There is not much left to tell. I pulled myself onto the rock—the sharp edges of the honeycomb rock were covered with the white droppings of seabirds. Everywhere I touched, I cut my skin—my fingers, my shins, my feet. On that first day and for a few days afterward, I could stand although I was dizzy and my legs were weak. I saw the signs of humans and I knew fishers used this place. They would come back. All I had to do was breathe and wait.
I found the flapping tarpaulin, which made a small patch of shade in a hollow and I stripped off the life jacket and lay on it. There was a bottle of water tied to a rock and I sipped from it. It was fresh, warm, and tasted of plastic but it would buy me some time, perhaps a week, more, if it rained. I closed my eyes then and I slept and I did not wake through that first night spent alone on Portland Rock on the Pedro Bank.
34
“See it there,” Speedy said, and pointed.
They looked. Lloyd could just make out a long, low rock in the sea with two small craggy peaks. The waves seemed to surge over it completely and he could not see how anyone could survive there. Jules took out her binoculars and stared through them, balancing as the boat climbed the wave crests and fell into the troughs. “Think I see a tarpaulin. Maybe we can land on the lee side?” she said to Speedy and he nodded.
“Can I see?” Lloyd said.
Jules handed him the binoculars but everything was blurry. “Use this to focus,” she said, turning a knob. The rock sprang into focus and it was bigger than he had imagined. He could see seabirds and sea spray but there was no sign of human life. “Go faster,” he said to Speedy, who did not reply. Jules reached for the binoculars, but he held on to them, looking for any sign of Gramps on Portland Rock.
The dark blue of the deep sea gave way to turquoise and Lloyd lowered the binoculars. The rock was much larger than it had appeared at a distance. The water was full of large sharks and the coral reef rose out of the deep and teemed with reef fish. He had never seen a sea like this, never in his life, a sea full of fish of every size and shape and color, a sea with water so clear it was hard to tell exactly where surface or seafloor was, a sea that seemed to merge with the air into one breathing world. A green turtle moved beneath Skylark, its flippers sweeping through the water in slow time.
Portland Rock loomed close now—low in the middle, higher at both ends, one end towering, and behind the highest peaks spray flew. They went around the rock to the leeward side and the sea calmed, but there was still the strong sea surge to contend with. And then Lloyd saw a canoe tied to a rock and his father’s friend, Selvin, sitting on the rock. He stood as they approached. There was no mooring space for Skylark. Selvin seemed to be shouting at someone else behind him, but his words were torn away by the wind. He turned and started to climb away from them.
“Do you know that man, Lloyd?” asked Jules, looking through the binoculars.
“Him is my father friend. Them come to kill Gramps! Please, Miss, we have to hurry.”
“Tie up the boat, Speedy!” Jules cried. “Lloyd, help me put down the fenders!”
Speedy maneuvered Skylark up to the canoe. “Look sharp, yout’!” he shouted. “Earn you keep. Take this line. When I tell you, jump and tie it to the canoe.”
“Wait!” Jules said. “Come round again. Lloyd, put on your shoes. Rocks going cut up your feet.”
Speedy swore. “We doing it now! Take the wheel!” he shouted at Jules and she took his place. Speedy grabbed the rope from Lloyd and jumped into the canoe. Jules used the engine to hold Skylark steady. “Make haste!” she said. “Do what I say! Put on your shoes!”
Speedy put his hand on the canoe’s engine. “Warm,” he said. “Them just reach.” Skylark was secured, Jules shut down the engines and adjusted the fenders. She was steady on her feet and knew exactly what to do. Lloyd’s life had been spent around men of the sea – he had never before met a woman of the sea.
He hauled on his shoes. “Tie the laces tight,” Jules said. She leapt into the canoe and then onto Portland Rock staggering a little on the sharp, uneven ground. Speedy steadied her. He held out his hand to Lloyd, but Lloyd did not take it. He jumped too and was proud that his balance held. “Stay with the boat,” Jules said to Speedy.
“You and the boy can’t deal with two big man, maybe more,” Speedy said. “Me comin with you.”
