There's Blood on the Moon Tonight (5 page)

Tubby, on the other hand, was a little unnerved by the reading—this despite being a devotee of the supernatural. He stood by his father on the bow, enjoying the salty spray.
It certainly is beautiful out here,
he thought to himself.
I could get used to this. No matter how bad the school is, I could get used to this
real
quick.

Along with all the other vehicles traveling the choppy width of Moon River, their fully loaded station wagon awaited them below decks. To the surprise of his wife and son, Frank had recently sold the RV. It was the final confirmation that their days as Nomads had really come to an end. They had driven for over five hours from Atlanta, Georgia; where Frank had just closed the deal on his most ambitious and profitable flip to date. It was this renovation that had finally put enough in their bank account to buy the land and the theater, with the manager’s home thrown in to sweeten the pot.

With enough left over to buy brand new furniture, carpet, and appliances, Frank would still have adequate savings enough to get them through until the Drive-In began making money in earnest. At least that was the plan.

Frank Tolson looked nothing like his wife and son. He was a thin, balding man, unremarkable in every way, except for his work ethic and well-earned reputation of being a tightwad. And though he was thrifty and spare of hair, his heart was a generous and carefree organ. And his heart had never been fuller or happier or more eager to spread the wealth. Today was the culmination of all his hopes and dreams. Emma’s too. She had told him of her dreams long ago: of a good husband, healthy children, and a home all her own. It had taken them awhile, and he’d put Emma through the wringer every time they’d had to pick up stakes and start all over again, but today made it all worthwhile. It wasn’t all about him and his wife, though. As hard as it had been for Emma and Frank over the years, it had been
twice that for their lonely son. And while Emma may have been oblivious at times, Frank knew what fresh hell his boy dwelled in, day after day.

Ralph never talked about his difficulties at school. He didn’t have to—his body language told the sad story; the way his shoulders sagged coming home from classes, the pinched look on his face in the mornings, as he prepared to face it all over again. It broke Frank’s heart to see his son like that. Without a friend in the world to help get him through the rough spots. He remembered the taunts he’d received in high school, because of his bony build, how hard it had been to make friends, and he knew it was much worse for the fat kids.

Moving every year certainly hadn’t helped matters! He just knew, though, that given a chance, his son couldn’t help but make friends—and given enough time in
one
place, the other kids couldn’t help but eventually see the wonderful human being underneath all that fat.

Frank gazed fondly at the boy. A smattering of freckles dotted the bridge of Ralph’s nose and cheeks. The wind coming off the ocean whipped his son’s wavy brown hair straight back. Light brown hair that would bleach very nicely under the subtropical sun here.

Maybe seeing a few of the local girls in their bikinis would even get Ralph interested in something besides his monster movies and horror books!

Ralph felt his father’s gaze and turned to meet it. “How much longer, Dad?”

Frank held a hand over his eyes and squinted at the landmass growing tall on the horizon. Emma, standing on the other side of him, hooked her fleshy arm through his. “I’m not sure. The one time I was out here it was rather stormy. The ferry had to take it real slow. We seem to be going much faster today.”

“Do they get a lot of storms out here, dear?”  

Frank frowned. He realized he hadn’t given that thought the consideration it deserved.
Out here, in the Atlantic, of course they had storms!
He had gotten such a good deal on the whole shebang, he hadn’t thought twice about the downside. And as far as Drive-Ins were concerned, weather was even more important than location! It wasn’t at all like him to be so shortsighted. He was about to wager a guess, when a stranger came to his rescue.

“Oh, it whips up good, all right,” said a black gentleman about Frank’s age. He was a stout fellow, deep in the chest and wide of shoulder. Six foot six, if he was an inch. His large dome had a five o’clock shadow growing up top, cut so close it barely qualified as stubble. He was wearing the uniform of the island fisherman: blue jeans and a white pocket tee shirt. He smelled of shrimp and honest sweat. Frank Tolson liked him right from the start. “Nothing out of the ordinary, though, ma’am. Most times you be safer on Moon than on the main. Our island has the highest elevation on the whole Eastern Seaboard!”

