Neal Barrett Jr.

by Dawn's Uncertain Light

  PART TWO

  West by Southwest …

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Three days north into the pacific, black clouds appeared in the west without warning, suddenly turning the clear, bright day into night. The temperature dropped in an instant, leaving an ominous chill in the air. Captain Finley turned the ship about at once, fleeing to the south, but the storm moved in with such intensity and speed there was no time to escape its awful wrath.

  Seamen scurried about the decks, and Finley ordered passengers below, reminding them to fasten the portholes in their cabins securely. Howie was scarcely in his quarters before the first gusts of wind and driving rain struck the vessel. The ship creaked and pitched, but it didn’t seem all that bad, no worse than a heavy thunderstorm on land. Bracing himself against his bunk, Howie pressed his face to the small circle of glass. It was an exciting thing to see, but not frightening at all, and he wondered why the captain had made such a fuss.

  Rain pelted against the porthole, but he could still make out the sea, peppered now with rain, against an ever darkening sky. He wondered what birds did in a storm. There wasn’t any place to land, so he figured they just flew real fast out of the way. The fish wouldn’t likely even care; a storm was all right with them. All they had to do was swim deep and not worry about a thing.

  As Howie watched, the sky to the west began to change. The color didn’t seem quite as dark anymore; it was almost the color of the sea, a deep blue-green webbed with filaments of white. The sky sucked the white strands high, and higher still, until they all coalesced into a horizontal band that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

  Howie was fascinated by this peculiar event. It was a strange, unworldly sight, something he’d never imagined and couldn’t begin to comprehend.

  Then, in an instant, his vision seemed to unlock the puzzle outside, shift into sudden understanding. At once, he saw what he hadn’t seen before—it wasn’t the sky changing color, it was the sea, the sea rising up in a wave nearly as high as the ship, a monstrous wall of water topped with angry white foam.

  Howie cried out in alarm, a cry he never heard as the great wave exploded against the hull. Timbers snapped and a blast of thunderous sound engulfed the world. Howie grabbed blindly for the edge of his bunk. The force of the wave tore him free and slammed him hard against the far wall. Before he could get his bearings, the ship lurched again, tossing him back against his bunk. He felt as if he’d broken every bone in his body. Clinging feebly to the rim of his bunk, he hauled himself in, buried his head against the mattress, and held on for dear life. Glass exploded somewhere in the passage beyond his door. Something rolled heavily across the deck overhead. Howie thought he heard a cry in the wind. He wondered what Ritcher Jones’s God was up to at the moment. He wasn’t helping much around here.

  The wind shrieked, and one wall of water after another picked the ship up like a cork and slammed it into the sea. Howie didn’t wonder anymore why everything aboard was bolted down.

  “How’s the sea doing now?” he asked the boy.

  “Why, smooth as glass, sir,” the boy said. “It’s a right fine night.”

  “And it might get heavier than this?”

  “Yes, sir. Quite a bit heavier than this.”

  “What do we do then?”

  “We ride it out, sir….”

  By god, the boy had clearly lied, Howie thought dismally. We ain’t going to ride nothing out. We’re all going to die, that’s what we’re going to do.

  Jack, Howie’s sailor friend, said the storm had lasted nearly four hours. Howie didn’t believe that at all. Four days was more like it.

  “Weren’t too bad,” Jack said. “We got her into the wind. I seen a lot worse.”

  Howie didn’t ask when, or how much worse it could get. He’d learned sailors seldom thought anything was an average or typical event. They could always recall something better, bigger, smaller, or worse.

  The scene topside told Howie much more than he wanted to know. It looked as if a battery of Rebel cannon had raked the decks. Canvas was tattered in shreds, and lines flapped uselessly in the wind. Deck cargo had come loose, smashing the rails in half a dozen places. A foremast had snapped clean off. One seaman had broken a leg, and nearly every man was badly bruised. Mrs. Garvey had a nick about a quarter inch long on her chin. Howie could hear her howling down below. Her husband stomped around on deck, demanding medical attention. Captain Finley was in no mood for that. He told Garvey in a very courteous tone that he should get below at once, if he didn’t want several able seamen to toss him off the stern.

