Far Country (27 page)

           
Each child lined up behind their counselor and waited while the adults
completed the head count and were ready to lead their charges to the dock. They
were cute, he thought, all wearing tennis visors that they had clearly
decorated themselves, and a wide variety of sunglasses. Steve greeted the
twenty or so children with a friendly smile, and talked briefly about the
ecology of the inter-coastal waterway. He described the different kinds of
wildlife and birds that they were likely to see during their ferry ride and the
walk across the island to the beach. He finished by letting them handle and
guess the names of the large shell collection he kept on hand for visitors to
examine.

           
As the sun heated up the wooden dock he could see that the children were
becoming fidgety, so he led them down to the ferry, and stood by the gangway to
help hand the littler children and nervous grownups into the boat.

           
“Hi, Mr. Steve! Look – I got my cast off!”

           
Startled, Steve looked down into a pair of huge gray eyes.  Her long black
hair was pulled into a ponytail and she was grinning up at him as if the
meeting in the doctor’s office had only been yesterday morning. “Gracie?” He
breathed her name, hardly daring to believe that he was holding her little hand
in his!

           
Her grin widened, if that was possible, pleased that the big man remembered
her. “I knew that was you! But I wasn’t really sure until now, because of your
ranger clothes. I didn’t know that you were a ranger.”

           
“I’m glad your cast is off,” he told her gaping at her and at a loss for words.
Then she was gone, taking a seat under the awning and slipping on the small
life preserver as the counselors handed them out to the children.

           
It wasn’t until the next child in line, tired of waiting for Ranger Williams to
help him, jumped into the boat and nearly fell, that Steve recalled himself and
apologized to the little boy.  Quickly, he helped the rest of the children
into the ferry, then assisted the last counselor as she stepped gingerly down
into the mildly rocking boat.

           
More agitated than he could believe, he took his sit near the wheel house,
barely listening to Captain Fletcher as he introduced himself, and reminded
them to stay seated once the boat started moving.

           
The captain replaced the mike and threw the idling engine in reverse. The
little ferry lurched away from the mooring, and into open water toward Bear
Island. Walter, the 1
^st
mate, picked up the mike and pointed out the
sights as they passed, from a long line of brown pelicans moving across the sky
to a snowy white egret standing one legged in a patch of marsh grass.

           
From his seat, Steve watched Gracie as she chatted happily with the other
children around her. Once she glanced over her shoulder and waved gaily in his
direction. He smiled in return, his stomach doing flip flops. Reverend Graham
had found the birth certificate at City Hall in Wilmington, but he needed no
piece of paper to recognize the impudent carefree grin and laughing gray eyes
as belonging to the love he had lost so long ago. He watched her hungrily,
memorizing her every move and every turn of her head.

           
All too soon the ferry docked on the Island, and the children trooped off down
the trail that led to Hammocks Beach. Steve led the way, mechanically pointing
out various tree specimens and the huge osprey nest just visible in a dead pine
tree near the shoreline. The children trailed after the adults down the long
path that led to the far side of the island, until they came out of the trees
and stood before the huge sand dune that marked the beginning of the beach. 
The sound of waves crashing on the sand just beyond their sight revived them.
With shrieks of joy, they ran helter-skelter past the counselors and over the
top of the sandy hill to the wide stretch of beach on the other side.

           
The adults hurried up the slope in their wake, and Steve trudged carefully
behind them, mindful of how a misstep on the unstable dry sand could send him
into a world of pain and an even more prolonged recovery time. He had rarely
crossed over the dune to the beach this summer, figuring it wasn’t worth the
risk, but today he would have crossed all the dunes at Kitty hawk to spend more
time near Gracie.

           
As he cleared the top of the dune, Steve paused and checked out the scene
below. It was low tide, and the waves were mild. The children had shed their
sandals and sun visors as they ran down the slope to the beach, and many were
already splashing and running through the shallow water. Gracie was in the
thick of things, racing a friend along the edge of the waves.

           
A youth counselor of about nineteen or twenty paused beside Steve, keeping a
wary eye on the frolicking youngsters.  “It always scares me when we take
the kids to the beach,” she fretted. “So much can go wrong. I’m terrified one
of them will go out too deep and get sucked into a rip tide or something.”

           
“They make me pretty nervous, too,” Steve agreed. “But so far this summer we’ve
only had to go after one kid.”

           
“Really?” She asked apprehensively. “What happened to him?”

           
“Oh, he wasn’t really in physical danger,” Steve assured her with a short
laugh. “He just couldn’t resist swimming out into the breakers and doing a
little body surfing on the incoming waves. We nabbed him in the shallows and cut
the entire trip short.  Believe me, he was not a popular guy with his
group!”

           
The girl giggled in amusement. “I guess not!” She agreed scanning the beach.
Suddenly she tensed, and skidded down the dune.  “Justin!” She called
sharply. “No throwing sand, sweetie! Stop that immediately!”

           
Left alone, Steve made his way down the dune also, strolling along in Gracie’s
general direction.  He stopped some distance away, willing himself to
remain separate. In a very real way, the air around him seemed to thrum with
unseen possibilities. Steve was certain that God had heard the prayers of his
heart, and that he might be about to experience the real meaning of “God’s
Time”, if he would but trust in the Lord to make the next move.  And so,
he waited.

