Happy Joyce lived on five acres situated high on Hockamock Head. Ever since the old lighthouse station that overlooked Jericho Bay had been abandoned in 1963, Happy was the sole inhabitant on that lonely stretch of the Island. And that was just fine with him.
Happy was fond of boasting that he could trace his family back to Swans Island’s first white resident. Thomas Kench was his name. He had fled to the Island as a deserter from the Revolutionary Army, and for fourteen years had existed as a solitary recluse. Kench had been part of Benedict Arnold’s ghastly march on Quebec in the autumn of 1775. Like his comrades, he had become sick, cold, and desperately hungry. He had survived the long, arduous trek to Canada only to freeze in a tent during the winter months on the open Plains of Abraham. While a raging smallpox epidemic killed men all around him, Kench had come through it strong enough to be one of the first American soldiers to climb the cliffs, scale the walls and attack Quebec’s Citadel. Kench was one of the few to make it back to American lines, struggling and straggling all the way through the wilderness to Maine hip deep in snow.
By 1776, Kench had withstood all he was going to. He deserted and fled, heading to the lonely islands off Mount Desert. One a day late in October, Kench grounded out his boat on a tiny islet of Swans Island. After years of solitude, he took a Penobscot woman for his wife, sired six children and lived well into his nineties to tell the story.
Happy was about as ornery as his ancestor. He owned a ramshackle Cape Cod style house on a rocky bluff that looked straight out to Marshall Island. It was, by anyone’s standards, a perfectly fine house. Nonetheless, Happy preferred to cook his meals outdoors and sleep in one of the several dilapidated, broken-down automobiles he kept spread out over the property. In the spring and summer, as it was now, Happy generally slept in a rusty, silver 1962 Chevy Impala convertible. This way, as he said, he had an unobstructed view of the stars in the night sky. He liked to lie fully stretched out in the back seat, slowly drawing on his pipe, watching the twinkling lights overhead. Every once in a while, Happy would be fortunate enough to spot a shooting star or two. A comet was a real treat. Overall, most people agreed that Happy may not have known much, but he sure did know his night sky with all it’s various and mysterious constellations.
Somewhere, on a rather vague level, Happy was aware that the Island’s other citizens, most of whom he had known for all of his 82 years, considered him a little strange and eccentric. If the truth were to be know, Happy was more than likely outright certifiable. But due to the innate, fundamentally held Yankee belief that each man has a basic right to his own privacy, the locals pretty much left Happy to his own devises ......... and that was how he liked it.
This particular Wednesday evening, Happy was just tossing the day’s catch of clams into the boiling pot on top of his Coleman stove when a sudden movement to the east caught his attention. Pushing his grimy cap back on his head, Happy looked up, watching the gradual streaking of lights as a plane made it’s way almost leisurely over Jericho Bay.
"That boy better pull her up some, Spike, or he’ll be taking a bath." Happy commented to his customary companion.
Spike, alertly watching the bright lights getting even brighter as the craft slowly went still lower in the sky, whimpered nervously.
His master, though, had gone back to tending his clams and didn’t pay anymore attention to the dogs’s uneasiness.
"Just a couple more minutes for supper ... " Commented Happy, checking his antiquated pocket watch before shoving it back into his pants. Rummaging around deep in the trunk of the Chevy, Happy surfaced triumphantly with a paper plate and plastic fork. Irritably, he abruptly turned around to address Spike, who had finally stopped his whimpering and was now loudly barking.
"What the hell, boy ....... ?" He never got to finish the sentence because for the first time in his life, Happy was struck speechless by what he saw.