Also Available From Jacy Morris

  Fiction:

  The Abbey

  The Cult of the Skull (The Enemies of our Ancestors: Book 2)

  The Drop

  The Enemies of Our Ancestors

  Killing the Cult

  The Lady That Stayed

  The Pied Piper of Hamelin

  This Rotten World

  This Rotten World: Let It Burn

  This Rotten World: No More Heroes

  This Rotten World: Winter of Blood

  This Rotten World: Choking on the Ashes

  An Unorthodox Cure

  Movies:

  All Hell Breaks Loose

  The Cemetery People (Coming Soon)

  The Lady That Stayed

  By Jacy Morris

  Copyright © Jacy Morris 2020

  All Rights Reserved

  Chapter 1: The Storm

  The wind battered the beach, pounding the eroding shoreline with wave after monstrous wave. J.S. Stensrud scanned the gray expanse of the ocean until he found the place where the waves began. He followed a wave in, watching it start as a shadow on the ocean a half-mile out. He followed it as it built and swelled, the ocean floor rising up to rob it of its energy until it couldn’t support itself anymore. He knew how it felt. His breath caught in his throat as he watched it crash onto the white sand with the force of a three-story house. In its wake, it receded, dragging a truckload of sand with it. The erosion had been occurring for years, and it was the process by which he had been doomed. Oh, there were other factors, but erosion was the catalyst.

  He poured himself another shot and held the shot glass in his hand. He looked down at the still, brown surface of the whiskey. He held it up to his eye admiring the color, and then in a fit of rage and self-loathing, he threw the shot glass to the ground. He snatched the bottle from the apple crate. With his head tilted back, he let the alcohol splash over the few teeth he still had left. He angled his head to the side to prevent the whiskey from hitting the raw socket where one of his molars had recently decided it no longer wanted to be a part of him. The whiskey tasted more like kerosene than alcohol, and he winced in pain as it washed over the raw wound in his jaw.

  The pain was fine. It was no less than he deserved. He was up to his ears in self pity when a knock came from the front of the house. After it came again, he realized he had been hearing the knocking for some time. The howling wind and the crash of the waves must have hypnotized him. He carried his oil lamp in his hand, holding it into the air to light his way through a house that had once been a place of joy and potential. It was someone else's dream house, abandoned and left to the elements, not unlike himself.

  “What is it?” he slurred loudly, his voice seeming to slosh like the oil in his lamp. “You come to gloat?”

  No response came, just the insistent knocking.

  He had to hand it to her. She never gave up. She was like the ocean he had once loved in that respect.

  The stubborn door wouldn't open. The frame of the house had bent a while ago as the house sagged on top of the dune, making the door almost impossible to open in cold weather. With his last bit of strength, he yanked the door open to find her standing there, looking just like she had all those decades ago. God bless her, she hadn’t aged a bit. Her hair still held traces of gray, thin streaks through her jet-black hair. Her eyes, the skin wrinkled around the edges, still held that same knowing quality, like she already knew everything that was going to happen, and couldn’t help but laugh on the inside as she went through the motions. Despite the hidden mirth in her eyes, her mouth held no such hint of amusement. It was a straight line, as if she had never been born with a mouth at all, as if the smooth skin where her mouth was supposed to be had been slit with a razorblade. Her mouth was lipless, cruel.

  “I knew you’d come,” he said, because he had. He’d known it since the last time he’d seen her, and the time before that. This was not a lady that went away. She was a lady that stayed. And even after he was gone, which would be blessedly soon if he had anything to do about it, she would still be here, still living on his land. “Nothing’s changed” he said to her.

  Those eyes twinkled back at him, and he entertained the thought of throwing the oil lamp at her to see if she would go up in flames. Not since the first day he had seen her, had he seen the area around her mouth do anything but frown, but tonight, it was there, a brief quirk to the left and sides of her mouth. She was smiling at him. “I know,” she said. “It was never going to change.”

