Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One

by Perry P. Perkins

  Past Sea View and Long Beach, past The Loose Caboose restaurant (the best breakfast in Long Beach) and Jack Leland's bookstore, nestled between 6thand 7thavenue. Into Ocean Park, the small hospital on the right, and the new Hill Top Bowl bowling alley on the facing hill. Next is Nahcotta, named in fading memory for the proud Tribal Chief, the highway now called Pacific Avenue turns west onto Sandridge Road, in sight of the Moby Dick Hotel, and heads towards Oysterville. Past the Oysterville store, where the locals, fisherman and artists, cattleman and cooks, have been buying their dry goods and soda pop since the 1920’s. On into Oysterville, where Pacific County's First Baptist awaits its daily influx of Nikon-laden tourists.

  The church, built in 1872, ran regular services until 1930, and was placed, with great local pride, on the national historic register in '76.

  Cassie knew none of this and, as Jack Leland's old blue van turned onto Pacific Highway, she had struggled for the last hundred miles to confront the man beside her.

  Finally, she spoke up.

  "Jack," she said, just loud enough to be heard over the staccato beat of rain on the roof, "I looked at the pictures in your wallet. You…you left it on the table this morning."

  There was a long pause as Cassie, who couldn't force herself to look at him, continued to stare out the window at the deluged highway. A very long moment passed before Jack replied, "Did you?" he asked, his voice seeming weak and distant.

  "Yes,” Cassie said, and began to tremble, "I did. Jack, the picture of the woman in the wedding dress…who is she?"

  Jack sighed, and this sound, wrought with concession to the inevitable, brought Cassie's gaze away from the road. Jack's shoulders were slumped and his hands, which had moments before clenched the wheel tightly, hung limp, barely giving enough pressure to maneuver the vehicle.

  It seemed to Cassie that his face had taken on a new dimension, neither his sardonic grin, nor his deep, stone-carved scowl, instead, the creases had softened and gone lax as sadness, like gravity, pulled his features earthward.

  "I think you're asking me questions that you already know the answer to, kid," Jack responded softly.

  A long moment passed before Jack continued.

  "But," he sighed, "if your last name isn't Williams, and we both know it's not; then my guess is that Kathy Beckman's your mother…"

  "Yes she is," Cassie said, then corrected, "she was."

  Jack drew a quick, ragged breath, and Cassie felt anger begin to stir inside her once more. All the hurtful, spiteful things she had prepared herself to say crept back into her mind.

  "Her name was Belanger," she said tightly, "not Beckman, and my name is Belanger too. Now tell me," Cassie's gritted her teeth in fury, "why is my mother's picture in your wallet, Jack?"

  "Cassie," he said, "there's a lot we need to talk about, and this might not be the best time--"

  Cassie interrupted, "No, this isthe time, Jack, I've been waiting for eighteen years to talk about this--"

  Jack rounded a steep shoulder of the highway and dropped onto the long, forested road leading toward Ilwaco. The diffused beams of his headlights barely caught a flash of brown, as the blacktail doe left the safety of the brushy shoulder and leaped into their path.

  Cassie's statement was suddenly interrupted as Jack reacted instinctively, jerking the wheel to the left, and barely avoiding a collision with the startled animal. Several factors worked against him all at once. The pitch and grade of the road and the flood of rainwater stole their traction as all four tires lost contact and the van began to spin, hydroplaning across the wet surface of the highway.

  "Hold on!" Jack shouted, struggling to keep the wheel straight and fighting the urge to slam his foot down on the brake.

  Cassie clung fearfully to the overhead handle, her seat-belt biting into her shoulder. The van spun, its headlights sweeping both sides of the dripping forest before the back tires crossed the gravel shoulder and dropped into a deep ditch. The ride ended abruptly as the rear bumper slammed, with a sickening metallic crunch, into a thick fallen tree that filled the ditch from edge to edge. She shrieked once, as her grip was torn from the handle, flinging her first toward the driver’s side of the van and then, just as quickly, whip-lashed back into her own door, banging her elbow and forehead painfully. The van came to a stop, its lights shining high into the tree line on the far side of the road.

