More than that, they were ecstatic! They whistled and shouted congratulations and shook hands and called their children over to be properly introduced.
Meanwhile, out to sea, three fast boats, each manned by a crew of three rowers, rounded the rocks off Dead Man’s Beach and skimmed over the water toward the upraised oar.
“Get ready,” Eric muttered to Aunt Opal. “They’re almost there.”
Now, the activity on the ledge and beach began to die down. All eyes turned toward Angela Hawkins, rocking up and down in her slim catcher’s dory. When they had admired her proud form (and, in not a few cases, recalled themselves in her boots), those waiting on the cliffs looked down into the ocean beneath her. There, some imagined they saw a streak of red. Others swore they detected the shiftings of a massive body.
Still others saw in the curl of a wave the foamy strands of a lampfish’s mustaches, though in Eric’s opinion the fish was far too deep to be visible at such a distance. As the three skiffs closed on Angela, he couldn’t help thinking how people often see what they hope or expect or fear most to see, instead of what is really there. And he reminded himself, rather severely, to look at things straight and hard from now on, and not to let imagination carry him away, as it seemed to have been doing recently under the weird influence of the old fishcatcher.
A cry rose from the rowers. The boats came abreast of Angela Hawkins, and in a moment six long-handled, snub-nosed prods were thrust deep in the water. These were the opening shots at the lampfish, but they were not meant to injure it. The prods were to surprise the big fish, which up to this time, if all was going well, should have been placidly grazing on seaweed without an inkling of the preparations overhead. When a fish was properly surprised, it panicked and became disoriented. Then it was more likely to swim in the direction the catchers wanted, toward shore where the big nets waited.
Seconds after the first prods entered the water, Eric saw a strong rosy back cresting the water’s surface. A whoop went up from the catchers near him. The fish was smallish, but this only made the catch more likely. It dove immediately with a gush of water. Shortly, ripples appeared, showing the direction the lamp was moving.
“It’s approaching the beach! Look to the beach!” several catchers shouted.
This would be an easy catch, Eric thought. The lampfish was panicked. It had surfaced in distress, and now it gave its location away by swimming a rather lopsided, shallow course. Perhaps one of the prods had struck it on the head. The creature looked oddly unbalanced.
A minute later, however, the catchers’ advantage was lost when the fish regained its reason and deep-plunged. Silence engulfed the ledge. Every eye scanned the water. Beside Eric, Aunt Opal shook her head and groaned. A deep-plunging lampfish meant trouble and risk. Now the boat crews would have to attempt a far more difficult tactic. “Foiling,” it was called, an archaic procedure that had been handed down for generations on Twill’s coast. Its dangers were known all too well.
Offshore, the crews hastily converged their skiffs and began to unpack the glittering foil line, which had been stowed on one boat in case of need. Old as it was—some dated the line back two hundred years—it never seemed to lose its luster. A wave of excitement went through the crowd on shore as its coils were divided and handed among the boats. Then the crews (including Angela Hawkins working heroically alone), separated and rowed to positions around the cove, letting out the line between them as they went.
The foil was next adjusted underwater from one boat to another so that it would hang at the proper depth. Correctly placed, it would act as a kind of baffle, keeping the lampfish inside the arc formed by the connected skiffs. For though the foil was thin and obviously no match for the power of a giant fish, it was strung along its length with thousands of white sharks’ teeth. These sharp, gleaming objects so alarmed the lampfish that it dared not cross, though it easily might have if only the trick were known.
The danger of the method lay in the same alarm it created. Frightened lampfish were vicious fighters. It was not uncommon for a fish to attack a boat controlling the foil rope, or even, in fury, to attack the fishcatchers inside a boat. Then a whole crew might go down as friends and relatives watched helpless from shore.
These were the worst sort of deaths—anyone in Twill would testify to that. These were the sort that wormed into a person’s dreams and rose up shrieking. They were the kind that could never be forgotten, because they printed so deeply on the brain. Over and over, they played before the eyes of the watchers, who were doubly helpless because they could no more save themselves from their own memories than rescue the drowning crew from the treacherous water.
