“The lads come to me on the beach dressed in white linen with the waves lapping at them,” he muttered, furtively looking around, as if afraid someone might hear. “Their eyes were out and their hands clawed at me. Eli and Asa begged for revenge, but I had none to—”
“I had the same dream,” I blurted out.
Brennan slumped back into his large leather chair, as if the very effort of thinking had drained his strength. I seized his hands, and it felt as though I pulled on the branches of a great cedar. I poured him a glass of water and he took three desperate gulps.
“Tell me who I must take revenge upon,” I demanded, seizing his shoulders. A surge of energy flowed through me. All the old anger surfaced again like some ancient ocean rising up to meet the wind.
A look of terror froze Brennan’s face.
“Tell me,” I asked again. “Who did it?”
“The sea is not to be trifled with, child,” he said, looking away. “It swallows everything and returns nothing.”
He laughed and kicked his feet out in the little jig he often did while sitting in the chair. Furious, I began to walk away, but he pulled on my wrist with the force of an iron shackle. “A black wave come over them, a black wave…” he whispered mournfully.
“I have to go,” I said, breaking his grip.
“Darkness is descending upon the world,” he yelled, as I ran back up the stairs.
A cluster of pelicans crowded the hallway. As I pushed past them, they snapped at me with their long pink beaks and burning yellow eyes. No Legs sat on his bed, laughing and waving goodbye while I made my escape down the rope ladder. The pelican jabs stung and bruised my already battered body.
Figgie let out the sails. It was still low tide, as I turned the wheel toward Horse Head Harbor. What was the black wave Brennan kept mumbling about? How was it we had had the same dream? Kayle swam up beside us, shadowing our route. She had two oblong cuts on her broad head. I yelled at her for playing too close to boat propellers.
The water spray hit my face. I felt spit upon by the bay. Are you a friend or an enemy? I asked it, but I received no answer.
19.
It wasn’t so much Horse Head Harbor that Brennan had described, as it was the rocky outcrop known as Camel Spit. They’d called it that because the Prommies had dumped a bunch of humped mules there fifty years ago. Although no one had ever seen a camel this side of Adelaide, I imagined a few had ended up in a bushman’s pot or two.
The granite boulders and swirling backwaters of the spit made it the perfect trap for Sunday lubbers out for a joy ride.
“This won’t be easy,” said Figgie, dropping anchor. “These rip currents could have us halfway to Tasmania before we know it.”
We took turns searching for the boat, tying a rope around our waists in case the current got us. I was afraid to jump, thinking my brothers might be coming for me. But we needed that boat so I dove. On my sixth dive, with Kayle nudging me to play, I spotted the white tip of a boat bow. Even at low tide we couldn’t get horses close enough to drag it out.
“We might have to pass on this,” said Figgie.
“Let me take one more look,” I said, grabbing some rope.
If I could find the hawser used to tie off the boat, we might be able to connect our rope to it. I was happy to see Kayle still sniffing around. At least I didn’t have to worry about any intruders. She pawed under the seats with her snout as I surfaced for air. When I returned, she held the heavy rope in her mouth. She tugged on it to no avail and swam off clicking. That whalie seemed as upset as I.
“You’re right,” I said, breathlessly, “we can’t get to it.”
Figgie wasn’t paying attention to me. He pointed in the distance. “What is it?” I asked, turning to see two top fins descending upon us. It was Matong and Towrang. Figgie jumped in the water, and we both watched Matong pull the hawser while Towrang dug her head under the boat and began lifting. The two orcas flipped the craft with their flukes, nearly emptying it of water. It sat bobbing on the surface.
“See, just like I said,” I added, in hushed awe. “If that ain’t ridgy-didge, I don’t know what is.”
The orcas circled us twice and left.
Once we finished bailing out the whaleboat and got it back to the station, all we had to do was check the lost ship’s registry in the Hook & Harpoon. If the insurance had paid out, we were free to own her right and proper. We left the whaleboat tied off with the rest. Later that afternoon, when the crew discovered the boat, I explained to Abe how we had watched the orcas un-stove it. I left out the middling details, but Abe was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He kicked his boots against the piling, his arms folded across his chest, and reminded me that Papa would be back in two days.
That night all I could hear was that school clock ticking in my head. Once that bell rang, I’d be a weekend whaler.
Figgie watched the orcas. They were acting peculiar, territorial, and aggressive in a way that made him fearful of going near them. I wondered if that danged comet was making them nervous or if they were angry for dredging a boat with no whale tongue to pay for it. Abe was busy going through Papa’s ledgers.
I took that to mean Figgie and I were on our own.
We jumped into his canoe and began searching for the orcas. It took only a few minutes for Kayle to find us. She impishly splashed and breached, hoping we’d follow her. We paddled as fast as we could, trying to keep up. Kayle stopped and spyhopped out of the water as if saying, Wait here.
We sat for a while, floating in the calm bay. Figgie started talking about my school situation when we saw the oddest thing. Eight of the orcas emerged, swimming back and forth in single file. Their top fins looked akin to teeth on a rapidly cutting saw. Burnum and Yindi began slapping the water with their side fins. Soon the other orcas were surrounding them in wide looping circles. They snorted and called out in bellowed tones. Towrang, Matong, Kayle, and others all joined in. We didn’t dare move closer as this whirlpool spun faster and faster.
