Cry for the Strangers (2 page)

The boy looked quickly around. Nothing unusual. His heart surged with relief and the worry on his face gave way to a grin. There would be good beachcombing this morning. With a little luck he might even find some glass floats lying in the seaweed.

Near the water he saw a huge mound of kelp and headed toward it. He walked eagerly at first, but as he approached the dark brown tangle, he slowed, his apprehension flooding back.

He began pulling at the tangle.

Either it was buried deep in the sand or it was caught on something.

He pulled harder.

The kelp gave way.

It hadn’t been a dream. From under the kelp, still buried in the sand up to their necks, two faces stared grotesquely up at the child, their features contorted with fear, the eyes bulging open.

His grandparents.

The boy stared helplessly back at them, frozen, his mind whirling.

He could see in their faces how they must have died, waiting helplessly, watching the surf creep inexorably toward them, lapping at their faces, licking at them, then withdrawing to mount another attack.
It must have been a slow death, and a terrifying one. They must have coughed and choked, holding their breaths and spitting out the brine, screaming, unheard, into the wind and rain.

The boy looked once more into the eyes of, first, his grandfather, then his grandmother. As he stared, grieving, into the finely planed, dark face of the old lady, he thought he heard something.

Softly at first, then louder.

“Cry …” the voice inside his head wailed. “Cry for them … and for me.”

It was his grandmother’s voice, but she was dead.

The boy screamed and turned away.

But he never forgot.

BOOK ONE

Clark’s Harbor

1

Pete Shelling stared out at the sea, reading the swells like a map. Far off to the south the rest of the fleet was moving slowly toward the harbor, their running lights winking cheerfully in the night. Pete was tempted to alter his course and follow the fleet. He put the temptation down at once.

Following the fleet was not Shelling’s way; it never had been, and wouldn’t be now.

The wind freshened and Pete went aft to begin the back breaking task of hauling in his nets. Even with the power winch it was difficult work. He grimaced quietly, wishing he’d brought someone with him—he was getting too old to work alone, and the years were beginning to take their toll.

The nets began coming inexorably in, and he guided the thrashing fish into the hold, keeping the net neatly piled, ready to be reset. By the time he was finished, with the catch secure in the hold, Pete Shelling was alone on the sea.

The fleet was gone.

Once more he considered returning to harbor. He looked critically at the sea and remembered all the stories he’d heard about this part of the Pacific—about
the sudden storms that plagued this stretch of the Washington coast, storms that seemed to come up out of nowhere, whipping the sea into a frenzy of wrath that could pick up a boat the size of
Sea Spray
and spin it across the surface like a top. But he had never seen such a storm—they seemed to be a thing of the past, probably an exaggeration, tales built into legend more by the active imaginations of generations of local fishermen than by the storms’ actual ferocity.

Pete Shelling’s eyes swept the horizon and he made his decision. He would reset the nets and take in one more catch before calling it a night. The tide would be at its fullest and he would have to fight the beginning ebb on his way back into the harbor, but that was all right. Pete Shelling was used to fighting.

Not that he’d intended to fight, not at first. Years ago, when he’d first decided to put his roots down in Clark’s Harbor, he’d planned to take life easy, join the fishing community, and spend the rest of his years in affable companionship.

But it hadn’t worked out that way.

Clark’s Harbor hadn’t welcomed him, and he’d spent fifteen years feeling like a stranger. He’d become a fisherman, but not part of the fleet. The rumors of good fishing never came to him, nor did the easy banter over beers at the Harbor Inn. Instead, the fishermen of Clark’s Harbor merely tolerated Pete Shelling, and he learned to live with it. But it had hardened him, made him as obstinate as they. Now, when the fleet went in, he stayed, waiting for the last catch, the catch that would prove to them that no matter what they thought of him, he was better than they were.

He moved the boat north now and began slowly letting the nets out again, bringing the trawler around in a sweeping are so that the current would carry the richest harvest into the submerged mesh. Then, when the nets were fully out, he dropped anchor and lit his pipe. One, maybe two pipefuls, and he would start the last haul of the night. The last and the longest.