“Need you to stay with the boat so we can leave,” Jules insisted. “Suppose they cut the boat free?”
Lloyd left them to argue. He saw piles of dried human turds around him and a faint path. Seabirds soared in the sky, circling and gliding and plunging, and the air was full of their cries. He thought he heard human voices and he climbed, pushing away fears of falling on the jagged rock. “I am here,” he shouted to his grandfather. “Gramps! I am here.”
The dawn is gray and I believe a storm is coming. In the dreams of my final night of life my only son is still a child, I am with Jasmine and Luke in Great Bay, and a different future is possible. Now I am an old man and I come from a line of fishermen all the way back to Hatuey, the old companion of my mind, and here I lie, near death, sand and salt crusted on my body and one leg heavy as a felled tree. The rest of my body is light, like the froth of sea spray. I watch the ghost crabs at their business, their sideways sidle into their holes, their sprouting eyes and I am no longer moved to try and catch them. They will feed on my body and this is as it should be.
I have been on this rock too long. At first I counted the sunrises and lined up shells to mark the passing of days until one day a seventh wave washed them away. At first I stood for hours and watched the sea, looking for fishing boats, but it was not long before my legs would not hold me and I spent day and night in the small rough space under the tarpaulin.
My head has healed quickly, but one of the cuts on my right leg has festered; it has swollen and now throbs without cease. I welcomed the pain of living at first, but now I am done with it. I am cold and I shiver in the blazing sun. Day and night, I dream of Hatuey and the wave that tried to take the island back to the sea before the conquerors came. I dream of the day Beryl came to me with my grandson in her arms and her offer to buy my fish and of the many sunrises I saw at sea with Lloydie. I will not see him reach manhood but he taught me good can come from bad.
I think I hear a boat engine, and then another. It is the end of things and it must be imagination, more mad dreams. I listen hard but all I can hear is the thundering sea and the cries of the birds. Shh, I whisper to them but they go about their business, screaming to each other. I wish I understood their language; I wish I could fly. I wish I could see the face of my grandson just one more time.
35
Lloyd heard a snapping sound and saw a piece of tarpaulin sail away on the breeze. “Gramps!” Lloyd shouted again. “You there?” All he could hear were the birds and the heavy surf. His heart pounded. “Gramps!” he called again, looking around. He could not see all the parts of the rock, it had many peaks and hollows, many places a man could lie hidden. It would take a while to search every inch of it and it would be easy to fall and break a limb. “Gramps!”
He saw a flash of blue and realized it was the remaining scrap of a tarpaulin in a small sheltered hollow. He saw orange, the color of a life jacket. Then he heard Gramps say his name: “Lloydie?” And his father’s voice said, “You lose you mind, old man.” Lloyd climbed the last few steps and saw Selvin standing beside his father, and Gramps lying on the ground. Vernon Saunders held a billy club in his fist.
“Get away from him,” Lloyd screamed and ran full tilt into his father’s chest.
Vernon staggered. “Bwoy, you lick you head too! What you doin here?”
“You try to kill him! You owna father. What you was going do now? Bash in him head like him is one moray eel you find inna pot?” Lloyd pointed at the billy club and his voice shook with rage.
“Lloyd! Where are you?” It was Jules. Vernon’s gaze shifted from his son to Jules. “Me nah trouble him,” he spluttered, letting the club hang from
its loop. “Me come to save him. Like you.” He held his hands wide. “No gun. Me just fishin and me find him.”
“You too lie!” Lloyd shouted.
“Lloyd. No time for this. You were right and we found him,” Jules panted. The boy knelt at his grandfather’s side. The old man was wreckage on a rock. Lloyd saw his right leg was swollen almost to his groin and the shiny skin looked like it might burst. Gramps held out a trembling hand to the boy. “This is the realest dream yet,” he whispered. “Is you, Lloydie?”
Lloyd took his grandfather’s burning hand. “Is me, Gramps,” he said.
“No time for this,” Jules said again from behind him. “We need to get him to a hospital now-now.”
