Ode to a Fish Sandwich (6 page)

Smacking his lips together, Burt stepped outside and crossed to the pier. He needed no artificial illumination to guide his way; he knew the layout by memory. He moved comfortably in the darkness, feeling his way on instinct.

With several loud grunts, he lugged his fishing gear into the boat and strapped a couple of plastic coolers to the side of its hull. Giving the equipment a last tinkering, he untied the moorings, yanked the pull-string for the tiny motor, and puttered out to sea.

Twenty minutes later, he reached the spot he’d selected for that morning’s outing, a deep quadrant of water about a half-mile offshore from the diner.

Or rather, he reached the spot that Delilah had selected for him.

Every morning, her spirit told him when and where to drop his lure lines, at what depth, and with which bait.

A dozen years after her death, she still made all the important decisions in his life.

Burt had no complaints about Delilah’s continued intrusions. In fact, he welcomed her guidance. In fishing-related matters, she appeared to have superior knowledge and expertise.

Rarely did his outings fail to yield a sizeable catch.

He loaded his hooks, cast his lines, and sat back to wait.

~

THE FISHERMAN’S PEACEFUL sigh seeped into the inky blackness. He took comfort in the sea’s familiar company.

It was a typical morning, the same as any other.

His routine seldom varied, except to sit out a passing storm or to prepare for the threat of a hurricane.

Once he’d secured his limit, he would motor the boat toward shore, dropping anchor by the curving boulder pile outside the diner. The rocks had become a natural dock. He could easily maneuver his vessel close enough to heft a cooler full of fish over the side. From there, he would carry the chest up to the diner’s kitchen.

After offering Winnie her pick of the morning’s haul, he would sell the remainder to the ferry operators. They would transport the meat north to the larger island, where it was quickly passed on to waiting barterers.

Once he’d completed the fish transactions, Burt would stop in at the grocery store to refill his coffee mug and chat with the owner. They’d discuss the weather and the latest gossip. Then he’d hop back in the boat, return it to the pier on the opposite side of the island, and prepare for the next morning’s early departure.

That was the conventional part of Burt’s day, a regular pattern that generated little interest among the island’s other residents.

What happened next, however, was the subject of great speculation and concern—as well as the hottest topic in the local gossip chain—one never, of course, shared with Burt.

While the fisherman started each morning with an orderly schedule, the afternoon is where that normality ended.

~

GIVEN THE DECREPIT state of his living quarters, Burt had little incentive to spend his free time at home. After a quick shower, he climbed into his beat up truck and set off on the road toward town.

On a good day, he ate a late lunch at the diner and had a nice visit with his daughter.

But on many afternoons, he didn’t make it.

While Burt’s shack wasn’t far away in terms of actual distance, it took the better part of an hour to travel overland from his front porch to the village outskirts. He lived on the opposite side of the island—and, more importantly from a transportation perspective—the opposite side of the volcano.

Each day, he was tormented by that unavoidable feature of the landscape.

It was the place where Delilah disappeared.

It was the place where, presumably, she died.

BURT REACHED UP with his free hand to wipe his forehead and adjust the brim of his baseball cap. He and his pickup truck were bumping along the dirt road that circled the island’s south shore.

A static-ridden radio broadcast trickled from the speakers. He had turned the volume to the maximum setting, but it was still difficult to make out the transmission. The weak signal came from the island to the north.

The sound that did come through was drowned out by the rumble of the engine—all of the truck’s windows were rolled completely down.

Technically, the vehicle was equipped with air conditioning, but he rarely used that feature. It wasn’t the heat Burt was trying to mitigate.

It was the smell.

Due to the nature of his daily employment, everything inside the truck smelled like fish—not the salty spritz the creatures put off when they were pulled fresh from the sea—but the rancid odor of a hooked carcass, lying in an ice chest, oozing precious bodily fluids as the last moments of life drained away.

