Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  Instead, it seemed that she had taken up the dangerous and uncomfortable existence of a captain’s wife at sea. It was a crazy decision—and yet Annabelle had always been madly daring, he wryly recollected; it was something he had learned in detail during the week before her wedding. Because Ezekiel Reed was rich and delighted with himself for landing such a delectable bride, he had lavishly entertained his guests for seven days of festivities before the actual ceremony—seven days that included seven nights, as Wiki vividly remembered.

  The mad affair had been sparked the instant they had met; while her small hand rested in his big one, he had been engulfed by her wide-eyed, black-lashed, admiring gaze. Like his mother’s people, Wiki had matured early, and when he had arrived in Stonington at the start of that week-long prewedding party, he had already learned a deep appreciation of women and their beauty. Never, however, had he experienced a girl as reckless as Annabelle Green—who was determined to make the most of her last week of liberty, and had swept him along with her wild exuberance. Already a man, he had found her utterly irresistible.

  The risks she had taken were crazy—as witness that last waltz, he thought, and wondered why the devil she’d told Forsythe about it, because it had created enough of a sensation at the time. Just an hour before the actual ceremony, Annabelle had danced onto the floor of the huge reception room while half of respectable New England stared. Wiki had been leaning against a wall, content to watch her as a small orchestra played the fast three-step tune of the Boston waltz that was fashionable then, assuming that she was simply showing off her wedding dress to the host of assembled guests. Instead, she had pirouetted right up to him. “Handsome young man,” she had murmured in his ear, enfolding him with her scent, “will you dance my last waltz with me?”

  At the time, he had readily accepted the challenge, his face creased up into a wide conspiratorial grin—not only was he just sixteen and utterly obsessed, but he knew how she hated being thwarted. Now, eight years later, he grimly reflected that she could have got him lynched. She’d known it, too, he thought, because he remembered how wickedly her eyes had sparkled as she had leaned back in the muscular circle of his arms as they danced; just for the hell of it, she had deliberately and mischievously put them both in terrible danger. Was she still up to the same tricks? Had she dared Forsythe with her lush body and her dancing eyes—had he quarreled with Captain Reed because of her? And killed him, perhaps?

  Then Wiki was distracted by the sight of movement on the half-mile stretch of water between the schooner and the Swallow. The brig was safely anchored now, the sails furled, and so a boat was heading their way. Captain Rochester had taken time to get himself into uniform, because Wiki could see the twinkle of gold lace in the stern sheets. Abruptly remembering that George had asked him to have a look at the damage to the Annawan, he left Annabelle without a word, heading for the hatch to the holds.

  Nine

  As Wiki descended the first rungs of the ladder that led below deck, the babble became muffled. At the midway point there was a landing that led to a between-decks space, and he paused to look around. In a whaleship this would have been the steerage—the place where the boatsteerers lived, and whaling gear was stored. Here, it was very cramped, because much of the area was used up by the after house and the forward house, where they were sunk into the deck. There was very little headroom, too, so that he had to stand in a crouched position. It was surprisingly light, though. Sun slanted through the forward hatch above, enhanced by light from another hatch forty feet farther aft, which had its own ladder. Wiki could distinctly see the many bags and barrels that were stored between the two hatchways. Provisions, he thought—the cook and the steward would have easy access to them because the forward hatch was so close to the forward house and the galley. Indeed, the steward would be able to reach the captain’s cabin in rainy weather by detouring through here, as the second hatchway, aft, was close to the doorway to the after house.

  Then Wiki tensed at the sound of deliberate footsteps echoing from below and coming closer. He realized that someone was coming up the ladder from the hold just as a dark-haired head poked up, followed by the body of a sturdy man in seaman’s working rig.

  Because he had been thinking so much about Annabelle, Wiki recognized her cousin at once. He exclaimed, “Alphabet—Alphabet Green!”

  “Jesus Christ,” said the other, his Cajun accent immediately apparent. “Wiki Coffin, what the hell are you doing here? I haven’t clapped eyes on you since—hell, it must have been at Annabelle’s wedding.”

