“Weigh anchor,” screamed the captain through gasps as if the deckhand could hear him through the ether.
“He already is,” replied Francisco, pointing to the ship. All sails were readying and flapping. The Roc was displayed in full prominence. A square-shaped whitely shining spectacle goading the men to safety.
And as the crew sprinted down the dunes, Simon was perched high upon the Top, hand over his forehead.
Isaac felt himself grow nauseous again. “Captain!” he yelled.
And Hildale sprinted toward them, his still living men staggering behind.
The hunter took aim. The gun let out only a faint click. “Jam!” Herb screamed.
Hildale was upon them, whale-bone machete in hand.
The captain drew his Kukri and ran to meet him and the two met with a sickening crack that sounded like stone upon stone. They rolled in the sand over top of one another and the captain thrust at the giant but was squeezed in a bearhug atop the sand. The captain screamed as the elephant gun rang out and from his pulsating vision the pirate saw behind him and upside down another of Hildale’s crew fall dead.
The imposter Hildale laughed and the pirate jabbed four fingers into the giant’s eye.
Hildale let out a growling laugh again and the captain rose and swept up his Kukri but Hildale was already moving. With the curved blade the pirate thrust toward Hildale, who displayed agility not becoming of his build.
“Kill him, god damnit!” yelled the hunter as he cursed and cleared debris from the long barrel. The hunter looked at Francisco who also stood motionless and watched the battle as if mesmerized.
“Francisco!” yelled Isaac.
The captain thrust once, twice and Hildale parried them both. Hildale punched the captain across the mouth and the pirate fell to a knee, again losing his blade and two teeth that fell bloody to the rocks.
Miska was there and the black shaggy dog silently clenched the adversary’s thigh and thrust his head about in fury. The giant looked down as if puzzled and brought a foot down upon the beast who yelped as his back crumpled and his jaws loosed.
In that same motion Hildale hurled an iron shank at Herb before the hunter could level his weapon and it stuck mid-belly. He lumbered over the pirate captain who stabbed upwards and wedged the blade into Hildale’s inner thigh and pulled down though no scream was heard. The Kukri was knocked from the pirate’s hand yet again and the insane punched hard downward onto the top of the pirate’s bald head.
Despite this the captain screamed and threw a handful a sand at Hildale’s face. He rose unarmed, while the giant slashed the air in front of him with fury as he shook his head violently.
Upon Francisco and Isaac were two of Hildale’s sycophants. The Mexican downed one with his pistol: one shot between the eyes.
The other continued silently toward him and Francisco in one move took up and thrust the captain’s Kukri into the man’s throat, stopping him in his tracks.
With the captain crawling and reeling to his feet Hildale looked at the Mexican as if shocked.
Shots were heard coming from The Roc, and yet another remaining straggler of Hildale’s gaunt crew fell dead upon the dunes above the men.
Hildale charged The Roc’s captain with his machete high.
The pirate scooped up a sword-sized log of knotted driftwood. And as Hildale sliced the captain stepped sideways and two handed clubbed the giant about the head.
And still holding red-stained machete in hand, Hildale ran sideways, as a fish being pulled by a line. “Eholg!” he screamed. “My brother, my brother, my God!” Like he had a weight guiding him, he reeled headlong and crashed unto the rocks.
The pirate breathed hard and heavy.
Julius cupped his hands behind his head and spun about. “He died!” he whispered. “He died!”
For a moment none spoke save for the birds above and Julius spun in a circle around Hildale’s body, squatting and looking at it, standing and spinning. “Died!” he yelled.
The imposter Hildale lay dead, eyes frozen in one last expression of shock. Blood came in a trail from his head, running through the blackened soot and sand and into the ancient rocks to be gone forever.
“Captain,” said Francisco.
“Leave me,” said the pirate. His eyes smoldered blue and peered past Hildale’s dead body. As blood dripped like soft rain from his shoulder, his face purpled and swollen and one eye shut, he eyed the clear sky, where the birds stopped their cries all at once.
