“It’s all right, Boise,” he said. “I’ll be back before we shove.”
“Where do we go?” the driver asked him.
“Town.”
I can’t believe there’s any business with this heavy sea. But maybe they found something. Maybe one is in trouble somewhere. Christ, I hope we make it this time. I want to remember to make out one of those pocket wills and leave her the joint. Must remember to get it witnessed at the Embassy and leave it in the safe. She certainly took it awfully well. But then it hasn’t really hit her yet. I wish I could help her when it hits her. I wish I could be some real good to her. Maybe I can if we get by this one and the next one and the next one.
Let’s get by this one first. I wonder if she’ll take the stuff. I hope she will and that she’ll remember to give Boise the egg. He gets hungry when the weather’s cold.
The boys won’t be hard to find and she can take another beating before we haul her out. One more anyway. One for sure. We’ll gamble on it. There are spares for nearly everything. What’s one more beating if we get to close? It would have been nice to have stayed in. Maybe it would have been. The hell it would have been.
Get it straight. Your boy you lose. Love you lose. Honor has been gone for a long time. Duty you do.
Sure and what’s your duty? What I said I’d do. And all the other things you said you’d do?
In the bedroom of the farmhouse, now, the room that looked like the Normandie, she was lying on the bed with the cat named Boise beside her. She had not been able to eat the eggs and the champagne had no taste. She had cut up all the eggs for Boise and pulled open one desk drawer and seen the boy’s handwriting on the blue envelopes and the censor stamp and then she had gone over and lain face down on the bed.
“Both of them,” she said to the cat, who was happy from the eggs and from the smell of the woman who lay beside him.
“Both of them,” she said. “Boise, tell me. What are we going to do about it?”
The cat purred imperceptibly.
“You don’t know either,” she said. “And neither does anyone else.”
Part III
AT SEA
I
There was a long white beach with coconut palms behind it. The reef lay across the entrance to the harbor and the heavy east wind made the sea break on it so that the entrance was easy to see once you had opened it up. There was no one on the beach and the sand was so white that it hurt his eyes to look at it.
The man on the flying bridge studied the shore. There were no shacks where the shacks should have been and there were no boats anchored in the lagoon that he could see.
“You’ve been in here before,” he said to his mate.
“Yes.”
“Weren’t the shacks over there?”
“They were over there and it shows a village on the chart.”
“They sure as hell aren’t here now,” the man said. “Can you make out any boats up in the mangroves?”
“There’s nothing that I can see.”
“I’m going to take her in and anchor,” the man said. “I know this cut. It’s about eight times as deep as it looks.”
He looked down into the green water and saw the size of the shadow of his ship on the bottom.
“There’s good holding ground east from where the village used to be,” his mate said.
“I know. Break out the starboard anchor and stand by. I’m going to lay off there. With this wind blowing day and night there will be no insects.”
“No sir.”
They anchored and the boat, not big enough to be called a ship except in the mind of the man who was her master, lay with her bow into the wind with the waves breaking white and green on the reef.
The man on the bridge watched that she swung well and held solidly. Then he looked ashore and cut his motors. He continued to look at the shore and he could not figure it out at all.
“Take three men in and have a look,” he said. “I’m going to he down a while. Remember you’re scientists.”
When they were scientists no weapons showed and they wore machetes and wide straw hats such as Bahaman spongers wear. These the crew referred to as “sombreros científicos.” The larger they were the more scientific they were considered.
“Someone has stolen my scientific hat,” a heavy-shouldered Basque with thick eyebrows that came together over his nose said. “Give me a bag of frags for science’s sake.”
“Take my scientific hat,” another Basque said. “It’s twice as scientific as yours.”
“What a scientific hat,” the widest of the Basques said. “I feel like Einstein in this one. Thomas, can we take specimens?”
“No,” the man said. “Antonio knows what I want him to do. You keep your damned scientific eyes open.”
“I’ll look for water.”
“It’s behind where the village was,” the man said. “See how it is. We had probably better fill.”
“H2O,” the Basque said. “That scientific stuff. Hey, you worthless scientist. You hat stealer. Give us four five-gallon jugs so we won’t waste the trip.”
The other Basque put four wicker-covered jugs in the dinghy.
The man heard them talking. “Don’t hit me in the back with that damned scientific oar.”
“I do it only for science.”
“Fornicate science and his brother.”
“Science’s sister.”
“Penicilina is her name.”
The man watched them rowing toward the too white beach. I should have gone in, he thought. But I was up all night and I’ve steered twelve hours. Antonio can size it up as well as I can. But I wonder what the hell has happened.
He looked once at the reef and then at the shore and at the current of clean water running against the side and making little eddies in the lee. Then he shut his eyes and turned on his side and went to sleep.
He woke as the dinghy came alongside and he knew it was something bad when he saw their faces. His mate was sweating as he always did with trouble or bad news. He was a dry man and he did not sweat easily.
“Somebody burned the shacks,” he said. “Somebody tried to put them out and there are bodies in the ashes. You can’t smell them from here because of the wind.”
