Cry for the Strangers Page 0,60

the wife of the fisherman out to the Sands of Death and offered her to the sea. Usually they hanged her in the woods out there, but sometimes they just strangled her or broke her neck and left her on the beach.”

“Jesus,” Clem breathed softly.

The old man smoked his pipe for a while and stared out at the calm sea. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he said finally. “I hadn’t thought about that story for years, not until Miriam Shelling died. But I wonder. I just wonder if maybe the Indians didn’t know some things we don’t know. We live off the sea here, and what do we do in return? Dump our garbage in. I suppose we can’t blame the sea if she wants something more every now and then.”

“You mean you believe those old Indian stories?” Tad gasped.

Riley looked sharply at the younger man. “Got no reason not to,” he said. “And a lot of reasons to believe them. I’ve been living with the sea for most of a century now and one thing I’ve learned. Never underestimate her. You may think you’ve got her by the tail but you haven’t. Any time she wants to, that ocean can pick herself up and smash you down.

“At night, usually,” he went on, more softly now. “You have to be particularly careful of her at night. She can be smooth as glass, and you almost fall asleep. But that’s what she wants. She wants you to relax. Then all it takes is one good wave and it’s over. She’s got you. Just like she got Pete Shelling, and that other fisherman so long ago.”

“And their wives too?” Tad scoffed.

“That’s the beach,” Riley replied. “And it’s just as dangerous as the ocean, particularly at night when the tide’s high and the wind’s blowing. The Indians used to call them the night waves. It was when the night waves were coming in that they made their sacrifices. …”

He trailed off and there was a long silence while Corey and Ledbetter digested what Riley had told him.

“Do you really believe all that?” Ledbetter finally asked.

“I do,” Riley said. “And if you live long enough, you’ll believe in it too.” As if to signal an end to the conversation, Riley tamped out his pipe, put it back in his pocket, and stood up. “What do you say we call it a day?”

Clem and Tad stowed the nets and the three men left the wharf, heading for the tavern for an afternoon drink. When they had gotten their glasses and settled at a table, Tad Corey suddenly spotted Harney Whalen.

“Hey, Ham,” he called. “Come over here a minute.”

The chief approached their table and pulled up a chair.

“You’re part Indian, aren’t you?” Tad asked him. Whalen nodded.

“Well, Riley here has just been telling us some old Indian legends.”

Whalen studied the old man and seemed to consider his words carefully. “What were you telling them about?” he asked.

“The night waves,” Riley replied. “And how dangerous they are.”

Harney Whalen fell silent and appeared to be thinking. Then he smiled at Corey and Ledbetter.

“I know about the night waves,” he said. “And you can relax. The night waves are only dangerous to strangers. And we’re not strangers, are we?”

13

Chip Connor was up early the next morning after a night of fitful sleep disturbed by dreams in which he saw the faces of the Shellings staring at him, their dead eyes accusing him. The dreams made no sense. Each time they woke him he had lain in bed breathing hard, watching the shadows play on the ceiling until he drifted off into another nightmare. Finally, as the sun came up he had left his bed and put on a pot of coffee, then sat by the window sipping his coffee and trying to figure out what his dreams had meant. But he came to no answers—they were simply dreams.

At nine, he decided it was time to start the day. He dressed slowly, almost reluctantly. He put on his uniform, knotting the necktie carefully, and surveyed himself in the mirror. He grinned self-consciously as he realized that his dark, almost brooding good looks combined perfectly with the uniform to make him look almost a caricature of a recruitment-poster cop.

He drove more slowly than usual as he made his way toward the village, but it wasn’t until he neared the Harbor Road turnoff and saw the Palmers’ gallery that he realized why he had been feeling strange all morning. He pulled off