Far Tortuga (38 page)
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
You okay? Need water?
Got a compass? You very far from land!
A line looped out to the boat falls across the thwarts, within reach of the man’s hand. The man turns slowly, watching the line drag overboard as the
Eden
passes.
Shit, mon! Grob de line!
Slowly the man in the boat raises his hand; he waves, and his mouth opens. Wodie screeches.
Shut up, Wodie! What dat fella sayin, Will?
He tellin us goodbye! I heard him good:
goodbye
!
No, mon! He not so crazy as all
dat
! Come up on him again!
Will recoils the line as the
Eden
circles, rolling heavily in the blue chop; she comes abreast of the small boat a second time. Again the mate loops the line across the boat, and again the voyager ignores it. When its end slides off into the sea, the man raises his gaze to the faces at the
Eden
’s rail, regarding them one by one. His face is clear and his eyes bright. Again his mouth forms just one word—
Goodbye!
The
Eden
’s men do not answer, nor do they speak or look at one another. All stand silent but for Wodie, who has retreated to the galley roof. Eyes shut, he lies there on his side, arms wrapped around his knees. Speedy goes and lays his hand on Wodie’s foot, and Wodie moans.
Speedy? Dass him, Speedy! De mon in de blue boat!
Blue boat?
Yah, mon! De child in de mornin sea!
What de motter with you, Wodie?
Dey drove dat nail into my footprint—now I done.
With an old machete, Speedy chips the crest of a big conch: a hollow metallic
tonk
. Then the crown cracks off, and he slices the muscle and drags the animal out of its shell, rolling the body off the warm pink inner spiral. Flecks of pink shell and livid entrail glisten in the sun on his black hands. He pares away the mollusk guts, horns, radula and spleen; with a length of pipe, he pounds the meat to break the fibers, then tosses it into a bent pot of citrus juice to cut away the slime.
See dis, Wodie? I boil dis just a little bit, den more juice, den black pepper. Plenty black pepper, mon—learn dat from school days.
Wodie rocks a little, saying nothing.
Conch salad, mon; good for de nerves. I give you some of dis, you gone feel
better
.
Will relieves Buddy, Byrum relieves Will, Wodie relieves Byrum.
Noon.
Start dis voyage with one man too many. Now we one too few.
Afternoon. Speedy relieves Wodie. The crumpled cigarette pack blows aft along the scuppers, and Raib grabs at it and misses.
Goddom thing! I never can come up with it!
Raib chases the orange packet to the stern, where he gets down on hands and knees to extricate it from beneath a turtle.
Domn Athens gone a fortnight, and he
still
litterin de ship, dat de kind of slob he is!
Wind clouds. Hastening birds.
A shadow in the eastern distance, under a sunken sky, like a memory in the ocean emptiness.
Land o’er! See dere? EAST-SOU’EAST!
EAST-SOU’EAST!
The cay is stranded among reefs, broken white to windward.
Oh, mon! Look at dem blowers!
Well, we gone to get more weather here. See de uneasy way dem birds is flyin? To and fro, low to the water, like dey huntin something?
Now
you
de one soundin like Wodie, Copm Raib!
Dat ain’t duppy talk! Dat is common knowledge!
The
Eden
is several miles to leeward when the first terns come shrieking to her masts; the swarms of nesting birds circle the cay as if it might withdraw beneath the sea.
I never see birds as thick as dat! Dey look like smoke!
Dat cause we scarin dem.
Raib, yelling, runs toward the mast.
Ain’t
us
dat scarin dem! No mon! Ain’t us! You, Speedy! Port!
PORT!
Steady!
STEAD-
DAY
!
The island has formed in the corner of a reef, built up slowly over decades from a drift of storm sand and detritus: an eddy, a shoal of coral sand, tide pools, sea wrack, a floating mangrove radicel, hot humus of sargassum and red algae.
On the high ground at its northern end stands a small wood of sea grape, logwood, jennifer trees. On the open sand a thatch shelter is visible and a fire burns nearby. The flame and smoke are transparent in the sunlight, but the rising heat blurs the patterns of the bird multitudes above. The shadow of wings dapples the island, and the bird voice dims the sea sound on the windward shore.
Dis a pretty place, Copm Raib!
It were! Dey foulin dis one, too!
We let go de hook, den?
I disgusted! I tellin you,
I disgusted
! I so disgusted I would sail dis evenin except de reefs so bad in dis domned place dat I needs high sun to see dat channel!
The Captain climbs down slowly from the mast. His face is terrible.
We stuck here till de mornin.
The
Eden
anchors a quarter-mile offshore, under the lee. Raib moves past the silent men into the deckhouse.
Dey got two skiffs dere, Copm Raib.
Think I ain’t seen dem? Get out de way.
A narrow long black skiff, powered by outboard, leaves the island. It veers toward the
Eden
, coming fast, and circles the schooner at full speed, bow slamming down hard on the chop, old motor roaring. The eight figures in the skiff, all of them standing, yell and gesticulate. Over motor and wind, no message comes, only harsh desolate human cries and the single word “Cay-
mahn
!” howled in derision.
The skiff’s circle tightens; the eight figures sway. The skiff carries big baskets full of tern eggs.
Dat de same gang we seen up dere toward Bobel. See dat black skiff?
Yah, mon. And dey more of dem on de beach. Dey never come way out here in dem small boats, not in
dis
weather. Were Desmond brought’m.
Got’m reapin de bird eggs while he out scourin de cays for more. Den he take de whole swarm over dere to de land of opportunity.
If dey lucky. Might land dem on de coast of Cuba, tell dem it Florida. Save fuel dat way.
Dey be lucky if he come back for dem at all.
Hope dey don’t know
dat
yet.
Yah, mon. Got any idea like dat, den we in trouble.
Slowly the men eat their rice and beans, all except Raib, who is still in the deckhouse. Brown takes his plate and climbs onto his fuel drum. Squatting there, he stares at the circling skiff, his food uneaten. He grins a little.
The men speak in near whispers.
I tellin you, dese pan-heads gone to condemn dese banks for turtle. Mon go high-seain now, can’t crawl his turtle at Bobel cause de sons of bitches all around. Got to leave de crawl minded, or dey corry de turtle away.
Corry de
mon
away, too. I give dis fella ten pound ten to take up de street in Kingston Town, and dere was a gang dat grob de fella ahead of him and took his money, so he turn back. I
don’t want to see
dat
place again, not in dis life, mon. I was up dere one time, layin over, and by Christ you could not leave a porthole open. Oh, dey mean bastards, I tellin you. Dey kill you on de docks dere and not think a thing about it.
Dere heads is filled with nothin—goddom pan-heads.
See dat spiky hair? Calls dereselves dreadlocks. Niyamen. Dey livin in de garbage of de towns, and dey smokin weed.
Dass it. Ganja. When dey on dat, dey gets hostile—hear dem yellin? Don’t like white people,
no
mon!
The skiff disappears under the stern.
Got to feel sorry for dem all de same, for dey been kept down too much. I been in a lot of dem big towns—Bragman’s, Bluefields—and I been to Port-of-Spain, (
shakes head
) Oo, mon! (
whistles
) Rats lives better den de people livin at de outskirts of de town! Dey got no song dere and dey got no hope. De onliest thing dey got and dat is anger—oh, dey got plenty
dat
.
Yah, mon. See dem fellas? Prob’ly dey West Kingston boys, or Sponnish Town.