The Fiddler

By Doc Trap

An unwanted boy from a large city becomes a man on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. His future father -in-law is held by the boy dying in the surf from a gunshot wound.
A minister paints violent paintings, a city editor investigates murder while the daughter of a wealthy fox hunter marries a weakling. The memory of a yellow bird killed by a troubled child flashes across the mind of a mate on a fishing boat as a giant Marlin is pulled aboard.
The FBI investigates and natures wrath pounds the shores of The Graveyard of The Atlantic as two seemingly opposite personalities are drawn together both striving to answer the unanswerable. The solution is in the little black eyes of a Fiddler Crab.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 24, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462823963

Doc Trap

Who I am. "I am a retired surgeon that has spent 42 years of my life fighting death. Now I spent time as a widower writing poems, short stories and novels. I have seen death in every form and now I write about the impact death has on all associated with it. Death changes everyone and I am interested in the character changes that result."

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Copyright © 2008 by Doc Trap.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

CHAPTER 63

CHAPTER 64

CHAPTER 65

CHAPTER 66

CHAPTER 67

CHAPTER 68

CHAPTER 69

CHAPTER 70

CHAPTER 71

CHAPTER 72

CHAPTER 73

CHAPTER 74

CHAPTER 75

CHAPTER 76

CHAPTER 77

CHAPTER 78

CHAPTER 79

CHAPTER 80

CHAPTER 81

CHAPTER 82

CHAPTER 83

CHAPTER 84

CHAPTER 85

CHAPTER 86

CHAPTER 87

CHAPTER 88

CHAPTER 89

CHAPTER 90

CHAPTER 91

CHAPTER 92

CHAPTER 93

CHAPTER 94

CHAPTER 95

CHAPTER 96

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1

HE SAT ON the sand; soft ocean waves caressed his feet and warmed his heart. He was alone; he had been alone since birth, and the first words to strike his little ears were, Christ, what in hell are we going to do with this thing. He really did not hear those words, but his first three years of life would have made those words a prediction of his life; that is, until . . .

He was alone in a family of seven. He was the last child. You’re damn right, no more damn kids. Five children: the first wanted, the second tolerated, the third ignored, the fourth pushed away, and our little child had been as a thing thrust out from between the thighs and as wanted as a sack of leaking garbage. The foulness of the words was inadequate to express the hate and anger that his birth had engendered.

He is a runaway not looked for, reported, or wanted. His name not mentioned in the building in which he had lived; he will not call it a home.

He was drawn to the ocean. Perhaps the violence of the sea when the wind screamed and the spray wetted his brown hair made him combative . . . but he could never win the battle.

Perhaps it was the screaming of the gulls as they dove into the sea to kill. Perhaps it was the broken shells, they being also victims of life, that made him feel a kinship. Or perhaps it was chance that caused him to lift a shell and find a small frightened fiddler crab that had sought shelter and was now exposed and frightened.

He raised his foot as though to crush it, and that’s when its little claw swung across its face. His foot hung in the air; he reached down, picked up the little crab, and held it. He pulled his arm back as though to throw it into the sea but paused and ever so slowly brought it before his eyes and, for the first time in his fourteen years of existence, saw a life that now completely depended on him to continue to exist. He was the absolute master of the present, and he could determine the fate of another living thing. He sat back on the sand; the sea now warmed him to his waist. He held the crab gently in his hand and could feel the pinch of the fiddler’s little claw. He would never know why, but his lips touched the little wet thing, and he felt the warmth of the sea and an inner warmth that before now was unknown to him.

He arose, looked for the shell that had housed this tiny soul. He placed the fiddler on the drying sand and carefully covered it with the shell.

He lay quietly behind a sand dune partially hidden by the swaying sea oats, and for the first time in many days, the memories of his past life were swept away by the beauty of his day, the softness of the sand, the warmth of the air about his face, the memory of the two little black eyes that looked up at him.

He slept without the flashes of violence and vulgarity. He slept as though a softness, a stranger to him, was blunting the sawtooth of a life where gentleness meant weakness and kindness meant cowardice. He slept as though he was cradled in the arms of love. He was at peace.

