Cry for the Strangers

by John Saul

  “We’ll get you for this!” he shouted. “You’ll wish you never came to Clark’s Harbor!”

  Robby Palmer, his eye beginning to swell, burst into tears and began running home.

  Rebecca gave the pottery wheel a final kick, gently molded the clay between the fingers of her right hand and the palm of the left, then wiped the dampness from her hands while the wheel coasted to a stop. She surveyed her work with a critical eye. The rim of the vase should be a little thinner, perhaps a shade more fluted. Then, with a sigh, she decided to leave well enough alone. Heavy, chunky pottery was her style—the fact that it was easier for her to execute was a bonus—and why take a risk she didn’t have to take? She brushed a strand of long dark hair away from one eye, then carefully removed the nearly finished vase from the wheel.

  She left the old tool shed that had been converted into a makeshift pottery and walked slowly toward the cabin to check on her bread dough. To her right the beach arched invitingly away to the south, white sands glistening, and for a moment she was tempted to go off beachcombing, looking for items that could eventually be sold in the gallery. But somehow it didn’t seem fair to abandon herself to the beach while Glen was cooped up in the gallery, struggling with two-by-fours that refused to bend themselves to his desires. Which was strange, she reflected, considering that he could do anything at all with wood-carving tools. In fact, Rebecca considered Glen to be a better wood sculptor than painter, but she would never tell him so. Yet when it came to a simple thing like measuring and cutting a shelf, he was a dead loss. She smiled to herself as she pictured the finished gallery, its shelves all slightly lopsided. No, she decided, Glen’s sense of artistry would make the gallery look right, no matter how ill-fitting everything might be.

  With one last longing look at the beach, she made herself continue on into the cabin. She surveyed the bread dough dolefully. In fairness to Glen, there were things she wasn’t very good at either, bread making among them. The dough, which should have risen by now, sat stolidly where she had left it. It seemed, if anything, to have shrunk. She poked at it, hoping to set off some small, magical trigger inside, that would start it swelling up to what it should be. Instead, it resisted the pressure of her finger and looked as if it resented the intrusion. Rebecca contemplated alternate uses for the whitish mass, since it was obvious that it was never going to burst forth from the oven, a mouthwatering, golden-brown, prize-winning loaf. Finally, since she could think of nothing better, she simply dumped the mass of dough onto a cookie sheet, shoved it into the oven, and threw another piece of wood into the ancient stove, hoping for the best.

  She was about to move on to another of her endless tasks when she heard Robby’s voice. She wasn’t sure it was his at first, but as it grew louder she had a sudden feeling of panic.

  “Mommy, Mommy!” The child’s voice came through the woods. And again: “Mommy! Mommy!”

  Dear God, Rebecca thought, it’s starting up again. He’s done something awful at school and they don’t want him back, and now what are we going to do? With a shock she realized how near the surface the old fears, the fears she had lived with for so many years, were. She thought she had buried them. Since they had come here Robby had been so well, she believed she’d put them aside forever. Now, as Robby’s cries drew closer, Rebecca struggled to control herself. She had never been good at dealing with her son’s violent outbursts. She could feel the terror rising inside her. Dear God! Why wasn’t Glen here? “Mommy!”

  Rebecca dashed out of the cabin just in time to see Robby emerge from the woods. Fear clutching at her, she saw that his nose was bleeding and his clothes were a mess. Then he was upon her, his arms wrapped around her, his head buried in her stomach. He was crying.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right Mommy’s here, and everything’s going to be fine.” God, she prayed silently, please let everything be fine. Please …

  Still sobbing, Robby let himself be led into the cabin. Rebecca braced herself for trouble as she began cleaning him up, but Robby sat quietly while she washed his face. Most of her fear left her: it wasn’t the hyperkinesis then. It was something else. But what? He should be at school, not home, bloody and crying.

  “What happened, Robby?” she said when the bleeding had stopped and most of the smudges had been removed from his face.

  “I had a fight,” Robby said sullenly.

  “A fight?”

  Robby nodded.