  Jack and Cassie sat, unspeaking, the suddenness of the accident leaving them numb. The world was filled the purr of the idling engine, the metallic thunder of rain of the roof, and the trip-hammeringof their own hearts.

  "You okay?" Jack asked finally.

  “I think so…are you?”

  "I'm fine," Jack let a great gasp of air escape, whistling, through his teeth, "bet I blew both back tires though. Maybe lost the axle too.” Cassie stared, dazedly out into the storm, rubbing her forehead were it had bumped the door.

  "Well," Jack said, after a moment, "bet you don't see thatin Arizona very often!"

  Cassie giggled despite herself, "Sure we do, but we use coyotes and sand drifts…"

  Jack snickered as he reached behind the seat and pulled out a long flashlight and a wrinkled plastic poncho, which he slipped over his head with a grunt.

  "Better go survey the damage," he said, pushing the door open against the wind and pulling the flapping plastic hood down low over his face. He was back in a moment. "Well, it could be worse," he said, wiping rain from his streaming face, "the axle looks okay, but we sure enough lost both tires."

  "Do you have spares?"

  "Just the one," Jack replied, shaking his head, "but it wouldn't matter if we did have both. There's no way to put them on with the rear end in this ditch, and no way to pull her out without a winch."

  "Oh."

  "So," Jack said, reaching for the door handle again, "Looks like it's hiking time."

  He tossed her the keys.

  "I want you to stay here with the van and keep the doors locked; it'll be quicker to walk to Ilwaco than to backtrack to Chinook at this point. If I can't find a tow truck, I'll ride back with Beth and pick you up."

  "No way, Jack," Cassie said, shaking her head, "I'm coming with you!"

  Jack's grip tightened on the steering wheel as he fought to control his temper.

  "That storm's going to get worse before it gets better," he explained, "There's no point both of us getting wet, cold, and sick. I know the way, and who to look up when I get there." Jack hopped out onto the shoulder. "That leaves you with the van, okay?"

  "But, I--" Cassie began to protest.

  "Just do as you’re told!" Jack bellowed, slamming the door behind him in anger.

  "Don't talk to me like you’re my father!" Cassie shouted after him, her face flushing with anger. If Jack heard her, he gave no sign as he turned and marched angrily off into the storm.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fuming, Cassie sat alone in the dark for perhaps a quarter hour, listening to the rain and thinking black thoughts about Jack. Finally, she reached for the door handle.

  "You're not my boss!" she yelled, realizing how silly and childish the words sounded even as she shouted them at the walls of the empty van. Then she jumped out into the rain, slipping and sliding up the steep, oozing bank of the ditch and onto the road, coating both hands and knees with thick clinging red mud in the process.

  "Dammit!" Cassie shrieked, finally past her own endurance. Wiping her hands savagely on the back of her pants, she started up the road at an angry jog.

  *

  Okay, Jack thought, pressing his hand tightly against his arm, maybe I really did hurt myself.

  When he'd first stormed away from the van, the shock of the accident and his anger with Cassie had blanketed the pain in his side, which had taken a pretty heavy blow against the driver's door. Now though, it was a hot, spiking needle, shooting through his shoulder and down his arm with each jolting step.

  "Breaking my arm," Jack grimaced, "would just make this the end of a perfect day." Th
en he gasped as another pain knifed through his shoulder.

  Another mile up the highway, Jack knew, lay the outskirts of Ilwaco. A few miles past that was his shop and apartment, where he was sure Beth would be sitting up reading, waiting for him to pull up. Jack hoped that she had driven her shiny new Jeep instead of walking, as she often did in fair weather. The locals would have known this storm was coming for days, so the chances were good that she'd be prepared.

  Rain and wind slammed into him, and Jack winced as the pain increased and his neck began to ache as well, he slowed his pace as he realized that he was dripping with perspiration. The pain in his arm grew more intense, and Jack lurched to the side of the road as another attack of nausea overwhelmed him.

