Chapter 4
Three Days Later
A persistent drizzle soaked the
Oregon coast saturating the land, the trees, creating a somber, disquieting scent
of another world. The floating carpet of clouds caressed the trees lining the
higher edges of the surrounding hills. The moment felt at home, yet foreign to
Sharon after having been away from its recognizable embrace for so long. Not
yet acclimated, the sleep deprived feeling hovered around her eyes like the misty
vapor kissing the trees. A shiver from the chapping wind made its presence known
with a metallic tonality. She stood silent and empty, long after the others had
left the grave site. She could hear nothing but the fringe of the tent, that
covered the grave, flap in the strong breeze. Behind her about twenty yards
away her brother Nathan stood next to Ian and the pastor who had performed the
final ceremony. Behind them, beyond the gated area, a single file of cars streamed
away into the afternoon mist until only one remained.
She sensed the unfriendly vapor
pierce into her soul searching for a path of escape. Not finding an outlet, it fermented
deep within her. Dispirited, she tried to bravely stand against its frigid
taunts until she began to shiver even more. Never had she felt so hollow, so
empty, so helpless, and so confused at the same time. A slow, deep breath did
little to mitigate the heaviness that confined her soul. Her thoughts flowed
forward and backward, searching for answers, seeking an avenue of escape where
none appeared to exist. She was desperate to bargain a measure of comfort from
God, but in her detached, sleep deprived state, she could not bring herself to question
him. Guilt threatened her heart as she wanted to blame God, but in her deepest
hidden chambers where hope still resided, she could not bring herself to do so.
Her mind drifted to a time when
she was a young girl, barely old enough to remember. They were no more than
flashes really, moments snared in the blur of a child’s memories. She was
holding her father’s hand and Nathan was sitting alone not far away. She saw
her father standing beside a grave not unlike this one with his head bowed with
tears dripping from his face. He turned to her and knelt low to look her in the
eye.
“Why are you crying daddy?” She
remembered asking.
He forced a smile and said,
“Someday, you will understand.” No more could she could remember from that day,
and now, yes, she did understand.
The 303 was refloated and towed
to a drydock up the Umpqua River out past where the community of Reedsport hugged
its banks. Bill Anderson’s body washed up on the beach a few days after the
accident. The two broken bodies of the lost Coast Guard crewmen a day after
that. Their remains were shipped away to their respective families, their coffin’s
draped with an American Flag.
Jack’s body was never found. Somehow his grave
seemed empty knowing he was not really there leaving a painfully open void that
lacked the peace of closure.
“Sharon, I’ll stay here with you as long as
you want.” Nathan tried to comfort his sister.
She lifted his arm at the elbow
pulling it close to her and leaned her head against his strong shoulder. He patted
her hand with a tenderness he found difficult to express.
“It’s time we let him go,” she
said in a hushed voice, “I’ll be okay.”
Nathan nodded in agreement and
as they turned to walk away, Sharon asked, “Have you spoken to Matt?”
Nathan hesitated, stopped walking
and tightened his shoulders.
“…No.”
Winchester Bay,
Oregon
Harbor Office
Station Umpqua River
Two days later
Master Chief Adams, lifted the newspaper
and casually eyed the frontpage image as he stepped next to the window
overlooking Winchester Bay harbor. His once athletic physique sagged a bit in a
more age-appropriate fashion. His hair was
thinner and grayer around the edges, and although still thin, his gut tugged on
the belted waist line of his kakis. When he was a young man, he hired on as a
crewman with several of the commercial trawlers. That experience gave him a
great admiration for the sea, and an even greater admiration for the men who
must make a living from it. Those few years taught him independence and
instilled within him a degree of toughness that still influenced his decision
making even now.
The evenings came early this
time of year and the setting sun decorated the underside of a bank of clouds
that hovered over the harbor. Against this backdrop, the uneven rigging of the
trawlers Midnight Sun and the Marc Allen II, the ME II as everyone called her,
rocked gently amongst the forest of other lines and outriggers as the wake from
the passing trawler Harmony, just in, rolled across the harbor. The ME II was
Nathan’s boat, the sister ship to Jacks Marc Eagle. He had grown to know and
respect these people, his friends now, and he had witnessed them suffer through
difficult times.
Some seasons were leaner than others, they
were never great, but all the crews were a family of sorts. Competitors in a profession
of diminishing returns, comrades against remorseless elements, they supported
each other. When one suffered, they all mourned.
Winchester Bay for many of them
was the only piece of dry land they knew. Too many of them were no longer following
their chosen way of life, too old to continue the hard ways of making a living off
the sea, or were dead. He felt sadness to some extent knowing how a nostalgic way
of life that barely clung to existence, was lingering toward mediocrity. Sons
and daughters left the profession in search of a better, easier life dwindling
the fishing fleet to a few older hulks. Many of the sea worthy ones were sold
off at auction to the large fishing fleets operating out of Seattle or
Vancouver. The few independents that remained faced an uncertain future. In
their place, commercial charter boats took up the slack and tourism grew in importance.
