“Wouldn’t it be great to have all this?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you just love to take this beautiful ship out for a sail whenever you wanted to?”
“It would be nice,” Arthur said, sitting on the bed. “When I own a boat like this, it will be because I own some really cool company of my own. Something I start from scratch. Something that everyone else wishes they were doing.” He smiled. Decide what you want, his father had said, and then go for it. Don’t let anything stand in your way.
“And as the owner and president,” Marietta said, fussing with her hair, “you’d do things to make it all worthwhile—like go golfing all over the world, and have servants cook and clean for you, and drive really fast cars. Or better yet, hire a chauffeur and make him drive really fast!”
Arthur smiled. “And I’ll have a mansion on an island somewhere, and the only way to get to it is by boat. And I’d live out there, and I’d write fantastic novels, and I’d fly my own plane around to inspect my companies, and I’d give money to the library and the school and the Little League in town, and everyone there would think I was great. And then, when I died, I’d be buried in the little cemetery overlooking the harbor, and teachers would bring elementary-school students out to see my grave, and they would talk about me for hundreds of years, and the whole island would be preserved as a museum until one day, without warning, it disappeared into the sea and was never seen again.”
Marietta stared at him. “You’re kind of strange, you know that?” she said, a perplexed scowl flashing briefly across her face. “That is really bizarre. Fortunately, I happen to like bizarre guys. Especially when they’re Captain.” She pressed against his side and looked directly into his hazel eyes. She waited.
Arthur waited, too, but just for a moment. Then he kissed her, and they both leaned back across the bed. They kissed again—and at that moment, the door burst open. The Elkhart’s meteorologist, a large and boisterous woman with a florid face and a booming voice, crashed through the door, laughing and shrieking loudly, with a man in one hand and a drink in the other.
“Whoops!” she screamed with a flushed giggle when she saw Arthur and Marietta on the bed. Arthur leapt to his feet, but Marietta stayed where she was. The meteorologist guffawed again. “Didn’t know it was occupado! So sorry!” She laughed and shrieked again, then staggered down the hall and up the gangway, trailing the man behind her. Arthur turned to Marietta.
“We should get back on deck,” he said.
It was nearly 2 A.M. when the party broke up. Arthur, concerned that late nights could weaken the discipline among his crew, stretched his tall frame and said to Turner, “I’m tired. I’m going to bed. My shipmates should, also.” The two crews said goodbye, and the Dreadnought sailors began to climb over to their own ship.
“I have to ask you one question before I go,” Arthur said to Turner as they shook hands. “About the race. You beat us by a little bit, but I noticed that your boat was heeling awfully hard out there—right up until the last minute. Did you do that on purpose, to slow yourself down and make the race more interesting?”
Turner grinned. “You’ll never get me to admit it,” he said.
In the dining room of the Dreadnought, the crew sat around the table and talked about the race and the party.
“If that’s what we get for losing,” Logan wheezed, “I think we should race ’em every day. Bay–BEE! Just imagine what we’d get if we won.”
Joy was at the helm in a rainstorm, two days later, when Crystal shouted from the bow. “A whale! Another whale!” She pointed off to starboard. A few seconds later, the entire crew was on deck, squinting through the glare on the turbulent waves.
A spout. Unmistakable. The large whale swam slowly, taking frequent breaths. Each time it surfaced, it blew a cloud of mist into the air. The mist cut horizontally across the choppy waves and mingled with the whitecap foam blown up by the wind.
“It’s another one trapped in a net,” Crystal called back. “What do you want to do?”
Joy pulled her raincoat hood tight and thought for a moment as the rain soaked the wheel and chilled her hands. On the one hand, everyone would feel better if they could rescue this whale; it might make up for losing Ibis. On the other hand, losing this whale also would make them feel even worse. And the last time they tried a rescue, Logan had nearly been killed. Still, if they could somehow get in close enough . . .
“What do you want to do?” Crystal called out.
