The Whaler's Daughter

by Jerry Mikorenda

  “You close your eyes and try to remember what a person looked like,” he said, staring up as the wind howled, “but their likeness is gone as soon as you open your eyes Your mum didn’t wear her hair all frothy and in a bun,” he said, pointing at the drawing. “She kept it plain and cut at the shoulder. Her eyes and mouth were smaller,” he added, stroking his chin. “It was her heart that was bigger if there’s a way to show it. The boys, I can’t recollect as much,” he continued in a soft whisper, “because we never spent the time together, we should’ve. I—I was always too busy for it.”

  “Papa,” I said, moving my chair closer to him, “what happened to Eli and Asa?”

  “I ask myself that every day when the tide lets out. Was it retribution from the sea? Or—”

  “Those killers, Papa,” I blurted out, my stout conviction shaken by that whale’s haunting eye. “I remember things I saw—”

  Papa nodded his head in agreement. “You were there, Savannah, and I was, too.”

  He pulled an envelope from his back pocket and placed it on the table, pushing it to me.

  “When I heard you yelling at that beached killer the other morning, I knew it was time for you to read this,” he said. “It has been in the top drawer of my desk since your mum died.”

  I glanced down at it. Should my Boat not Return appeared in his own hand on the envelope. I froze, unsure of what to do next.

  “It’s meant for you,” he said. “There are no others.”

  I opened the sealed envelope and unfolded the tightly creased pages, lowering them to the light.

  My Dearest Daughter,

  If you are reading this, the sea has laid claim to me and I have taken my place with your blessed mother, my parents, and your brothers. Have mercy on my soul and those who perished with me.

  My Last Will is registered with the Paradise Magistrate Shamus Wimbley. Abe will look after you. In the event we are both done in, the magistrate will appoint Frieda your guardian. Though Irish, Wimbley is a fair and rightful man.

  No doubt, you have heard many things about our family that I ain’t fully explained to you. It wasn’t for lack of wanting, or any desire to hide the truth. When the time came, I figured I’d find a way to explain why things are the way they are.

  It isn’t the right of no man to be passing judgments about my family, or what’s left of it. I cared for those boys more than anyone will know and I grieved, too, though not enough to the liking of those in town who don’t got nothing to do but comment on the misery of others.

  My boys were good oarsmen for their years.

  They knew how these waters flowed better than the blood in their veins, knew how to use the channels and winds of the bay. If you gave them a log and sheet, they could figure a way to beat a steamer across the bay.

  Eli was the older of the two, but they might as well have been twins for all the differences between them. He was the more patient and the better swimmer. I say that because he was the one who took the time to teach you to swim. I didn’t see the point to it. Having a girl learn all that for nothing, but he said it was in your nature and you took to it proper.

  I stopped reading and looked over at Papa, his head sunk low and his hands clasped together as if he was in church.

  Asa was a year younger and followed his older brother around the way a piglet shadows its mum. He was more playful than Eli, a trait he got from my da who he reminded me of greatly even at his young age. Pop knew Eli was on the way when he passed. He said it would be a boy and he died believing another Dawson would lead the station.

  Nothing stands out on the day it happened.

  Charlie Brennan and Bardin had stoved an eighty-foot Right a few days before. With the killers already getting their share, the try works were smelting all day and night. Whenever the works were singing with hot oil whistling in the iron pots, your mum closed all the windows and shutters to our home. She’d stuff towels under the sills and doors to block out the greasy air and smell. Then me, Abe, and Brennan would come tramping in and stink up the place anyway. “You married a whaler, my dear,” I’d say grabbing her about the waist, “and that stench is the smell of money.”

  The air was bad for the children, your mum said, so she told the boys not to be dawdling near the works. They’d be there full time soon enough. That put them to thinking that they could take the sail dinghy and come back with some skipjack so they didn’t have to eat whale meat again. It took ’em a while to leave, with you aching to go too, but you were too young no matter how good you swam and for that I’m grateful.

  “Oh, Papa,” I said, tears welling in my eyes. “I just wanted to be with you, with all of you.”

  The last time I saw them they took the dinghy for a sweep by the try works when me and Abe were counting barrels for Sam Hopkins. I heard them yelling, “Pa! Pa!” They sounded like cawing crows. I looked up and waved my hat over my head.

  Then they let out the sail, heading due east toward the fishing grounds off the Doddspoint Lighthouse.

  And they were gone.

  It was already dark and the pots glowed the boiling red of fevered blood when Mum came into the works. She had never done this before so I knew the seriousness of it. The boys had yet to return. There was still enough nautical light and the tide needed to let in for them to cross the bar into the inlet. So we decided to wait an hour as the tide settled, but before half of it had passed, Mum was grabbing a rowboat saying she would go alone if need be.

  I grabbed Brennan, young Warrain, and Ned and launched two whaleboats with lanterns. I sent the Gretch brothers on horseback to check the shoreline all the way to the Doddspoint Lighthouse. As the cloud cover lifted, a full moon beamed down. I knew our luck would change when Prince Jimmy and Uncle put out every canoe the village had.

