The Turtle-Girl from East Pukapuka

by Cole Alpaugh

  “The jellyfish are the biggest worry.” Ophelia reached over the side of the boat and ran her hand through the same water that had risen up to her hips. It was the first time Dante sensed her fear. She’d finished doing everything there was to do but didn’t seem to believe it. “Their faces were swollen badly. They didn’t look like human faces. Both were blind from the stings.”

  “Blind?”

  “Infections, I guess. But they lived.” Ophelia kept stirring the water with one hand. “They lived, but they weren’t fine.”

  As the sun made its final descent, the boat was slowly rotating counter-clockwise, according to the few puffs of clouds. They looked at each other, then out at the endless expanse of ocean. Having sunk at least three feet gave a new, almost overwhelming perspective. The ocean was rising around them, coming up to greet them, and maybe swallow them.

  “I’ve never seen snow,” Ophelia said, staring out into the distance beyond Dante. “I mean, except on television and in movies. You don’t remember what snow is like, do you?”

  Dante shook his head.

  “You said your heart stopped after your accident?”

  “That’s what I was told.”

  “I helped resuscitated a drowning victim who’d been under for a good seven or eight minutes,” Ophelia said. “A teenage boy. When we got his heart started, it was like a switch came on. He started coughing really hard and we couldn’t hold him down. He was yelling something at us, but we couldn’t understand because he still had water in his lungs and was gagging, literally foaming at the mouth. It was what you’d imagine someone with rabies would look like. And he started acting like it, too.”

  “This was on the beach?”

  “Yeah, there were maybe a half dozen lifeguards and even more cops.” Ophelia continued looking off into the darkening horizon. “He was a big, strong kid, and when he got to his feet, he was just throwing people off him, shouting the same thing over and over. One of the lifeguards jumped on his back, trying to bring him down. Amazing, since the kid had just basically been dead.”

  “Where was he trying to go?”

  “He was headed straight back into the water. I was in front of him at one point, and his eyes were huge and desperate. We were in his way and he just had to get past us and nothing was going to stop him. That’s when I finally understood what he was saying.”

  “Which was?”

  “He kept screaming, ‘I have to get back,’ over and over. I’m sure it sounds like he was just traumatized and it didn’t mean anything. Like a drunk gets it into his head to do something. But I know what I felt when we were trying to get him under control. And I talked to a few of the other cops later on and they all thought the same thing.”

  “That he liked being dead?” Dante asked, the cool water sloshing at their hips.

  “You don’t remember being dead, do you?”

  “I remember feeling cold.” Dante closed his eyes and rubbed his stubbly face. “As if having your memories erased removed the things that kept you warm. I didn’t walk toward a bright white light or anything. I just remember lying there on my back, feeling everything I knew washing away from me, leaving a sense of emptiness and cold. Nothing I’d want to fight to get back to.”

  After a few minutes of silence, Ophelia cleared her throat. “I think it’s dark enough.”

  The tall, blond Rarotonga cop opened the emergency kit on top of the boat’s control panel and removed the twelve-gauge flare gun. Holding the small orange firearm out away from her with both hands, she discharged the parachute flare in the direction of East Pukapuka, just as the boat began to sink under their feet.

  Chapter 42

  “You got good eyes, girl,” Dobby told Butter as they closed in on the spot where the flare had been fired. “Go down on the bow railing and shout up if you see anything in the water, even if it’s just pieces of junk.”

  Dobby reached over his head to flip the switch on the three-hundred-fifty-watt searchlight mounted above the pilot house. He used the joystick next to the wheel to angle the beam straight out in front of the Gypsy Dancer. He kept the old tugboat at a crawl, searching the black water for debris or maybe an oil slick. There was no sign or smell in the air of a recent fire and there had been no second flare as they approached from the southeast. That was odd, Dobby thought, and it didn’t usually mean good news. One flare goes up and then the distressed boater is supposed to send up another. Anything else might mean a quick sinking or fishermen getting drunk and screwing around, which would piss him off real good. Hell, Dobby had watched a couple of fishing charters get in a flare gun war—drunk off their asses and lobbing flares at each other’s boats. All fun and games until one of the boats caught fire.

