George just moaned.
Marie-François spoke to Charles-Valentin, who chucked the sack over his shoulder and shuffled away.
Now, my dear boy, Marie-François said, you must come with me, I know where to find help and safety. Come along.
He held out his hand.
George shook his head.
Marie-François knelt, pulled out a handkerchief, and tied it around George’s cut hand.
Now, now, he said. We are all in great peril here. We must go, and quickly.
Not without Frank.
At any moment this ship could—
Not without Frank.
Marie-François sighed.
Very well. Where should we begin?
George pointed.
Marie-François bent, wrapped his free arm around a timber, and hauled it out. He slewed it across the deck and kicked it overboard. George dragged a broken crate out of the heap, an armful of barrel staves, a window-frame.
Charles-Valentin came back with his sack bulging even more. Marie-François explained to him.
It didn’t take too long, with three of them lifting and hauling, to get most of the debris cleared away. But Frank’s body was just nowhere to be found—all there was was a spreading pool of filth, shiny as spilt crude oil, slick with water.
Enfin, assez! Charles-Valentin panted.
George kept on working.
Il est devenu fou.
Marie-François laid his good hand on George’s shoulder.
We have searched, he said, we have done as much as—
George, George!
What was that? George whirled around, but no one was there, just the two Frenchmen.
George, down here!
What? George called. Where are you?
The two Frenchmen glanced at each other.
To whom are you speaking, my dear boy? Marie-François asked.
Find me, find me, George.
George went and peered over the side. A tangle of timbers and ropes, odds and ends, flotsam really, had drifted against the hull. Water sloshed its sides but it floated. A shabby little raftlet, not like his and Frank’s, but—
George looked over his shoulder; the two Frenchmen were whispering together. They looked over at George, nodded to each other, and started towards him.
Now, my dear boy, Marie-François said, you must listen to the voice of reason and authority. You must go with—
It’ll hold you, George—
(Where was that voice coming from?)
—hurry up!
George tossed his gunnysack down, clambered over the side, and dropped. The raft caught him, bobbed up and down.
Oh my dear, come back! Marie-François called.
George looked up:
Where can you go? Marie-François asked. I fear for you, my boy. You have no food, no water, no maps, no papers. Now, there seems to me to be room aplenty on your little craft for both of us, although perhaps not so much for three.
Charles-Valentin appeared, looked down at George. He shook the priest’s shoulder. Marie-François pushed him away. The fat man shouted down to George.
What’s he saying? George asked.
He says that there is much of great value that he could teach you about his calling, just as his cher maître did for him.
Charles-Valentin nodded and held out his arms.
A daunting task, Marie-François continued, to sail all alone! How will you find your way without my kind help? Do you know?
Charles-Valentin interrupted; Marie-François translated:
He says that yours is a dangerous path, my son. Much harm might come without his gentle guiding hand. He says that he can help you.
George untied the gunnysack. Charles-Valentin said some more but Marie-François continued:
But in truth, my dear George, what you most need is one who knows the territory, who might guide and assist, who may call upon the succor of holy mother church—
George slowly lifted the gun, hands shaking, and pointed it at them.
No, he said.
Get back, he said.
The two Frenchmen stepped back.
George leaned against the hull, shoved hard as he could. The raft inched away. He looked up: two faces peering down. He stepped back, swung the gun up. The faces disappeared. He shoved again, put his back and shoulders into it, the gap between the raft and boat opened another inch, another.
Marie-François’s head appeared over the railing again.
Take these, he called.
He heaved the sack over the side.
The sack thunked the raft’s edge and the raft dipped down, righted itself. A current swung it round.
Water and rations! Marie-François shouted. Also state papers, code books! Go to Fort Salmigondis, ask for Marshall Rimbaud, he will reward you richly. Remember, the left bank, safety! The right bank, death!
More gravelly French rumbles from Charles-Valentin.
He wishes you health, Marie-François called, and wealth, and good fortune. As do I! You will find your way home at last, I am sure of it, wherever it may lie. Farewell, my dear boy, God be with you!
His voice dwindled in the distance, the priest and his friend the nauscopiste waving like rag-dolls in a carny show.
But I don’t want to go home, George said. I aint never going back there. No, I got to get to someplace—not this place—better than this place, or where I come from. Somewhere I can grow up a good man, like you, Frank, not one who’s got to do bad things just to get along. Somewhere goodness thrives, like fields full of plump corn or cherry trees dripping with ripe red fruit—a good place, or no place; a place where I can go to sleep and wake up and find goodness still there. Where hard work gives you something worth having, not just money soon spent and some boss-man, all rich and fat, living way off in the big city in a mansion of gold, getting even richer and fatter. I can’t go home again, I don’t want to go there ever again.
And George pitched away the gun, flung it far and high, and the water swallowed it up as the water swallows everything.
The river overflowed the horizon. It ran on and on, broad and fast and deep, George on his raft riding it like a freckle on the shoulders of an angel, reaching for the shores of the sea, where the river might find an end, if it has one. Where does the sea end? No one knows.
Copyright © 2016 Thomas M. Waldroon
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Thomas M. Waldroon likes to tell lies about dead people. Eventually most of them will be gathered in the not-quite-a-novel-but-not-quite-not-a-novel-either Certain Americans. Notes on the historical sources of the stories (as well as other ephemera) may be found at www.tmwaldroon.com/blog. He lives in Rochester, New York.
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COVER ART
“Tortoise Caravan,” by Marek Hlavaty
Marek Hlavaty is passionate illustrator who has been working as a freelance 2D artist since 2002, including illustrations, in-game and animation backgrounds, covers, and visualizations. Most of his artwork is in the game-developing and publishing industries. He believes that good painting should pull your mind into another world. View more of his work online at DeviantArt or on his website at www.prasart.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Compilation Copyright © 2016 Firkin Press
This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. license. You may copy the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.
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