The Whaler's Daughter

by Jerry Mikorenda

  Papa fumbled about some before he flopped back inside. When a man’s mind is hovering somewhere above where it ought to be, there are two ways things can go. Agreement with anything you ask for because he never had any stake in what you wanted anyway, or two, he’ll snap at you the way a wild animal does when suddenly trapped.

  I drew a good cold bucket from the well, went inside, and set a glass beside him on the table.

  “That fella from the Hook & Harpoon said the punts were paying top fluc against us,” I added, pouring water into the glass. “It was the biggest upset he’d ever witnessed, he said.”

  “They’ll know better than to take us lightly the next time,” laughed Papa as he downed the glass straight up.

  “I’d still like to be part of that next time myself,” I said, refilling his glass.

  “If things go between you and Lon the way they’re looking—mind, you still got some growing up to do,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You’ll have your place among all the other wives, right next to Frieda.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking, Papa, and you know it,” I said, slamming the pitcher down hard enough to slosh water across the table.

  “Then you’ll know what I’m going to say. They’ll be no girl in the boats as long as I can grip a lance.”

  “It’s not fair, Papa,” I cried.

  “This isn’t trying on dresses at Dilly’s,” he said, his eyes glaring like a bird of prey. “Men, good lads, get killed out there.”

  “How can someone who takes down sixty-ton beasts be afraid of a hundred-pound girl?” I said, starting to shake with a fury from within.

  “Listen, Savannah,” said Papa, leaning toward me with his palms flat on the table, “this is about keeping you safe.”

  “Safe?” I cried. “Do you really think I’d be safe with the likes of Lonny? I know what happened on the bay, Papa. I know all about what those whales you love so much did. Everyone knows. They still talk about it.”

  “Talk is cheap. That claptrap is no reflection on us.”

  “Is that why we have no mirrors? Are you ashamed of me?”

  “There’s no shame in protecting your own and keeping food on the table,” Papa growled.

  “All’s we have to show for being a Dawson is blood money from the very creatures that killed my brothers.”

  “Disrespecting me won’t put you any closer to those boats. Nothing will.”

  “I hate this rotting station! Every day I wish, I wish—that I had been in that boat with Eli and Asa so I wouldn’t have to be here!”

  “You’re hysterical!” shouted Papa. “You didn’t want to be cook so now you’re not the cook. What more do ya want?”

  “I’m not hysterical, Papa,” I said, gasping for air. “I’m dying, can’t you see? You’re…”

  If I’d stayed there a moment longer, I would’ve passed out. I ran for the front door as Papa yelled at me to come back. I kept running past the bunkhouses, the empty trypots, and the smoldering remains of victory to the quay and float dock.

  When my head stopped spinning, I was alone and disoriented on the open water, gripping two oars with only one thing left to do.

  12.

  I took long, sweeping strokes, trying to put as much distance as I could between Loch Bultarra and me. I glided past the point of my meanderings the day before and approached the intimidating bluff that had claimed my hair and stopped me from leaving many times. The barrier bar already reached across the inlet, choking it from the bay.

  If there was one thing I had learned about sandbars, it was that they wrecked people as much as boats. This bay gave no quarter, stirring up all sorts of things once long buried. No one went near the bar during a bore tide, which made me lay in for it even more. Within minutes I’d be hitting those swirling waters.

  Screaming, I rowed with wild abandon, pulling harder and faster.

  The first bump knocked an oar out of its lock; the second turned the skiff back toward the inlet. “Dratted rip currents!” I shouted, rowing with increased force toward the bar. The skiff suddenly lifted off the water, as if tossed sideways. I grabbed hold of the gunwales as the hull roiled high on the port side, nearly capsizing.

  The boat bounced violently up and down. As I stared into the shadows of the azure waves, one of them coalesced into an apparition and a killer floating up to me. It gave a sideways glance and nodded its head back toward the inlet, as though it wanted me to follow.

