Gibraltar

by Matthew Thayer

  “Roger that.”

  “We’ll use a classic cut. When I ask you to, please pull the incision wide to allow me to reach the baby. Here we go.”

  That was some crazy shit. Pete shipped out not long after. Never saw him again. Hope he made it through, but doubt it. For a smart guy, he never knew when to keep his head down.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “This doctor, you witnessed him cauterizing wounds?”

  Jones: “It was fairly common.”

  Bolzano: “But with the woman, this was different?”

  Jones: “Pete left base with dead batteries. People had no juice.”

  Bolzano: “So he told you he would proceed in the old-fashioned way.”

  Jones: “Sal, you know this story better than I do.”

  Bolzano: “The bleeders. Tell me again.”

  Jones: “Pete said there would be between 12 to 20 of ’em.”

  Bolzano: “He used styptic pencils?”

  Jones: “That’s right. Again. Sal, you sure you’re up for this?”

  Bolzano: “Both mother and child will die if we do nothing.”

  Jones: “Gray Beard once told me leading a clan means burying people. He says you never get used to it.”

  Bolzano: “I hope not today. Are you ready?”

  Jones: “As I’ll ever be.”

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Bolzano saw the problem coming long before I did. Cooked up a plan and prepared the best he could.

  Looking back, realize he’s been at it for months. Dissecting drowned natives, cutting himself to test homemade styptic pencils, making soap, studying anatomy on his computer every night while listening to opera on his ear peas.

  The men held Tomon by the arms as I scooped up his woman and carried her to the hot spring. Gentle as can be. Poor kid was all wrung out, moaning and sweating hard. We used a lumpy bar of Sal’s lye soap to wash her in the warm waters, then, for privacy’s sake, swam her through the tunnel to the painted cave. I feared Gertie would choke, but she held her breath fine for the 10 feet we traveled underwater.

  I surfaced to find Sal already had a fire going and elk-skin blankets spread out on the sand. He helped carry the girl to the bed, then handed me a leather cook bag full of his latest vintage. “My most potent grappa to date,” he warned. “A real headache-maker. See that she drinks at least one cup.”

  Sal activated his helmet and knelt by the water’s edge to put his soap to work on a collection of razor-sharp flint blades knapped by Gray Beard. The old storyteller was standing guard out by the hot spring, under orders to let no one through the passage.

  Sal ordered me to wash my hands and arms. When I returned, he was on his knees by the girl, talking to her in a voice too low for me to hear. “We must hurry,” he said over his shoulder. “Her breathing grows faint.”

  Corporal Bolzano ordered me to straddle the girl’s waist, hold her knees up and wide, while he took a narrow flint blade in his hand and steadied it about an inch below her bellybutton. With one downward stroke, he scratched a deep line all the way down to the top of her curly pubes. “Retraction,” he said over her screams.

  Letting go of her trembling legs, I put my fingers into the incision and spread it wide. Blood was squirting all over the place, but Sal started dabbing the ends of veins with his styptic pencils–sticks covered with gray and yellow crystals made from (if you believe Cpl. Bolzano) piss, ground slate and potash.

  The light was dim but plenty bright enough for Bolzano to see with the optics in his helmet. He zoomed in to find the individual bleeders and his pencils worked OK. It wasn’t long before the blood was pretty much stopped.

  “This must be the uterus right here,” he said pointing. “More retraction please.”

  He reached in to pinch the pink membrane with the fingers of his left hand while he carefully cut it open with the right. Tossing the blade to the side, he worked with his fingers for a while and, just like that, out comes a baby boy. The kid was blue and wrapped in his umbilical cord, dead as far as I could tell. Bolzano used a soft leather towel to rub him down, and just like that, the kid sucked in a big breath and screamed like a banshee.

  Weak and drunk as she was, Gertie struggled to sit up until I got off her and Sal laid the boy in the crook of her arm.

  “Don’t let her turn to her side! We are far from finished.”

