by John Everson
Chapter Six
The house was empty when Evan came home, and tonight, he didn’t feel bad about that. He stood in the doorway of Josh’s room and stared at the Katy Perry poster on the wall. Dr. Blanchard was right about one thing—his life had become that of a bystander. Every day he looked at the shrine to Josh’s life, his room. And every night he walked the beach and relived all the accusations that the place brought him. But it was like a film loop, playing over and over. He was frozen, not moving on.
He went to the kitchen and warmed up a plate of beef stew from the weekend. Sarah cooked most of the time, but Evan crocked up a mean stew on occasion and after sitting for a few days, the meat and spices marinated to get even better. He sat there at the kitchen table and stared out into the last glow of sunset as the beef melted on his tongue. Something had to change, he knew that.
But not tonight, he backpedaled a few minutes later. He pulled on his beach sandals and slipped out the back door.
The night air raised goose bumps on his arms as Evan walked down Butler Drive and arrived at the dry mounds of sand and spiky brush that marked the start of the beach. He trudged through the loose sand until he reached the waterline and then slipped off his sandals to walk along the water’s edge. His night walks had been a ritual ever since he and Sarah moved here, over a decade ago. On the surface, it didn’t make any sense that a man petrified of water would taunt himself by skirting its edge every single day, but Evan was fine with the ocean, as long as you didn’t tell him he had to enter it. He loved the smell of the seaweed and salt that clung to the air, and the gentle, repetitive rush of the waves was the best sedative known to man. He slept soundly after his walks; or, at least he used to, when he wasn’t retrieving Sarah afterward.
Tonight he walked a little faster than normal, a pace more determined than strolling. He wouldn’t have admitted to himself where he was going, but his destination was clear.
Gull’s Point.
The dark finger of rock jutted out in front him like a shadow in the night and, deep in his heart, he hoped that he’d see the woman again. Evan held his sandals tight. He’d need them for crawling around on the rocks.
He covered the half-mile walk in record time, and wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead when he set his first foot on the path down the point. He kept listening for a hint of music in the air, but the only sound was that of the surf. Carefully, he threaded his way down the rocks until he reached the end, the flat lookout where, last night, he’d seen the woman leap into the waves. Had she drowned?
She wasn’t there tonight.
Evan laughed at himself. Of course she wasn’t there. If Evan’s fears were true, then she was at the bottom of the bay, and sooner or later, her body would probably be discovered floating to shore. And if Dr. Blanchard’s theory were correct, then she was just a local skinny-dipper who was probably too embarrassed at being discovered to return immediately to the scene of the crime. Either way, she wasn’t coming back here anytime soon.
He sat back and stared at the moon for a moment, and caught his breath. He’d walked faster than he realized to get here and his breath was labored.
Evan hadn’t told Sarah about the woman last night. He told himself it was because she was out of it when she got home, but maybe it wasn’t so clear-cut. Sarah wasn’t the jealous type, normally, but, there was something about seeing the woman—and not just her nakedness—that had made him feel…
He began to hum to himself, the same melody he’d sung last night just before the woman had appeared. “Forever Now.” Even just humming the song brought out emotion in him, and he let the melody die halfway through the first verse and chorus.
There was going to be no woman tonight. No song. No perfect pearl skin. Evan rose and threaded his way back off the point, carefully stepping between the jagged edges of black rock laced with gull dung. He began to walk toward home, though with something of the opposite in urgency to his journey here.
He’d only gone a few foot-dragging steps when something made him pause. Wishful thinking?
No.
There was the song again. His blood chilled and warmed from its very first notes. He looked out at the waves and saw only darkness. The rocks betrayed no movement. But the song. The song was everywhere. Evan didn’t know which way to turn, but he knew he had to get closer to its source. He had to see her again. Talk to her. Such an amazing voice…
He started back toward the point, but then stopped; the music didn’t seem to be any closer as he walked toward the point, maybe it was even farther away. Again he scanned the dark beach and darker rocks and waves, but the moonlight didn’t betray any sign of the singer.
