by Brian Keene
“I can’t believe my ears. Lovesick, he has no sense of propriety.
“The barkeep looks Matt and me up and down, then turns to the other fellow tending the bar and says, ‘I’ll be right back.’ He passes through a door. Some minutes pass. All the while, Matt smiles, but I get this uneasy feeling. The barkeep appears on a balcony above the taps and knocks on a door. A nattily-dressed dark-haired fellow with a mean goatee answers the door, looks down at us when the barkeep points in our direction.
“I figure the man is Mr. Stewart Bryte, Kalina’s father and owner of the establishment.
“I don’t like the way he looks at us. Matt, he seems happy with what’s happening. He beams, and elbows me lightly in the ribs.
“Mr. Bryte says something to the barkeep, who nods and walks away. He reappears behind the bar and says, ‘Miss Kalina isn’t here. Mr. Bryte says he’s been expecting you. If you’ll go through the alley to the rear of the building and knock on the door there, someone will take you to Mr. Bryte so you can sing for him.’
“Again, Matt pokes me and beams, and I figure my fears are ill-founded. We thank the fellow, walk around to the back of the building, and knock on the door.
“I don’t remember much after that, don’t truly remember knocking on the door, just assume we did.”
Guthrie’s face reddened. “Shanghaied,” he said as if embarrassed to admit it. Slim, behind the bar, took notice of Guthrie’s distress, but did nothing, as if he’d seen it before.
How many times had Guthrie sat at that table and told the tale, I asked myself.
“Clubbed over the head,” he said. “We wake up far out to sea.”
Considering what it said about Guthrie, I could understand. No man likes to admit he’s gullible. I sat up straight, more intent on his words as the story had gotten a lot more exciting.
“We’re in the hold of a ship, manacled to braces,” Guthrie said. “Matt wakes before I do. He’s fit to be tied, out of his head from a blow that left a big purple bruise on the right side of his skull. The color has spread across half his forehead and darkened the ear on that side. He’s ranting about Kalina’s betrayal, even in the midst of wailing about wanting to get back to her. It’s madness.
“My head aches, and I figure I’ve got a similar bruise. I’m not acting like he is, though.
“I don’t know what will become of us. All seamen have heard the harrowing tales of those who survive such slavery. Some that are shanghaied never return; others are lost for years before escaping and finding their way home. The master of the Moth Pearl will think we’ve absconded.
“Someone comes for us. He’s a big fellow, Maori maybe, got big jagged tattoos on his face and arms. We’re taken before what must be the ship’s master and he looks us over. I think he’s a Dutchman. I can’t understand his language. I do understand his gestures.
“He wants Matt thrown overboard. I beg and plead, but the Dutchman won’t hear me. When the Maori fellow speaks, though, he listens. Matt is taken below, and I’m put to work with the other deck hands, all the while, the threat of punishment pushing me to work hard. I’m set to various maintenance tasks, making repairs, and manning the bilge pump. That’s near a full-time job. I’ve never seen such a leaky vessel.
“Looks like an old bilander. That makes sense with a Dutch Ship’s Master. Two masts: the main rigged lateen, the foremast square-rigged. Not made for the open Pacific. I can’t figure how it got so far. The condition it’s in says something for the difficulties.”
Guthrie had lost me with the seaman’s jargon, yet I tried to hold my questions until the end. He must have seen I didn’t understand, because he frowned and bit his lower lip for a moment.
“Matt,” Guthrie said, “he’s brought back on deck a day later and put to work. He’s still not right. The Master has him whipped twice before realizing it doesn’t improve Matt’s performance. He’s set to splicing, and when he can’t manage that, he’s put to work with a holystone.”
I shook my head slowly so Guthrie would know I didn’t follow him. Again, he frowned. “Landsman,” he muttered with an air of disappointment.
“Seven men on that wretched vessel,” he said, “the Master, the Maori fellow, three other white crewmen and us. We’re the only slaves. They feed and shackle us at night when we sleep. No one will talk to us. Perhaps they have no English. They speak to the Master in his language. I still think it’s Dutch.