He smiled and stuck out his huge paw. “Name’s Huggins. Ham Huggins.”

Frank stuck his hand in the large callused grip of the fisherman, where it swallowed his whole.

“Good afternoon, sir. I’m Frank Tolson. This is my wife, Emma, and my son, Ralph.”

“Tolson? You the folks bought the old Moonlite?”

Emma looked to her husband. “The moon light?”

“The Moonlite Drive-In,” Frank replied, patting his wife’s arm. “Yes sir, Mr. Huggins; that’s us. I hope we can expect your business once we get her dolled up.”

Ham finally released Frank’s hand after nearly shaking it off his arm. “Oh, you can count on it! My wife and I spent many a magical night there before it closed down. I was happy to hear the old owner, Saul Grimes, finally found someone to buy the place. He was a crotchety old coot. Closed the theater just to spite the young folks, I believe. You won’t be short of business, Frank. And call me Ham. Only Mr. Huggins I knows was my daddy.”

“Thank you, Ham. Are you a fisherman by trade?”

“That I am,” Ham said, smiling. “Biggest and best boat on Moon.” He saw the questioning looks on their faces. “So why’m I riding on this here barge?” he chuckled. “Well, I’ve been collecting supplies in Beaufort this morning, and it just makes more sense to take my truck across on the ferry, rather than hiring a taxi to tote me and my sundries about.” He looked down at Tubby.

“How old is you, son?” 

Tubby liked the way Mr. Ham talked. It might not have been proper English, but the words, spoken in a rich, deep timbre, fairly dripped from the man’s mouth. “Be seventeen in a few months,” he replied shyly.

“Ralphie will be in the eleventh grade this year,” Emma beamed from ear to ear. “He skipped the ninth grade and went straight to the tenth last year.”

“You don’t say! Got me a boy just yo age did the very same thing!” Ham laughed delightedly. “Though, I ‘spect he did it to be in the same class as his friends. Name is Rusty, and he be the laziest ray of sunshine you ever did see! He a little bittie fellow, but Rusty’s a fine boy. Smart as a whip, too. Runs circles around his old man!”

Ham’s booming laughter was so infectious that the Tolsons’ laughed right along with him.

“You goin’ to the Academy, son?”

Tubby looked over at his dad.

“That’s the one,” his father said.

“Actually, that’s the
only
one,” Ham chortled.

“Is that the High School?” Emma asked.

              “Moon River Academy is the
only
school on the island, ma’am. From first to twelfth grade. It be a private school, too.” Ham’s chest puffed out in pride. “State won’t come out to ol’ Moon. So every citizen on the island, even those with no children, pays a bit more taxes to educate the young uns. Now ain’t that something?”

Emma wiped a tear from her eye. She had just met the first person from Moon Island and he couldn’t have been any sweeter. “It certainly is, Mr. Ham.”

Ham noticed Emma’s tears, and he looked to Frank, his dark brown eyes full of concern. Frank gave him a shrug, as if to say:
She does this all the time. She’ll be fine
.

As if he had one at home just like her, Ham nodded and smiled. “Soon as you folks get settled in, come on by and see us. Ours is the big log cabin, out by the candy cane lighthouse. The very end of Huggins Way. Just a hop, skip, and a jump from your place down the road. My wife Betty Anne is the finest cook on Moon, and she’ll be all mighty mad at me if’n I didn’t invite you to supper!” He gave Frank his business card with his home address and phone number on it. “Say a week from this Saturday?”

Frank did a double take on the business card. According to the fine print, Ham Huggins not only owned the largest shrimp boat on Moon, but most of the available land on the island as well. He admonished himself for judging the man by his cornpone vernacular. Uneducated, Ham might be, but no flies were resting on this big fellow.

Frank gave Emma an inquiring look.

“We’d be delighted, Mr. Ham,” she smiled. “Tell your wife I’ll call her later to thank her personally.”