  “What was it about?”

  “You and Daddy.”

  “Me and Daddy? What about us?”

  “They were calling you names and saying we shouldn’t have come here.” He looked beseechingly at his mother. “Why didn’t we stay in Seattle?”

  “You were sick there.”

  “I was? I don’t remember.”

  Rebecca smiled at her son and hugged him. “It’s just as well you don’t remember,” she said. “You weren’t very happy when you were sick, and neither were Daddy or Missy or I.”

  Robby frowned. “But we’re not very happy here, are we?”

  “We’re happier here than anyplace else,” Rebecca whispered. “And things will get better. Just don’t listen to them when they say things about you.”

  “But they weren’t saying anything about me,” Robby said. “They were saying things about you and Daddy.”

  “Well, it’s the same thing. Now I want you to promise me you won’t fight anymore.”

  “But what if they beat up on me again?”

  “If you won’t fight back they won’t do much to you. It won’t be any fun for them and they’ll leave you alone.”

  “But they’ll think I’m chicken and they won’t play with me.”

  Rebecca suddenly found herself wondering if she was getting old, for she had no answer for Robby’s statement. What he had said was true, but in her adulthood she had forgotten the level on which children think. She decided to drop the entire subject and let Glen deal with it when he got home.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in my suggesting you go back to school this afternoon, is there?” she said.

  “I won’t go,” Robby said flatly. He decided not to mention that he’d been sent home.

  She surveyed the bruises on his face critically, then relented. “Do you feel up to helping me out or would you rather play on the beach?”

  “I’d rather play on the beach,” came Robby’s prompt reply.

  “Somehow I thought you would.” Rebecca grinned. “But here’s the rules.”

  “Aw, Mom!”

  “No, ‘aw, Moms,’ thank you very much. Either listen to the rules and obey them, or stay here and help me.” Robby’s expression told her he’d listen to the rules. “Stay within a hundred feet of the house. And just so you can’t claim you don’t know what a hundred feet is, see that big tree?” She pointed to an immense cedar that dominated the strip of forest beyond the beach. Robby nodded solemnly. “That’s a hundred feet away. Don’t go past that tree. Also, stay out of the driftwood. You could slip and break your leg.”

  “Aw, Mom …” But the protest faded at Rebecca’s upraised finger. “And stay out of the water. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And make sure you come if I call you.”

  She stood in the doorway and watched her son scamper out onto the beach. Once more Rebecca marveled at the fact that she could let him play alone now without having to worry constantly about what he might be up to.

  Happily, Rebecca returned to her chores.

  * * *

  Brad Randall parked in front of the inn, turned off the engine, then slapped his forehead as he remembered.

  “Damn,” he said. “We forgot all about it!”

  “All about what?” Elaine asked. They had spent the entire day poking around Clark’s Harbor and she couldn’t imagine what they might have missed.

  “The Palmers. We said we’d drop in on them.”

  “Well, it’s too late now,” Elaine replied, glancing at the sin
king sun. “Besides, he was probably just being polite. I mean, it’s not as if they’re old friends. We hardly know them.”

  “But I do want to see Robby again,” Brad said. “If there’s really been a miraculous cure, I want to see it for myself.”

  “Maybe you can see him tomorrow,” Elaine suggested. “Right now I’m bushed.”

  “I did sort of run you ragged, didn’t I?” Brad chuckled. “But what do you think? I mean, what do you really think?”

  “I don’t know.” Elaine was pensive. “It’s beautiful, it really is, and if it hadn’t been for that poor man yesterday and that dog this morning, I’d be all for it. But I just don’t know.”

  “It was coincidence, honey,” Brad argued. “The same thing could have happened anywhere.”

  “But they happened here,” Elaine said stubbornly, “and I’m sorry, but I can’t get them out of my mind.” Then she relented a little. Clark’s Harbor was beautiful, and she knew Brad had fallen in love with it “Let’s sleep on it, shall we?”

