Serenity Engulfed

by Craig A. Hart

  Serenity, Michigan

  August 1968

  “Shelby!”

  The voice rang loud and sharp in the late summer air. Shelby slid down behind the rotten log, his air rifle clutched in one hand. The squirrel he’d been stalking had started at the noise, and now stood stock still on its hind legs, ears perked, black eyes darting. Shelby began easing the rifle upward. If he could only get a bead on the squirrel before—

  “Shelby! Get your ass to the house!”

  The squirrel fled, its tail flipping up and down. Its claws skittered on the bark of a towering oak tree, found purchase, and within moments, the animal disappeared among the tree’s upper branches.

  “Shit!” Shelby stood up and shot the air rifle into the ground. Then he swung it onto his shoulder and walked out of the woods.

  As he walked into the back yard, he saw his mother leaning against a porch beam, her hand cupping her mouth for another banshee screech. Then she saw him and changed the cupped hand to a pointing finger.

  “I’ve been calling your name til my throat’s sore. Where the hell have you been?”

  “In the woods.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Just messing.”

  “Getting into trouble, probably.”

  Shelby didn’t answer. He climbed the steps onto the porch.

  “You best be glad you heard me when you did. Now get inside and wash up. Your father’s got some bigwig from the church coming by and I don’t want you embarrassing us. Give me that gun.” She grabbed the rifle from his grip and used the butt to push him toward the door. “Hurry up, now. Move!”

  Shelby did as he was told, even though he had to bite his lip not to retort, “You’re awfully bossy when you’re sober.” But now wasn’t the time to score points, not to mention he still smelled alcohol, so to be accurate, his remark should have been, “…when you’re not as drunk as you usually are.”

  While in the bathroom, Shelby heard a knock on the front door and muted voices as his father invited the guest in. He wondered who the bigwig might be. Not the pastor, surely. The old minister was so feeble that he only preached every other week and those sermons were becoming shorter and shorter. His retirement was imminent.

  Shelby dried his hands and then stuck his head out the bathroom door. He heard a voice from the front room.

  “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander, for having me in your home. I do appreciate it.”

  Shelby heard his father reply, “You’re welcome any time, Deacon Bachmann. A deacon of Christ’s Apostles will always find an open door here.”

  “Glad to hear it, glad to hear it. Of course, we would love to see you folks at church more often. I worry that your absences might suggest a cooling of the love of Christ.”

  “Oh, no,” Shelby’s father said, his voice fervent. “Never such a thing. No, it’s only that things have been busy and there’ve been some health matters. You know how it is.”

  Shelby crept out of the bathroom and down the hall. He peered around the corner. His father and Deacon Bachmann sat in the easy chairs while his mother sat dutifully to one side on the couch. Bachmann was a thin man with long legs that reminded Shelby of a spider. His unnaturally pale face was thin and hawkish, his head crowned with a thinning thatch of black hair, cut short and parted on one side.

  “Of course. I don’t mean to cast blame. The only reason it’s of concern is that there might be a position opening at the church and I was hoping to suggest you as a good candidate.”

  Shelby watched as his father’s face registered first shock and then utter joy.

  “Me? You want me for a position at the church?”

  “If you would be interested. It’s nothing glamorous, mind you, but vitally important. We need another usher, as Mr. Graham is having surgery and doesn’t plan to return to his duties. You’d be responsible for seeing people to their seats, receiving the Lord’s offering, and dismissing the congregation after the benediction.”

  Shelby’s father sat, mouth open, face aglow. “I’d be…so honored. I never expected to—I always thought the church people thought I was—that we were—”

  “Oh, you can’t mind what other people think or say, Mr. Alexander. The truth is that I’ve had my eye on you for a long time. I could tell you had a deep desire to serve the Lord, but just didn’t know where to focus that energy. I think being an usher at Christ’s Apostles is an excellent place to start. From there, who knows where you could go.”

  Shelby’s father got a faraway look on his face, as if imagining the heights he might attain in the local spiritual community. “This is an honor. Anything I need to do to, you know, help that along?”

  “Well, I’m glad you asked. You see, there are a couple of things I need to address. The first has already come up—your attendance. An usher must be dependable. You’ll need to commit to every service.”

  “That’s okay. We need to do that anyway.”

  “And the second is your son.”

  “Shelby?”

  “He is getting quite a reputation as a wild child. I don’t think I have to tell you it wouldn’t look good for a church official, even an usher, to have a child wreaking havoc everywhere he goes. It would reflect badly on the church, you see.”

  Shelby’s father nodded. “I understand. I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “That would be fine. I was also wondering if I might speak with him, as long as I’m here. Perhaps a few words from me would help steer the boy onto the straight and narrow.”

  “Of course, of course.” Shelby’s father nearly catapulted out of his chair. “That’d be wonderful. I’ll get him. Shelby!”

  Shelby jerked back around the corner, waited a second or two, then stepped into the living room.

  “Ah, there you are.” Shelby’s father gestured to the visitor. Bachmann had stood and Shelby could see he was quite tall, especially next to his father—a man of below average height. “Shelby, this is Deacon Bachmann. Maybe you’ve seen him at church.”

