Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One (29 page)

"Oh, I’m sure he will be.” Karl replied,
“You popped him a good one, that’s for sure, but he’s tough,” he
grimaced, reaching for his dinner again, “and given his current
attitude I'm sure you're not the first guy to slug him one
recently. You learn that move in the war?"

"Yeah." Jack replied, remembering the long
afternoons, sweltering in the Southeast Asian sun, practicing
fighting forms on the blistering concrete runway at Can Tho.
Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, torturous hours of exercise
blanketing their minds from the horrors of the war around them.

"Never thought I'd need to do that again,
that's for sure."

"Well," Karl chuckled, "I was pretty sure
you didn't pick that up in Bible College."

Both men laughed at this, and then there was
a moment of silence as Karl's smile faded again.

"You realize,” he said, “that this means
that you're going to have to be even more careful around her? This
is a small town, and word about what happened today will get
around, I guarantee it. People are going to be watching you even
more closely now." Karl shook his head, frowning. "It's unfair, you
and I both know it, but what's fair and what's likely are worlds
apart."

"I can live with that," Jack said with a
grimace, "one point they did make clear in college was that, as
pastors, we could expect to be under the microscope most of the
time."

Karl breathed a long sigh.

"Boy isn't that the truth.” he agreed, “but
maybe it's for the best. There are a lot of temptations out there
and sometimes it's easier to turn away when you know that
somebody's probably watching,” Karl smiled, shaking his head, “the
irony being, of course, that God is always watching."

They talked some more as
sunlight faded from the bay. The pizza cooled and, piece-by-piece,
disappeared. Karl asked how the Easter performance was going, and
Jack gave him the rundown, doing his best Trevor Rigby impression
as he explained the
traditions
of the theatre. Karl
roared with laughter. The two discussed the coming summer, plans
for a second church camp-out, plans to paint the building, all the
minutia of keeping the ministry rolling and bringing the souls of
Long Beach to a saving knowledge of Christ.

Finally, Karl rose to his feet with a grunt,
rubbing the small of his back and yawning hugely.

"About time for me to head home, Jack,” he
said, “any later and I'll be too sleepy to drive."

"Well," Jack replied with a straight face,
"you can't sleep on my couch. I've heard you snoring at the office
and I want to get some rest!"

"How did I ever end up with a smarty-pants
like you, anyway?” Karl groaned, rolling his eyes beseechingly
towards heaven, as though done some great, unwarranted,
injustice.

"Just lucky?" Jack smirked,
holding the door open for him. "You know what the Book says,
the prayers of a righteous
man
…"

Karl laughed, turning to clap Jack on the
shoulder. "It's going to be okay, Jack," He said. "Once we've had a
chance to talk some sense to Kathy, I'm sure she'll do what's best.
I don't think Bill's likely to give you a hard time again, at least
until the swelling goes down and his nose stops smarting."

"I hope you're right, Boss," Jack said, "I
really do. You drive safe, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Will do," Karl replied and then disappeared
down the steps and around the side of the house. Jack could hear
his heavy footsteps as he made his way back up the path through the
rain to the parking lot of the hotel.

Karl had seen a lot in his four decades at
the pulpit, some bad, a lot more of it good.

His experiences, coupled with his devotion
to prayer and study of God's word, had built in him an above
average wellspring of wisdom.

(Though Karl would have said that it was
God's wisdom and that he just listened as best he could.)

Still, if you received the Pastor's counsel
on something, you could pretty much take it to the bank.

This time, however, Karl Ferguson's optimism
turned out to be, to the great misfortune of everyone concerned,
about as wrong as wrong could be.

*

After washing the plates and bagging the
trash, Jack settled down to read a few more chapters in the new
science fiction novel that Dottie had forced on him earlier in the
week. Laser swords and androids weren’t his usual cup of tea, but
Jack found the underlying theme of good versus evil to be
interesting. Sometime around eleven, he found his eyes refusing to
focus on the pages of the paperback and, slipping in a bookmark to
save his place; Jack snapped off the light and settled back into
his pillow.

