Abstinence had won the day.
But I couldn’t resist.
Even hearing the voices of Papa, Abe, and Figgie making wee whispers in the back of my mind, I still had to. As hard as I tried, and despite putting a mite bit of thought into it, I still wanted to, needed to—
Find Jungay.
I sat down on the float dock, dangling my feet in the bay, and waited till the shad had disappeared. I splashed about like a seal and jumped up and down on the dock, causing wobbly waves. I threw big rocks into the water, hoping to clunk something wagging by. Before I could hear Papa’s voice warning me again, or imagine that last picture of him setting sail, I slipped off my house dress and into the water. I kept my bathing things on underneath, just in case.
Breaking the surface of the bay, my anxieties evaporated. I moved effortlessly as though supported by cupped hands. I knifed through the bay with an inner grace that was far from the gawky gait I exhibited on land. Underwater, my mind was unfettered from the snares of everyday living. I felt protected. There were no boundaries in this sapphire expanse. Surfacing for air, I felt a presence.
Two orcas flanked my sides.
“Ah,” I said, taking a deep breath, “out for your walkabout?”
The orcas lowered their top fins as they sank into a horizontal position on either side of me. I wasn’t sure why as I continued scissor-kicking my legs to stay afloat. In a flash, those large snouts pushed up at me. Both noses slid under the palms of my hands. I locked my elbows, like a trapeze artist on the rings, as the two orcas breached out of the water shooting me fifteen feet in the air. For a moment, I saw Loch Bultarra and the whaling station laid out before me. I squeezed the memory hard, as if it were paper on a printing press. The three of us dropped straight into the water.
“Do it again. Do it again!” I shouted, gleeful as a nipper.
We rose from the water three times until exhaustion set in. Up close I could see, from the gray saddle marks behind their top fins, that I was playing with Towrang, the shield, and Yindi, the sun. I didn’t attempt to ride them, nor did they offer to take me.
I knew only Jungay was for me.
Resting, I sat on Towrang’s wide fluke. He unceremoniously flipped me in the air whenever he grew tired of me sitting there. Each time he did that, the orcas made clicking noises that sounded like laughter.
Soon other top fins appeared nearby, like schoolyard children waiting for an invitation to play. They followed me as I swam back to the float dock. I recognized the sounds Matong made and the markings on Burnum. Derain with her bulging girth lumbered about, protected by the other orcas. She left as though on an inspection tour.
The head of a smaller orca, with a large tongue hanging out of its mouth, popped out of the water next to me. “You again,” I said in mock anger, shaking my finger at her. “I haven’t forgotten what you did.”
I told them all to wait while I ran back to my room and got the art box Mr. Brown had given me. Sitting on a nearby piling, I set up the table on the dock, sketching what I could remember about each orca I had seen that morning.
“Later, Kayle,” I said, pulling Frieda’s hat over my eyes. The wee whale kept nudging up against the float dock. “I’m drawing all of your pictures on the tool room wall so I can remember you after school begins.”
One by one they paraded past me, showing their unique features. I noted notches on top fins and flukes, missing teeth, saddle marks, and white patches. Before long the orcas grew bored with my sketching. I packed up my art box and went back down to the float dock to figure out what they wanted to do.
Kayle rolled over and splashed me with a side flipper. I ducked as several orcas blew streams of mist into the air at me. “You missed,” I said, triumphantly, only to feel the slimy green kiss from kelp leaves as the sodden mass hit me in the face.
“You’re a very naughty whalie,” I said, with a laugh, pulling the seaweed off.
Kayle waited for me to toss the kelp back at her, as if she had rolled me a ball. I dropped the heavy wet leaves onto the dock only to pick them up when the wee one wasn’t looking and throw them at her.
I laughed heartily at my own prank until I turned to see that another orca had made off with Frieda’s floppy hat. Three of them moved far into the cove, tossing it about between themselves like a cricket ball. I leapt in the dinghy and rowed toward them, demanding the hat back. It didn’t take me long to see that I was the monkey in the middle of this game.
