Screaming, she fired into the dark waters until the gun was empty. The jungle went deathly quiet. Nothing stirred.
• • •
The villagers came to investigate the gunshots. In the light of their torches, Graces deck looked drenched in blood. They found B.J. in the cockpit, propped against the stainless steel wheel, Eric cradled in her lap. She was stroking the hair back from his face and telling him that everything was going to be all right, that the crocodile gods had gone.
The village chief questioned her in halting English. It was some time before she realized what he was asking. He wanted to know if there was anyone else they should be looking for.
“There’s just me and Eric and the baby,” she whispered. “Just us. Just our family.”
BEHIND THE FICTION:
HOW ONE MAN’S MISFORTUNE
BECOMES ANOTHER MAN’S INSPIRATION
On July 14,1998, the Swiss sailing yacht Athene III, on a course north from Vanuatu, entered a bay on the western side of Utupua Island. Fritz and Therese Messerli were looking for a place to anchor for the night. Port of entry for this part of the Solomons (the Santa Cruz Island group) is on Nendo Island, but Fritz and Therese weren’t interested in traveling another 25 miles that day, especially with such an inviting-looking harbor at hand. Throughout the bay, coral reefs prevented an easy anchorage, so the Messerli couple pressed north, bypassing the small Melanesian village of Nembao, a ragged cluster of primitive huts on the south shore of the bay. Had they stopped at the village, not only would they have found a suitable anchorage just off the beach there, but the locals would have warned them about the bay’s northernmost cove.
Near the mangrove trees lining the north shore of Basilisk Harbor, where the water was an impenetrable murky shade of green, Fritz decided to dive in to check the bottom. Therese waited on the drifting Athene III, relaxing in the sun, ready to drop anchor if Fritz found the site suitable. A few moments later Fritz called out that he could see the bottom and that it was sand. The couple were probably quite excited to have found such a secluded and lovely place to anchor for the night. It was about this time that Fritz first screamed and began thrashing about in the jaws of a fifteen feet long crocodile. Horrified, Therese watched as several other crocodiles joined in the frenzy. Her husband was taken under. With no boat in the water (their dinghy was still lashed to the deck), there was nothing she could do but scream for her husband.
He did not come to the surface again.
Therese was found at sunset by the village chief who brought other villagers in canoes and tracked the large crocodile to its lair. They drove it off with torches and collected what was left of Fritz Messerli. Permission was obtained from the authorities on Nendo by radio, and Fritz was buried on Utupua. His grave is a simple one, unmarked until recently visited by fellow sailors Michael and Tere Batham. Michael Batham, using a plank of rosewood donated by the villagers, carved a head marker which reads, “Fritz Messerli, Born 7/7/38, Taken by Crocodile 14/7/98; Athene III, Utupua.” Tere Batham wrote an article which appeared in the May 2000 issue of Cruising World (a popular sailing magazine), which is how I learned of the tragedy.
I can’t even begin to imagine Therese’s horror at witnessing the attack on her husband. There’s something primal in all of us that is utterly repulsed by the thought of being preyed upon or losing the ones we love in this manner. I can’t imagine the grief with which she must have waited afterward, nothing but the sounds of the jungle and the water lapping at her boat, thinking of her husband’s body being torn apart in some dank, dark crocodilian lair. The hours between the incident and the arrival of the Melanesian chief must have lasted several lifetimes.
Salt water crocodiles are, like the great white shark and a certain chap I knew in college, the perfect eating machines. There’s not much else they like to do. Nature has made them perfect for this task. A 15 to 20 feet long crocodile will weigh a ton. He can make himself invisible in just three feet of water. He can explode from the water, launching all that mass—and all those teeth—5 to 15 feet high, high enough to snatch a bird from the air or a man from the deck of a yacht. You’ll find them in fresh and salt water, in coastal rivers and creeks and swamps, and more than 100 miles inland in equatorial areas: northern and western Australia, New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomons, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Africa, and South America. Favorite habitats are... what else?... mangrove-lined harbors and lagoons.
Be careful where you dangle your piggies, my friends.