So, the complicated maneuvers of the four skiffs off Dead Man’s Beach were followed breathlessly by every man, woman, and child on shore. When the crews’ work was completed, the foil sparkled like a fiendish pearl necklace under the cove waters. Then, the land catchers, including Eric and Aunt Opal, crept forward and readied themselves again.
Now, the rowers began the slow, time-honored advance toward the beach. If there had been drums in Twill, this is when they would have sounded, low and threatening and expectant of the kill. Steadily, the rowers rowed, prepared at every moment for attack. Stealthily, the arc of the foil was drawn closer around the prey.
At first, there was no sign of the big fish, and some on the ledge began to think it had escaped before the foil was in place, as sometimes happened. But soon the telltale red flickers appeared. Then a heave of water showed the lampfish in panic. It dove and surfaced. Dove and was still for a long minute. Eric, recalling the green eyes of the old fishcatcher’s lampfish, suddenly found himself imagining the eyes of this hunted one. Wide and terror filled they would be, staring up in disbelief at the closing circle of teeth, looking around for a safe place to hide, seeing the space narrow between the cliffs and the…
Eric shook his head hard. Good grief, what a vision! What was the matter with him? He made himself concentrate on the rowers’ progress. They had all but cornered the fish. It was merely a matter of time before the catch was made. There! A surge of water erupted near the ledge. Eric, who was minding one of the submerged nets, leaned forward in time to see the whole fish rise and slam against the wall of rock below him. The creature appeared to have lost its sea sense entirely. Dazed, it rolled over backwards on its fins.
“Man the lifts!” Eric shouted. “It’s here. Beneath!”
In an instant, ten strong fishcatchers, including Aunt Opal, sprang to the ropes and began to pull the big net up.
“Haul! Haul!” yelled the catchers around them. The pulleys shrieked. The metal lift pegs bent under the net’s weight. The lifters’ hands blistered and burned, but the hauling continued at top speed.
Out on the ledge, an army of catchers with more long-handled prods was in action, trying to corral the fish from above. Lower down, short-handled prods, prod hooks, spears, and grapples were out and ready, though the creature’s explosive thrashings made them useless at the moment. The fish had detected the net closing around it by now, and was putting up a strong fight. Spray flew from the water, dousing the net lifters. Catchers clinging to rock niches were nearly swept away by a torrent of furious waves. In the middle of everything, five-year-old Natey Phillips slipped and fell four feet down the ledge onto the heads of a group of catchers. He was handed back up with angry yells.
And still the lift crew hauled, joined by more hands as the weight increased. Aunt Opal’s face was purple with exertion. Her catcher’s mackintosh streamed with salt water. Around her, everyone shouted at once.
“More prod hooks here!”
“Sam Taylor needs a spear!”
“Watch your head, Alexander!”
“The net’s coming out!”
It was coming, all right, but only with enormous effort. Inch by inch, the sweating lift crew raised the net from the water. And with the net came the lampfish, thrashing, panting, scarlet with fright. Its mustaches were crushed in the weave of the ne
t. Its body was bruised and distorted. Eric, sitting with his spear down low on the ledge, caught sight of a single green eye shining out from the ungainly mass. For a moment, it seemed to focus on him with a spark of recognition. Eric’s heart jumped. Then the eye was gone, lost in another tremendous heave from the lifters above.
Soon, there was no way to tell from the twisting shape which part was head and which was tail, where a mustache began or a fin ended. At this point, the spear throwers commenced hurling with a shout. Within minutes, the net was spiked through and through, and the lampfish, though far from dead, had stopped struggling. This was a great relief to the net lifters, who were nearly at the end of their strength. They cleated their ropes and lay back gasping on the ledge. Then, before Angela Hawkins arrived to do the final honors, several tiny beginner fishcatchers were nudged forward by their parents and the charming, ages-old Ceremony of the First Blood began.
Each child clasped a shortened spear in hand and went, in turn, to the side of the ledge. There, the spear was quaveringly aimed—grown-up catchers leaned over to help—and thrown at the lampfish with every ounce of infant strength. Admittedly, this didn’t amount to much, and no spear stuck very deep in the mark. Still, the children were congratulated as if they had made the kill single-handed, and their parents raised them up on their shoulders with pride. And though the littlest ones looked somewhat pale afterward (for the sight of a mortally wounded lampfish is quite shocking at first), they smiled bravely.