  The sky was filled with stars, old and new, as the experienced salvage captain created a search grid in his head and began executing it with a sweep around the perimeter. He then set about making concentric circles, zeroing in. Dobby tooted the air horn at intervals and cracked a smile as the little savage girl mimicked the sound after each pull of the horn’s rope. Meanwhile she leaned out over the bow, searching the water intently.

  Not ten minutes into the sweep, Butter began jumping up and down. Dobby feared she was about to hop overboard. She screamed and pointed out into what looked like pitch darkness. When he adjusted the joystick, two orange life vests reflected brightly.

  “Shit,” was all Dobby had to say. There was no money and a lot of headaches attached to reeling in floaters like this. Just look at the goddamn turtle-girl, who had turned out to be all girl and no turtle. No boat meant no money for a tow and no salvage. Just two more damn hitchhikers expecting a free goddamn ride to port. Dobby killed the engine, letting the tug drift up to within ten feet of the swimmers. He had to jimmy open one of the pilot house windows and lean out to see them over the side of the forward gunwale.

  “Ahoy,” Dobby shouted. “Not much of a place for an evening swim, you ask me.”

  “Thank god,” a female voice echoed off the rusted metal hull of the Gypsy Dancer. A cloud of blond hair floated all around her. There were two of them treading water in slow, wide strokes. The other, apparently a young man, seemed to be looking to her to do all the talking.

  “Where might your ship be?” Dobby called down from the open window, the searchlight turning the two upturned faces bright white.

  “We were hit by another boat.” The woman tried to time her words to dodge the chop slapping at her face. “It kept going.”

  “And yours went to the bottom.” Dobby rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “Can you please throw us a line?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “We’re cold and tired,” said the woman.

  “So you are perfectly capable of swimming, as I see it. You know this ain’t a ferry boat or some kind of tour charter, young lady. This is a salvage boat and I don’t see nothing worth salvaging.”

  “Captain,” the woman began, but had to struggle through a series of jarring waves before continuing. “I’m a Senior Sergeant with the Rarotonga Police.”

  “That’s a pretty casual uniform you got on there. And I don’t see no badge, missy. You maybe thinkin’ about writing me a parking ticket?”

  “Captain, by International Admiralty Law you are required to provide assistance, but I am begging you as a human being to help us.” The woman’s voice had slipped right to the verge of panic.

  “It took fuel to come huntin’ down the source of that flare you shot up and it’s gonna cost a helluva lot more to get you to dry ground,” Dobby barked. Meanwhile Butter was down on the bow working in the deep shadows, untying and then lifting the heavy rope ladder she’d barely managed to heave over the gunwale. The ladder unfurled as it fell, one end splashing into the water a few feet from where the pair was treading water.

  “Thank you,” the woman called up into the bright spotlight as they swam toward the ladder.

  “Christ’s freakin’ sake, girl,” Dobby complained under his breath, pull
ing his shoulders back in from the open window. “That ain’t no goddamn way to bargain for the best price. Turnin’ me into some damn charity.”

  The woman slid over the side of the tugboat first, followed closely by the man, who seemed to be trying to escape something he feared was following him up the ladder. He hauled his waterlogged backpacks up—one slung over each shoulder—dropped them onto the deck, then tumbled over on top of them, completely exhausted.

  Dobby stood over the pair as they worked to catch their breath. The forward deck of the Gypsy Dancer was lit indirectly by the spotlight, and the captain could see Butter crouched, hiding in the heavy shadows.

  “You can thank this little savage girl for savin’ your skins, but I still ain’t no goddamn ferry boat.” Dobby stood with his feet wide and hands on his hips, his great belly thrust out indignantly. “Soon as I find this little runt’s island, I’m leaving the lot of you. I’ll radio your position to whoever will listen, but I got weeks of prime pickings still floating in these waters and I ain’t got food or water to keep you alive.”