  He sliced the umbilical cord with one quick cut and knotted both ends. If Junior survives, he’s gonna have an “outie.” I held the slice in her belly wide as he reached in to fish out the placenta. Once he was satisfied he had everything, he laid the uterus on her stomach like a deflated balloon and stitched it closed with an ivory needle strung with dried gut. Sal stuffed the uterus back in to his liking, took a swill of grappa, then set himself to sewing her belly together.

  My part was done. I stepped back to catch my breath and take a seat against the far wall. Lit by the guttering fire, Sal’s shadow danced across the large Cro-Magnon cave painting of two hunters killing a mammoth. The lines painted in reds and browns on a smooth limestone wall show two dudes mounted on the beast’s head bashing its brains as it runs across the plains. Picture’s not complicated, but it says a lot with a few dozen lines. Outlined in paint on the opposite wall are a thousand handprints, including mine, the biggest of ’em all.

  Sal had his ear peas turned up loud enough for me to hear the violins. Told me later he was listening to some Italian named Vivaldi through the whole operation.

  Spotting movement in the water, I caught four sets of wide eyes taking in the show. Careful not to hit anybody, I splashed a rock in the pool to scare ’em off. They dropped from sight. Not sure how much they had seen.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “We need to get some food into this girl before she vomits.”

  Jones: “What makes you think she’ll puke?”

  Bolzano: “This batch of grappa is particularly explosive.”

  Jones: “Wouldn’t she be better off with an empty stomach?”

  Bolzano: “Even if her body only absorbs a portion, she desperately needs sustenance to survive.”

  Jones: “What’s the matter?”

  Bolzano: “I can’t stop the bleeding.”

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Bad one coming. Wish I could curl up and quit.

  No escaping the sadness. Apart from old man, Gertie and Tomon are the best of this sorry-ass tribe. Girl clings to life by the barest thread.

  After a good start, Bolzano’s doctoring skills prove woeful.

  I expected contentment in this valley. Was one of the things that kept me going. Returned to find little Suzie gone. Clan said the pregnant girl flipped her lid when we left last year. Waited a day then chased after me. Way we were moving, no way she coulda caught up. Expect I’ll need to go have a look when I can. Gray Beard tells me not to bother. Been too long.

  CHAPTER TWO

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “Why do you have the sail set like that? We’re barely moving.”

  Kaikane: “Leather’s ripping.”

  Duarte: “Again? Is this the spare?”

  Kaikane: “Don’t worry. I got it.”

  Duarte: “Is it the spare?”

  Kaikane: “Yep. Tore in the exact same place.”

  Duarte: “Paul Kaikane, I’m not going to say I told you so, but oh, you and your bright ideas. I haven’t seen land for two days.”

  Kaikane: “We’ll be all right.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  I spent the last hour lying on my belly, peering through cracks in the deck as a flight of spotted yellow manta rays glided beneath us in stacked formation. The graceful giants arrived this morning to muscle their way into our shadow amid a school of tasty red snapper. The snapper have traveled below us for the past nine days and I have grown tired of watching them spiral.


  The rays are new and elegant. Propelled by the gentlest of flaps at the tips of wingspans easily 20 feet in diameter, they coast through the aqua blue water at what must be a tenth of their usual cruising speed. A hundredth? Maws opened wide, they gorge on krill and plankton, shrimp and sardine. Paul proposed harpooning one, but I quickly pointed out the thing would thrash our makeshift catamaran to bits. I think he says things like that just to rile me up. In fact, I know he does.

  My husband sits in the sun, using both hands and the toes of one foot to hold our largest scrap of walrus-skin sail in place. The moldering sail’s opposite edge is wrapped and tied around the sagging mast. The way Paul scans the coastline tells me he is as anxious to make landfall as I am.

