Cry for the Strangers (24 page)

He scrambled out of the engine compartment and replaced the hatch cover. He returned to the wheelhouse and tried to assess the situation. Only then did he realize he was trembling with frustration and rage. He groped in his pockets, pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out, and lit one. He sat quietly at the helm and dragged deeply on his cigarette, forcing himself to calm down, analyze the situation, then do whatever had to be done to save the ship. Once more an image of the fingers of rock looming out of the mouth of the harbor came into his mind.…

Glen Palmer approached the old Baron house cautiously. He had intended to walk along the beach and arrive at the house from the seaward side, but the storm had quickly driven him into the comparative shelter of the woods. He had walked quickly, though the sodden ground had sucked at his shoes. The wind screaming in the treetops above him had chilled his spirit as the rain, funneling through the dense foliage, had chilled his body.

Finally he had found the path that would take him back to the beach—the same path his children had used that afternoon—and he had broken out of the woods only forty feet from the house. The house itself blended almost perfectly with the blackness of the night, and only occasional flashes of lightning revealed that it still stood, a silent sentinel on the
beach, testimony to the long-disappeared people who had built it. No light seeped from its dark windows, no clue as to what might lie within escaped its walls. As he made his way around it, Glen shivered, less from the cold than from the deathly stillness that seemed to emanate from the house.

He paused when he found the kitchen door unlocked, sure that something was wrong. Then he entered the kitchen, flashing his light from one corner to another, illuminating first a wall, then the sink, next the icebox, and finally the door to the dining room. He didn’t call out, not out of a fear of alerting anyone who might be inside, but because of deep certainty that the house was empty.

He went confidently into the dining room, again flashed the light briefly around, then moved on to the living room. It was then he knew that someone had been there.

It was at least ten degrees warmer here, and the air was drier—the mustiness of the house had been dispelled in the living room, and the slightly sweet, yet acrid smell of a wood fire lingered. He went to the fireplace and snapped the flashlight off. In the sudden blackness the dull red of a banked fire glowed dimly. Glen put out a foot and kicked the remains of the fire. The thin layer of dead ash fell away and the fire leaped into life. Glen frowned at it and shook his head, wondering whether Missy really had seen the smoke that must have been curling from the chimney only a couple of hours ago. Or had it only been a lucky guess?

He moved slowly through the rest of the house, examining everything more carefully. There was no sign
of vandalism, no sign that anything had been disturbed at all. Whoever had been here had apparently borne the house no ill will; even the fire seemed to have been tended to.

Glen returned to the living room. The fire had built itself up to a steady blaze. He looked around for a poker, intending to break it down again, but found nothing. He sank into the chair facing the hearth and wondered if it would be safe to leave. But as he listened to the raging storm, he decided to wait awhile, at least until the fire burned down. It would give the storm time to spend itself, and himself time to dry out and warm up. He got up and went to the window that faced north, flashed his light steadily five times, then returned to the chair in front of the fire. If Rebecca was watching she would know he was all right.

On the fishing trawler, Max Horton returned to the engine compartment for a more thorough investigation. There was an off chance that what damage had been done could be repaired and Max could get at least one of the engines going. A close examination dashed his hopes, and he returned to the deck. He cast the beam of the flashlight ahead and immediately realized that the boat had drifted around and was now proceeding stern first. He grabbed a large bucket and ran to the bow, where he tied the bucket to one of the mooring lines. He threw the primitive sea anchor overboard, hoping the current would catch it with enough strength to pull the trawler around. Then he began to consider the advisability of abandoning the boat.

The wind seemed not to be slackening at all—if
anything, its intensity was increasing, and it was an onshore wind. If he could rig a sail on the dinghy he just might make it back to safety. But if the sail failed to work the ebbing tide would carry him out to sea. It was this possibility that made up his mind for him.

If he stayed on the trawler and the sea anchor held, there was a good chance he could ride out the storm, providing he missed the rocks at the mouth of the harbor. But in the dinghy he would have no chance. True, the wind might carry him shoreward, but the combination of wind and tide would surely capsize him. If that happened he would be unconscious in ten minutes, dead in twenty. In daylight he might have risked it, counting on someone to come to his rescue. But at night, in the storm, he would be on his own. He decided to stay with the boat.

