Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One Read Online Free PDF Page A

the center of the
dirt floor, well away from the walls and her bedding. Stars
twinkled brightly through the cracks in the roof, the
weather-beaten timbers having warped and shrunk with time.
    Exhausted, Cassie pulled her sleeping bag
from the depths of the duffel and rolled out her bed, lying just
within the circle of warmth, and munched on her meager supply of
granola and venison jerky.
    The jerky was a gift from a co-worker of her
mother's, whose husband went deer hunting in Texas each fall. The
salty meat was firm and tough, but tasty and her mother's friend
had sworn that it would keep for a year or more in an airtight
bag.
    The meat was filling, but it made her
thirsty. As much as she wanted to cool her throat with the remains
of her second water bottle, she knew that it would doom her to a
dry, miserable morning before she reached Vail, twenty miles short
of Tucson.
    So, after taking two small sips, she screwed
the cap on and stowed the bottle back in her bag. She sat, looking
into the tiny fire for a while.
    "You take care of yourself, Kiddo. I hope
you find what you're looking for."
    Guy's words drifted through her mind. Had he
known what she was planning? If anyone in the world could have
second-guessed her, it would have been Guy Williams, but no, surely
he would have stopped her if he had.
    Cassie slipped the small recorder from her
pocket and pressed the record button, watching the tiny red light
pop on as the tape began to roll.

    February
11 th
    "I'm spending my first night on the road in
an old barn off Highway 10. Guy and Grace think I caught the bus
and I’m on my way to Portland by now. I feel so bad, lying to them.
I'll have to call them in a couple of days to let them know I'm
okay. I don't know if I have a chance of finding my father, but I
have to try. I have plenty of time before fall term starts. I don't
have much money, but I can dip into my college account if I have
to. I want to look him in the eye; I want him to know what he lost
when he walked away from us. Guy says that healing only comes when
we forgive. That’s probably true, but I don’t feel any forgiveness
for William Beckman. Maybe it’d be better if I don't find him. I
miss Mom. I'm tired of crying; it feels like I cry all the time.
Anyway, I'm sleepy and my fire is dying, I'd better call it a
night."
    Before putting the little recorder away,
Cassie slipped the half-used tape from the machine and replaced it
with a tape from her shirt pocket. Penned on the label in red ink
was a small heart; Cassie closed her eyes as her mother’s voice
murmured through the tiny speaker.
    “ Trust in the Lord with
all of your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all
your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path. Merry
Christmas, baby.”
    Too exhausted to think anymore,
Cassie said a quick mechanical prayer, asking for God's blessing on
the Williams family and safety for herself, then she climbed, fully
dressed, into her sleeping bag.
    She pulled the thin, flannel-lined bag up
over her head, zipping it to the top and, with the dry smell of
straw and wood smoke surrounding her, listened to the soft whisper
of the desert wind and fell asleep. She was too exhausted to notice
the dryness of her prayers, or the feeling that when she had spoken
them, they went no further than the ramshackle walls of the
barn.

    *

    Eleanor Young sighed as she locked the front
doors of the Bowie Greyhound station. Her dogs were barking
something fierce tonight, and even the new orthopedic inserts that
Dr. Manadrell had given her were doing little to ease the throbbing
toothache in her feet.
    “ Getting old Elli,” she
sighed, flipping the plastic door shutter from open to closed, and
switching off the neon bus sign and awning lights. She had laundry
to do tonight and a pot roast to get into the oven and, more than
anything, she’d like to forget both and curl up on the couch with a
thick Jean Auel caveman epic, or maybe a hunky action movie and