  "Oh no," he murmured, suddenly afraid, "Oh no…"

  Then the pain came again, this time like a giant fist clamped tight around his sternum, squeezing his heart. Jack felt his knees buckle as he pitched forward, both hands to his chest, into the ditch, his face tearing a furrow through the mud and gravel and he slid down into the rushing drainage. By chance, he rolled onto his back before splashing to a halt, the change of position saving him from drowning in a six-inch river of muddy water.

  He lay, paralyzed by the agony in his chest, his world reduced to a burning, exhausting effort for each constricted breath, the pain ebbing and flowing as his body convulsed uncontrollably. Frigid water rushed past his ears and he blinked as the fading twilight became unnaturally black.

  As his eyes slipped shut, Jack felt himself drifting away.

  *

  Cassie had jogged until she was gasping for breath, stopping only to bend over and stretch out the stitch in her side.

  For an old guy,she thought, Jack could really cover some ground when he wanted to!

  She had left the van far behind, and was about halfway across a long flat stretch of dark road. As her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Cassie could make out about another quarter mile of straightaway before the road jogged to the left.

  Jack must have reallycovered some ground, Cassie realized, too much ground. She had jogged and ran most of the way from the van, and Jack had only been walking when he left. She should have caught him by now, maybe even passed him by.

  Passed him by?

  Cassie felt the cold, copper taste of fear glaze her throat, as she turned to look back the way she had come.

  Could she have missed him in the dark?

  Unlikely.

  He could have stepped off the road into the trees to…to talk to a man about a horse, she supposed, but if not, then what? If he had fallen, surely she would have seen him. Hesitantly, Cassie began retracing her steps. After a hundred yards in the downpour, she began to pray.

  Another hundred yards and she heard a muffled cough ahead in the darkness.

  Suddenly Cassie remembered that she was alone in the woods at night, and she got scared. The rain was easing and she listened intently for any other noise, but heard nothing.

  Slipping a hand into her pocket, Cassie wrapped her fist around the cool weight of the buck knife, and continued to pray as she crept up on the side of the road. At last, the bottom of the ditch came into view and Cassie lost all thoughts of fear.

  "You have to go down and get him, Cass," she whispers, "show him the way to get out…"

  "Jack!" Cassie screamed, "Jack…" Flinging herself down into the gully, she slid to a stop at his side. His mud-splattered face was so pale and cold that Cassie was sure he was dead and her stomach cramped in fear.

  "May the day of my birth perish…"

  As she lifted his head from the clutching mud, she whispered another prayer. "Oh God," she wept, "Please, please don't take him away from me, I just…I just found him…”

  As if in answer, Jack coughed weakly. His unfocused eyes fluttered open, darting from side to side, and coming to rest at last, on her.

  "Katie?" he mumbled thickly, his eyes widening, "Katie?"

  Cassie began to sob as she realized that he was seeing her mother. "Jack…" she murmured.

  "I'm sorry, Katie" Jack mumbled, shaking his head, "so sorry…all my fault…"

  "Jack," Cassie whispered, wiping blood and dirt from his face, "Don't talk, you'll be okay. Just lay quiet…"

  "…she’s so beautiful, Katie," Jack’s shoulders shook lightly as he began to weep, "just like you, beautiful and so smart…" Jack slumped back for a moment, and then arched again, his fevered eyes blazing.

  "Bill didn’t deserve her," he murmured, and Cassie could barely understand the words. "He didn’t deserve you…”

  Jack’s voice cracked and his body shuddered as another white-hot bolt of pain tore through his chest. He gazed up at Cassie through the rain, his eyes unfocused and distant. When he spoke again, his voice was much weaker, fading even as his eyelids began to droop.

  “I wish,” he whispered, his voice thick, “I wish she was mine, I wish…she was ours…"

  "…so sorry…” and then his eyes were shut.

  Cassie wept over Jack, his face muddied, and bloodied, and twisted with pain, crying out in his delirium to a woman who was, so recently, dead and cold in her grave.

  The bright glare of headlights swept over them as someone came to a screeching halt on the road above. Cassie stuffed her soaked jacket beneath Jack's head to keep his face out of the water, and clambered up to the side of the road, drawing a breath to cry for help.

