Sea of Two Suns
Page 22
Jerimiah took the helm.
None spoke for a long time and it was as if the silence had its own voice. The whipping frigid air. Ahead only blue and gold beams dancing above the endless ocean. Until that ocean and sky started to darken and there at last came a contrast to the infinite blue and freezing whites.
“Francisco,” muttered Isaac. “Francisco,” he said.
“What!” yelled the Mexican from the riggings, he hung backwards and had himself secured to the things as if climbing some towering redwood.
“Francisco,” Isaac said again.
Finally from the helm Jerimiah looked up from his trance, head leaning onto his arms. The old man’s eyes flashed, a certain vigor in them now.
“What shines like that?” said Isaac, pointing hard westward off starboard to where almost parallel to the ship was a glittering gleam suspended over the ocean.
“Like what?” asked Francisco.
“Like that, you damned Mexican,” Jerimiah barely spoke above a whisper.
Lukas screamed as if awoken from some nightmare and Julius and the captain were above deck at once as that scream transitioned to wild laughter.
The brilliant shimmer seemed to radiate high and proud as if coming up from the deep sea, yet it was not the shimmer of the dying sun above.
“The second sun,” whispered Francisco.
The captain shoved Jerimiah from the helm and spun the thing violently toward the gleam as Lukas laughed and wept and Julius hopped up and down doing the same.
The Mexican sank to his knees and the writer looked at the shine as if witnessing the Demiurge descending from above, its intentions impossible to know or understand.
No words were spoken nor orders given as the men worked as one entity. Men circled with windlass in hand. Fast and furious and with glee until anchor was dropped. Men threw overboard hemp lines still affixed in their tubs. With no more whaleboats the crew descended overboard as if abandoning ship and swam until they waded chest-high through aqua blue shallows until finally in a chorus of weeping and screaming and singing they crawled breathless onto the shore. Ahead of that shore lie a silver paradise; a titan gleam of ingots and coins and idols and statues and a pillar that stood higher than all like some jeweled heavenly tower.
For a long while they all stood in the freezing wind. On the island they admired her beauty as if afraid to proceed into what they had never known, until at last they did, the captain grunting and leading the crew inland.
“Had my father lived to see this day,” said Lukas, his teeth white and wide in a smile.
“I only met my father one time,” said Francisco, “and he was slurring his words.”
Lukas let out a roaring laugh.
Suddenly the men were aware of the freeze again.
“Get a fire rising now,” ordered the captain.
In mere moments Jerimiah had a fire roaring high. The men sat around that fire, waving their shirts around it, admiring the sparkle from afar.
As they approached the core of the island a rusty sand was underneath their feet, papules upon that sand like fleshy raised bumps of earth.
Trees that resembled miniature palms stood sturdy in the icy wind, upon those trees hung yellow fruits like those from Hildale’s island. Robust and ripe and ready for the taking.
The captain picked one of them and held it to the sky then devoured it, juices running down his beardless face.
“How by god is there green here?” inquired Francisco.
“Do not question the fruit of the lord Francisco,” said Lukas. And the surgeon unsheathed his bible kept high tucked into his lapel; that which thus far had no wet upon it.
“I don’t know or care Francisco,” said the captain. “There’s silver, all that matters,” he said handing the half-eaten fruit to Julius.
As the men climbed the high risen dune from which the pillar was erected, Julius ran circles about the tiny island with fruit in hand.
“Julius!” screamed the captain. “Julius! Help us brother!”
Soon the child-like man was attempting to scale the very pilar itself which stood high as two men stacked. In it were inserted single emeralds, round and rough and pressed into the column so that they climbed the thing to the top. And at the top was a clay-colored flat stone, molded into a sphere and though it had no luster it contrasted all around it.
Julius laughed and jumped at the thing and slid down it and all admired the scene in silence.
“Emerald,” said the captain excitedly. With his curved blade he tried to wrench one of the stones from the silver pillar until he was red faced, still it would not give.
“What yonder top?” said Francisco pointing to the clay-colored insert.
“Jasper maybe,” said the captain.
“It looks like clay,” said Francisco.
The captain’s demeanor returned along with the ever-present scowl on his face which had gone on hiatus under the silver luster about them. He turned and surveyed the island. Most of the loot was centered high on the dune. Surrounding that dune were piles of coins thrown haphazardly. On the opposite side of the island a rocky outcropping was; large circular stones almost as if placed there, no nesting birds nor seals. On the ship side from which the men came there were low rolling dunes and tufts of green and yellow sticking from those dunes.
“This looks like a beach between here and the Pacific,” the captain said. “Start gathering,” he commanded. “Now we prioritize this fucking thing,” he said, placing a hand on the pillar and looking it up and down. “There be too much here to take back in one haul,” he said.
“Captain,” said Jerimiah. “Perhaps if we-”
“Hoy! Silver has weight to it. There is no way all of this loot will fit on The Roc. Lukas, Isaac, Jerimiah, gather coins yonder and empty those chests.”
“Aye captain,” came a symphony of voices.
“Francisco,” with me. “Get some hemp line around this thing and the lot of us will wrench it from the ground.”
