Deadly Shoals

by Joan Druett

  They were Tahitian, as Wiki had found out during the traditional self-introductions. One had a mane of black hair that any gaucho would have envied, while the other had the bushiest eyebrows Wiki had ever seen on an islander, and both were very young, not yet twenty. As usual, the ritual exchange of genealogies was succeeded by the new politeness of Oceania, which was an exchange of tales of how they came to be on board of American ships. Just like all the other islanders Wiki had encountered in port and at sea, these two lads had shipped on their first Yankee whaler for adventure and fun.

  “‘The thought came to me in Tahiti,’” the bushy-browed one confessed in a chant:

  I shall sail away like a white man,

  I shall paddle to some distant country,

  I shall hunt in some amorous land.

  The only difference from most was that after more than a year, the two Tahitians were still together. Even when one had been discharged sick, his comrade had proved staunch, and stayed with him. One day, they said, they would go home together, marry pretty wives, live with them at Matavai Bay, and boast about their adventures for the rest of their lives—but not yet. They were very interested in the exploring expedition, and asked if the fleet might call at Tahiti.

  “Who knows?” said Wiki. Whatever plans Captain Wilkes might have for the Pacific was kept a secret from them all.

  Now, they worked side by side on the lee arm of the yard, securing the new canvas sheet after it had been run up on buntlines, and the three were talking together in the Tahitian language—though for Wiki it was almost like talking in te reo Maori, because eight out of ten words were pretty much the same. They were also watching Mr. Seward, who was supervising the work from the bottom of the mast, and the Tahitians were laughing at Wiki because he had taken so long to discern what they had noticed right away. Then they were distracted, as all three pairs of quick Polynesian eyes glimpsed a little cloud of sail bearing down on them from the southeast.

  By the time the new topgallant was set, the Athenian was plainly visible from the Osprey’s decks. The sealing brig was breasting the seas in businesslike fashion, under forecourse, single-reefed topsails, and double-reefed topgallants. Though the water dashed up from her bow, she was obviously not in any particular hurry, because when they signalized her the captain readily consented to haul aback so they could hold a conversation.

  The brigantine ran down to her, and a massively built fellow with a huge black beard clambered onto the brig’s poop, to exchange hearty hails with Captain Coffin. The distance and the wind made their words indistinct, but it was evident that he had heard and understood the invitation to come aboard, because once the brigantine came to a standstill downwind of his ship, the Athenian lowered a boat, which arrived with amazingly little fuss, considering the rugged conditions. Meantime, one of the Osprey boats had been hauled inboard and stowed upside down on the skids, leaving the davits free. Falls were dropped, the headsman hooked on, and the boat, with the brig’s master still inside, was rapidly hoisted, while the oarsmen scrambled up the side of the Osprey.

  They were rough-looking fellows, and didn’t smell very wonderful either, being clad in half-cured sealskin suits. However, their young captain had done his best to look like a God-fearing Yankee, having shifted into his best broadcloth when the Osprey was raised, though the immense beard and his lashed-back thicket of black hair rather marred the effect. Jumping with a crash out of the boat and onto the deck, he shouted, “William Coffin, ahoy! Don’t you know me, sir?”

  “Jim Nash, by God!” cried Captain Coffin, striding up with his hand held out. “What the devil is a Stonington lad doing in charge of a New Yorker?”

  Captain Stackpole arrived at that moment. The whaling master’s expression darkened threateningly at the sight of the man who had left the Grim Reaper at El Carmen, and could be considered the source of his current woes, but he made no comment as introductions were made—because of the strong possibility that Captain Nash had been cheated, too, guessed Wiki.

  Also, Captain Coffin, garrulous as ever, didn’t give him a chance. “You do remember my son?” he asked Nash, urging them all down the stairs. “I brought him along on my visits to Stonington over his first few years in America, so I’m sure you’ve met before. How’s your father, Jim? Have you heard from home? And how did you get to be in charge of a New York sealer?” he demanded.

