Fox Island

by Stephen Bly

  “Yes, thank you. I am a little tired.” Bennington climbed the stairs slowly and slumped on the redwood bench.

  “When was the last time you saw Jill Davenport?”

  “May.” He stared down at the deck.

  “When?”

  “May of ’42.”

  “That was over fifty years ago. You must have considered the possibility she might have passed on by now.” Tony knew that was an awkward attempt to console.

  “Oh yes, of course. I realized she might be gone. But I never considered it could have been so soon after we broke up.”

  “You were dating Miss Davenport?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the family didn’t notify you of her death?”

  “Well…” The old gentleman coughed and faced the Sound. “None of her family knew about us, I suppose.”

  “Not even Jessica?”

  “I’m not sure. Jessica had just married Reynolds, and he was about to go to the war, so they were busy with each other.” A tear slid down the man’s face. He pulled out a white kerchief.

  “You must have really cared for her.”

  “I was hoping that… it’s difficult to explain.”

  Incredible to think he’d been out of the picture for over fifty years, and the memories still brought him to tears. What had this guy been doing? Tony decided he liked the man. The hesitancy, the mood of melancholy, combined with the Brooks Brothers demeanor, encouraged his curiosity. “If I might ask, why come looking for Jill Davenport now?”

  “Mr. eh…”

  “Shadowbrook.”

  “Shadowbrook? Like the guy who writes westerns?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “No fooling? You’re Louis Shadowbrook?”

  “I’m Tony Shadowbrook. It’s Louis…”

  “You a brother to Louis?”

  “There is no Louis Shadowbrook. There’s Louis L’Amour and I’m Tony Shadowbrook.”

  “Right. I knew that. Where was I?”

  “You were telling me why you waited so long to contact Jill Davenport.”

  “Yes. Well, I’m seventy-six years old. Last April they found some colon cancer in me. They cut me open and sewed me right back up. Said there was nothing they could do. So, I’m trying to settle up any unfinished matters before the Almighty calls me to account.”

  “And you had some unfinished business with Jill Davenport?”

  “It’s just the way a foolish, dying old man thinks, I suppose.”

  “Say, would you like to read the newspaper account of her death? My wife and I are writing a book about the Island, and we’re researching the families and the Davenport sisters.”

  The man’s face brightened. “If you don’t mind. Maybe it would help some.”

  Tony returned with a stack of old newspapers in vinyl covers and two cups of coffee. Neither man spoke as Bennington read several articles. Then, he stood and shuffled toward the stairs. “I’m glad I came. I’ll be going now.”

  “I’d suggest you go visit Jessica, but she’s not seeing visitors these days. Seems like she never really recovered from losing her sister.”

  Bennington rested his hand on the railing, stared a moment at the Sound, then closed his eyes as though to memorize the view. “No need. No purpose to be served in that. I bought one of her paintings. Had to give it to a museum a while back. It was too realistic.”

  “She did all those before the accident, you know.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that. Oh, I knew the ‘Two Girls’ motif had ceased. But I assumed she kept on painting.”

  “Not that we can determine.” Tony searched for something else to tell the man. “Jessica sees the accident as her fault, so I hear. She’s gotten worse the past few years. I guess identical twins are pretty close.”

  “Jill talked highly of her sister. Always said she was the talented one. Identical only in looks, she told me. Well, it’s just as well Jessica’s unavailable. It would probably just remind both of us of a painful past. If she remembered anything, she’d probably just get angry.”

  “Jessica’s granddaughter lives in the apartment over the garage here. She’s gone now, but maybe you’d like to talk to her?”

  “Jessica’s granddaughter? I suppose I could, but, actually, I really don’t know what I’d say. An old, old friend of her grandmother’s sister? There’s not much to talk about. All that long trip out here and I finally see how foolish it was. It was a long flight and I’m tired. Think I’ll head back to the hotel.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Airport Hilton.”

  “Could I pass that information to the granddaughter, just in case?”

  “As you wish.”

  Tony stared at the man as he inched down the stairs.