  Ritcher Jones looked none the worse for wear. Lorene was pale as death, the fright still vivid in her eyes.

  “Quite a little blow,” Jones said, stretching as if he’d just had a fine day’s nap. “You fare all right, did you, Cory?”

  “I ain’t dead,” Howie said flatly. “I reckon that’s what you call all right.”

  Jones threw back his head with a hearty laugh. “The Lord’s hand is terrible and swift, gentle and kind, depending on the deeds He performs. He can churn up the sea in great fury, or draw a tender seedling from the earth into the light. The wise man won’t try to fathom His ways.”

  “Yes, sir,” Howie said, not at all surprised that the storm had inspired another sermon. It didn’t take near that much to set the preacher off on a spree.

  “I hope you didn’t get too shaken up, Sister Lorene,” Howie said politely.

  “Why, I was pure scared out of my wits,” Lorene said. “I knew, though, the Lord would prevail. I just prayed He would save me to serve in some further way.”

  “Well, I’m certain He’s got some fine things planned for you to do,” Howie said. “Some real fine things.”

  His face betrayed no expression at all, but Lorene nearly burst out laughing on the spot. She clamped her lips tight and her cheeks turned red with the strain. Howie was grateful the preacher was behind her, and couldn’t see her face. If he had, the game would have been up right there. Instead, Jones beamed with delight at the conversation between them.

  Lorene’s eyes darted at Howie, and he knew he’d catch hell later on. It was worth it, though, he decided. Lorene had like to tore a couple of vessels, knowing exactly the sort of “fine things to do” he had in mind.

  On the voyage through the Gulf, toward Panama Province, the ship had struck out boldly across open water, seldom coming in sight of the land. The trip up the Pacific coast was different; now there was always a shadowy mass to the east, five or six miles away. Jack told Howie this was the practice during the stormy time of the year.

  “Sometimes they come up fast, as I reckon you already know,” Jack said. “If you get any warnin’ at all, and it looks like you can’t ride her out, then you head toward shore and hope there’s an inlet somewhere, a piece of land to hide behind awhile.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Howie said, relieved to hear they might not have to go through such a harrowing experience again.

  Jack frowned thoughtfully and shook his head. “Yeah, except there ain’t a whole lot of safe places ’round here. And truth to tell, friend, I’d rather face the sea than take my chances over there.”

  Jack glanced warily to shore. “There’s folks where the old Central Americas used to be, and likely on the coast of Mexico, I wouldn’t care to run into at all. No sir, I’d a sight rather get drowned at sea.”

  Howie didn’t like the sound of that at all. Ritcher Jones had alluded to the dangers of that region, and now his friend Jack had brought the subject up as well. When Howie tried to question him further, Jack suddenly found other things he had to do. Standing by the newly repaired railing, looking at the gray and distant shore, Howie decided the sea wasn’t all he’d imagined it to be. It was fine when everything went right, and there were dolphins and flying fish to see, and nights in his cabin with Lorene. But he and Lorene could get tangled up fine in a bed on shore—and you could do without watching fish fly.

  “There
it is,” Captain Finley said. He pointed to the east. “Bout four miles off the starboard bow. New Los Angeles and port.” He shared a rare smile with Howie, “Can’t say as I’ll mind putting this voyage behind me. I’m damned if I’ll sail again this time of year. One storm’s bad enough—we’re lucky we didn’t get two.” He spat over the side and retrieved his spyglass from Howie. “Did you ever, uh—lose a ship, sir?” Howie asked.

  Finley’s heavy brows masked his eyes. “Now that’s not a question you put to a ship’s captain, boy.”

  Howie felt his cheeks color. “I’m real sorry, sir.”

  “Huh,” Finley grunted. “Three.” He held up his fingers. “I lost three. All of ’em in the goddam ocean we’re sailing now.” He looked Howie up and down. “Don’t know what you plan to do with yourself, Cory. But you might think hard on a life at sea. It’s about the finest thing a man can do. I might take you on myself.”