  Shelby shrugged. He had, and the man had always given him the creeps. The deacon had dark, intense eyes and seemed to be always staring.

  Shelby’s mother spoke for the first time. “Well, say something. Don’t be rude and daft.”

  “I’ve seen him at church,” Shelby said, adding, “whenever I’m lucky enough to get to go.”

  Bachmann smiled. “You enjoy church, do you?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  Bachmann looked at Shelby’s father. “More reason to get into church on a regular basis, Mr. Alexander. We should feed a young person’s desire for God.”

  Shelby’s father cast his son a fiery glance before saying, “Shelby, Deacon Bachmann wants to talk about your shenanigans. Come in here.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Alexander,” Mr. Bachmann said. “I have no desire to embarrass the boy in front of his parents. Could we perhaps speak in private? A young man’s fragile ego, and all. That way, we can talk man to man, without reservation.”

  Shelby’s father’s face reddened. “Ah, yes—should’ve thought of that myself. You can talk in the guest room. Shelby, show the deacon the way.”

  Shelby turned and walked from the front room and back down the hall, followed by the looming deacon. He turned in at the guest room and looked for a place to sit, but the room was sparsely furnished and the only place was the bed. Shelby leaned against the wall as the deacon entered and slowly closed the door.

  The tall, thin man crossed to the bed and eased onto it. He placed his hands on his knees and leaned forward, looking like a vulture on a post. The room was dim and Shelby reached for the light switch.

  “Don’t bother,” Bachmann said, his voice low. “Come and sit next to me.” He patted the thin patchwork quilt.

  Shelby did so, his legs like wooden stilts. Alarms were clanging inside his head, telling him to run away, run into the woods. But his parents—what would they say? And Deacon Bachmann was a religious man. What could happen?

  Shelby sat down on th
e bed, as far from the deacon as he could without falling onto the floor.

  “I’ve been hearing reports about your behavior around town,” Bachmann began. “Troubling reports about shoplifting and roughhousing. And there was vandalism at the war memorial the other night. You weren’t involved in that, were you?”

  Shelby shook his head.

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” Bachmann shifted sideways, coming close to Shelby. He reached out and placed a narrow hand on Shelby’s leg. “It would be a sinful thing to desecrate a memorial honoring the fallen soldier.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Glad to hear it. And what about the other things I mentioned?”

  Shelby didn’t answer. He couldn’t deny all of it. He’d been involved in several incidents over the summer that might qualify as sinful in the deacon’s eyes. They weren’t things he was proud of, things that had happened while in the company of the older boys who constituted the local gang.

  Bachmann shook his head and made a tsk-ing sound with his tongue. “That is not what I wanted to hear. Still, there is always hope for the sinner with the gentle soul. I believe you have such a soul, Shelby. I don’t believe you want to be a bad boy.”

  Bachmann’s hand slid up Shelby’s leg until it rested over the fly on the boy’s jeans. Shelby sat, rooted to the spot, and his face flamed with shame. Revulsion washed over him.

  The deacon removed his hand suddenly and stood up, his manner instantly cool and business-like.

  “Your father has a chance to become somebody in the church and the community. Surely you wouldn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize that, would you?” Without waiting for an answer, Bachmann opened the door and disappeared into the hall.

  17

  After his shower, Shelby stepped out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of his bed. He was pleased to discover that his nausea had mostly disappeared. His head pounded, but otherwise, he felt mostly himself.

  Sid Bachmann. The name still hung in his mind like a dirty, aged neon sign, blinking and buzzing, demanding to be noticed but as unattractive as hell.

  Shelby noticed he was sitting with his shoulders hunched and head slightly bowed, as if a small child waiting for a blow—and he felt shame rush through him. It was just a name. The man was dead and gone, had been for years, but it still had the same effect. All at once, Shelby yearned to talk with Old Tom. The old Indian had been more than a wilderness teacher; he had served as Shelby’s most important father figure. Without that influence, Shelby couldn’t begin to guess where he might have ended up.

  But Old Tom was far beyond the range of Shelby’s cellphone. It was at times like these Shelby wanted very much to believe in an afterlife, where loved ones waited to be reunited with those still living. Seeing Old Tom again would be something worth dying for—and something worth living for as well.

  Then Shelby remembered how Angel had spoken of her grandfather, the one dying of cancer who had known Old Tom so well. He wondered if he could—but, no, that was ridiculous. He couldn’t just—or could he? It wouldn’t hurt simply to call up and see if the old man would be willing to talk about the past, perhaps share some stories. Shelby couldn’t talk to Old Tom, but perhaps he could talk with someone who had, perhaps, known him even better than Shelby had.

  Shelby picked up his cellphone and looked up the number for the tribe headquarters. He punched in the number and waited while it rang.

  When the operator answered, Shelby explained the situation, all the while leaving any mention of Angel out of the story. It took some convincing, but at last the operator agreed to pass along the request.

  “If they’re interested, I’ll have them call you.”

  Shelby agreed, gave the operator his number, and then hung up. He stood up from the bed, dressed, and then put his hand on the doorknob of his bedroom, preparing to walk out into the main area of the cabin.