  “That’s just fine, captain.” The blond broad, still out of breath, began unclipping the life preserver from what appeared to Dobby to be a very healthy set of fun bags. Appears this young lady had her own pair of built-in life preservers. Dobby could have kicked himself in his own ass had he possessed the necessary flexibility. First, I get me a buck naked primitive who’s barely housebroken, now I got me a set of goddamn Barbie and Ken dolls. And all the while, there’s treasures drifting away far and wide I should be reelin’ in. What the hell did I do to bring on this kind of friggin’ luck?

  “You!” Dobby shouted at Butter, pointing down at her hiding spot. “You get them a couple blankets and take ’em ’round to where you been bunking. You got drinkin’ water in either of them bags?” Dobby asked the man, indicating the backpacks with his chin.

  “Yes, sir,” he managed. His face and neck looked burned and stung from what must have been jellyfish or some other nasty sea creatures. “Gatorade,” he added, still gasping for air. “And enough cash to pay for a one way ride, if you’re interested.”

  “Cash, huh? Girl!” Dobby called to Butter, who was already rummaging the cabinets in the galley for a set of old wool blankets. “Get our guests the clean ones, for Christ’s sake.” Then, turning back to his new passengers, he said, “Lots of shallow reefs in these waters and I ain’t got a depth finder, so you two dry off and then get some rest. The little savage will settled you in and we’ll figure our bearings at first light, or whenever I wake up. My price is whatever you got that you can’t drink or eat and it ain’t negotiable.”

  Chapter 43

  Ratu slowly came to, but the world didn’t make much sense. For one thing, it was upside down. For another, he seemed to be tied up and hanging from a tree.

  A loud whimpering and rustling from behind him took his breath away in more ways than one as Jope’s struggle caused the thin nylon rope to tighten. The two former pirates were bound together, back to back, somewhere in the middle of the wave-ravaged island.

  “Quit pullin’ the rope,” Ratu managed, trying to expand his chest and shoulders to get some room back. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Ratu, I thought you was dead!” Jope’s voice was hoarse from all the screaming and crying he’d been doing since the bloodthirsty cannibal had caught up to them and wrestled them to the ground. Ratu had tried to fight him off but had little chance of succeeding with Jope clinging to him, refusing to let go or help in any way and screaming about not wanting to be eaten. The crazy bastard bound their wrists and ankles with the same plastic ties the cops had started using back home. Once, when a cop had tied his hands in front and stuck him in his car, Ratu had chipped a tooth trying to gnaw his way free.

  “I gotta pee real bad.” Jope began struggling again, but the rope was wound securely around them, cocoon-like. They were hanging two meters off the ground, slowly rotating beneath a squat palm tree at the center of what had once been a village. Smashed huts and other signs of people all pushed up against the bent-over trees. “It’s making my stomach hurt.”

  “So pee, you dumbass, what do you want from me?” Ratu had woken up in a foul mood. The right side of his head ached from where the cannibal hit him with something hard, knocking him unconscious. His throat was bone dry from all the cocaine and hard labor building what hadn’t been such an impenetrable fortress. But when he felt the lurches from Jope’s quiet sobs, he softened. “It’s okay, Jope, just keep your mouth closed when you piss. I gotta go, too.”

  “The shark-god was right; we’re in some really big trouble. That crazy cannibal says he gonna eat us alive. Says we gotta tell him where we buried the coke.”

  “You told him we buried it?”

  “Yeah, but I told him I don’t remember where. And I don’t, Ratu, I wasn’t lying. I told him I don’t care about the coke. He can have it all. I’d dig it up and give right to him, if I knew where it was. That coke been nothin’ but bad news. Just please don’t eat me!” Jope started sobbing again, which made the rope dig deeper into Ratu’s ribcage.

  “Stop crying. It’s gonna be okay. Where is he now?”

  “He says he’s gonna swim back to his boat and get his camera. He says he makes movies of when he eats scumbags who steal from his boss.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Who wanna watch that kinda movie, Ratu? What kind of sick person wanna see people get eaten?” The tears and snot that streaked Jope’s face were slowly being washed away by his own warm pee. “I’m such a dirty mess.” Jope whimpered as he spit and coughed. “I’m a big dumb mess.”