  The wind quarters out of the northeast at a gentle four knots, enough breeze to fill the sail, but not enough to rip it to shreds. Paul has steered us into the path of a current he likes, and we are moving forward. Why do I ever doubt him? After 200 miles of worry, a week of giving him the cold shoulder for talking me into doing something I knew we shouldn’t, my dear waterman is poised to deliver us to the exact bay he promised.

  Hopefully. The winds are in our favor, the island is in sight, and Paul uses all of his skill to coax forward movement from our tattered gear. I believe this is what future mariners will call “limping into port.”

  Our lesson is simple. Overconfidence is dangerous. We made superb time on our voyage southwest from Nice to the boggy swamp that will one day become Barcelona. In spite of my insistence that we hug the mainland coast for safety, we covered roughly 450 nautical miles in the first 17 days. Island hopping, anchoring in secluded coves to ride out two storms, we moved in fits and starts. The wind and sun dictated our schedule. When it was dry and blowing from the north, anything less than a gale, we took to the seas to cover as many as 60 exhilarating miles in one day.

  Paul would adjust the rigging until he had it just the way he wanted, and soon we would be skimming across the sea. His crazy idea to lash a pole deck between our two modern kayaks proved its worth daily. Many low-wind voyages were calm enough to allow me to work on my computer beneath an awning of pine branches. Typing reports while sailing the crystal clear Mediterranean, what a concept!

  In daylight hours, we strayed only far enough from shore to prevent land-bound natives from getting a good look at our boat and its revolutionary leather sail. Three miles was our average buffer. The distance was perfect for the wide-angle view of a coastline bursting with fauna and wildlife. When we wanted to see something up close, we would dig out our helmets, flip down the visors and zoom in.

  Waters were thick with dolphin, turtle, shark and tuna, and so clear the multi-colored urchins, sponges and corals of the seafloor were visible no matter how deep the bottom shelved. On land, the beauty was often interwoven with death as prides of cats, packs of wolves and other carnivores enjoyed easy pickings among countless varieties of mammal, amphibian and fowl. One animal too massive for the abuse was a breed of less-woolly mammoth new to our eyes. Herds of the powerful, fuzzy giants padded about many sandy beaches we passed, some standing tall on hind legs to pluck dates, flowers and other fruits from towering trees.

  Chattering birds of every color, size and shape filled the air and water surfaces from dawn until dusk before yielding to bats, owls and many other night fliers. We found three miles was also a suitable buffer to escape flies, mosquitoes, beetles, swarming termites, flying ants and sailing spiders.

  And then Paul convinced me to let him set course straight for the island of Ibiza. “We’ll save nearly 100 miles overall,” he said. “I’m tired of these shallow waters,” he said.

  I knew better than to trust this damn boat.

  Three days out, too far to turn back against the wind, the first sail split across its middle. Paul and I were sharing a lunch of snapper sashimi at the time. He had everything tied in place, and an average-strength wind had the walrus skin pulled taut, but certainly not billowing as it had been on stronger days, when, with a loud rip, it just let go. Paul stood up and said, “That’s not good.”

  The small boat pitched back and forth as we staggered to secure the flapping skin and hoist the spare. We were soon skimming along as if nothing had happened, but I could tell Paul was concerned.

  Our replacement tore early the next day. Paul had been rotating sails and both had become rotten. That was a week ago. We are now close enough to land to make out individual trees on the sparse hillside. I spy plenty of pine, as well as groves of palm growing near shore. That may be good news.

  “Maria, stow that computer and make ready for landing,” he calls with a smile that says, “I told you so.”

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “More lobster?”

  Kaikane: “No, thanks, I’m stuffed.”

  Duarte: “We’ll take the leftovers on our hike tomorrow.”

  Kaikane: “The sail….”

  Duarte: “That sail can wait a day. I have discovered a promising goat trail. Let’s see if we can find a way to climb to the top of the hill.”

  Kaikane: “Why?”

  Duarte: “To see what’s on the other side, silly.”

  Kaikane: “I imagine you’ll write a few reports about the experience.”