  Bennington scooted up the sidewalk toward the road before he turned back. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Shadowbrook. I’m glad you were here. I really didn’t want to speak directly to Jessica, and you’ve been so helpful. I was risking an angry scene, not good for either of us. And keep writing those good books. I’ve read your whole Sackett series.”

  “No, that was…” Tony started to protest, but the stately gentleman slid into a tan Lincoln and backed it down the long, uphill driveway.

  Angry? Why would anyone be angry?

  Tony, Price and Melody ate turkey pasta salad, purchased from the local Food Mart, off white paper plates tucked into wicker holders. A low-hanging sun glittered off the salty waters of lower Puget Sound. Just as it sank beyond the Olympic Peninsula, a ring of wispy clouds tinged peach, then melon, then tangerine surrounded it. Tony tore a hunk of sourdough bread and smeared it with something that resembled margarine from a plastic tub.

  “I don’t believe it,” Melody blurted out. “You actually talked to a man who dated my great-aunt Jill?”

  “Your grandmother and her sister were extremely pretty ladies back then. I suppose they both had their share of dates,” Price suggested.

  “Grandma Jessie always said Jill was such a perfectionist. She refused to date any of the boys on the Island. Something to do with them not having the social standing she required.”

  “Well, all I know is this guy met Jill after your grandmother’s wedding and broke up with her a few weeks later.”

  “And now, he decides to come for a visit?” Price dug deep into a white cardboard carton and raked out the last square chunks of turkey.

  “I guess at the end of your life you relive some ‘what ifs.’”

  “Speaking of which,” Melody broke in. “What if Grandma Jessie still lived here and went to the door. He might have thought it was Jill. The old guy could have had a heart attack. Whoa, you could have included that into your book.”

  Price chuckled. “You’re starting to sound like Tony.”

  Tony glanced up, fork poised in the air. “What did you ladies discover about the Island’s history?”

  Price spoke between bites. “Arthur Murray once came for a short vacation … met with the San Souci girls for a private dance lesson.”

  “The San Souci Club really were the Fox Island socialites, weren’t they?”

  “Still are,” Melody reported.

  Price set down her fork and wiped her mouth with a green calico napkin. “Mrs. Johnson reported that her father was one of the original members of the ‘Law and Order Society of Fox Island and Hale Passage.’”

  “The vigilantes? I read a little something about that down at the museum. There were thirty members who contributed $134 for dues. Something about needing to stop the sneak thieves and footpads. But I haven’t found any record of them doing anything.”

  “Well,” Price added, “according to Mrs. Johnson, her father always said he figured the thief had joined the vigilantes in order to avoid suspicion, because the stealing stopped after the group was formed. Then the organization seemed to fade out of existence.”

  Price strolled to the railing and leaned her elbows on the gray cracked paint of a two-by-six, between a s
undial and clay baby ducks. She tossed her head back as a delicate sea breeze drifted against her tanning skin. “It’s sort of sad.”

  “About there being no more crime?”

  “No, about Mr. Bennington, an old man who knows he’s dying and tries to find a former girlfriend.”

  Melody jingled long gold earrings and her black hair shone with gold highlights in the evening sunset. “Sounds romantic, doesn’t it?”

  Price eyed Tony. “I wonder … when you’re old, will you go and look up all your old girlfriends?”

  “All I have to do is look across the kitchen table every morning and I see all my old girlfriends.”

  Melody choked on a bite of salad and began to cough.

  “Are you all right?” Tony asked.

  “Dr. S. was the only girlfriend you ever had?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How can that be? Were you raised in a monastery or something?”

  “I guess I’m one of those rarities … a one-woman man.”

  “Anyway, that’s what he tells me.” The dimples deepened in Price’s grin.

  “That is so cool. And how about you, Dr. S.? Would you ever go look up your old boyfriends?”

  “Eh… no.” Price retrieved a navy cardigan sweater and pulled it over her shoulders. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Me either,” Melody added. “Besides, most of my old boyfriends are a bunch of jerks.”