There was a blur of activity—Speedy was called by the whistle Jules wore around her neck and they made a basic stretcher of oars, a blanket, and string. Vernon and Selvin stood aside, saying nothing. Lloyd tried to get Gramps to drink from a small cup but the water ran out of both sides of his mouth. He poured water into his cupped hand and wiped the old man’s burning salty face. He would think about his father’s guilt or innocence later.
Jules and Speedy lifted Maas Conrad’s body onto the stretcher with ease, refusing Vernon’s offer of help. They picked their way over the rocks to the boats. “More blankets, Lloydie,” she said when they were aboard Skylark. “Put them under him. It’s going to be a rough ride home. Keep giving him water.” Lloyd heard the engines fire and they pulled away from Portland Rock, leaving his father and Selvin standing on the shore.
The journey seemed endless. The weather had deteriorated—there was a low haze in the air and the sea was rough and getting rougher. The storm was close. Speedy kept the throttles open as wide as he could and Skylark slammed into huge swells and breaking waves over and over and over. Lloyd knelt beside his grandfather, holding on to a chrome handle at the side of the console, offering him sips of water. The fiberglass deck scraped his knees. The old man’s head lolled and Lloyd feared his bones would shatter. He was like a crocus bag half full of fish pot sticks.
Jules got on the radio and issued rapid-fire orders—Madison was to get the Jeep from Treasure Beach because they were going straight to Kingston, get an ambulance to Port Royal, a Dr. Reynolds was to meet them at the hospital, no, not the public hospital, of course not, Tony Thwaites wing at the University. Yes, he’s still alive, she said. Over. The radio crackled. You meet us at Port Royal, they’re not going to let us on the ambulance. Bring clothes for Lloyd, they’re not going to let him into the hospital looking like he does. Over.
The hours passed. Gramps did not speak. Finally, Lloyd saw the skyline of Kingston ahead, blurry behind the haze, and Skylark picked up speed.
Jules had washed her face and hands and changed her shirt. As they came into Kingston Harbour, she shed her life jacket. The ambulance was waiting and the dock at Cagway had been cleared; the Coast Guard boats hovered nearby. Speedy took them to berth in one smooth maneuver and sailors caught the lines Jules threw. The commander stood on the dock.
“Help us!” she shouted to the sailors and the commander nodded at them. Two men jumped into Skylark and lifted the stretcher. Gramps groaned and it was the first sound he had made since they left Portland Rock. The sailors on the dock took the stretcher and handed it over to the ambulance men. “Come quick, Lloydie,” Jules said. “Thank you!” she said to the commander and he put his hand to his cap in a salute.
They ran over to the ambulance. “Tony Thwaites, you hear?” Jules said to the driver.
“Yes, Miss. Me know.”
“Me want go with him!” Lloyd said. It was all moving too fast.
“They not going let you, Lloydie. See Madison over there? We going follow right behind them, you don’t worry.”
“Suppose him die in the ambulance?” Lloyd said. “Let me go with him!”
Jules looked over at one of the ambulance men, who shook his head. Lloyd peered into the back of the ambulance. The stretcher looked as if it was empty of anything but an old blanket. Gramps was almost gone. The second ambulance man was peering over Maas Conrad’s hand with a needle in his hand. “Don’t hurt him!” Lloyd said and his voice broke.
“Come, Lloydie. He in good hands,” Jules said. “You saved you granddaddy’s life. Come.”
The ambulance drove off, siren blaring. Madison came over to them and handed Jules a backpack. The two women made Lloyd wash up at a standpipe and change into a set of new clothes and too big shoes. He could not bear the delay, could not stand the thought that Gramps might die now, back on land, having been lost and then found, having come this far. Jules took the wheel of a Honda Civic that Lloyd had not seen before and they sped along the Palisadoes Road. “Hope no speed traps today,” she said.
Jules ran into the hospital holding Lloyd’s arm, as if she were a policeman and he was under arrest. They saw Maas Conrad over to one side on a narrow bed on wheels, the blankets on the floor. No one was with him. Lloyd pulled his arm free and ran to his grandfather. “Hey!” shouted a nurse behind a desk. “Where you think you going?”