While it should not have bothered him, it did. An old school graduate from what
was affectionately called ‘The Old Guard’, he was not inclined to readily let
go of what he believed important just for the sake of progress.
Back
in his early days of working out of this harbor refuge, Winchester Bay was full
then with the harbor crisscrossed with the rigging of dozens of trawlers, and
fewer charter boats, with homes dotting the hills and tucked into the corners
of the inlet. All were lit with glowing fireplaces belching smoke that mix
across the lower sections of the hills. The only tourists were local folks from
around the state who’d trailer their own private boats down for a weekend of
fishing during the salmon season, or those who could afford to rent a charter
boat. Now it seemed they came in droves during the summer months when the bar
moderated, but it wasn’t the same.
What was once a quaint hidden
community was beginning to turn into a tourist trap. The state and county
wanted to promote the area to bring in dollars and by doing so this once quiet
little harbor became crowded with RV’s, ATV’s, and trailer boats operated by ‘trailer
sailors’ more inclined to get drunk and into trouble than catch salmon, thus making
his life all the more difficult.
Most of the stations search and rescue (SARs)
operations fell between Memorial Day and Labor Day as the tourist showed up.
They tended to be mostly routine missions mixed with an occasional higher-level
rescue. The winter months saw fewer missions but they were also the more
dangerous ones, for that was when the bar grew restless. The yearly SAR total
would commonly hit four hundred or more. Their record for a single day was twenty-seven
on a 4th of July weekend when hundreds of boats crossed the moderated
bar, all of them avoidable, routine calls. With a small crew of barely over
twenty men, it put a strain on their ability to answer that many calls. But,
answer they did. Another four months or so would pass before the next summer
rush began. For now, he was content to ride the relative quiet of what remained
of winter.
Most of the crewmen of the
Umpqua River Lifeboat Station were barely out of their teens. Some of them
still suffered with seasickness every time they went on Bar Patrol. They were an
eager bunch if not a naive lot taken from various slices of America coming from
all corners of the country.
Sometimes he had to initiate some tough love
on a few of the more knuckleheaded of the bunch, but for the most part, about
all he had to do was keep them busy so they did not have time to get themselves
into trouble, and make sure they were trained and ready when they were on duty.
The group he had now was a good crew.
The trawler skippers of Winchester
Bay had ample experience handling bad weather, even so, he felt anxious about another
approaching storm noted in newspaper and weather reports along with weather
advisories that came in over an ancient teletype system the station still used.
Most trawler skippers would hunker down inside the harbor until a storm blew
itself out. Those caught outside the bar would ride it out for as long it blew.
Each day spent locked inside meant fewer dollars to make it through the year. The
leaner the times became, he feared the need to earn a few more dollars would
outweigh the threat posed by a storm resulting in some to take unnecessary
risks in an already risky profession.
“Mac you and me are a lot like those old
trawlers sitting out there,” Pete Hancock blurted out.
Pete was about ten years older than Chief
Adams having retired from the Coast Guard, a good number of years ago now. He
was truly a relic of ‘The Old Guard’ when all they had for breakfast was a cup
of coffee and probably a hangover. He was average height, but a stocky man,
balding now, but was tough as barnacles. His current job as Harbor Master was
supposed to have been only a temporary job until they could find a suitable replacement.
Years later he still held the position. He and Mac spent a lot of time together
over the years. In many ways they missed the old life…in many ways they did not.
Their friendship was solidified by sharing difficult and at times tragic events
from their time together in the Coast Guard.
Chief Adams closed the newspaper,
then tossed it onto the dark walnut desk. “How you figure that?”
Pete grinned showing his pipe tobacco-stained
teeth, and kicked his feet across the edge of the desk placing his hands behind
his head.
“We’re rusting hulks from a by-gone era and
we’ve lost all our charm long ago.”
Chief Adams snickered under his
breath.
“You never had much charm to lose
my good friend.”
“Maybe not…but I’ve weathered
many storms like most of those old tubs out there. The trick is to know when to
tie up for the last time and never risk it again.”
Chief Adams tossed a skeptical look his way, “That’s
what I’ve tried to figure out. How do you know when to tie it up, when to let
go?”
“You don’t, but that’s what
makes life a gamble. It does not matter what you do for a living, sooner or
later, the way I figure it, your old body will let you know. Just like those
old tubs out there, something will break down that can’t be fixed, and that’s
when you say I’ve had enough. Then there are the pencil-neck bean counters who
think they have the right to dictate who does what and when. They force you into
an either ‘take it, or leave it’ decision.”
