As Bright as the Stars

by Cindy Caldwell

  13

  Shell Beach loomed ahead as they continued on further up the coast. The beach flattened, widening out into a long spit reaching out to the sea, the shoreline covered with stones and shells. The houses faded away, and they climbed over the dunes to the spot he had in mind.

  “Are you looking for something particular?” He had slowed down a bit, and seemed to be searching, his eyes scanning the beach.

  “I drove up here the other day, and found a great place with tons of sand dollars. I’m trying to spot it again.” They crested a sand dune and he smiled, pointing to a place along the shore. “There it is.

  Tossing her flip-flops in the car, Megan walked toward the water, the sand warming her toes and tickling at the same time. The water was warm, even, for this time of year, and as she stood with the waves lapping, she sighed, taking in the moment.

  “Head out a little further, and you can feel them with your toes,” James prompted, wading a little further out.

  “The sand dollars?” Her eyebrows shot up, the memory of the crab hanging on her toe making her hesitate.

  “Come on. Don’t be afraid,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading her further into the waves. “Sand dollars that are alive aren’t in this close to the beach. They’re out further, standing on end. It’s the dead ones that wash up to shore, and they couldn’t bite you anyway,” he said, his eyes gleaming with laughter.

  Feeling something hard between her toes, she bent down and grabbed a big sand dollar, rinsing it off in the water. “Look at this!” she cried, waving it in the air.

  “Good one,” he said as he held open a bag for her to put it in. They walked along the shore quietly, the bag filling quickly. In no time, they had a full bag.

  “This is a good catch for one day.” He held the bag open, and she realized it was more shells than she’d ever seen in one place.

  “Are you sure we can take them?” she said, her eyebrows furrowing in concern. “We aren’t breaking the rules?”

  “There are very few rules in life. Laws, yes. Rules, no. There’s a difference,” he said, his eyes now on the horizon again.

  She wondered what he was looking for, thinking of all the rules that governed her existence. Do a good job, help people, sacrifice. Where was it really getting her?

  James handed her the Mexican blanket he grabbed from the back of the car, and as she spread it out in the shade, she took in the bright colors and white fringe. Yellow, purple, red and green stripes covered the sand, and they sat as he opened the basket he’d brought along.

  “So, all things British, huh?” he said, as he leaned into the basket. “We’ll see about that.” He chuckled as he brought out bread, a wedge of Stilton cheese, a jar of something brown and a big bottle of dark beer. “Ever had a plowman’s lunch before?”

  “I think I’ve read about it before in books set in England,” she said as she picked up the brown concoction. “Branston Pickle? I know I’ve never heard of that before.”

  “Well, some things are just special. I can’t get this here in Mexico. I’ve been saving it all for a special occasion.” His eyes caught hers as he handed her a plate spread with cheese, bread and the chopped pickle. “Go on. Try it,” he coaxed, suppressing a laugh as he cut up an apple and put it on her plate. “Just one bite. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat any more.”

  “Is it disgusting?” Her nose wrinkled as she bent down to smell the brown stuff. It looked like jelly, but had chunks of something in it.

  His laughter startled her, and she looked up to see his broad smile. “Well, I love it, but you may not. But how will you ever know if you don’t try? Here. Put some of the pickle on the bread and top it with Stilton.” He handed her a mug of dark beer. “Chase it with this if you have to.”

  She could feel him staring at her, and she was determined to take the challenge. She popped the bread in her mouth, her mouth tingling with the pleasant surprise.

  “That’s really good,” she said, her mouth still full. She smiled with relief that it actually was good. She would have eaten it anyway so as not to disappoint him. That it was actually pleasing to her was a bonus.

  They ate leisurely, the sound of the waves not breaking into their quick, easy conversation. Several times, James grabbed his camera, his artist’s eye seeing something that she did not, and he fell into his creative work. He explained that he worked for Outdoor World, a travel magazine, and he was paid to write articles for them specifically about Baja.

  “Fishing, mainly?” she asked, her interest piqued.

  “Anything that travelers would want to know about. I’ve written about petroglyphs, fossil mounds, native Indians, food, art galleries. Anything that I find interesting that might be good for travelers. I even wrote an article about smuggling.”

  “What an exciting thing to do, to travel and share it with other people. I can’t even imagine being so lucky.”

  As he put the camera down, he turned back to Megan and he smiled. “Why can’t you be that lucky? Anybody can. You create your own luck.”

  She almost choked on her beer. “That’s not been my experience,” she said, coughing.

  “Well, why not? What do you come to Baja for?

  She thought for a moment, wondering how to explain her predicament. “I like coming down and not talking to a single human. Honestly, that’s the appeal for me. I talk to people all day long at work and, mostly, they scream at me. I like the quiet here.”

  “They scream at you? What kind of a job is that? And why would you want it?”

  She was taken aback at his question. No one had ever posed it before, and she paused as she actually considered why she did do it. It was important to help teenagers and, while tough, extremely rewarding. But it had been a long time since it had been easy, and with money tight it was hard to find the fun in it.

  “I run a home with my sister and brother-in-law for teenage girls who need help. I was a school principal before that, and I thought this was going to be different than it’s turned out to be.”

