Last Light in Paradise: Chapter 3

Editor’s Note

Every now and then, a story comes along that refuses to stay put. It lingers on your nightstand. It sneaks into conversation. For us, Last Light in Paradise is one of those stories, and we’re delighted to let it loose, one chapter at a time, in the pages of the Montecito Journal. Well, at least the first six chapters for the time being – then you can purchase the book at one of our local beloved bookstores (Chaucer’s, Tecolote, and Godmothers).

This book marks a first for us… Last Light in Paradise is the inaugural book published by MJ Media Group. Yes, we’re dipping a toe – perhaps a barefoot run – into the world of book publishing, guided entirely by our belief in a novel that is as cinematic as it is soulful, as local as it is timeless.

Set against the luminous backdrop of 1930s Santa Barbara, this is a tale of love and loss, mystery and reckoning, populated by unforgettable characters and infused with the kind of atmosphere that feels both dreamlike and deeply true. We invite you to settle in, turn the page, and join us at the edge of paradise… just as the light begins to change.

CHAPTER THREE

In the night, the rains became scatter-shot on a serious wind. Not for the last time, Creek wondered how deep the pilings to the pier were driven, how thick the screws in the cleats were, and how strong the knots holding Harvey’s lines were. And then he remembered that Harvey and John had left hours ago, and wondered if the old diesel was still a match for these big seas.

He gathered up his sleeping bag for warmth and walked to the kitchen. He poured a cup of cold coffee, sat in the big chair, put the bag across him, and listened to the house stand up to the storm.

John had been waiting when Creek returned, and Creek had seen from his expression the old man’s reticence to know any more than what he’d already imagined. Creek gave him the soft report and said he would bring the body over for burial in a day or so, when Sheriff Wade released it.

After a long silence, John spoke. “I’m not a man to brood on the Maker’s thinking, so much. Seen enough from ranching half a century to know my plans have little bearing on what fate decides is fair or not fair. But the irony is not lost to me – that a boy nearly dead came to us by water has now left us for good by the very same waters.”

Creek had asked what he meant by that. John cocked his head inquisitively, then stood and walked to the window. He stared down at the dock for a long minute.

“You ever heard the full story?”

“Maybe not,” Creek said.

“But you know how he came to us. I mean the three of them.”

“Versions. I’ve heard versions.”

Now, after a couple hours of sleep, John’s story haunted Creek. Penbrook had a lullaby voice, but in the telling there was so much sadness at the loss or the imagined reason for the loss that Creek became angry over the essential injustice of making such a good man have such heartache. He knew John’s wife, Sonora, would hurt worse, for she had found the boy and made him theirs. Now, listening to the wind and rain move around the house, he let himself travel back to John’s voice and the telling of the story.

“Well, it kind of goes back to the beginning. Up there in Mexican Water. Well, maybe earlier, when the priests packed a bunch of Chumash kids into an open railcar and trained them up to the Grand Canyon for a big Jesus fest, there at the rim. Indian Nation kids from all over. This was 1890. A boy from our rez named Henry Fish met Abagail Navada, a Hopi full-blood, and I don’t think the two of them heard much preaching that week. They found a fondness for each other and played a little hooky. He asked her to marry him, and she said okay, but he’d have to wait till she turned sixteen and come and ask her pop in person. A year later, Henry walked the full distance from Santa Ynez to Mexican Water in northeast Arizona and married her. He put her on a train and brought her back to Santa Ynez, and a few months later, both of them came over on Tingo Silver’s recommendation and began working on Santa Rosa. Abagail took up second fiddle in the kitchen, he groomed and gardened, and, a year later, little Pony was born. Named Charlie Russell after the great artist, he was short, quiet, sweet, ungodly willful, and though not many saw it, smart as a damn coyote. And the single best mutton-buster cowboy who ever lived.

“And then one day, Henry Fish and Abagail loaded up on liquor, got a fancy to be in a boat, set out in a daysailer with little Pony, and never came back. It was the blow of 1900, and that storm slammed us so fast, so hard, it blew out our water tower.

“Come a few mornings after, Sonora and Maria found the boat on Dingle Bay, lying up in the rocks, just shattered. Pony lay twisted nearby, and Sonora and the help worked on him a day or two. Had a man here who was a medic’s helper, and he stitched the boy. Third day, the boy opened his eyes and smiled up at us, and I knew Sonora wasn’t ever going to let him go. A week later we saw how it was – his leg was crooked, he kind of had to drag it, but he could walk. And his left arm never mended right. Hands called him ‘ditch’ ’cause he left a small trough where he walked. He’d smile and say it’s how he got water to the garden.

“So, we adopted him, Creek, and fixed him a bunk in the big tall grain silo. Sonora, well we couldn’t make children at that time, and this boy gave new life to her. She just blossomed. Called him her little saint. I let him tend the barn animals when he turned ten a year later, next the lighthouse, and then the garden. He knew the name of every animal we had out there, was a little wizard at those things. That boy earned every dollar of his pay.”

John suddenly broke off, hung his head, and said again, “every dollar… ,” then broke fully, and Creek thought the sobbing might actually break something in the old man’s frame. Creek went to refill their coffees. When he returned, John had stood abruptly and reached for his coat. Creek walked him down to his boat and stood in the abated rain and wind, watching as Harvey pulled out and headed the stock boat into the night sea. Creek stayed until its mast light disappeared in the darkness.

Now, sitting inside in the dark, Creek listened to the storm rummage through the night like a frightened horse in a back room. Reflecting on John, he realized why the old man had gone back across. Creek had seen how people ran from the grotesque, as if chased by demons. At the dock John had turned to him.

“We never found their bodies. His parents. I believe Pony was bewitched by the sea, thinking one day they might appear. Any time you’d come on him, he’d be looking out there, fixed on the horizon. He lived so quiet, Creek, you just didn’t always notice him, like you don’t always notice the landscape. And then this god-awful thing. He was a flawless soul. Though willful, he never harmed a thing on earth. If there’s more to it, some late-innings thing that might spoil a whole life of being decent, just leave it alone. For Sonora’s sake. And, I suppose, for mine.”

Creek held his eyes, nodded, and said, “Sure, John. Of course.”

“Thank you for doing this,” Penbrook said. “For bringing him over for burial. I just, I didn’t want it to be the last I saw of him.”

And then, as the joists quieted, Creek felt himself wondering if a man could carry a yearning through all of his life without mentioning it to anyone. Could do that and then one day buy a boat and set sail, aiming for the horizon and a place as vague as childhood, ignorant of all skills for the passage but the will to find it.  

Click Here for Chapter Four of Last Light in Paradise.