Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One by Perry P. Perkins Page B

van. Cassie raised her head,
groggily, and nodded to Jack, letting him know she was awake.
Despite what she had said the night before, her back was stiff and
sore from hours of lying on the hard floor. Also, she was cold; the
soft gray light in the window told her that the sun had yet to peak
over the nearest hills to warm the desert. She shivered, pulling
her jacket from the front seat and rummaging through her duffel bag
until she found her toiletries.
    Reaching up she unlocked the sliding door
and, squirming out of her blankets, she stepped out into the cool
morning air.
    Jack was at the picnic table, his short
white hair in wild disarray, and his shirttail flapping loosely in
the slight morning breeze. He had a small tin coffeepot steaming
over a single burner camp stove and, while the coffee percolated,
Jack busied himself slicing apples and oranges. Cassie smiled as
she passed him on her way to the restrooms,
    "Morning, Jack," she said.
    Jack replied with an unintelligible grunt
that may or may not have been good morning. Again, Cassie splashed
her face with the icy water from the tap, brushed her hair and
teeth and, beginning to feel somewhat presentable once more,
started back to the campsite.
    She found Jack still seated at the picnic
table, a heavy mug full of steaming black coffee in his hand. He
was staring absently into a patch of grass several feet ahead of
him.
    "Beautiful day!” Cassie
grinned. Jack was obviously not a morning person, and her comment
hung there for a while, as it slowly filtered into Jack's brain. He
glanced up at Cassie with a sour expression, "The Japanese have a
saying,” he muttered, “ Never rely on the
glory of the morning nor the smiles of your
mother-in-law. The only good morning is
the one that you've missed when you wake up at noon!"
    Cassie laughed and, nibbling on an apple
slice, walked back to the tent.
    While Jack slowly succumbed to the affects
of sunlight and caffeine, Cassie broke down the tent and loaded it,
and the mattress, back into the van. As she worked, the two semi
trucks, which had pulled in during the night, fired up their
engines and pulled out of the rest stop and back onto the highway.
Except for a black pick-up at the opposite end of the parking lot,
she and Jack had the rest stop to themselves. Jack nodded to the
truckers as they rolled past.
    "Wow, Cassie said, "They don't sleep long do
they?"
    "Probably sleeping in shifts," Jack replied,
"When you're driving a big truck like that, you're only allowed so
much time behind the wheel before you’re required to rest for
several hours. A lot of truckers get used to sleeping three or four
hours at a time during those breaks so they don't lose any more
time on the highway than they have to."
    "Well, that makes sense, I guess,” Cassie
replied, “doesn't sound like much fun though."
    "No," said Jack, gathering the stove and
lamp. "I tried it for a while before I joined the Navy, just for a
summer. I didn't care much for it."
    "Oh?"
    "No, some folks were meant to stay in one
place, like they're born with roots already in the ground. I
learned quick, that summer, that I could only be away from the
smell of the ocean for so long before it started to wear me
down."
    "A homebody, then?" asked Cassie with a smile.
    "Good a word as any, I suppose." Jack
replied, "George Moore said that a person travels the world over in
search of what he needs, and returns home to find it. I guess a few
of us are born lucky enough to want to stay put to begin with."
    "I don't know," Cassie said, plopping down
at the table opposite Jack. "I couldn't wait to get out of Bowie!
As much as I loved everyone, I just knew there was a whole world
going on and we just caught the echo of it there. It was like
standing outside the stadium listening to people cheering for a
game you can't see."
    "Now that you're in the game,” he asked,
“what do you think?"
    "Well," Cassie grimaced, "I
don't know that Sentinel, Arizona is exactly in the game