Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One

by Perry P. Perkins

  Jack thought that maybe, just maybe, those hands had seen their fair share of sand and saltwater. Maybe it was time to slip behind a desk and relax in a warm office, sheltered from the fury of the weather, his most backbreaking responsibilities being unloading an occasional box of paperbacks from the bed of the pickup.

  It was more than the work, though, Jack knew, more than ownership and security.

  It was the worn leather recliner across from the sales counter, the coffee from the stained pot in the cluttered office. The bookstore was the home he had never found in the decade he had slept within the walls of the Beckman house. The little apartment above the store had echoed nearly every happy moment, every bit of laughter that he had experienced over the last ten years.

  The road before him blurred again, as much from the tears that welled and slipped down his cheeks, as from the pounding rain outside.

  Most of all, he knew, it was Dottie. That sharp-tongued, eccentric old woman who had been his only real friend for longer than he wanted to think about.

  The bookstore would remain, he would see to that, and the little apartment would always keep some small part of Dottie Westcott’s spirit for as long as Jack lived there.

  But he would never again knock on that thin wooden door and have her yell from the kitchen that, for Pete's sake he knewwhere the key was. He’d never again barbecue hamburgers on the tiny landing in the freezing dead of winter, never again have her reach over and squeeze his hand with all of her surprising strength, her eyes glittering through emerald lenses. Thanking him wordlessly for keeping the loneliness, that slavering hound of the old and forgotten, from her door.

  Jack saw a rest stop ahead and pulled the truck into the slow lane, slipping beneath the dripping pines, to stop between the faded yellow lines at the farthest edge of the parking lot. There he turned off the engine and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook as great silent sobs wracked his frame, the windows of the cab slowly fogging over from the heat of his grief. He wept for all that the eccentric old woman had become to him and for all the things that he had never told her.

  At forty-two years old, Jack Leland, former pastor, part-time oysterman, and full-blown alcoholic, felt like an orphan once again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A chill north wind whipped fine sand, in creeping fog-like tendrils, up the moonlit beach. The storm clouds had finally parted to allow the wane rays of the moon to blanket the wet shoreline.

  Cassie huddled in the lee of a huge driftwood stump, its gray web of weathered roots casting long, thin shadows across the sand, like a thousand gnarled fingers. She was cold. The sweating, sobbing race down to the beach had warmed her, but now the icy teeth of the coast wind bit deep. She shivered miserably, wrapping her arms around her knees and leaned deeper into the scant protection of the tidal refuse.

  She had no idea how long she had sat there, the cold creeping into her bones, the sickness slowly ebbing from her belly. She felt faded and thin, diminished, like evening sunlight through a dusty pane of glass. Looking out over the crashing waves, Cassie wiped the last of her tears from the sand gritted corners of her eyes.

  She had found her father, and she knew, finally, that all the ranting, raging, and spite-filled words that she might spit in his face would profit her nothing. Whatever small, mean part of her that had yearned toward revenge, for her, and for her dead mother, would never have the satisfaction of seeing her pain and hopelessness reflected in the eyes of the man who had fathered her. Cassie sighed, remembering the dull expression, the blank, uncomprehending eyes, and the fading pink scar running from his temple.

  She understood that whatever reprisal she had hoped for had been stolen by the devastating injury that had snatched away William Beckman and left that frightened, rambling child in his place. Cassie felt cheated. Cheated, robbed and, more than anything, ashamed.

  She could hear Guy William's reproachful voice, far in the back of her mind, reminding her that, as Paul had told the Romans, vengeance was the Lord's. All the lessons she had learned, in church and at home, about grace and mercy and forgiveness, she had set them all aside in hopes of wounding her father the way he had wounded them. Instead, she had hurt people that she loved, and put her own life in danger, for the chance to dole out the judgment that God, in His grace, did not dole out on her.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered to the shadowed waves, to Jack, and Guy, her mother and, mostly, to God. "I'm so sorry."