  They shook hands, delighted to see each other. “You remember my famous nickname,” Alphabet observed.

  “I certainly can’t remember your real name,” Wiki confessed. “Only your initials—X.Y.Z., isn’t that right?”

  “Xavier York Zimri Green—and it surely ain’t right to lumber a poor innocent infant with a label like that.”

  They both laughed, but then Wiki abruptly sobered. “I guess you know that Ezekiel has been killed?”

  “Aye.” Annabelle’s cousin silenced, his expression very grim, and Wiki was struck by how much he had aged in the past eight years. Alphabet Green’s face was darkened by the sun to the color of mahogany, and the creases about his squinting eyes and thin cheeks were so deep they looked as if they bit to the bone.

  He sighed, and said, “Have they pinned the blame on anyone yet?”

  “I don’t think so.” Though it would only be a matter of time before Hammond’s accusation of Forsythe would become a chorus, Wiki thought grimly, because Forsythe was, without a doubt, the most likely culprit. If he was telling the truth, and had not been in the cabin at the time Captain Reed was attacked, it was lucky for him that he had two witnesses to that—Annabelle Reed, and Zachary Kingman.

  “You’re with the brig Swallow?”

  “Aye.” Wiki hadn’t noticed Alphabet Green in the host of twelve Annawan men who had arrived on board the brig, but then, he thought, he’d had no reason to recognize him before having seen Annabelle.

  “You’ve joined the U.S. Navy?”

  “Never! I’m a civilian with the expedition—a translator, what they call ‘linguister.’ Of Pacific languages, mostly.” Wiki joked in response to Alphabet’s incredulous expression, “It’s easier than it sounds—did you know that the Tahitian alphabet has only thirteen letters?”

  Alphabet laughed. Then he waved an arm around the between-decks space, and said, “So what are you doing in here?”

  Wiki roused, reminded of his task. Turning back to the ladder, he said, “I’ve been asked to assess the damage in the holds.”

  He headed downward. It was very dark, and when he stepped off at the bottom it was a surprise to find that the water was knee-deep, and the ballast was loose. He paused, frowning as he looked around, his sight adjusting. Save for a few casks stacked in tiers, and a big iron freshwater tank amidships by the ladder, the dank, echoing cavern was empty, which was usual enough in a sealer that was still on the way to the sealing ground. There was a strong, breath-catching stink of bilge. It was possible to see where the seamen had tried to fix the leak, as ripples of light seeped upward from beyond the fothered sail—but there was a hint of more light flickering farther beyond. It looked ominously as if the whole strake had splintered and started. Wiki took out his jackknife, unfolded it, and sloshed over to that side of the hull. The top layer of the loose ballast shifted and grated in the dark water as he moved, making a strangely metallic scraping noise.

  As he tested the wood with the tip of his knife, he was aware that Alphabet had followed him, but was so absorbed he did not turn round. Then, when Alphabet finally spoke, his voice came from so unexpectedly close behind him that Wiki jumped with surprise.

  Alphabet said, “How does it look?”

  “Not good.” Wiki waded along in the darkness, and set to testing wood again.

  Alphabet sighed, coming close again, and said, “She’s old.”

  “Aye—and has seen a lot of
hard usage, too.” Which was only to be expected, with sealers. “But she was built to last,” Wiki mused aloud. If they could somehow careen her, all might not be lost—if only they could find replacement planking. Thinking that he might know of a source, he said, “That wreck on the beach—have you looked at it?”

  “Of course,” said Alphabet, and laughed rather strangely, Wiki thought. “That wrecked sloop belonged to Ezekiel, too,” he said.

  “She did?” Wiki was startled.

  “Aye.” Then Alphabet silenced. Again, he was too close for comfort; Wiki could smell the onions on his breath. The Greens were Cajun fisher folk from Louisiana—a kind of sea-gypsy people, originally from Acadia on the seaboard of Canada, who had been expelled by the British five or six generations ago, and who now fished the swamps of the Gulf of Mexico, and swarmed about the waterfront of New Orleans. They kept to themselves, and spoke their own dialect, and had different standards of behavior. No doubt they had their own ideas of proximity—Annabelle had delighted in physical intimacy more than any other girl Wiki had ever known.