  They got out of the car and walked to the hotel gate. Elaine paused, staring up at the building. “I still say it’s on the wrong coast,” she said. “And not just the hotel. The whole town. It’s so neat and so tidy and so settled looking. Not like most of the towns on the peninsula that sort of fade in, sprawl, then fade out again. This place seems to have cut a niche for itself in the forest and huddled there. As though it knows its bounds and isn’t about to step over them.”

  Brad smiled. “Maybe that’s what appeals to me,” he said, “I guess it strikes a chord in me somewhere. I like it.”

  They strolled across the lawn arm-in-arm and went into the hotel. Behind his counter, Merle Glind bobbed his head at them.

  “Have a nice day?”

  “Fine,” Brad answered. “Pretty town you have here. Beautiful.”

  “We like it,” Glind responded. There was a pause, and Brad started toward the stairs.

  “You folks on vacation?” Merle suddenly asked.

  Brad turned. “In a way. Actually we’re looking for someplace to live for a while.”

  “We already got a doctor,” Merle said hastily. “Doc Phelps. Been here for years.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be any threat to him. I’m not that kind of doctor and I wasn’t planning to practice anyway. Frankly, I doubt there’d be much call for my kind of doctoring out here.”

  “Well, if you’re not going to work, what are you going to do?” Merle Glind didn’t try to disguise the suspicion in his voice. As far as he was concerned anyone under seventy-five who didn’t do an honest day’s work was a shirker.

  “I thought I’d try to write a book,” Brad said easily.

  Merle’s frown deepened. “A book? What kind of a book?”

  Brad started to explain but before he could get a word in Elaine had cut him off. “A technical book,” she said. “The kind nobody reads, except maybe a few other psychiatrists.”

  If he’d known his wife any less well Brad would have been hurt. Instead, he gave her an admiring wink. Elaine had just rescued him from a long explanation of the subject of his book and the inevitable, endless questions about bio-rhythms. “It seemed to me this might be the perfect place to write it,” he said now. “Lots of peace and quiet.”

  “I don’t know,” Merle said pensively. “Seems to me you’d be better off up in Pacific Beach or Moclips or one of those places. That’s where the artists hang out.”

  “Right” Brad grinned. “And party and drink and do all the things they shouldn’t do if they want to get any work done. But Clark’s Harbor doesn’t look like that kind of town.”

  “It’s not,” Glind said emphatically. “We’re working folk here and we mind our business, most of us. It’s a quiet town and we like to keep it that way.”

  Elaine sighed to herself. With every word the odd little man spoke Brad’s resolve to move to Clark’s Harbor would strengthen. His next words proved her right.

  “I’ve been looking around today. Not too many houses on the market, are there?”

  “Nope,” Merle said. “Not a one, and not likely to be. Most of the houses here get passed on from one generation to the next. The Harbor isn’t like so many little towns. Our children stay right here, most of them.”

  “What about renting? Are there any houses for rent?”

  Merle appeared to think for a minute, and Brad wasn’t sure whether he was running his mind over the town or trying to decide how to evade the question.

  Merle, for his part, decided to duck the issue entirely. “Only one that I know of belongs to the police chief, Harney Whalen. Don’t know if it’s for rent, though. You’d have to talk to Harn about that.”

  “Does anybody live in it now?” Brad pressed.

  “Not so far as I know. If he’s got people out there Ham hasn’t told me. But then, it wouldn’t be any of my business, would it?”

  Realizing he was unlikely to get any information out of the old man, Brad dropped the subject. “Got any recommendations for dinner?” he asked. Merle smiled eagerly.

  “Right through the door. Best food and drink in town. Drinks sixty cents a shot and the freshest seafood you can get. Cook gets it right off the boats every day.” When he saw Elaine peering into the empty dining room and bar, he added: “Won’t be anyone in there yet, of course, but just wait till later. Place’ll be packed. Absolutely packed.”

  “Maybe we’d better make reservations,” Elaine wondered aloud.

  “Oh, no need for that,” Merle said. “No need at all. I’ll make sure there’s a table for you. What time do you want to eat?”

  “Seven? Seven thirty?”

