Secrets of Sandhill Island

by Peggy Chambers

  Saying she was going out with friends, she would steal away and meet Evan at some predetermined place and then they would often sneak back on to his boat after her father left his office. Already in love with the ocean, she would fall in love with the fisherman who earned his living—however meager—from it. Soon, young love turned to passion on his boat tied up at the harbor, and consequently Jon was conceived.

  Even though the sexual revolution had taken place at least ten years earlier, Meg’s parents and the society they belonged to did not take kindly to a young woman pregnant without benefit of a marriage certificate. Meg was told by the old family doctor the day she swallowed her pride and made an appointment that the birth control pills would not protect her immediately, but she didn’t listen. She was certain of only one thing—her love for Evan. Her father was certain his daughter would not become the wife of a fisherman with a leaky boat.

  In the stack of invoices, Meg found one with Chung Shipping written on the top of the document. It was for dredging the harbor. Meg remembered that her father was not a fan of dredging. He said if the ocean had plans for where its sand should go, then mankind should respect its authority. If the truth were known, Graham Stanford had other ideas in mind, like tugboats making more money in the years that the sand was deposited into the harbor. He had purchased a couple of tugs years earlier to tow his ships in and out of the harbor, but like many other things in his life, he didn’t let them sit idle. If they could make money doing other things, then put them to work. Looking through the ledger, she could find no entry for the payment of the dredging charge.

  Another invoice just said “Poppy.” She wondered what the old man really did for her father. Not that he was old then, but Meg always thought of him as ancient.

  A knock on the door brought Meg back to the present. Walking to the kitchen, she could see Alex leaning to the left as he stood on her crooked back steps. She needed to hire someone to fix them and maybe a few other things around the house. She would talk to the man that owned the hardware store and see if he could recommend a contractor.

  “Come in.” Meg opened the back door and found Alex standing with a wooden box in one hand.

  “I brought my version of a critter trap.” He smiled. In his left hand was a box with wire screen on the side for windows and wire on the bottom. There was a door that opened at one end. It barely looked large enough for the rabbit the last time she saw him.

  “Do you think it’s big enough? He’s growing every time I see him.” Meg stepped out onto the steps to investigate the box.

  “Then we’d better bait the trap and get the little creature out of here. Have you seen him lately?”

  “No, we’ve been missing each other. I guess that is to his advantage. He probably has a watch and knows what time I leave in the morning.”

  “Like the hare in Alice in Wonderland?”

  Meg giggled at the thought of her rabbit in a coat and pocket watch serving tea. “I guess. How does this work?”

  “Well, we place it in the last place you saw him, and then bait it with something you know he loves. He should just walk in and the door will shut behind him. It won’t hurt him, and we can keep him fed and watered until we can escort him off the island.”

  Meg led Alex with the trap in hand up to the bare ground where squash used to grow. The last place she’d seen the rabbit feeding. He placed the box on the ground and threaded a squash leaf and blossom through the wire floor of the trap. Then propped the door open. When the rabbit went inside, the door would close behind him and he could munch happily on the squash until someone came along and found him. Meg retrieved a jar lid for water and placed it next to the threaded squash so the poor bunny could have a drink after he made a meal of the squash he loved so much.

  “Thirsty work. How about some tea?”

  “Sure,” Alex replied, and they walked back to the house for refreshment. Meg never thought about how much iced tea she drank in the summer months until she met Alex. It was a southern thing; you always had tea to offer your guests. Now it seemed she was always going to the store for more.

  Pouring two large glasses from the pitcher in the refrigerator, Meg carried them into the living room. “Do you want to sit on the front porch?” She asked the question without looking up at Alex. He was standing by her coffee table, court documents in hand, glaring at her.

  “Where did you get these? Are you checking up on me? These were sealed documents. How did you get them? Did Jon have someone unseal them?”

  “Alex.” Meg forgot about the documents that were lying on the table. Why hadn’t she put them back in the envelope? She never intended to talk to Alex about the situation unless he brought it up first. She hoped it was all just a big misunderstanding that he would tell her about some day. But, this was bound to ruin her only friendship in years.

  Alex threw the papers back on the table and stomped off through the house toward the back door. “I would have told you about that, Meg. Jon didn’t need to check up on me for his Momma. Or did you ask him to?”

  “No! I never asked him to check up on you. And he shouldn’t have. I should have gotten rid of the documents. I never should have looked at them at all. I’m sorry, please forgive me.” But, it was too late. Alex was out the door and up the path, never hearing the words that came from her heart.

  Chapter 14

  Meg sat for a while sipping her tea and scanning the documents after Alex left. What was she thinking, leaving them out in the open? It was like she wanted him to see them. Of course she hadn’t, but any psychologist might have said otherwise.

  She placed the documents back in the envelope, laid them on the coffee table, then walked out the door to the garden. She could just barely see the trap. The noise she heard earlier could have been anything. But maybe it was the trap being sprung.