  Then he stopped, thinking he heard voices. Yes, there were definitely voices, two of them—Mack’s and a woman’s voice, although he couldn’t tell who it was.

  He opened the door and stepped out, hoping his face wasn’t as pale as he felt it might be. Mack and Quinn sat at the table. They both had bottles of beer and a third sat waiting—for him, he assumed.

  As soon as Shelby appeared, Mack reached for the unopened bottle and popped the cap with his penknife. He held the bottle out to Shelby, who took it and drank gratefully.

  “You look like shit,” Mack said. He kicked at an empty kitchen chair. “Take a seat before you fall down.”

  Shelby nodded and sat. “Thanks. And I’m sorry about that little episode earlier. I guess I really flew off the handle, didn’t I?”

  “The little shit had it coming,” Mack said. “Although I will admit you had me worried. I thought you were going to kill him with your bare hands.”

  “I might have, had you not stepped in. I appreciate that.”

  “I knew something was wrong. Didn’t seem like you’d be doing that on behalf of someone you scarcely knew.”

  Shelby shook his head. “It wasn’t only for Angel.”

  Quinn leaned forward and put her hand on Shelby’s arm. “Are you sure you don’t need a doctor? You look, well…you look awful.”

  “I don’t think a doctor would do much good,” Shelby said.

  Mack took a drink of beer. “Then what is it? I’ve never seen you act like you did, not without reason. You should have seen your eyes, Shel. You were like an animal out of its mind.”

  “It was Grant. He…he looked like someone I once knew.”

  “Looked like who?”

  Shelby turned the beer bottle around in his hands, watching the contents swirl into a mini funnel. “Like his grandfather.”

  Quinn’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Sid Bachmann?”

  Shelby jerked his head up. “How’d you know that?”

  “It came up when Angel was here, telling you about Grant.”

  Shelby relaxed and nodded. “Right—sorry. I forgot you were here then.” He took a long drink of beer, then set the bottle down with a clunk. “Listen, I don’t want to talk about this right now. Too many other things going on, Leslie being the most important.”

  “Shelby—” Quinn began, but was cut off by a look from Mack. “Sure. Another time.” She finished her beer and stood up. “Well, I stopped by to see if you had any news about Leslie, but it seems you’ve had quite the day. I’ll touch base before I leave town.”

  “That sounds great,” Shelby said, lying through his teeth.

  Quinn waved at Mack. “Thanks for the chat. Bye, you two!”

  Once the door closed behind her, Shelby gave Mack a sharp look.

  “What exactly did you tell Little Miss Writer-pants?”

  “I mentioned what happened at Bachmann’s place. And I’m glad I did, because she then told me about a little incident the other day that was just as weird. How you freaked out when Angel mentioned this Sid Bachmann character. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re lying, Shel.”

  Shelby stood up, towering over the table. “I said I was fine, Mack. How many times do I have to say it?”

  Mack held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I hear you. I care about you, is all. Quinn too. I know you hate people prying into your business, but we both mean well.”

  Shelby took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  His cellphone buzzed, an unfamiliar number showing on the screen. He held up one finger to Mack and answered.

  “Hello?”

  The voice that answered was weak and as thin as paper. “Mr. Alexander?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Simon Bird. I am Tom Bird’s grandson. I understand you knew him well.”

  Shelby’s heart was in his throat. The voice, though weak, sounded exactly like Old Tom. It was uncanny, like stepping back in time. “Mr. Bird, thank you for calling. Yes, I knew him. He meant a great deal to me and taught me very much.”

/>   “He spoke of you often. And thought of you like a son.”

  “That’s an honor to hear you say it.”

  “I understand you wanted to talk to me,” Bird said. “I do not wish to be rude, but I am ill and my strength is limited.”

  “Of course, I understand.” Shelby struggled with what to say next. He really hadn’t thought through everything he wanted to say. The impulsive decision to reach out to Simon Bird had been just that—an impulse. As the silence lengthened, Shelby felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. It was so strange how small he felt talking to this man he’d never met. But he was the embodiment of Old Tom, and Shelby felt himself taking on the role of young pupil.

  “Your silence is telling,” Bird said. “I can tell you are carrying a burden.”

  Shelby swallowed, suddenly feeling emotion rise in his throat. “I—how can you know that?”

  Bird gave a chuckle that immediately lapsed into a cough. Once he composed himself, he said, “When you’re as old as I am and have the heritage I do, you simply know things. And you have a strong connection with Tom—I still feel it. He speaks to me through you and about you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He watched over you in life, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Shelby said, his voice almost a whisper. “He did. Very well.”

  “What makes you think death would have stopped him?”

  Shelby had no idea how to respond, and so just stood there, holding the phone to his ear.

  “He watches over you still. And if you look closely, you might be able to see him now and then, manifesting himself in unexpected ways.”

  The line went dead and Shelby’s reverie was shattered by a fast-paced beeping sound.

  As sinister as the call could have been, it was somehow comforting. He felt as if Simon Bird had known all about him, known exactly what to say. It was like he’d been waiting for him to call.