  Completely spontaneously, without knowing he was going to ask it, Wiki said, “Was it truly Annabelle’s last chance to waltz?”

  “Waltz?” Alphabet sounded jolted. “At her wedding?”

  “Aye.”

  “New England wives are not allowed to dance at all.”

  “So she hasn’t danced since?”

  “Hell, no. It ain’t considered decent. In fact,” Alphabet Green said, “she shouldn’t have danced at her wedding, either—and certainly not with a handsome young man who was not her fiancé.” His tone was knowing as he went on, “That week before her wedding, there was a hell of a lot she should not have done. She took crazy risks—and so did you. The family considers her mad, you know.”

  Wiki said softly as he folded up his jackknife, “I thought she was enchanting.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truth to tell, I was madly in love with her. Absolutely enslaved.”

  “Poor Wiki,” said Alphabet. He laughed and took a step away.

  “Poor Annabelle,” said Wiki. She who had been so passionate and alive was a weeping widow, now. He turned and set his boot on the first rung of the ladder.

  As he climbed, his knuckles accidentally hit the water tank. The cold, wet iron gave out a dull bang rather than the half-empty boom had expected. That’s odd, Wiki thought, and said over his shoulder, “I thought you came here for water.”

  Alphabet’s voice echoed from a dozen feet below. “Who the hell told you that?”

  “Hammond.”

  “That’s crazy. We came in to salvage the Hero—he knows that.”

  So here at last was a plausible reason for coming into Shark Island. “How did Captain Reed learn that she’d been wrecked?”

  “He got the news at Rio. He expected to meet up with the Hero there, but instead learned that she’d been chased up the beach here—to escape a bunch of privateers.”

  “Insurgents?” Watching Alphabet nod, Wiki thought that when he had suggested to Captain Wilkes that the so-called pirates could be local revolutionaries, he’d been right on the mark. It had been wildly optimistic of Ezekiel Reed to hope the Hero had not been looted, but still worth checking. For the first time the situation made some kind of sense.

  Again it was a relief to emerge into the bright, late sunshine. Looking around, Wiki saw George Rochester on the quarterdeck talking to Joel Hammond. George had a box under his arm—perhaps the same box of ship’s papers that Wiki had noticed on the table in the captain’s cabin. When he saw Wiki, he lifted his free hand in salute. Annabelle was nowhere in sight, so Wiki deduced that Forsythe’s peremptory advice had been followed, and the corpse had been removed and the cabin cleaned up.

  He turned to Alphabet and asked, “Have you always sailed for Ezekiel Reed?”

  “Hell, no. I started out as a clerk—went to sea as a supercargo—tried out life as a ship’s agent in various ports.” Alphabet Green sighed, and said, “But it all came to naught. I ended up the way you see me, at work on my cousin-in-law’s sinking schooner.”

  The bitterness was understandable, thought Wiki. A supercargo was an important man who sailed with all the privileges of a passenger, and was in charge of selling and buying cargoes in port. For Green, ending up as a seaman was indeed a failure—and all the more so if he’d got the job only because he was cousin to the captain’s wife.

  He said rather awkwardly, “Ezekiel’s death must be a terrible loss to you.”

  “It’s a blow for just about everyone on board the Annawan.”

  Wiki wondered what he meant, and then remembered that sealers, like whalemen, were very superstitious. “Was he considered a lucky skipper?”

  “He made a lot of money for a lot of people, including himself,” Alphabet said dryly.

  “So what will happen now?”

  Alphabet shrugged, looked down at the deck, and said, “I expect the Annawan will founder within the next few days, and somehow the Swallow will get us all to Rio.”

  Again, Wiki was conscious of the heavy wallowing feel beneath his feet. Alphabet could indeed be right—the schooner could be in such terrible shape that George would be forced to take the entire complement of the Annawan on board the Swallow and ferry them to the nearest civilized port. It was only what the U.S. Navy would have expected of any of their officers in similar circumstances, he knew, but nonetheless he disliked the idea extremely.