“Where is Dr. Reynolds?” Lloyd heard Jules ask the nurse. An argument developed between them. The boy stood beside Maas Conrad and touched his shoulder. The old man did not move. “Gramps?” he whispered. “Is me. Open you eyes. You in hospital. You soon be okay. Gramps. Talk to me.” He felt tears on his cheeks and he lowered his head, not wanting anyone to see them. Under the hospital’s thin white sheet, he saw Maas Conrad’s chest rise and fall, but the movement was so small.
He had never held his grandfather’s hand before this day. He slipped his own hand under the sheet. He squeezed Gramps’s hand gently and he felt a weak answering pressure. The old man burned with fever.
They waited in a room near the main entrance. Jules and Madison sat on a couch, with Lloyd in a chair big enough for three people. Nurses and doctors and well-dressed people visiting their relatives walked by and stared at him. The room was air-conditioned and smelled of bleach. He sneezed and Madison said, shush! He saw there was a bench outside and wanted to sit on it, but he was afraid to miss something. Jules and Madison talked softly about the dolphin capturing. “I wonder if he’ll be able to give a statement,” Madison said. “Identify people.”
Lloyd hated them. And he was grateful to them. Maybe he only hated Madison. He would not have found his grandfather without Jules, nor would Maas Conrad be receiving expert care in this modern hospital without her. But her motives, their motives were clear—it was the dolphins they cared about. Should he deliver Black Crab’s message? “Me outside,” he said to Jules and pointed through the glass at the bench. “Call me if anything.”
The warm air outside was welcome. He saw with surprise it was late afternoon. He sat on the bench and looked out over the road and parking bays and through a chain-link fence to a grassy area with big trees. He was so tired. It would be good to lie on the green grass. His stomach growled—he had not eaten since breakfast. Every now and then someone walked by on the road, but mostly he saw only luxury cars and a few battered taxis easing their way over the speed bumps. A security guard came up to him and asked him what he was doing. “My gramps sick. My sister and her friend in there,” he answered, jerking his thumb at the two women inside. The security guard left him alone.
Who had caused Maas Conrad to be on Portland Rock without his boat? Had his father gone to the rock to murder or to rescue? He did not believe Vernon was fishing on the Pedro Bank—it was too difficult a journey. Perhaps Gramps had gone there to fish, moored his boat, and Water Bird had broken away. Lloyd did not believe his grandfather would have moored his boat carelessly but he knew ropes could break.
Had he gone to Portland Rock in search of the dolphin catchers, as Slowly had said? Jules said there were dolphins there—that was where she did her counting. Perhaps he had found them and there was some kind of fight. Perhaps the dolphin catchers had sneaked up on the moored Water Bird and cut the canoe loose. That seemed possible—if Gramps had no boat, h
e could not chase them. They could do what they wanted. And maybe the dolphin catchers knew fishers used Portland Rock and would show up sooner or later to rescue the old man. Maybe they had not meant to hurt Gramps; just to frighten him so he would leave them alone. Gramps had fallen and hurt himself and his leg had swollen and he could not look after himself. That could have been what had happened. But he had found his father holding a billy club standing over his grandfather.
Lloyd knew the two men had been on a collision course for all of his life because the line of fishermen had been cut by his father. Fishers were involved in crimes against the sea and against other men. He was sure Vernon had tried to kill Maas Conrad. He felt he had always known it and the details did not matter.
Lying on the grass outside the hospital Lloyd could not see a happy ending. If Maas Conrad got better he would be able to say what happened out on Portland Rock and then Black Crab would kill him. There would be blood and death—perhaps even his own death and the death of his mother. And if Gramps died his death would be simply another fishing accident and the dolphin catchers and the dolphin traders would continue their work.
Maybe everyone who had given him advice to forget about his grandfather—Black Crab and Maas Roxton and Miss Violet and Miss Lilah and his own mother—had all been right. Maybe one of them had even told his father about his trip to Portland Rock with Jules and his father had intended to kill him as well. He should have simply mourned the loss of his grandfather, just another lost fisher, another person lost at sea.
Gone to Drift Page 15