Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One

by Perry P. Perkins

  "Change your socks when you stop to rest," Mrs. Dillard (who some of the girls called Kongbecause of her hairy legs) had told them, "and you'll get a lot more mileage with a lot less pain."

  Cassie mentally scolded herself, as she rubbed her sore, burning feet, for not stopping an hour before when the blisters had began to form.

  She ate another sandwich and one of her candy bars, which had gone so soft in the heat of her pocket that she had to lick the chocolate first from the wrapper and then her fingers. Taking a long swallow of water, tepid and plasticky, she leaned back, closed her eyes, and began to relate the events of the morning onto her tape machine.

  The heat of the afternoon sun made her drowsy. After putting on clean socks and lacing up her boots (the last thing she wanted was sunburned feet), Cassie leaned her duffel bag in the shade of a rock and closed her eyes. She had meant to take just a quick nap, waiting out the hottest part of the day. However, her long hike, coupled with lack of sleep the night before, took their toll and she fell into a deep dreamless slumber almost as soon as she closed her eyes.

  Cassie awoke with a start, hours later, to the piercing sound of brakes squealing to a stop nearby. Quietly, she peeked around the corner of the sign and saw a rusty old flatbed pickup parked on the far shoulder. Beyond it, she could see an old man, walking off across the desert toward a rocky outcropping some yards off the road. The truck, at least forty years old, had tall wood rail sides and a heavy green canvas tarp, which covered the bed and had been tucked into the tailgate.

  Before Cassie could think about what she was doing, she half limped, half ran across the highway to the truck, where she pulled up the tarp and looked inside. The rusty remains of a motorcycle, older even than the truck, were strapped firmly to the rails over one wheel well, the stylized figure of an Indian head, complete with headdress, surmounted the dented front fender of the bike. Several boxes of machine tools and parts lay in the back of the truck as well.

  Cassie threw one last hurried glance at the truck's owner, who was just disappearing behind the rocks, a telltale roll of flapping white paper in his hand. She swallowed hard, her mouth going dry at the sight of a pump-action shotgun hanging on the back window of the cab. Desperation struggled with fear and prevailed as Cassie quickly tossed her bag over the tailgate and then scrambled in after it, tucking the tarp back in behind her.

  Climbing over the crates, she settled against the back of the cab, her duffel behind her, and tried to calm her beating heart.

  At some point in the recent past, someone had spilled a bottle of beer, or several, by the smell of it, in the bed of the truck. The fading, sour-sweet smell of hops nearly gagged her in the heat beneath the tarp.

  The thick yeasty smell kindled the memory of her one and only experiment with drinking. She’d been fifteen and spending the night at a girlfriend's house after a birthday party. Her host's boyfriend, with most of the rest of the football team, pulled up to the back of the house after midnight and, after some quick and merciless peer-pressure, Cassie had climbed out the bedroom window and shimmied down to the porch behind her friend. They had ended up at the reservoir, parked back behind the trees and away from prying eyes. Her first beer had been awful and the others had roared with laughter as her face squinched at the bitter liquid.

  One of the boys had passed her a half-full mason jar of amber colored liquid and told her to take a drink; it would take the taste away.

  If the beer had been bad, the whiskey was worse by far. The dry bitterness burned across her tongue and roared up her sinuses at the same time, pinching painfully at the back of her throat and leaving her choking and breathless.

  Teddy Waski, a hulking linebacker with a body like a dump truck and a brain to match, had laughed uproariously and slapped her on the back as she drank. A fair amount of the moonshine had splashed down the front of her shirt. All in all, Cassie had found the drinks, much like the company, to be uninspiring and was grateful when the others finally clambered back into the pickup and headed home. Her head had begun spinning unpleasantly, and half an hour of twists and turns along the rutted gravel road, left her sweating and sick.