“I’m worried about Matt. He doesn’t get any better. At least he doesn’t get worse.
“‘I hate Kalina for what she did to us,’ he tells me.”
“‘What did she do?’ I ask.
“‘She’s a crimp,’ he says.
I’m surprised. “Matt thought she crimped for her father?”
“Yes,” Guthrie said, “but I don’t think Mr. Bryte was even in the shanghai business, just used it to rid himself and his daughter of Matt and me. I didn’t believe the sweet girl had anything to do with what happened to us. I had seen how she looked at Matt. Would that she’d looked at me that way. Her father was expecting us to come to the music hall. I think she told him of the young man with the golden voice, and, in doing so, allowed her feelings for Matt, those I saw all too clearly, to show. I’ve seen the look Mr. Bryte had when he saw us at the bar. Scorn for Matt’s countrymen is widespread. I think he feared losing his daughter to an Irishman.
“‘No,’ I tell Matt, ‘Kalina had nothing to do with it.’ I think that he will not see, though possibly he cannot see.
“Weeks go by aboard the bilander. At night, the stars tell me we’re headed southwest, maybe to Australia or New Zealand.
“My fearing what a storm will do to that wretched little ship must have brought one down on us. The storm comes up dark and brooding. We’re lashed with wind and stinging rain. Quickly, we’re in fifty-foot seas. Time loses meaning. We ride on our arses as one wave after another washes the deck. Rigging comes loose. Spars and blocks swing dangerously.
“The world cracks open with thunder, not from the sky, but beneath us—we’ve struck a reef. The ship flies apart in two pieces. Matt and me, the Maori fellow and one of the white crewmen, are in the bow. I see the captain and at least one other going down with the stern.
“The bow is turning, pitching over as the stern drags on us. Cables snap, whip through the air, and then we’re free from the stern. It’s gone down. We all scramble, helping one another to stay atop the bow as it turns. It does not go down. I can feel it banging against the reef below. We all five cling to the bowsprit, none willing to let another go down. The Maori fellow catches me twice and keeps me from falling. Matt, holding on with both arms and legs, is calm through it all, his look untroubled. He helps the white crewman maintain his grip. As the sky brightens and the storm abates, we see land not ten chains away.”
“Chains?” I asked. “Oh, yes, about twenty yards each, right?”
“Twenty-two. We can swim it, and do so, when the sea has calmed.
“They are waiting for us.”
“They?” I asked.
“Islanders,” Guthrie said. “I don’t know. They might have been shipwrecked there too. They look something like our Maori friend. He doesn’t speak their language—none of us do. They’re small—a head shorter than me—and near naked. One wears an ancient tricorn hat and leggings made from the scraps of a sailor’s trousers. He has a musket what’s at least fifty years old. It’s nearly as long as he is tall. The firing mechanism is frozen with rust. I’m certain it won’t fire. One of them has a rusted whaler’s harpoon. Others among them have bone-tipped spears.
“The Maori fellow is afraid. He breaks away and runs. The harpoon finds his back and he falls.
“The islanders raise their weapons and shout at us. We cower on the beach as the one in the tricorn pulls a knife, approaches the Maori fellow, and cut his throat. He smells the knife, then smiles for his brethren.
“Cannibals!” I said. “You lost your legs to cannibals?”
“
Look at your eyes,” Guthrie said, “about to pop out of your face. Don’t get ahead of me, young man.”
I was already trying to think of how to write it all down in a manner that would be palatable to those who read magazine stories, soft men and women who had seen little of the world. I should include myself among them. Although I still had some doubt about the veracity of Guthrie’s tale, I’d become certain he was indeed a man who had seen something of the wide world.
“Of course,” he said, “we do as they command. They take us off the golden sand into the buggy green scrub. The other white fellow and me, we’re glancing at each other, each of us hoping the other has an idea how to get away. Neither of us has a notion. Couldn’t share them if we did since we don’t speak the same language.
“Matt, he’s not truly with us.” Guthrie points a finger at his head and throws up his hands.
“We come to a place of tall cane and stunted trees. There’s a pit, maybe fifteen feet deep, like an old stone well, half filled in with small shards of bone. They shove us in, post guards and leave us there for days. They lower a skin with water in it from time to time.