  It was light enough that night to read the Bible, but I shot every distress flare we had. It was after dawn when I sent the boats back for fresh crews. The try works were just smoldering ash as we returned. Your mum stood on the beach, glaring as if her stare could boil away the sea to reveal her boys. You sat next to her, holding the tiny fishing pole Asa made for ya. You were waiting for them to take you for a spin around the lagoon that afternoon like they’d promised.

  “That was mine?” I mumbled.

  Then, I remembered holding the pole as Asa rubbed linseed oil along the length of it.

  “See, this is your whale pole until you’re old enough to join us,” he said. “We’ll all be in the boats together helping Papa.”

  I smiled as tears ran down my face.

  It was the longest day of my life.

  We checked every swamp, backwater, and inch of the shore. Ned shot three salties and cut open their leathery bellies with me too afraid to look at what tumbled out. The harbormaster from Paradise investigated, took descriptions and aided with patrol boats. We dredged up what we could. As the days mounted, our nets came up empty, drenched only in tears.

  It was the not knowing that gnawed at me.

  On the third day after they went missing, I took you for a walk to give your mum a rest. We paced the shore, you none the wiser of what was going on, playing with seaweed on a stick. Off to my left, I caught the shadow of a top fin crossing my eye. Three killers were making their way toward me sounding low soulful moans. “No hunting today,” I shouted at them, but they kept moving steadily toward me so we stopped and moved closer to the water.

  One come up as if he planned to walk up on the beach.

  Then another.

  A third pushed between them.

  That’s when I saw the two bodies gently nudged toward me. I sank to my knees in the water, unable to speak. You asked me why your brothers were sleeping, and I let out a cry that would crack doom. Frightened, you ran to the house as I pulled my boys from the sea. The killers found them and brought the lads back to us, of that I’m sure. There were no marks to say oth
erwise and sixty years of history with them that spoke to it.

  I wiped the tears from my cheeks. It seemed that everything I tried turned out wrong. I had been so sure of what I had seen and knew that I’d never bothered to try to see things with a clear mind.

  We buried our dead in the sea that took them, as we had done with my da and three of my brothers. We placed a proper stone for each of them in the burial ground back of the small glen. A week later, the harbormaster found my da’s cap that Eli had worn inside their dinghy that had washed up on the shore. I ripped that boat apart with my bare hands.

  I burned every piece of it, hoping the flames would consume my grief.

  But the ashes remained.

  I imagine as you read this they still do.

  For all the respect I showed the sea, it didn’t grant me no peace. As much as I tried to protect you from what happened, I knew the day of telling would come. My hope is now you can live with no debt to the past. It’s done with me.

  Take care and bless you,

  I folded the pages and put them back in the envelope.

  The rain on the roof sounded like nails pounding onto a coffin. Papa didn’t move or look up as I reached across the table and took his hand in mine. It was heavy and calloused and felt like an animal’s paw just freed from a trap.

  “What are those marks on your arms?” he asked, as if seeing me for the first time.

  “They’re from hot cooking ash,” I said, trying to cover them.

  “Do they hurt?”

  “It only stung for a moment,” I said, still absorbing the contents of his letter. “It’s the pain from the sour looks others give that lingers.”

  “The other day you asked about the mirrors missing from the house,” Papa said, gripping each side of the table as he looked at me.

  “It wasn’t anything, Papa,” I said, pulling my sleeves down to cover my forearms.

  “It had nothing to do with you or the scars you bear,” he said. “It was me. I couldn’t bear to look at myself after what happened. All the grief that came our way, and the burden it put on you. I thought it would help heal things, but it didn’t.”

  We listened to the din of the lighthouse warning bell in the crosswind. He looked down at my sketch again and kept rubbing each of the figures, as if it might restore them to life.

  “Savannah, I don’t ever want to forget your face or have any barriers between us,” Papa said. “I’m fearful in saying it, but I need you in the boats with me if you’ll still have it.”

  After all the years of waiting and trying, I didn’t know what to say or do. It seemed like I sat there forever, feeling the house sigh and heave with every hard gust.

  My neck hairs were dancing out of their roots.

  “Swear to me ya won’t look when nature calls on the crew,” Papa said, with mock sternness.

  “I’d just as soon jump in the bay and hide underwater until it was over,” I said, aghast, hands over my mouth.

  His hearty laugh made me forget about the storm.

  “Thank you, Papa,” I croaked. “I’ll try my hardest. I won’t disappoint you, honest.”

  “I know you won’t,” he said, looking down as if he’d just realized what he had done. “You been around the boats enough to know it’s hard, dangerous work. One distraction can kill a man; two can kill a boatful. I won’t give the sea another.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” I said.

  “For what?” he asked.

  “For not realizing that rough seas affect everyone in a boat.”

  “You did your job, now I got to do mine,” he said, reaching inside his shirt pocket. He pulled out a chock pin carved from whalebone.

  “Pop gave me this pin before my first hunt,” he said, looking for a place to stick it on my blouse. “It was from his whaleboat, and now it belongs to you.”