  Walking up the hill carefully, she peeked between the leaves of the tomatoes. There looking out the screen windows of the contraption was a fuzzy, wiggly nose with two brown eyes and long brown ears. Her nemesis was trapped—and he barely noticed. He was too intent on munching on the thing that got him into this predicament to begin with. The tiny squash that he loved was still attached to the vine and pulled through the screen on the bottom of the trap so he could reach it. Life was good.

  Alex had attached a handle on the top of the cage so she could carry it. But, with the rabbit inside it was much too heavy to make it all the way to the ferry by hand. On her knees, she peeked in the trap—the bunny looked back without a care. With her hands underneath the box, she dug the squash up and then shoved it, roots and all, into the bottom of the trap with the rabbit. Then she went for her wagon. She could pull the wagon with the trap sitting inside it and take the rabbit to the mainland on the ferry. She didn’t like leaving him in the trap any longer than was necessary in the heat of the day. The sooner the rabbit left her island, the better off they both would be.

  At the water’s edge she caused heads to turn as she pulled the rickety wagon onto the ferry. The crazy veggie lady was back. And what did she have in the wagon this time? Meg was used to their stares, but this time it seemed a little more than ridiculous. Anyone close enough to see into the cage would know she had a rabbit and probably wondered if she was selling them too these days. Most people just looked away when they saw her glance back at them.

  The waves were getting larger as the wind increased and she had to hold on to the cage the whole ride to keep it from falling. The weather appeared more unstable the last few days as the threat of storms came and went. Anyone who lived near the ocean knew it was getting close to hurricane season.

  After the bumpy ride on the ferry to the mainland was over and the ferry docked, Meg pulled the wagon down the beach away from the hustle and bustle of cars and tourists to a place that was quiet, so that she could release the creature. Setting the trap down on the ground, she opened the door. The bunny just looked at her, munching away on what was left of the leaf and roots.

  Why wasn
’t he scared? Why did he not quickly bolt to get away from the human that had entrapped him? Maybe because his belly was so full he couldn’t run.

  “Go on, shoo!” Meg said to the lazy rabbit, tapping the side of the cage. He continued to stare at her as he munched comfortably. “Shoo!” she shouted, more loudly and people from the ferry looked up.

  Finally, she picked up one end of the trap and dumped him onto the ground. He hopped once and turned to look at her with big brown eyes. She quickly put the trap back on the wagon and barely made it back to the ferry before it began its return trip to the island.

  Once onboard the ferry, she stared at the empty cage, realizing he was gone. A feeling tugged at her heart strings. How could she miss the little vermin who was eating her garden? But, she knew even if he was destroying her way of life, she enjoyed his company. She was tired of being alone. The rabbit showed her that she needed to share her life, even if it was only with a fuzzy creature that was unwelcome in her garden.

  Tomorrow she would talk to Alex and try to make amends—convince him she didn’t mean to pry. It was beginning to dawn on her that she needed to be around people again and Alex was the one she most wanted to spend her time with.

  Surely Alex couldn’t stay mad at her, could he?

  Chapter 15

  Mike Fitzgerald wound his tugboat through the harbor, staying away from the ever increasing sand bars. He’d made more money this summer than any he could ever remember. Boats were constantly stuck and having to call for help. However, if this kept up, the shrimpers would leave for another harbor that they could use. There wasn’t enough money to fix the sandy mess and that was fine with Mike, at least for now. But, he was afraid the end was in sight. His time on the island could be running out.

  Pulling up and tying off, he spotted Meg dragging her wagon back home. She was later than usual. It was almost dark and she never stayed out that late. The tourists were already in the bars and not out buying veggies. Something large and wooden sat in the middle of the wagon as she pulled it back to the broken-down beach house she lived in.

  Maybe it was time to pay her a visit and see just what she knew about the death of her lover. He had been trying to find just the right excuse to talk to her lately. After all, it concerned him too. After Evan failed to return the day of the storm, Rowdy was unemployed. He was too old to get a job with another fisherman, and it wasn’t like he was capable of doing anything else. He soon fell into a drunken depression and never recovered. Mike’s mother had died a few years earlier and it was just the two of them.

  Many nights Mike had to get his dad out of the bar in town and bring him home. There wasn’t enough money for food and booze, so often Mike went to bed without dinner because his father drank up what little money he was able to make after Evan’s death. Mike was forced to raise himself without parents and consequently blamed the Stanfords for his misfortunes. If the young society girl hadn’t found herself a beau from the wrong side of the tracks, maybe Mike would have had a normal home life. It was her fault that Evan had to die. Rumor had it that Graham Stanford had him killed as soon as he found out she was pregnant, and Mike knew who did it.

  The island was a small town then, much as it was now. There weren’t that many players in the game. The other shipper had it in for old man Stanford anyway, the way Mike heard it, especially after Graham hired Chung’s ner’-do-well nephew for the job to kill Evan. Chung was lucky to keep the kid on the right side of the law most of the time, and a little bit of money was all it took to get him to go the other way.

  Meg had money and Mike thought he deserved a little of it for keeping his mouth shut all these years about the secrets of Sandhill Island and the Stanfords. The people around here didn’t seem to know who Meg was or who the daddy of that bastard kid of hers was. But he did, and maybe it was time she paid for his silence.

