Trophies And Dead Things

Ten

I retraced my route to Highway One, I went over my interview with Libby Ross. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that she had recognized Tom Grant from my description. Perhaps if I played it right with D.A. Taylor he would not only reveal more about the connection among Ross, Hilderly, Ruhl, and himself, but also tell me something about Grant-provided he wasn't too far gone to remember.

At the highway I turned north toward Point Reyes Station, once a stop on the long-defunct North Pacific Coast Railroad that operated between Duncan's Mills and Sausalito from the late 1800s to the Great Depression. Most of the buildings lining its main street are of turn-of-the-century vintage, and the town has a rustic feel that belies the presence of its Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, The Point Reyes Light. As I passed through it I saw signs of progress since my last visit-spruced-up older buildings and a number of new ones, including a small shopping center where the Light had moved its offices. I couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before the surrounding hills became covered with tracts. The dairy ranches that I passed on the other side of town looked profitable, however; perhaps the demand for their products would outstrip even the greed of real-estate developers and the influx of those seeking escape from urban pressures.

The winding road led me inland, then back to the bay, which was mostly mud fiats at this end. Oyster beds began to appear-geometrically arranged rows of stakes poking up from the water, within which the seed mollusks feed and grow, protected from predators. Oystering, I knew, was the only real industry besides dairy ranching in the Tomales Bay area, and I saw signs that it was not a particularly thriving one. I passed an oyster farm that was up for sale; a medium-sized boat yard with fishing craft in dry dock seemed strangely deserted. In the tiny hamlet of Marshall, the oyster restaurant was closed, its broken windows boarded. Cottages-most of them old-fashioned clapboard, but also a few of those oddly angled structures with windows in strange places that people seem compelled to build near the water-stood on the narrow strip of land between the road and the drop-off to the bay. When I passed Nick's Cove, my favorite restaurant for fried oysters, the road began to wind uphill through a thick stand of wind-warped cypress. I consulted my odometer.

In a little less than two miles a faded sign supported by two tall poles appeared: TAYLOR'S OYSTERS. A crushed-shell driveway angled down the slope from the road and ended in a parking lot. I turned the MG and bounced through ruts and potholes.

The parking lot looked like a junkyard: there were dead cars pulled over to one side in a field of straggly anise weed; a couple of rusted trailers with laundry lines strung between them sat next to a mound of oyster shells that spilled down the hillside like tailings from an abandoned mine. Old machinery, truck axles, a corroded automobile engine, and two rotted-out rowboats were strewn about, and among them lay three of the mangiest mongrel dogs I'd ever laid eyes on. The restaurant was straight ahead on the water's edge.

I pulled up in front of the sagging gray-white frame building, between an old red pickup truck that looked like something out of The Grapes of Wrath and a newish camper with Oregon plates. The windows of the restaurant were coated with so much grime that it dulled the lighted Coors and Oly signs. I got out of the car, leaning into the crisp wind from offshore, and looked around.

To the left of the restaurant was a path that led past a row of tiny cottages-possibly a defunct tourist court. Their rooflines sagged, their metal chimneys tilted, and many of the windows were covered with plywood or patched with cardboard and tape. More dogs lounged on the path, their matted fur riffling in the breeze. A small boy and smaller girl were playing at the foot of another mound of shells; their voices were borne to me on the wind-cheerful, despite their dismal surroundings.

I went over to the kids and squatted down, smiling. They regarded me solemnly. Both had black hair and dark shoe-button eyes; their clothing, while old and patched, was clean. They couldn't have been more than five and six. I said, "Hi, what're your names?"

The girl stuck her finger into her mouth and merely stared. The boy-who was the older of the two-finally spoke. "That's Mia. I'm Davey."

D.A. Taylor's children, then. People who name their offspring after themselves always make me wonder. Too much ego, or too little? In Taylor's case, I thought I knew.

Remembering Ross's caution that I should try to talk to Mia Taylor before approaching her husband, I asked, "Is your mom around?"

Davey shook his head. Mia Junior took her finger out of her mouth and said, "She went to Petaluma with Aunt Chrissy. Aunt Chrissy's having a baby, maybe right now."

"Well, that's nice," I lied, feeling a flash of sympathy for the newborn who would be brought home to this place. "Is your dad here, then?"

The two exchanged a look. It said, Daddy. Uh-oh.

I said, "It's okay. Do you know Mrs. Ross?"

Davey nodded. "Libby."

"I'm a friend of Libby's. She asked me to come see your dad." My job necessitates a fair amount of fabrication, but I'm always vaguely uncomfortable when I have to do so to children.

