When I glanced back I could now see the lighthouse peeking above the oaks. Only sixty-three feet high, it rose humbly above its community, a whitewashed brick tower that had stood its ground since 1823, second oldest beacon in the country.
That old timer was selling shells again at the corner of Silver Lake and Highway 12. I smiled and nodded to him as I passed by but he returned my friendliness with a glowering stare.
After several blocks of restaurants and cottages and B&Bs, I turned onto Old Beach Road, then Middle Road, and found myself once again in the residential quarter of Ocracoke.
These yaupon and live oak-lined streets seemed all that remained of the island’s soul.
I came at last to the termination of Kill Devil Road, a worn-out street, cracked and embedded with oyster shells, more than a mile from the nearest residence.
Yesterday, after leaving my car several hundred yards up the street, I’d trespassed through the Kites’ grove of live oaks, right up to the edge of the wood. Lying down in the sand and slimy leaves, cold drizzle soaking in, I’d watched the stone house as the afternoon darkened into evening.
No one came.
No one left.
When night set in I crept up behind one of the contorted live oaks in the front yard and peered through the windows into the living room. Yellowmadder firelight lit the mahogany walls and the feeble frames of an old man and an old woman, statuesque on their old couch, staring into the fire.
After an hour of watching them sit there, inert, I crawled back toward the wood, fully concealed in the luxuriance of weeds that had subjugated the front lawn. Walking back to the Audi, my course of action became clear and though I hated the idea, though it entailed a major gamble, it was my only option.
So now, a day later, I pedaled beyond the mailbox of Rufus and Maxine Kite, down the dirt road that led to their soundside home. Queasy and cottonmouthed, I hadn’t tried anything like this in years. My life in northwestern Canada had been based upon the eradication of risk and I feared I’d lost the nerve for this sort of thing.
A wet veil of Spanish moss brushed through my hair as I exited the grove of live oaks. Through swaying beach grass I rode on, disregarding my palpitant heart, the Pamlico Sound now in full gaping view behind that ancient house of stone.
A heady north wind blew in from the sound.
Whitecaps bloomed in the chop.
That old Dodge pickup truck, parked yesterday under one of the oaks, was gone.
I left the bicycle in the grass beside the wrought iron railing and ascended four steps to the stoop, wishing I had the cold reassuring weight of the Glock in the pocket of my leather jacket. But in all likelihood I wouldn’t need it. From what I’d observed yesterday, Rufus and Maxine Kite suffered lives of lassitude and seclusion.
As I knocked against the door I caught the scent of woodsmoke. Looking up, I saw a thin gray cloud rising out of the granite chimney.
I knocked again.
A minute passed.
No one answered.
Reaching down, I palmed the tarnished doorknob, surprised to feel it turn in my grasp.
The wide oak door swung inward.
34
I stepped inside the house of Rufus and Maxine Kite and closed the door behind me. Having had no prior intention of entering this house uninvited, the part of me grown intolerant of risk screamed to leave.
I called out, "Is anyone home?"
To my immediate right an archway opened into a long living room with a hearth at the far end, on the grate of which glowed a bed of bright embers.
A grandfather clock loomed in a nearby corner. Its second hand moved every four seconds.
I glanced left into the dining room, the table set for three. When I touched the saucer at one of the place settings my finger disturbed an alarming layer of dust. It had settled in the bottoms of the wineglasses, on the surfaces of each plate, even upon the yellowed tablecloth.
Strings of cobweb were everywhere.
I proceeded deeper into the house, past a staircase that climbed into darkness. The foyer narrowed into a corridor and under the stairs I noticed a little door in the wall.
The air grew damp and stagnant, fraught with the odor of must.
I entered the kitchen.
Through the windows behind the sink I could see the sound. On the breakfast table a row of grayish-blue fillets and a thin-bladed filleting knife had been left out on a cutting board beside a glass mixing bowl, half-filled with cornmeal.
Standing over the sink, I looked into the weedy backyard that sloped down to the water. There was a plot of tilled earth near the house that might’ve once been a shade garden, though nothing grew there now.
A dock stretched out into the sound. Thoroughly rotten, its collapse seemed inevitable when the next storm blew in.
Leave and come back. You should not be here like this.
I started back toward the front door.
A tiny old woman stood in the kitchen doorway.
She appeared to have just woken, her pearly mane in such extraordinary disarray it seemed to be more the result of an explosion than a nap. I could see the silhouette of her spindly frame behind the threadbare fabric of her nightgown.
Barefooted, she walked into the kitchen, opened a cabinet, took down a tin of ground coffee.
"Sleep all right?" she asked.
"Um, I uh—"
"You’re in my way. Go sit down."
I took a seat at the table as she filled the coffeepot with water from the faucet.
"Now this isn’t that fancy shit. So if you’ve turned into one of those dandies who has to have their coffee soaked and freshly ground and God knows what else, tell me now."
"Maxwell House is fine."
Mrs. Kite noticed the fillets on the cutting board.
"Goddamn him!"
She set the coffeepot down hard on the butcher block countertop and pointed at the raw fish.
"Rufus is going to ruin our lunch. You can’t leave fish out. You can’t! leave! fish! OUT!" She sighed. "Your coffee will have to wait, Luther."
Sitting down across from me at the breakfast table, she picked up one of the fillets.
"I don’t believe it," she said. "There’s no chili powder in this cornmeal. You know, I’m starting to think your father doesn’t know how to fry bluefish. And besides, you’re not supposed to fry bluefish."
She dropped the fillet and stood up. From the spice rack on the counter she plucked a small plastic bottle and returned to her chair. When she’d shaken half the bottle of chili powder into the cornmeal and stirred the mixture with her finger, she looked up at me, bewildered.
"Who are you?" she asked, a completely different person.
"My name’s Alex. Alex Young. I came here to—"
"Who let you in?"
"You did, Mrs. Kite. I knew your son, Luther, at Woodside College."
"Luther? He’s here?"
"No ma’am. I haven’t seen him in a long time. We were friends at school. Is he in Ocracoke right now? I’d really like to see him."
As the wave of lucidity engulfed her, her eyes traded confusion for sorrow. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her eyes as though her head hurt.
"I’m sorry. Sometimes my brain gets scrambled. What’s your name?"
"Alex. Do you know where—"
"And you were friends with my Luther?"
"Yes ma’am. At Woodside. I came here to see him."
"He’s not here."
"Well, do you know where he is? I’d love to—"
"I haven’t seen my son in seven years."
Her eyes blinked a dozen times in rapid succession. Then she grabbed a handful of cornmeal, sprinkled it onto a fillet, and began patting it into the meat.