“Damn right we aren’t,” Rob snapped. “We’re talking about something a hell of a lot more deadly. Why don’t you give it a rest until the end of the day? Then, if Manzanita is still here, you can bust my balls all you want.” He turned to his son and lowered his voice. “You didn’t hear me say that.”
Tim grinned. “Bust balls? Cool, Dad.”
Hector sputtered something unintelligible and stalked off.
Rob, Lewis, and Tim continued up Laneda. As they passed Manzanita News & Expresso, Lewis pointed ahead. “The electronic vultures have come to roost.”
At the upper end of Laneda, near its intersection with Highway 101, half a dozen television satellite trucks from Portland and Seattle sat with their antennae deployed. Cameramen and reporters milled around outside the vehicles.
“I don’t suppose they’re here for the parade,” Rob ventured.
“Unlikely,” Lewis responded.
“Well, as long as they stay near 101, they’ll be safe from the tsunami, presuming they make it through the quake.”
“You aren’t wishing them ill are you?” Lewis laid a hand on Rob’s shoulder and they stopped walking.
“No.” Rob issued a long sigh. “I know they’re just doing their job. And I understand it’s a win-win setup for them here in Manzanita. If the quake and tsunami hit, the nation will see it live. If nothing happens—”
“I’m virtually certain something will happen,” Lewis said. “The visions you experienced are not without meaning. We went over all the reasons why.”
“I remain a scientist,” Rob countered. “It’s damn hard for me to believe one hundred percent in a prediction. So, I’m just saying, if nothing happens, then I become the story. Like I said, win-win for them. They’ll be on me like buzzards on roadkill.”
They resumed walking, but only for a short time. Rob halted when they reached Division Street. “I suspect we better not get any closer to the buzzards’ nests.”
Lewis shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand and peered toward the sat trucks. “Yeah, they look like they’re anxious to pick at a carcass.”
“So this is probably a good time for me to make myself scarce. Tim and I are going to head over to the airstrip and hang around near the plane today. If the quake hits—”
“When the quake hits,” Lewis said, sounding like a teacher correcting a student who had misspoken.
“I wish I had your faith, my friend. Okay, when the quake hits, I wanna get in the air as fast as I can and get out of here. The airstrip will be one of the first places to go underwater when the tsunami strikes.”
“Be careful, you two,” Lewis said.
“Ditto for you,” Rob said. “You know what to do, if . . . when—”
“I won’t be far from my go-bag today,” Lewis interjected. “When the time comes, I know the drill—grab it and run like hell.”
“I wish everyone were as prepared as you. A lot of residents are, I know, but there’re way too many out-of-towners in the mix today. It could get ugly.”
“You can lead a horse to water . . .,” Lewis said. “Look, we did as much as we could. If people don’t feel compelled to at least make contingency plans, it’s hard to feel empathy for them.”
“The thing of it is, even if I’m right, it’ll be a hollow victory.”
“Without victory, there is no survival.”
“Churchill again?”
Lewis nodded. “Whether it’s a hollow win or not, doesn’t matter. You made a tough call. You get the bull’s ears. See ya after the Apocalypse. Get going.”
Rob and Tim headed along Division toward the air strip. In the middle distance, the sound of bagpipers warming up filled the morning with melodic discordance.
SHACK HAD SPENT the previous day trying to make contact with Alex, but his efforts proved unsuccessful. He found a sign on her office saying it was closed for the holiday weekend. When he went to her home, no one answered the doorbell. As he stepped back into the street, a neighbor said, “I think she went to visit her daughter for a couple of days.”
“Did she say when she’d be back?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know where her daughter lives?”
The neighbor paused, as though weighing a response, but ended up saying, “Don’t know that I do.”
Shack thought the neighbor did, but knew he couldn’t press the issue. Now he walked up and down Laneda and along Ocean Road, hoping that Alex might have returned for the parade and that he would spot her in the crowds lining the route of march. Well, crowds such as they were. Certainly by Atlanta standards they weren’t. Here, what passed for multitudes, seemed to be clumps of spectators perhaps two or three people deep waiting patiently for the parade to begin.
