Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One

by Perry P. Perkins

  Karl laughed, turning to clap Jack on the shoulder. "It's going to be okay, Jack," He said. "Once we've had a chance to talk some sense to Kathy, I'm sure she'll do what's best. I don't think Bill's likely to give you a hard time again, at least until the swelling goes down and his nose stops smarting."

  "I hope you're right, Boss," Jack said, "I really do. You drive safe, I'll see you tomorrow."

  "Will do," Karl replied and then disappeared down the steps and around the side of the house. Jack could hear his heavy footsteps as he made his way back up the path through the rain to the parking lot of the hotel.

  Karl had seen a lot in his four decades at the pulpit, some bad, a lot more of it good.

  His experiences, coupled with his devotion to prayer and study of God's word, had built in him an above average wellspring of wisdom.

  (Though Karl would have said that it was God's wisdom and that he just listened as best he could.)

  Still, if you received the Pastor's counsel on something, you could pretty much take it to the bank.

  This time, however, Karl Ferguson's optimism turned out to be, to the great misfortune of everyone concerned, about as wrong as wrong could be.

  *

  After washing the plates and bagging the trash, Jack settled down to read a few more chapters in the new science fiction novel that Dottie had forced on him earlier in the week. Laser swords and androids weren’t his usual cup of tea, but Jack found the underlying theme of good versus evil to be interesting. Sometime around eleven, he found his eyes refusing to focus on the pages of the paperback and, slipping in a bookmark to save his place; Jack snapped off the light and settled back into his pillow.

  He thanked God for the day, and asked for His guidance in the ones to follow, praying for Kathy and sincerely, if somewhat less fervently, for Bill. Moments later, he was asleep.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When his eyes snapped open, in the cold, predawn hours of early morning, Jack lay still for a few seconds, trying to clear the cobwebs from his head, and determine what had woken him.

  His question was answered when someone or something crashed along the deck and into the cabin’s wall. Jack leaped to his feet and started across the darkened room as a heavy fist pounded on the door. Still groggy with sleep, the thought that he might be in danger came to Jack a split second before the locked door of the cabin burst inward, the frame littering the front room in a shower of splinters. Jack flipped on the overhead light, and this unconscious action saved his life.

  In the sudden blinding glare, the first shot from the revolver went wide, the bullet punching through the door of the refrigerator a foot to his left. Bill Beckman weaved through the doorway, his face swollen and bruised, squinting and blinking painfully as he raised the gun for a second shot. Jack leaped forward, catching him in a tight embrace, his hand locking around Bill's wrist, forcing the weapon down and away. Bill shouted something, but his words were lost in the strident ringing in Jack's ears. The two men struggled back and forth across the room, overturning furniture as they went. As the deafening echo of the pistol’s report began to fade, Jack could make out the steady stream of profanities, spewn into his face in a gale of fetid, boozy breath.

  "Bill!” Jack bellowed, "What do you think you're doing?"

  Bill grunted as Jack slammed him back into a wall of books, most of which came tumbling to the floor.

  "You're dead, Jackie," he hissed, "You hear me? You've messed around with my wife for the last time!"

  He brought a knee up into Jack's groin, connecting hard, and Jack gagged, barely able to keep his grip as waves of pain and nausea swept over him.

  "You’re crazy," Jack grunted, "You're out of your mind, Bill! Nothing’s ever happened between me and Kathy; if you weren't drunk all the time--"

  Bill tried to knee him again, but this time Jack was ready, waiting until his opponent had one foot in the air before dropping to the floor and sweeping Bill’s supporting leg out from under him. Bill dropped on top of Jack, his elbow driving into Jack's ribs, bringing a dull crack like splitting branches and white-hot pain. The pistol skittered across the wood floor, coming to rest with a resounding thump, against the leg of Jack's writing table.

  With another grunt, Jack drove the heel of his hand into Bill’s broken nose, and the bigger man screamed. Jack threw him off and leaped towards the gun, only to come crashing back to the floor as knife blades of pain speared his side. Thick hot bile rose in his throat as he clutched at his cracked ribs and hobbled across the room.