As he came to his decision another flash of lightning rent the sky and he tried to get his bearings. The sea anchor had worked, and the trawler was now riding with the tide, her bow into the wind. Far ahead, Max thought he could barely make out the jagged points of the reef, and he told himself that with a little luck he would clear them on the starboard side. He returned to the wheelhouse and lit another cigarette. All he could do was wait.

Harney Whalen parked his car in front of his house and hurried up the steps to the front door, pushing it open, then closing it behind him before he turned on the lights. His uniform was soaking wet; he felt cold clear through to his bones. And his heart was pounding.

He stripped off his dripping clothes and put on a
robe, then turned up the heat, lit a fire in the fireplace, and mixed himself a strong brandy and water. He slugged the drink down, mixed another, then went to the bathroom. As the hot water streamed over him and the chill slowly dissipated, his pulse slowed, and by the time he stepped out of the shower, dried himself, and settled down in front of the fire to sip his second drink he felt much better. But he still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.

He remembered being out at Sod Beach, sitting in front of the fire, enjoying the rain and the solitude. He had listened to the storm bear down on the coast, even gotten up once to watch the thunderheads gather before moving in to lash out at Clark’s Harbor. He had built up the fire then and settled back into the chair, and begun to daydream. But he must have fallen asleep, or had one of his “spells,” for the next thing he remembered he was in his car, driving home. And try as he would, he couldn’t account for his uniform being soaked through: the car had been parked only ten or twenty yards from the Baron house. Surely his clothes wouldn’t have gotten that wet even if he had crawled the distance.

An image flickered in his mind for a split second, then disappeared: he thought he saw himself on the beach, walking in the storm, staring out to sea. And there was something else, something just beyond his vision. Shapes, familiar shapes, and they were calling to him. But everything was confused, and Whalen couldn’t decide whether he’d had a flash of an old memory or whether it was simply his imagination.

He mixed a third drink, weaker this time, and pondered the advisability of discussing the “spells” with
Doc Phelps. But Phelps would insist on giving him a complete examination, and Harn wasn’t sure he wanted to go through that. You never knew what the doctors might find, and Harn was only a couple of years from retirement. No sense rocking the boat…

The ringing of the telephone broke his train of thought.

“Whalen,” he said automatically as he picked up the receiver.

“Harn? Where’ve you been?” Chip Connor’s voice sounded almost accusatory, and Whalen scowled.

“Out,” he said flatly. There was a slight pause, and Harney felt better as Chip’s sudden discomfort projected itself over the telephone line.

“I’ve been trying to get you all evening,” Chip said, his voice conciliatory now. “Thought you’d want to know a couple of fishermen checked into the inn.”

“Fishermen?” Whalen repeated.

“Couple guys from up to Port Angeles. Merle says they were heading to Grays Harbor but the storm drove them in here.”

Whalen shrugged indifferently. “They have any trouble?” he asked.

“Trouble? No, not that I know of. I just thought you’d want to know they were here.”

“Okay,” Harn said. “Thanks for calling.” He was about to hang up when he suddenly thought of something else. “Chip?”

“Yeah?”

“Anything happen today?”

“Nothing at all,” Chip told him. “Quiet as a tomb.”

“How’d you like what I did to Palmer?”

There was a silence, and for a moment Harn wasn’t
sure Chip had heard him. He was about to repeat his question when his deputy spoke.

“I’m trying to act like it was an accident, Harn,” Chip said hesitantly.

“It wasn’t,” Harn growled.

“No, I guess it wasn’t.” There was another silence, longer than the previous one, as each man waited for the other to speak. Chip weakened first. “I told Palmer it was an accident, Chief.”

“I wish you hadn’t,” Whalen said. “I wish you’d just let him worry.”

Chip decided to let the matter drop. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.