Wisteria
* * *
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
–Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1822
The galleon, El Bordello Rojo, lately of Corsica (though her captain, Philippe Laguerre, had made a career of sailing for whomever best lined his purse), had one passenger when she put in at Rio de Janeiro. This passenger was known, mysteriously enough, by but a single name: Wisteria. She had paid her way through the Strait of Gibraltar in gold coin and ensured her safety across the Atlantic by attaching herself to the pirate captain. The crew believed Laguerre to have enjoyed her soft, pale flesh each night of their voyage, but they were mistaken. Laguerre had tried, but failed. Most nights they had simply talked, a new experience for the French pirate. He’d never met another woman like her, had never even considered that a woman could be an intellectual companion. Wisteria knew more about Europe than anyone he’d ever met. She could talk equally well about politics, geography, philosophy, history—even religion. While they talked, they drank from Laguerre’s private stores, fine vintages from the south of France, most stolen from men who would never point a finger at Laguerre. Though Laguerre had tried to wine her into submission, she’d proven a difficult opponent, drinking him under the table each time.
Laguerre watched her stroll away that spring evening, certain that he’d never see her again, as ignorant of her ultimate destination and plans as he’d been when he’d first met her. He knew nothing about where she had come from before boarding his vessel. She spoke with no accent that he could identify, revealed no custom that might tie her to a specific country. Her skin was a fair as any Brit’s: the pale ivory of African tusks he’d taken in the Mozambique Channel; the alabaster of a Rotterdam whore he’d paid with jewels taken in the Gulf of Oman. But her hair was dark enough for a Spaniard. Her eyes were blue enough to have descended from any of the Slavic races. Her lips were as full as a Negras.
Wisteria was a mystery, and what better basis for romantic heartache than intrigue? The pirate’s heart of steel had been melted. Watching her depart, he realized all this, acknowledged to himself how very much he was going to miss her. And he feared for her. He’d tried to talk her into waiting until morning. The docks were no place for a woman at night. But she’d insisted on going ashore.
He realized that she’d suffered on the trip across the Atlantic. He could see it in her step, which seemed to have lost most of the bounce he’d noticed when she’d first climbed the Bordello’s gangway. Her hips no longer had the same sway. Her eyes, when she’d bid him farewell, had lost most of their heat and, though her skin had always been pale, in the last week she’d taken on the ghostly gray shade of seal-skin. Her hair, which he’d once thought resembled the oiled, black sheen of a panther’s hide, seemed lackluster, even here in the sodium glare of the dockside streetlights. She was too weak, he thought, to be about without an escort.
The docks at Rio de Janeiro were crowded with ships bound south for the Falklands and South Georgia, sealers and whalers, and those who survived by running services to each. There were ships bound round the Cape with trade goods, vessels returning to Tierra del Fuego, Punta Arenas, and Valparaiso. The quays and surroun
ding alleys were choked with sailors and landside scum. There were merchants and charlatans and wine sellers... and whores with skin coarser than the barnacles on the dock pilings and eyes—eyes as unreflective as the dark pit of a spittoon—that hadn’t seen daylight or kindness in centuries. Women by birthright and sex alone. Women against whom Wisteria stood out like a sore thumb. The men wore daggers or ragged-edged cutlasses paired with a brace of pistols. High black boots. Balloon-sleeved blouses that had once been white. And feral grins. Their eyes were guarded and mean. There were good men among them, but among the bad there were men whose reputations made even Laguerre look like a saint.
As the French pirate watched, several such men took note of his ex-passenger. And one, one whose scarred cheek and white-cleft eye reminded Laguerre of a drunken night in a Barcelona brothel, abandoned his dice game and followed her.
Laguerre fingered his dirk and considered calling for his men or at least going below for a pistol, but he’d already lost sight of Wisteria as she passed beyond a three keg high wall of gunpowder. If he delayed, he would also lose sight of the man with the blinded eye. Leaping from the ship’s rail, he caught a mooring rope and swung himself over to the dock. The leap directed much attention his way, but it did not, as he’d hoped, catch the eye of the man he hoped to intercept. Spanish boots clopping noisily on the weathered wood of the pier, silver spurs jingling, Laguerre plunged into the crowd in pursuit. Some, perhaps those who knew of him, stepped aside. Others did not... until he met their eyes with his own dark gaze and a scarred grin that said it would be violent and quick because he had other matters to attend to.