  "Well," a voice spoke up just behind her, "Sorry or not, you better take this blanket, or you're going to freeze to death out here!"

  Cassie was too cold, too emotionally exhausted to shriek, a quick hiccup of surprise was the best she could manage as she turned to see Elizabeth Marshall silhouetted in the moonlight.

  Cassie hung her head in embarrassment.

  "Sorry if I freaked you out," she said, "I didn't mean to dash like that, my feet just wouldn't stop."

  The dark outline stood for a long still moment, as though considering her apology. Then she stepped around the snarl of roots and sat down beside Cassie in the sand, shifting her weight until she found a comfortable seat, and spreading a thick wool blanket over the both of them.

  "Please, call me Beth," she replied, “I’ve had a panic attack a time or two myself," Elizabeth smiled, "there's not a lot you can do about it. I'm just glad we didn't find you in a heap at the bottom of the stairs!"

  The older woman placed an arm protectively around the young woman’s thin shoulders. Cassie could feel her warmth and, shivering even harder, leaned into it gratefully. She should have felt awkward, accepting such an embrace from a stranger, but she didn't. Elizabeth's touch seemed, instead, somehow familiar, and Cassie had a sudden overwhelming memory of snuggling under her mother's arm as they sat together on the couch in their little trailer. After a moment, she realized that this was the first memory of her mother, since that terrible tinny knock on the trailer door, that hadn't brought tears or grief. Instead, she felt a warm regret, a sad longing for her mother that she supposed she would carry always.

  “That’s the one condolence that I can offer you now,"Jack had said. "Someday that hurt is going to fade and all that will be left will be your memories of the good times and just a little bit of sadness….”

  Cassie let out a deep, wistful sigh and felt, for the first time, that maybe he was right.

  "Jack told me about your mother," Elizabeth spoke into the darkness, "I'm very sorry, Cassie, she was a wonderful, special woman."

  "How did Jack know my mother, Beth?" Cassie asked before she could stop herself, the words passing her lips in a rush. She tensed slightly and felt the older woman's body do the same.

  "That's a long story, dear," the older woman replied, "and I don't think it's mine to tell, at least not all of it, but I'll tell you what I can." She drew a deep breath. "First though, I need to know that you know who Bill is, though I'm pretty sure by your earlier reaction that you do.”

  "Bill is my father." Cassie spoke the words without emotion, just a jumble of syllables released from a small iron box in her heart, her own voice sounding foreign to her. "Isn't he?"

  "Your father's name was William Beckman?" Beth asked.

  Cassie nodded.

  "And your mother was Katherine Belanger?"

  Cassie nodded again.

  "Then yes," Beth murmured, "Bill's your father. Though I have to tell you, and I'm so sorry for it, but the Bill you met tonight isn't really that man anymore." She sighed, "I don't think he ever knew about you, I know that Jack didn't, but I do know that he has no memory of your mother. It's taken years for him to pull together even the haziest recollections of me."

  There was a long pause and, finally, Cassie clutched the edge of the rough blanket tightly in her fist and asked, "Who are you, Beth?"

  Cassie felt a hand gently lower her head to the older woman's shoulder, and once more, she was over-swept with that warm familiarity, as Elizabeth took a deep breath.

  "My name i
s Elizabeth Marshall. Before I was married, it was Elizabeth Beckman, I'm Billy's little sister. I guess that makes me your Auntie Beth, Cassia Belanger."

  Cassie squeezed her eyes shut, wrapping her free arm around Elizabeth, and clutching her tightly. Something swelled and swelled within her, after a dizzying moment, a dark, suffocating weight was lifted from her soul, and she felt her heart flood with warm relief. The two women held each other for a time, rocking and weeping softly together as the chill wind sprinkled sand about them.

  Finally, they dried their eyes on the rough wool and sat quietly, warm and safe beneath the heavy blanket. Elizabeth told her niece all that she knew about the three lives that had intertwined to bring them to this night.