XXV
The Roc sailed smoothly through the ever-condensing ice encircling it.
Despite Jerimiah’s warnings of being ice locked the bay still had a loose feel to it and the ice was not yet heavy enough to entrap the men or crush the hull though the latter screamed from pressure of the ice packs closing inward.
“You a good man Francisco,” said Herb. “And I been a wicked one.” In steerage Herb lay still atop two adjoined sawhorses with planks overtop, furs underneath and over him.
“Don’t matter what you have been my friend,” replied the Mexican. “And yes you bastard I will call you my friend, take my head with your elephant gun as you please.”
The hunter laughed through red teeth. “Strange, I feel You always been my friend. When you and the Jew rode up on me back in Massachusetts.”
“Try to rest,” Francisco said putting a hand on the man’s forehead.
“I will, Herb replied. “And when we get back ashore me and you goin to Texas and takin back what was taken from you,” he said just rising slightly on his elbow and pointing at the Mexican. He coughed hard and settled again and Francisco pulled the blanket chest high.
“Well I shall hold you to that killer of Grizzlies.”
“But first we haven a few rounds of whiskey on me. And good whiskey, some old rye, not that shit the captain drinks.”
“So be it.”
The Mexican climbed the ladder where Simon manned the helm alone. The island southward was no longer a speck and westward the mass of Greenland was just visible through blinding blue and yellow.
“You did well,” Francisco said.
Simon nodded without turning.
“You fell a man, you know that? They were insane, as was their captain.”
“I had seen through the spyglass. The lunatic of yellow beard.”
“Indeed. You took initiative and you saw what came next. You will learn on, Simon. I remember my second voyage. Something unique about a second voyage. On your next you will lead men and the way of the sail will come to you without thought, as it did last night. And perhaps on your fourth you will make first mate.”
“Don’t have much the brain for the rank.”
“Not for captain, no. Still do not understate yourself brother.”
Francisco eyed the mainsails. “Captain!” he screamed.
“Speak!”
“We should tack sail,” he said looking at the compass which spun haphazardly.
“Hold course!”
“We sail against the wind and against the current! Three down!”
“I gave you an order.”
The Mexican balked. “Live your fantasy, pirate. A thief who could never withstand the rigor of rank and discipline. Live your fantasy on the frozen seas!” he shouted.
All the crew watched.
“Very good, Francisco,” said the captain. “And speaking of rank and rigor, perhaps once dragged under the Keel your protests would cease.”
The Mexican laughed. “Perhaps, captain. Hold course!” he shouted. “When we become ice locked, I’ll look to your expertise plundering traders sailing about fucking Gibraltar.”
Isaac awoke at dawn. For the first time absent of the captain’s scream of reveille. And none were on the deck though the forecastle was almost empty, only Julius sleeping soundly in a still hammock.
Isaac looked at the child-like man and wondered if his dreams were more engaging than his waking life. The writer followed hush voices to the steerage.
Francisco’s eyes
met him first, then the captain’s, then all the crews’ who stood around a figure enshrouded in clean white cloth.
The surgeon trickled a vial of clear fresh water over Herb’s body and Julius entered the room and wept immediately.
“Shalom,” whispered Isaac.
“Into the sea,” said the captain.
And above deck they carried Herb the hunter fallen evermore, and he was sent to the deep. All worked about the deck in unison and through the day the captain sat on a sea chest on the quarterdeck and studied the elephant gun, disassembling and assembling it, running a twisted cloth through its filthy bore, loading and unloading it.
“I thought he was to live Isaac,” said Francisco. “His eyes were clear, no fever ran, yet the night took him.”
Isaac hammered a log of hardtack to prepare for later eating. “Our thoughts on the matter don’t seem to be of import,” he Isaac.
“Trauma to the body does not always affect the mind Francisco,” said Lukas.
All the living crew sat about the single board in the mess. None shivered save for Isaac, who hugged his soaked furs and looked at the other men. Only Francisco looked up from his meal.