Mia and Davey exchanged another look. This was the "can we trust this adult?" one. Finally Davey pointed toward the row of cottages. "Ours is at the end."

"Thank you." I got up and started down the path.

I hadn't gone more than a couple of yards when two men materialized from the first cottage. Heavyset men with shaggy black hair, wearing the oilskins of fishermen. They stood together, blocking my way.

"What you want, lady?" the heavier one asked.

"D.A. Taylor. Are either of you him?"

Silently they shook their heads and remained in front of me.

"Look, Libby Ross sent me."

"Sure she did," the man said.

"Call her and ask her if you don't believe me."

"Why would that bitch send somebody?" the other man, who sported a straggly mustache, asked. "She checking up on D.A. again?"

"No. I don't think she's too interested in him these days. She told me where to find him, though."

"What's your business with him?"

"Private."

"D.A.'s family. What's his business is ours."

I hesitated, glancing back at Taylor's children. They had not resumed their play, were watching intently. I didn't think the men-their uncles, or whatever-would do anything violent in front of them. Finally I said, "If that's so, why don't you come with me while I talk with him?"

They exchanged a look; it seemed to be the primary mode of communication around here. This one I couldn't read so easily, but it contained an element of relaxation. After a few seconds the heavier man stepped aside. "What the hell-go ahead. Last cottage. You'll probably find him on his dock, staring at his island."

"His island?"

He grinned nastily. "Hog Island. D.A. don't really own it, but he's got it into his head that he does. He's never owned nothing, except in his head. And that's about all that's in there anymore."

Some family D.A.'s got, I thought, moving past the men and walking along the crushed-shell path. I heard the two laugh, as if the remark had been terribly witty, but I ignored them. The dogs ignored me as I stepped over and around them.

Toward the end of the path the land came to a barren point, a rubble-strewn slope falling away to the wind-whipped gray water. I could see the island from here- rocky, cypress- and eucalyptus-crowned, treetops wreathed in fog. Hog Island-reputedly named for a bargeload of pigs that had briefly been marooned there at some dim point in history-was now owned and maintained in its natural state by the Audubon Society. No one lived there, and the only man-made addition was the ruins of a house built by a German family in the 1800s. I wondered why D.A. Taylor took such a proprietary interest in the isolated wildlife preserve.

Taylor's tiny cottage was the shabbiest of the seven I'd passed, with broken and patched windows and virtually no paint, but a tub of pink geraniums stood next to the door. There was an old tricycle parked beside the flowers. I knocked on the torn screen door, received no answer, and went around the cottage to where a spindly dock leaned over the stakes of the oyster beds.

A man-tall, thin, with black hair that fell to the shoulders of his faded denim jacket-sat at the very end of the dock, looking across the bay toward Hog Island. I started out to him, stepping over and around places where the boards were splintered or missing. The dock trembled under my weight. The man turned his head and watched me approach.

At first he appeared perfectly normal, but when I came within a few yards of him I saw his eyes. They were black and dead-looking-pits where the fires no longer burned, containing nothing but ash. When I reached him he didn't speak, merely continued to watch me without a hint of interest or curiosity. I asked, "Are you D.A. Taylor?" and he nodded and looked back at the bay.

The man was in another world, as Ross had said he would be. I didn't know if that particular place was accessible to others, but I had to try to reach him. I sat down on the edge of the dock, drawing my knees up and hugging them with my arms. Taylor didn't even glance my way.

I said, "That's a nice island out there."

No reply.

"Wonder what it would be like to live on it."

Now he turned his strange eyes toward me. I thought I saw a flicker somewhere in their depths, but it could just have been a trick of the light. "Someday I'll know," he said. His voice was mellow, the syllables flowing gently.

"Oh? You planning to move out there?"

Again he looked toward the island. After a long moment he said, "Who are you?"

"My name's Sharon McCone. I've just come from Libby Ross's."

"Libby. Libby of the beautiful violet eyes." He paused, then added, "Libby of the evil tongue."

"The way she tells it, you and she are friends."

"Friends can be cruel when they tell the truth." After my encounter with his relatives, his educated, somewhat formal diction was more of a surprise than his sudden lucidity. I'd known other people like Taylor: substance abusers who seemed perfectly rational at one moment, then could flip over into disconnected raving or protracted silences the next.

"What does Libby tell the truth about?" I asked.

Silence.

I let it spin out a few moments, watching a fishing boat circumnavigate the island. Smells rose from the oyster beds-brackish, fishy-and were borne away on the chill breeze. Finally I said, "What about Perry Hilderly-was he a truth teller, too?"

Taylor turned his head slowly. This time I could see that the flicker in his eyes was real. "Perry believed implicitly in the truth. He had high ideals. He placed the sanctity of life above all else. I looked up to him and loved him like a brother. He was a better man than I. Than any of us."