He was knocking the dottle out of his pipe, about to check the position of the nets, when he realized something was wrong. The wind, which had been blowing steadily, suddenly shifted, gusting against the boat. The face of the water was different. The swell had been running steadily shoreward; now, it turned choppy, and grew in front of Shelling’s eyes.

Fete moved aft, intent on hauling in the nets. He threw a switch and the winch began humming steadily. The nets snaked slowly in. He worked quickly, gathering in the net, guiding the thrashing fish into the hold.

The swell increased and the wind began tearing at his slicker. He increased the speed of the winch and stopped worrying about stowing the net: there would be plenty of time in the morning to straighten it out. The important thing now was to get the catch in and head for the harbor before the full force of the storm broke over him. Pete Shelling worked furiously, hauling on the net, kicking at the fish, racing the elements.

Moments later, the storm broke with a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. For a brief second the wild coastline was silhouetted in white light.

Disaster struck as the roar of the thunder died away. The humming of the winch stopped and the nets suddenly reversed themselves, pouring back into the sea.
Pete Shelling cursed loudly, realized the danger, and tried to leap aside.

But it was too late. A coil of net seemed to leap up at him, wrap itself around his foot, and twist. The fisherman was thrown violently from his feet and felt himself being pulled overboard. He grabbed at the gunwhale, held on for a split second, then was torn loose by the weight of the sea tugging mightily at the net. Before he could scream the cold water closed over his head.

Time seemed to slow down for him, and he resisted the panic building in him, struggling against the almost overpowering urge to thrash toward the surface. Instead, he forced himself still deeper, straining to reach the entangled foot. He opened his eyes, then closed them again immediately—there was nothing to see in the blackness. He felt the loop around his ankle and, with a terrible twist and thrust, managed to work it free. Now he began fighting his way upward.

He felt the net tangling his arms imprisoning him. He kicked harder, and suddenly his head broke the surface. He gasped desperately, sucking the icy air deep into his lungs, and sank back into the sea, the net pulling at him, his kicks barely holding up against its weight.

He tried to untangle his arms from the grasping cords, but soon had to give it up and use his arms to force his way once more to the surface. This time, as he broke free of the water, he opened his eyes and saw his boat. The net was still feeding swiftly over the side, the winch spinning free.

Shelling sank once more below the surface. The net
was all around him now and he no longer had room to kick. He thrashed his arms, but with his legs bound and useless in the grip of the heavy mesh, his struggles did no good.

Pete Shelling knew he was going to die.

Fear rose up in his gorge. He forced it back. Slowly, methodically, he began letting air out of his bursting lungs. He felt himself losing his buoyancy, and for an instant his fear left him. As soon as he breathed air in, the buoyancy would return. Then he remembered that there was no air to breathe. Only water.

He steeled himself to suck the sea into his lungs, and was mildly surprised to find that he couldn’t do it. His muscles steadfastly refused to obey the messages he sent them. His throat closed. He began to feel himself dying.

When at last he relaxed and the sea found its way in, Pete Shelling changed his mind. He wouldn’t die. He would fight back. The sea would not defeat him.

He thrashed again, thrashed wildly against the entangling nets, his weakening arms struggling against the bonds.

Then suddenly, almost miraculously, he broke the surface. But it was too late. His eyes searched wildly for help, but there was no one. He tried to scream, but was too choked with salt water for any sound to emerge. He sank back below the surface.

As Pete Shelling died, he tried to analyze the strange vision that was his last glimpse of the world. A boat. There seemed to be a boat. Not his own
Sea Spray
, but a smaller one. And a face. A dark face, almost like an Indian. But it couldn’t have been, of course. He was alone on the sea, alone in a storm
that had blown up from nowhere. He was dying alone. There was nothing—only the last desperate hope of a drowning man.

The sea drowned the hope, and the man.

When sunrise came, hours later,
Sea Spray
floated peacefully on a calm sea, her nets spread around her like the tired skirts of an exhausted woman who has stayed too late and danced too long.

