Far Country (39 page)

           
George pushed up the throttle, and the
Pearl
skipped across the waves
like a tiny stone.  Steve had to clutch the gunwale to keep his balance.
George had more sense than he’d given him credit for, Steve admitted to
himself.  Even if they had managed to catch up with David out there, what
could they have really done? They had no radio to call for help, and Steve had
no idea if David was carrying a weapon.

           
Thirty minutes later, George slowed the
Pearl
as they neared the marina,
and idled toward a large cabin cruiser at the end of the third dock. 
“She’s back, Steve,” he said, pointing.  “You sure it was this boat?”

           
“Steve studied the
Mardi Gras
for a moment. “Yeah, that’s it,” he
confirmed, but he did not feel any relief at the sight of it. “Let’s tie the
Pearl
up and head over to Beth’s house.”

           
George nodded in agreement.  Steve picked up Beth’s personal gear that she
had left behind and the two men drove silently to her house.  Steve saw
the black Viper parked in the rear of the house.  He hadn’t noticed it
this morning…had David been there when he’d come by to get Beth? Steve had
assumed that David had moved back into bachelor’s quarters on base, but
apparently he was actually staying with Beth. No wonder Beth was acting so
strangely lately...

           
“Pull over here!” George said suddenly. Steve pulled over to the curb and
looked questioningly at George. They were still a couple of houses away from
Beth’s driveway.  George reached for Beth’s canvas tote and opened the
passenger door. “I think I’d better go to the door by myself,” he cautioned
Steve. “If David thought you two hooked up, seeing you will only make things
worse. I’ll be able to tell if she’s all right.”

           
Reluctantly, Steve nodded in agreement.  As much as he wanted to see for
himself that Beth was okay, knocking on her door would just be adding more fuel
to the fire if David was already thinking the worst about them.

           
George crossed the street and knocked sharply on the front door. He knocked
again as the silence stretched on too long. At last, he heard footsteps and
Beth appeared, wearing a terry cloth robe and not much else. She opened the
door a few inches and peaked out through the slit. “What do you want, George?”
She asked in an impersonal tone of voice.

           
This is wrong
, George thought apprehensively. Normally, Beth simply
hollered down the hall for him to let himself in. Her face, what he could see
of it, seemed pale and blotchy. Not what you’d expect after a day of lazing on
the
Mardi Gras
III.

           
George cleared his throat and spoke quietly. “Steve had a little trouble
getting back,” he began. “Seems he couldn’t find the key.”

           
“But it was right under the…” The note of exasperation drained away as she
glanced up the stairs. “Oh,” she finished lamely. “But he’s back now and the
Pearl’s
okay?”

           
“Yeah, except there’s a problem with the radio.” George told her.

           
“Problem?” Beth asked softly, with a note of dread in her voice.

           
“Yeah,” George confirmed. “It doesn’t work anymore. The mike’s been ripped out
of the set.”  Beth looked at the floor, but she didn’t respond.

           
George studied her for a moment. “You
wanna
go get
something to eat, Beth?” He asked softly.

           
Beth shook her head slightly. “N-no, I really can’t…”

A crash from the top of the stairs
startled them both. Instinctively, Beth turned her head toward the sound and
George’s eyes widened in shock. The bruise covered most of her cheek and had
caused her eye to swell almost shut. Already it had taken on a purple shade
that made George wince to even look at it.

           
“Oh my God, Beth!” He hissed at her.

           
Beth touched her cheek gingerly and forced a pained smile.  “Does it look
pretty bad?” she asked.  “I tripped over my flippers this afternoon, and
crashed right into the guard rail.”

           
George stared at her silently for a long moment before he spoke. “Beth, you
don’t have to stay,” George pleaded quietly, so only she would hear him. “Walk
out with me now. We’ll take care of you.”

           
Beth’s eyes darted back toward the stairs, then to the tote bag in George’s
hand. She snatched it from him. “Thanks for bringing my stuff by and letting me
know the Pearl’s back safely,” she said loudly, as if he had never
spoken.  “I’ll be over to the Marina in a day or two to check on
everything.
G’night
, George.”

           
Even as he lunged to grab her hand, Beth shut the door firmly in his
face.  He heard the bolt slide into place, and Beth’s feet ascending the
stairs.
This was not cool, not cool at all.

           
Abruptly he turned and walked back to Steve’s SUV. “This is messed up!” He
announced angrily, slamming the door hard enough to rock the entire vehicle.

           
“Was she okay?” Steve asked anxiously.

           
George glared angrily. “She wouldn’t come out. She slammed the door in my face!
I think the jerk was listening at the top of the stairs, too.”

           
Steve took a deep calming breath. “That’s possible. He is the jealous type,” he
cautioned George.

           
“Enough to hit her, kind of jealous?” George spat angrily.

           
“Hit her?” Steve asked sharply.

           
George touched his cheek.  “It’s bruised, the entire left side of her
face. She
said
she fell and hit it on the boat this
afternoon.”  George laughed mockingly. “Right! Like she really thought I’d
believe
that
story with a father like mine.”  He looked up at
Steve, worry etching his young features.  “We need to call the police.”

           
Steve ground his teeth in frustration. “George, did she ask for help?” He asked
in a flat voice

           
“No, but she was acting like she was scared.” George replied stubbornly.

           
“She was right there at the door with you. Could she have come out of the house
if she wanted to?” Steve pursued.

           
George shook his head in dismay. “I asked her to come out!” He told Steve. “She
acted like I hadn’t even spoken! She just grabbed her bag out of my hand and
slammed the door in my face!” Anger, hurt and worry echoed in every word George
said.

