High Tide: Nightfall

Two people stood on the bridge, watching a lone heron perch precariously on one leg while fishing in the shallow water. Their long, dark shadows gradually merged into one. As time passed, the distorted shadow in the water of the little Campbell River, grew longer and finally disappeared. 

A lone woodpecker relentlessly pounding a hole in a tree stump, gave up his task, as night descended. The seagulls standing watch on the crumbling, cement pillars of the old, wooden pedestrian bridge that led to the Semiahmoo Indian Reserve, drifted off to sleep. The nature trail along the river’s edge demarcated by trees, shrubs and long tufts of grass, became deserted. Yellow daisies and white buttercups in full blossom, disappeared in the darkness.

Silence reigned.

It had been a clear evening, but often, a heavy, foreboding mist hid most of the east parkland and the beach. At other times, the bright, warm sun radiated rays of joy and delight that virtually danced on the water.

High tide, when accompanied by angry winds, brought rushing waves of salt water that pounded the beach. The waves, depending upon their size and strength, carried pieces of dark, wet driftwood inland, invariably leaving them stranded in crooked lines, among the stones. Other pieces of driftwood lay partly submerged in the symmetrical waves of silt-like sand from the river. Pieces of driftwood, partially burned during campfires, emerged as huge, chunks of black charcoal.

    

Low tide usually ushered forth a half-mile of sandy ocean beach occupied by treasure seekers. Wet, dark-green seaweed lay in shallow pools of warm water along with brightly colored, smooth stones and vacated clam shells that caught the treasure seeker’s eye. The occasional crab meandered through the sand heading towards the water.

Was this particular nightfall with its foreboding, disappearing shadow, indicative of their future in White Rock? How many more high tides and low tides were there destined to be for them, or would there just be a relentless changing of the tides after the two merged into one shadow, never to return.