The morning was a gift from God. The sun was brilliantly breaking through layered clouds, and the rays were as flames reaching into the heavens. The sea was asleep, and only gentle quivers told of its hidden strength as ripplets caressed the sand and returned to the sea with a sigh heard only by the little creatures at its undulating edge. The boy was awakened by the sound of gulls flying overhead. He stretched his arms, raised his head toward the heavens, and smiled. He lay quietly looking at a Sanderling who ran in spurts with lowered head probing in the sand for sustenance. The boy followed the bird’s action only with his eyes. Movement might frighten the little bird, and he did not want to be alone this day. The bird stopped and looked at the giant thing before him but continued to run without fear.

The look on his face seemed transfixed. He was thinking of the day of rage when he had thrown a cage through a window, killing a little yellow bird, the only thing that his mother seemed to love. He remembered how great it felt to know that he was the cause of his mother’s tears. The sanderling looked yellow in the early-morning sun, and he covered his eyes with both hands and wept softly, lying in the warming sand of a new world opening before him. When he awakened, he was alone, but the memory of the sanderling, the pinch of the tiny claw, the gentle, soft hiss of the mild breeze through the sea oats, and the warmth of the sun drove away the sound of shattered glass and the image of a dying bird lying in the gutter. He knew, somehow he knew, that he was beginning again and that the pinch of a tiny claw had told him more than all the days of violence on the street. Somewhere deep in the genome of his being, a few genes were responding to love.

In the weeks to come, the people of the Outer Banks spoke of the young man walking on the beach searching for and finding small things needing help: fish left behind by receding tides, birds with broken wings, and on one occasion, spending the night holding an injured puppy and protecting it from the rain. When approached, he seldom spoke but always seemed so pleased that someone had cared that he had tried to help. His name was unknown, but his gentleness was praised. He was only the boy on the beach.

Winter comes. It is just that simple, winter comes. When winter comes, the small things know, and they prepare. Big things, like people, have a tendency to deny the change and always seem surprised when the wind blows open their doors, and the chill of the morning air causes great concern. Closets are opened, and clothes are spread on the bed to sort out the warmest to wear today. When winter comes, the dress of nature changes: the flowers wither, the green recedes, and the brown of fall clothes the ground. Spring is the time of renewal; winter is the time of testing. Winter is the time when the weak die and the strong become stronger. Winter would be the test of his lifetime.

Winter on the Outer Banks of North Carolina is not the time to try men’s souls. It is the time of restrained merriment and celebration of the arrival of tens of thousands of ducks, snow geese, and Canadian geese. It is a time to hunt, to explore, and to enjoy the leaving of the hordes of visitors that have returned north. The temperature averages about fifty degrees, but the wind, often strong, can make it feel bitterly cold. It is a time when death comes to the Outer Banks as birds tumble from the sky and dogs with wagging tails carry them to their masters. It is a time of controlled violence. It is a time of terrible conflict for the young man.

His jeans had been replaced, and his shoes and shirts, from money earned doing only the trivial things that he could do. He now slept in a boat shed close to the pier at Whalebone Junction. His morning walk on the beach is hurried now. The surf crashes to the beach, and spray flung high by the pounding wind wets his face. He pulled the sweatshirt up and lowered his chin into the warmth of the dark grey and tattered cloth. He looked through lids half closed, salt stinging his eyes. Far down the beach, he saw a group of raincoated men gathered around a net. As he approached, a middle-aged man raised his head and shouted, Hi guy, come see what we just pulled in. The young man hurried toward the fisherman and stood outside their circle and looked over the shorter man’s shoulder. Inside the net were perhaps fifty fish – some leaping and falling back, others lying there with mouths agape, seeing the scurrying clouds for the last time. At one side of the net lay a small porpoise, his eyes wide open. His pointed snout now failed to show the smile that has made the porpoise a friend of man. One of the fishermen violently pushed the little porpoise with his foot, causing the little thing to cry out. Suddenly without warning and with a scream that seemed to pierce the morning air, the young man rushed at the fisherman, striking him on his cheek and knocking him to the ground. At once, the young man was pinioned to the sand by a group of angry shouting men. Christ Almighty, what in shit has gotten into you?

The young man lay quietly on the sand confused and seemingly unaware of what had just happened. He turned his head, looking up at the angry faces staring down at him and said only one word. Why?