  ****

  1930

  J.S. Stensrud stood on a thick sliver of land that jutted into the sea. The Spit they called it, though its real name was Oceanside Island. The sun, orange and bright washed over his face. Not even the ever-present bite of the wind off the Pacific could rob him of the warmth the sun provided. He looked out over the ocean, watching the reflection of the sun as it danced upon the water. The sparkle spoke of riches, opportunity. He nodded at the ocean, as if to tell it he understood its message.

  The ocean, calmer than he had ever seen it, called to him. He knew it was right. He knew just as sure as he knew the sun would come up in the east the next day. This was the spot. This was where he would make his dreams come true.

  He felt the squeeze of Dotty’s hand on his wrist, and he looked into her brown eyes, clear, reflecting the glow of the sun just like the ocean. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. It felt right. It felt natural.

  They walked arm in arm through the tall grasses on top of Oceanside Island. It wasn’t the most creative of names, but it wasn’t the name that had attracted him to the land. It was the location. It was the white sandy beaches, a rarity on the Oregon coast. It was the gentle play of the ocean and the shore. And most importantly, the Spit was right off the highway.

  No piece of land was perfect though. He’d need to get a road built. The Spit was only accessible by boat at the moment, and during low tide, even that wouldn’t work. You'd have to slog through waist-deep mud to get to the island. The northern edge of the island would be a good place for a dock until the road was finished. But right here, at the top of the hill, this would be his monument, his lasting legacy.

  “It’s beautiful,” Dotty said, resting her head on his shoulder, their hands clasped together.

  He smiled. It wasn’t beautiful yet. But it would be. He would see to that. He would make Oceanside Island the jewel of the northwest, a paradise to rival anything one might find in California. And he would be in control of it all.

  From behind, he heard a grunt, perhaps that of an animal. He spun quickly, knowing that it wasn’t uncommon for mountain lions and even the occasional black bear to appear along the coast. His heart thumped in his chest, and he pushed Dotty behind him instinctively, although he didn’t know how he could protect her from something like a cougar or a bear. But it was neither of these things. Instead, he was greeted by the squinty-eyed, brown visage of an Indian.

  They were not uncommon in these parts, though most still lived on their reservations. You could find them making trouble all over the state. He wondered if her presence and that of her people was a common occurrence. Immediately, he thought of telling her to leave his property, but then it dawned on him that it wasn’t quite his property yet.

  Then the sound came again, and he realized that the woman was saying something.

  “Guh-wa-l’he-ken,” she said wearing an odd smile that only barely touched her face.

  “Pardon?” he queried. Dotty peeked around his shoulder, and then slunk back behind him.

  The old lady rolled her eyes, and then spoke again, her thick voice heavy with annoyance. “I said, ‘Hello, Guh-wa-l’he-ken.’”

  “Guh-wa?” he asked, unable to comprehend exactly what she was saying.

  “Hello,” his wife said, her voice small and inconsequential among the never-ending wind of the ocean.

  The woman nodded, the small smile disappearing from her face.

  J.S. straightened his jacket subconsciously and then wiped a hand through his brown, windblown hair. “I’m sorry. I thought you might be a bear.”

  “The tide is going,” she said. “It’s best you be leaving. Unless you want to spend the night.”

  Somehow, she made the prospect of spending the night sound appealing. He looked at his watch and then shook his head. The time had gone faster than he had expected. They had been out here for hours while he had conjured images of hotels, grand socialite parties, and vacationing families. “Yes, well.” He cleared his throat. “We had better be going then.”

  “Do you have your own boat?” Dotty asked.

  She'd better have her own boat. He had no intention of riding in a boat with the savage. For all he knew, she probably had lice and Lord knew what else.

  The Indian lady looked around the island and then smiled. “I need no boat.”

  He felt the consternation as it crossed his face. “Do you mean that you live here?”

  The old woman cocked her head and looked at him in the strangest of manners. “Don’t we all live here?”

  Sensing his frustration, his wife stepped in and asked, “He means do you make your home on the island?”