All this time, Angela Hawkins and the other members of the boat crews had been coiling lines, repacking the foil rope, and rowing their boats into the beach. They stepped, wet and happy, onshore, and climbed the ledge amid rousing hoorays and applause. Every one of them was a hero. The catch had gone magnificently. Angela Hawkins was the particular hero of the day, however, for sighting the fish to begin with, and then for working single-handed during the hunt. There was no question (as there sometimes was, unfortunately) that to her would go the special award, the coveted Death Strike that would finish the lampfish once and for all, and open the way for the town’s victory celebrations.
She came forward to the rocks’ edge, carrying her harpoon over her head so as not to run its blade into those swarming around her. The crowd hushed and fell back when she took up her position. On a small rise nearby, Aunt Opal shivered with excitement and spoke to Mrs. Holly, who had come to stand beside her.
“Such an honor!” she said. “Such a wonderful moment! I never get tired of it, though I’ve seen hundreds of lampfish kills in my life. I suppose it must have to do with the fright one feels going into a hunt.”
“I suppose so,” Mrs. Holly replied, craning her neck to get a better look.
“To be so terribly afraid, and then, to catch the great fish in the end. To come away safe and with such a prize…oh! It fills a person with awe and relief, and with tremendous happiness!” Aunt Opal went on. “It makes you feel that life is worth living, if you know what I mean.”
This was such an unusually passionate outburst from Opal, that Mrs. Holly turned and stared at her friend. Only for the merest second, though.
“Here goes the throw,” she announced a moment later, from her tiptoes. “Look at the muscles on that girl.”
There was a sort of whunking sound, followed by a beefy gurgle and sputter, and then some gigantic thrashing noises.
“I can’t quite see what’s happening,” Mrs. Holly remarked to Opal. “Can you?”
From his niche low down on the ledge, Eric’s view was crystal clear. In fact, he had never known a morning in Twill to be so transparent. Never had the rocks looked so sharp or the water so desperately blue. He could see for miles in every direction. And nearby, around the ledge, he could pick out the tiniest details in the scene: a ring on a child’s finger, a feather adrift in the air, a button dangling by a thread from a well-worn coat.
He saw Angela Hawkins appear, gaze over the ledge, and pucker her lips, calculating. He saw her raise her arm and sight down her harpoon shaft with a cool, squinty eye. He watched a beam of sunlight flash off the long blade. Here he glanced away. He was feeling a bit queasy for some reason. The lampfish’s green eye, opening suddenly on him that way, had unnerved him. He had not even thrown his own spear, he discovered with a wave of embarrassment when he looked down. It lay upon his lap still clenched in his hands.
Luckily, no one had noticed. Everyone’s attention was riveted on the lampfish, which still hung—crushed rather cruelly, it seemed to Eric, in his new clearness—inside the big net halfway up the ledge.
Angela’s arm went back. Then:
Whunk!
Eric saw her harpoon drive deep into the lampfish. It was a strong throw, though a fraction off the mark. The fish flinched but was not immediately killed. Its mountainous body heaved and twisted around the terrible new shaft. A roar of appreciation went up from the throngs, though why they should be so pleased when Angela had missed her mark, Eric couldn’t see. Now the poor fish would simply hang there until it thrashed itself to death. That was the rule on the coast of Twill. And what a stupid rule it was to make the fish suffer so, Eric thought, with sudden anger.
Another sick spell passed through him. It was impossible to watch the lampfish. Why this should be when he had watched so many other kills, had cheered through them just as everyone else was doing now, he could not imagine. He turned his face away and looked off beyond the ledge, to other ledges and cliffs farther along the coast.
A mass of sea gulls had collected over the next point. It wasn’t far away. He could see the group quite plainly, flying up and down, darting in and out, as if something on the ground, some morsel of food, maybe, was attracting them. He pictured Gullstone, safe at home tied to the woodpile, and thought how lucky it was that he wasn’t here to see all of this.