  Her stomach churning, Cassie had asked to be dropped off as they passed the narrow road leading to the Belanger's trailer. Stumbling though the door an hour before dawn, she had barely staggered to the bathroom in time to empty the contents of her roiling stomach into the toilet. Resting her head against the cool porcelain of the bowl, and wincing at the sound of footsteps in the hallway and the bright blinding light of the overhead bulb, she had looked up miserably at the sound of her mother's voice.

  "Cassie, honey, what in the world…"

  Her mother's voice trailed off suddenly as the smell of alcohol struck her. Cassie, with great effort, forced herself to her feet, and stood, weaving, trying to explain.

  "Mom, I…"

  The sound of Kathy’s open palm striking her daughter’s face was as sharp as it was unexpected, and Cassie reeled, striking the thin wall of the bathroom and clutching her burning cheek, her eyes wide and shocked. Her mother's face was like that of a stranger, pale and furious, eyes blazing, her lips pulled back in disgust and fury, baring her teeth in a feral snarl. Her hand was still raised as though she intended to strike again or had simply forgotten to lower it.

  It was the first and only time that her mother had ever hit her. Kathy Belanger had always shied away from spankings, even when her daughter was young. Cassie felt tears began to spill down her cheeks; less from pain and surprise, as from the hazy understanding that something had taken place between them that could never be taken back.

  After a long, tense moment, Kathy's gaze shifted from her daughter to her own upturned hand and she shuddered visibly. Cassie watched as her mother's shoulders sagged and her face became a hurt and weary version of the woman Cassie knew. Her hand had dropped to her side like a deadweight.

  "Go to bed Cassie, go sleep it off. I'll clean up in here."

  Cassie had drawn a hitching breath to apologize, her young body quaking with shame at the disappointment in her mother's eyes.

  "Go," she repeated, "We'll talk about this tomorrow."

  As she turned the corner towards her room, she heard her mother's voice mutter to herself.

  "I've cleaned up after drunks before."

  Cassie had fled, weeping, to the guilty darkness of her room.

  True to her word, Kathy had sat down at the table with her daughter the next afternoon and listened to the whole story.

  She had apologized for slapping her, and Cassie had asked her forgiveness repeatedly. Both had cried, and then laughed, and life had moved on. It was the first and last drink that Cassie had ever taken. Over the years she had been teased by her classmates, as bottles were passed, and she had shook her head. It wasn’t a temptation. Each time the bottle was offered she would see, reflected in the sloshing contents, the disappointment in her mother's eyes.

  All of this flashed through Cassie's mind in an instant, as she stowed away quietly among the debris that littered the bed of the old pick-up.

  "Cassie Belanger," she scolded herself in a shocked whisper, "have you gone completely insane? How do you know this truck is going to Tucson? How do you know this guy won't shoot you and leave you in a ditch when he finds you in the back of his truck?"

  As she huddled in the dim heat beneath the canopy, no answers came. All she knew for sure was that her sore, tired feet didn't have much hiking left in them, and that she was nearly out of water again. Wherever this truck was headed, it was in the right direction for now. An old gas-guzzler like this couldn't go too long between fill-ups, and when it stopped, she could hop out the back and run like a rabbit.

  "Well," she whispered to herself, as the image of the shotgun rose in her mind, "Maybe not like a rabbit."

  Cassie had nearly nodded off again when the driver's door suddenly creaked open, and she bit her lip to stifle a startled scream. There was a long pause and Cassie began to shake, certain that she had
been heard. Then the door slammed shut and the truck rumbled to life, belching smoke. Whatever springs the pickup may once have had, had long since expired, and Cassie rattled and bounced along amid the clatter of loose tools and the staccato thunder of the rippling tarp.

  Amid this din, Cassie drifted off to sleep once more. It would be many hours later before she remembered that her battered old sleeping bag had been left, draped over the rocks to dry, somewhere along Interstate 10.

