Rich Man's Coffin (12 page)

She was startled, and she turned with her sleepy, hazel eyes meeting his.
 
She lay still, first glancing at him, then coyly under the blanket, fluttering her eyelashes before returning her eyes to his.

         
Black Jack felt the heat of his unwieldy desire.
 
Suddenly, her eyes rolled back into her head. She slowly rolled onto her back.
 
Her arms fell to her sides and she faced away. Her legs parted gently.
 
She let out a long, heavy sigh, flicked her tongue seductively a few times through the furrow of her moist lips, and closed her eyes.

         
Black Jack rose up vigorously on one elbow, his confidence bolstered by her display of subtle signs. He surveyed her landscape quickly, vaulted nimbly on top, and snugly sheathed his sword.
Lalani, please forgive me
, he thought, as he failed to resist the release of his long, hard months of seamanship.

Chapter 10

         
Black Jack watched the big, burly man walk from crew to crew along the busy beach.
 
From his vantage on the high bluff, he could see the village, or
pa
as the Maori people called it, and the entire stretch of beach, along with the handful of ships moored like stray cats in the bay.
 
He felt as though he were a sentinel, like one of the Indian scouts back home, secretly spying on the activities of an enemy tribe.

         
The camp seemed to be operating normally; and in fact, he thought, it seemed as though it would remain doing so regardless of his absence.
 
Never having been sent to school, Arthur did not know the feeling of playing
hooky,
but in this suspended moment of observation from above, he could not help but feel a certain mischievous satisfaction in his hiding out from work.
 
He had never missed a day of work on the plantation or the ship, save for the day of his escape, so this was a completely new experience for him.

         
Laying out
was what his mama had called it, and regardless of the threat of being punished by the Master, she believed that a person should work every day, except Sunday of course. Not working was considered lazy and illustrated a bad character, she would state quite often; unless a man seemed genuinely sick, a fact that still, in her humble opinion, was a matter between the man supposedly afflicted and his god.
The whip will soon sort out whatever the case may be
, she would tell him with a smirk.

         
So Black Jack was laying out; and here it was an hour, maybe two, before the midday meal would be served.
 
Maybe I’ll just stay up on this grassy perch behind this rock and breathe the ocean air all day
, he told himself.
 
Then he considered the consequences, and thought better of it.
 
But how do I slip into the mix without suffering the full wrath of the Foreman,
he wondered?
 
He began to carefully place his feet, one over the other, facing the steep rocky bluff, as he climbed down clinging to the crags.
 
The beauty of the rough terrain made amends for its treachery.
 

He recalled the dark footpath through the brush from the night before, but he was hard pressed to think of it as a true trail.
 
Now, angled rocks protruded from the grassy hill face where normal vegetation was challenged to grow.
 
Large, irregular hedges with small and wiry trunks grew in gnarled and twisted, dense clumps.
 
Their random clusters tangled and intertwined in a juggernaut maze reaching head height across the plateau.
 
It was as though Black Jack had stumbled into a rogue bonsai garden planted by some devious emperor.

         
Strange birds flew in all directions through the perilous canopy. Overhead were White Seagulls, while lower down were Gray Terns, Green Kakapos and Blue Kakas, with the black Takahes and their demonic red eyes running along the ground.
 
Tramping under the high bushes, Black Jack stumbled upon what at first looked like scurrying vermin.
 
They were little brown Kiwi birds.
 
He stopped in sudden fascination to watch them.
  
They had long thin beaks like quills without the feather.
 
They had an oddly shaped body much like an oriental vase; and they had no wings.
 

A bird without wings!
 
Black Jack chuckled to himself.
 
Then he plopped down in the moss and the grass; and he began to laugh uncontrollably.
 
He laughed until tears came to his eyes; and he began to roll around.
 
A flightless bird!
 
He exclaimed to himself.
 
He burst into thunderous guffaws again, until he could not breathe. Imaginary stars began dancing around his head. He saw red.
 
There he lay for a fair number of minutes, rolling and laughing, with runny bird dung dripping onto him from the low, tangled branches above.
 
He had become a true motley fool.

         
He said out loud after a mild recovery, “A bird that cannot fly.
 
How odd! Even a chicken can fly the coop. Even if it don’t get that far!”
 
He thought to himself that this bird and he might have something in common.

         
Slowly Black Jack made his way down the rocky cliffs away from the patchy green piles. He was close to the sand by now, where the stony faces stood only a few yards high.
 