With the sun dipping below the mountains, the top fins of two large blackfish appeared far out on the bay. The adult presence meant an end to the day’s playfulness. The remaining orcas solemnly made their way out to sea. I rowed to the remains of Frieda’s hat. When I reached out to grab it, a wave kicked up, knocking me overboard.
I’ll swear to my last days that little Kayle tipped my dinghy over.
I was by myself in the calm cove, but I didn’t feel alone. I felt connected to Figgie, off fishing in the deep waters, and to my new girlfriends preparing dinner in the nearby village. I finally had a place, but it wouldn’t be complete until I found Jungay again.
Frieda called me from the top of the dunes. My search would have to wait. I could only hope that Jungay wanted finding as much as I needed to find him. He wouldn’t wait forever, and with Papa’s trip ending in a few days and school right around the corner, my clock was ticking.
18.
For the next two days, I was stuck in dry dock. The sudsy water from Frieda’s dish bucket served as the only reminder of the roiling surf I wasn’t able to enjoy.
The orcas were calling.
I heard their clicks in my sleep and saw them parading up the river the way Abe had always described it. Frieda wanted me to try on her old clothes to see what might fit me for school. She was going to make a proper lady of me yet, she said. Gulp. Her good intentions threatened to ruin what was left of my summer if I couldn’t find Jungay in the next three days—before Papa returned and school started.
I decided to make a break for it on the third morning of my exile from the sea. I excused myself to go to the dunny after brekkie and snuck around the back. I crawled on my belly through the salt grass so Frieda couldn’t see me and slid down a dune to the shore. I walked for a while before spotting an abandoned skiff. Hiding my fancy outer garments inside a hollow log, I commandeered the skiff.
I wrote, Your boat shall be returned in the sand.
I rowed hard against the choppy waves, peering over the portside. About fifty yards off the starboard bow, the bay pitched and boiled as an island of orcas erupted from below. I counted six top fins. It was the same group from a few days ago. I hoped to get behind the pod to see what they were doing.
I sat watching them whistle and click to one another in a bed of kelp and seaweed. Their blowholes puffed and yowled like the pipes of a great church organ. One orca stood upside down using her fluke like a sail to push herself along. Another breached out of the water, spinning through the air as if he were a Spanish dancer.
“I bet that donah of yours finally said yes, didn’t she?” I shouted, standing up.
They tried to coax me into the water with top fins waving and flukes slapping the waves. Derain quietly glided up to my gunwales. I rubbed her head and felt the hypnotic pull of that tranquil eye again. I plunged in the water, grabbing her fluke for a quick spin around the bay. I let go of her tail in the middle of the circling orcas.
Above us, the comet shone brighter than ever. It didn’t take long for one of the orcas to come straight up next to me. He nudged my stomach with his head, and I grabbed hold of it in an embracing hug. Spyhopping out of the water, we twirled about as he swayed back and forth in a water waltz. I slid down to his flippers and he released me to my next partner. All the time I kept an eye out for Jungay.
He was nowhere near.
I stood on Matong’s nose with my arms outstretched as he froze above t
he waves. We slid into the water and I hung on to him while we rolled our way back to the surface. I danced with Yindi and her sisters, going from flipper to flipper as if we were at an autumn bush dance. I jumped to my rambunctious Kayle and we bobbed up and down doing a wild sailor’s jig, tossing from one side to another. Her movements and mannerisms reminded me of myself. Suddenly, she slipped from my arms and they were all gone.
I floated alone in the cold water. A distant call broke the quietness of the lapping waves.
“You, off the starboard bow, present yourself!” he shouted. “Do you need assistance?”
I could recognize Abe’s deep nasal voice anywhere as the shad’s bright white jib cut across the blue sky.
“It’s me, Savannah!” I yelled, waving my arms.
Abe glared overboard and tossed a heaving line my way. He lugged me along in the water without stopping, even though he had to luff the sails at any moment.