“Something’s going on down there, and I aim to find out what,” I said, unlacing my boots.
Figgie already had his shirt off and we both slid into the water. While our eyes adjusted to the underwater light, I saw Derain moving listlessly in the distance. She shook hard as the glimmer of a tiny wagging tail appeared under her belly.
“She’s having her baby!” I cried out, emptying my lungs into air bubbles.
We surfaced and descended again. Derain moved with a determined zeal as more of the calf protruded. With one final shake, the baby orca emerged in a cloud of diffused blood. It lay motionless as an enormous shadow appeared.
Finally, the big fella.
Jungay gently carried the baby on the top of his snout, bringing her to the surface. He held her aloft in the warm sun as she took her first breath. She lay across his brow, yelping and wiggling her tiny tail as the rest of the orcas drew into a close circle around them. I felt their joyous chatter bounce off me as the orcas slapped their tails and porpoised around the two. As the baby darted about, each orca took turns rolling the poddy off their backs. The nipper wasn’t much bigger than me. Towrang and Yindi flanked the infant as they led her back to Derain for her first meal.
“They are Derain’s sisters and will help raise Miah as their own,” said Figgie as we swam back to the canoe. “Uncle will be thrilled we were allowed to witness this event.”
“Miah?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Figgie, holding on to the side of the canoe. “Uncle named her after the moon because your mother’s knowledge brought light to our village and the bounty of the tides followed her.”
“That’s how you learned the King’s English, ain’t it?” I said, fitting the pieces together.
“I was very young, but your mother was an excellent teacher.”
Before I could digest
that, Jungay breached into the air and fell back into the bay with a thunderous wave that washed us into Figgie’s canoe. By the time we righted ourselves, all the orcas were gone.
“That was as strewth as strewth gets, mate!” I yelled, jumping to my feet.
“Bonzer!” shouted Figgie, pulling me into a hug, the canoe rocking beneath us.
It was the unprompted joy that happens during a cricket match or after finding someone thought lost. The longer it lasted, the more it felt like an embrace—at least what I figured one ought to feel like. I drew Figgie closer, and we intertwined the way plants do when growing closely together. We stayed there, tightening our grips on something I knew was already losing its hold. Kayle bumped the canoe, sending us toppling backward on our rumps. She wagged her head up and down gleefully as we laughed.
“Here ya go,” I giggled, tossing Figgie a paddle. “Time for us to make some waves.”
As our laughter died down, the silence between us gave me time to think about what had happened between all of us. These orcas are a democratic lot. The females are the pod leaders and get to choose their mates—fancy that! Both males and females work together as equals to make sure the entire pod is healthy. As Figgie said, all the orcas will help raise Miah. In a way, Papa had raised me that way too. Yet I’m supposed to fit into a mold made by people I don’t know, living in places I’ve never been. It’s as if we’re all buckets of meat poured into sausage casings someone else has chosen, only now it seems that maybe there’s another way to see things.
“You’re so quiet, Savannah. What are you thinking about?” asked Figgie.
“That I don’t like bangers half as much as I used to,” I answered.
By the time our feet hit the quay, it was late afternoon. The sun was still high overhead, but the comet demanded our attention. It looked as if it was about to swallow the hills, spotted with early autumn color. We headed toward the cricket glen at the top of the ridge overlooking Loch Bultarra and our tiny inlet. Lying there, we stared up at this beautiful yet terrifying spectacle that hung over the world.
Why was everything immense also so scary? I wondered. I rolled over on my side to face Figgie, who lay beside me with his eyes closed. I snapped off a long stem of grass bursting with seeds and lightly touched his face with it. He shooed it away without opening his eyes.
I waited for a moment, holding my grass blade in the cooling air like a wand. The comet continued to give off the light of a false sun keeping the long damp shadows of dusk from appearing. I noticed for the first time that the contours of Figgie’s lips, nose, and forehead matched the silhouette of the mountain in front of us.
As I leaned on one elbow, touching his nose with the stem, those dark mischievous eyes opened.
“What’s being grown up gonna be like?” I asked, lying flat again.
“I don’t know,” said Figgie as we looked at the sky.
“Will it be fun like this?”
“Maybe, if we’re lucky,” he said. “We’ll stay who we are.”
“I don’t know who I am yet,” I said, glancing at Figgie and then at the mountain.
“Your Dreaming will help guide you,” he added with confidence.
Right there, I wanted to kiss that boy as much as I wanted to do anything. I remembered our unintended embrace just a few hours earlier. Moments like that should last forever, hang there like the comet to observe and ponder, but they don’t. Instead, they streak across the sky and are here and gone, just as a meteor in the depths of space might do.
I did—he did—nothing.
Not out of fear or shyness, but out of knowing how much we had to lose. We’d be beholden to one another like two fish caught on the same hook. And I’d be wondering if it was me or the hook that kept us together. I could tell from his eyes that Figgie felt the same way. Neither of us wanted to risk our friendship for a union as vaporous or dangerous as the comet above.