"And Jenny Ruhl?"

I hadn't thought anything could alter his trancelike state, but at my mention of the name, a wave of pain crossed his face. "Jenny. All these years dead. It was so unnecessary. All of it was so unnecessary."

"All of what?"

He looked down at his fingers, which were splayed against his denim-covered thighs.

"What about Tom Grant?" I asked.

"Who's that?"

"You don't remember him? Thomas Y. Grant?"

"I don't. There's a great deal I don't remember anymore. But it's the wrong things that stay with me. Always the wrong things."

"Bad things?"

"Very bad. No matter what, I can't shake them."

"Tell me about them."

He shook his head violently, long straight locks flaring out, then falling back to his shoulders.,

Before he could close up completely, returned to the subject of Hog Island. "When do you plan up go there?" I asked, gesturing toward it.

His gaze followed my hand. "When it becomes too much here. So far I'm all right. You know I drink?"

"Yes."

"Of course Libby would tell you. She also told you about the drugs. That's all quite true. She despairs of me, but she understands. My wife doesn't understand; her despair is painful to watch. When it becomes too painful, then I'll go."

"And do what there?"

"Be at peace."

It dawned on me that the man wasn't talking about becoming a hermit. Or about living on the island at all. He meant to kill himself out there. Despite the fact that I barely knew him, a coldness clutched at me. I pictured his children: their young-old faces, their shared conspiratorial looks. What would his suicide do to them, to the wife I'd yet to meet? To Libby Ross, who pretended to have washed her hands of D.A. Taylor, but in reality cared too much?

I watched him wordlessly for a moment, studied his rugged, hawk-nosed profile, wondered what had made him this way. As if he could hear my unvoiced question, he said, "I've never been a strong man. But I'm not insane, at least in any classical sense. I just slip in and out of touch with reality. Out is better."

"Why, D.A.?"

"Why not?"

I could find no reply to that.

After a moment he said, "I suppose you saw Harley and Jake on your way in."

"The men in the first cottage?"

"My cousins. My self-appointed caretakers. When Mia's gone, it's their duty to watch over old D.A., make sure he doesn't do anything crazy. There has been trouble with the sheriff, you see. Trouble with the customers at the restaurant. Did they try to stop you from coming out here?"

"Yes."

"What did you do to convince them otherwise?"

"Damned if I know."

Taylor actually smiled-a brief upturning of the corners of his mouth. "They probably decided you looked as if you could take care of yourself. And they know I'm not really violent, just bizarre and unpredictable. I insist to Harley and Jake that I actually own Hog Island. They're convinced I believe that. I've always had a perverse streak when it comes to my cousins. Stupidity brings it out."

"Are they stupid?"

"Moderately. My father's side of the family never had too much going for it. Their capacity to choose smart, strong women is all that's allowed them to survive." Again the small smile flickered. "Listen to me. I claim to be so smart, but what have I ever done right but marry Mia? And now I'm destroying her, little bit by little bit."

I decided to let that issue go for now. "You're well educated. Where did you go to school?"

"U.C. Berkeley-in its Golden Age." His wry expression made me think of Hank's when we'd spoken of those days.

"I went there myself, but several years later. Was that where you met Perry Hilderly and Jenny Ruhl?"

He nodded.

"Libby, too?"

"Yes."

"But you still don't remember Tom Grant."

He considered. "No, not even now, and I'm much more clear-headed than when you came out here."

"Let me describe him: he's a tall man, well built. Thick gray hair, but it would probably have been brown back then. Handsome, but he has a scar on his left cheek. I told Libby it looks like something he got in a duel-"

Taylor's face went very pale, then flushed. His eyes came alive, fires rekindling in those previously dead pits. He put his hand on my forearm, grasping it hard enough to create five small epicenters of pain.

He said, "Right man!"

I grabbed his fingers, trying to ease their pressure. "What?"

"Right man!"

"Who was the right man?"

"The right man," he said for the third time. He laughed bitterly, the sound harsh, as if his vocal cords had not been used for any kind of laughter in years. "The right man was the wrong man."

"I don't understand."

Abruptly he let go of my arm and slumped forward, staring down at the brackish water of the oyster beds. "Neither do I," he said.

"Who was the right man?" I asked again.

He didn't reply, his breath came fast and ragged.

I touched his arm. "D.A.?"

He remained silent for several minutes, his breathing gradually returning to normal. When he raised his head and looked at me, his eyes were as dead as before.

Formally he said, "Thank you for coming. Please give my regards to Libby." Then he returned his gaze to the distant island.

"Yes."