Pete Shelling had long since disappeared. The
Sea Spray
, alone in the ocean, seemed to mourn him.

2

Brad Randall glanced at his watch and saw that his stomach and the instrument on his wrist were, as usual, perfectly synchronized.

“Lunchtime?” his wife asked, reading his mind.

“I can go another half hour, but then I’ll get grouchy,” Brad said. “Any place around here look promising?”

Elaine reached for the map that lay neatly folded on the dashboard. “Unfortunately, they don’t put anything on road maps except the names of the towns,” she said dryly. “No evaluations.” She glanced at the map briefly, then looked out the window. “God, Brad, it’s so beautiful out here.”

They were driving south on Route 101 along the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula. For the last hour, ever since they had passed Crescent Lake, the road had wound through lush green forests, choked with underbrush so dense that Elaine had several times wondered aloud how anyone could have cut through it to build the highway. Then the forest had given way to beach, and just as they had arrived at the coast the cloud cover had broken. To their right the Pacific Ocean lay sparkling in the late morning
sun, a stiff breeze frosting it with whitecaps. To the left the dense forest rose steeply to the towering heights of the Olympic Range, standing as a proud barrier between the ocean to the west and Puget Sound to the east.

“Let’s stop,” Elaine said suddenly. “Please? Just for a few minutes?”

Brad paused, considering, then looked once more at his watch. “Okay, but remember: just a few minutes. And remember that there is no more room in the trunk for driftwood.”

He veered the car off the road and came to a stop, then turned his full attention to the beach. It was, indeed, beautiful. Between the road and the sand the ever-present tangle of driftwood formed a silvery barrier that promised hidden treasures for the persistent beachcomber. And Elaine Randall was persistent. Before Brad had even made his way around the car she was clambering over the driftwood, poking here and there, picking up pieces of flotsam, evaluating them against the memory of things she had already collected, then discarding them in the hope of finding something better in the next nook. Brad watched with amusement; During their two weeks on the peninsula Elaine had filled and emptied the trunk of their car at least three times—throwing away yesterday’s “perfect” piece of driftwood in favor of today’s, which would in turn be discarded tomorrow.

He began making his way toward her, knowing from experience that his help would be required to haul her finds back to the car. He was only a few yards from her when Elaine gave a whoop of victory.

“I found one!” she cried. “I finally found one!” She
held a sparkling blue object aloft and Brad knew immediately that it was one of the Japanese fishing floats she had sworn to find before going home.

“Great,” he called. “Now can we have lunch?”

If she heard him she gave no sign—she was totally engrossed in examining the float, as if looking for the flaw that ought to be there; to find a perfect one was almost too much good luck. But it
was
perfect. Elaine looked happily up at her husband as he settled next to her on the log.

“It’s not even chipped,” she said softly. She held it up to the light and watched the dancing refraction of the sun through the blue glass. “It’s an omen,” she declared.

“An omen?”

She grinned impishly. “Of course. It means we’re going to find the right place today.”

“We’d better,” Brad said gloomily. “If we don’t, we’re in trouble. There aren’t many more places left to look.”

Elaine stood up decisively. “Come on,” she said. “Back to the car with you. I’m going to look at the map, and I’ll bet the first place I pick will be exactly what we’ve been looking for.”

In the car Elaine carefully packed the sparkling blue globe in her purse, then picked up the map.

“Clark’s Harbor,” she announced.

“Clark’s Harbor?” Brad repeated. “Where is it?”

“About twenty miles south.”

Brad shrugged. “It’ll do for lunch.” He started the engine, put the car in gear, then pressed the accelerator. Beside him, Elaine settled confidently in her seat.

“You seem awfully sure,” Brad said. “And you’re thinking about more than a place for lunch.”

“I am.”

“Mind telling me why?”

“I told you—the float is an omen. Besides, it sounds right. ‘I’m in Clark’s Harbor writing a book.’ It sounds very professional. And of course you’re going to write a very professional book.”