“Matt has a fever. He rants in his sleep and so we don’t sleep well. The other fellow with us—we learn that Joop is his name—he tries to suffocate Matt while I’m asleep. I wake up and pound sense into him.
“Finally a woman—she looks like one of the islanders—comes to bring food, some sort of tasteless root mush. Upon seeing her, Matt goes wild.
“‘Cruel, wicked!’ he cries. ‘Why, Kalina? I loved you, and you sent me to my death.’
“Ah,” I said, “in his fevered state, he thought she was Kalina.”
“Not nearly so pretty,” Guthrie said, “but, yes, the woman has some of the Polynesian look about her that Kalina had. She’s frightened away by Matt’s shouting.
“Once she’s gone, Matt begins to talk, and speaks more than he has for many days. ‘Kalina used my Nana’s charm to lure me here,’ he says. ‘Now, I’ll use it to make her pay,’ He explains that when his grandmother died, he felt the magic of her blessing become his own. ‘She said that would happen,’ he says. ‘I’ve decided what to do with it. I turned it over in my heart. What was love for Kalina is now hatred. What was blessing will be curse and live long after me.’
“I pay little heed to his words.”
Guthrie paused as if to gather his resolve. His features hardened, his lips formed a grim line, and I could tell that what would come next would be painful memories.
“Something is in the root mush the woman gave us,” he said. “Though tasteless, so hungry were we, we’d eaten it all.
“I know nothing until the next day. I awaken to Joop’s wails of pain. His arms are missing. The shoulders have been seared with fire to stop bleeding, the stumps angry-looking and blackened. The man is pure misery.
“After that I don’t want to eat anything the woman brings for fear that I’ll be next. She hides from Matt, but I see her toss our food into the pit wrapped in broad leaves. As hungry as Matt is, I cannot stop him from eating, and he sleeps. Joop is too wretched to partake. I pretend to eat as the woman watches me, then I lie down and close my eyes.”
“Joop, he screams and shouts when the islanders come for me. Matt doesn’t awaken. I watch through the smallest slit in my eyelids. They drop a notched pole, sort of a crude ladder, into the pit. One of them climbs down and pokes me a few times. I remain limp so he’ll become confident that I’m asleep. He ties some kind of cord around me, and his fellows up top haul me out of the pit. Luck is with me as the rope isn’t too tight. They’re wresting me up over the edge, and I get free, start running.
“Ha—the look in their eyes as I take flight! They don’t have any weapons ready and their legs are shorter than mine, so I get away, head into the brush and lose sight of them. I wander for most of a day. The pit had been cool, but in the open with no water, the sun is merciless.
“I approach the water’s edge as I consider swimming to the next bit of land—looks to be a mile or two away. If there’s a strong current between the islands, I could be swept out to sea. I’m at war with myself, not wanting to die in the open ocean, not wanting to leave Matt behind, not wanting to be eaten.”
Guthrie went pale. I tried to imagine being faced with such choices. He allowed some silence between us.
Slim, behind the bar, had been glancing over at us from time to time with a look of concern. Somehow, I knew it wasn’t because we were taking up space that arriving patrons might use. He and Guthrie had a rapport that wasn’t clear to me.
“I’m easy to spot,” Guthrie said, “standing there on the beach. I see them running toward me, five of them, the fellow in the tricorn following at a slight distance.
“I have to decide. I’d rather a watery grave than to be eaten, but on land, I’ll still have a chance to help my pal. I run away along the beach. It’s flat and firm. I can outrun them. The beach turns left ahead, just around a stony prominence. Beyond, I find myself in a small lagoon, walled in by high slabs of rock. With its palm trees growing from the short cliffs, and a small cascade of water emptying into the lagoon, it would be a beautiful place to relax if that were possible.
“There’s no way out. I’m boxed in, and they’ll be upon me within moments. As I make my way to the little waterfall, I think to myself, At least I can get a cool drink before they catch me. I’m strangely calm, so that when they arrive in the lagoon, I stand and gaze at them evenly. They don’t make threatening moves as they approach. Oddly, they seem most interested in my legs. One looks me in the eyes and smiles, making movements with his right hand so it appears to be a little figure running. I understand that he is delighted with my speed. They all are, laughing and gesturing toward me and especially my legs.
