Progeny

by Shawn Hopkins

  “Let’s take a walk,” Jackson said to John as he came back toward him.

  John pushed himself off the wall and followed the little bridge onto Ordinance Island. On the other side of the bridge, the road dead-ended in a circle that sat in the shadow of the huge ship. They steered right, heading toward an alcove shaded by trees and surrounded by the remains of the fortification that once stood there. In the midst of a circular stone wall, there stood the statue of a man, his arms outspread in triumph or some other gesture that John couldn’t determine. Lights at his feet were waiting for the sky to grow dark so that they could honor his memory, as they did every night, with illumination.

  Jackson put his sunglasses on as he sat, though with the number of clouds still lingering there was really no need for them.

  “Is this the part where you explain what I’m doing here?” John asked, sitting beside the giant.

  “You don’t know why you’re here?”

  “I know why you are here. I don’t know why I’m here.”

  “You don’t want to be here?”

  An impasse. Jackson was playing his cards tight. “Why do you want me here?”

  “Well, we certainly don’t need you.”

  At least he admitted that much, and in doing so had committed himself to another explanation, the one John had been waiting for.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that it was for Henry?”

  No, in fact, he wouldn’t.

  But Jackson didn’t wait for such a reaction. “He resented the way things had gone between you two.”

  “Of course he did,” John said. “He resented me leaving the Rangers.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what I meant, not what he meant. He wanted another chance. He said it was his one regret, letting your differences get in the way of blood.”

  “Henry told you this?” Knowing Henry as he did, he had a very hard time believing that.

  “Last year, after your father’s funeral. So, for you to be there with us when we find him would mean all the world to him. It would give you both the perfect opportunity for a new start.”

  John couldn’t bring himself to believe a single word of it, but he nodded as if it made absolute sense. If Jackson was going to keep underestimating him, then he was going to use it to his advantage. After a short silence, he asked, “It can’t be easy, can it?”

  “What?”

  “Keeping the company of an apostate.”

  Jackson stared ahead, a cloud settling over his features. “I don’t let people’s weaknesses affect me.”

  “That’s what you attribute it to, weakness?”

  Jackson turned and stared at him. “You lost your edge, turned to whatever would justify you getting out.”

  John’s expression turned cold. “I didn’t lose my edge.”

  Smirking, Jackson said, “Oh, that’s right, the Man in the sky appeared and knocked you off your high horse, revelations in His hand.”

  John turned and noticed a crowd making its way back to the ship. “Yeah, something like that.”

  Another awkward moment of silence ensued before Jackson began fishing something out of his pocket.

  “What’s this?” John asked, taking a ticket and pamphlet from him.

  “Bus and ferry pass.”

  A quick examination revealed the ticket to be valid for the length of seven days — four days longer than he would be able to use it. “Seven days?” he asked, squinting with skepticism and smelling something foul in its insinuation.

  “Doesn’t come in three.”

  John shrugged. “Thanks.”

  Then Jackson threw his massive arms around the back of the bench and moved his gaze to the bronze statue now green with age. “Sir George Somers,” he stated. “A shareholder in the Virginia Company.”

  John followed his stare to the memorial.

  “In 1609, he took a fleet from the English Channel and traveled straight across the North Atlantic for Virginia. A feat that hadn’t been made before. But a storm separated his ship from the rest of the fleet, and they ended up right out there at St. David’s Head, the Sea Venture stuck between two rocks. What’s left of her is still out there.”

  John looked out over the sparkling waters, wondering if this new train of thought was headed somewhere specific.

  “Sir Thomas Gates was the first one to shore. He was supposed to be the new governor of Jamestown and so there was a little confusion as to who should be the leader, him or Admiral Somers. They each ended up with their own following, and as a result, two separate ships were built for the escape. Sir Thomas’ Deliverance and Sir George’s Patience. It took nine months before Gates and Somers finally settled their differences and set sail for Jamestown.”

  “They make it?” John asked flatly.

  He nodded. “But by the time they got there, only sixty starving people were still alive to welcome them. They decided to abandon Jamestown, to sail up the coast in search of help. As luck would have it, though, they crossed paths with a supply fleet that was just entering the river’s mouth.” Jackson looked back to John. “If Somers and Gates are four days later getting to Jamestown, there’s no settlement to save. And if they abandon the settlement a day earlier, the supply fleet doesn’t have a settlement to supply. And so Jamestown’s destiny as America’s first settlement was in fact decided by a storm nine months earlier, this island, and pure, dumb luck.”

  John wasn’t familiar enough with Jackson to know if he was prone to pointless ramblings or if he was carefully crafting each word. His first impression of him had suggested the latter, but now he was beginning to wonder. He looked back at the statue. “What happened to Somers?”

  “He eventually came back here for supplies but died. His nephew took the Patience back to England with the body, though his heart was buried here. And when England heard the stories of Bermuda, she decided to send settlers.” Jackson stood. “A replica of the Deliverance is just over there on the other side of the street.”

  John asked, “You study the brochures on the plane ride or something?”