  Price turned back and looked at a stack of papers in a box next to Tony. “Well, what did you discover at the museum?”

  “I’ve got quite a bit of stuff on organized crime in Tacoma, but I haven’t found a Fox Island connection yet. I’ll keep searching. And Harvey Peterson keeps making news from time to time. You know, those local eccentric kind of stories they use for filler on the evening news? Looks like I’ll need to do that interview pretty soon.”

  Tony sorted through the papers in the box, then looked up at Melody. “Hey, kiddo, I did find an old article about a ferryboat wreck… which involved your aunt Jill.”

  Melody leaned forward. Her dark eyebrows tensed close together and almost overlapped. “You did? Are you sure? I never heard about that.”

  Tony spread the yellowed copy in front of her. “It’s all right here… ‘The Fox Island to Tacoma ferryboat, called the Arcadia, rammed the Sixth Street dock during a storm, and several people were injured, including high school freshman, Jill Davenport, who suffered fractures in both legs.’”

  Melody grabbed the sheet. “Auntie Jill broke both legs? Why didn’t Grandma ever tell me that story? I wonder if Mother knows?”

  “Price, how about opening the book with a ferryboat scene?”

  “You don’t mean, ‘It was a dark and stormy night….’ Do you?”

  “Some sort of variation. Think of it. The drama of a child on a rough ferryboat ride to school. It might add the drama… and sense of distance and separation… that the Island portrayed back then.”

  “Perhaps,” Price mused. “But they didn’t have to take the ferry until high school.”

  “Okay, maybe it was a shopping trip… they could be traveling back home….”

  “Wishing they had never left the Island?” Price suggested.

  Tony ripped off another hunk of bread. “Yeah, that would work. Sort of the way we opened Promontory with the railroad scene.”

  “Let’s scout around and talk to folks who used to ride the ferries. I’ll review my notes.”

  Melody looked up from the papers she was reading. “My mom. Talk to her. She rode the ferry until she was about ten.”

  Price gathered the leftovers on a wide wooden tray. “Great, why don’t you call her? Maybe we could run over tonight. We need to go to a supermarket anyway. This is the last of the deli salads.”

  “Well, one of you ought to call her,” Melody stammered. “She… we… well, see… she sometimes has friends over… and, you know, she doesn’t like to be disturbed. I mean, that’s why I didn’t stay with her. And, well… it would just be best if you called.”

  Price patted Melody’s shoulder. “Maybe we should wait ’til morning.”

  Melody’s face relaxed. “Yeah, that’s great. Only don’t call too early.”

  Tony glanced at Melody. “We really need to talk to that grandmother of yours sometime.”

  “Yeah, I know. Maybe this article will help.”

  “About the ferry accident?”

  “Yeah, I’ll ask her about it, and maybe she’ll start to open up about the old days. Then I’ll say, ‘Grandma Jessie, we ought to have the Shadowbrooks write some of this down,’ or something like that.”

  “Maybe that will work. We really don’t want to upset her,” Tony said.

  “I wonder what she’d say if I told her about that guy Bennington?”

  “He said she might get angry.”

  Melody scratched her cheek. “I wonder why?”

  Price spread notes across the blue variegated carpet in the living room while Tony studied topo maps on the oak dining table.

  Melody scampered up the stairs with a manuscript box under her arm. “Hi, guys. I’m waiting for the clothes dryer. So I thought, you know… if you weren’t too busy… you could give me some pointers on my book.”

  “We’re kind of tied up at the moment,” Tony said. “But sure, we could take a break.”

  “That would be great. For six months now I’ve been dreaming about this day.”

  “Oh?” Tony glanced at Price.

  “I kept thinking, ‘If only the Shadowbrooks could read this… if only the Shadowbrooks could read this.’ So, what do you think? Be honest. I can take it, really. Does it have a chance? Do you know of a publishing house taking this kind of thing? It’s important to me to get the right house, you know? I don’t want just anyone publishing this.”

  Price gathered her notes into several piles. “Tony, why don’t you go first?”