Joy glanced nervously at the faces around her. They expected a decision, but Joy didn’t want to make one. Decisions were for God to make, she thought. Our job is to follow them.
Then she pulled from her shorts pocket the coin with the saints on it. She held it above her and prayed out loud: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, please hear our prayer. We are lost at sea without your guidance and grace, and in Christ’s name we ask that you show us the way. Should we try to save this whale or not?”
She knelt on the deck, held the disk edgeways between her left forefinger and her right thumb, and gave it a spin. It twirled furiously for a moment, a silver sphere dancing on the dark wood deck, and then it slowed and wobbled to a stop. Saint Francis was on top.
“The patron saint of animals. Muchas gracias,” Joy said, pocketing the coin. “God wants us to save that whale.”
Dawn nodded. “We’re going to try it!” she shouted. “Everyone gather around for instructions.” She suggested a plan, gesturing and pointing with her long thin fingers. As long as the whale was swimming, she said, any attempt to untangle the net would be useless—and dangerous. “But I’ve been reading about the old Nantucket whalers, and I have an idea.” The Dreadnought would sail in as close as possible, and several of the crew would row the dinghy in closer. They would take one of the large plastic floats that protected the side of the ship from damage, and when they were right next to the whale, they would clip the float line onto the net. The float would help them track the whale’s movements, and the extra drag would tire the whale quickly. Once it was exhausted and resting at the surface, they could try to cut the net away. “That’s what the Nantucket whalers used to do, except they used harpoons and their boats instead of clips and plastic floats,” Dawn said. “And of course they killed the whale once they got close to it. This is our chance to make up for all that cruelty. Get back in the whales’ good graces.”
Arthur stood nearby, his arms folded across his chest. He was troubled that such an important decision was being made without his guidance, but he thought it might be a good idea to give the crew some leeway every now and then. Let them feel important and responsible. He decided to say nothing.
The crew scrambled into position, and Arthur could see that his drills were paying off. The crew handled the sails quickly and skillfully, and the ship began to gain on the whale. As the ship grew closer, Jesse, BillFi, Dawn, and Arthur pulled the dinghy alongside and prepared to climb down the ladder.
“Godspeed, sailors!” shouted Joy. “Vayan con Dios!” The dinghy crew leapt into the small boat and pushed away. With Jesse on one oar and Arthur on the other, they chopped through the waves. Dawn sat in the stern and directed the rowers; BillFi crouched in the bow next to a round pink float. It was about three feet in diameter and covered with a fine film of algae, and trailing from it was a stout twenty-foot rope that ended at a metal clip. BillFi’s job would be to secure that clip to the net before the whale had a chance to dive and swim away.
Jesse’s power made steering difficult—the dinghy veered off course several times, and Jesse had to stop rowing until Arthur could catch up—and they weren’t narrowing the gap between them and the whale. It would pause, take a breath or two, then submerge again, and any gains they made during the rests would be lost in a single dive.
Then Jesse put his oar down. “Arthur, let me have both,” he said.
“That’ll slow us down,” Arthur said. “Two of us can—”
“Trust him,” BillFi called back from the bow, blinking through
his thick glasses. “Give him your oar.”
Arthur nodded with a frown and moved to the stern, next to Dawn. Jesse shifted to the center of the boat, picked up both oars, and began to pull.
The difference was obvious immediately. Jesse pulled against the oars with his arms, his back, and his legs. His entire body lifted off the seat as he reached forward, and then he pushed his feet against the seat in front of him as the blades dug into the water. The dinghy shot across the waves, leaving a strong wake behind it. In minutes, BillFi was just yards away from the whale.
It dove again, lifting its tail out of the water. Arthur saw the black curve, stark against the white flesh on the underside, and he shouted out loud.
“It’s Ibis! It’s the same whale!”
Dawn’s freckled face beamed with joy, and she shouted the news back to the Dreadnought, which was still sailing along behind. She could see the other sailors jump and cheer on deck.
And Jesse continued to row. The dinghy moved in a straight line, and a moment later, something bumped into the portside oar from below.