  He shook his head. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been here.” And then he ended the strange history lesson. “We’re meeting at the tavern later tonight. It serves as a nightclub then.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Then by all means, feel free to do some investigating on your own, and we’ll touch base tomorrow.”

  “That’s it?” He was slightly irritated, trying to determine why his time had been wasted on this little field trip.

  John could tell from the way Jackson’s eyebrows moved that his eyes had narrowed beneath the lenses of his sunglasses.

  “I don’t think we’ll have much luck finding Henry without the author’s direction, but if you got nothing better to do…”

  John thought about that, superimposed it over the small size of the island… over the four SEALs. “You don’t think he’s on the island,” he realized. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be basing their next move on the “direction” the author pointed them in.

  Jackson shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re hoping that Henry happened to mention where he was headed to next.”

  But Jackson just turned and began walking away, leaving John to stand there dumbfounded. If Henry isn’t on the island…

  Once Jackson was out of view, John walked over to the cruise ship terminal and inquired about the ticket Jackson had given him. In the process, he learned that he could get a pass for three days, two days, or whatever number of days he wanted. John thanked the nice woman and walked back to his scooter.

  Five minutes later, he was back on the Causeway. It was 5:30, and another layer of mystery was beginning to descend with the approaching night.

  FIVE

  5:49 PM. 21st day of May. Grotto Bay Beach Resort, Hamilton Parish, Bermuda

  John entered his room and immediately began looking for something on which to write. Dumping the contents of a drawer from the bedside table onto the carpet
, he sifted through menus, TV guides, and other brochures before discovering a pad of paper and a pen. He picked up the phone that sat resting upon the same table and dialed room service, placing an order for a pot of coffee. After hanging up, he took the paper and pen out onto the deck and sat before the wonderful scene exhibited below. His eyes, however, were not captivated by the island paradise, but by the blank piece of white paper resting on his lap. Slowly, and very deliberately, he began moving the pen, scribbling notes across the face of the pad. He couldn’t be completely certain about what he was writing or why he was writing it, but intuitively, he knew that his subconscious, or spirit, might have a better idea of what was going on than did his analytical brain. As he wrote, an army of chills invaded his spine, the banner under which its soldiers hacked away at his nervous system bearing the image of bizarre connectedness. As his hand shook and the pen faltered, he tried to gain a sense of the image such dots would form once joined.

  Afghanistan. Cave. Dream. VHS tape. Genesis 6. Henry. Bermuda. Author. Storm. Lies. 1609. 7-day pass. “You know the things he was into.” Jackson…

  The knock at the door was like a bowling ball thrown through a cathedral window, his thoughts fracturing into a million dislocated pictures and snapping him out of the trance-like state he’d fallen into. After composing himself and answering the door, he returned to his notes with a hot pitcher of coffee and a small porcelain tea set. The china rattled in his unsteady grasp. He poured himself a cup and took it with him back out to the balcony. The notepad was sitting on the floor where it had landed after presumably falling off the chair, the breeze flipping through its pages. John took a sip of the coffee before bending to retrieve it, hoping the drink could bring clarity to his thought process. He bought himself a few more precious seconds, giving the caffeine a bit more time to make its way to his brain, by sitting first and taking another sip from the steaming cup. Then he picked up the bizarre notes.

  Now divorced from the trance that had inspired the list, he looked back over what its influence had helped him produce and, in his present state, wasn’t entirely sure why he included some of the things he had. Surely there couldn’t possibly be a connection between his experience in Afghanistan — and the dreams that had ensued — and Henry’s sailing to Bermuda. It was preposterous. And yet, he couldn’t deny that the emotion of the last few days did seem to find its manifestation in the video cassette tape, a tape that referenced giants and had triggered the return of his nightmares. But again, to think that his personal issues were somehow interconnected with the events that brought him to Bermuda was ridiculous — even if there was something about the face in the whirling storm clouds that wouldn’t leave him alone. And whether the thing had actually been there, or if it had just been a product of his warped imagination, was irrelevant. Because neither case would change the fact that, after a three-year hiatus, the whole lurid problem was beginning to resurrect itself. The flashpoint, no matter how much sense it made, was this trip to Bermuda and the feelings of trepidation it had given birth to. But why such an apprehension about coming here existed in the first place was, in the end, both the mystery and the connection he found to be evading him.

  John studied his notes — rearranging their order and connecting certain words with uneven lines — until he made three trips back inside for refills and finally finished off the pitcher. No great revelation had welcomed him, so he leaned back and lifted his gaze to the sight below. As far as Henry’s friends went, he was in the midst of something he wasn’t supposed to fully appreciate, his role actually that of a pawn in some greater scheme. Believing that Jackson’s reason for bringing him was pure nonsense (that it was for he and Henry’s sake), John decided that he actually would do a little investigating of his own.

  Standing, he crumpled his notes in his hands and tossed them into a trashcan beside the bed. Closing the door to the balcony, he left the room altogether. Entering the hallway and seeing that it was vacant, he quickly walked to Jackson’s room. He put an ear against the door and listened for any sign of activity coming from the other side. Taking a breath, he knocked. No answer. He tried the handle but, of course, it was locked. For a brief moment, he entertained the idea of forcing his way in. Deciding against it, he instead took the elevator down to the lobby. Spotting a big clock on the wall as he walked out the doors to his scooter, he noted the time. 7:01.