“I ought to put ya in that dinghy bouncing over the waves,” he said, gripping my elbow and forearm as he pulled me onboard. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Abe threw his pea coat over my shoulders. We stopped to rope in my borrowed dinghy and headed to the inlet. Abe had to go to the bunks to talk with the crew. I was welcome to come when I got properly dressed, he said. I returned the skiff, got my garb back, and wiped my note out of the sand.
Abe sat the crew down and gave us the bad news. The syndicate wouldn’t front any money for a boat until we had whale oil for collateral, but McMahon and Hopkins had pledged their support. Abe telegrammed Papa, who said we should sit tight until he returned. Three boats meant that six of us would be looking for something else to do.
Suddenly, finding Jungay was the least of my problems. As the youngest there, Figgie and I were prime candidates to be left off the roster.
“What d’ya think they’ll do?” I asked him, leaving the bunks.
“Draw lots based on service time, I imagine,” he answered glumly.
“I’ll lose on both counts,” I said. “What can we do?”
“Find a whaleboat,” he said laughing.
“That’s it!” I exclaimed, snapping my fingers. “There’s stoved whaleboats all over this bay.”
“Where are they and in what condition?” Figgie asked.
“Old Charlie Brennan knows.”
With Abe all tied up in paperwork, it was easy enough to clear the shad off its moorings without anyone noticing. The sailing lessons McMahon gave us on his hoy had come in handy.
We were on our way to the Pelican House.
The right and proper name was the Old Whalers & Seafarers Home, but everyone called it the Pelican House because the birds roosted in its three chimneys and walked about inside wherever they pleased. It had once been the biggest and most beautiful beachfront home in Paradise, with rooms for twenty men, a live-in cook, and a maid. Now there were only five boarders left, not counting the pelicans. After I was born, a storm wiped out the sandbar protecting the cove and surrounded the house with water. At high tide, the codgers row in and out, entering through a door on the third floor. Despite this inconvenience, none of them would live anywhere else.
We continued our fine seamanship by lowering the sails to pull alongside the Pelican House. The entire structure sagged to the portside like a cake on a slanted pedestal. A four-story saltbox of a building, most of its white shingles were weathered to clamshell gray, its walls lashed with seaweed and algae stains marking the tides, the front porch obliterated by wind and waves. What was left of the gabled roof belonged to the pelicans who gathered there in splendid white and black tuxedo feathers as if they were yacht club dinner guests. Henry “No Legs” Morrison twirled about in an old gamming chair, hanging from the yardarms of a wooden T-beam off his third floor window. He lowered himself on a pulley, trying to grab our mainmast.
“Ahoy! Ahoy!” he shouted, with a toothless grin.
“Careful or you’ll shish kebab yourself,” I warned.
No Legs lassoed our main mast, then swung himself back onto the windowsill to his room. Giddily he shouted, “Down below, down below!” and dropped a rope ladder to us. The ladder must have been made for high tide, or was caught on something, because we couldn’t reach it despite No Legs egging us on: “There you go! Oh, just missed it. Try again!”
Figgie grabbed a long gidgee fish spear and wrapped the point around the rope ladder. We tugged and pulled until it dislodged from under No Legs, sending him flying back out on his T-beam and us on our duffs. We clambered up the ladder, careful not to get our fingers caught between the rope and the wall. At first I thought it was rain I was hearing, only to realize it was the clack of beaks and the sound of pelican guano hitting the roof shingles—and hopefully not us. I counted twelve rungs to Henry’s window. With each step I was afraid we’d drop in the drink between the shad and this creaking house.
Figgie easily slipped on and off the sill, while I barely fit through the window and dumped myself unceremoniously onto the sticky hardwood floor. Inside, two small pelicans sat perched on Henry’s nightstands like table lamps. They eyed us suspiciously before flying out his front windows. I stuck my head out to see where they were going. Most houses have a candle in every window. This one had a pelican. Scrimshawed whale’s teeth were strewn on every bureau, desk, and table in Henry’s room, along with his carving tools. Most of the scrimshaw represented clipper ships or landscapes, but a few depicted mermaids in nature’s dress bearing the faces of women in town that I knew. As we turned to walk toward the stairs, we heard Henry laughing on his swing. The hallway smelled like our barn only more birdy. The hay thrown about did little to disguise the offensive odors of dung, cigar smoke, and sweat. Two larger pelicans waddled out of rooms to escort us. I warned them not to peck us, which made Figgie laugh.