Evan closed his eyes. The sound washed through his brain like the ocean over sand. He realized it was even stronger when he just relaxed and listened…and so he did. A smile grew unbidden on his face, as he followed the pure, perfect soprano notes. They trilled, crystalline like birdsong, before plummeting to the sonorous call of a whale before swirling back to dreamy octaves of more traditional verse. Beauty in dichotomy. Beauty in symmetry. Her voice swam effortlessly through curls and twists in melody, a sweet, dangerously alluring exercise in music. He couldn’t make out any words per se, but she was singing something. And whatever the syllables meant, they made his heart tremble with joy and then cringe with sorrow. The song was bittersweet madness, and Evan let himself be lost in its beauty.
After a while, he knew which way to go, and he moved toward the sound. He felt drunk, groggy in the way you only feel after amazing late-night sex, the warmth and lust cooling but transposing into something more than simple physical ecstasy and release in the soul. Evan walked. He didn’t open his eyes, but it was almost as if he could see anyway; the music brought him visions of lightning cracks in deep, somnolent purple and mountains of lush emerald and ocean waves that shimmered with the coolest, gemlike blue ocean waves that…
…lapped at his chest and sprayed his face with foamy salt.
Evan opened his eyes at the splash of a wave and saw her. The woman floated just a few feet away, dark eyes glinting in the moonlight reflecting off the ocean. Her tongue moved against white teeth as she trilled an exotic melodic riff, but suddenly Evan wasn’t under its spell any longer. He was feeling the cold of the water on his skin and panic rose from his heart to his head like an electric current.
Evan screamed. The woman’s eyes opened wide, and then she dove beneath the waves.
His own eyes popped as she disappeared and left him to realize how far into the ocean he had walked, completely unconscious of his path. How could he have done this? He’d never even felt wet until he’d opened his eyes to stare into hers. Evan’s arms flailed for balance against the steady rush of the low waves, and he realized that he hadn’t stopped screaming since the moment he’d felt the splash of saltwater on his face. Struggling for control, he forced his feet to step back, and back again toward land.
The woman hadn’t resurfaced, but Evan didn’t care about her anymore. All he could feel was the electric prod of panic. His heart beat in triple time. His chest burned and he couldn’t catch his breath.
Evan turned away from the ocean to face the shore. When he saw that stretch of sand, safe haven, he stepped through the water faster. His heart pounded so loud in his ears, he imagined his valves giving way in an explosion of blood. In his mind he saw himself collapse here, just yards from shore, clutching at his heart as the water dragged him back to its murky, hungry depths. He forced himself to keep going, one step at a time. When the waves crested only as high as his thighs he began to run toward the beach, even though the fear warned him that he could fall and be dragged by the current back out to sea.
He had to get back on land. Now.
And then, he was there.
Evan collapsed on the wet-packed sand and struggled to control his breathing. It was difficult because as soon as he realized he had made it to safety, he began to cry. His chest heaved in ragged gasps and he closed his eyes and cou
nted, using the power of slow, steady numbers in his struggle to regain control. He lay there on the sand for several minutes, willing his heart to slow down. He felt a fire beneath his ribs that threatened to consume him. He counted, and focused on the numbers. One, two, three…with each number, he slowed his breathing a little more. Finally, after pulling in a long, deep breath, he stood up, and stared back out into the ocean.
Waves crested and capped for as far as he could see, until the moonlight did no good and the water’s surface was simply black.
No woman’s head bobbed amid the breakers. Shaking his head in disbelief at what had just happened, Evan decided to join Sarah at the bar, as soon as he changed clothes. Only, tonight, he was having a drink.
Chapter Seven
June 3, 1887
Sometimes Captain James Buckley III felt like a pirate. During the long stretches between ports he had to keep driving the men, or they got sloppy. If they had their way, the deck of the Lady Luck would be littered with fish bones half the time, and the masts would hang loose with untethered sails. Not that he had a crew full of lazy louts, but…men will be men. And men without reason to keep things shipshape…didn’t bother. When you’re out on the waves, day after day…housecleaning doesn’t seem very important. After all, who’s watching?