  He remembered how crowded the decks of the Swallow had seemed as the two boats’ crews had boarded, and how threatened he’d felt, and exclaimed angrily, “The Peacock reported your ship as a pirate because no one even tried to signal the ship. Hammond told us that the fort is nothing more than a ruined prison, but Captain Hudson of the Peacock didn’t know that—because no one bothered to contact him. I can’t understand why Ezekiel Reed didn’t send a boat after the Peacock—or fly a signal of distress, even. It seems so brainless!”

  There was a pause while Alphabet stared into the distance, his eyes narrow and his expression grimly withdrawn. Then he said with distinct bitterness, “Nothing he has ever done could be a fraction as brainless as bringing his wife to sea.”

  Ten

  When Wiki left the schooner in the brig’s boat with George, the sounds of the Annawan seemed normal, almost. There were men at work in the rigging, and a pumping gang forward of the mainmast. After a moment Wiki could hear the thudding of the pumps at work again. The air was rent with loud hammer blows as someone worked on a coffin.

  Then they were off, and the echoes gradually faded. The late afternoon light glittered on the surface of the water, and the shape of the ruined fort at the top of the cliff was black as the sun lowered behind it. The cutter followed them out to the brig, but, after pausing so Forsythe could scramble on board the Swallow, the big boat veered off and headed for a cove at the far side of a rock fall from the beach where the sloop had been wrecked.

  Rochester didn’t comment on this for a moment or two, instead checking the state of the brig with Midshipman Keith, who was all importance at having been left in sole charge. Then he turned to Forsythe, who had his fists propped on his belt and was scowling as he watched his cutter disappear, and said mildly, “What’s up?”

  “Sent her off with Zack Kingman in charge to set up camp on the beach,” the southerner replied. “Seems the best idea, if we’re goin’ to be here a while.”

  Rochester nodded. Indeed, it was an excellent idea. Provided with a couple of bags of flour and biscuit, the cutter’s men could fend for themselves and live much more comfortably than when crowded on the brig—and it did seem likely that they would be here quite a while, unless the schooner foundered in the night.

  “You’re not going with them?” he inquired.

  Forsythe said expressionlessly, “In an hour or so I’m heading back to the Annawan with Zack. We’ve been invited to the wake, seeing as we was acquainted with the deceased. After that, I’ll go to the camp on the
beach.”

  Acquainted? That was an odd way of phrasing it, Wiki thought, and still wondered why Forsythe was here, instead of with the cutter. George looked both intrigued and startled, but was too well bred to make any remark, instead heading for the companionway and shouting out for the steward of the Swallow. This fellow, a long, lugubrious man from Maine by the name of Stoker, was what George often labeled a gem: not only was everything neat and clean in the small saloon, but the coffee that swiftly arrived was ambrosial. Platters of sliced cold meats, hot baked beans, and warm new bread followed, and Rochester, Wiki, and Forsythe settled to their places about the table, leaving young Keith still in charge of the deck.

  “Now,” said Rochester to the lieutenant, “I’ve only heard Joel Hammond’s version so far, so you’d better tell me what happened.”

  “Version of what?” Forsythe said cagily.

  “The murder.”

  “I don’t know any more than he does—except that I saw the corpse before he did. Wiki can tell you all about that, because he was there, too.”

  “Perhaps if you started at the beginning,” George said patiently. “What happened when you arrived at the schooner? What was Captain Reed like?”

  Forsythe shrugged, thought, chewed, and then said, “He was damn pleased to see us, at first. Hailed us as his saviors.”

  “I’m not surprised!”

  “Then he complained that we should’ve arrived four weeks ago.”

  Rochester frowned. “But the Annawan has been here just a couple of days.”

  “Aye, but that sloop—Hero—lying up there on the beach belonged to Captain Reed, too. According to what he said, she was attacked by privateers about a month ago, which was when she was wrecked, and so he heartily wished that we had been here then.”