  “Ah, that explains a lot,” he said, his eyes resting on hers for a brief moment before he turned toward the sea and smiled.

  “What do you mean?” She’d barely met the man. What could that explain?

  “I have to confess that I did see you yesterday at your friend’s house, before we’d met. As you walked across the road, you were looking down and it seemed to me as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. It appears you have.” He sat back on the blanket, his hand spinning the beer bottle in a circle thoughtfully.

  “Well, I do have,” she replied. Her mind immediately went to the ranch, her decision, the dream that wasn’t coming true.

  “I guess we just have different philosophies in life, then,” he said. “I believe that no one is responsible for all that happens, and that everything is going to be all right. Always.”

  “That’s all right for you to say. You’re retired, building your dream home, living in Baja on the sea. Not a care in the world.”

  “You don’t know anything about me. I have only just shared my philosophy, not my entire life history.”

  Her cheeks warmed at his comment, feeling as though she’d overstepped and assumed that she knew more than she did. He was right.

  “What I meant to say is that I believe anyone can be happy as long as he or she chooses to be. And that it’s your responsibility to be so.”

  She looked up from her hands into the blue eyes gazing at her. Startled at his intensity, he seemed to really mean it, sincerely believing that happiness was a choice.

  “I don’t understand how you can think that. I’ve got debt and partners and a commitment.”

  “A commitment to being miserable? Is that what you mean?” He took her hand, pulling it toward him across the blanket. “I have seen many, many things that should make me miserable. I have been in situations that I never thought I could change. But I chose to make my life different. Chose to be happy. It is the one thing
that you can and must do for yourself to ever live a complete life.”

  “You make it sound so easy,” she said, the ever-present knot of anxiety growing. “I can’t let my partners down.”

  “You said that your partners are your sister and brother-in-law. Do you love them?”

  “Oh, yes, very much. We’re incredibly close, especially after these past few years working together.”

  “Do you believe they love you?”

  “Absolutely. We would do anything each other.”

  “Everything but admit that you’re all miserable, and release each other from the burden?”

  His words stung, and the heat of his hand intensified her discomfort. She pulled back, standing up and stepping away from the blanket.

  “You make it sound so easy. It’s not like that. It’s complicated.”

  “Megan, anything in life can be as easy or as complicated as you choose it to be. Choose happy.”

  Stepping away from the blanket, he walked toward the waves, his Hawaiian shirt flapping in the breeze. The blue fabric was covered in pictures of beer bottles, and written between the palm trees was, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  “Who couldn’t be happy here? You’ll see. Sink into your time here, and see what you find.”

  As she walked toward him to wiggle her feet in the water before they left, he turned, his hand brushing her cheek. She felt his arm around her waist as he pulled her toward him, his eyes not leaving hers. She read the question in them, and lifted her chin as his lips came to meet hers. As he kissed her, her heart pounding, she felt as if there was nothing else in the world but this moment. He had an uncanny way of making her forget about all of her problems—keeping the weight of the world at bay, even if just for a moment. She felt the breeze on her face, his lips warm on hers. For a brief second, her mind cleared and all she knew was that in at least this moment, she was happy.

  14

  The whining of an engine jolted her back to reality and James abruptly pulled away, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked down the beach.

  “Who is it?” she said, turning toward the sound of the truck as it approached.

  “It’s Manuel.” His gaze followed the truck of their camp owner as it sped toward them, sliding to a stop in the sand behind the Range Rover.

  The tall, slender Mexican man hopped from his truck and strode toward the shore, his long legs taking the distance quickly. His jeans neatly tucked into rubber fishing boots, Megan thought they looked much like the Wellies people wore in England to keep their feet dry. She remembered that the fishermen wore them while out on the pangas, probably to keep their feet free of hooks and fish guts, and knew Manuel spent a great deal of time fishing off the shore, amply feeding his family with enough to spare.

  “Hola.” He greeted them with a slight nod of his head, his black hair peeking out from beneath a San Diego Padres ball cap. He glanced from James to Megan, quickly grabbing his hat. As he looked at his feet, his fingers quickly worked the bill of the ball cap, twisting and untwisting it, his eyes never leaving the boats on the horizon.

  With a nod of understanding to Manuel, James turned to Megan. “I think we need to talk in private. Do you mind waiting at the car for a moment,” he asked?

  With a smile and a nod to Megan, Manuel shifted from foot to foot, running his hands through his hair as Megan walked toward the car. As she slid into the seat, his voice rose above the sound of the waves as he fired off rapid Spanish, his arms gesturing wildly as he pointed toward the fishing boats offshore. Her Spanish was a little rusty, but she caught several words that she recognized and knew they were talking about the big fish, the totuaba, that Kyle had seen dotting the shore the previous day.

  As James lifted the camera to his eye, he pointed it toward the horizon, scanning in the direction Manuel had pointed to. After several passes, he stopped, holding the camera steady. For several minutes, it seemed, he stood stock still, but she could hear the rapid sounds of the camera shutter from where she sat.

