Far Tortuga (29 page)
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
Athens stretches his arms over his head and yawns.
Maybe if
all
dose men stood by him, Copm Steadman could have saved his vessel.
Raib opens his eyes to study Will’s expression.
Nemmine, Will. (
in a different voice
) Yah, mon! (
laughs
) Copm Steadman told de men dat mornin dat he had fifty-four years of sea experience. And by noon he had had a sea experience dat were not much use to him, cause he were dead.
The sun has not yet risen, and the reef is dark.
Raib’s voice is quiet: he is pointing at the sky.
Any mon see dat star? Buddy, you never seen it? After all de times I tellin you to watch de weather? (
voice rising
) Dat star went straight cross de horizon. Now dat is
true
sign! Sign of
wind
! (
gasps
) I tellin you fellas now, if dis were not de month of April, I would be lookin for sign of hurricane!
April Fool Day, mon.
Dis is de worst April dat I remember! De worst one! I never
see
such a April, with dis wind gone crazy every day. Take a fool to be a turtler!
April Fool Day, mon.
Dass exactly how I would express it—Fool Day! Every goddom day is Fool Day!
April Fool, mon.
Brown and Speedy go with Raib in the starboard catboat. Brown’s hands are still swollen, and he sits sullen, half asleep, sombrero tilted low over his eyes. Careless, he drops a kelleck close to Raib’s bare foot.
You fella Brown! Don’t lay dat kelleck dere!
When Brown mutters, the Captain, who has turned away, whirls back. Speedy stops whistling.
How dat go? Speak out, mon!
Brown say dis be no use to him in life.
So he say, den. But no mon gone to come into dis boat dat ain’t willin to learn!
We got to be willin in our mind, Brownie. Maybe we come turtlin again and maybe not, but now we can go home to Roatán and pick up a few turtle if we lucky.
I no pick up shit! I a engineer and den a singer!
So you say, den.
The catboat slides from net to net. There are few turtles. In the gray dawn, the oars thump dully on the gunwales, and the new turtles sigh.
You ain’t got de theory into it yet! Turn dat oar
over
—you can’t row like dat!
Dass de way
you
understand it, Doddy, but my hand don’t understand it dat way.
Okay, den, Speedy, I agree—do as your hand say in dis motter.
A wash of sea as the boat rolls; hard flippers on wood and calipee. The slap of bare feet on the thwarts.
We comin up, now—you, Brown, grob de net!
Aw, shit—I miss it.
Okay, Doddy, Speedy got it! You a nice boy, Speedy! Just like school days, Speedy!
Goddom it, Speedy, lay dem oars right in de boat!
Okay, Doddy!
Easy, Brownie! Pull best, Speedy!
Pull best, Speedy! Dass
you
, Speedy! Speedy-Boy, you doin fine!
Sunrise: stars rising in the day. A sudden sweet whiff of the tropics from the coast thirty miles away.
Mon! Smell de land! Gone to give up de sea, go back to de land! Go back to dat sweet land of Roatán!
I no work more in dis fuckin boat.
You can say
dat
again, darlin. No mon gone to come—
Copm? Let Buddy come into dis boat, place of Brownie.
Buddy? He can’t pull dat oar when dere is wind.
I pull strong enough for two. I
strong
, mon, I one strong nigger. And dis way dat boy gone learn something about turtlin; he won’t learn nothin settin by de galley.
The Captain grunts.
Ever since he were a frock-tail boy, Buddy want be a turtler, cause he daddy and he gran’daddy and he uncles, every one of dem, all de way back, dey turtlers; he want be a turtler so he can hang around with me. But he
ain’t
a turtler, no more’n de rest of dem boys I got; dey like de big ships better. I brought dem down to de cays and trained dem good, and now dey ain’t one of dem turtlin, not one: dey all abondonin dere home, dey livin up dere in Tampa and Miami. Can’t work with me, dey said! (
quietly
) I tellin you now, Speedy, cause you a good mon, you de onliest one of all dese fellas dat might amount to
anything, I tellin you now, boy, dat I bitter. Dere are days when I very, very bitter. Cause I wore myself out to get to de place where I de best dey is in de main fishery of de island, and now dat fishery don’t mean nothin. No, mon. De schooners all gone and de green turtle goin. I got to set back and watch dem ones grow big on de Yankee tourist trade dat would not have amounted to a pile of hen shit in times gone back. I got to swaller dat.
Modern time, mon.
Buddy dere, he stubborn, y’know: he take after Copm Andrew dat way. Except he no domn good, and he not strong, and he get seasick every day he on de water, and still he say, Let me go in de boat. Dat be a very mysterious thing. Sometimes I think he must be some kind of idiot, but in de school he very clever, so it can’t be dat. Dey
some
way he an idiot, okay, but I can’t figure out which way it is.