  Tony paced the room. “Melody, I can sense how important this work is to you.”

  “I’ve been working on it over four years.”

  “Four years?”

  “Yes, I started it as a senior with Dr. S. Remember our senior project was to submit a book proposal to a publisher? Putnam rejected it, but I got an A in the class. Boy, am I glad they didn’t want it. I write so much better now than I did then.”

  Tony’s boot clunked against an end table.

  “I would hate to be stuck with a first novel that I wasn’t happy with later on,” she continued. “It’s better to wait until your writing’s matured, don’t you think? Anyway, what about the novel?”

  “Melody…” Tony began. “People write for many different reasons. Sometimes it’s to explore a new talent. Sometimes they have a need to express their thoughts and ideas. Sometimes it’s just practice, so that they can get better. Sometimes, like a person who enjoys sitting alone and playing the piano, they get into the creative exercise. It’s an outlet. Then there are those who write in order to be published.”

  “That’s me. I definitely write to be published. I was born to be a writer. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. It’s my calling, my God-given talent, you know?”

  “I can tell you surely have the desire. Did Price ever explain how we got into the writing business?”

  “You mean, with articles in small circulation magazines, stories in Christian youth papers, things like that?”

  “That’s where it all began.”

  “See, here’s the neat thing. I have learned so much from Dr. S.’s classes, and reading all of your books, I feel like I’ve already passed that preliminary stage. Anyway, what about my novel? Don’t you just love the way it starts? The detailed description of that alpine flower on top of the huge granite rock? Have you ever read anything more, you know, in depth than that?”

  “It might have been a tad extended. How long did that scene last?”

  “Oh, just the first six pages or so, that’s all. Then it transitions right into the blind girl at the hot dog stand. Ev
erything I ever learned about transitions I learned from Dr. S.”

  Tony pulled off his boots and rubbed his toes. “I think Price is better qualified to talk about structure and form. I’m more an idea man myself, better for looking at the overall project. Price, maybe you two would like to talk about the details. I think I’ll go print up that chapter I reworked today.”

  “Oh, sure… but really, Mr. S. What’s your overall opinion? Tell me the truth; I can take it. Do you feel that the book is publishable the way it now stands?”

  Tony scratched his forehead, then rubbed his cheek and chin. He peered into Melody’s expectant eyes. Her head tilted just like a cocker spaniel puppy’s, the kind you bring home from the pound and then discover it has distemper.

  “No,” he said.

  Melody bit on her lip and pulled her arms tight over her head, like Kathy did when Kit chased the calf at the airport, a universal gesture by the young for warding off evil. “But… but I’m sure I have some more work to do. Don’t we all? But the idea… the plot… it’s workable, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Nope. Frankly, Melody, I want to be real honest. I just don’t think it’s publishable.”

  Tony felt Price’s hand jab at the small of his back as Melody’s dark brown eyes filled with tears.

  Chapter 4

  As the consequences of the Medicine Creek Treaty of 1854 became obvious to the various Native American tribes in the southern Puget Sound region, many protested the injustices. The discovery of gold In the territory brought hordes of argonauts. Tension, hostilities, and violence increased between the two cultures. Trying to keep the peace, governor Isaac T. Stevens converted Fox Island into a temporary Indian reservation. Within a few years, however, the tribes were allowed to return to their homelands in the Nisqually and Puyallup Valleys. Indian artifacts are still occasionally discovered on the Island.

  As, periodically, are native Fox Islanders.

  Tony sat in the big white Oldsmobile and scanned his notes scribbled on a yellow legal pad. Both windows rolled down, a cool breeze rolled through the car off the Narrows. He glanced up and stared at the crystal clear sky.

  Immense Mount Rainier hovered behind the skyline of Tacoma across the water, like God himself looking down from the heavens. So huge, so close, everything seemed so small in comparison. And yet, many days pollution clouded it to remote, removed. Perhaps a symbol of the Lord. Always near and mighty, but hidden from a world of blinded people who can’t see.