Burt had tried all manner of air freshening devices, including sprays, oils, and mirror hooks, but none of these attempts had diminished the aroma.

As the truck rounded a corner, the sea breeze that had been ventilating the cab suddenly vanished. Making a face, Burt leaned his head out the driver’s side window.

The fishing business, he reflected wryly, was not for those with strong noses or weak stomachs.

~

THE BREEZE RETURNED with another bend in the road, and Burt brought his head back inside the truck. While still pungent, the airflow made the cab almost tolerable.

He tapped his fingers against the truck’s worn steering wheel, anticipating a nice fish sandwich and a visit with his daughter—all the while trying to ignore the volcano looming above.

The conical shape cycled in and out of view, depending on the curvature of the road, but even when the scalloped cone was hidden by the optics of the rough terrain, Burt couldn’t escape its dark presence.

Despite his best efforts, he found himself glancing up at the harrowing peak—and thinking about his first wife.

~

DELILAH WAS THE reason he’d come to the island.

She’d insisted on the move when she was pregnant with their daughter, just over twelve years earlier. The island was her childhood home, and she’d wanted to raise the baby there.

It was tough going for the young couple. Starting over in the new location brought challenges for them both.

Burt was still learning the nuances of the local fishing spots, and his successful days on the boat were evenly matched by misses, outings where his lures failed to snag a single bite.

Meanwhile, Delilah was trying to start a new restaurant. Her family had owned the lot by the beach for generations, but she was the first to put it to any commercial use. With a few cans of paint and a substantial amount of elbow grease, she managed to turn the property’s existing structure into a decent-looking diner.

Unfortunately, Delilah’s renovation skills didn’t translate into culinary prowess. Her cooking attempts produced only halfway-edible results, at best.

The venture seemed doomed to failure, until Winnie stepped in. She took over the diner’s kitchen duties when the baby was born and continued to provide cooking guidance long after Delilah returned to work.

It looked like things were finally turning around. Burt’s daily fish count had begun to improve along with the quality of the diner’s food.

And then the unthinkable happened.

One night, Delilah disappeared.

~

BURT SQUINTED SKYWARD, scowling up at the volcano. The pickup’s speed gradually decreased, until he was going far slower than needed to avoid the numerous bumps and potholes.

Finally, he stopped the truck altogether, pulling over to the side of the road at the edge of the cane field near the resort’s entrance.

Once more, he leaned out his open window, but this time the action had nothing to do with the stench inside the cab. A gust of wind billowed up from the sea, causing a ghostly ripple through the cane.

Burt climbed out of the truck, leaving the driver’s side door propped open. He walked a short distance down the road to a narrow opening in the reeds, the beginning of a trail that wound up the volcano’s steep sides.

It was a hike that his wife had never expressed any interest in exploring—until the day of her disappearance.

Her body was never recovered. After several weeks, the authorities declared her legally dead, a rational conclusion based on the circumstances surrounding her extended absence.

But Burt had been unable to reconcile this mental logic with the emotions that swelled in his heart.

Somehow, he felt certain that she lay waiting, somewhere on that mountain, for him to find her.

He stood in the place where she’d last been seen and listened as the silence whispered her name.

Delilah
.

Over a decade’s worth of healing had done little to soothe the pain. The news was just as jarring today as it had been when he first received it.

Even after all these years, he still had no idea what had inspired her to climb that trail—and no clue as to who or what had lured her to her death.

HIS STOMACH FULL with the day’s fish sandwich, Dr. Jones climbed into the canvas-topped bus for the afternoon ride back to the resort.

Sliding into the last bench seat at the rear of the vehicle, he tucked his umbrella under his arm and leaned casually against the vinyl seat cushions.

A few of the other passengers glanced over their shoulders at the curious-looking man who had joined them by the ferry dock, but he paid them no heed. Several days into his vacation, he was now comfortable with the routine. Despite his body-covering clothing, the copious amounts of sunscreen on his face—and the umbrella—the doctor’s obvious familiarity with everyone and everything on the island commanded an odd respect from the newcomers.