They munched on pretzels and hot dogs, played catch with Frisbees in the street, and snapped selfies. By noon, Shack had covered the parade route twice but hadn’t seen Alex. He noted that no one seemed particularly concerned about the possibility of a megaquake or deadly tsunami, or if they were, it wasn’t apparent in the outward expressions of merriment and gaiety.
That changed abruptly. Shortly before the parade’s scheduled kick-off, a distant rumble hushed the spectators. Some looked uneasily toward the ocean, others peered skyward, and still others gazed apprehensively at those standing next to them. A few began edging away from the ocean. The rumble morphed into a roar and the ground seemed to vibrate ever so subtly. Not quite sure how to react, Shack watched those around him for a key. If this were the prelude to an earthquake, should he run, seek shelter, make peace with God?
It became a moot point. The source of the roar materialized from the south. A vintage warplane, a P-51 Mustang, arguably the greatest piston-driven fighter ever built, screamed into view, flying inverted just above the beach. It flashed by in a blur of red, white, and blue markings on a shimmering aluminum fuselage. It rolled upright and climbed into the azure sky, its two-thousand-horsepower engine—if Shack remembered correctly—bellowing like a wild bull.
As an old fighter jock, Shack couldn’t help but admire the sleek, almost sexy, aircraft. As it disappeared into the haze at altitude, a lump formed in his throat. His heart thumped in his chest as he heard the Mustang begin a dive back toward Manzanita. As if the classic fighter were on a strafing run over the battlefields of World War II Europe, it thundered in low over Laneda in an ear-splitting roar. Shack guessed its speed at close to 400 mph. The mini-crowd waved flags and cheered, though their acclamation couldn’t be heard over the scream of the aircraft’s engine.
Shack watched in admiration, and just a bit of jealousy, as the P-51 flashed past. In honor of his brothers who had flown the Mustang in combat so many decades before, he snapped off a smart salute. In a matter of seconds, the great old fighter was gone, climbing once again into the wild blue over the Oregon coast and thundering toward home, wherever that was.
The parade began, led by a Manzanita police SUV with its siren and rumbler on full blast. What followed seemed classic small-town America. Shack had to admit, he found it appealing. Clowns, a guy in a gorilla suit, fire trucks, EMS vehicles, a volunteer marching band, a drum and bugle corps, bagpipers, vintage cars, a classic Austin-Healy, a sharp-looking Corvette, pretty girls astride handsome horses, a library cart drill team, and a steam calliope. Shack wondered where that came from. Everything seemed decked out in red, white, and blue bunting. And almost everyone seemed adorned in a saggy Uncle Sam stovepipe hat.
The march continued for almost two hours, but there remained no sign of Alex. Shack, discouraged, trudged back to his condo.
Cannon Beach
JONATHAN, SWEATING profusely in the unusual coastal heat, continued to thrash through thick underbrush as he hacked his way up the dry creek bed. It required maximum effort to clear enough space for him to work the metal detector without smacking it in
to something.
By mid-afternoon, Jonathan slumped to his knees, his energy and will sapped. Zurry plodded over to him and licked his face in apparent sympathy. Jonathan checked his watch and stroked the dog’s head. “Okay, boy, one more hour, then we’ll bag it.”
He struggled to his feet and resumed his efforts, but with a decided lack of enthusiasm. As his one-hour deadline approached, a solid, high-pitched signal rippled through his headset. He swung the detector in a small arc along one side of the old creek bed. A robust “bonging” persisted.
“Well, let’s see,” he said. He unslung his pack, unsheathed the long-handled digger, and went to work, hacking at the ever-damp soil, roots, and rocks. Driven by a fresh surge of adrenaline, he labored with renewed vigor. Within a half hour, he’d cleared away almost eighteen inches of dirt and stones. Then, with a firm thunk, the digger hit something solid, not rock or root.
Jonathan grabbed his short-handled digging tool and, almost in a frenzy, cleared away the remaining soil covering whatever he’d hit. When he’d moved enough dirt to identify it, he whooped, causing Zurry to jump back with a startled woof.