  “You’re the last thing I want to see today!” I yelled, stabbing at it with my oar. The killer jerked the oar down, knocking me to my knees, but I wouldn’t loosen my grip. “Let go, you blubber head!” I shouted as it pulled me back a half-mile toward the shore.

  I wanted to let go, but trying to row a skiff with one oar was a useless enterprise. I held on as we cut through the breakers.

  Finally the killer released its bite and I pulled the oar back into the skiff. As I tried to get my bearings, a large black fin sliced into the air behind the boat and propelled me as if motorized. I picked up the oar to whack the top fin. When I saw the coffee-can-sized dents in the wood from its teeth, I slumped down into the hull, resigned to an unwanted ride.

  About a hundred feet from shore, the fin lowered and a tail wider than the boat emerged. With one mighty smack the skiff hit the beach. The killer wagged a side fin and blew a puff of spray in the air as it slipped below the water. As easily as they could redirect a skiff, I realized, they could have sunk Eli and Asa.

  I wasn’t far from Figgie’s camp, so I pulled the skiff ashore and made my way toward it. My head was still swirling from the morning’s events. There was no sign of Corowa and the girls, or Figgie for that matter. The village was desolate except for a few old women and dingoes. I headed straight to the Tjungu—the only place I knew.

  The thatched walls whispered with the occasional sea breeze; otherwise, it too was empty, silent. I didn’t venture beyond the darkened entrance.

  “Savannah?”

  I couldn’t tell if I heard my name or if the wind had picked up, so I didn’t answer.

  “Is that you?”

  I strained to see into the darkened hut. The voice sounded like Figgie’s, but I wasn’t sure.

  “Yes,” I said, turning to leave. “I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

  All went quiet again. Then a murmuring of many tongues.

  “Why have you come in country?”

  “I took a skiff here and was wondering if I might stay a bit.”

  I recognized Uncle’s soft rasp, followed by a shuffling of feet and flashes of light.

  “Savannah, please join us,” said Figgie.

  I broke into the darkness and felt displaced and uncomfortable. Moving forward, I grasped for their shadows and sat down next to Figgie and Uncle on the warm earth.

  “You’re shivering and wet,” said Figgie, lighting the fire.

  His smile was like a sliver of moon on a dark night and made me nearly forget what had happened in the bay. I wrapped myself in the blanket he handed me.

  “What ails you?” asked Figgie.

  “Well,” I said, pulling the blanket tighter, “a killer just attacked me on the way here.”

  “I do not believe it,” said Figgie, sitting straight up.

  He spoke in a rapid high-pitched tone to Uncle, a tone that reminded me of the killer’s chatter.

  “Uncle and I think you’re mistaken,” said Figgie.

  “You weren’t there, were you?” I said, trying to convince myself as well. “That black beast knocked me around like I was a bone in a dog yard.”

  “You seem undamaged,” Figgie said.

  “That skiff is mighty dinged up, with teeth marks on everything; I’m lucky to be alive.”

  “I see,” Figgie said, folding his hands.

  “It wasn’t any sandbar I hit,” I said, ri
sing to my feet. “That monster…there’s just no reasoning with it. Does what he wants and doesn’t care what I think.”

  “Are we still talking about the orca?” Figgie asked.

  “We’re talking about my life, which doesn’t seem to matter to anyone.”

  “Are you not your own person, a Dawson?”

  “No, I’m not, Figgie. You just don’t see…understand, that...I’m just a gawky girl with a scarred face who can’t even…run away because stupid whales prevent me.”

  “Again,” he said, “I do not think the orcas are holding you back from anything, Savannah.”

  “Of course they are, who else could it be…?”

  I explained as best I could about Papa and me grinding axes all the time. I just wanted some say over myself. I hoped Figgie and Uncle would understand my side of the story, if it even mattered. Then I sat between them again, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders.

  “I’ve had my say,” I added, ducking into the blanket like a turtle into its shell.

  Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw them making hand and face gestures. Their mouths made tiny popping suction-cup sounds that were soothing in a way. Figgie explained that Uncle thought the killer was trying to protect me.

