Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One

by Perry P. Perkins

  "Well?" he asked.

  There was a pause as Bill glanced from Kathy to Jack questioningly, his grin starting to fade.

  "Well, what?" he replied finally.

  Jack shook his head and brushed past his old friend, extending his hand to Kathy.

  "I see he still has all the manners of a stray dog," Jack laughed, "I'm Jack Leland, you must be Katherine. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

  The young woman grinned, her face lighting up like the sun, giving her husband a poke in the ribs.

  "Yeah," she said, "We’re working on that. Nice to meet you too, Jack."

  "Great," Bill said with a snort, "just what she needs; reinforcements!"

  The three laughed as Jack picked up his duffel and hoisted it onto his shoulder.

  "Well," said Bill, "unless one of you has a hankering for some cotton candy, why don't we get the heck outta here!"

  "Lead on!" Jack replied with a mock salute.

  *

  Bill and Katherine Beckman lived in a rambling farmhouse far out Sandridge Road between Nahcotta and Oysterville. The house, more than a century old, had belonged to Jonathan Beckman, Bill's father, and to his father before him, who had built his home on a small rise facing Willapa Bay. Cancer had taken Florence Beckman while Bill was still in junior high school, and had finally come calling for her husband as well. By the time that Jack's own parents had lost their lives to fire, John Beckman was already a year into his long sleep beneath the pines at the Oysterville Cemetery.

  At twenty years old, after securing a loan from the bank to buy his sister’s half of their inheritance, Bill had found himself the sole owner and operator of the third largest private oyster farm on the Peninsula.

  To Jack, the house looked much the same as it had when he and Bill had shot marbles across the wide front porch as boys. The tall, windswept oak in the front yard, from which Bill had once fallen and broken his ankle, still cast its protective shadow over the northern side of the house. The grounds, which John Beckman had kept scrupulously tidy, did in truth look a bit seedier than Jack remembered. The weeds grew knee-high in places, and had enveloped the lower half of a rusting ‘68 Camero that had found its rest in a far corner of the front yard.

  The boat shed, which had stood behind the house at the end of the long gravel drive, had been torn down. The weathered lumber that had once housed the senior Beckman's trio of oyster boats now lay in haphazard stacks amid the tall grass. As for the boats themselves, they were nowhere to be seen.

  Inside the house, though, was just as Jack remembered, every stick of furniture stood exactly as it had two decades before. Both couches in the living room and the love seat in the den were covered with dark green blankets now, cloaking the wear of two lifetimes.

  It was in the sizable Beckman dining room that the three of them sat down to dinner.

  Fresh-baked steak and oyster pie, peas, and a green salad were served on Florence Beckman's blue willowware china. As Jack dug in, he suddenly remembered that he had never been allowed to eat from these plates before. He, Bill, and Bill's younger sister, whom they called “The Snipe” when Mrs. Beckman was out of earshot, ate their meals from brightly colored plastic plates, bought at a nickel apiece from Jack's Market in Sea View.

  After complimenting Kathy on the dinner, which was actually very good, Jack turned to Bill.

  "So, tell me what I've missed," he said. "Where's The Snipe?"

  Bill chuckled around a mouthful of salad as Kathy rolled her eyes. "I think it's terrible that you two called her that!" she rebuked them.

  "Hey," said Bill, "You're not the one who had to put up with her tagging along everywhere after you!"

  "I'm telling momma, I'm telling momma…" Jack mimicked in a high singsong voice, and Bill laughed until he choked.

  "Well," said Kathy haughtily, "I'm sure you gave her every reason to act like that! I know what older brothers are like!"

  A shadow seemed to fall over the table and both Kathy and Bill became silent and stared down at their plates. Jack looked at his own meal for a moment, his gut twisting a little as he asked, "'Nam?"

  "Yeah," Bill whispered.

  Kathy said nothing, and Bill reached across the table and took her hand.

  Then, as suddenly as the cloud had descended, it lifted, and Kathy, her eyes shining with unshed tears, looked up and smiled.

  "So," she said to Jack, "Bill tells me you're a card player?"