Captain Buckley provided them the reason. Private “Three Hands” Nelson was getting a taste of the reason—one that he’d remember for many voyages to come—right now. The crewman was tied to the main sail, and periodically, when he felt like it, Captain Buckley would wander over and take a couple cracks at the boy with the whip that hung from a hook on the wheelhouse cabin. Right now, the lad’s back was a series of red lines and welts and a fair amount of dried blood. ’Twas getting about time to release him back to his quarters for a day to recover.
It was brutal, yes, but the boy would learn a lesson he’d not soon forget. And the rest of the crew got a good brush-up reminder of who was captain each time they passed by the mast.
Served two purposes to give your crew a floggin’ once in a while. They learned a bit of respect, and it kept the ship in shape.
One of the crew came running around the wheelhouse. Jensen was his name. Cauldry’s younger brother. Buckley had hired him on Cauldry’s recommendation, even though the kid was greener than grass when it came to working a fishing rig. But Jensen actually looked green now. “Captain, we’ve just pulled in a net that I think you should see.” The boy seemed to be biting his lip as he said it. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“All right,” Buckley said, doing his best to sound put out by the interruption, though, in truth, he was curious about what could have riled up the boy up so badly. Seamen, no matter how young, didn’t tend to be easily rattled. “Show me.”
They walked to the stern, where a large net lay open on the deck. Silver minnows bounced and flipped in the air like popcorn. But at the far end of the pile of dying fish were Buckley’s men: Jensen, Travers, Reg and Taffy.
Travers bent over something in the net, and Taffy kept stealing glances over the first mate’s shoulder, but then looking away.
“Over here, Captain,” Travers called. Buckley stepped around the puddles and lumps of broken seaweed near the net and bent over to look at what his first mate had found. His first thought was that they had netted a rib roast from depths of the deep blue. Chunks of bloody red meat hung off yellowing strips of curved bone. But his eyes followed Travers’s hands, and he saw that the ribs sprouted an arm, and at the end of that arm dangled a gnarled, raw lump of something that may have once had fingers. Travers was twisting at one of those appendages and the juice of bloated death dripped red from his arm as he did.
“We got us some kind of half-eaten shark or baby whale here?” the captain mused, but Taffy shook his head. Then the white-faced crewman pushed away from Reg and went to hang his head over the side of the boat. Taffy never said a word, but from the sounds bleeding over the side of the hull, he didn’t need to.
“Naw,” Travers said, strangely quiet. “Not unless sharks have taken to wearing rings.” The first mate held up a shiny gold band with a black stone in the center. “Looks like we found Rogers, sir. And something’s eaten him up pretty bad.”
“Damn,” the captain said, shaking his head. His voice sounded flat as he pronounced, “He was a good man. I wish we’d gotten to know him better.”
Rogers had just joined the crew at their last dock. Few of the ship’s men would be able to remember much about him for the funeral service, when they gave him the last rites and pushed the chewed-up body back over the side. Rogers had kept to himself and stayed belowdecks much of the time, serving as cook and cleaner for the ship. And then one morning, he just hadn’t been around.
Buckley slapped a hand on Jensen’s shoulder. “Go get a sheet to put the man in,” he said. The boy nearly tripped as he twisted around to comply. He was back in moments. “I pulled this from my bed, sir.”
“You’ll be sleeping cold tonight then,” the captain responded, but motioned for him to lay it out on the deck. Buckley bent to help Travers and slipped his hand beneath one of the corpse’s ribs. The lower half of the man was missing, as was the head.
Travers grimaced, but grabbed the carcass by the ragged bone that stuck out of the carnage where the neck should have been. He and the captain hefted the sodden weight onto the old sheet, which quickly stained a pinkish red. Two thin chunks of flesh fell to the deck as they moved their former crewmate and the captain nodded at Taffy. “Throw ’em in here.”