Miska barked and circled the pillar and the captain glowered down at the animal.
“No tarnish,” Francisco said as he squatted and inspected the nearest pile of coins. “How?”
“All this bounty unmolested,” said Isaac.
“Enough words,” said the captain. “Gather the loot,” he said and to the sand he threw the sealskin sacks the men had acquired from the Inuit.
“Something is out of place here,” said Francisco as he scooped the coins into the bags.
“Aye something out of place, there be too much for us to take!” said the captain as Julius and Jerimiah and Lukas cheered.
All squatted amongst the loot and sounds of soft clangs of coin and ingot filled the air as if the men were money changers at some ancient frozen vault.
Isaac inspected a silver coin. It had a smoothed, worn design of a scaled dragon, intricately etched in minute detail. “Why has this silver not tarnished? The air, the open sea.”
“The first relevant question you have asked writer,” said the captain. “Francisco, swim you to the ship and tie the lines so as to haul up this loot.”
“Aye captain!”
“Help him!” the captain shouted at Isaac.
The captain watched Francisco and Isaac. The Mexican scaled the bulkhead partway with ease, clutching onto a rope which was left hanging overboard while he sat on Isaac’s shoulders. The writers struggled to keep his head above water, gasping.
The captain shook his head. His eyes shifted suddenly to the far sea and he loaded and primed the elephant gun. “Be ready for Turner or whoever else may come. Especially the fucking Irish,” he bellowed.
“Aye captain,” said Jerimiah and Julius in unison.
“The Barbarys?” shouted Francisco, returning with the writer soaked and breathless and with sacks both empty and filled with freshwater.
“No,” replied the captain. “This is not their loot,” he said inspecting an aged coin with the visage of some forgotten king upon it.
Isaac watched the sea roll gently. The fire still glowed from the center, where Jerimiah poked at charred kindling as others slept. As on Hildale’s island there were sparse hot springs dotted about. The sky was dark but no moon reflected on the water this night.
“The rum gets into your blood,” came a voice.
Isaac turned quick and saw the captain approaching from the dark. “It does,” he said.
“It starts with one cup to ease slumber,” said the captain as he studied the dark ahead. “Then one bottle. Then, soon you become like the old man,” he said motioning back toward the dying orange embers. “Shake yourself to sleep. You’ve become a sailor yet.”
“I suppose,” replied Isaac.
The captain turned to Isaac and almost wore a smirk, and his eyes were calm and light. As if those eyes finally freed something that once was but had been imprisoned for decades.
“All I ask of you is to keep my brother and I out of your newspapers.”
“Done. Where will you find a buyer for this silver?”
“That won’t be hard. Keep your pen and your voice sheathed when we land ashore. Word travels fast, written or not.”
“What will you do when we return to Boston, captain?”
“After we sell our haul? I do not know, yet it will be out there,” he said pointing at the nightly ocean.
“And Julius?”
“He will sail with me.”
“You can do anything captain. Need not resign to the sea.”
“What more is there to do?” The captain played with the aquamarine crystal hanging from his neck. “Wander the streets and look for honest work? I hate my every step on land. The sea is my lot. And The journey never ends.”
“Surely you grow tired of the sea. Surely you may gain from spending time in the world of men.”
“Ha! The world. Lucky for this world I no longer have need to plunder. Damn lucky.”
“I’m sure captain.”
“Wealth. Men will try to take your wealth. Women will try to take your wealth, even inland magpies will swoop from the masts to steal any earth-stone that shines. Men use sweet words toward you and you are both enemy and ally to friends you never knew you had. of course wealth makes men hate men. Of course it’s a lustful beast. The smiles, so many your way. But you can see the hate in the eyes still. It has a certain shine to it, different then envy. The way the eyes shine red though the mouth curls broad.”
They both looked at the sea for a long time and Isaac craved more rum in his empty cup.
As if reading the writer’s thoughts, the captain grasped Isaac’s cup and filled it from his own flask. “Julius used to be better than I,” he said.
“Captain?”
“At riding. At shooting. At hunting. At everything. Then one summer a spooked horse trampled him, and his brain was broken as it remains now.”
“I assumed he was born so, captain.”
“We at night would oft sneak to the stables and take to the saddle, the fat watchmen senile and sleeping as he always did. My father could not afford a horse. We played chicken, him riding at me, I at him. I grew angry at his besting me in every match. So when his back turned I galloped over him and he lay still, eyes open, then I realized the gravity of it, but it could not be undone, Isaac.”
“No,” Isaac whispered.
“He cried the first month and only slurred his words. Then my mother stopped looking him in the eye and he cried more, and my father beat him when he cried. Then he went quiet for a month, his head swelled, and his eyes emptied. I think he will come back again, though. One doctor said it is possible.”
“I do not know these things, captain.”
“Was he not still my brother?” the captain asked. “Was he not!” The captain looked at Isaac with angry eyes. “On that Christmas morning my father led us into the woods. He said ‘choose.’ I still remember his eyes. I said I choose my brother. My father turned and left, no hesitation, no words. Leaves crunching under his feet. I still dream about how Julius used to speak, how that thing in his eyes went away after he came to, like something had left them, but he was still alive too.”