  “Happened by accident,” Nash cheerfully answered this last as they arrived in the cabin. “And won’t be master of her for much longer, neither, on account of the brig is up for sale,” he elaborated, thumping onto a green cushion. Then he silenced, looking around the room with an awed expression.

  The cat undulated up to him, and sniffed at his boots. Catching the scent of seal, she hissed like a snake, and shot into the pantry with her tail bunched up and her fur standing on end, which Jim Nash found very funny. Then he sobered as Captain Coffin demanded, “Why are you selling the Athenian? I heard great tales that you did uncommon well on the sealing ground,” he went on, and glanced meaningfully at Captain Stackpole, whose brows were bunched together.

  “That I did,” Captain Nash agreed. For the first time, he seemed to notice the whaling master’s aggressive look, and his expression became puzzled. He said rather defensively, “And selling the brig ain’t my idea, but my owners’ instructions, delivered to me by a Stonington sealer back in November, not long after he arrived on this coast.”

  Then the steward arrived with a pot of coffee, and a plate of cake, and Captain Nash immediately relaxed, attacking the repast as if he hadn’t tasted civilized food and drink in months. At the same time, prompted by Captain Coffin’s stream of questions, he gossiped about old Stonington, Connecticut, with his mouth full, while Wiki—who didn’t recognize the sealing master at all, though most of the names mentioned were familiar—waited impatiently to insert a question, and Stackpole looked equally eager. However, his father forestalled them both by finally commanding, “Explain yourself, Jim.”

  The Stonington man brushed crumbs out of his beard, saying amiably, “Explain myself how?”

  “Why are your owners selling the Athenian? There has to be a good reason they’re so anxious to get quit of her! How many strokes does she leak?”

  “Tight as a bottle, I promise,” Nash denied in wounded tones. “She was in the Mediterranean trade, and was always treated handsome.”

  “So why did they take her out of the wine and raisin business, and send her to Patagonia a-sealing?”

  “You know what New Yorkers are like!” the other exclaimed. “They heard gossip about a resurgence of sealing on this coast, and scented a profit thereby—but the profit didn’t come as quick as they’d like, so even though our holds are packed full of pelts, they’ve lost interest in the trade. Do you feel in need of another ship, William?” he went on hopefully. “It’s a rare opportunity that you’d be mad to miss. The Athenian’s younger than the Osprey, by many a mile. Honor-built in Stonington, just twelve years ago. One hundred forty-eight tons burthen, oak frames and straking, copper fastened throughout, very roomy, extremely handy, and a first-rate sea boat. Give her a coat of pitch and a few sheets of copper, and she’ll get you to whatever outlandish lagoon you can name, and skim like a bird to Macao after that.”

  “Replace the Osprey? Not till she founders under me!” Captain Coffin snorted. Then he said, “How much?”

  “Fifteen thousand, five hundred.”

  “What! You’re a rogue, Jim. And you still haven’t told us how you got to be the master of this pricey little craft.”

  Captain Nash meditatively pulled at his earlobe—and suddenly Wiki placed him. It was a characteristic little gesture that gave him away. Jim Nash had been seventeen when they’d met, and Wiki had been twelve, so they hadn’t had much to do with each other. However, he remembered that Jim had been massively built even then. He also recollected that Jim Nash had saved a boy’s life. When he’d heard frantic hollering in a thicket, he investigated, fortunately, because
a gang of boys had been playing a rough game called slinging the monkey, and left their victim slung by his heels from the apex of a triangle of wood—with a slow fire burning underneath. If Jim hadn’t happened by, the boy would have roasted to death. According to the legend, once he’d kicked out the fire and let the boy down, he’d got a few names out of him. Then he’d tracked down the culprits, and personally thrashed them within an inch of their lives.

  “It must’ve been May 1836 when I shipped on board of the Athenian—but as first mate, not captain,” he was saying. “I’d never commanded a ship in my life! Rowland Hallett was master—a fine man, he, and a fine mariner, too. We made the Río Negro in October, and when he got to El Carmen he found the schooner Grim Reaper up for sale, so he bought her to use as a tender.”