The crewman bent to retrieve the pasty hunks of skin and muscle. Taffy touched the flesh as if he were picking up a steaming pile of manure. His face remained white as chalk after his trip to the edge of the hull. He dropped the pieces of Rogers onto the gruesome cage of ribs and quickly wiped his fingers on the edge of the sheet. Then he made a beeline for the ocean again.
Buckley and Travers folded the sheet end over end, and then again, tying the edges together, until Rogers was little more than a lump of laundry tied up in a bloodstained bow.
“Shall we throw the fish back, Captain?” Reg asked quietly, and Buckley laughed. “Hell no, lout, what would we do that for?”
“Because it’s not right, sir. There are still little pieces of Rogers…and his blood…all over the catch. If we sell this batch, we’re selling our cook for people to eat too, sir.”
“Fish is fish and a catch is a catch,” Buckley said, pointing to the silver fish in the net that had also held their former cook. “Rogers is gone and that’s a good haul he brought us. We’re taking it to shore. Now get it cleaned up. We’ll have a service and say our last words for Rogers after dinner tonight.” He turned to Cauldry and raised one eyebrow high. “How’s that stew comin’, cookie?”
Cauldry had taken over Rogers’s duties the past two days, and so far had not successfully made anything qualifying as edible.
“I’ll go check, sir.” He dashed belowdecks again.
“Right,” Buckley said. He nodded at the men who were pulling the net away from the sheeted body, and followed the boy down belowdecks to his cabin. As he opened the door and stepped inside, he grimaced at the odor of fish and something musky and rank. Working on the sea—living on the sea—made you immune to a lot. But Buckley had never grown to love the smell of fish. Thank God that “fishing trawler” was not the Lady Luck’s full-time occupation. He opened a small door in the wall above his bunk and pulled out a brown jug. Pulling off the stopper, he inhaled one bittersweet draught of alcohol and smiled as his nose cleared.
Then he took a long swig and sighed as his throat burned from the liquor. There were crates of the stuff on board right now, headed for port just north of ’Frisco. But the best…the best bottles never left the captain’s quarters. He breathed out a mist of aged tequila, corked the bottle and checked the lock on his door. The captain then stripped off his jacket and shirt, and then carefully folded his pants to set in the corner.
At last, he turned to his bunk, and
the reason he had come down here in the middle of the day. It hadn’t been to drink. Two eyes sparked like lightning as he bent to touch the woman lying prone on his bed.
She jerked against the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles, and her head flew angrily from side to side, silken raven hair drifting and kinking across her face in black seaweed tangles. But she didn’t make a sound.
She couldn’t.
A leather strap gagged it all inside her.
“How is my little songbird today, hmmm?” the captain said, as he bent to kiss the exposed skin of her neck. With rank, came privilege, he thought, and without the pretense of love or foreplay, crawled on top.
Chapter Eight
“On my clock, eight thirty comes before nine o’clock,” Darren called, as Evan slipped into the Delilah Harbor Authority office. He closed his eyes and stifled an equally smart-ass reply. He hated it when Darren tried to be funny.
“Sorry,” he said instead. “I promise I’ll get back on schedule next week.”
Bill looked up at him with a twisted grin as Evan threw his bag under his desk and powered up the ancient computer. One of these days, the shipping yard was going to lose all of its records—Darren wouldn’t spring for regular data backup service, or computers that had been manufactured in this decade. Windows 95 was just fine for what they needed to do, their boss had said on many occasions.
“He’s not going to cut you any more slack, you know that, right?” his friend asked.
Evan nodded. “This weekend I’m turning the corner. I’m going to clean up Josh’s room, Sarah and I are going to have a long talk…next week things’ll be different.”
“Uh huh. I’ve heard that before.”
“I mean it,” Evan insisted. “I can’t do this anymore, I’ve gotta…”
Bill pulled a finger across his neck and Evan suddenly knew that Darren had walked right up behind him.