  “You ain’t dumb, Jope. We done some dumb things together, but you was always a really good friend. And it was bad that I ever called you dumb. I got no right to be doing that to a good person like you.”

  “I hope he eats me first,” Jope said, trying to stifle his sobs. “I hope one of my bones gets stuck in his throat and he chokes to death on me. Then you can be saved, Ratu.”

  “You’re a good friend. I love you like my brother.”

  “You my brother, too.”

  Just then the bloodthirsty cannibal—covered from head to toe with some sort of batshit war paint—came stomping out of the broken jungle waving his pointed spear. The crazy bastard let out a demented yodel that drained the last bit of pee from Jope. The dude looked exactly like the weird-ass savages in the big poster taped to the window of the Suva travel agency, the one advertising the Cannibal Culture Spree over on Malakula. Ratu and Jope had passed the window hundreds of times.

  The slow rotation of the former pirates had put the cannibal face to face with Jope, who shrieked, “No, please, please, please, don’t eat me! I just pissed myself. Eat him first!”

  Chapter 44

  Butter snuggled between these new, warm white people, as she watched the sky change from black to purple, then get all fancy with a bunch of oranges and reds. Back on her island, she’d sometimes stay up all night and walk the long narrow path to the east side to watch the sun rise out of the sea. She might take a lizard for company, or her Habu for protection. Nobody would ever bother a little girl with a poisonous viper around her neck, especially not one that appeared to have been hacked apart and sewn back up.

  A sense of calm washed over the little girl as she cuddled in these strange armpits, searching the colorful sky for some sign of a window to Happa Now. The soft touch of a woman had been confusing at first. It made her mama seem closer, but at the same time deepened her sense of loss.

  Nighttime for children on tiny islands and boats out in the middle of big oceans is especially hard. On still nights, when the sea is dead calm, the sky appears endless. How could any child not feel utterly lost and alone in such a big empty place?

  “What if they were wrong? What if they were lying?” Butter spoke out loud, wanting to end the quiet and feel a little less alone. “What if there is no Happa Now?” She watched the yellows begin to bleed into the orange and reds, lighteni
ng the sky and darkening the shadows around the deck. Nobody had ever gone to Happa Now and come back. Grown-ups claimed to have spoken across the great void to family members who had moved on, but she’d never heard a single whisper from Papa. If some cousin or next door neighbor who moved on could talk to you from Happa Now, then a girl’s own father surely could.

  Butter turned her head sideways to look at the woman, whose hair had turned brighter and more golden as it dried. What if it was just like the stories about the boogieman? Even Mama had lied about the Tooth Devil. Maybe some kids became frightened when their teeth fell out, but not her. Butter didn’t need some stupid black pearl to keep from balling about a dumb baby tooth. She understood that baby teeth needed replacing. Stronger adult teeth were for cracking nuts and tearing apart smoked fish. Losing your baby teeth was necessary.

  If there was no Happa Now, would her mama look anything like the parrot she’d dug up after a year in the ground? Butter hoped that whether or not there was a Happa Now, her mama’s flesh and bones had washed out to sea, where nothing was wasted and nothing was left. The sea took everything back in order to make brand new things.

  But here in the armpits of these lightly snoring white people, Butter felt she could deal with all these impossible questions. When the tall white man pulled away, stretched, and got up, Butter burrowed deeper into the embrace of the woman and watched him through narrowed eyes. The man walked to the east-facing stern and began to do a funny dance, bending forward and touching his toes, then twisting left and then right at the hip. Butter giggled, then shut her eyes quickly and hid her face, worried he might have heard. When she dared reopen them, the man was dancing more energetically. First, it was a silly pretend dance where he tapped his toes, swung an invisible stick and took off and held a pretend hat. Then he did a dance that looked more solemn, holding a stiff partner at the hand and hip. And Butter knew the tall white man was dancing for her because he caught her watching and winked down at her. His last dance was fast again; he’d put his hands on his knees and make silly faces. But as the sun’s rays flooded over the gunwale and lit the main deck, the man quit dancing. His hands were frozen on his bent knees, as if someone had just ordered the drummers to stop.