  “From what?” I said, annoyed.

  “Yourself no doubt,” said Figgie, without any prompting from Uncle. “Your impetuousness is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.”

  “Thanks for that, mate,” I said. “I just wish they’d leave me alone.”

  Uncle grew animated, waving his arms and murmuring.

  “Uncle says orcas are the guardians of mother earth. They protect her wisdom and are the keepers of all history. They know more about us than we know about them.” All I could muster was a roll of my eyes. “You have a connection with the orcas, Savannah,” said Figgie, “that you might not be aware of.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what they had to say. Every time I came close to getting answers, I ended up with more questions. Men can fog the shoreline with facts, leaving us adrift with nothing to toss an anchor on. I rose to leave when Uncle’s hands grabbed mine, imploring me back. As I sat down, he released my fingers and the blood rushed back into my arms. We all clasped hands.

  With Figgie as his voice, Uncle explained that when I was young a plague that came from two ships had beset Paradise. He promised my mum to use all the powers of the ancestors to save me. Some saw my skin turning blue and believed me dead. The disease disfigured my tiny face. Figgie explained that, in response to my mum’s entreaties, Uncle had performed a ceremony too sacred for him to ever repeat.

  Uncle waited for a sign.

  At dawn the next morning, it came. A dead killer whale washed up on the beach near the village. Numbly I listened as Uncle described how he had sliced open the animal and lowered me inside, leaving only my face uncovered to breathe in the ritual smoke. He placed me in the whale’s intense heat many times that day until my sickness finally broke.

  “Starve the flaming lizards,” I said, breaking our bonds. “How’d I end up in a killer?”

  “Some might call it providence,” said Figgie, “or part of our Dreaming.”

  “Providence? I might call it…” I said. “I don’t know what to call it.”

  “Uncle says you should just call it life,” said Figgie.

  I didn’t want to seem ungrateful all these years later, but the idea left me cold. We sat there in silence for a long time, listening to the crackle of the fire. Uncle looked about with his blank eyes as if he were reliving the whole episode. Finally, he spoke again to Figgie , who seemed as exhausted as me. “Uncle thinks it is time for you to return to Loch Bultarra,” he said, “and I do too.”

  I didn’t want to be part of anything that had to do with the bay, especially those killers. Uncle stood and rubbed my face with his hands before kissing my forehead. He said something Figgie didn’t translate and left.

  “Let me escort you home,” Figgie said. “You don’t look like you can fight the currents.”

  “I got plenty of fight, just not wanting to go back,” I said, as we left the Tjungu.

  “Not wanting or afraid?” he asked.

  “When did you get so blasted smart?”

  “I have a good teacher. You ought to meet her sometime,” he said, flashing his gleaming Figgie smile.

  

  We got in the canoe with my skiff in tow. The bay had played me once again. As we began paddling, I realized Bardin was right. It deceives and mocks anyone wishing to know it.

  “What are you thinking, Savannah?” Figgie asked, as we began rowing.

  “Uncle buried me in a dead whale,” I said, still horrified by the idea.

  “The whale gave you life,” said Figgie, “as your mother wished.”

  “Now I have to live with this revulsion,” I added.

  “Your mum learned to trust in our ways,” said Figgie. “You should too.”

  I could tell he was disappointed by my reaction. I knew some part of me was off beam with it too. But how can you trust something you can’t talk to or understand?

  Since those blasted whales arrived, they’d been nothing but trouble for me. I knew if I let it, this agitation between Figgie and me could fester into an open wound.

  “Stay with me, mate,” I said, turning back toward him as we skimmed along. “This is gonna take some digesting.”

  “Not all meals are eaten in a single bite,” said Figgie. “These events are already part of your Dreaming, who you are. Nothing has changed.”

  “No, it hasn’t,” I said, looking up at Loch Bultarra in the distance. “Everything is exactly the same.”

  “Not everything, I suspect,” said Figgie.