He thanked God for the day, and asked for
His guidance in the ones to follow, praying for Kathy and
sincerely, if somewhat less fervently, for Bill. Moments later, he
was asleep.

When his eyes snapped open, in the cold,
predawn hours of early morning, Jack lay still for a few seconds,
trying to clear the cobwebs from his head, and determine what had
woken him.

His question was answered when someone or
something crashed along the deck and into the cabin’s wall. Jack
leaped to his feet and started across the darkened room as a heavy
fist pounded on the door. Still groggy with sleep, the thought that
he might be in danger came to Jack a split second before the locked
door of the cabin burst inward, the frame littering the front room
in a shower of splinters. Jack flipped on the overhead light, and
this unconscious action saved his life.

In the sudden blinding glare, the first shot
from the revolver went wide, the bullet punching through the door
of the refrigerator a foot to his left. Bill Beckman weaved through
the doorway, his face swollen and bruised, squinting and blinking
painfully as he raised the gun for a second shot. Jack leaped
forward, catching him in a tight embrace, his hand locking around
Bill's wrist, forcing the weapon down and away. Bill shouted
something, but his words were lost in the strident ringing in
Jack's ears. The two men struggled back and forth across the room,
overturning furniture as they went. As the deafening echo of the
pistol’s report began to fade, Jack could make out the steady
stream of profanities, spewn into his face in a gale of fetid,
boozy breath.

"Bill!” Jack bellowed, "What do you think
you're doing?"

Bill grunted as Jack slammed him back into a
wall of books, most of which came tumbling to the floor.

"You're dead, Jackie," he hissed, "You hear
me? You've messed around with my wife for the last time!"

He brought a knee up into Jack's groin,
connecting hard, and Jack gagged, barely able to keep his grip as
waves of pain and nausea swept over him.

"You’re crazy," Jack grunted, "You're out of
your mind, Bill! Nothing’s ever happened between me and Kathy; if
you weren't drunk all the time--"

Bill tried to knee him
again, but this time Jack was ready, waiting until his opponent had
one foot in the air before dropping to the floor and sweeping
Bill’s supporting leg out from under him. Bill dropped on top of
Jack, his elbow driving into Jack's ribs, bringing a dull crack
like splitting branches and white-hot pain. The pistol skittered
across the wood floor, coming to rest with a resounding
thump
, against the
leg of Jack's writing table.

With another grunt, Jack drove the heel of
his hand into Bill’s broken nose, and the bigger man screamed. Jack
threw him off and leaped towards the gun, only to come crashing
back to the floor as knife blades of pain speared his side. Thick
hot bile rose in his throat as he clutched at his cracked ribs and
hobbled across the room.

Bill had risen groggily, his head spinning
as much from the liquor and the punishment it had received that
day. Blood poured, anew, down his face as his eyes fell on the gun
that Jack was crab-walking across the floor towards. He cursed as
he launched himself across the room to get the pistol.

Again, he dropped onto Jack, and Jack
screamed as the sudden weight drove his injured ribs into the
floor. The two men rolled together in a confusion of arms and legs,
until Jack suddenly found himself on top, his knees pinning Bill's
shoulders to the ground. He paused a moment trying to catch his
breath as his side burned in agony. Bill stared up at him with
dark, hate-filled eyes.

"I'll kill you," he panted through clenched
teeth, "I'll kill you both before I'll let you have her!"

Jack looked into Bill's hate-crazed face and
went cold.

That look, that mixture of unvented rage and
unshakable resolve, was one that he had seen before. So many years
before that it took Jack a long, sweaty moment to remember, and
then the image of the Beckman's giant oak tree filled his mind. How
old had they been, ten? Twelve? He couldn't remember for sure, but
it had been summer, and both of them had been playing barefoot in
the front yard, having just returned with Bill's father from some
errand in town.

The object that had kept them occupied for
the last hour, and now focused their attention to the colossal old
oak, was a little balsa-wood airplane. Just that morning, John
Beckman, in a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, had lain a
hard-earned quarter on the counter of Jack's Market for the
toy.