“How many bodies?”
“We counted nine. There could be more.”
“Men or women?”
“Both.”
“Are there any tracks?”
“Nothing. It’s rained since. Heavy rain. The sand is still pitted with it.”
The wide-shouldered Basque whose name was Ara said, “They’ve been dead a week anyway. Birds haven’t worked on them but the land crabs are working on them.”
“How do you know they have been dead a week?”
“No one can say exactly,” Ara said. “But they have been dead about a week. From the land crab trails the rain was about three days ago.”
“How was the water?”
“It looked all right.”
“Did you bring it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see why they would have poisoned the water,” Ara said. “It smelled good so I tasted it and brought it.”
“You shouldn’t have tasted it.”
“It smelled good and there was no reason to believe it was poisoned.”
“Who killed the people?”
“Anybody.”
“Didn’t you check?”
“No. We came to tell you. You are the skipper.”
“All right,” said Thomas Hudson. He went below and buckled on his revolver. There was a sheath knife on the other side of the belt, the side that rode high, and the weight of the gun was on his leg. He stopped in the galley and took a spoon and put it in his pocket.
“Ara, you and Henry come ashore. Willie come in with the dinghy and then see if you can get some conches. Let Peters sleep.” To his mate he said, “Check the engines, please, and all tanks.”
The water was clear and lovely over the white sand bottom and h
e could see every ridge and wrinkle in the sand. As they waded ashore when the dinghy grounded on a ridge of sand he felt small fish playing around his toes and looked down and saw they were tiny pompano. Maybe they are not true pompano, he thought. But they look exactly like them and they are most friendly.
“Henry,” he said when they were ashore. “You take the windward beach and walk it all the way up to the mangroves. Watch for tracks or anything else. Meet me here. Ara, you take the other beach and do the same.”
He did not have to ask where the bodies were. He saw the tracks that led to them and heard the rattle of the land crabs in the dry bush. He looked out at his ship and the line of the breakers and Willie in the stern of the skiff with a water glass looking over the side for conches while the skiff drifted.
Since I have to do it I might as well get it over with, he thought. But this day was built for something else. It is strange how they had such a rain here where there was no need for it and we had nothing. How long is it now that we have seen the rams go by on either side and never had a drop?
The wind was blowing heavily and had blown now, day and night, for more than fifty days. It had become a part of the man and it did not make him nervous. It fortified him and gave him strength and he hoped that it would never stop.
We wait always for something that does not come, he thought. But it is easier waiting with the wind than in a calm or with the capriciousness and malignancy of squalls. There is always water somewhere. Let it stay dry. We can always find it. There is water on all these keys if you know how to look for it.
Now, he thought to himself. Go in and get it over with.
The wind helped him to get it over with. As he crouched under the scorched sea-grape bushes and sifted the sand in double handfuls the wind blew the scent of what was just ahead of him away. He found nothing in the sand and he was puzzled but he looked in all the sand to windward of the burned shacks before he moved in. He had hoped to find what he looked for the easier way. But there was nothing.
Then, with the wind at his back, so that he turned and gulped it and then held his breath again he went to work with his knife probing into the charred deliquescence that the land crabs were feeding on. He touched a sudden hardness that rolled against a bone and dug it out with the spoon. He laid it on the sand with the spoon and probed and dug and found three more in the pile. Then he turned into the wind and cleaned the knife and the spoon in the sand. He took the four bullets in a handful of sand and with the knife and the spoon in his left hand made his way back through the brush.
A big land crab, obscenely white, reared back and lifted his claws at him.
“You on the way in, boy?” the man said to him. “I’m on the way out.”
The crab stood his ground with his claws raised high and the points open sharply.
“You’re getting pretty big for yourself,” the man said. He put his knife slowly in its sheath and the spoon in his pocket. Then he shifted the handful of sand with the four bullets in it to his left hand. He wiped his right hand on his shorts carefully. Then he drew the sweat-darkened, well-oiled .357 Magnum.
“You still have a chance,” he said to the land crab. “Nobody blames you. You’re having your pleasure and doing your duty.”
The crab did not move and his claws were held high. He was a big crab, nearly a foot across, and the man shot him between his eyes and the crab disintegrated.
“Those damn .357’s are hard to get now because draft-dodging FBI’s have to use them to hunt down draft-dodgers,” the man said. “But a man has to fire a shot sometime or he doesn’t know how he is shooting.”
Poor old crab, he thought. All he was practicing was his trade. But he ought to have shuffled along.
He came out onto the beach and saw where his ship was riding and the steady line of the surf and Willie anchored now and diving for conches. He cleaned his knife properly and scrubbed the spoon and washed it and then washed the four bullets. He held them in his hand and looked at them as a man who was panning for gold, expecting only flakes, would look at four nuggets in his pan. The four bullets had black noses. Now the meat was out of them, the short twist rifling showed clearly. They were 9mm standard issue for the Schmeisser machine pistol.