  Manuel seemed satisfied as the camera was lowered, its cap replaced as James spoke slowly and so low that Megan couldn’t hear what he was saying. Manuel held his hands out to James, palms up, as if asking for something. She saw James slowly shake his head, his eyes downcast.

  Manuel’s ball cap hit the sand as he threw it down on the ground. He slowly picked it up, pushed it hard on his head and turned toward his truck. In Spanish, James shouted something as the engine turned over in Manuel’s truck. She thought she read disappointment in Manuel’s eyes as he turned the truck south, speeding off toward the campo he came from.

  James was silent as he approached the Range Rover, his frown something Megan had never seen before. Shoving the camera in its case, she could see the muscles in his jaw clench and his lips purse.

  “What is it, James? What’s happened?”

  “I’m sorry, Megan. It’s not something I can share with you. It’s about an article I wrote a few months back.” He quickly gathered the picnic remnants, roughly shoving the basket in the back of the car.

  She peered at him with a sideways glance as he turned the car south and headed back home. This doesn’t exactly seem like ‘happy’, she thought as his knuckles tightly gripped the steering wheel, his eyes straight ahead.

  “Not another one,” she heard him say, breaking the silence.

  “What? That black fish?”

  “Yeah. Another totuaba,” he said as the car slowed to a stop. Without a word, he jumped from the driver’s seat and grabbed his camera from the back.

  Furiously snapping pictures around the large fish, he turned to her and said, “Can you grab that stick over there for me?”

  Stick in hand, she stood by the fish and wondered what was happening. Its skin was lovely, sparkling in the sun, and it seemed to be whole. Maybe three feet in length, it would have been a great find for a hungry family.

  Taking the stick, he placed it down toward the fish’s belly, pulling up on the top of the fish. The movement exposed that the fish had been gutted before it was left on the beach, its innards gone.

  “I need to take a picture of that. Can you hold it open?”

  She hadn’t had much fishing experience, and wasn’t quite sure where to poke. He was completely focused on this fish, and she mustered up her courage, placing the stick inside the fish and lifting it open so he could photograph whatever it was he was looking for.

  “Perfect. Can you hold it a little higher?” His shutter clicked away as he captured the fish from all angles.

  “Like this?” She held the stick higher, exposing more of the fish.

  “Yep, great. Thanks.”

  His lens cap back on the camera, he gently took the stick out of her hand, gazing at the fish lying on the shore. He turned slowly, looking back out to the horizon.

  “What’s happened to this totuaba?” she asked, crouching beside it. Nothing seemed wrong with it from its outside appearance, but now that she knew its insides had been taken, she wondered why that would be.

  “I can’t quite be sure, but I think that the smuggling has started up again.”

  “Smuggling? Here? Do you mean drugs?” She felt her hands clench.

  “No, not drugs,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching into a smile. “So far, we’ve not had that problem around here, and I hope it stays that way.”

  “Well, what, then? Smuggling what?”

  “A few months ago, I wrote an article about the totuaba in the area for the magazine. People had been accidentally catching them, and I had some good photographs of them. They’re difficult to catch, as they usually stay really deep. They’re not caught often.”

  “I thought I heard that they’d been over-fished and were endangered now. It’s illegal to catch them?”

  “You’re right. Smuggling and sport fishing had decimated them, and they were designated as protected. It’s illegal for Americans to catch them at all, but Mexican citizens can, in small numbers. And not co
mmercially. Personal use only, to feed their families.”

  He circled the fish slowly as he talked. He seemed satisfied that he had enough pictures and put the camera back in the car.

  “I still don’t understand. What were people smuggling? The fish?”

  “In my research for the article, I found that the bladder of this particular fish is used in a soup in Asia and is highly coveted.”

  “Soup?” She suppressed a laugh rising in her throat. It sounded absurd.

  He caught her eye and grinned himself.

  “I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s for a special fertility soup, dating back centuries. At today’s prices, two hundred bladders from this fish would sell for almost three million dollars. Pretty big incentive, and they’re only found here, in the northern half of the Gulf of California.”

  She gasped at the staggering amount of money. “You think someone’s smuggling them now?”

  “I’m not sure. I do know that it had a resurgence in popularity a couple decades ago, and people smuggled them out of the country and then on to Asia. It had stopped for a long time, and what I wrote about in the article was that it seemed that since the smuggling had stopped, the fish were making a comeback. Their numbers have increased in the last decade, and I was cheering that outcome.”

  “But by writing about it again, you reached a whole new audience with that information.”

  “That’s what I was afraid would happen. I even asked my editor if it should be printed at all. I didn’t want to give a whole new generation of criminals any ideas.”

  “So, you think that’s what’s happening now?” She wondered how anybody could do such a thing, waste so many lives of these fish and endanger them again.

  “I’m not sure. I really didn’t even want to mention it to you, but I suppose you earned the truth by holding a stick in a dead fish’s gut,” he said.

  The smile had returned to his eyes, and she felt herself laugh.

  “Well, I’m a helper, that’s for sure. Always prepared to sacrifice myself for somebody else on a moment’s notice.” She wasn’t kidding about that. It really did seem to be her purpose in life, no matter the cost to herself. This sacrifice didn’t seem hopeless, though, as maybe she could help stop this from happening again.