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Back The Nest Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright page
  3. Introduction by Will Errickson
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. TREMORS
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. SUSPICIONS
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. DREAD
  19. 1
  20. 2
  21. 3
  22. 4
  23. 5
  24. 6
  25. WITNESS
  26. 1
  27. 2
  28. 3
  29. ALERT
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. ENCOUNTER
  36. 1
  37. 2
  38. 3
  39. 4
  40. 5
  41. 6
  42. HAVOC
  43. 1
  44. 2
  45. 3
  46. 4
  47. 5
  48. 6
  49. SEARCH
  50. 1
  51. 2
  52. 3
  53. 4
  54. 5
  55. CLASH
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. 3
  59. 4
  60. 5
  61. 6
  62. 7
  63. COUNTERATTACK
  64. 1
  65. 2
  66. 3
  67. 4
  68. 5
  69. 6
  70. 7
  71. VICTORY
  72. 1
  73. 2
  74. 3
  75. 4
  76. 5
  77. 6
  78. 7
  79. 8
  80. 9
  81. EPILOGUE
  82. About the Author

The others nodded. Swaggering abreast, the three moved along Main Street, heading up the hill toward High Ridge. Purposely they gave no way, so that everyone approaching had to step into the gutter to let them pass. They laughed aloud at the discomfort they imposed. “Bunch of hicks,” one sneered. “Some pretty chicks,” another added. “Fuck ’em later,” their companion urged impatiently. “I want to wrap one up!”

He was talking about the marijuana they had in their jeans, of course.

3

THREE

Across the island, on Yarkie’s east shore, Reed Brockshaw was waving his two children out of the ocean. “Chow time, kids!” Six-­year-­old Kim and nine-­year-­old David came splashing and giggling out of the slapping waves in the noon sun. They shook themselves like puppy dogs and pounded up the sand to Doreen Brockshaw, waiting for them with large bath towels. Her embrace was fierce in its intensity. It was almost a year since fire—an ever-­present island hazard—had consumed the house Reed had built. Only the man’s heroism had saved the children. Before the volunteer trucks arrived, he had plunged heedlessly through the wall of flame. Miraculously, none had suffered more than minor burns.

It was a miracle Doreen Brockshaw daily held in her mind beneath her long red hair. Each morning she went quietly down to the kitchen at dawn. In her white nightgown she brushed her hair back, lifted her green eyes to the coming day and sent up the meditations of her thankful heart.

Reed Brockshaw once came upon his wife in her praying. He withdrew silently, comprehending her need to be private in this. It was a measure of the couple’s devotion that no words were needed. Reed and Doreen Brockshaw had an other-­century marriage appropriate to an old-­fashioned island.

Reed himself had sailed with Elias Johnson on many charters but now he was working as a carpenter on a marina being built by another selectman of the island, Stephen Scott. Reed missed the ocean trips, but the land pay was better, and building his new house was costing more than even he had planned for.

Doreen was saying, “We need more firewood, kids.” Reed had carefully built the small cooking fire on the side of the dunes away from the forest. The trees came close to the shore at this spot, and he knew they were tinder. He half rose to go himself, but remembered his father’s saying: Shared chores mean shared family. The Yarkie way. In the winter they called gathering firewood “going wooding.” Let David and Kim go wooding now.

Something made the father turn to look after the two small figures stamping gaily into the trees. On impulse he got to his feet and started to follow.