  ****

  After consulting the map that the scooter lady had given him, John planned out his route to Somerset Village. He was going to find out just how much of the truth he’d been told. Because Bermuda was shaped like a giant fish hook and their hotel sat directly across from the hook’s point — the Great Sound and Dundonald Channel separating the two — he would have to drive all the way down south and then back up north on the other side. It looked like Middle Road would take him all the way to Somerset, with only a short detour onto South Road in Devonshire Parish to complicate things. Looking up from the map, he asked a passerby how long it would take him to get to the West End.

  “About forty minutes,” a nice gentleman in Bermuda shorts replied.

  With the hiding sun peeking playfully through the obstinate clouds while coming into position for its daily descent into the Atlantic, John thanked the man for his help. He then took Middle Road on a southwest bearing, careful not to exceed the island’s slow speed limit. But the drive through Bermuda’s interior, which touched near the coast of the Little Sound in Southampton Parish and crossed over Somerset Bridge (which the map proclaimed to be the smallest drawbridge in the world), passed by in an unnoticed vibrant blur, his recent pensiveness erasing from vision the beauty of the British tropics.

  When he reached Somerset Village, he spotted a police station sitting off Somerset Road. He parked the scooter and entered the building with a few simple questions in hand.

  Five minutes later, he was back on the scooter and continuing north toward the sharp tip of Bermuda’s hook, the information just gleaned confirming at least a portion of Jackson’s story to be true. There was indeed an author who lived in the Village, and yes, he was presently in the States on business.

  He drove over Watford Bridge, Grey’s Bridge, and then The Cut Bridge before reaching the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island North where another cruise ship sat docked on the eastside and a tall clock tower stood reaching up into the sky at his left. He parked the scooter and strolled into the mall that surrounded the clock tower, looking for a small souvenir for Kristen and a replacement for what he’d given away on the plane.

  Ten minutes later, he was leaving the assortment of stores with a New International Version of the Bible and more time to find his wife something. He came to an empty bench and consulted his map. It revealed a big fort standing nearby and a little beach resting in its shadow. So with the sun aiming to fall right on top of that location, he set a leisurely pace for Snorkel Park Beach, his scalp still tingling from both mystery and a whole pitcher of coffee.

  He eventually found himself mixed with a group of vacationers, following them into The Keep, which was the name of the island’s largest fort. As he walked, he consulted the map again and learned that the giant structure encompassed ten acres of the Dockyard, was originally a citadel and arsenal built to protect the island from air and sea attacks, and was complete with bulwarks, ramparts, carronade cannons, and six inch shell guns. It was surrounded on three sides by buildings and magazines, the Commissioner’s House resting comfortably on a hill in front of him. Overhearing statements from the group, he also learned that construction of the Dockyard began in 1809 and that the buildings in The Keep were constructed from native limestone. The work had apparently been undertaken by slaves at first but later became the burden of prisoners and other laborers imported from the West Indies. Someone said The Keep closed in the 1950s and had lapsed into disrepair until, in 1947, the Bermuda Maritime Museum gained control of the site.

  John looked back down to the map and saw that The Keep was now indeed Bermuda’s large
st museum, and that the Commissioner’s House now displayed exhibits ranging from defense and slavery to immigration and maritime art. There was another building within the confines of The Keep that now served as the Dolphin Quest, The Keep’s pond (once used for transporting munitions) having been converted into a place where one could go frolic with dolphins.

  When John lifted his gaze from the map, he found that he had drifted away from the group, which was now collectively snapping pictures of something he couldn’t see. As they moved on, John curiously approached the object that had so adamantly held their interest. But as he stepped closer, realizing at once that it was a statue, he stopped. Even in the failing light there was no mistaking its resemblance. Elevators packed with prickly occupants were unloading at the base of his neck. He knew from the trident in its hand and the crown on its head that it was supposed to be some Greek or Roman god.

  “Excuse me,” he called after the wandering crowd.

  A straggling professor-like gentleman and his skinny gray-haired wife turned, hand in hand, toward his voice.

  “Who is this supposed to be?” he asked without introduction. He wondered if they could detect the desperation in his tone.

  They stopped and let the rest of the group stray further away from them. “It’s Neptune,” the man said. “The Roman god of the sea, brother to Jupiter and Pluto.”

  As John approached them, he turned his gaze back to the sculpture. “I’ve seen it before,” he mumbled.

  The woman had supersonic hearing. “You’ve probably seen him all over and just never noticed,” she smiled. “He’s depicted as representing American naval supremacy in the Apotheosis of Washington inside the US Capitol Building. In fact, he decorates fountains all over Washington, Italy, and France. He’s analogous with the Greeks’ Poseidon…”

  Maybe she was the professor. She continued rattling off one famous location after another, but John knew that it wasn’t from any one of those places that he recognized the heathen god’s face. And, despite his racing heartbeat, he forced a smile of his own. “Thanks.”