           
A moment later, he was literally shaken out of his reverie by a youngster
tugging on his trouser leg. Steve glanced down. Several children watched him
excitedly as the little boy held out a nearly undamaged conch shell. With an
effort Steve admired it and told the children its name. Encouraged, several
other children presented shells for his inspection, until one little girl held
up a shark’s tooth nearly an inch long. That find sent nearly all the children
running off to search the water’s edge for other newly uncovered treasures.
Steve glanced around and saw that, instead of being drawn into the group around
Steve, Gracie had moved farther away from him down the beach, and his heart
sank a little. She appeared to have forgotten him completely! And he had been
so certain that God was about to act. Why would God bring her this close to
him, and not do something…! Frustrated and more than a little disappointed with
God, Steve limped back to a shaded area near the snack shop, and watched Gracie
from a distance, feeling forgotten and abandoned.

           
After lunch, Steve pointed out that the tide had turned and was now coming in.
Would anybody like to help build a sand castle? Eager hands reached for the
plastic cups Steve handed out to use as shovels, and nearly all the children
helped to create a huge pile of sand.  The children worked hard to square
up the sides of the sand pile, while the adults worked to create a crenellated
battlement around the top. Then they set to work digging an impressive moat,
and decorating the top and sides of the sand castle with pretty shells and
clumps of seaweed.

           
By the time the water began to pour into the deep moat, most of the kids had
lost all interest in the castle’s fate and had returned to splashing in the
waves.  Steve, however, watched idly as the outer rampart crumbled from
the relentless assaults from the incoming tide.

           
Suddenly, unexpectedly, Gracie appeared at his elbow. Despite the sunscreen and
little visor hat, her nose was a slightly sunburned, and her pony tail was
falling out.

           
“Looks like you’ve had a good time,” Steve observed smiling.

           
“The best!” She agreed happily. She watched now as another wave bit into the
castle wall.

           
“It won’t be long now,” Steve said.

           
“The wall broke,” Grace said, frowning.  “We’ve got to fix it!”  In a
moment Gracie was on her knees, scooping up great handfuls of wet sand and
patching the breaker wall.

           
“Come on!” She commanded Steve, who hadn’t moved. “Help me!” She cried
impatiently.

           
Steve sighed. “Gracie, you can’t stop the waves. It will just wash away again.”

           
“Not yet,” she insisted.  “Not if you help!”  Steve started forward,
knowing that the effort was futile, but unable to tell the child no.  Then
he caught sight of a large piece of driftwood that had washed high up on the
beach during a recent storm.

           
“I’ll be right back,” he promised, and hurried to grab the twisted old branch.
He dragged it back to where Gracie was doggedly piling more sand  in
another breach. “Here,” he said, shifting it in front of the castle. 
“this will strengthen the wall.’

           
Gracie’s eyes lit up.  “Yeah, that will help a lot!”

           
Steve dropped to his knees beside Gracie, and together they scooped sand around
the driftwood branch, and re-dug the moat.  The breakers split as they hit
the driftwood wall and for the moment, the castle was safe.

           
Gracie surveyed their efforts with satisfaction.  “We saved it!” She cried
happily.

           
“For a little while, at least,” Steve amended, leaning back on his arms and
stretching out his stiff knee.  “A perfect example of why you should build
your house on a rock instead of on the sand,” he said, half to himself.

           
Gracie scrunched her nose.  “What’s that mean?” She asked, throwing
herself down in the sand beside him.

           
“It’s from the Bible,” he told her.  “There’s a story in there it that
says a wise man will build his house on a rock so the wind and waves will not
destroy it, while a foolish man will build his house in the sand, where it may
stand for a day, but in times of trouble, the waves and wind will wash away the
walls, and the house will crumble.”

           
Even as he spoke, a larger wave snaked around the driftwood wall and the newly
repaired moat filled with water. Small chunks of the sand wall crumbled and
fell into the moat. Gracie groaned in disappointment.  “But we worked so
hard!” Gracie whined.

           
“I guess that just proves that if something is really important to you, you
should take the time to build it right, and in a strong safe place that won’t
wash away with the next high tide.” Steve watched another wave surge around the
castle, gauging out more chunks of the wall. The far right corner, undercut by
the breaker, collapsed and fell into the moat.

           
“Why’d we even bother?” She growled unhappily.

           
“Well, we had fun building it, didn’t we?”

           
Gracie shrugged. “I guess,” she conceded.

           
“Some things aren’t meant to last forever. Like making homemade ice cream, or
spending a day at the beach.”

           
“Yeah but I didn’t want it to fall so soon.” She complained again.

           
A whistle sounded off to their right and Steve saw the counselors gathering
near the snack bar. It was time to gather their things and walk back to the
ferry.

           
Gracie flopped onto her back with a great sigh.  “I don’t want it to be
over yet,” she told Steve sadly.

           
Me either,
Steve agreed with her silently. Aloud he said, “Maybe you can
come back another day soon.”  He pulled her to her feet and they walked
back toward the snack bar.

           
Gracie shook her head. “We don’t ever come to the beach. Grandma says the sun
gives her a headache.”

           
“What about your Grandpa?” Steve asked in surprise, recalling many summer days
at the beach with David and his family during his childhood.

           
Gracie wrinkled her nose in resignation.  “He just reads the newspaper and
watches the Weather Channel.  He says that he’s too old to go to the
beach.” Gracie paused and looked up at Steve suspiciously.  “
Can
you
get too old to go to the beach?”

           
Steve shrugged. “I suppose so. I’m sure he wouldn’t lie to you,” he answered
carefully.

           
Gracie sighed again. “Anyway,” she went on glumly. “We don’t ever go.”

           
“Don’t worry,” Steve consoled her.  “You’re getting older. I bet next year
you’ll have a couple of friends with moms and dads who will take you with them
to the beach.”