  *

  The screeching of the pickup’s tired brakes roused her from her sleep and Cassie blinked in the darkness, disoriented, until she remembered where she was and why. Panic clutched at her as she realized that her legs had gone completely asleep, folded under her on the hard metal truck bed. Not much chance to run like a rabbit, or anything else for that matter. The door creaked open, then banged shut again and, for one terrified moment, Cassie thought she heard the man coming around toward the back of the truck. As she held her breath and listened, Cassie heard diminishing footsteps along with a momentary blast of twangy country music as another door opened and closed.

  Silence resumed, broken only by the sound of her own breathing and the slow tink, tink, tink, of the cooling engine. Cassie rubbed life back into her legs, wincing at the pins and needles as circulation returned to her feet. Slowly and quietly, she pulled her duffel bag out from behind her and crawled over the crates to the tailgate, pausing to listen for any sound beyond. Hearing nothing, Cassie slowly untucked the heavy cover, and poked her head out, like a wary turtle, from under the tarp.

  The parking lot was dim, lit by a single amber streetlamp, and mostly deserted, with only a handful of cars lined up in front of a low, dark building.

  Somewhere nearby Cassie could hear the rush of freeway traffic and see the glow of streetlights beyond the tall hedge at the back of the parking lot, that and the muffled country music that seeped out under the building's door. Climbing quickly, if stiffly, from the pickup, she pulled her bag after her and jogged around the back of the building, a shabby tavern who’s flashing neon sign identified it as The Spur. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, Cassie realized that, except for her sore back and feet, she felt better and more rested than she had in a week. The weather was pleasant, just cool enough to be comfortable in her jacket as she walked through the twilight towards the sound of evening traffic.

  Now if only I knew where I was. Cassie thought, I wonder how long I slept? Long enough for the sun to set that much was clear. What if the driver had taken an off-ramp to another highway? She could be in California by now, or worse, in any one of the many tiny settlements that dotted the Arizona desert.

  The tavern was in a low-rent district, and Cassie passed through two or three neighborhoods full of shabby box houses, mostly built just after World War Two for the soldiers returning home from overseas. She breathed a somewhat reserved sigh of relief, the little flyspecks on the Arizona map didn’t have neighborhoods this big, or streets this well maintained. The houses, however, were another story. Fifty years of wear and neglect showed in the sagging porches and peeling paint. Many had the junked remains of old cars and trucks, rusting into oblivion, on cement blocks in their yards. Occasionally, a motorcycle, or several, would be parked on the dirt-packed driveways.

  Once or twice Cassie jumped as dogs ran out from under houses to bark at her as she passed. None left the confines of their yards, however, and after they saw that Cassie didn't seem interested in invading their territory, the dogs quickly grew bored and returned to the confines of their subterranean stations.

  An hour later, she came to an intersection with a sign directing her to the on-ramp for Interstate 10. The street sign at the corner put her at the intersection of Buckeye Road and South 16th. The large green sign hanging above the intersection also stated that it was one-half mile to the Phoenix City Center Bypass. She was in Phoenix! She must have slept almost three hours in the back of that truck; this was an unexpected stroke of good luck, and Cassie breathed a quick prayer of thanks. Her first try as a stowaway had saved her at least one full day of hard walking, maybe two.

  She sat down on the curb, in the pool of overhead light, and pulled a map from the inside pocket of her jacket. It was a huge Rand-McNally driving map with all of Arizona on one side and Phoenix on the other. She had a similar map of Washington State in her bag as well, along with computer-printed maps of Portland and Long Beach. She carefully unfolded the Phoenix side and, after several minutes of searching, she pinpointed her exact location.

  A dimly lit bus snored past her, going the opposite direction. Tracing her finger back along the red line of Interstate 10, Cassie found the City Center exit listed on the sign above her head, then followed that a half mile south to its junction with Interstate 17. If she were going to find a truck stop, that was the place to do it!

  She folded the map and stowed it back in her pocket. Her watch read nine forty-five and Cassie knew that she wouldn't be ready to sleep again until morning. So, after eating her remaining chocolate bar and finishing off the last of her water, Cassie repacked her duffel bag and headed east on Buckeye towards Interstate 10. With a little luck, she would find a road that paralleled the highway back to Interstate 17. She briefly considered refilling her water bottles from a hose lying in the yard of a nearby house. Her sojourn across the desert had left her very aware of her provisions. Still, after a moment's hesitation, Cassie decided against it, unwilling to risk having to explain herself to the homeowner should a light come on in the darkened windows at the sound of the hose.