“Here she comes!” Arthur called out. “BillFi, get ready!”
The shimmering black of Ibis’s back broke through the waves. First came the top of her head; she blew a cloud of droplets into the air—and all over BillFi. The net was made of monofiliment fishing line, and it was nearly invisible in the water. The edges of the net were bound in heavy nylon cord, and these cords trailed back from her mouth and tangled tightly across her back. Ibis slid forward, and her blowhole dipped beneath the surface. Her black back continued to roll, and her dorsal fin cut upward, moved forward, and then began to sink again. The cords were wrapped firmly around the fin, cutting into the skin in places and exposing the white bloodless fat beneath the skin.
“Now, Bill!” Arthur said. BillFi lunged toward the whale, thrust his hands into the bitterly cold water, and tried to clip the float to the cords. The water made his fingers numb, and the moving mass of the whale made it difficult to clip the net.
“I can’t do it!” he said. Ibis raised the base of her tail into the air, preparing to dive once again. “I can’t make it hook on!”
Jesse threw his oars down and grabbed the clip from BillFi’s stiff hands. He jammed his hands into the water, leaning far over the side of the dinghy, and he groped around in the cloud of monofiliment lines. He found a strong cable, and as he attached the clip, Ibis raised her flukes out of the water and began to dive. The strands of the net tightened around Jesse’s powerful arms, and the tail slid silently beneath the waves, pulling Jesse out of the boat and far under the water.
CHAPTER FOUR
SIXTY KNOTS OF FREEDOM LEFT
A moment passed in uncomprehending silence. Then BillFi cried out, “Hey!” and Arthur said “Oh, shit!” and Dawn said, “Oh, goddess!” The three of them lunged to the port side and searched the water for signs of their friend. They could see nothing but beams of sunlight filtering through the green murk below.
“Where is he?” Dawn asked frantically.
“He’s stuck to the damn whale!” BillFi said. “He put his hands down in there, and the net got him! He’s stuck to the damn whale!”
Arthur looked in all directions for signs of Ibis. He saw nothing but barren waves.
“Whales can stay under for a long time,” he said. “Longer than Jesse can hold his breath.”
“Jesse!” Dawn yelled. “Jesse!”
No reply. On board the Dreadnought, the crew had gathered anxiously at the rail. There was nothing anyone could do but watch.
“The float!” Arthur said. “The big pink float. Jesse hooked it onto the net before he went over. It’s on a long line. It’ll come up before Ibis does.”
They scanned the waves, the horizon, the water. Thirty seconds went by. Sixty seconds. BillFi’s eyes darted from wavetop to wavetop, searching frantically for his friend. He saw nothing but seawater.
His mind flashed back to the time Jesse was knifed five years earlier. They were living in the same cinderblock shelter in the Bronx, a place for kids whose parents had decided to embrace life without them. A place where kids lived when they were between foster homes. A place where kids learned how to fight and cheat and take pride in their loss of dignity. BillFi—they called him Billy there—had arrived scared, and he spent every day and every night there scared. He was afraid for his life, he was afraid for his mind, and he was afraid for his soul. He was different from most kids—he knew that—and he had long since become accustomed to the jeers and the taunts and the harassment that the other boys dished out. But it’s a long city block between accustomed and confident, and Billy had never taken that walk. He was small for his age, nearly blind without his thick tinted glasses, and nervous even when others felt at home. They laughed at him for his allergies, for his stumbling speech, for his inability to look people in the eye. They laughed at him for his intuition, for his ability to read faces and patterns and anticipate what was going to happen next. He was good at that. It was his one true gift. And it even got him beaten up more times than he let himself remember.
Jesse was always good to him, though. He could have been rough—the guy could punch his way through a wall, if he wanted to—but he saw in Billy a gentleness, a perception, a note of music that no one else in the shelter could understand. And he responded with his own kind of artistry. When Jesse was with Billy, he played songs on his harmonica that were soft and sad and sweet. And Billy listened, letting the melodies and the breathing push away all that was harsh and dirty about the world.