Old-fashion boy, mon. He love his doddy. Ain’t many today dat knows which one dere doddy is, but dis one know.
Dass it. (
laughs
) He love his doddy, dat were
his
mistake in life!
Raib stops laughing. As if listening, he looks all around the skyline. The wavelets slap the hull. Then he speaks quietly, avoiding Speedy’s gaze.
Dis mornin sea tryin to tell me something, Speedy. It so
old
, mon. Make me wonder what I doin way out here on dese reefs, all de days of my life. (
sighs
) Life has got away from me, some way—I just goin through de motions.
Get dem boats aboard! We take advantage of dis wind to go to Miskita Cay, crawl dese few turtle, den go dere to Bragman’s to register. After dat, full moon be nearly past, and we gets fair weather, we go offshore dere to Misteriosa and cotch dem on dere way south to de Bogue.
Hear dat? You hear me tellin him de other day dat comin to Cape Bank were de wrong direction? Now he tellin
us
!
Well, where in de hell is Misteriosa?
Way out dere. Out Queena way.
Never been dere, mon.
Nobody know dat place. Dat why dey calls it Misteriosa.
Just so long’s de
turtle
know about it, dass de main thing.
The ship weighs anchor; the crew come to the galley for their breakfast.
Eighteen turtle altogether. By Jesus, dat is
poor
!
Seventeen, Copm. Cause one died.
In de sailin days, I were afraid of de full moon in May time, cause after de full you would have a calm. For maybe a week, wherever de current carried you, you went. But since I got motors into her, de goddom wind never stop blowin!
Oh, mon! I know something about wind myself. One time comin from Swan Island we dismasted in de
Jemsons
, right in sight of de island. In a hurricane. And we drift from dere and we went back over to de Hobbies. Dat is how many hundred mile? And from de Hobbies Cays we come back pretty near to Cayman, and den we got corried down again pretty near over to Sennillas. And den de hurricane swung from de south and landed us right back on de east side of de Old Rock. Wherever de breeze took us, we went, and dat where she left us, right back in Cayman! Seven days in a hurricane! Dismasted seven days!
Raib contemplates Will, amused.
Hear dis fella? Since he told us dat tale of de
Majestic
, he can’t stop talkin! (
shakes his head
) Dey many’s de times you got to dismast de vessel yourself—
Oh, yes! One time dere on de—
Well, de story about
dat
: I left home in 1939, on de nineteenth day of October, nineteenth day of October in 1939. And I sailed out here to de cays to get some guano, to fertilize—
Bird shit.
Bird shit. Dass good enough. So I went out to de cays and loaded up dis bird shit manure, got de vessel about two-thirds loaded. De crew wanted to take some more, but—
You had more bird shit den you know what to do with.
Yah. (
laughter
) Didn’t want to overload de vessel, cause it were in de hurricane time of de year. Anyway, I left dis place in de mornin, and I seen a real horrible roll of sea, a
ugly
-lookin roll of sea. Nice weather, y’know, but a heavy roll of sea, and down around sout’-sou’west was awful coward overcast, all from de horizon, a very heavy-lookin mass of sky. So I told de fellas dat could be was a hurricane approachin, cause de barometer was fallin in de time of her risin, and we would try to scud along to de northward, Cuba way—
Give me some more dat gray stuff, Athens, just so I fill my gut.
Gray stuff? Know what
dat
is?
Nemmine tellin me. I just tryin to keep it down
standin up to de wheel, and he sung out, Land o’er! Yes! We was all de way northward to Caymans! And us only abidin and not sailin, we was layin her by! Seen dat land o’er and sung away as we was scuddin her into de broad day!
Restless, the Captain stands, then sits again.
Well, we got up under de island some ways, in sight of Georgetown. I put out two anchors at de same time, and neither one of dem two anchors held her. All two dragged, and she went off into de deep. And de first puff out of dat hurricane struck her, and it nigh blowed de blocks and rope off her. (
laughs uneasily
) Blowed every fraction of dat canvas away. She had started den to fall into de water, y’know, her gunwale was down into de water on de lee side. And I saw dat de two masts was gone to turn her over, so I took de ax and I started to chop de mast. But when I chopped de lanyards loose, de mast was decayed at de deck, and instead of it breaking off above de deck, it breaked onto de
edge
of de deck, and tore up dat side of de vessel …
Oh, mon!
Oh, mon, dass it! (
leans toward galley door
) Give dese fellas johnnycake, den, Athens! (
sits back again
) Well, dass about it. Dat load of bird shit were blown all de way from Georgetown to Bragman’s, and I never got home till January.