  Merle Glind wrote himself a hasty note and smiled up at the Randalls. “There you are. All taken care of, see? No need for reservations at all—just leave it to me.”

  Two minutes later, in their room, Elaine threw herself onto the bed and burst into laughter. “I don’t believe it,” she cried. “He’s too perfect Do you know, Brad, I think he actually didn’t realize he was taking a reservation? It’s incredible!”

  Brad lay down on the bed beside his wife and kissed her gently. “Now what do you think?” he asked.

  “I think we have enough time before dinner,” Elaine replied. She began unbuttoning Brad’s shirt. …

  Merle Glind sat nervously at his desk and his eyes kept flicking to the stairway as he dialed the phone. It rang twice, then was answered. Briefly, he filled Harney Whalen in on what he’d found out about the Randalls. When he was done there was a silence before the police chief spoke.

  “So they’re planning to stay awhile, are they? Well, maybe they will, and then again, maybe they won’t Thanks Merle, you’ve been a big help.”

  Merle Glind, feeling pleased with himself, put the receiver back on the cradle, then went into the dining room, where he put a small sign on one of the tables. “Reserved,” the sign said.

  6

  Harney Whalen glanced at the clock, drummed his fingers nervously on the worn oak surface of his desk, then rose and paced to the window, where he stood staring down the street, as if his stares could hurry the arrival of Chip Connor. His deputy was late, and that was unusual. Anything unusual worried Harn Whalen, and too many unusual things were happening in Clark’s Harbor the last couple of days. First Pete Shelling (nothing more than an unfortunate accident, of course), and now these Randall people, acting like they wanted to move to the Harbor. Now that was upsetting.

  Harney moved away from the window and unconsciously flexed his still-solid body, patting his firm belly with the palm of his right hand. Then he reseated himself at his desk, pulled the meager file on Pete Shelling to a spot in front of him, and read it once more. He was still reading it, scowling, when Chip Connor finally appeared.

  “Thought you’d decided to take the evening off,” Harney observed as he glanced at Chip.

  “Just having a little dinner,” Chip replied mildly. “Anything doing?”

  “Not really, except I had a call fr
om Merle Glind a few minutes ago.” Chip’s brow arched curiously as he waited for the chief to continue. “Seems they think they’d like to settle down here for a while,” Harney said.

  “They?”

  “That guy Randall and his wife at the inn.”

  Chip frowned. That spelled trouble. As long as he’d known Harn Whalen, which was all of his life, Harn had had an aversion to strangers, a distrust that sometimes seemed to go beyond the natural feelings of most of the Harborites. Chip supposed it was not really so strange. Harn knew everyone in town—he was related to half of them, including Chip—and his knowledge of them made his job much easier. He knew them all inside out—who were the troublemakers, who were the drunks, and what was the best way to handle everybody. But strangers were an unknown quantity, and Harn Whalen didn’t like unknown quantities. Strangers upset the balance of the town. For a while no one reacted the way he was supposed to react, and that made Harn Whalen’s life more difficult. And then there were the outsiders themselves to deal with. For Harn, that was the hardest part. Among his own people he was fine, but introduce him to a stranger and he’d clam right up. He’d watch them warily, from a distance, as if he half-expected them to do something to him. It had been that way with the Shellings for a long time after Pete and Miriam arrived in Clark’s Harbor. It had taken Harney nearly five years just to offer them a nod of greeting. Chip supposed he understood though. He felt much the same way himself. By the time he was as old as Harney, and as set in his ways, he’d probably have all the same reactions as the chief. But Harn was up to something now; that was for sure.

  “What do they want here?” Chip said finally.

  “Merle says the guy’s planning to write some kind of book and thinks this is a good place to do it.”

  “Well,” Chip mused, “you’ve got to admit it’s quiet here.”

  “And that’s the way I like it,” Harney said. “Won’t stay quiet, though, if the place fills up with city folk. They always bring their noise with them. Like Palmer and his wife.”

  “They haven’t been much trouble,” Chip suggested.