  Jack laughed at this, "If you mean that we played poker and he took all my money, then I guess so!"

  "Well, let me get these dishes cleared away and maybe we can play some cards."

  "Sounds good to me."

  "Anyway," said Bill, "to answer your question, The Snipe…"

  "Curse her hide!" Both men intoned together, a quip picked up from the venerable Gary Cooper in an old western they had seen at the Bijou, and had immediately bestowed on Bill's less-than-welcome sibling. They roared with laughter, as Kathy shook her head, smiling in spite of herself.

  "The Snipe," Bill continued, wiping his eyes, "is another man's torment now. She graduated high school a few years back, and started taking classes at Seattle community to be a teacher." Bill shook his head. "Instead, she fell head over heels for some flatlander upperclassman and BAM; they’re married and moved back to Pittsburgh--"

  "--Chicago…" Kathy corrected with a smile.

  "Same difference," her husband replied, distastefully, “anyhow she was happy enough to get out of here. We get Christmas and birthday cards, and a phone call every month or so. Kathy talks to her more than me."

  "Can you blame her?" Jack laughed, ducking the napkin that Bill threw in his direction. Kathy was laughing too, and Jack felt the mood lighten a little more.

  Later, as Kathy was packing away the leftovers, Bill and Jack stood in the cool breeze of the porch. Bill produced a shiny Zippo lighter, lit the end of a small cigar and, puffing on his White Owl, he filled Jack in on the rest of the story.

  "Anyway," Bill said, "I guess the two of them were pretty close, growing up."

  "Oh, yeah?" replied Jack, leaning against the far rail trying to avoid the advancing gray-green cloud of cigar smoke.

  "Yup. Parents got killed in a car accident when she was about eight, her brother maybe fourteen." Bill closed the lighter with a metallic snick. "They lived with one set of relatives and then another, getting shipped from here to there until Bobby turned twenty-one and joined the marines. From the time their folks died, he did most of the work raising her, then they ship him off to the war and his camp gets shelled his second night he's there. Four guys lived, out of the forty that were stationed there."

  Bill leaned forward and spit over the porch rail in disgust.

  "Four…Geez!"

  Jack shook his head, looking out over the peaceful sunset and shadows of the bay. Beneath the whisper of the wind in the long grass, he could hear the screams of wounded boys being dragged from smoking, bullet-ridden helicopters. Those chopper pilots, Jack often thought, were the real heroes over there, flying into the death-zone day after day, saving their fellow soldiers.

  He had ridden along on only two rescue flights; it had been like flying into hell.

  His nose twitched, remembering the cloying, overripe smell of the jungle, the chemical fires, and acrid taste of gunpowder, and he closed his eyes for a moment; drawing a deep, welcome breath of the salt-sea air. Bill was watching him, his head cocked to one side, the cheap, machine-rolled cigar hanging from his lip.

  "You see a lot of that?" he asked.

  "Enough," Jack replied, watching a heron sweep low over the darkening bay. "More than enough."

  "I'd have been there ya know," Bill muttered, his eyes downcast. "If they'd have let me go, I'd have been right there with ya."

  Jack suddenly remembered the day, dark cool and overcast, that he and Bill had marched into the recruitment office together to enlist. Three weeks later, Jack was on a military plane to Mississippi and Bill was alone at his father'
s kitchen table with a 4-F letter in front of him. A two-inch steel pin in his right ankle had kept him far away from the horror in Southeast Asia.

  "I know that, Billy," Jack said softly, reverting to his best friend's childhood name. "You know that I know that."

  Bill pulled a flask from his hip pocket, still staring at the weathered boards beneath his feet. After taking a long draw, he looked up and offered it to Jack.

  "Whiskey?"

  "Nah," Jack shook his head, "Gave it up when I started at Clear Creek; I guess I'm off it for good now."

  "Oh yeah," Bill grinned, "I almost forgot, you're a full-blown preacher."

  "Hopefully, I'm a preacher." Jack replied, "Karl Ferguson hasn't promised me the assistant pastor's job at Long Beach Community. In fact, I should be bedding down before it gets too late; I have an interview with him at nine."