  Duarte: “You can bet on it.”

  Kaikane: “Find any new plants on this island?”

  Duarte: “More than I can count.”

  Kaikane: “Name any after me?”

  Duarte: “Not yet.”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  Oh Dad, if you saw our boat you would’ve laughed till you cried. Or punched me in the nose for risking a woman’s life. My Hawaiian teachers, my kumu, they would’ve taken one look and insisted I have my head examined.

  All the leatherwork turned soggy about the same time. Our ropes, the sails, and the bindings holding the whole shebang together, everything was rotting. We’d top a wave, or the wind would kick up, and I’d worry every minute the deck was going to fold into a pile of sticks. We might have paddled the kayaks to shore in a pinch, but that would have been a long paddle, and there was no guarantee we could cut the boats free of the mess. In the end, we just got lucky. The winds and waves cooperated, and so did the current. They carried us right into a bay at high tide. I picked out a pretty, crushed-shell beach ringed with coconut trees and ran the cat right up onto the sand. The force of landing snapped the mast’s standing rigging and the whole boat crumpled. I had Maria and our gear stationed with me at the stern. We stepped off without getting hurt.

  “That was close,” Maria said. If she only knew!

  We spent the rest of the day running around on rubber legs salvaging everything and securing it well above the high-water mark. Uphill about 60 yards, we found a flat area in a grove of wide-spaced pines, and that’s where we pitched camp. Our pine needle bed is soft. Apart from the nut crabs down on the beach, which are so thick at night they would pinch us to pieces if we gave them a chance, I like the looks of this place.

  Like most of the islands we have visited, there are no Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon. I like that. We can walk around in plain sight and speak English whenever we want.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Duarte: “Welcome back. Enjoying your Thumb Day off?”

  Kaikane: “It’s all right. Saw something weird this afternoon.”

  Duarte: “Another two-headed butterfly?”

  Kaikane: “I think there may be other humans on this island.”

  Duarte: “What? Why do you say that?”

  Kaikane: “About 10 miles down the coast, I beached the kayak and followed a stream inland looking for a swimming hole. Not too far up through the pines, I found a nice pool. Was all set to dive in when I almost tripped over the carcass of a blue goat kid.”

  Duarte: “In the water?”

  Kaikane: “Along the edge, on a gravel beach. Thing looked a helluva lot like it had been butchered. Carefully.”

  Duarte: “Birds?”

&
nbsp; Kaikane: “Pretty selective birds. Took only the loins and back haunches.”

  Duarte: “Did you see any animal prints? Wolves? Cats?”

  Kaikane: “Nope.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  At my urging, Paul has adopted the Thumb Day system of travel to our outrigger canoe-building schedule. We work like hell for four Finger Days and take the Thumb off to rest, recuperate, and tend to other chores.

  The technique was introduced by Gray Beard during our 750-mile hike across the continent in pursuit of Lorenzo Martinelli. Traveling with the storyteller over the foothills of France and through the swamps of Italy from sunup to well past sundown, we covered as many as 80 up-and-down miles in four days. On the afternoon of the fourth day, the old clan leader would invariably lead us off the trail to a Thumb Camp where there was always a source of clean water, a fire pit and a sleeping area with indentations worn into the ground by countless hips and shoulders. We would pause for the night and through the next day to build a fire and cook a fat piglet or other nutrient-rich animal. We reclined in caves, or groves of trees, repaired gear, stitched torn clothes, and treated wounds–all while learning our way in this ancient world. Gray Beard taught us so much about so many things on that journey.

  I think of my native father often, and hope he travels well with Jones and Bolzano and the Green Turtle Clan. They must be in Fralista’s secret valley by now. That comfortable lair is a far cry from a simple Thumb Camp. I could certainly go for a soak in the hot spring. The valley will be a good place for Gertie to give birth. I imagine she must be just about due. Despite the old man’s worries, Fralista and the women in Valley Camp are capable midwives. They will see her through.