There was nobody left on the beach. They were all on their boats, watching Alberg and Joe and the orange tarp. The sun was very hot, and the water had begun to rise.

  “You did good,” said Alberg to Joe.

  Chapter 18

  THE SIGNS READ “WARNING: Do not climb on these sand banks. The cliffs above are eroding and can fall at any time.”

  The forest on top leaned over the edge as if to stare down at the body on the sand. North Thormanby Island was swathed in forest, except for this high cliff at its southern end, which bore the striations of sandstone. The beach below it would be swept clean by the tide, made new for morning: no trace of the young man’s blood would be found, no trace of his dying would remain there.

  Alberg squinted upward, looking for something by which to orient himself. He saw a log he had spotted earlier, a tree trunk bare of branches extending perhaps forty feet straight out from the top of the cliff. He remembered noticing it from the boat. When Cassandra had said, “Karl, the cliff,” he had turned and looked at the top of the cliff, and had seen a perfectly horizontal line stretching out into space.

  Alberg looked up at the tree trunk, trying to estimate how far it was from the eastern edge of the cliff. Above him a flock of crows was curiously circling, circling.

  The sea had reasserted itself between the Thormanby Islands and was slowly, steadily, devouring the beach. Alberg turned and called out to Sid Sokolowski, and the two of them walked eastward, around the corner to Grassy Point. Wild grass grew upon the sand here, among the driftwood, and as the tide encroached upon the island Alberg and Sokolowski found a path that led inland, steeply upward, along the floor of a deep fissure.

  Trees had fallen across the path, some completely uprooted, and they had to climb over them, or under them. Alberg’s sunburn was throbbing; every tree branch he encountered seemed to scrape against him; the whine of mosquitoes stung his ears; even the whirring of bird wings unsettled him.

  “Christ,” he said, sweat stinging his face as he vaulted clumsily over a huge, rotting log.

  “It’ll be easier on the way back,” said Sokolowski behind him, panting. The sergeant wore the RCMP summer uniform of navy pants with a yellow stripe down the leg, and a short-sleeved tan shirt.

  The greenery was thick on either side of the so-called path, and trees loomed inward from the top of the chasm; Alberg kept expecting one of them to crash down upon them.

  Finally the trail leveled out, and its boundaries became less steep, and then very suddenly they were at the top, looking across the gap at South Thormanby Island.

  “Christ,” said Alberg, grabbing at a tree trunk. “If we’d been doing anything faster than a plod, we’d have gone right over.”

  Cautiously, he shuffled through the brush. He leaned forward a little, looking through the trees along the edge of the cliff, and spotted the log that extended out over the brink; it was about fifty feet away.

  Alberg and the sergeant trudged through the brush, keeping well away from the cliff top, until they reached the log. It was a Douglas fir, at least a hundred feet long and more than six feet in diameter. Two-thirds of it soared out into space; the remainder lay upon the ground, swathed in ferns and climbing plants that Alberg couldn’t identify, pressed in upon by the restless, verdant forest.

  “No sign of anything on this side,” said Sokolowski. “You want to go around? Or over?”

  Alberg went to the edge of the woods. The recumbent tree trunk disappeared into greenery so thick that he figured he’d need at least a machete and maybe a bulldozer to find the end of it.

  “Over,” he said, eyeing the log gloomily. “Hoist me up.” Sokolowski leaned against the dead tree and bent to make a stirrup with his hands.

  Alberg was propelled firmly upward. He clutched at the decaying bark, got hold of the jagged end of what had once been a branch, and pulled, and found himself spread-eagled on top of the log.

  It had lain there for years. The wind had blown at it, and the rain had pelted it, and the wind and the rain hadn’t budged it. There wasn’t any reason to think that two hundred pounds of Karl Alberg was going to send it flying over the edge—yet he thought it probably would. He pictured it in his head, the damn tree shooting out into the sky with him riding it, riding it, all the way down to the ocean. He wondered how deep the water was out there between the islands; maybe not deep enough, yet, to drown in. And then he saw himself jumping
clear of the log in midair. Which would land first, Alberg or the log? He peered down the long, long length of the dead tree and it was like peering down the barrel of a rifle. He was afraid to move. He hung on to the rough dead bark and stared straight ahead of him and saw the tree extending for what seemed miles, and across the sea-flooded gap stretched the shaggy green roof of South Thormanby Island.

  “Are you okay, Karl?” said Sokolowski.

  Alberg nodded, and coughed. “Yeah. Fine.”

  Slowly, he relaxed his grip upon the tree. Warily, he wriggled a few feet closer to the root end. Then he pushed himself around and dropped to the ground. He looked down at himself and saw that his thighs and knees were scraped and bleeding.

  “See anything?” Sokolowski called out.

  “I just got here,” Alberg snapped. He looked around and, almost at once, saw where the young man had gone over.

  The brush was crushed and broken, here, and a fresh chunk of the cliff top had fallen away. A breeze rippled the gray-gold field of tall grass that lay between the brush at the edge of the cliff and the beginning of the forest. Alberg saw that a pathway had been trampled through the grass. He followed it, creating a parallel trail, and was led to the mouth of a path that went steeply down, probably to the beach on the western side of the island. He made his way slowly back toward the place where the body had fallen, scrutinizing the ground.

  “Karl?” said Sokolowski, from the other side of the massive log.

  “Yeah,” said Alberg. Something glinted in the broken grass. He got down on his knees, thinking that the grass looked like some kind of crop—hay, or wheat, or something. “Just a minute,” he said.

  Carefully, he separated the dry grass with his hands.

  It was a lens cap that lay there, gleaming dully in the sun.

  Chapter 19

  “IT’S VELMA GRAYSON’S kid,” said Gillingham, looking down at the young man lying dead on the sand at his feet. “Jesus, what a shame.”