  “So,” she finished, “when my husband Robert died, I decided that I didn't want to spend the rest of my years rambling around that big house, reminded of his death every time I turned a corner. I called Jack and he helped me look around for a house to buy. I ended up with The Morning Tide and decided to refinish it and start a Bed and Breakfast, so that’s what I did. That was eight years ago."

  "I watch Bill fairly often," she said, "Jack refused to let me take him after I moved back, but he's grateful for my help from time to time, so he can find his books."

  When Beth finished, Cassie told her about growing up in Bowie, the Williams family, and of Katherine's death. She gave a brief overview of her trip westward with Jack and then fell silent.

  "Poor sweet Kathy," Beth murmured, "Nothing ever came easy to her, and she deserved so much more."

  "Yes," Cassie said, "yes, she did. That's what I came all the way out here to tell him. That she was dead, and that he’d never see me again. I wasn't even going to tell him how she died, I didn't want to give him even that much."

  There was a pause and the only sound was the sad whisper of the wind along the shoreline, and the muffled crash of the surf.

  "So much anger," Beth whispered, "so much hate. That's an awful lot for a girl to carry around." She sighed.

  "I'm sorry Cassie, I'm sorry Bill did this to you. I don't know what turned my brother into the man he became, but I'm so sorry that you and Kathy had to pay for it."

  Cassie nodded, unable to speak, staring instead into the darkness and listening to the ceaseless pounding of the waves.

  "He really is gone you know," Elizabeth said, breaking the long silence, "the Bill Beckman that was my brother is as dead as if that bullet had killed him. There's no one left to hate, you know that, right?"

  "Yes," Cassie whispered, her cheeks burning with shame and unspent anger, "I know."

  "That doesn't make the feelings go away though does it?" Elizabeth continued, "You can't just turn off that kind of emotion because life throws a twist at you." She squeezed the young woman’s hand in her own. "It's okay to still be angry, Cassie, keep that in mind. It's going to take time to work it out, and that's okay too."

  Cassie nodded. Her eyes were puffy and dry, her tear-soaked skin felt chapped and raw in the cold wind; she had no more tears to cry. Elizabeth was right, the anger was still there, pressing heavy on her heart, aimless with no target any longer, but this, like the pain of her mother's death, would begin to pass. Cassie had faith in that, clinging to it as she clung to Elizabeth's hand.

  Suddenly another question leaped to the front of her troubled mind, slipping her from one train of thought to another with hardly a bump between.

  "Aunt Beth?" she asked, tentatively using the title for the first time.

  "Yes?" Elizabeth replied, and Cassie could hear the smile in her voice, and felt a hand squeeze her shoulder. Cassie hesitated, feeling awkward and more than a little embarrassed.

  "Did Jack call you from Gold Beach on Monday night?"

  Elizabeth paused a moment, thrown by the change in course.

  "Um…Yes, I think he did," she said, "wasn't that Valentine’s Day?"

  Cassie grinned in spite of herself, "Yes, yes it was."

  "What are you smiling about, young lady?" Beth asked, elbowing her lightly in the ribs.

  "Nothing," Cassie responded, giggling helplessly.

  "Cassie…?" Elizabeth intoned threateningly, jabbing with her elbow again.

  "Aunt Beth, are you in love with Jack?" The words rushed out before Cassie could stop them, and she started in shock at her own brazenness.

  There was a long pause and, in the darkness, Cassie could feel her Aunt tense and prepare to stand. She suddenly had a terrible thought…what if Elizabeth didn't have feelings for Jack, what if that was the reason that Jack seemed reluctant to talk about it? What could she have possibly asked that would have ruined the moment any more effectively?

  Finally, Beth spoke.

  "I don't think I'm ready to discuss that with you here," the older woman said, her voice flat and strained.

  Cassie felt sick. How could she be so stupid? When would she ever learn to think before she opened her mouth? The girl scolded herself silently, wishing that the sandy beach would open and swallow her whole, as her mind struggled to find a suitable apology.

  "Beth, I'm --" she started.