“They circle me, and my gut clenches. I have a moment of panic that propels me between two of them in an effort to escape. They take me to the ground. The one in the tricorn hat has caught up. He lifts his musket and brings the butt of it down on my head.”
During the ensuing pause, Slim brought us each another glass of ale. “On the house,” he said to me. With the sympathetic look he gave Guthrie, I became certain they’d been friends for a long while.
Guthrie began again. “I wake up in the pit. As my mind swims back up to wakefulness, I can tell from the growing pain that I don’t want to be there. I know my legs are gone, but I can’t see them at first. Matt is near naked. He’s wrapped his clothing around my stumps like bandages.
“Matt, bless him, tries to sing me lullabies, I suppose to help me sleep. What else can he do for me?
“Thankfully, I am not fully awake. That’s how it feels. The pain is almost the entire world. Even so, I know the wounds should feel worse.
“I am aware enough to consider the islander’s fascination with my legs. I’d heard that cannibals liked to take in what is most powerful in others. I’d shown them the strength of my legs, and they’d taken them as food. I remember that Joop’s arms had been strong ones, heavily muscled. In the midst of this realization, I see the woman who brings us food looking down from the lip of the pit. She watches and listens to Matt sing to me. Like so many others I’ve seen over time, her open, wide-eyed expression tells me that she finds his voice spellbinding.
“‘Shut your mouth, Matt,’ I say. He ignores me. I grab and try to shake him. I have no power in my frame. ‘They will eat your voice,’ I try to shout, pointing up at the woman on the lip of the pit.
“She’s gone. And Matt, he stops singing long enough to say, ‘When I die, Mr. Bryte, and all he has will suffer, his beautiful daughter, and the generations that follow. Though the music hall will brighten the days of audiences, only darkness will grow in the hearts of those who desire to perform there.’
“The islanders are crouched at the lip of the pit as Matt begins singing again. I cannot hold myself awake. Shamefully, I fall back, and allow his song to lull me to sleep.”
Guthrie is silent for a long while, his hea
d bowed, eyes downcast.
I want to know what happened next! I cannot bear the wait. I am on the verge of reaching across the table to stir his shoulder several times. Out of respect, I restrain myself.
“They’ve taken Matt’s tongue and returned him to the pit,” Guthrie says quietly. “All is lost. We are a pit of misery, all three of us. The others are not here to say, but I believe I can speak for all three of us when I say that we just wanted life to end.
“It does for Matt first, and I am glad for him.” A tear spilled down Guthrie’s cheek. “At some point I awaken to find that Joop is gone. In my agony, I am envious of the two.
“Then, I’m being lifted out of the pit, and I am ready for the end. I dream that I am taken to the water and placed in a boat loaded with faggots. Like a Viking burial, the boat is set aflame and cast adrift. Instead of the pain of burning flesh, I feel a comforting warmth.
“The bow of the Moth Pearl, fetched up on the reef, had attracted a crew looking for salvage,” Guthrie said, “They’d sent men onto the island looking to renew their ship’s supply of water. I’d been found and rescued. I would not understand that for at least a month, so destructive was the corruption that took hold in what remained of my legs.”
“Finally awake enough to understand something of my situation, I discovered that I was being nursed back to health by the Sisters of Mercy at San Francisco General Hospital—a bittersweet thing to hear the nuns’ Irish brogue.
“I had just enough fear of Matt’s curse that I wanted to find Kalina and make sure she stayed safe. I learned that The Great Western Music Hall had burned, that Stewart Bryte had perished in the fire, and that Kalina had been maimed. She was, in fact, recovering from severe burns at General Hospital while I was there.
“The moment I see what the fire has done to her, I understand that the curse—Matt’s curse—is real.”
His story done, Guthrie fixed me with a stern eye. “Beverly, I tell the story to you, young man, because you perform in the band at the Shantyman.”