“Captain…”
The captain removed the aquamarine necklace and placed it in Isaac’s palms. “Here is something for you to write,” he said, clasping his other hand atop the writer’s. “Men care about two things: strength and riches. Mostly they go together, not always. If you can be only one thing, be strong.”
“We Moved! We moved!” Julius announced. The crew gathered treasure and Francisco by himself wrapped and secured the fallen silver pillar. The morning was still dark and the cold matched as the men roused, but the cold had a certain warm tinge to it not fitting for the clime and thus making it more bearable than it should be.
“Ok, Julius,” said the captain.
“Damn!” yelled Jerimiah.
“What?”
“The boat drifted, far.”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know captain.”
“The island moved!” screamed Julius. “The island moved!”
The captain turned fast and merely raised his hand and Julius squatted down, at once silent and somber.
“The old man didn’t drop anchor through,” said Lukas.
“I know how to drop anchor,” snapped Jerimiah.
By the time the sun was high and centered the silver lustered a little less from the island. Now the vessel itself seemed to shine, blocky shapes and heaps were covered with linens and burlap on the deck, all bound with every remaining rope on the boat. Over the deck hung coils of rope, some tied to sacks still submerged under the sea.
“Puta!” screamed Francisco as a rope slipped from him and sent a sack overboard. “This is fucking exhausting!” he snarled.
“Thank the Eskimo and the dead deckhand for loosing our whaleboats,” replied the captain.
At last by all the crew in unison the silver pillar too was hauled up.
“How about a nice luncheon, captain, right here on the deck before we take to the waters again.”
“Very well, Francisco.”
The men sat in a circle on the quarterdeck and ate the last of the salt horse and the golden berries, those growing on Hildale’s island yet bigger. Most were shirtless and their wet burlaps and wools and linens dried slung about the deck. The dog barked and circled the men, chasing fleeing petrels who dove and weaved in the air.
“Once we’re home, captain, I’m getting your damned name!” yelled Isaac.
“Aye aye,” replied the captain.
XXX
Francisco and Isaac leaned onto the stern, watching the island shrink behind them.
Isaac sketched the figure of a bear, along with the words terror, rushing all together, and Herb the hunter, and Arnaaluk and he sketched the long silver pillar.
“You obtained a new journal I see,” said the Mexican.
The writer slowly shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the page. “From the library in the captain’s quarters. Much to his consternation should he find out, I am sure. Though the paper is dry from improper storage I best transcribe what I can remember,” he said while shaking a nib furiously, then putting it to paper again.
“Looks like you’re doing more drawing than writing, American.”
Isaac stayed silent.
“What luck has befallen us today Isaac? I feel like I’ve stepped out of the realm of my own life, and into one that I do not deserve.”
“You deserve it. We all do. I do not know what this is. Luck. A curse. I’ll take it.”
“Whatever it is, my heart feels joy. It really does.”
“I know. Me too. We can make something of ourselves now. We can live our lives.”
“And those of our children.”
“Aye. Perhaps if they ever build a ra
ilway, I can come to the Mexican Territory and meet Maria.”
“Aye,” said Francisco. Only for a taste of that shepherd’s pie you described when we were days into our sail. I don’t think any taste could match that description.”
They both laughed.
“Still, there are questions about all this,” Francisco went on. Questions I’m not sure I want the answer to. And we may just be spending the rest of our lives hiding, Isaac, make no mistake.”
“Hiding but rich. Alas, here we sail. With luck we will reach the shores of Boston before the coldest of the cold. See, there,” the writer said pointing skyward. “The sun setting on the horizon. ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,’ is it not?”
Francisco laughed. “That it is. Where I come from too.”
Just then the pirate commanded all hands and full sail and the crew erupted into a flurry, eager for their night’s rum waiting below deck.
Isaac and Francisco looked back towards the bow.
“Let them,” said Francisco.
The captain didn’t seem to notice.
Petrels whined as they had near every island thus far and larger birds unknown flew higher than their tiny companions.
“If only we may get these steamboats from the rivers to the sea,” said Isaac. Imagine the speed. A month in mere days.” Francisco’s eyes grew smaller as he settled his weight forward, leaning onto the stern which was being sprayed by salty white.
“The power of steam, to be fair,” Isaac went on. “That harnessed with the right type of engine-”
“The birds,” said Francisco.
Suddenly aware were the two of a stark silence, the bird’s chorus abruptly stopped yet they circled the ship still, only their fluttering wings were heard.
A commotion occurred suddenly, a rising and falling of the ship not caused by the waves.
A single shot rang out, the masts crumbled as if bombarded by cannon fire. Next a shot boomed from the elephant gun and at that moment Isaac and Francisco were sliding down the deck.
Once, twice Isaac slammed hard into the helm which caught his free fall. Far below him was the sideways ocean and he clutched the helm as other men fell to the sea. The wood creaked and whined. The lopsided ship again leveled itself atop the blue.