The lampfish was beginning to die. The fishcatchers on the ledge were howling louder. They sounded like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. Eric covered his ears. The lampfish in its final moments must believe itself to be surrounded by barbarians, by merciless killers who, now that one thought about it, might easily make their hooks from other things. Might buy them from the trading cities, as the old fishcatcher had said.
Eric’s hand tightened around his spear. It was ridiculous to go on with these brutal hunts, he decided. The truth was that the hunts had become a ritual in Twill, something old to pass on to the children. Pouncing on unsuspecting lampfish. Slicing them up with wild howls. It was no different from what The Old Blaster did to the people of Twill during every Season of Storms. The Blaster preyed on Twill, and Twill preyed on the lampfish.
Eric stared along the coast. He was sick, all right, sick of drownings and killings, of wrecks and disappearings. Whatever direction you looked in Twill, they were there, waiting. Nothing could be safe, no matter what you did. Nothing could be saved. It was useless to try.
He looked around fearfully at the lampfish. He knew this fish. It was the wounded one from the fishcatcher’s cabin. He hoped its green eye would not open again.…As he watched, the monster gave a last feeble heave, curled into itself, and lay still.
In that victorious instant, Angela Hawkins raised her fist skyward, and ecstatic cheers broke out all over the point. Then everyone was leaping up, rushing forward to help the net lifters pull the splendid fish up the ledge. What a fight he had fought! What a party the town would have that night! Aunt Opal pulled the lift rope proudly, every bit of strength restored. Mrs. Holly said she would bake a five-layer cake. Five layers! Twenty children converged on her and demanded to be taken home to help.
“All right, then, we’ll make a ten-layer cake!” she cried, flinging her arms around the mob.
Low down on the ledge, Eric turned away from this appalling scene and looked out to sea. He saw the sun beating fiercely on the blue cove waters. He saw a flock of sea gulls bobbing on the swells. He saw more gulls landing on the next point down. And more, and then more. And then he raised his eyes one further inch to the electrifying p
rofile of—
Ezekiel Cantrip! Standing like a sentry on the highest ledge! Sunlight sparked off his windblown hair. Below, his eyes were dark as two caves in a cliff.
He had seen everything, Eric was sure of it. He knew everything and stood up there to make his protest. Sea gulls swirled around his head like clouds. The sky and the sea and the rocky coast seemed to arrange themselves about him, so that he was at their center, the focus of their parts. And this was not the crude, grasping center from Eric’s dream the night before, but a cooler power, older, sadder, and more persuasive by far. If he could have grown wings in that moment, Eric would have soared across to him.
“Look!” he screamed to the fishcatchers near him. “Over there. It’s Mr. Cantrip. He’s still alive and he knows about the lampfish. Look, he’s trying to tell us! Look at him. There!”
No one paid the slightest attention. No one saw the man or his gulls. They didn’t see either how the old fishcatcher raised his arms in the air as if issuing a command, and how one bird among the thousands flew down to him there, landing with a wobble on his tarpaulin shoulder.
“Gullstone!” Eric shrieked, leaping to his feet. “Gully, don’t move! Wait for me! I’m coming!”
10
DISTANCES ARE DECEPTIVE ALONG the coast of Twill. What appears on a clear day quite close across water may actually be several miles away. The ragged scoops and twists of coastline add miles for a person hiking between points, and thickets of thorny beach plum interrupt even these winding paths. Eric wasted no time going after Gullstone, but he arrived on the next point down to find the ledge cleared of birds, the sky empty. The crag where the fishcatcher had stood rose over his head. He climbed it at once and gazed up and down the coast.
The view was tremendous. To the south, the land swept away in open fields to Twickham, which looked minute against this backdrop, a cluster of elfin huts peeping timidly out at the sea. The north road was visible running inland, parallel to the coast. Not far along it, Eric saw the hunters from Dead Man’s Beach. They were making their way to town in a triumphant parade of bobbing harpoons and prods. At the procession’s end came the dead lampfish, hauled by many hands upon a float of trolleys. The sprawled body looked so pitiful, with its rosy scales gone purplish gray, that the horror of the kill cut through Eric again, and he wondered how he ever could have hunted before.
Lampfish of Twill Page 6