Chapter Thirteen
Discovery
Cannon Beach
Saturday, July 4
JONATHAN KNEELED over the hole he’d carved out and reached toward the top of the object he’d unearthed. He brushed at it with his hand, clearing away the thin layer of dirt that remained. It appeared to be the lid of a chest or trunk of some sort, wooden—perhaps mahogany or teak—and secured by leather straps that had rotted and cracked over time. He eyeballed its measurements, perhaps two feet by three feet.
He removed his gloves and rapped on the lid with his knuckles. Solid. Firm. He stood, grabbed the long-handled digger, and drove its pointed, steel-tempered end down hard at the lid. The tool merely bounced off it. His heart hammering like a row of cherry bombs igniting, he retrieved the shorter digger once more and went to work clearing the dirt packed against the sides of the box.
After an extended effort, he’d removed enough soil from the front of the chest to see a pair of rusted iron locks secured to metal hasps and loops fastening the lid firmly in place. He jiggled the locks. Rusted as they were, they showed no weakness, no tendency to crack or break.
He continued digging around the ends of the chest and found leather hand straps, rotted beyond use, on both ends. He cleared the soil at the rear of the trunk, then attempted to rock it back and forth. It barely budged.
He sat back, drained of energy and now even adrenaline. His shirt and pants, saturated with perspiration and stained in mud, clung to him like damp work rags. Zurry stood beside him and he draped his arm over the dog’s shoulders.
“I’m whipped, partner,” he said. “There’s no way I can get this thing out of the ground.” Zurry licked Jonathan’s face, seeming to enjoy the salty sheen.
“We’re going to have to come back and attack it tomorrow. I need some different tools so I can break into it.” Zurry cocked his head, as though listening.
Jonathan remained at the edge of the hole, his arm across Zurry’s back, and listened to a light breeze sigh through the crown of the forest, to birds twitter and chirp as they fluttered from branch to branch, to a pair of hawks issue piercing shrieks as they circled high overhead, dark forms against a deep blue sky.
He became lost in the soft symphony of nature and dozed off, his head drooping against Zurry’s. When he awoke, he found himself, at least for a moment, unable to recall where he was or why. He stared at the hole, the semi-unearthed chest, the rotted straps, and remembered.
He struggled to his feet. “Gotta fill this hole, Zurry. Don’t want anybody else finding it.” He had to admit, that seemed unlikely, as far off the beaten path as they’d hiked and the fact it already was late afternoon.
His task completed, he stood over the hole and looked around, marking its location by drawing a line in his mind’s eye between a moss-covered boulder and the trunk of a massive Douglas fir, and estimating the chest to be about a third of the way from the rock to the tree. He wondered if whoever had buried the box here had flagged the spot using the same landmarks.
He gathered his equipment, slung the pack over his back, and set off downhill, tracking along the gully. “We’ll be back tomorrow with the right stuff,” he said to Zurry, who moseyed behind him.
He reached his car parked on a low bluff near the beach. He gazed out over the ocean, remembering the dire warnings of an earthquake and tsunami. Even though the day technically had another six hours left, Jonathan felt as though another “end-of-the-world prophecy” had bitten the dust.
“Good thing,” he said, verbalizing his thoughts. “I’m too damned bushed to run away from anything.” He opened the car door for Zurry who scrambled into the passenger seat and flopped down. The meaty odors of cookouts and barbecues wafted through the open windows of the Pontiac. It seemed as if the residents of Cannon Beach had dismissed, much as Jonathan had, any concerns of a natural catastrophe, and instead had focused on enjoying a perfect end to a nearly perfect Fourth of July.
As Jonathan cruised south on 101 toward Manzanita, visions of shipwrecked mariners, a tall black man, Clatsop Indians, and a chest filled with unknown plunder filled his mind. His heart beat just a bit faster.
Nehalem Bay State Airport
“DAD, MAYBE IT’S time we head back to town.” Tim arose from where he’d been seated beneath the wing of the Cessna Skylane. “It’s getting dark.”