A sharp breeze pulled the seedlings from the grass stem. I sat up while he brushed the seeds from his long flowing hair with that smile of his glowing.
“Ah, stick heck in a handbag,” I exclaimed.
I pushed his shoulders down and planted my lips on his. I held them there until I was sure there was no mistaking what we did. I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest.
Figgie got up on his elbows, shaking his head like a sailor who’d been hit by a loose block and tackle. “I—” he sighed.
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t be ruining it with one of your Figgie stories that will take me three days to figure out. Just let it linger between us.”
I slipped that moment into my memory the way you gently press a summer flower into the fold of a book for safekeeping.
We sat there, the two of us looking at the rust-colored mountain. Perfect.
After Figgie left, I felt rudderless, drifting between Loch Bultarra, Abe’s cottage, and the bunks. I roamed over to the float dock and gazed across the bay at Paradise as the last streaks of orange drained from the sky. Turning to leave, I heard a low-pitched heaving.
“I knew you’d come,” I said, without turning around.
I heard the water roll off Jungay as he came closer. I timed my dive as he pulled away from the dock. My hands rode over his saddle spot and grasped the base of his top fin. We’d ventured far into the bay when he dove below the surface, pulling me under with him. We paced off the way Spanish dancers do. Jungay’s clicking sounds reminded me of the Flamenco dancers who came with Frieda’s relatives on visits. He blew a shimmering water bubble toward me. It looped through the comet-lit water like a silver amulet. As it approached I pushed a wave at it in mock anger and sucked deeper into my lungs to hold my breath. Jungay lowered his head and shot another, another, and another, until a crown of bubbles landed on my head. Sensing my need to breathe, he launched me to the surface in a foaming phosphorescent gown as we sliced across the bay.
Jungay turned back to the inlet as if our future lay with the past. I sat wedged behind his top fin as he took a deep dive before torpedoing to the surface. Time froze as we hung suspended above the bay. At the apex of Jungay’s leap, I stretched both my arms upward and let out a tumultuous roar. Our splashdown brought a trawler’s spotlight to bear. As we plunged, I realized Jungay was bringing me home, whether I wanted to go or not.
“Just one more time,” I begged.
Jungay would have none of it. He steered toward the float dock and let out a burst of steam from his blowhole to lower himself to the wooden boards. I rubbed his snout.
“I’ll look for you every day,” I whispered, waving as I ascended the stairs to the quay.
Approaching the final step, a just lighted lantern blinded me.
“I told you not to mess with those killers while I was gone,” came a growl from the shadows.
20.
Papa?” I asked, my knees buckling.
“Who were ya expecting, Abe, Frieda, someone else?” he said, lighting a cheroot.
“No, it’s just that—”
“I’m not supposed to be back until tomorrow afternoon, yet here I am.”
“Here you are…” I said, looking at the quay.
“What about the killers?” he asked, taking a long draw that made his cigar glow.
“I got friendly with them,” I said, feeling the impact of my words.
“I can see that,” he said.
“It—it wasn’t out of disrespect of my pledge to you. I just had to. I can’t explain it, but if I didn’t go to them, I might as well have ripped my skin off and jumped in a salt bin.”
“Odd behavior from someone who couldn’t stand looking at a killer a week ago,” he said, glancing out at the bay.
“I know,” I said. “I fought it as long as I could.”
“But the killers kept calling you,” he said, grinding the neck of his cigar into the wood until
it didn’t breathe anymore.
“How did you know?”
“That’s the way it was with me when I was your age.”
“Papa?” I said, as baffled as I had ever been.
We sat on the edge of the quay, our legs dangling off the end, his arm around my waist, my head on his shoulder, holding on as if we were afraid one of us might fall.
“The killers came calling just as Prince Jimmy told me they would,” Papa said. “He said me and that big fella had some sort of destiny together, but I denied that part of me.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t share…what it wanted. I needed to be a master whaler, a man of business,” he added. “When Jungay appeared, I stood on the beach throwing rocks at him until he left.”
“I’m sure he knew you meant no harm.”
“Last week with you was the first I’ve seen him since. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t regret pushing him away. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t wonder if he might have saved my sons.”
There was nothing for me to say as we sat there. Though I had felt its effects often, for the first time I understood what pain meant. Not the kind you feel from a hammer, or when a boy doesn’t like you. A deep abiding pain that rips through you the way a boning knife does through a fish.
The lamps inside Loch Bultarra were glowing and Papa was home after flirting with his past. A past neither of us could escape. Yet Miah was born and Figgie and I had an understanding of things, and Jungay...he had his bay again.
“Now what’s this I hear about a whaleboat?” Papa finally asked.
It took a few more days to figure out we could hold on to the stoved whaleboat. By then time had run out on our summer. The six of us marched onto the shad like prisoners off to Botany Bay. I was none too happy with the fancy collar on the dress Papa bought me. I’m to blame for not picking my own poison at Dilly’s when I had the chance. At least this one covered Asa’s moleskin breeches I wore underneath to protect my dignity while climbing.
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