“Shall we light the galley fire?” the writer asked. “May we light one of the two stoves, even for a few moments, captain?”
“Nay!” said the captain. “The seas are hard and we may need the coal for our voyage home, most especially with three down. And I won’t have the damned bulkheads aflame to warm your bones. You wanted the sea, this is the sea. Put that in your newspaper.”
All dined while no fire glowed from the far galley; no steam rose from their cold chow. And from above deck, grey clouds sent water freezing down unto the men; even into the forecastle, it sprayed. Water saturated the hardtack, which lay like a log on a board in front of the men. It saturated the men’s covers, it saturated their hats and furs, it saturated the wilted leather around their feet. As if mocking the men, crests of white water ran over the deck too. None other seemed to notice save for the writer.
Isaac briefly saw a flash of summer at the Messenger. Jade-green angels and more white angels spilling cool white water as laughter rang out. In a courtyard of editors and reporters from Boston and Philadelphia on a summer afternoon, where a beautiful green sward was under his feet, and a glass of red in his hand. He dreamed of that ground, that dry, solid ground, and he dreamed of the crisp feel of dry velvet upon his back.
“Wet is the way of the sea,” said Francisco. “You keep your furs on your hammock, where they will be wet, surely, but not so much as your working-clothes. Save your linen for your feet. You must keep your feet dry in the night, at least. Understand? You need to keep those feet dry!”
“Captain,” said Isaac, shaking and hugging his chest. “Perhaps we can just light the stoves, a bit. She was outfitted with stoves for this purpose.”
“The fire cannot be lit on tumultuous seas,” said Francisco sternly. “You need to endure what you feel right now. We all do.”
The writer groaned and looked at the men, who looked back with cold, unblinking eyes.
“You’ll get used to it, in time,” said Jerimiah. “You will get stronger.”
“Captain,” said Isaac. “Captain, I must get dry.”
The men laughed and the captain stood. “Is that right?” he said. And with one motion he tossed one, two cups of water onto Isaac. “Want to be dry, writer? Want to be back in New York?”
“Captain!” snapped Francisco.
“Want to warm yourself by the hearth, with a brandy perhaps?” said the captain, tossing yet another cup of water over the writer’s soaked head of hair. “Or a fucking gin and tonic!”
The captain slapped the writer hard and Isaac fell to the deck.
“I must get dry!” Isaac screamed, curling into a ball.
“Were you cold in eighteen and twelve captain?” asked Francisco.
“Aye, aye Francisco I was. Where I watched boys of ten blown asunder by cannon fire in the name of the crown. Only me and Julius were wrenched from a sunken prison ship at twelve. The sea or death. We did not ask for the voyage then lack the courage of our conviction!”
“Do you want your deeds written?” asked Francisco. “Or would you rather fade into the void when your miserable life ceases?”
“He shouldn’t be here!” said the captain, pointing at the crumpled ball on the floor.
The pirate captain leaned down and stared at the writer’s eyes. “I hope your skin slips from your feet, and you walk upon wooden pegs,” he snarled. “Pegs!”
Without finishing his meal the captain scaled the ladder and Julius followed. Followed above deck, where the wind wailed as it snapped against the bulkhead and the ship bounced violently upon the rising sea.
“Come,” said Francisco, and he helped the writer to the bench. “Let me see your feet,” he said.
And with shaking hands Isaac removed his worn leather boots and soaked socks. His skin was purpled and pruned.
“Shit!” howled the Mexican.
“On the island they soaked through. I did not want to ask for socks. I do not want to burden you men,” he said through sobs.
“So we are to have pity on you?” asked Jerimiah.
“It itches,” said Isaac. It itches like ivy is upon it,” he said in a weak voice.
“They may indeed have to come off!” said the surgeon, now craning his neck downward at the man’s swollen feet.
Isaac groaned and massaged his naked feet, and as he did so a toenail came off. The writer screamed.
“Stop touching them, stop,” said the Mexican. He eyed the surgeon. “Amputation isn’t the way for every ailment Lukas,” he said.