  "You'll get the job," Bill nodded, flipping his cigar butt into a rusty coffee can at the foot of the steps.

  "Me and Kathy'll be there next Sunday, too." He said, "We've been going to the Baptist church here in town, but it's a little slow for us. I hear your church has a hot little band going."

  "It's not my church yet," Jack laughed, "In fact, it won't be mychurch even if I do get the job. I'm just the assistant pastor, that means I preach twice a year and sweep twice a week. But now, I sure didn't figure you for church…"

  "Oh sure," Bill grinned, "Kathy won't miss a week, and I'm right there with her. I got baptized and everything! As long as they don't ask me to pick up snakes or wash someone's feet, I guess there are worse ways to spend your Sunday mornings."

  Jack took a long look at his old friend, concerned with the glib reply and lack of sincerity.

  "Well," he said, "We'll have to sit down and talk about that sometime."

  "Yeah, I s'pose we will," laughed Bill, taking another long slug from his flask before stowing it back in his pocket of his jeans.

  "Hey," he whispered, "Don't mention the hooch to Kathy, will ya? She has this thing about drinking, and you don't want to get her started."

  "Bill…" Jack began to protest.

  "Ah, just a little secret," Bill said, flinging his arm across Jack's shoulders and steering him back into the house, "let's go play some cards, Kathy's getting pretty good. Keep an eye on her, though, she’s a bluffer!"

  Jack let the subject of Bill's drinking pass, deciding that if asked, he would tell the truth, but he wouldn't volunteer any information until then. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a soft, guilty voice sang to him about compromise.

  Kathy Beckman turned out to be a better card player than Bill had let on, and Jack wondered, briefly, if he was being had.

  Bill, however, played as fast and wild as he had when they were kids. Every nickel that Jack lost to Kathy, he seemed to win back from her husband. Finally, Jack had his original stack of change in front of him, Kathy had a stack twice that size, and Bill's hands rested on an empty patch of table where his money had sat two hours before.

  Just before midnight, Jack crawled into the old feather bed in the Beckman guestroom. He read his Bible until he couldn't keep the fine print from blurring on the page. After a quick, but heartfelt prayer for the morning, he fell asleep.

  *

  Eight and a half hours later Jack was yawning and rubbing his eyes as he walked out of the coffee shop and down the street to the front door of the Long Beach Community Church.

  A sandblasted wooden sign hung above the front lawn of the church, proudly displaying its name, Pastor Karl Ferguson's name, and the proclamation that LBCC was ASpirit Filled Fellowship.

  Jack smiled at this.

  If the sign didn't give it away, the sound of amplified guitars and drums pouring out the open windows, every Sunday morning, would have made it clear to anyone passing within a block (or two) of the building.

  Karl Ferguson shook Jack's hand with a wide grin and a twinkle in his eyes. It was no surprise to anyone that Pastor Ferguson had been elected to wear the Santa suit in the Christmas parade every year for the last decade. Vivid sky blue eyes did little to draw the on-lookers attention away from a large bulbous nose, bushy beard, and the unruly shock of white hair that framed both sides of his shiny, bald head.

  At sixty-one, a lifetime of sea winds and smiles had etched deep lines into his face, and the stocky, athletic build he had sported as a young soldier had softened and spread over the years. He still walked with the limp caused by German rifle fire on the beach at Normandy in June of 1944.

  World War II had lasted only a month for Karl Ferguson, but his eighteen hours on the French sands of Omaha Beach would be carried with him, like with the shrapnel in his knee, for the rest of his life.

  The two men sat at the Pastor's worn, pinewood desk and covered the preliminaries over cups of strong black tea.

  Jack told about his youth, growing up on the peninsula and working with his boyhood friends at the Beckman Oyster Farm. His mug was refilled from a steaming copper pot as he spoke briefly about his time in Vietnam, and finding God as a lonely, frightened soldier.

  Karl Ferguson listened closely, interrupted occasionally, and nodded often and knowingly. Jack talked about his years at Bible College, covering the basics: grades, classes, and the like. This led to a brief review of his year as a missionary in Africa, which led back to Long Beach.