The men had emptied their nets, returned the porpoise pup to the sea, and walked shaking their heads and gesturing questioningly with their hands, occasionally looking back at the young man now walking alone up the beach. The whistling wind made silent the words of anger and concern that the men were speaking. The young man heard only his inner voice asking him, then telling him, in words he knew but could not understand. The words were pictures in his mind. A dying yellow bird, a crying porpoise pup, and the angry faces looking down at him. The tears now streaming down his cheeks were, in his mind, the tears of his mother; and they burned his flesh and made him ashamed. Shame, perhaps for the first time, entered the life of a confused and tired young man dressed in wet and sand-soaked, tattered clothing walking alone up a winter beach.

That night, he slept behind a dune as though to shun the gift of shelter he believed he no longer deserved. This was to be a night of torment, a night of emotions fighting for the right to be dominant. This was truly the beginning of the end, or hopefully, the end of a terrible beginning. The wind blew sand across his body. He covered his head with his arms as though to hide from a beast wanting to destroy him. He shivered, not from the cold, but from the chill of doubt that now made his simple life a long and lonely walk up a never-ending hill.

The sun saw the boy behind the dune, and a single brilliant ray warmed his tired being. He awakened but did not stretch his hands toward the heavens; he did not rub his hands to bring back life to chilled fingers. He did not move. For the moment, the gulls circling overhead had eyes bearing down on him. Their beaks became closed fists waving angrily above his head, and the screaming of the gulls were angry words thrown down on him. Today became yesterday, but today was to be the beginning of a new existence. Now we will give him a name.

His name is Howard; it is close to what he had been called for many years. Hey you. He grew but did not mature. He strengthened outwardly, but the fear of life itself was carried on a weakened spirit as a burden too heavy to bear. Friendship was a thing unknown as friendship would demand a degree of trust, and this was an emotion as foreign to his being as the song of a nightingale at wartime. He was emotionally in turmoil but was troubled more by his insight into the myriad of problems that encircled his life. He seemed always capable of solutions that were beyond the scope of those around him. He had the ability of abstract thinking that usually resulted in conflict but were in truth the proper answer. To avoid outburst of anger, he would usually remain silent. He grew to know that his mind was strong, but without trust and without friendship and without love, it lay as an unopened blossom needing the hand of chance to bring forth the beauty and the strength of a mind unchallenged. He was, without his knowledge, awaiting the look of a tiny creature raising its little claw in defiance of a hostile world. He was to see in those shiny tiny black eyes the future of hope, a new world of caring; and most of all, he was to feel a sense of responsibility and trust that until that time simply did not exist.

The coldness of the morning air bit through his clothing, and he sat erect, looking toward the sea. The nor’easter raised the surf, and its fingers plucked at his hood, pulling it back from his head. His windblown hair was salty moist, and small droplets of water hung from his eyelids, and the morning brightness caused ringlets of light to shimmer in the air. He brushed his eyes, pulled the hood tightly under his chin. In spite of the chill, he felt an exhilaration and looked inland at a large flock of geese dipping low behind a clump of scrub pine heading for Pamlico Sound. The fading sound of the geese as they glided into a landing awakened a rush of memories of birds flashing through the air, of fish leaping free of the water and splashing back into the sea. He remained motionless as the wonder of the world around him, a panoply of purity, hung before him, plotting out, perhaps forever, the garbage of his youth. He stood quietly and then, with the gentleness of a deer, walked toward the sea, his head thrown back, his arms reaching toward the heavens, and a smile slowly creeping across his face. He was to learn as the days swept by that this was, in truth, the beginning of his life.

CHAPTER 2

ONE YEAR HAS passed, the time of the dolphin long forgotten. The boy on the beach, now Howard, was assimilated into the closed society of the Outer Banks. He no longer walked the beach alone but was often seen with a string of children, as the tail of a kite, following behind. A laughing, smiling, weaving thread of youthful energy enjoying the wonders of the sea. On occasions, the thread would become a loosely wrapped ball as they gathered around their leader, listening, looking, and wondering at another new object in his hand. As he spoke, the only other sound to be heard was the call of a gull or the shrill screaming of a swallow-tailed kite. They listened and stood silently. The sound of his voice as he spoke of living things as though they were his friends seemed to draw the children to him. The ball became tighter, and Howard would finally lift his find far above their heads and then walk toward the sea, placing the squirming sand flea, a small crustacean often used as bait, at the edge of the advancing water. Watch as he digs into the sand and returns to his home, he would say, then turn to the smiling faces,