They made the man very happy.
They picked up all the hulls, he thought. But they left these as plain as calling cards. Now I must try to think it out. We know two things. They left nobody on the Cay and the boats are gone. Go on from there, boy. You’re supposed to be able to think.
But he did not think. Instead he lay back on the sand with his pistol pulled over so it lay between his legs and he watched the sculpture that the wind and sand had made of a piece of driftwood. It was gray and sanded and it was embedded in the white, floury sand. It looked as though it were in an exhibition. It should be in the Salon d’Automne.
He heard the breaking roar of the seas on the reef and he thought, I would like to paint this. He lay and looked at the sky which had nothing but east wind in it and the four bullets were in the buttoned-down change pocket of his shorts. He knew they were the rest of his life. But he did not wish to think about them now nor make all the practical thinking that he must make. I will enjoy the gray wood, he thought. Now we know that we have our enemies and that they cannot escape. Neither can we. But there is no necessity to think about it until Ara and Henry are back. Ara will find something. There is something to be found and he is not a fool. A beach tells many lies but somewhere the truth is always written. He felt the bullets in his change pocket and then he elbowed his way back to where the sand was drier and even whiter, if there could be a comparison in such whiteness, and he lay with his head against the gray piece of driftwood and his pistol between his legs.
“How long have you been my girl?” he said to the pistol.
“Don’t answer,” he said to the pistol. “Lie there good and I will see you kill something better than land crabs when the time comes.”
II
He was lying there looking out at the line of the surf and he had it pretty well thought out by the time he saw Ara and Henry coming down the beach. He saw them and then looked away from them and out to sea again. He had tried not to think about it and to relax but it had been impossible. Now he would relax until they came and he would think of nothing but the sea on the reef. But there was not time. They came too fast.
“What did you find?” he asked Ara who sat down by the gray driftwood. Henry sat beside him.
“I found one. A young man. Dead.”
“He was a German all right,” Henry said. “He only had on shorts and he had very long hair, blond and sun-streaked, and he was face down in the sand.”
“Where was he shot?”
“At the base of the spine and in the back of the neck,” Ara said. “Rematado. Here are the bullets. I washed them.”
“Yes,” said Thomas Hudson. “I have four like them.”
“They’re 9mm Luger aren’t they?” Henry asked. “It’s the same caliber as our .38’s.”
“These with the black ends are for the machine pistol,” Thomas Hudson said. “Thanks for digging them out, doctor.”
“At your orders,” Ara said. “The neck one had gone clean through and I found it in the sand. Henry cut out the other one.”
“I didn’t mind it,” Henry said. “The wind and the sun had sort of dried him. It was like cutting into a pie. He wasn’t like those in there. Why did they kill him, Tom?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think?” Ara asked. “Did they come in here to make repairs?”
“No. They’ve lost their boat.”
“Yes,” Ara said. “They took the boats.”
“Why was the sailor killed?” Henry asked. “You forgive me if I don’t sound too intelligent, Tom. But you know how much I want to do what I can and I’m so happy we have contact.”
“We haven’t contact,” Thomas Hudson said. “But Christ we’ve got a lovely scent.”
“Breast hi
gh?” Henry asked hopefully.
“Don’t mention that word to me.”
“But Tom, who killed the sailor and why?”
“Family trouble,” Thomas Hudson said. “Did you ever see a man shot in the base of the spine for kindness? Afterwards whoever did it was kind and shot him in the neck.”
“Maybe there were two,” said Ara.
“Did you find the hulls?”
“No,” Ara said. “I looked where they would be. Even if it was a machine pistol it would not have thrown them further than I looked.”
“It could be the same methodical bastard that picked up the other ones.”
“Where would they go?” Ara asked. “Where would they make for with the boats?”
“They have to go south,” Thomas said. “You know damned well they can’t go north.”
“And we?”
“I’m trying to think in their heads,” Thomas Hudson said. “I haven’t many facts to go on.”
“You have the deads and the boats gone,” Henry said. “You can think it out, Tom.”
“And one known weapon and where did they lose their undersea boat and how many are they? Stir that and add we couldn’t raise Guantánamo last night and add how many keys there are south of here plus when we have to fill our tanks. Add Peters and serve.”
“It will be all right, Tom.”
“Sure,” Thomas Hudson said. “All right and all wrong are identical twins in this business.”
“You’re confident we will get them though, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” Thomas Hudson said. “Now go and flag Willie in and let Antonio get started on his conches. We will have chowder. Ara, you load all the water you can in the next three hours. Tell Antonio to go ahead on the motors. I want to get out of here before dark. Was there nothing on the island? No pigs nor any fowl?”
“Nothing,” Ara told him. “They took everything.”
“Well, they will have to eat them. They have no feed for them and no ice. They are Germans so they are capable and they can get turtle in these months. I think we will find them at Lobos. It is logical they should take Lobos. Have Willie fill the ice-well with conches and we will take only enough water to the next key.”
Islands in the Stream Page 33