  After twenty minutes, Jack ran out of words, having covered his personal biography from birth to their present meeting in less than half an hour.

  The moment of silence stretched into two as Karl poured himself a second cup of tea and settled his girth back into his groaning chair. Blue eyes studied Jack from beneath an explosion of bushy white eyebrows, as the older man stirred his tea and formed the only question he would ask his applicant.

  "Tell me Jack," he asked finally, setting his cup down, "What is God's will for your life?"

  Jack paused, taken aback by the directness of the question. God's will for his life? He had expected to be asked about his education, his philosophy of ministry, maybe even why he felt called to Long Beach Community Church. But...God's will for his life?How could he communicate that, did he even know the answer? Suddenly Jack realized that he was speaking, the words pouring out almost unconsciously.

  "I know that God wants me to teach," he said, starting slowly and gaining speed. "I know that he has given me such a heart to teach others, and that even if I wasn't a Christian, I would still be teaching somebody somewhere, something. I think that many people have serious questions, fair questions about why the world is the way it is, and how God fits into it--"

  "--And do you feel that you have answers to those questions?" Karl interrupted, leaning forward intently.

  "No, not me," Jack smiled, relaxing a bit, "but I know where the answers are."

  He reached forward and tapped the Bible that lay on the corner of Karl Ferguson's desk. "I've learned a little about how to find those answers, and how to teach other folks to find them for themselves. I guess that’s God's calling on my life, to point people to where they can find the answers."

  Another long silence filled the air as Karl lifted his cup to his lips and took a sip of the steaming liquid, a strangely dainty gesture for a man of his size.

  "Well," he said at last, standing and extending his hand, "I don’t think I can ask for a better answer than that. Let me show you your office…"

  As quickly as that, Jack Leland became the Assistant Pastor of the Long Beach Community Church, ASpirit Filled Fellowship.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A week later, as the two men met for breakfast at The Loose Caboose Café, an old train-car turned restaurant, Jack raised the question he had been mulling over since returning to his hometown.

  “Okay boss," he said, setting down his fork and taking a long sip from a heavy cup of coffee, "what do you think the chances of a revival in Long Beach are?” Karl snorted, choking on a mouthful of egg before wiping his mouth with his napkin and eyeing his young assistant.

  "Bored,
are we?" he asked.

  "Seriously," Jack replied, "what do you think?"

  "Well, first off," Karl said, "let me say that if God wants a revival in Long Beach, I'm all for it. I don't think it's beyond Christ's ability to sweep this town."

  "But?" Jack asked.

  Karl sighed. "Let me tell you a story, Jack. You grew up around here, so stop me if you've heard it."

  Jack nodded.

  "The first church in the area," Karl began, "out in Oysterville, opened its doors back in the middle eighteen hundreds. It's still there in fact." Jack nodded.

  "Oysterville was a boomtown back then, oysters being almost worth their weight in gold. It was the second richest city on the west coast, besides San Francisco, and most of the doors on the waterfront opened into alehouses.

  The oystermen were a crusty group of sailors, here to make their fortunes on the bay. Working and drinking were their life."

  Karl paused to nod at a passing waitress, who smiled and refilled his cup.

  "The story goes that the day the church opened its doors for business, the whole kit and caboodle of tavern patrons got up and walked down Weather Beach Road and into the sanctuary. They each placed a single gold coin in the collection box. Then, without a word, they all walked back to the waterfront and got back to drinking. They never darkened the door of the church again."

  Jack chuckled, nodding his head, "And the point?"

  "The point," Karl replied, shaking his spoon in Jack's direction, "is that a lot of that attitude has hung on here over the years. They were making a statement. Organized religion was fine by them, as long as no one expected them to participate. A lot of folks still feel that way."

  "So we just give in to that?"

  "Not a matter of giving in or standing up," Karl said, picking up his fork again, "it's a fight we don't want to be a part of. Folks around here, especially non-church folks, are a stubborn and loyal lot. If they feel like you're gunning for them as a group, they're going to lock arms."