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The little boy went charging across the empty, hard sand of the beach. The cliffs rose high to his right; the sea thundered in large, glassy gray clouds. Mist struck his face with force, and the wind tore at the institutional shirt he wore. His face was filled with anguish.
Behind him, signs littered the dunes by the beach road.warning: treacherous currents. warning: high tides. warning: sharp drop-offs and sneaker waves. warning: no lifeguard on duty.no swimming.no wading.by town ordinance.
Still he ran across the Oregon beach, all alone except for an eagle circling overhead. And a solitary man, leaving his battered truck and chasing after him.
The boy was very small against the sea. He was only nine, and tiny for his age. His name was sewn on the back of his shirt. The wind lifted his blond hair as he ran, and the sea rushed up to greet him.
The water was shockingly, breathtakingly cold. He had never been in the ocean before. He’d had no idea how icy the water would be, how swift and unmistakable its power. The first wave nearly knocked him down. The second flooded his pants and drove the air from his lungs. Soon he was floundering, and yet he pushed forward, out to the highpitted rocks where the sea lions roared; the glassy sea was now a sun overhead, a yellow curse that fell over them all.
His feet left him. One moment he could feel the sand underneath him, and the next he was out in the waves, being tossed like a cork. His shirt, sopping wet, was almost pulled off his body, and the sea seemed to want his sneakers. The current was so swift, so strong—the outgoing tide grabbed the boy in delight and spun him out to sea. His face bobbed in the waves. All he could taste was salt. All he could see was sun.
This is how I die, he thought. He closed his eyes.
The man running from the truck was large and long. At least his shadow was, as he pounded across the sand in battered work boots. The wind tore his cries from his lips. He dove into the ocean after the boy without hesitation. But the sea was so big, the waves a terrible force between the two capes, roaring at the empty sand. The waves nearly knocked the man down. The undertow sucked at his boots. He could not see anything. He splashed deeper into the churning waves, scanning the watery horizon, screaming the boy’s name. Over and over again he screamed, thrashing in the surf, spreading his hands in the water, his calloused fingers empty.
Dennis!he screamed.Dennis!
Out in the waves, the boy gasped and sputtered. Salt water filled his mouth, and his eyes opened wide in surprise. He took a deep breath, and the water filled his lungs. It burned worse than anything he could have ever imagined, but it was not as bad as things that had happened to him before. He felt his body suddenly become light as his lungs became heavy, filled with water.
With a hard yank, the sea grabbed the boy and pulled him down under the surface, into a watery paradise of sparkling blue and rushing currents.
His body was never found.
Twenty Years Later
The shopkeeper’s bell rang above the market door. The market in Eagle Cove reminded Larry Palmer of long-ago corner stores, the kind with a butcher counter and a produce section full of bins of dusty vegetables and unwaxed apples. There were aisles of detergents and soaps, boxed generic macaroni and canned milk, chocolate buttons, dry flour, a few rows of seasonings, and a case full of hot dishes like scalloped potatoes and ham, all cooked in the kitchen in the back. It was, in short, everything a man needed to live.
The teenage girl behind the counter was a local. She had frizzy hair, tied back from her face with a red bandanna.
“The spaghetti bake, please,” he said.
The girl scooped it into a cardboard clamshell, then wrapped the container firmly with plastic wrap. She added a plastic fork, though he had told her before he didn’t need any forks. His cabin was getting full of them.
“I’m good on forks,” he said.
She put the fork down and looked away. She must see hundreds of people come and go, he thought. Travelers who came in whining about the cold and unfriendly beach, retirees like him who came here and then died. This was not a family place.
She handed him the warm parcel and then gave him an unexpected smile. Maybe, after so many months here, he was starting to be accepted. Or maybe she just felt sorry for him.
It had been his late wife, Marjorie, who had wanted to come here.Let’s retire to the coast, Larry, she kept saying after he left the force. They had looked at real estate listings, quickly pricing themselves out of the more touristy towns with quaint names and taffy shops, and had finally chosen Eagle Cove, far away from everything, with an ocean so unrulythat local ordinances had been passed to prohibit wading. They had found the cabin the week of her diagnosis, and for some reason, he had felt compelled to go through with it all. Now Marjorie was in an urn on his mantel, and he wondered what the hell he was doing.
He paid for the spaghetti bake and left. When he looked back, the girl was looking away.
He took the long way home, because he had nothing better to do. The road was shifting with sand moved by the wind. The beach itself was empty, except for flocks of sandpipers racing on tiny legs.
He passed under the large metal signs dotting the low-lying dunes before the flat, innocent-looking spill of sand. He often mused about how he had moved to a beach town where the beach was dangerous.
He had never been so bored in his life.
He turned up the dune road, heading to his place. He could see the light he had left on, in the window. The other homes on the road were dark. Most were summer rentals and investment properties, for a wave of tourists that never came. His thighs began to ache with the climb. The air was heavy with the scent of the pines, bent backward from the wind, and the yellow primroses lining the road.
At the top of the dune was the local cemetery. He hadn’t known it when he bought the place. Marjorie would have gotten a kick out of it, he thought. She was a big one for antique stores and Ouija boards. Her laughter would scare the devil, he had often joked.
How he missed that laugh now.
He stopped at the top of the dune, taking in the view. From here he could see the entire coastline, from the mountain that looked like a dog with its paws in the sea—crashing in anger at its feet—to the long curl of waves, white against blue; and, finally, the distant, shimmeryhorizon. About twenty miles down the beach was another mountain, its snout in the sea. The ocean clamored in between these two capes, raging and constantly in conflict with itself. In the distance, massive rocks rose from the sea. Sometimes, at night, he could hear the sea lions bellowing for their mates, and could imagine their slippery, cold, wet bodies.