           
Steve slumped in the seat, his eyes dark with concern and again felt
overwhelmed with helplessness. “If we call the police, they’ll come out,
George, but they won’t do anything unless she wants to file a report. If she
does, he’ll be out tomorrow on bail and he’ll want to pay her back for getting
him in trouble. If she doesn’t, he’ll be twice as mad that someone called the
police and he may really hurt her. If she won’t ask for help, they are kind of
limited in what they can do.” He turned the ignition and pulled away from the
curb.

           
“So that’s it?” George asked incredulously. “He’s beating on her, and we’re
just
gonna
drive away?”

           
“Just a little way,” Steve replied.  “If he’s watching, we need to be
leaving.”

           
Steve pulled off on a side street and parked in the driveway of a house with a
‘For Sale’ sign on the lawn.  He pulled out his cell phone and started
punching keys.

           
A little over an hour passed. At last, a black Toyota pulled up in the driveway
beside Steve’s SUV.  Pastor Graham rolled down the window.

           
“Any luck?” Steve asked him anxiously.

           
Reverend Graham grinned, hi blue eyes twinkling.  “Turns out, I served
with David’s C.O. a few years back while he was still wet behind the ears. He
owes me some favors still for my discretion in handling his youthful
indiscretions. God is good!”

           
“So he’s willing to help us?” Steve prodded.

           
Reverend Graham checked his wrist watch. “Yep. David ought to be getting a
phone call right about now. Some snafu with their gear shipment. 
Paperwork so tangled it will take all night to clean up.”

           
Steve closed his eyes in thankfulness. “That’s a start, at least. If we can
just get to her and convince her that we can keep her safe here…”

           
“Ah but that’s not all,” Reverend Graham interrupted Steve. “By morning, David
will find that he has new orders to leave by oh nine hundred, where he and a
select few other exemplary marines will undergo two weeks of training with the
Navy Seals in Norfolk,
Virginiaaaa
,” Reverend Graham
held up a finger to hush Steve’s next comment, “
folloooohwed
by a temporary assignment in Charlotte, where he will replace a recruiter who’s
also misbehaving and needs to be reassigned.”

           
George stared at the old man in the beat up black Toyota in awe. “Who ARE you?”
He asked.

           
Reverend Graham smiled at the boy, liking what he saw. “Just a former navy
chaplain,  still serving a higher power,” he replied modestly.

           
A few minutes later, the three men saw David’s black Viper cruise past the end
of their road. Steve could just make out David sitting hunched and irritated in
the driver’s seat,
cammies
still unbuttoned and his
cover jammed low on his forehead.

           
George looked from Steve to Reverend Graham impressed.  “Awesome work!” He
congratulated them. “And here I thought all you Christians ever did was sit
around  on clouds playing harps.”

           
Reverend Graham clapped George on the shoulder.  “That’s just the devil’s
propaganda, son,” he told the boy. “Haven’t you ever heard ‘Onward Christian
Soldiers’? Not one word about harps and clouds. Being a Christian puts you in
the Lord’s army, and often includes guerrilla warfare.

           
“Now gentlemen,” Reverend Graham said, getting back into his Toyota. “I think
it is time we pay Beth a visit.”

           
“Answer the door, Beth,” Steve muttered, as he rang the bell for the third
time.  After a moment, George shouldered Steve out of the way. 

“Here, let me,” he said in
exasperation. He pulled his driver’s license out of his back pocket and shimmed
it through the door jam.  George wiggled the knob and with a soft click,
the door drifted open.  He shrugged at the sight of his companions’ raised
eyebrows. “Sometimes I crash on the couch when my step dad and me aren’t
getting along,” he explained. “We look out for each other,” he added defiantly,
and then stepped inside.

           
“Beth, you’ve got visitors!” He bellowed up the stairs.  “That reverend,
and your  diving buddy, Steve!”  George paused to listen for some
sort of response but the silence dragged on.  George moved to the first
landing on the staircase and paused uneasily.

           
“They really need to talk to you, Beth, so just come down and get it over
with!” He called again, his tone now half pleading, half commanding.

           
George wet his lips with his tongue.  “Beth, if you don’t come down I’m
coming up to get you,” he warned, but still there was no reply.

           
 George let out a muffled curse and bolted up the steps two at a time. A
moment later, his voice came down to them.  “Steve!  Help me!”

           
Steve realized that he was already poised on the bottom step, and quickly
followed the sound of George’s voice through a large bedroom and into the
master bath.

           
“Oh Lord…,” Steve paused and took in the scene.  Beth’s indulgently
feminine tribute to the Victorian era bath was now a mess of broken glass and
streaks of blood.  Glass apothecary jars lay in broken shards around the
base of the claw foot tub. The ornately patterned pink and white wallpaper was
torn and gouged where the heavy jars had smashed against the wall.  Beth
sat limply in the middle of it all, her head resting on the side of the
tub.  Blood trickled from a gash above her eye, and her hands and legs
were crisscrossed with bloody cuts from the glass shrapnel. Bruises and red
welts covered her arms.

           
George had already soaked a pink and white striped towel that he had pulled
from the ornate rack. Heedless of the glass, he knelt beside her and dabbed
awkwardly at the blood that still trickled from the gash down into Beth’s
eyes.  “We’re here now, Beth,” he crooned soothingly. “Don’t worry, he
won’t hurt you
any more
. You’re safe.”

           
Beth winced at his clumsy attempts to wipe off the blood, and lethargically
turned her head away.  “Tripped and fell on the wet floor,” she mumbled
tiredly through bruised and swollen lips. “
Tha’sall
.
Leave me alone, George - be all right in a little while.”