  Twenty minutes on shanks mare, as Mrs. Miller had been fond of saying, brought Cassie to the on-ramp for Interstate 10, where she found a blocked alley that followed the same general path as the freeway.

  Cassie could see the streetlamps here and there down the long, narrow path and, from where she stood, the stretches of darkness between each bright oasis seemed forbidding. Standing alone in the shadows, she suddenly realized that she hadn't considered, in her hasty planning, any means of defending herself. The very idea, in fact, hadn't occurred to her until she found herself at the mouth of the long, dark alley. Cassie scanned the weed littered concrete but the best she could come up with was a short, bent pipe crusted with concrete. She hefted the crude cudgel and after a couple of experimental swings, started down the narrow road.

  “Okay," she muttered to herself, "now if I can keep from hitting myself in the head with this thing..."

  Her fears proved for naught and, except for one heart stopping moment when she spooked an alley cat and didnearly succeed in smacking herself, the way proved to be safe and uneventful. The terrified calico scooted across the path and to the top of the fence. It paused there to look back, appraising the threat and, determining Cassie to be a false alarm, it sauntered indignantly, tail high in the air, down the length of the fence and back into the darkness.

  “Stupid cat!” Cassie hissed after it, taking a deep breath and waiting for the machine-gun beat of her heart to slow.

  Knee-high weeds forced themselves up through the broken concrete, brushing at Cassie’s legs as she passed, long skinny tendrils of bramble tugged at the hem of her jeans. A faint, cool breeze rose, tumbling a candy-bar wrapper down the path towards her.

  Reaching the end of the alley revealed the highest of her hopes as Cassie saw, on the far corner of the intersection, a huge parking lot dotted with trucks of all shapes and sizes. Smack in the center of these, shining like a beacon to the freeways running on either side was the Flying T Truck Stop.

  Cassie waited at the corner for the traffic lights to change and then hurried across the busy street. She wandered through the parking lot, growing disheartened at the number of Employees Only signs she found affixed to the big trucks. There were several smaller trucks and a few cars on the lot as well but, checking the license plates, Montana was the furthest west that she could find. She had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't be too long before she would be willing to hop a ride with anyone headed even remotely in the dir
ection of the West Coast.

  Cassie ate the last of her bread and lunchmeat, washing it down with a diet soda from a bright, humming vending machine near the gas pumps. The pungent smell of diesel fuel was thick around the pumps, and she took a deep breath as she walked past with her cola. Cassie had always liked the smell of diesel, an enjoyment that had caused her mother to roll her eyes. In the near corner of the parking lot, she found a covered bus stop beneath a bright overhead streetlamp. The bus stop sat at the main entrance to the lot and seemed like a strategic spot to watch the incoming traffic. After digging out her recorder and her Bible, Cassie dropped her bag against the hard plastic wall of the shelter and sat with her back resting against the wall.

  She related her thoughts and feelings on stowing away in the back of the pickup and her encounter with the cat in the alley. Then, after carefully packing the tiny machine back in her bag, she picked up the worn, leather-bound Bible with the fading gold initials, her mother's initials, on the cover. Inside the flyleaf was a brief, smudged inscription in a neat flowing script that read:

  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path. Proverbs 3:5-6

  Cassie murmured the words aloud, laying the Bible back in her lap. She knew this verse, as well as the rest of the chapter by heart. This had been her favorite scripture growing up, one that her mother prayed along with her each night as she tucked her in to bed. For years, Cassie had thought that her father might have written that verse in his young wife's Bible, maybe as a wedding or anniversary gift. The rough penmanship on the tattered marriage certificate in her pocket, however, was nothing like the small clean lettering on the Bible's flyleaf.