“These birds do what they want,” he said. “Pelicans are sacred, you know. A mother will sacrifice her own lifeblood to save her dying young.”
Figgie’s village saw them as black warriors who painted themselves half-white to frighten their enemies. In one room, the oldest man in Paradise snored away as a pelican watched over him from the headboard. Reaching the stairs, I could hear Brennan talking up a storm. I don’t ever call him crazy the way most people do because I don’t think he is. That was my other reason for wanting to visit him. Brennan talked to whales. He understood them. He could help me find Jungay. As Abe said, Brennan sees the world differently than the rest of us. Papa always reminded me that Brennan had taught him whaling and was the best boatsteerer that ever there was. He and Pop Alex used to go out in a rowboat and ten whales would beach themselves, just to avoid a hunt.
Brennan sat at the parlor table playing Patience. Four pelicans perched on chair backs intently watching his every move. He’d once told me that these fifty-two cards were the only thing that could turn the virtue of Patience into a vice. His flowing white hair and beard made him look like the father of the Federation Henry Parkes whose photo hung on the wall behind us. A bucket of mulies sat on the table next to Brennan. Between slapping the cards down, he randomly tossed the mulies into the air for the birds to snatch.
“G’day, Mr. Charlie,” said Figgie with a wave.
“Always a good omen when a Dawson comes to visit, especially when they bring along a young prince,” Brennan said to the pelicans, who clacked their beaks in response.
“How goes my cook’s helper?” Brennan asked, looking at his cards.
“I ain’t cook no more,” I said, wagging my collar at him. “Tub oarsman in Papa’s boat.”
“Well, say ya don’t say,” said Brennan, dropping his cards and grabbing my hand. “What do you think of all this, Calagun?”
“She can more than hold her own on the open water,” he said proudly. “She rode an orca on her first hunt.”
“Not surprised, not surprised at all,” Brennan said, w
ith pride in his voice.
“Not just any orca. Jungay.”
“Jungay,” said Brennan, looking up from his cards. “Most folks think him just a legend.”
“I want to see him again,” I said, leaning over the back of Brennan’s chair. “How can I find him?”
“You don’t,” he said. “Calagun here likely told you that. Many people claim to see Jungay. None of it ever holds.”
“We are certain,” said Figgie. “It is him; I feel it.”
“He’ll find ya if need be,” said Brennan, cutting the deck as his pelicans stared.
“I’m the one that needs it,” I said.
Brennan ignored me as he lined up his cards in columns. “We like to play cards,” he said, “because it brings order to an unordered world.”
“I don’t know how to play games,” I admitted.
“Patience needs a good foundation,” Brennan said, holding up an ace. “It requires unveiling yer cards at the right time and keeping yer options open.”
“In a way, that’s why we’re here,” I said. “We need a whaleboat—stoved even—if its condition is good.”
“That’s all?” said Brennan turning over his cards. “A whaleboat I can get ya, a spirit orca is another thing.”
Brennan smelled of mildew and whiskey as he told us that just before the storm, a party of city knaves capsized a renter in ten feet of water about thirty feet off the rocky sandbar in Horse Head Harbor.
“There used to be a pier we dove off as kids near the palm grove. It’s sunk now but you can see the pilings at low tide. Follow that line straight through the camel’s eye and you’ll see it,” he added. “But it’s damned near impossible to pull her up.”
We figured to go mark the spot and return with Abe and the crew. While Figgie went to ready the shad, I stayed to give a final “Hooroo” to Brennan. When I turned around, the look on his face had changed. His eyes were wild with a piercing blue glow. His hair and beard were storm-tossed and his voice quivered with uncertainty. I could tell his mind was galloping ahead of the words he was trying to say.
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