The man with the cleft eye turned on a side street, one which Laguerre knew led away from the docks toward a district known for its brothels and bars. A district where anything could happen without attracting much notice from the local authorities. Though he couldn’t fathom why, Laguerre had to assume that Wisteria had gone up the alley first. Not a good direction for her. There was at least one Arab in that crowd who’d bought his share of white women from men such as the one with the cleft eye. Laguerre did not like to think of Wisteria’s less obvious talents wasting in some Sultan’s harem.
It was an alley that had escaped the attention of street lamps. What little moonlight came over the roofs of the surrounding warehouses did not penetrate to street level. The sides of the alley were festooned with midnight pockets, impenetrable doorways and perpendicular side alleys. Fifty feet in, as Laguerre drew cautiously past one of these, a shadow separated itself from the deeper gloom. By the time Laguerre saw it, by the time he acknowledged the pistol in his assailant’s hand, it was already too late.
“Laguerre, tu m’as tellement manqué,” hissed the man with the white eye.
Laguerre showed his teeth there in the dark, gave the pistol the merest glance, dismissing its threatening bore. “I have missed you, too, Dulac. How’s the eye?”
Dulac gestured at the eye with his free hand. “Comme si tu Vignorais, bâtard. Gives me headaches when it rains. But sometimes it is worth it. The eye sees into the future, Laguerre. Want to know what it sees right now?”
Laguerre shrugged, using the motion to surreptitiously slip the blackened blade of the dirk into the proper position in his palm. “I’ve never believed in oracles, Dulac.”
“You can believe in this one.” Something ghost-like shifted in the shadows behind Dulac, but he was unaware of its presence. Laguerre tried to make out its shape, but it was too dark, and shifting his attention to the deeper shadows made it hard to concentrate on Dulac. “This one tells of your death, Laguerre.”
“At your hands?” Laguerre laughed. “Who have you brought to help you see this oracle through?”
“Jai ce qu il faut.” And the pistol came up to chest level.
The knife shot from Laguerre’s palm, underhanded, a brighter sliver of black as it cut through the surrounding night to bite into Dulac’s side. Dulac’s pistol flashed and barked. Ka-pow! Laguerre stumbled back against the wall, a dull shock numbing his left shoulder and arm. “Morbleu!” he groaned, momentarily lapsing into French. “You shot me!”
“Sans blague!” Dulac gasped, clutching at the hilt of the knife in his side. “Now I will use this wretched little blade to cut out your heart!” He took a step forward as Laguerre slid weakly down the wall, but something stepped out of the shadowed doorway and engulfed him.
There was a flash—not a bright flash, like that of burning gunpowder, more like a white spark of light that somehow failed to carry beyond Dulac. It was as if sunlight had just flashed from a length of highly polished steel, but there was very little light in the alley. There was no sound from this burst of energy. The only sound in the alley was Dulac’s brief scream. Blood sprayed, hitting the walls, hitting Laguerre. Something rode Dulac to the ground, something that for a moment appeared to be a naked woman. Laguerre decided he’d rather die on his feet, but he couldn’t get the leverage to lift himself from the ground. By pushing his back against the wall and digging his spurs into the cobblestones, he managed to at least sit up straight.
Dulac had gone quiet. From the mouth of the side street where he lay, there came only wet sucking noises, the sounds a calf makes at its mother’s teat. A moment later those, too, were gone. Something rose from the body, something with no discernible human shape. It was a shifting of animal shadows in the dark. Wolf and lion. Rhinoceros tusks and crocodile teeth. And other beasts, ones for which Laguerre had no name.
Laguerre thought he must have fainted for a moment, because the next thing he knew Wisteria was at his side. There was blood on her dress, sprinkled like red paint on an artist’s drop cloth. There was more blood on her chin. Where her dress gapped to reveal her bodice and the tops of her breasts, blood ran slow and heavy like dirty oil.