  "However," Elizabeth interrupted, grinning as the first gray streaks of dawn touched the far horizon, "if you want to come back to the apartment, we can heat up that tea. I’ll break out some cookies, and tell you allabout it there!"

  Cassie jumped to her feet, barely noticing the twinge of her stiff, cold muscles, and helped her aunt fold the blanket.

  "It's a deal," she laughed.

  *

  He staggers on and on, miles and years, across the burning, featureless landscape. One blistered bare foot falling wearily followed by the next, leaving faint bloodied prints, which the desert sand sucks up greedily. Heat and pain and thirst, his back screams in protest beneath his terrible burden. Jack hears water sloshing in the heavy pack that grinds away at his shoulders. He stops, the wasteland's desolate horizon shimmering and spinning sickeningly beneath the baking sun. Jack slips the pack to the ground. The skin of his hands is burned crimson and peeling, his fingernails are cracked and caked with filth as he struggles to loosen the knots of rope that hold the bag closed.

  Again, he hears the tempting, teasing sound of water, coming distinctly from the depths of the pack. Licking his cracked and bleeding lips, Jack sees the buzzards have landed around him. Slowly, they stalk forward though the sand, their hideous naked heads stretching hungrily towards him.

  Swallowing painfully, he tears open the top of the pack.

  Despite the blistering heat of the desert, a frigid bolt of terror, like frozen lightening, rips through his body. He shrieks, trying to lurch backwards and away, but his legs are locked in horror as he stares into the pack…his own body impossibly crushed within.

  Bill's bullet wound bleeds from Jack's ruined temple as he looks into his own blood-filled eyes.

  He screams again…

  …and suddenly the heat and light were gone.

  Jack fumbled in sweaty terror with the controls of the hospital bed, his trembling fingers cold and numb, searching for the button that would light the shadowed corners of his room.

  He stared, eyes wide open, still unable to pull themselves from the fading images of his nightmare, and of his own face peering back at him.

  Alone in his hospital room, Jack Leland began to weep.

  *

  The storms that had lashed the shores of Long Beach through the night blew themselves out by dawn. Damp, glittering calm settled over the peninsula as the sun rose to wash Main Street in sharp, golden light.

  Cassie awoke with what was becoming a familiar moment of disorientation. A week and more of strange beds had changed that first blurry morning thought from where am I? to where am I now?

  It took her several sleepy seconds to recognize the library-like environs of Jack's apartment, from her spot on the quilt-draped couch. Cassie's eyes felt sandy, and she rubbed them as she succumbed to a jaw-cracking yawn. She and Elizabeth hadn't stayed up too long after returning home, but Cassie
had found, once she was safely tucked in, that she couldn't sleep. The welter of emotions and confusion left her wide-eyed and reeling and she had sat up for a long while with her mother's Bible in her lap, reading the comfortingly familiar words.

  She had spent the rest of the night drifting in and out of a thin, anxious doze.

  She could hear Elizabeth, Aunt Beth she reminded herself, enjoying again the warmth that suffused her at the thought; she could hear her bustling around the kitchen, preparing the promised French toast.

  Beth carried on a murmuring conversation with her brother, almost certainly about Cassie. The younger woman lay, for a long moment, savoring the homey comfort of her borrowed bed and the delicious aromas calling to her from beneath the kitchen door.

  Finally, she arose and, slipping on the faded bathrobe draped over an arm of the couch, she took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen.

  "Well!" Elizabeth exclaimed without turning from the stove, "It’s about time, sleepyhead. Billy and I were about to start without you!"

  Cassie smiled and mumbled an apology, accepting a steaming cup of tea from her aunt and slipping into the kitchen chair opposite the table from her father. Bill stared at her owlishly with equal parts apprehension and curiosity, as he sipped at his own mug. The silence grew uncomfortably long as Elizabeth clattered pots and pans across the range top, and Cassie realized the older woman was waiting for her to make the first move with Bill. Cassie squared her shoulders and met Bill's eyes, offering one hand across the table.

  "Hi Bill," she said, "I'm Cassie."