  Bill had risen groggily, his head spinning as much from the liquor and the punishment it had received that day. Blood poured, anew, down his face as his eyes fell on the gun that Jack was crab-walking across the floor towards. He cursed as he launched himself across the room to get the pistol.

  Again, he dropped onto Jack, and Jack screamed as the sudden weight drove his injured ribs into the floor. The two men rolled together in a confusion of arms and legs, until Jack suddenly found himself on top, his knees pinning Bill's shoulders to the ground. He paused a moment trying to catch his breath as his side burned in agony. Bill stared up at him with dark, hate-filled eyes.

  "I'll kill you," he panted through clenched teeth, "I'll kill you both before I'll let you have her!"

  Jack looked into Bill's hate-crazed face and went cold.

  That look, that mixture of unvented rage and unshakable resolve, was one that he had seen before. So many years before that it took Jack a long, sweaty moment to remember, and then the image of the Beckman's giant oak tree filled his mind. How old had they been, ten? Twelve? He couldn't remember for sure, but it had been summer, and both of them had been playing barefoot in the front yard, having just returned with Bill's father from some errand in town.

  The object that had kept them occupied for the last hour, and now focused their attention to the colossal old oak, was a little balsa-wood airplane. Just that morning, John Beckman, in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, had lain a hard-earned quarter on the counter of Jack's Market for the toy.

  The tiny aircraft, its thin wings striped with bright red ink, a squared-jawed pilot drawn into the cockpit, had made a number of daring flights from the Beckman porch already. Finally it was determined the real test would have to come from the high, dormered window of the attic. Moments after a much-regaled takeoff, the cool breezes off Willapa Bay proved to be their downfall as the little plane found itself hopelessly ensnared in the upper branches of the oak tree.

  Jack had been disappointed, but Bill was livid. Toys were rare enough in his home that he wouldn't abandon this one so quickly and, after a long, jaw-grinding moment, he announced that he was going up to rescue the plane.

  "Billy!" Jack had warned him, "Your pop said to stay out of the tree. You’re gonna get a whipping!"

  "Maybe," Young Bill had growled, "but I'm getting my plane first…"

  With that, he started barefoot up the tree and for several breathless moments, it had appeared that he might make good on his oath. Then the inevitable occurred as, reaching for a branch just a little beyond his fingers, Bill had slipped, tumbling from the height of the second story bedroom window, to the ground below. Jack had winced at the audible snap of Bill's ankle as he landed, and rushed to him, as his friend turned pale, retching and crying out in pain. Jack had gotten a panicked arm under the injured boy and started toward the house and adult help, when Bill dragged him, hopping on his good foot, back to the oak.

  Jack had tried to argue with him, but to no avail.

  Billy Beckman, his pallid face awash with sweat and tears, started back up the tree. Something in his face caused Jack to step away, his protests dying in his throat. Something frightening.

  Young Jack Leland watched his friend climb, hopping from one branch to the next, his broken ankle wobbling sickeningly behind him. Bone-crushing determination locked Bill's jaws so his screams of pain escaped muffled, through his teeth. It was a sight that he would never forget.

  Moments
later the cheap, store-bought toy had drifted to the ground, moments after that, Bill hopped from the last branch and onto the grassy lawn, where he fainted dead away into Jack's arms.

  Suddenly it seemed as though some great valve was turned in Jack's soul as all the anger and adrenaline poured out of him.

  He stared down into Bill face and realized he was looking at a stranger, someone who bore no resemblance to anyone he had ever known; a man who was going to kill him, or die himself, in the effort. Jack felt weak and sick, tired deep in his soul, as he drew his fist back and drove it into this stranger's snarling, maddened face. Once, twice, three times he brought his fist down with all the strength that was left in him, each time connecting and driving Bill's head back into the floor with a reverberating thud.