  “I have many homes,” she replied.

  For a brief moment, J.S. had the sensation that he was being talked to the way one might amuse a particularly precocious two-year-old. “But this is one of them,” he prompted.

  The old woman nodded.

  He saw his dreams come crashing down in his head. In his mind, his dre am hotel crumbled to the ground, plank by plank, nail by nail. “I was under the impression that this land was not part of a reservation… that it was for sale.”

  A sad look crossed the woman’s face. “You want to buy it? You want to own it?”

  “Why that is my intention, yes.”

  “I see,” the woman said. A sigh, heavy with weariness escaped her lipless mouth. The skin around her eyes crinkled. “I know this game… from before. What is your price?”

  A bird of prey spun around overhead, circling, its piercing call raising gooseflesh on the back of his neck. “Price?” he asked. His mind reeled with confusion. “I was quoted a price of 15 dollars per acre by the good man Rosewell in Tillamook County.”

  “There is no man Rosewell here. Only me and mine. You think you can own this land by trading paper? You are a fool, Guh-wa-l’he-ken.”

  Dotty grasped at his arm. The bird above, he could see its sharp beak now, clear in the light of the setting sun. He eyed it suspiciously. “I want to go, John.” The bird seemed to be closer now.

  He looked at his wife. Her face was a pale, sickly color. Where before it had been healthy, her cheeks wind-reddened, she now looked waxy and frail.

  “I don’t have to pay you. You don’t own this land,” he said with finality.

  The old woman nodded. She smiled at him as if she had made a jest in her head that he wasn’t privy too. “It is as you say, but the land goes hungry. I am the last of my people. So, I offer to you, I offer to help you to pay the price.” Her words carried something on them, something like the promise of violence. No, not violence. Sorrow.

  “Now see here,” J.S. began. “You’re upsetting my wife. I’ll hear no more talk of this. If this is not your land, then you have no business of speaking to me about prices. Good day. Come along dear, before we’re stranded.” He spun Dotty to the side, and they tromped around the woman as if she were nothing more than an old tree stump slowly rotting in the ground.

  Above the sound of grass swishing against Dotty’s dress, he heard the woman call, her voice thick and almost mournful. “The land has a way of making you pay, whether you want to or not.”

  He ignored the comment. Not until they were a hundred paces away did he pause and turn to see if the woman was still there. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her silhouette against the clear orange sky. The whole incident had started to take on the aspect of a fever dream.

  “Can we go?” Dotty asked.

  He patted the hand she rested on his elbow, and they pushed on through the grass. At the edge of the island, where a neat splinter of ocean created a small, mostly calm inlet, J.S. noted that there was no other boat. There was only their own rented dingy, the oars neatly shipped, its bough resting on grass rooted in ancient sand. He failed to point it out, but Dotty's queer silence let him know that she had picked up on the fact.

  They didn't speak until they were on the other side of the inlet, back on the mainland. With his pants freezing wet around the ankles from drawing the boat up onto dry land, he stood looking back at Oceanside Island, admiring its shape as the last of the day's light left. Of the Indian woman, he saw neither hide nor hair.

  Dotty cleared her throat and held out a hand to him. He gave her his arm and helped her from the boat, managing the folds of her dress with some grace. They hopped in their car and paid a visit to the man that had rented them the use of his boat.

  ****

  Scoot McKenzie was a terrible sort of fellow, squat and thick, his hands as callused as the barnacle-covered hull of an ill-maintained fishing boat. He reeked of whiskey and something else that J.S. couldn't quite place.

  "Find what yer lookin fer?" the man asked, his voice like the rattle of a drowning man. The interior of his cabin, no more than a clapboard house with a tin roof and an old stove in the corner, reeked of old piss and pipe tobacco.

  "Oh, yes. Very much so."

  "And ye brung ma boat back in one piece?" Scoot asked.

  "Yes, we left it above the tide line as you asked."

