Beyond the Cape

Now available in print in No One Should Kiss a Frog, a collection of stories about love gone wrong.

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***

Out along the rocky crags that formed the coastline, I walked through the autumn sunshine. It was a daily habit rooted in all the good intentions of health and clearing one’s mind, but I had recently found another reason drawing me out into the cooling air. The pine trees thinned, and I began to pick my way along the pile of red and gray boulders that formed the cape. On this spit of land jutting into the dark waters of Mobjack Cove and the Atlantic beyond, I often found a solitary fin plying through the waves.

I had never been a sailor beyond my weekly foray in the skiff to check the fishing net I had rigged in the cove, but I had known men who traveled the world whether for trade or for war, and they all agreed that sharks were nasty beasts.

Yet, here I was, sitting atop a boulder to observe Mobjack Cove’s resident beast at work as he maneuvered back and forth only a few hundred yards from where I sat, forming a grid pattern. Then, the fin dove out of sight in a flash; he had spotted prey.

I breathed in the salt air blowing across the cape. This time, the scent was different. Metallic. A pool of blood billowed across the waves, but I blinked and it was gone. Just imagining things.

How much fish he caught would remain a mystery; the dark waters of the North Atlantic left everything beneath the surface to the imagination. But I smiled at the thought that the shark did well for himself.

Eventually, the sun sank low in the western horizon, and the pine trees behind me stretched their needled shadows far into the cove. The contrast between the navy blue, almost black saltwater and the single gray fin grew too subtle for my eyes to distinguish. Stretching, I turned away and began my journey back from the cape, exhaling white sheets as the subtle warmth of the day turned to night. It was time to light the beacon.

Silhouetted against the purple and pink sky of twilight, the Mobjack Light stood taller than the land around for miles. One hundred feet tall, it was a declaration from man that the sea no longer ruled, that we had defeated its violent storms and hidden shoals. As such, the lighthouse’s white granite face bore the scars of the sea’s many attempts to prove us mistaken.

I saw many of these markings as I climbed the steps to the ground floor of the lighthouse.

But ice storms could not topple the solid walls, and the floodtides of many a Nor’easter had failed to climb the fifty-foot cliff it stood on. Still, I had witnessed whole sheaths of rock ripped away from the cliff face during one such storm, a sight that still made my stomach churn now. Yet the Lighthouse Service engineers had chosen Mobjack Light’s location well, and even that impressive display had only succeeded in moving the sea three inches closer to the tower’s base, leaving hundreds of feet of safety.

From behind the glass of the beacon room, the slim lines of the swells in the cove dimmed in the twilight. I had already prepared the beacon for its nightly ignition earlier in the day, and with a simple strike of a match against the central wick, its brilliant beam blinked awake. From atop the cliff, it had a visible range of 27 miles, reaching ships far beyond the sight of land. How strange, to see these glimmers of light on an otherwise dark ocean.

Imagine what can happen deep in the Atlantic, where no light can reach you.

I shook my head, looking to the south where Rams Island Ledge Light blinked every 15 seconds from atop its shoal, guarding the approach to Portland Harbor. Beyond that, I made out the faintest glimmer of gold from Portland Head Light. Our three beacons formed a small part of the shield across Maine’s jagged and island-choked coastline.

With one last look at these fellow sentinels, I descended from the beacon room, careful to keep from looking directly into the Fresnel lens. Despite the noble cause I now served, I had not taken the posting to Mobjack Light out of a sense of duty – or even for the pragmatic drivers of food, lodging, and pay. I had recently come to value a remote location and its companion, solitude.

Now, as I settled down to a dinner of salt pork and beans beside the warmth of the wood stove, I found myself once again holding the letter. SUMMONS TO PETER KLANGE it announced. It was the last piece of correspondence I had received in weeks; the paychecks had stopped arriving.

No use in keeping this anymore. I opened the stove grate and tossed the letter into the flames. If they want to press this issue, they will have to come get me themselves.