  Pain screamed at him from already bruised knuckles, joining with his fresh injuries in a throbbing duet somewhere in a far back corner of Jack's mind. The fourth time his fist came down, Bill's eyes rolled back in his head and his weakly struggling arms collapsed to the floor. Jack rolled off him with a groan, scooping up the pistol from beneath the desk, unconsciously setting the safety, and placing it on the lowest shelf of the one bookcase that was still standing.

  As he lay, for a moment, exhausted and panting, beside the comatose body of his once-friend, Jack could feel blood trickling from his nose and down over his lips, but he was too tired to wipe it away.

  His little cabin was a mess. Books and papers lay scattered near and far, furniture and pieces of furniture were knocked about, and a pathetic, wheezing sound was emanating from the hole that Bill's .38 had drilled through his refrigerator. Orange juice bled from the bottom of the door.

  Jack was sweating, shaking, the pain in his hand and ribs returning in full force as he heaved himself from the floor. His chest screamed in protest as he bent, grabbing Bill by one limp arm and, gasping, drug him into the bedroom and up onto his bed. Bill groaned when his head hit the pillow, and after thoughtfully studying his lean, battered face for a moment, Jack drew back and punched him one last time, making sure he was going to stay out until the police arrived.

  "Sorry, Billy," Jack mumbled, then turned and staggered toward the door.

  Out of the cabin and into the rain, he tripped on the almost-empty whiskey bottle that Bill had dropped while coming across the porch. A short ugly phrase, one that Jack thought was long since removed from his vocabulary, slipped from between bleeding lips, as he lurched into the porch rail, bringing a fresh shriek of pain from his ribs.

  *

  Rolf Parker would tell Sheriff Bradley, late the next afternoon as he sat in the latter’s office drumming nervous fingers on his knees, that the clock on his bedside table had read 3:45am when Jack had woke him, pounding on the wood front door of the Moby Dick Hotel. Rolf had answered bleary-eyed and confused, but woke up quick when Jack told him what had happened in the little cabin.

  “I’m really sorry about waking you up at this hour,” Jack said, shifting his weight from one barefoot to the other on the cold concrete step, “but I've got to use your phone.”

  “Sure, sure,” Rolf had said, his eyes wide, “Luckily we have no guests tonight--Hey, you all right Jack? You’re moving pretty stiff.”

  Jack winced as he stepped across the threshold, one hand still pressed firmly against his side.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I might have cracked a rib or two in the scuffle. I think my refrigerator got the worst of it, though!”

  Rolf looked confused, but didn’t ask Jack to clarify, instead, ushering him into the small office behind the kitchen, he pulled out the desk chair for him, before turning back toward the door.

  “I’d best let the Missus know that everything’s all right.” he said, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Jack nodded absently as he dialed Karl Ferguson’s number from memory.

  Karl answered on the second ring, sounding surprisingly alert and awake. He listened as Jack, again, outlined the events of the last half hour.

  “Have you called the police?” Karl asked, as soon as Jack paused.

  “Not yet.”

  “Do that as soon as we hang up.”

  “Yeah, will do.” Jack replied.

  “Jack,” Karl said, “I’ve got what might be some more bad news.”

  Jack waited.

  “I got a call from the hospital about an hour ago,” Karl went on, “Kathy checked herself out around one o’clock this morning. She told the nurse that she couldn’t afford to stay the night and that she was fine. There was nothing the nurse could do but call me.”

  Jack felt cold. If Kathy had left the hospital at one, she would have been home thirty minutes later, which meant that she could have found Bill there before he came over to the cabin. Bill’s words suddenly rung in his ears…

  “I’ll kill you both before I’ll let you have her.”

  “Jack?” Karl’s voice raised a notch over the telephone line.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I’m here. Karl, we have to get over to Kathy’s and make sure she’s okay!”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Karl assured him, “You wait there for the police. They’re going to need a statement from you and they’ll have a lot of questions.”

  “No way, Karl,” Jack replied, “I’m calling the police and then I’ll meet you at the Beckman’s.”

  Karl started to argue and Jack took the most expedient route available to him and hung up the phone. He stood as Rolf walked back into the office, two steaming cups of coffee in his hands.