  “Please, do tell, what has changed?”

  “You have,” he said, steering us to the inlet. “Because you know who you are now.”

  I laughed. I didn’t understand much more than before. My life was still a leaky skiff I was trying to bail out using a boot with a hole in it.

  It was near dark when we glided up to the float dock. As I tied off the skiff, I could see the house was in total darkness. Somewhere inside Papa lurked. Eventually we’d have to face each other. I wondered what I would say to Papa about that morning and what I’d learned in the afternoon. I knew one thing for sure. There were no simple answers anymore.

  Whatever fate awaited me inside, I was ready to own up to it.

  13.

  I didn’t see Papa in his chair by the cold fireplace or in the kitchen reading the paper spread out on the table.

  I changed into my night skivvies and opened the porthole to let the cool air draw out the stuffiness. The forest sounds tried to lull me to sleep, but dreams were my enemy this day. I lay awake trying not to think of anything, when the floorboards creaked in a familiar pattern. I could feel Papa standing at my door. His hand squeezed the knob as if he were trying to sense if I was there. I pulled the sheets tightly around me and heard his grip release.

  At sunrise, I heard a mournful cry in my sleep. It pulled at me like a piece of thread through a jumper. High-pitched, the shrill sound seemed squeezed, as though a great weight was pushing on someone’s chest. I knelt up in bed, looking out the open porthole. What I saw stabbed me in the eyes. I blinked several times. I ran down the stairs onto the porch and gazed out at the bay. There lay a creature longer than a whaleboat and taller than me.

  It looked like a mound of coal in the rising sunlight.

  In the distance I saw a motorized boat, its engine belching black smoke as it sped away. I walked on the wet sand as the sea bled away with the low tide. I approached carefully. The killer’s labored breathing paced my steps toward it. Served it right for playing so close to the shore. Moving toward its head, I was careful not to go near those immense teeth. The black and white snout waggled, as if it were
trying to sit up to look at me. Its fins and fluke flailed helplessly as the beast accepted its fate. For a moment I wondered if this was the killer that had attacked me, but it seemed much larger.

  I couldn’t imagine myself buried in the corpse of such a creature. I knew it was alone, seeking companionship in these final hours, but I didn’t want to provide it comfort. I fought the urge to touch it, reaching down before pulling away. Yet the void between us carried its own pain, so I thrust my hands onto its skin. At first it felt like a circus balloon, rough and rubbery.

  As my fingers relaxed, I could feel the pulsing power underneath. It breathed.

  Not like a dog or my cats, but the way a person does when you happen upon them after a cricket loss or a missed opportunity. Heavy, sad breaths.

  “Help us,” a presence in my mind begged.

  That was the last thing I wanted. Yet revenge against a defenseless animal was no more satisfying than killing bush rats in apple bins. “Now you know how my brothers felt,” I shouted, leaning in to mock the creature.

  I moved even closer, bending over when the whale looked at me. My angry gaze locked on its brown eye. A large dark mirror draining all light. Drawing me into it in a way that was both frightening and soothing. I felt myself dissolving into a great rushing flow that would always exist, would always welcome me to join it.

  We stared at each other for a long time.

  The whale’s breathing grew shallower as its eye slowly closed.

  I sank to my knees, keeping my hands on it. I stayed there transfixed.

  Jumping to my feet, I dashed wildly up the beach and stairs to my room. I tore the sheets from my bed. On the way back, I grabbed the largest water bucket I could find. I tossed the sheets over the huge mass and drenched it with water. Bucket after bucket seized from the retreating sea emptied upon the poor creature to keep its skin from blistering. I did this several times as the blazing sun rose.

  As I lay exhausted in the lapping water, I saw six black sails cutting swiftly across the sapphire bay. Its pod mates had come to console. They formed a line and pushed water up to the shore, trying to float their friend. I moved the sheet from the eye so it could see its own kind. I returned to filling my bucket when a dark cloud passed. A chill came over me.