  “The Grim Reaper, huh?” barked Stackpole.

  “Aye,” said Nash. He waited, looking cautious again, but Stackpole kept silent, so he went on with his tale. “Captain Hallett filled her with provisions and salt, manned her with a gang of Indians and a couple of our sailors, and then took command of her himself—logged me as master of the Athenian! I’d have to check the logbook to be certain sure, but I’ve a strong feeling it was October 17, 1836—a memorial date, because I was so confounded surprised.”

  “And where did you sail after that?” Captain Stackpole said quickly.

  “Aha,” said Nash, and put his finger alongside his nose. “That’s for me to know and not to tell. Let’s just say we did just fine, even if it did take two years longer than the owners liked.” He watched Captain Coffin pour three glasses of brandy, took one when it was handed out to him, watched Captain Stackpole take the second, and then looked at Wiki, who sipped coffee.

  He exclaimed to Captain Coffin, “A son of yours is temperance?”

  “He’s doing his utmost to drink up my entire cargo of coffee, and put me in the parish poorhouse,” Captain Coffin informed him.

  Nash laughed, and then said, “You’re carrying somethin’ so ordinary as coffee? I imagined it would be tortoiseshell, or lacquerwood—somethin’ exotic.”

  “In my personal hold,” replied Captain Coffin, with a great show of dignity, “I am carrying a cargo more exotic than you could ever imagine.”

  “Then you better tell me what it is, since my imagination ain’t up to the job.”

  “Natural specimens.” The words were pronounced slowly and impressively.

  “Natural—what?”

  “Rocks and plants, and wondrous reptiles, and strange fish and snails, too. I’ve had the honor of being chartered by the U.S. Exploring Expedition to carry everything weird and wonderful they’ve collected so far to the States, to be put in museums where ignorant folks like you and me will congregate to marvel.”

  “Good God!” Jim Nash shook his head in wonder, without noticing that Wiki was going through a mighty struggle to keep from collapsing with laughter. “I heard that a discovery fleet was poking about these parts, but would never have thought that a man like you would have somethin’ to do with it,” he said. Then the Stonington man grinned and added, “Reptiles and snails and fish, huh? I bet they stink to high heaven.”

  Captain Coffin gave him a haughty look, and changed the subject. “Tell us more about that little schooner Captain Hallet bought,” he said, while Captain Stackpole shifted forward on his cushion, and Wiki sat straight.

  “She served us well, the Grim Reaper did,” said Nash readily. “We first set up a camp on a Patagonian beach, and left a work gang there with most of the provisions and salt, then off we went to the beaches I refuse to name.” And he winked at the whaling master, at ease now he had half of a glass of brandy inside him. “Once we arrived,” he went on, “we used the schooner as a tender to get men and tools to the rookeries, and pelts and oil back. She could hold five thousand skins, and once we filled her holds she’d carry ’em to the camp, and leave ’em for the gang there to beam clear of fat, peg out, and dry. Then she would sail up the Río Negro to take on provisions and salt, and head back to the killing grounds. And so it went, until we had stockpiled enough furs to fill the holds of the Athenian for the passage home. Forty thousand,” he concluded smugly.

  “Forty thousand?” cried Captain Stackpole.

  “That’s what the Athenian is holding right now. It took us two years, but it’ll fetch a nice little sum on the market. The owners are fools to sell, believe me.”

  So Ramón, son of Huinchan, had been confused when he had mentioned five thousand pelts, Wiki realized. The Indian had meant multiples of five thousand, and it made more sense now that he had puffed out his chest with pride.

  He said curiously, “Who sold you the Grim Reaper in the first place?”

  “I don’t know the name of the original owner,” Nash returned as cooperatively as ever, though he looked a little surprised that Wiki had so unexpectedly joined the conversation. “We bought her through an agent, who was the local storekeeper.”

  Stackpole interrupted, “Caleb Adams?”

  “He was indeed Caleb Adams,” agreed Jim Nash. “Do you know him?”

  “I do indeed,” Stackpole said grimly.