  Suddenly, the words froze in her throat as the driver's door of the black Toyota pickup opened, the dark, tinted windows impossible to see through in the twilight. Then, just as suddenly, Cassie's fear turned to rage as some line, deep within her, was finally crossedHer lips drew back; teethbared in fury as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her knife, taking a step toward the truck, waiting for the stench of stale cigarette smoke to reach her. Her knuckles turned white around the wood grain handle, as she raised the blade.

  "Cassie?" a voice questioned from the dark.

  She stopped and blinked. She knew that voice! Where did she know that voice from?"

  "Cassie?" the voice repeated, "what in the world are you doing? Put that knife away!"

  Guy! That was Pastor Guy's voice! Cassie was sure that her mind had finally snapped under the strain, as the tall, lean form of Guy Williams stepped around the front of the truck and into the headlights.

  "What…" she stammered, "What are you…"

  "Later," he said, looking past her, into the ditch. "Let's get him out of there and to a hospital.” Cassie followed Guy back down into the gully as the storm let loose once more with sheet after sheet of driving rain.

  Jack felt himself being lifted and carried, his legs dragging on the ground behind him, up the embankment and onto the road. Finally, he managed to open his eyes, and could barely make out Cassie on his right. His vision blurred, and he couldn't see who was on his left; a man, he was sure by the feel of hard sinewy muscle beneath the arm of his jacket.

  The blackness at the edges of his vision expanded, and then slowly became a burning white light, growing in brightness and intensity until he had to blink and raise a hand…

  Chapter Thirteen

  Long Beach, Washington August 1980

  …to shield his eyes from the bright summer sun, as he stepped from the rumbling Greyhound bus and onto the busy sidewalk.

  August in Long Beach, and the tourist season was in full swing. Jack Leland held his faded duffel bag close as he jostled his way through the crowd. Brightly colored balloons, flags, and kites hung from the storefronts, and the hot summer air was thick with the smell of caramel corn and hotdogs. Sunburned moms grimly dragged sand-encrusted youngsters away from the candy shops and towards the public restrooms.

  Jack grinned; so much had changed since he was a boy. The sleepy little coastal village with its one gas station and two hotels was long gone, plowed under and rebuilt by a wave of summer money flowing west from Seattle. Someone had written him that the oyster cannery had finally shut down, and that, he supposed, was a harb
inger of the final breath for industry on the peninsula. Now, it appeared, the boom in Ocean Park and Long Beach centered on art galleries and ice-cream shops.

  Stepping into the shade of a candy-striped awning, Jack set his bag down on the sidewalk between his feet. Two pair of underwear, a small toiletries bag, jeans, his college diploma and his Bible; all of his earthly possessions, were packed inside.

  Just turned thirty-one, with three hundred dollars in his pocket and the hope of a job at Long Beach Community Church, Jack paused to breathe the salty air of his hometown for the first time in seven years.

  "Jackie!" a rough voice bellowed from across the street, "Hey, Jackie! Over here!"

  Bill Beckman was, if anything, leaner and darker than when Jack had last seen him. A faded tank top, stuffed into an even more faded pair of blue jeans, displayed Bill's bony shoulders and long wiry arms, tanned nut-brown. He was grinning, wide white teeth gleaming from a narrow face framed in shoulder-length dark hair. One arm was raised; waving in Jack's direction, while the other lay draped, casually but possessively, across the shoulder of a beautiful young woman in a faded flower print dress. Jack wracked his brain for a moment, having suddenly forgotten the name of his friend's young bride.

  "Katherine…" he whispered suddenly, remembering, "Kathy…"

  Then Bill was across the street and had those long wiry arms wrapped around Jack, lifting him from the ground in a spine-popping bear hug.

  “Okay, okay…" Jack gasped, laughing and wincing at the same time, "let me down…let me down!"

  Bill dropped him, grinning, and offered a hand, which Jack shook.

  "It's about time you got here; the tourists were starting to get to me…"

  Bill sneered, glancing around him with a grimace of hard-pressed toleration. Jack looked to the young lady, and then back.