  Scoot scratched the tip of his nose with his rough hand, and J.S. wondered how the skin of his nose didn't split open from the calluses. "Aye then, that'll be twenty-five cents."

  The price was extravagant. J.S. had spent no more than a few hours with the boat, but, he swallowed the urge to haggle with the man. He didn't want to ruin the spirit of the day, and he was good for it. There were plenty more quarters where that had come from.

  As he searched through his coin purse to pay Scoot's fee, Dotty said, "We were wondering about the lady?"

  The fisherman, enjoying his Sunday off, paid Dotty no mind. His eyes were too busy, affixed to J.S.'s change purse, a bright beaded thing that Dotty had picked up for him, noting that he was too dour and should own at least one thing with some sort of flair. "What lady?" Scoot mumbled, preoccupied by the shine of coins in the coin purse.

  Dotty said, "There was an Indian woman on the overlook, at the far end of the island."

  The man took the stem of his pipe from his mouth, and one of his eyebrows raised reflexively, giving him a frightened appearance. "An Indian you say?"

  "Yes, she was about this tall," Dotty held her hand at shoulder height. "She had some gray in her hair... and well, she was Indian."

  "How many Indian women do you have around here?" J.S. asked as he finally managed to fish a quarter out of the purse. He plunked it down in the rough palm of Scoot, who pocketed it like it was going to evaporate if left in the air for longer than a second.

  "Ain't got no Indians round here. The Tillamook, well, they all been rounded up for years. Sent some down to Grande Ronde, some down to Siletz. Ain't no one left round here but one family, and they ain't got no old woman with 'em."

  "So, no Indians own that land."

  Scoot laughed. "Not anymore."

  J.S. felt relief wash over him. The island was free and clear. He would own it. And when he did, he would make sure that no Indians were ever allowed on the property... and there would be no Scoots either. No one wanted to vacation in a place where they were constantly reminded of the vulgar masses. He might have to buy the man out, but from the evidence of the man's poverty, that would cost him next to nothing.

  He shook the man's hand, and then consciously kept it at his side, avoiding getting his tainted appendage near his face. When they reached the Tillamook County land office, he would find a place to wash his hands. "Farewell, Mr. McKenzie. Thank you for your assistance."

  ****

  By the time they reached the land office, Mr. Rosewell was out front turning the key to the glass doors. He turned and looked at them with a somewhat frightened face as the headlights of J.S.'s Ford Model A splashed across his body. He must have recognized the car because Rosewell stood up and waved at them as J.S. brought the vehicle to a stop.

  "I figured you'd gone on home," Rosewell said.

  "Oh, well, we spent more time on the island than we were expecting," J.S. said through the open window of his car.

  "I'm just closing up now," Rosewell said, "but if you're interested in the property, I'd be more than happy to talk about it tomorrow morning."

  J.S. turned to Dotty. She smiled and patted him on the hand. "Nonsense, my good man. There's nothing to talk about. We'll take it."

  Rosewell did a little hitch, clapped his hands, and began unlocking the glass door of the office. "Well come on in."

  J.S. exited the car, walked around the front of the Model A, and helped Dotty climb out of the vehicle. She looked glorious, like a painting you'd see in a museum, classical beauty. That was what she was, a classical beauty. And she smiled at him, and his chest bloomed with warmth, and they walked inside beaming at each other. By the time he thought to ask about the Indian woman, he had already dotted the i's and crossed the t's, so he didn't even bother asking.

  With his bank account completely emptied by his purchase, they began the long drive to Portland. Dotty slept in the car while, J.S. dreamed of all the plans he had for Oceanside Island. The first order of business was to come up with a new name. Oceanside Island... whoever had named the island was the type of person who would just call their dog "dog." No creativity whatsoever. Not a drop. No, that wouldn't do.

  In the darkness of night, with his car engine chugging loudly, but comfortably, J.S. Stensrud drove home, trying on names like clothing at a department store, and then leaving them on the side of the road to rot when they didn't suit his needs.

 

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