  Wiki said, “We discovered his dead body, just the other day.”

  “What?” Nash’s eyes widened. “He’s dead, too?”

  Stackpole blinked, and looked at Wiki, who cautiously asked, “Who else is dead?” Surely Nash didn’t know about the clerk?

  “Poor Rowland Hallett, that’s who.” Jim Nash hauled out a huge handkerchief, blinking hard. “He was bit by a bull seal, and his finger got infected. Then his hand went bad, and his arm started to go rotten, too. So we hurried him to El Carmen, and consulted a man what has the bloody sauce to call himself a surgeon.”

  “Ducatel,” said Stackpole grimly.

  “Aye, that’s the name. He reassured us that he’d come right if we left him there to be doctored, but instead of making him better, he cut off his arm and killed him. When we got back to El Carmen to take poor Hallett back on board, it was to receive the dismal news that he had passed away the day before. On the Sabbath.” With a loud trumpeting, Jim blew his nose, and said, “And Adams is dead, too?”

  There was a pause, and then Wiki observed, “He didn’t die of natural causes.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  The whaling master answered: “Someone murdered him—and it’s his job to find out who and why.” He jabbed a thumb in Wiki’s direction.

  “Murdered? What the devil are you saying?” Nash looked at Captain Coffin, who was watching and listening quietly, and demanded, “What the hell is going on?”

  “Wiki’s a sheriff’s deputy,” said Captain Coffin. “He keeps himself busy solving murders. It’s an odd kind of hobby, but he appears to like it.”

  “What do you need a sheriff on the Osprey for? How many murders do you get, for God’s sake?”

  “Not with me,” said Captain Coffin hastily. “He’s with the expedition.”

  “The same expedition what’s given you the job of carrying the specimens?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Well, it’s a damned waste of taxpayers’ money, in my honest opinion, and it don’t surprise me that they have murders on board. Why don’t you do your boy a favor? Buy the Athenian and put him in command.”

  “He’s too busy finding murderers for that.”

  “You reckon? So how did he get involved in this case?”

  Stackpole said, “I boarded the U.S. brig Swallow with an official complaint of piracy, found they had a sheriff on board, and took him upriver to investigate.”

  “Piracy?” said Nash blankly.

  “Of the schooner Grim Reaper! The same schooner I arranged with Adams to buy from Hallett on my behalf!”

  Captain Nash’s eyes sharpened. Then he said cautiously, “Would you, by any chance, be S. R. Stackpole?”

  “Samuel Rodman Stackpole,” Captain Stackpole confirmed in a growl. “The damn poor fool who gave Adams a draft for one thousand dollars to bu
y her, and left him to find a gang of sealing hands, and stock her with provisions and salt. Eight days later, when I returned to pick up my purchase, Adams had disappeared, and the schooner was gone—pirated!”

  “Some thieves killed Adams, and then got away with the Grim Reaper?” Jim Nash clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Oh dear, oh dear, poor Adams, robbed of a schooner he didn’t even own. How did you find his corpse?”

  Wiki said, “We were tracking the route he rode upriver from the store.”

  “He was lyin’ there dead, huh?” Obviously, Jim was picturing a dried-out corpse lying by the side of the trail, because he went on, “You sure he was murdered? That he didn’t die of thirst or somethin’ like that? Men keel over real easy up the Río Negro, you know.”

  “He’d been knifed and then shot to death.”

  “Well, that sure sounds like murder, and a thorough job of it, too,” the Stonington man admitted. “You got any theories about the killer?”

  “The thief, of course,” Stackpole interrupted. “Adams stole my money and my schooner, and then his killer stole both from him.”

  Nash exclaimed, “What the devil gave you the idea that Adams stole the money?”

  “When we realized the deed of sale was forged, of course!”

  “Forged?”

  “It was signed the day after Captain Hallett died, and yet it was made out in his name!”

  Nash looked puzzled, and then light dawned in his face. “That’s because it was Captain Hallett who made arrangements with Adams to sell the schooner,” he said.