  He watched from a distance as she unloaded the wagon and walked up the rickety steps in the back door of her house. Following her between the huge garden and the house, he wondered what he would do if she refused to pay. The garden could be trashed with little work. It would serve her right after she ruined his life. But, first he would give her a chance to pay up.

  He opened the backdoor without noise and stepped onto the back porch where the garden tools and boots sat.

  Chapter 16

  Her head involuntarily jerked back toward movement in the kitchen as Meg walked to her bathroom. She realized she was not alone in the house. Her heart beat faster and the hair on her neck prickled as adrenaline coursed through her veins. Jumping back from the shadow, she saw a man with a hat. She backed up behind the door facing as sweat ran down the front of her blouse.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said in a sing-song voice. “I seeeeeee you.”

  Her first instinct was to run, but the house was so small catching her would be too easy. He stood between her and the back door and could grab her on the way out the front. She knew it was the man from the dock with the hat down low that had spoken to her the other day. He said he was Rowdy Fitzgerald’s son—the son of her lover’s fishing partner. She remembered meeting Rowdy once, but knew nothing about him.

  “What do you want?” Her voice trembled. That was probably the first thing anyone said when they were confronted with danger. He rounded the corner and stood in front of her.

  “I want to talk to you. You ran away too quickly the other day.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “About you, and Evan, and my dad. Did you know that Rowdy had a son? Did you, Miss High Society?”

  “I only met your dad once and no, I didn’t know he had children. But, what has that got to do with me?”

  “Exactly the response I expected. You didn’t know and you didn’t care.”

  “I don’t see how Rowdy’s son has anything to do with me. Evan died in a storm and left me a single mother.” She eased toward the front door as she talked. Maybe she would try to make a run for it after all. She couldn’t see any weapons on the man, but he had broken into her house after dark and was threatening her. That was enough reason to be scared.

  She needed to get the lock fixed on the back door like Jon told her. She was sure he was being paranoid when she ignored him. No one on the little island locked the doors to their houses. At least, not until now.

  “You don’t, do you? Well, let me tell you that Evan’s dying left more than one person alone. My father had no job, no boat or anything else after Evan died. He tried to find work, but was so old no one would hire him. The boat was half his you know, and it wasn’t insured, so Dad lost everything that day. He did some odd jobs here and there and finally died a broken man. Mom was already dead so it left me to fend for myself and you’re the reason why!”

  “Me? I never met you before today. Why would you blame me? I didn’t cause the storm and certainly didn’t want Evan dead. I loved him. I almost died myself when he didn’t come back.”

  “Don’t play games with me! You know damned good and well that your daddy had Evan killed. He was dead long before the storm hit that day! Everyone in town knows that.”

  “Had him killed? What are you talking about? Evan drowned!”

  “Graham Stanford paid Robert Chung to kill Evan and burn his boat. You act like you have never heard that before.”

  Meg stood looking at the stranger in her home with her mouth open. “That’s not true and you know it.” The words came out of her mouth more loudly than she thought she was capable of.

  “It is true. Half the island knew it. Why do you think your dad retired to Corpus Christi right after?”

  “To take care of me and Jon.”

  “Or to hide from the people who knew about Evan?”

  Meg was shaking worse than before. Could this man be telling the truth, and what did he want with her after all these years?

  “I don’t believe you. Get out of my house!”

  “This should be my house by all rights. You should be paying me to keep my m
outh shut. Your precious family doesn’t need this kind of trouble. So, here is what we’re gonna’ do. I will contact you soon with a bank account number and the expected deposits to be made. We’ll talk then about just how much they will be. I know you have the money, so don’t call the police or I’ll smear your family’s name all over south Texas and don’t think I won’t!”

  By the time he had finished speaking his face was close enough to hers that the brim of his hat touched her forehead, she could see his day-old beard, and smell his putrid breath tinged with rum. His eyes bored into her even though she could not see their color in the dark. She shook with fear—not because she was afraid he would smear her family name, but because she was afraid he might smear her, all over the walls. He looked as crazy as his story, and maybe he was. Then he turned on his heel and quickly walked out the unlocked back door, leaving her shaking.

  Meg ran to the door to lock the broken latch even though she knew it didn’t work. Then she ran to the front door to do the same. She had no idea where the key was that opened those doors, but didn’t care. She wasn’t going outside anyway.

  Immediately she thought of Alex. She had his cell phone number and would call him. Surely, he wasn’t still mad at her and would understand how scared she was of the intruder. She dialed his number, but after it rang a dozen times, she got the message. He wasn’t going to talk to her anymore.

  With no police on the island, her next thought was Jon. No, she couldn’t call him with the name Chung hanging over their heads. Besides, she took the last ferry for the day and there wouldn’t be another until morning.

  “Le Chez,” she said as she flipped through the directory for the mainland. She dialed the number and it rang at least six times before someone answered. The background noise made it difficult to hear.

  “Hello, is Sam there?”

  “Sam is busy, how can I help you?” said the voice on the other end.