One day, a bunch of guys in the shelter decided that they’d had enough of Jesse’s harmonica. Without warning—without even asking him to stop—they put a knife between his ribs. Jesse was sent to the hospital by cab, and he recovered quickly. When he returned to the shelter, he continued to play his harmonica. The other guys, impressed by his determination, left him alone. And Jesse devoted hours each day to running and working out, to make sure no one bothered him again.
BillFi was startled by a shout bursting from the crew of the Dreadnought.
“There it is!” Dawn said. “The float. It’s over there.”
The pink ball wobbled along the surface just fifty yards away. It was moving slowly toward deeper water. Arthur grabbed the oars and began to pull with all his strength. He made good time.
BillFi crouched in the bow and stared at the ball, knowing that his friend—his best friend—was trapped underwater below it. Then he saw the puff of mist. Ibis was surfacing for air.
Swimming with the drag of the float and Jesse’s weight had clearly tired the whale. She moved slowly along the surface, taking several breaths. As BillFi watched, and as Arthur rowed, Ibis arched her back—and Jesse broke the surface.
“There he is!” BillFi shouted. Jesse’s arm was still tangled in the net, but he was moving and taking large breaths. Then, as BillFi watched, Jesse reached his free hand into his pants pocket and took something out. He put it to his mouth and pulled.
“A knife!” Arthur said. “He’s got a pocket knife.”
Jesse reached up and began to cut the net. But he wasn’t cutting the part snarled around his arm. He was cutting the cable that ran through Ibis’s mouth.
“He’s still trying to get her free!” Arthur said. “He’s trying to cut—”
Then Ibis dove again, and all was still.
More than a minute passed. Then the float crashed to the surface. This time, it didn’t move. It floated in one place, bobbing low on the waves.
Arthur rowed frantically toward the pink ball. As the dinghy drew nearer, BillFi jumped up in the bow. “He’s there!” he shouted. “He’s holding onto the float.”
Dawn and Arthur stared. They could see Jesse’s head next to the float, and as they watched, Jesse raised his arm and gave them a thumbs-up sign. BillFi returned the gesture.
When Arthur had moved the dinghy within earshot, BillFi called out, “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” Jesse call
ed back as he grabbed the side of the dinghy. “My arm hurts a little.”
“What happened?” Dawn asked.
“Who cares what happened?” Arthur yelled angrily at Jesse. “You nearly ruined everything. For everybody! You want to risk your life saving some stupid whale, that’s fine. But if you get hurt or killed, this whole summer is a bust. We all go home. It’s not just about you. We’re all in this together.”
“I just cut the net off Ibis,” Jesse said, treading water calmly. “Like we were supposed to do.”
“And it was wonderful,” Dawn said, ignoring Arthur. Her smile beamed warmth and happiness. “Another thinking, feeling creature is alive today because of you. Because of us all. But how did you—”
She didn’t finish her question. Now freed of the net and the float and Jesse, Ibis breached just twenty yards away. She shot out of the water, nose first, moving nearly straight up. Her entire thirty-ton body cleared the surface and seemed to hang in the air, dripping and outstretched. Then she arched gracefully and landed flat on her back with a loud splash that drenched Arthur, Dawn, and BillFi and nearly swamped the dinghy.
“That looks like fun,” Dawn said once the waves subsided. “She’s one happy whale. And I think she’s trying to thank you, Jesse.”
They watched for a few more minutes as Ibis waggled her tail in the air, smacked the waves with her flippers, and breached several more times. Then she leapt skyward once more—her highest breach yet—and she crashed down into the water. As the waves settled and the mist cleared from the air, nothing but silence was left.
“I’ll bet she’s feeding,” Arthur said, his anger replaced by awe. “I don’t think she could eat with that net in her mouth.” They pulled Jesse into the dinghy and rowed back to the Dreadnought. His arm was badly bruised and cut in several places, but after some iodine, bandages, and food, he insisted that he felt just fine.
68 Knots Page 7