  Howie forced a smile. “Thank you, Captain Finley. I sure will think about that.”

  Captain Finley nodded and stalked off, shouting orders to his crew.

  “Well, I thought on it some,” Howie muttered at Finley’s back. “I don’t guess I’ll have to think about it again.”

  He stood and watched the sea. Late on the afternoon before, Jones had pointed far to starboard at the hundreds of small islands off the shore. The gray points of land looked peculiar; most were no more than stubs, ragged mounds of stone that seldom rose more than twenty feet above the sea.

  “Don’t appear real natural, do they?” Jones had said. “That’s because they aren’t, Cory. What you’re looking at now is Old Los Angeles town. There’s a whole city there on the bottom. Right about there is where the shore used to be.” He waved his hand vaguely to the right.

  “The War did that?” Howie couldn’t imagine such devastation, or what might have caused it.

  “Partly the War,” Jones said. “Folks say it was more than that, though. That the unholy weapons of the time loosed something in the earth. The land just heaved up and cracked in two, and drowned the whole coast in the sea. Forty, fifty miles inland, and a hundred miles wide. No one can say if it happened that way—but the city’s down there, and that’s a fact.”

  Howie could think of nothing to say. Long after Jones left, he stood and watched the dreary islands, until they vanished far astern.

  New Los Angeles was a hundred miles or more up the coast from the sunken older city. Howie remembered Tallahassee, and once again questioned the wisdom of naming new towns the same as places that had suffered a terrible fate. It didn’t seem like a good idea, but people didn’t appear to mind.

  When the harbor came into view, Howie forgot all thoughts of ancient disaster and desolation. The port was a wondrous thing to see. Mountains marched right down to blue water, and hundreds of white structures sparkled in the sun. Everything seemed white and clean. The city sprawled along the bay—a bay which hadn’t been there before the Great War, Jones explained—and fine houses climbed the side of the green, forested slopes behind.

  There was too much to see all at once. The harbor itself was full of vessels of all kinds. Howie was amazed to see some ships with canted, brightly colored sails. These great planes of canvas pictured strange and frightening beasts, lizards with bat like wings and open maws that breathed fire, other creatures with long sharp teeth and eyes like pumpkin seeds. More astonishing than the vividly colored sails were the tall black cylinders that sprouted amidships on these vessels. Often there were three or four cylinders in a row. At first, Howie thought the ships were simply on fire. Then, as they passed a ship close to port, he saw the tall columns were chimneys that belched forth clouds of gray smoke. Lorene had told him there were ships that had chimneys, but he hadn’t much believed her at the time.

  Jones said the vessels came from Asia, and that mechanical devices inside produced steam, which turned ingenious paddles on the side.

  “Why?” Howie asked, and Jones said they would discuss this matter another time. The question seemed to irritate the preacher, and Howie decided that he didn’t know the answer himself.

  It was close to noon when the ship found a berth and all the lines were secured. Two men came aboard to greet Jones, and it was clear at once they’d come from High Sequoia. They treated Ritcher Jones with great respect, gathering up his baggage, and Lorene’s, and listening to every word that Jones said.

  Both men wore white robes that came down to their knees; the robes had light green piping around the edges and on the sleeves. And on each breast was sewn the symbol of High Sequoia Howie had seen on the preacher’s gun—a thick-boled tree, growing right out of a heart.

  Jones introduced him to the men, who were named Brother this, and Brother something else. Howie couldn’t keep them straight. Captain Finley and Adams shook hands with everyone as they left, and Howie didn’t much like the way Adams held Lorene in his grip too long, or the sweet smile Lorene gave in return. He didn’t see the Garveys anywhere, and didn’t care if he ever did again.

  It seemed strange to be standing on solid ground again. Nothing moved beneath his feet, but Howie found himself walking as he had on board, waiting for a pitch of the deck that never came.

  Lorene glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and grinned at his awkward walk, though Howie saw she was doing the same.