“Why were you following me?” she asked.
Laguerre nodded toward Dulac. “He was following you. I was following him.”
“You were worried about me?”
He nodded weakly.
“You should have left the spurs behind,” she chastised.
He tried to shrug, but failed. His shoulder wasn’t working. “Style is everything, M’lady. Any man can rush into danger. I want them to admire my coming.”
She frowned and made no comment on this absurdity. “You knew that man?” she asked as she pulled Laguerre’s hand away from the gunshot wound.
“Pierre Dulac, once one of my crew. I threw him overboard several years ago—though within sight of land. Met him later in a brothel where he tried to kill me. There ensued one hell of a knife fight. I blinded him in one eye.” He touched the old wound that ran across his mouth. “He did this.” There came the sound of his silk shirt being torn. He realized she had bared his chest, but he couldn’t feel the night air on his skin. His senses were fading. He didn’t think he had much time. “I should have killed him then.”
She leaned close to examine the wound. He experienced a moment of fear then, a sudden mental flash on what had just taken Dulac to the ground. He stiffened, expecting her to sink her teeth into his flesh. There were stories told in France—hell, in every port he’d ever sailed—of creatures who could drink the life from a man. There was blood on her dress, blood on her chin, perhaps even there on her perfect white teeth. As her hair brushed his face, he noted one slick black strand as it trailed blood across his bare chest.
Wisteria laid her hand over the bleeding hole in his shoulder. There was a short-lived heat. A flash of pain. And then... nothing. She placed something warm in his palm, planted a cold kiss on his scarred lips, and then turned away. He lay there, afraid to move, until he could no longer hear her footsteps on the cobblestones. Then he crawled to Dulac.
Something had ripped the man open from groin to chin. Whatever it was, it had been incredibly sharp. So neat was the incision, that Dulac’s organs had failed to burst free; and it was not until Laguerre tentatively probed the cut, that it gaped and let Dulac’s organs show in all their hoary glory. Miraculo
usly, the man was still alive, though just barely. As Laguerre watched, Dulac hitched half a dozen struggling breaths, each one wafting a frigid mist up from his lungs. It was as if he were lying aground in mid winter, his warm breath clouding the cold air. But it was a spring night in Rio, with the temperature in the upper seventies. It was Dulac’s breath that was cold.
Dulac tried to speak, but the cut that had outdone him had bisected his larynx. His eyes, coated with a diaphanous glaze that might have been ice, fogged over and went out. His breathing stopped.
Laguerre leaned back from the corpse and placed a trembling hand against a shoulder that was still numb, but fast returning to normal. His flesh was unbroken... as if he’d never been shot. There wasn’t even a scar. In the palm of his hand, he found the pistol ball, still wet with his blood, its heat already fading.
What wasn’t fading was that last image of her captured in Laguerre’s mind. Wisteria’s color had returned. Her eyes had been bright and clear. When she’d walked away, her stride had been crisp and certain. Her hips had swayed with that same motion he’d noted when first she’d boarded the Bordello. In a sadistic sort of way, he found it even more appealing now.
Authors Note: Readers familiar with my novella Cold at Heart (Starlanee Publications, 1997), will recall that Gabe, the shape-shifting monster who had gone north to hibernate in the 1800s, mentioned a mate which had gone south. Her name is Wisteria. Ice Castles, the sequel to Cold at Heart, tells Wisteria’s story. This is an excerpt from her journey to Antarctica. Many thanks to Sylvie Miller in Paris for helping to correct my French.
Flotsam
* * *
She washed up in their surf, this whale of a woman, bobbing and rolling all bloated and white... like a dead beluga, or an oversized, discarded milk carton. But she wasn’t a beluga, was in fact nothing that had come from their ocean—leastwise not in the last several millennia. She wasn’t garbage either. As the surf ground her against the sand and the shell-wash, flesh and blood permeated the saltwater. They could taste her. It was the taste of castoff, of rejection, of loneliness and despair and misuse, but mostly it just tasted of death.
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