“Yeah,” Whalen said shortly. “See you in the morning.” He dropped the receiver back on its cradle, picked up his drink, and went to the window. He stared out at the storm, not quite seeing it, and his brow furrowed into a deep scowl. All in all, he decided, it had been a rotten day. And the worst of it was, there were parts of it he couldn’t even remember. Then he chuckled hollowly to himself, thinking that it didn’t much matter—the parts he couldn’t remember probably weren’t worth remembering anyway.

Jeff Horton glanced at his watch, then went to the window of his hotel room. He tried to make out the wharf a hundred yards away, but the storm was impenetrable. He looked once more at his watch. He had been in the room for nearly forty-five minutes; Max shouldn’t have taken more than ten to batten down the boat.

He turned from the window, pulled on his slicker,
and left the room. He stopped downstairs and glanced at the bar, but Max wasn’t there. Only Merle Glind, perched on a stool, chattering amiably to a young policeman next to him. Jeff went out into the storm.

Even on the wharf the fury of the storm blinded him, and he moved slowly, peering up at each boat as he came abreast of it. Then he came to the empty slip.

The storm forgotten, Jeff stared at the gap which he was sure had been occupied by
Osprey
. He told himself he was wrong, that they had moored the trawler farther out. He broke into a run, struggling against the gale, and made his way to the end of the wharf. There were no other empty slips, and no sign of
Osprey
. He was about to turn back and walk the wharf once more when the night again came alive with lightning, a blue-white sheet that illuminated the whole horizon. The flash pulled his eyes seaward. Far out in the harbor, nearing its mouth, was the silhouette of a boat.

There was no question in Jeff’s mind. The boat was
Osprey
, and she was headed directly for the rocks. The white light faded back into blackness, but Jeff stayed rooted to the dock, his eyes straining to pierce the darkness, his mind crying out for another flash of lightning to let him see that the boat had swept past the beckoning fingers of stone. The seconds crept by.

Max Horton was staring numbly out the windshield of the wheelhouse when the sheet of lightning tore the curtain of darkness from his eyes and he realized instantly that the boat was going on the rocks. They
loomed dead ahead, only yards away, the sea swirling around them, churning itself into foam as it battered at the ancient barrier.

The imminent peril jerked him out of the lethargy he had sunk into during the past thirty minutes, and he grabbed a life jacket, securing it around his waist. Then he left the wheelhouse and began preparing the dinghy for launching. He pulled its cover free and released the lines that secured it to the davits, then began lowering it into the turbulent sea as it swung free.

He was too late.

The tiny dinghy hit the water and was immediately caught in the eddying currents around the reef. It swamped, then settled into the water, only its gunwales still above the surface.

Finally
Osprey
too became entangled in the furious currents, and her stern swung around. Broadside, she hurled herself onto the rocks, shuddering as her planking split amidships. She settled in the water, groaning and complaining, as the sea pressed in upon her, grinding hear against the rocks, tearing her to pieces.

Beneath the surface one of the fuel tanks collapsed under the pressure, and suddenly the hull filled with fumes.

Seconds later,
Osprey
exploded.

Max Horton was blown overboard by the force of the explosion, briefly stunned by the icy water, but began swimming as soon as he came to the surface. It was only a gesture—the tide took him, pulled him away from the flaming wreckage, pulled him away from what might have been the security of the rocks. As soon as he realized what was happening he stopped swimming and rolled over on his back, to watch his
trawler go up in flames. He felt the cold begin to grip him, felt the lethargy sink in.

And then the wreck began to fade from his vision. At first he thought it was because he was drifting out on the tide, but then he knew it was something else. Silently, he apologized to Jeff for what had happened, then gave in to the sea. His eyes closed and the storm suddenly was no longer threatening. Now it was lulling him, rocking him gently to sleep. He looked forward to the sleep, though he knew he would never wake up. …

The ball of fire rising from the sea didn’t register on Jeff immediately. It wasn’t until the roar of the explosion hit him seconds later that he realized what had happened. By then the flames had become a fiery beacon in the mouth of the harbor, an inferno of glowing red intertwined with veins of oily black smoke. Then the other fuel tank blew and a second ball of fire rose into the night sky. Jeff Horton, his mind numb with shock, began crying softly, his tears mixing with the rain and salt spray.