Chief Adams took a few seconds
before responding and continued to stare out the window. Retirement sounded wonderfully
tempting.
“How old are you now Pete?”
“Well over sixty.”
“You ever think you’ve had enough,
ready to kick back and retire for good?”
Pete hesitated before answering
allowing a whimsical look to overcome his normally stoic expression.
“I ain’t exactly in my prime
anymore, but I figure I got a few good years left to give before I hand it up.
I probably would retire for good if I weren’t so dedicated. I could use some
help around here though.”
“Dedicated? That’s a laugh. Thought
you were going to hire someone?”
“I would…but I can’t find anybody
good enough who wants it badly enough, and those who do want it don’t have a
clue how to do the job.”
The Chief snickered under his breath
again and faced the harbor.
“Pete, you ever have any doubts after
you retired from the Coast Guard…I mean about why you did what you did for so
long…was all those years worth it, did they mean anything?”
Pete rolled his head to one side
and kicked his muddy shoes against the table leg and dislodged a handful of mud
clods.
“You get’n all sentimental in
your old age? Listen, I fought those pencil-neck personnel officer guys all the
way through the process. I didn’t want to quit, but they made me. Budget cuts
they said…bunch of nonsense if you ask me.”
“That isn’t what I asked. Was it worth it, all those years? Wasn’t
there a time you wondered, what if, what if I had done something else?”
Again, Pete hesitated and didn’t
immediately answer. Instead, he stood and walked to the window as the sun hovered
just above the horizon.
“See the Midnight Sun sitting
over there.”
“Yeah, so.”
“Old John Hansen now owns it.”
“I know that.”
“I pulled him and his crew off the
old Sea Scamp when they went up on the south jetty during the storm of ’61, and
all we had back then were those old 36foot wooden jobs. That was the second
worse storm I ever saw, turned that old Sea Scamp plumb to kindling, like the Marc
Eagle did. Pert near lost our boat too. They’d been crab fodder had we not been
there. You know his grandson now works for me during the summer, good kid too.
And, there’s Joe Brown over there, operates the Harmony. His old rig the South
Wind took a rouge breaker across the stern and sank in three minutes just outside
the number two buoy a few years before that. The hulk is still there at sixty
fathoms…fished him and his son out of the drink. His son is a doctor now living
somewhere around Portland…has a real nice family.” He paused for a minute and tamped
out the ash from his often used, old pipe.
“What about that drug bust you made back in ‘68,
they said it was worth close to what…a million maybe two, three million dollars
on the streets…you caught those dealers dead to rights. Just think of the kids
whose lives’ might have been ruined had those nasty things got through. No Mac.
You tell me if it was worth it, and that doesn’t include all the idiot
trailer sailors we towed in or pulled out of the drink because of some idiotic
stunt they pulled. Between you and me Mac, I figure there’s a few hundred, maybe
a thousand people walking around right now who wouldn’t otherwise be here had
we not done our jobs. Just think of all the rookie kids who have come through this
station looking and acting like lost pups with peach fuzz on their upper lip,
some not even knowing the stern from the bow, and when they finally get
mustered out, they leave with a sense of purpose, young men with ideas and
confidence about who they are and how to face life. They lived more is a few
short years here than a dozen maybe twenty years doing something else. Was it
worth it all those years? Well…maybe instead of asking me or even yourself,
maybe you ought to ask all the people who owe their lives to that small group
of young men over the years who were willing to risk their lives, if it was- worth
it.”
Chief Adams did not respond, he
forced a grin slightly under a smirk. He realized Pete was right, but he still
wasn’t sure about the answer he was seeking. His attention was directed toward
the fueling dock that floated on the back side of the Coast Guard Umpqua River
Station’s boathouse about two hundred yards from the harbor office. He lifted a pair of binoculars and sighted on
the individual walking down the ramp. Tied to the dock was the venerable CG44331.
She was quite a rig, one of the early ones. Along with the 303, which was now
in dry dock for a refit after the accident, they were two of the most renowned
surfboats in the Guard having participated in countless rescues and accounted for
thousands of lives saved…and a few not so fortunate. The Chief stepped to the right
of his friend and propped his hand on his shoulder.
“You beat everything I ever saw
Pete.”
Pete snapped his head
around. A bewildered look covered his
expression. Stepping behind the desk, he sat deep into the comfortable chair then
leaned back, he extended his feet across the edge of the table and relit his
pipe puffing a few times to insure it was burning. The pungent odor of the sweet
pipe tobacco filled the room. After one long puff that left a thin blue cloud
hovering over the desk, he said,
“You think too much Mac…life
ought to be easier at our age.”
“It oughta be, but it ain’t. Old
farts like you keep stirring up stuff.”