A horrible business. A memory I refused to reopen, for, like Pandora’s box, I feared it may not be closed again. But at least I had been wise enough to keep the revolver after the heat had drained away. The cold metal against my thigh gave me some small comfort as I felt the wolves circling closer.

***

Burning the letter offered some relief, but still I turned in my bedding all night. No matter. The lighthouse keeper’s duty demands routine checks of the beacon, so I am used to less sleep than the average man. Even so, my feet dragged as I descended the path along the cliff to the pebbled shore where my skiff rested.

I tried to focus on the task at hand. Pushing the wooden boat into the surf, I guided it out until the water reached my waist and scrambled inside. A good easterly breeze blew, leaving frost on my cheeks but filling the skiff’s sail and propelling us along. I soon reached the center of the cove where the buoy marked the beginning of the fishing net.

I lowered the sail and tied the skiff off to the buoy to avoid being swept out in the tide. The fish of Mobjack Bay were always delectable, the best perk of my posting besides the solitude.

But this time, I felt a strong pull as I grabbed the top of the line. Even two dozen fish in the net had not produced the resistance I felt threatening to pull me over the side. I released the mesh, turning back to retrieve a boathook. Now, no longer stooping over, I reached down and hooked the top of the net.

As before, the creature beneath fought ferociously, but I was now able to put the full strength of my arms and back into the fight. Even so, I had to lean backward against the incredible force to keep my balance. As sweat slid down my neck, I felt the tension releasing.

A fin broke the surface, and then the gray and white head emerged between the swells. The shark had torn a hole in the net, but its fins had snagged, keeping its head snared. Even half immobilized, I had to fight to keep him from diving back into the depths. I propped the boat hook against the side of hull, acting as a fulcrum with my foot on top of it. Plus, if it starts to capsize the boat, I can release it in an instant.

But the shark had given up its fight for the moment, allowing me to study it closer. Scar lines ran between two jet black eyes, and a row of jagged teeth showed above the water line. But more than that, he had a fish in his mouth.

As I stared down, I saw the same look in the eyes of the fish. That same darkened glint of one that knew its death stood before it, powerless to do anything except guess at how many more breaths it had left.

But it was only a creature, unaware of its own soul. Unaware of its sin. Not like him. Jacob knew what he did, and he did it regardless.

Unbidden, my hand gripped my pistol in its holster. I had placed the same barrel between the two green eyes and seen the flash of horror morph into dilated pupils. I realized now what had always drawn me to the cape. We were both killers.

Yet, as the shark thrashed against the net, still clinging to his prize, I realized that I was not the shark. He killed to eat, and his jaws were driven by that base instinct. Not by vengeance. He would never know the blaze that flowed through my veins, the blaze that still smolders each time I recall discovering my wife with Jacob. It would never feel the flames draining away. Never understand the icy terror that replaced them at the sight of blood spreading across the floor. A shark could not comprehend shame.

Did that make me more deserving of mercy than the shark? No. No amount of remorse would undo what I had done. Worse than the life I had taken, I had felt no doubt in that moment. I knew what was happening, and I had done it regardless. I put the gun back in its holster.

Instead, I grabbed a knife from my belt. After I slashed a few lines, the shark wrestled its way from the loosened stranglehold and dove out of sight, taking the fish with it.

“I hope you enjoy it, sir,” I called after him. “You sure earned it.”

I glanced toward shore, then looked again. Men in blue coats swarmed the white base of Mobjack Light. I sighed, releasing the rest of the net back into the blue-black water.

I set a course back into the wind toward the pebbled beach beneath the cliff. Once again, my hand went to my revolver. After so many months of vowing this would be the ending, I had drawn it out of instinct.

But this was not the way. I saw that now. I tossed the pistol into the cove. After another moment, I threw the knife away as well.

As the hull of the skiff ground against the stones, I stepped down onto the beach and sank to my knees. A moment later, the policemen grabbed my arms and started hauling me to the cliffside path. I looked back toward the cove one last time before we reached the trees, catching a tiny speck of gray skimming through the waves.

At least one of us will roam free.