The tiny aircraft, its thin wings striped
with bright red ink, a squared-jawed pilot drawn into the cockpit,
had made a number of daring flights from the Beckman porch already.
Finally it was determined the real test would have to come from the
high, dormered window of the attic. Moments after a much-regaled
takeoff, the cool breezes off Willapa Bay proved to be their
downfall as the little plane found itself hopelessly ensnared in
the upper branches of the oak tree.

Jack had been disappointed, but Bill was
livid. Toys were rare enough in his home that he wouldn't abandon
this one so quickly and, after a long, jaw-grinding moment, he
announced that he was going up to rescue the plane.

"Billy!" Jack had warned him, "Your pop said
to stay out of the tree. You’re gonna get a whipping!"

"Maybe," Young Bill had growled, "but I'm
getting my plane first…"

With that, he started barefoot up the tree
and for several breathless moments, it had appeared that he might
make good on his oath. Then the inevitable occurred as, reaching
for a branch just a little beyond his fingers, Bill had slipped,
tumbling from the height of the second story bedroom window, to the
ground below. Jack had winced at the audible snap of Bill's ankle
as he landed, and rushed to him, as his friend turned pale,
retching and crying out in pain. Jack had gotten a panicked arm
under the injured boy and started toward the house and adult help,
when Bill dragged him, hopping on his good foot, back to the
oak.

Jack had tried to argue with him, but to no
avail.

Billy Beckman, his pallid face awash with
sweat and tears, started back up the tree. Something in his face
caused Jack to step away, his protests dying in his throat.
Something frightening.

Young Jack Leland watched his friend climb,
hopping from one branch to the next, his broken ankle wobbling
sickeningly behind him. Bone-crushing determination locked Bill's
jaws so his screams of pain escaped muffled, through his teeth. It
was a sight that he would never forget.

Moments later the cheap, store-bought toy
had drifted to the ground, moments after that, Bill hopped from the
last branch and onto the grassy lawn, where he fainted dead away
into Jack's arms.

Suddenly it seemed as though some great
valve was turned in Jack's soul as all the anger and adrenaline
poured out of him.

He stared down into Bill face and realized
he was looking at a stranger, someone who bore no resemblance to
anyone he had ever known; a man who was going to kill him, or die
himself, in the effort. Jack felt weak and sick, tired deep in his
soul, as he drew his fist back and drove it into this stranger's
snarling, maddened face. Once, twice, three times he brought his
fist down with all the strength that was left in him, each time
connecting and driving Bill's head back into the floor with a
reverberating thud.

Pain screamed at him from already bruised
knuckles, joining with his fresh injuries in a throbbing duet
somewhere in a far back corner of Jack's mind. The fourth time his
fist came down, Bill's eyes rolled back in his head and his weakly
struggling arms collapsed to the floor. Jack rolled off him with a
groan, scooping up the pistol from beneath the desk, unconsciously
setting the safety, and placing it on the lowest shelf of the one
bookcase that was still standing.

As he lay, for a moment, exhausted and
panting, beside the comatose body of his once-friend, Jack could
feel blood trickling from his nose and down over his lips, but he
was too tired to wipe it away.

His little cabin was a mess. Books and
papers lay scattered near and far, furniture and pieces of
furniture were knocked about, and a pathetic, wheezing sound was
emanating from the hole that Bill's .38 had drilled through his
refrigerator. Orange juice bled from the bottom of the door.

Jack was sweating, shaking, the pain in his hand and ribs
returning in full force as he heaved himself from the floor. His
chest screamed in protest as he bent, grabbing Bill by one limp arm
and, gasping, drug him into the bedroom and up onto his bed. Bill
groaned when his head hit the pillow, and after thoughtfully
studying his lean, battered face for a moment, Jack drew back and
punched him one last time, making sure he was going to stay out
until the police arrived.

"Sorry, Billy," Jack mumbled, then turned
and staggered toward the door.