  The dock was alive with activity; the air was thick with harbor smells, and there was the usual noise and clamor. Howie noticed many of the men had peculiar tilted eyes, blunt features, and skin a shade he’d never seen before.

  “They’re Asians,” Lorene whispered, shaking her head in a frown. “Don’t stare. It’s not nice.

  “I ain’t staring,” Howie said.

  “You are so.”

  Well, he’d learned something new already. He knew what an Asian was now. They were short, and had coal- black hair, and chattered in a tongue no one could possibly understand.

  “Anyway, I already know what they are,” Howie said. “I don’t need you to tell me that.”

  “You didn’t know any such thing,” Lorene said. “You never even saw one before.”

  Ritcher Jones walked ahead with the two Brothers. He turned and raised a brow at Howie and Lorene.

  “You two coming or not? I’m half starved, and deter-mined to find a meal that doesn’t slide off the table ’fore I get a chance to eat it.”

  The Brothers from High Sequoia glanced at each other and grinned. Howie decided this pair would be getting on his nerves before long. They thought everything Ritcher Jones said was either wise, inspiring, downright hilarious, or maybe all three.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Past the docking area, an open carriage was waiting for Ritcher Jones and his party. The carriage stood beyond an open gate and a high wooden fence, and it was clear the fence was there for a reason—no one entered or left the pier without permission. At a small wooden shed by the gate, a sober-faced official gave Howie a blue card. His name and a number were carefully penned on the card with ink, and also noted on a list maintained by the official. The card was stamped with an ornate seal of California. This whole procedure went quickly, but Howie sensed this was due to the presence of Ritcher Jones.

  All the others in the party showed their cards at the gate, though the other cards were green, indicating that Jones and his friends were residents of the state. Howie asked the preacher what the cards were for, and Jones explained that California simply liked to keep track of its citizens and quests.

  “If we had come by land,” Jones said, “we would have stopped at one of numerous stations like this on our eastern borders. The laws of California are quite generous and fair, but they are strict as well, Cory, and any crime or misdeed is dealt with swiftly and severely.” He smiled broadly at Howie. “Only officers of the law carry weapons here. You simply don’t need one, you see. There is very little crime, and it’s quite safe to walk the streets.”

  Howie was astonished. “They don’t let you carry a gun?”

/>   “As I said, you don’t need it. There’s no reason for it. A person carries a weapon to either defend himself or commit some sort of offense. The police here are well suited to handle the latter. Thus there is nothing for the citizen to defend himself against.”

  It sounded like a real good law, the way Jones put it, but Howie wasn’t sure he’d grow to like it. He had been without a weapon since they’d tossed him in jail in Alabama Port, and he still felt naked without something in his belt. What if somebody had a gun, and didn’t care about the law? Why, he could walk up and laugh in your face, and put a bullet in your belly.

  Howie didn’t bother to ask Jones about that—or if he’d tossed his own long-barreled silver weapon overboard before they’d sailed into port. Howie had a picture of the preacher doing that.

  The road twisted up a gentle slope from the pier. New Los Angeles sprawled among the foothills of the high green mountains at its back. Looking down the hills, Howie could see the docks, the unbelievably blue water, and more ships than he’d ever imagined in the bay. Only one thing marred this pleasant sight. To the south of the docks, a mile or so away, he could see the vast pens of stock. It was the largest operation he’d ever seen, acres and acres of meat. Howie felt something turn heavy in his belly, and he thought of the boy Tom, and the others sitting there on the bench, and the sadness in Elena’s lovely eyes. He turned away at once, but the pens, and the image of Elena, refused to go away.

  As he had noticed from the ship, the buildings and houses here were white and sparkling clean. Lush growth and clusters of bright flowers were everywhere. Howie sat on the edge of his seat, taking in everything they passed. He sat between the two Brothers, facing Jones and Lorene. Jones carried on a running conversation with the Brothers; Lorene sat primly at his side, hands folded in her lap, taking care to look at anything but Howie.