Evergreen by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 1

“May the Lord bless and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine down upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Father Thomas Roberts was the priest at St. Mark’s Church in Evergreen. As a man of the cloth, he took his job very seriously leading a lifetime career free of controversy he had been serving the Evergreen parish since some of its residents were children - having baptized many of them. He had been there long enough to have an intimate knowledge of many of the townspeople’s darkest secrets. It seems that the confessional can reveal things that even God may not want to hear.

Fall had arrived early that year. The sky was turning a deeper blue; the wind turning cold and crisp. The wooded landscape howling with the far-off sounds of wolves mixed into a haunting symphony with the random harmonies of the wind. Summers were always short in Evergreen. Not much changed from one day to the next. Saturdays were reserved for family, but the local bars still filled up at night with people looking to blow off steam, as well as to sit in search of something that could not be found at the bottom of a bottle -- the cure for loneliness. Sundays, however, were solemn occasions with nearly the entire town attending services provided by Evergreen’s only church and it was on one particular Sunday that a different chill wandered its way through, one that reminded everyone of another presence that had taken root in their town, one that had been there for generations and would not leave. But, the day was still young, and the leaves began to turn early, leaving the congregation’s children leaning towards the windows, itching to get out into the cool palette of early autumn.

The service ended as all other services had. The benediction was spoken in the congregation filed out onto the street. Many in the town went to church. Most were faithful to their God, but a few looked towards the sanctified ground as a source of protection from something that God was either unable or unwilling to destroy. Perhaps the evil that lurks just outside of town had been willfully overlooked by the creator, perhaps out of fear. As the congregation let out, one of the faithful was Christine Thomaston. As the town’s sheriff, she wore the badge with honor and serving the town of Evergreen for several years saw the importance of earning the respect and trust of the community, always keeping an eye on the news from across the country, she saw the behavior of other officers who abused people while hiding behind the badge. This, she saw as loathsome and cowardly. Certainly, she was not someone affected by ego or craved the authoritygasm being commonly seen among law enforcement. In fact, for as long as she had worn the badge, Christine’s sidearm had never so much as broken the letter of its holster and although she considered herself married to her job, Christine was the object of every man’s eye. A woman in her late thirties, she still appeared quite youthful. Her spectacular red hair and Romanesque physique could turn the head of a dying man. But perhaps it was her strength that kept Evergreen largely free of serious crime. One certainly couldn’t consider committing a felony while carrying the image of the town’s sheriff in their mind, and she was always in uniform, always on the job.

Not far behind was Joan. A recent transplant from Portland, Joan managed a small market in town. To many, she seemed profoundly unhappy, even angry. But like anyone else, the state of her life could be easily explained by her history. One year ago, she had been released from the state prison in Bangor after a ten-year sentence for what the court referred to as involuntary manslaughter after killing her abusive husband and with no other family, the state of Maine took custody of her son. Eventually, he was thrown into the adoption system and disappeared into the state’s bureaucratic catacombs. However, upon her release, Joan’s attorney broke a legal cardinal rule by tipping her off as to where her son was living. Joan didn’t question how the attorney came by the information and although he may no longer recognize her, she knew he had been adopted by a family in Evergreen and desperately wanted to get to know him, without disrupting his life.

Tom went to services only occasionally. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in God. He had simply lost his faith. Raised in Evergreen, Tom worked tirelessly in the town’s lumber mill. His wife had met an untimely end when her car slid off the only road into town during one of Maine’s many famous Nor’easter’s. Her car was found at the bottom of a steep embankment. Autopsy results showed her cause of death to have been a deep skull fracture but that was only the beginning. His wife’s demise left Tom alone to raise nine-year-old Katie, and he was completely clueless as to how to be both a mother and a father. But, after ten years of constant work and loneliness, Tom had begun to come out of his shell and although he spitefully questioned God about the state of his life, Tom would go to church to be around people but primarily, to see Christine, to admire her from afar.

Evergreen was a small town about thirty miles northeast of Baxter State Park. The park drew many campers and hikers and had been considered and many to be the jewel of New England. Evergreen credited its existence to the lumber industry with the entire town supporting the modestly sized mill as well as the crews, who risked their lives on a daily basis bringing timber to the mill. But the town had somehow been overlooked as a tourist hotspot. With only one road serving as access and exit, Evergreen seemed to have dropped off the edge of the world, never being noticed except as a small dot on a map.