Ham returned the smile and was on his way.

              Emma looked up to see the island had snuck up on them. “There it is! There it is!” she cried.

A rocky shore lined Moon’s narrow sandy beach—leftovers from the Army Corp of Engineers, to help ease the erosion problems on certain sections of the steep shoreline. Overhead, tall pine trees waved lazily in the stiff breeze; they towered over smaller palms and palmettos, which themselves looked over undulating saw grass and sea oats, growing over the sparse but hilly sand dunes.

Moon Island jutted out of the ocean like the rounded crest of a Blue Ridge hilltop, the shores spreading outward like a soft sandy skirt.

The elevation was indeed higher than Beaufort’s, across the way. According to the former owner of the theater, the island had never known a devastating storm surge; at least not to anyone’s recollection. Some folks even had cellars beneath their homes, the water table far enough below to allow such an unheard luxury on an island out to sea. Low Country style homes peeked out from behind the dense trees; some grand in scale, most no bigger than a summer cottage on a lake.

Picturesque was putting it mildly.

Frank put his arms around his family and beamed proudly as their permanent home grew into sharp focus. A flock of seagulls gave a raucous welcome overhead as
The Moon Beam
powered down her engines.

They were entering a harbor that reminded Frank of his summers as a boy in the coastal towns of Maine. A church steeple rose high above the masts in the harbor, letting you know right away where this community’s priorities lay: the Good Lord and His Almighty Sea. From his previous visit, Frank knew it to be the only church on Moon. The non-denominational Christian temple sat alongside other white stucco buildings overlooking the deep and natural harbor. Among them, a marine gas station that was also the only supplier of automobile gasoline on the island; a touristy T-shirt shop, open only during the spring and summer months; the Harbor Master’s office, and a combination sandwich shop/ice cream parlor called Moon Island Treats. Frank informed his family that it and another diner in town called Peg Leg Pete’s were the only restaurants on Moon Island.

Tubby looked stricken.
What the what? No McDonalds! Jeepers! What kind of hick town is this?

Frank pointed out the boardwalk, which horseshoed the harbor. “On the other side of those buildings is the Sheriff’s Office, Post Office, Town Hall, Doctor’s office and the Volunteer Fire Department. The last time I was here the volunteers were sitting out front underneath the awning, playing checkers on top of an old pickle barrel. I swear, Emma, I thought I’d just stepped into a Norman Rockwell painting!”

Shrimp boats bobbed alongside an assortment of other working boats. There were few pleasure crafts about. This wasn’t a resort attracting many tourists; it was too far off the beaten track for that. It was a working community, living off the honest coin of its inhabitants. Nothing more, nothing less, and for the first time Frank worried it might not be enough to sustain his dream. In fact, he wondered if the island had charmed him right into the poorhouse!

At least his wife didn’t seem to be having any second thoughts. As the ferry bumped against the weather-beaten dock of the Moon Island Harbor, Emma couldn’t stop smiling. “Is there a furniture store in town, dear, or are we going back to the mainland for those things?”

The idea of shopping for brand new furniture and appliances, for her brand new home (brand new to
her
, anyway), made Emma positively dizzy with delight.

“You’ll see,” Frank practically giggled.

Tubby didn’t share his folk’s enthusiasm. As his father guided them back to their car, a strange foreboding came over Ralph. His first glimpse of Moon had been a disconcerting one at that.

At his mother’s high-pitched squeal, he had looked up to see a shell encrusted pylon sticking out of the water. Like a rotten tooth spilling over an old man’s droopy lip. Nailed to the top of the pylon was a splintered black board with a wordless warning. A sloppy painter had outlined a skull and crossbones in dripping white paint. Seagull poop further framed it. Dark and menacing, it looked like the warning label on a bottle of poison, or a pirate’s flag. Even if you were a little kid who couldn’t read, you knew what the ol’ skull and crossbones meant
:
Beware! Danger! Stay out! Warning! Death!

Jeepers,
Tubby wondered morosely,
maybe those natives were on to something after all.