“How you figure that.”
“Seems like every time I got you
figured out, think I can see through that hard crust of yours, you come up and
say something profound that shoots that impression all to pieces.”
“That’s what I do best.”
Chief raised his brow and dropped
his chin as he inspected his friend in the eyes.
“Say profound words, or stir up
things.”
“No…shoot things all to pieces.”
They both laughed and in the middle of their laughter a voice from just outside
the door caught their attention.
“Well, I certainly have to agree
with that statement.” Pete and the Chief focused their attention on the young
lady standing in the doorway with her arms crossed leaning against the jam like
she belonged in their private conversation. It took a few seconds, but both of
them at the same time recognized Sharon.
Pete spoke first, “Well, I’ll be a sorry sack
of seagull dung, oh…excuse me…Sharon child…”
Chief crossed the room and reached
around her shoulders giving her a giant hug that almost took her breath away. There
was some shuffling of chairs as Pete and Chief made room for her to sit. She appeared
somewhat embarrassed by all the commotion and coyly tucked her chin smiling
politely in the process.
Pete
stuttered without thinking, then almost regretted it, “So sorry to hear about
your dad…I…uh…never knew a finer man. Sorry I couldn’t make the funeral.”
Chief Adams cast a shut-up
look toward Pete, but before he could interject anything, Sharon said, “Thank
you Pete…actually, I understand you’re looking for an assistant Harbor Master.”
Pete’s eyes lit up and he leaned
forward immediately interested, “That I am.”
“I could sure use a job, if you’ll
have me. You know I did spend my summers helping out around here while I was in
college so I have a pretty good idea of what goes on around this place.”
Pete glanced over at Chief Adams
who cast a supporting nod in agreement knowing Pete’s answer before he said it.
“Well yeah, you bet your
sweet…oh, excuse me Sharon…I mean…when can you start?”
“You say the word Pete, and I’ll be ready to
go, but…although, I may need a few days to get settled and all.”
“Tell you what, consider
yourself rehired. You’re still on record in the files, so I’ll put you on the
payroll first thing Monday morning. Get yourself settled, and you can start anytime
you’re ready after that. We’ll fill out all the rest of the paper work later.”
A smile stretched across her
face. She always loved working in the harbor office, “Pete, you are the best. Thank
you so much. It’s so good to see both of you again. With all the things
surrounding dad and all, I haven’t been able to think too much about anything
else, but now that I am back, well, this will really help.”
“None of us did Hun. Tell me
again where you took off to,” Chief Adams asked.
“New Guinea, up in the
highlands. You remember I was there helping out a missionary doctor and his
wife.”
“Oh yeah, sort of took off all
of a sudden like if I remember, what four, five years ago now.”
“Over five, almost six years.”
“Yeah ole Matt acted like a lost
puppy there for the longest time after you left,” Chief Adams cut his statement
short realizing that once again his mouth started moving before
he really thought about what he was saying.
Sharon politely smiled and said, “Actually, I
haven’t seen Matt yet.”
“Well, I won’t sugar coat
it for you Sharon. Matt got busted up pretty good, lucky he survived. I guess
you have heard about what happened.”
Pete made a zipper motion across
his mouth and Chief Adams stopped in mid-sentence.
“Mac. I know most of what happened,
at least what Nate told me. Just have not been able to assimilate it all yet.
Probably best to just let Matt get better before I talk to him.”
“Maybe. He is going to need mostly
time.” Mac replied.
“I’m afraid Nate will need some
too.”
“Nate? Well sure, but he’s a
tough old seagull.”
Sharon smiled again, “Oh, he’s
okay, mostly, just that, I don’t know, whenever I bring up him going to see how
Matt is doing, he balks at it, acts kind of putout really. He won’t talk about
it much, but he’s never been much of a talker anyway.”
“Well, don’t you worry about old
Nate. He’ll be okay. You just take care of yourself, get yourself situated and
get back to work whenever you’re ready.” Pete jumped in.
As Sharon stood, Pete stumbled
to his feet and she gave him another friendly hug, “Thank you so much for the
job, it will sure make things easier. I’ll get back with you next week, Tuesday,
if that is okay. You can count on me to do a good job for you.”
“Honey, you got more grit than the saltiest
old sailor around these parts, and you’re a might purdyier too. I know you will do
a good job.” He slapped his hands together and danced a clumsy jig spinning in
a circular motion, “Hot dang it…I might just get to retire for real after all.”
They laughed and carried on for another few minutes before she left.
As she sat inside her rental car, jet lag fatigue
continued to weigh heavy on her shoulders, and she felt a palpitation in her chest.
She closed her eyes, lowered her head, took another deep, quivering, breath,
and drove away as she wiped a tear from her eye.