“And I assume your residency upon a whaleship shewed you the way of medicine? How many whales did you operate on?”
“You will save the feet,” said Francisco.
Lukas sighed. “I shall try. Let us pat them dry, get him in his hammock, get his feet up. And for the love of holy Christ, keep them dry.”
From the hammock Isaac moved with the waves of The Roc and for the first time he was at peace with the ceaseless movements though all else was hell. One with the sea rather than recoiling at her ways.
He dreamed. He dreamed of a boar descending below deck, its tusks white and horrendous and longer than two harpoons sticking lopsided and wayward. And Francisco’s voice came from that boar. He dreamed of gangly spiders dancing up and down the ladder, the men’s voices coming from those spiders, of which Lukas was the largest. Once he thought himself back at his apartment, that transient moment of fantasy between wake and sleep where nightmares are sometimes better than a man’s current station in life.
Day and night merged. Francisco told some tale of the Day of the Dead in aught twenty-one, back in Durango where the two had drank more than their share of tequila and pulque and painted their faces all red and white. In that same sequence Francisco climbed the ladder with haste at the captain’s order to shorten sail.
He heard sails flapping belligerently and saw the grey tinge of the sky through tiny cracks in the adjacent hull.
Fed by hand by the surgeon. Rolled and changed like a baby at the hands of the surgeon, who offered no words nor tales nor complaints at the duty. Isaac felt a wave of shame over him when that happened.
Yet the itching never ceased. It flared such, especially when slathered with ointment by the surgeon, that he would scream ‘cut them off!’ in the night. Lukas whispered: ‘No, Isaac. No.’ And once Francisco wrenched the enraged captain from overtop of the screaming writer in the night.
Finally sun streamed through those cracks in the hull and Isaac woke with a clarity and a numbing but subsiding pain in his feet. He looked at them and they were dry and chapped, like sunburned hands. Even so they did not itch, and the pus around the wrapped nailbed was now gone and dried in reddened blood. He placed bare feet onto the deck and felt a satisfying cool.
“I think you went to sleep a writer, and woke up with your sea legs,” sai
d the Mexican, pointing at the writer’s new bare feet as he walked aft.
“Sea legs!” Julius screamed. “He got his sea legs!” the man yelled and laughed through a mouthful of salt horse.
The captain merely scowled and shook his head. “Two men gave up their linens and their spare leathers for your comfort. Two men now suffer for your warmth,” he said, pointing into the writer’s face.
“I thank you all, I do,” said Isaac. The crew looked on with flat eyes. “When we arrive back in Boston, or Halifax, or wherever we dock, you will be amply paid. For I know now, all of us in this journey see the end but also the hearth and home as well.”
The captain turned and grasped Isaac by the chin, the writer’s cheeks smashing together. “That’s what you do, writer, isn’t it?” he growled. “Use candied words to dress up the obvious ere you. And that makes you a living,” he said, shoving the writer to the hard deck.
Isaac thrust himself at the captain. Headlong he dove into the captain’s legs, but the man did not fall.
Again and again the captain drove iron fists down onto the writer’s back until Isaac finally collapsed.
The writer bit down onto the hip where the voyage’s leader had been stabbed by the Inuk and his ivory blade.
“God damnit!” yelled Francisco. He and the surgeon rushed the fighting men.
Now the captain was atop the writer, who lay motionless as hammer-like hands were driven into his swelling face.
Francisco pulled the captain from Isaac.
“You are a craven thief,” said the writer through heavy breaths. “Nothing more. None will know you even partook of this voyage.”
“I don’t need others to read of me to know me,” said the pirate calmly. And he rose from the deck and from Isaac’s girdle snatched the journal.
“No!” screamed Isaac.
“Lukas,” said the pirate while clutching the journal, “You now have another injury to see to,” he said, pointing at the writer’s bleeding face.
“Captain!” said Francisco. “Rile down!”
“Here is the price for your comfort,” said the captain, and he threw the journal far out to sea where it made no sound as it merged with the waves.
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