Rob, who’d been pacing in circles around the aircraft, grunted in agreement. He found it difficult to speak, his gut hollowed by impending defeat. His vision, as Lewis had termed it, had always been set in daylight, not dusk or dawn or dead of night. And now the day, the Fourth of July, that had seemed the obvious candidate for his prophesied earthquake and tsunami drained into the growing darkness. Like my reputation, my career, my future. He thought of Deb. Maybe my marriage. He brushed at a mistiness attempting to fill his eyes. He hoped Tim didn’t notice.
He motioned for Tim to follow and they set off for Manzanita.
“It’s okay, Dad. You did what you thought was right,” Tim said, obviously noting his father’s distress.
“What was right, son, would have been to have kept my mouth shut.”
“Really? Then why didn’t you?”
Rob didn’t answer.
“Because,” Tim continued, “at the time, you thought speaking out was the correct course. Like you always told me, you try something or say something because you think it’s right. If it isn’t, then you suck it up and admit you blew it. That doesn’t make you a bad person. That’s what you preach to me, Dad.”
Rob reached out and draped his arm over Tim’s shoulders. “Fathers are supposed to buck up their sons, not the other way around.”
“I can see you’re hurting, Dad. I just wanted to help.”
A lump in his throat interdicted Rob’s response. A tear slid down his cheek. He didn’t attempt to blink it back.
A light, a flashlight beam, materialized out of the dusk. Lewis strode toward them, swinging the light in an arc over the gravel taxiway leading to the tie down pads. “Come on, you guys. Time to get home. The fireworks are about to start.”
Lewis stopped in front of Rob.
“I screwed the pooch, didn’t I?” Rob said, his voice almost a whisper.
Lewis exhaled a long, low breath and looked Rob in the eye. “I’m not so sure about that. I still think there’s validity and truth in what you saw, what you felt, what you experienced.”
Rob shook his head. “No. Deb was right. I was stressed out, obsessed, consumed by my work. It got to me. I just needed to get away from it and get my head straight. I didn’t do that. Instead, it got to me, and now I’m paying the piper.”
“Look,” Lewis said, “get some rest tonight. Then let’s sit down
in the morning and go over things again. I really feel we missed something, misinterpreted some element of your vision. Let’s figure it out.”
“Damn it, Lewis. There’s nothing to figure out. It wasn’t a vision. It was a hallucination. I made my bed, now I have to lie in it. My time is past. Nobody’s going to listen to Chicken Little redux.”
“My place,” Lewis commanded, “eight a.m. I’m not letting go of this without a fight. More to the point, I’m not letting go of you. If you don’t show up, I’ll break down your frigging door and drag you out of bed.”
Manzanita
ROB’S CELL PHONE rang shortly before midnight. Caller ID showed Deborah.
“Go on,” he said when he answered, “say it.”
“No,” she responded, “I won’t. I’m not calling to rub it in.”
“So why are you?” His words came out encased in curtness. Her abrupt departure the previous day still stung.
She didn’t answer immediately, but eventually said, “Because I’m just so damned pissed.”
“Really? Well, I’m a little pissed, too.”
“You?” she snapped. “Why should you be?”
“Because the person I’d counted on most wouldn’t stand beside me.” A hard edge remained in his voice.
“It’s kinda hard to support someone making a fool of himself and gutting the success and credibility he’d taken years to establish. I was frightened. Now I’m just ticked, really ticked.”
“I did what I thought was right.”
“Right? Right for whom? Certainly not your family, or your reputation, or your business—all the things in life you’ve worked so hard for, all the things that are circling the drain now. No, wait. I just heard a gurgling sound. They’re gone, Rob. In the sewer.”
He slipped into a defensive mode. “Deb, listen—”
“No, you listen. You know what one TV commentator called you tonight? The Seismology Shyster. He went on to rail against the mainstream media for giving a platform to guys like you, ‘pseudo-scientific nut cases.’ Let ‘em blather on Facebook or Twitter, he said, at least there they’ll be with their own kind.”
Cascadia Page 12