But perhaps more important, the doctor had begun to really enjoy his time in the tropics.

While remaining vigilant with his sun protection regimen, he had gradually transitioned to a state of extreme relaxation. His body exuded a healthy glow, the result of many restful nights’ sleep, plenty of exercise, and a good number of succulent fish sandwiches. He tugged on the brim of his floppy hat and gazed out at the passing scenery, a broad smile on his face.

The bus wound around the south shore, its worn shocks squeaking as it navigated the bumpy road. To the right, the sea lapped softly against the boulders scattered across the sand. On the inland side, gauzy clouds circled the volcano, dressing the summit in a feathery boa of pink and purple hues.

It was a beautiful day, the doctor thought with a blissful sigh. He had less than forty-eight hours left before his flight back to Utah, and he was beginning to dread his departure.

He was going to miss this place.

~

DR. JONES GAZED THROUGH the nearest bus window, picking out his favorite spots along the route. After nearly a week of daily walks, he was becoming well acquainted with the journey. With each passage, he noticed details he had previously missed.

Even the cane field now opened up beneath his gaze, he mused as the bus turned away from the shoreline and began the last curving stretch to the resort’s front gates.

Instead of an intimidating maze of uniform greenery, he could identify distinctive markers: a mangrove whose trunk had grown into a spiraled contortion, a boulder peeking out from a mass of ferns, and many other odd-shaped spaces and gaps between the reeds.

The revelations did little to temper the cane field’s creepiness; if anything, they made it all the more mysterious.

~

THE BUS ROUNDED yet another corner, and the doctor spied a pickup parked ahead on the road’s narrow shoulder. The truck had been left with its front door wide open, and there was no sign of the driver.

“Hey, I think that’s Burt’s,” he said, leaning forward.

He recognized the truck from its regular stops at the diner. He had shared his beachside table with its owner earlier in the week.

Burt was a talkative fellow, especially after a few rum punches. During the course of their long lunch, the doctor had learned the man’s entire life story, including the sad fate of his first wife Delilah, his brief union with Winnie, and their subsequent separation.

Dr. Jones was intrigued by Burt’s tale, particularly when he began hearing about the rumors surrounding Delilah’s disappearance.

In the absence of a readily explainable cause of death, local superstitions had quickly filled in the void. It had taken only a few reports of a female voice whispering in the reeds near the cane field trail entrance for a fearsome legend to take hold.

At last, he understood what had spooked the guards at the resort’s front gates. Like so many others who lived on the island, they were convinced that the missing woman’s ghost inhabited the field—and that her unsettled spirit was likely to take out her frustrations on any unwitting trespassers to her dark realm.

On his walk through the cane earlier that morning, the doctor had searched without success for the entrance to the trail leading up to the volcano. In the wake of the tragedy, the path had been abandoned, and the track had grown over.

But as the bus neared the parked truck, the doctor saw an opening in the reeds. He’d walked by the spot countless times over the course of the past week. He couldn’t believe he’d missed it.

He paused only an instant before deciding to investigate.

Waving his umbrella at the driver, he called out.

“Stop the bus!”

WINNIE LEANED OUT the diner’s front window, resting her elbows on the counter as she stared listlessly at the empty ferry dock, wondering how many customers would show up to eat that evening. With the bulk of the town’s activity occurring during the day, most of her sales were with the lunch crowd. The nighttime foot traffic was far less predictable.

She was already considering shutting the diner early when her cell phone rang in her apron pocket.

Pushing back from the counter, she pulled out the device and glanced down at the number. It was the driver for the resort’s transport bus.

“Hey Carl,” she said, pushing the answer button. “You calling for take out?”

“Not tonight, Winnie,” he replied hurriedly. “I thought you should know—I passed Burt’s truck parked by the cane field. Looks like he’s gone walkabout again.”