  “Here,” he said, holding one of the mugs out for Jack, “I don’t think either of us are going to get any more sleep tonight.”

  Jack set the mug on the desk.

  “Thanks Rolf," Jack said, "but I don’t have time. I need you to do me a couple of big favors. First, I need you to call the police, tell them what’s happened, and have them come pick up Bill.” Rolf nodded, taking a small sip of coffee from the cup that shook in his thin hands.

  “Second,” Jack said, “I need to borrow your car. I have to meet Pastor Karl right away.”

  Rolf nodded wordlessly, as he reached above the desk and took a small ring of keys from a hook on the wall, tossing them to Jack.

  “Take the pickup,” he said, “The Datsun's low on gas.” Jack nodded and was out the door and across the parking lot before Rolf had finished dialing the Sheriff’s office.

  Bill’s big Ford was parked in the turn-around and Jack looked through the open driver’s window and saw the keys dangling from the ignition. Without thinking about it, he pocketed them.

  *

  Jack pushed Rolf's little Toyota pickup for all it was worth, barreling down Sandridge Road at roughly twice the posted speed limit. The nearly weightless back end of the compact truck fishtailed into the Beckman’s long gravel driveway and, for a brief, sweaty moment, Jack was sure he was going to wrap it around the big oak tree in the front yard. He missed it, barely, and slid to a stop a few feet short of the walk.

  Vaulting from the seat, the driver’s door swinging half shut behind him, Jack raced up the sagging steps and across the wide porch. The front door stood open and Jack’s heart leaped into his throat at the sight of that flat, yellow light pouring out into the darkness. He was calling Kathy’s name as he crossed into the front room, his voice echoing hollowly through the quiet house. Everything seemed normal; couches and love seat were still beneath their dark green shrouds, photos hanging straight on the walls, the place was the picture of peaceful domesticity.

  Jack rushed upstairs, shouting for her, his belly clenching with each room he entered, fearing the worst. Panic almost overtook him as he flung wide the door of the Beckman’s bedroom and saw what looked, at first, to be a woman’s body draped across the back corner of the big oak bed.

  Looked to be?

  No way. For a dark and eternal two seconds, Jack had seen Kathy Beckman’s corpse in the scant moonlight seeping through the bedroom window. He felt his stomach heave and a harsh, gasping, cry of shock to
re from his throat. The world around him tilted, and when it righted itself, the shape on the bed was only a carelessly strewn pile of women’s clothes, cascading across the comforter and down onto the hardwood floor.

  Jack paused, sagging against the doorframe, certain that he was going to throw up. A couple of deep breaths later his stomach settled, and his legs, which had turned to jelly on him, quit their shaking and firmed up enough to continue his search. Coming back down the stairs, and rounding the corner into the dining room, Jack ran directly into a shadowed, hulking form coming out of the kitchen. This time Jack did scream and, blinded by fear, threw a quick fist out in front of him. Karl Ferguson blocked the punch smoothly and grabbed Jack’s arm, spinning him out and away.

  “You know,” Karl growled, “for a pastor, you sure hit people a lot!”

  For the second time in as many minutes, Jack’s heart resumed beating, and he looked at Karl for a long, frozen moment, as predawn silence descended over the house again. Suddenly he started laughing. The stresses and shocks of the last twenty-four hours came crashing down on Jack and his knees buckled, sending him to the floor in convulsions of silent, uncontrollable mirth.

  Karl watched him, pulling a chair from the table and settling his big frame into it with a sigh. He chuckled, watching Jack slowly regain control and sit up, wiping tears from his eyes, as he held his aching ribs.

  “Rolf told me you were hurt,” Karl said.

  “I’ll be okay.” Jack replied. “Kathy’s gone, or at least she's not anywhere I could find. There’s a big pile of clothes on the bed upstairs but, besides that, everything looks normal.”

  Karl snorted. “It’s a good thing you’re a youth pastor instead of a detective.” He said.

  “Why’s that?”