  It was an old tradition among harpooners to wear a chock pin from their whaleboat. Now Papa was letting me do it. I unbuttoned the top of my collar and he slid the pin into the hole. I ran to the parlor to see it in the darkened window glass.

  “There’s still the matter of the crew,” Papa said, as I preened at my reflection. “They get to vote who goes on the boats and your wage scale. That’s the way we’ve always done it; I see no need to change. We’ll call a crew meeting to discuss it.”

  “That’ll make me about as popular as a tiger snake hiding in a lucky dip bag,” I said, heavily.

  Papa laughed heartily, slapping his knee. “That may be so,” he said. Then he explained the way the voting worked. Each crew member got two voting stones—one black and the other white. Black meant they passed you over; white, you stayed for the season.

  I gulped hard. “You think I got Buckley’s chance?” I asked.

  “Buckley had none so maybe more, if a captain’s word still means anything.”

  “Well, I’m willing if you are,” I said.

  “That’s a good lassie,” said Papa, patting my shoulder.

  Then we turned to silence, only this time it wasn’t the quiet of distance and mistrust but the solitude of two people sharing their thoughts without saying them. Though a storm was upon us, it felt as if every window in the house had opened to let a fresh spring breeze flow through. I lay in front of the fire reading The Getting of Wisdom until I eventually dozed off, the book splayed across my chest. Scud and Quilp kept walking over me and waking me by wrapping their tails around my nose. It was after midnight when Papa finally woke me. The storm had passed with only a glancing blow to the inlet. Preparation had its own luck, he said.

  We stood on the dripping porch, watching the moonlit sky clear out. I reached for my collar just to make sure the chock pin was still there. With Papa on my side, I now faced the uncertainty of the crew.

  Storm waves were still thrashing about and I was right in the middle of them, wondering what they would churn up from the bottom of the bay.

  15.

  Papa was more chipper than usual the next morning, whistling a little tune as he bounded down the stairs from the widow’s walk. He’d just spotted the red and white flags of a semaphore message from the Doddspoint Lighthouse. The New South Wales government was willing to pay work crews double wages to remove downed trees from telegraph lines, roads, and railways.

  “Just the shot in the arm we need while these whales get themselves straightened out,” Papa said, slapping his hands together. I couldn’t tell if he was happy for the money or for postponing my sponsoring. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, grabbing my chin like the old days. “It’s best to hold a vote after a crew has house money in their pockets.”

  Papa planned to call a meeting with the crew to announce the government’s offer and to sponsor me. He said all he needed to do was follow parliamentary procedure. One crew member would put forth my name and another would second his motion.

  “A done deal to that point,” he said.

  “To that point?”

  Papa explained that allowing the crew to vote helped avoid round robins. I’d heard the term used in a jovial manner and had thought it all a fun affair. Now, I learned, it was not. When a crew submits a round robin, they were one step away from mutiny. It allowed them to voice their displeasure without blaming one leader.

  “Everyone signs their name in a circle,” Papa said, “so they’re all equally part of the grievance.”

  In sixty years, Dawson Station had never had a round robin; other stations that had done so had since closed for good.

  “Papa,” I gulped, “I never—”

  “Pay it no mind,” he said. “We aren’t like those other stations.”

  Papa and Abe were leaving to get an early bid in on the cleanup. They planned to return before billy tea. That left me with enough time to find Figgie and my mates to share the big news. Figgie was busy getting the boats in order and hitching the wagons
for the storm crew.

  “Ahoy there,” I called, waiting for the others to clear out around us.

  “Savannah, I see you’re unscathed by the storm,” he said, rolling canvas.

  “Notice anything?” I said, bouncing on my toes.

  “Your hair has grown?” he guessed.

  I frowned and stomped my foot, then pulled up my collar while arching my neck toward him.

  “You have a chock pin,” he said, touching my collar.

  “Not just any chock pin,” I added. “It’s a whalebone pin from Pop Alex’s first boat. Papa gave it to me.”

  “That means—”

  “I’ll be joining the hunts,” I said, with a big smile.

  “Congratulations are in order,” he said, offering me a handshake. “You have claimed your birthright.”

  “I have—I mean, I will. Once the crew votes me in.”

  “You can count on me, Savannah, although I cannot vote yet,” said Figgie. “A crew member must work at the station for three years to earn that privilege.”

  Figgie was too busy to be dawdling about with me so I left and slipped down to the float dock. I couldn’t wait to show Corowa and the rest that I was practically a Dawson Station whaler. After eons of nothing happening, everything was changing. When I heard the girls at their washing rocks, I realized there were other things worth fighting for, too.

  Tathra clapped her hands loudly and ran at me full force, jumping into my arms. Within moments, the rest of my mates swarmed around me.

  “What an elegant surprise,” said Merinda, hugging my neck.

  “Tell us of all your exciting adventures,” Corowa begged.

  “Tell us,” Ghera said louder, laughing as she pushed her dribbling baby in my face.

  “Well, there might be this one little thing worth mentioning,” I said, leaning over the crowd and pulling my collar out for all to see. “I got this from Papa last night during the storm.”