They were like oriental curtains on the sides of a large stage, only suggesting the structures of walls while they served to frame the space between bays with their broad, folded surfaces.
 
The bluff walls were mottled with hand-sized holes, jagged yet weathered, which provided perches and nesting ledges for many different sea birds.
 
They took flight in turns as Black Jack slowly scaled down the cliff.
 
Placing his feet into the egg-shaped holes, he had a hard time seeing any nests from above; and so regrettably, he smashed several eggs on his way down.
 
Other than that, he found the rock edifice rather easy to descend. He soon reached the point where the sand cleanly met the cliff.
 
On his last step, he swung out, turned, jumped, and casually strode toward the shore-whaling station.
 
He had entered a remote corner of the bay undetected. Casually rounding a large rock, he tried to slip quietly into a group of men flensing the side of a gigantic whale.

         
“G’day, Black Jack!” hailed a man in an Australian accent.
 
Arthur was surprised to hear his name from a complete stranger.
 
“Glad you could make it.” the man added. He did not stop slicing the whale’s thick, shiny skin.

         
“How, how...”

         
“How did I know? Mate, you’ve been the talk of the town since you missed the morning muster.”

         
Black Jack was embarrassed.
 
The putrid fumes of last night’s grog welled up in his throat.
 
He thought of retching; but his gut held, and he retained his composure in spite of losing his cover so quickly.
 
“So everyone knows?”
 
He asked.

         
“Sure, mate, you’ve been missing all the fun.” Said the Aussie. “Don’t sweat it, mate.
 
Jackie expects all the new guys to have a slip up or two.
 
Just keep your head down for the rest of the day, and don’t let it happen again.
 
She’ll be right!”

         
Just then, the big burly man came around where the head of the whale used to be.
 
He yelled out, “Oy!
 
Black Jack.
 
There you are!”

         
The Australian spoke up, “It’s all right, Jackie, we’ve got him now.
 
I’ll make a flash flenser of him for sure.”

         
“Right!” said Jackie.
 
“Anyway, word has it that a group of whales is coming down the coast.
 
Should broach sometime today if they wander into the channel.
 
Go over the basics with him, will you Sam?
 
Cheers.”
 
He walked behind them, scanning the deep slits Sam had made in the side of the whale. He folded his hands behind his back.
 
“Beautiful, just beautiful.”
 
He said. Just for good measure, he shouted back over his shoulder, “Longer cuts, Sam.
 
It’s not a shark. We’re not making gills! Drag that blade from back to belly, Sam, back to belly!” Moments later, he disappeared from view as he rounded the fluke of the tail.

         
Sam handed Black Jack a flensing pole with a freshly sharpened blade, and said, “Just watch the bones mate.
 
Don’t get stuck in.
 
The rest is common sense.
 
When she’s ready to drop, just step aside and let that massive strip of meat hit the sand.
 
Don’t let a falling stack of blubber be the last thing you see!”

         
“Right.” said Black Jack, as he made his first incision with the giant scalpel.

         
“So, your first whale hunt, eh?”
 
Asked Sam.

         
“Yes.”

         
“You ready?”

         
“Yes.”

         
“You didn’t chase any out at sea?”

         
“No.”

         
“So, you stayed on the ship and cleaned them.”

         
“No.”

         
“Oh, that’s right, only the Yanks have the whole outfit packed up onboard with ‘em.
 
Well, that’s all right.”
 
Sam said.
 
“The only good ocean whaler is a
dead
ocean whaler. Bah!
 
Bugger that, being on one of those floating rubbish heaps! All that rot and stench packed onto one deck, it’s ungodly!”

         
“Yeah, really.”

         
“Going after the Right Whale:
 
Where to start?”
 
Sam asked himself out loud, pausing to hold his pole thoughtfully. He began to move again as he spoke.
 
“Well, do you know why they call it the Right Whale?”

         
“No.”

         
“Because, unlike the Sperm Whale, after the Right Whale dies, it turns over in the water, nice and easy; and it floats there, waiting to be towed in.
 
Therefore, it’s the
right
whale to hunt!”

         
“Oh.”

         
“Also, the thing is
huge
.
 
It’s close to two ships in length, maybe more.
 
It’s also got two spouts.
 
That’s how you can tell you got a Right Whale when she broaches. Not like this little shrimp. The Sperm Whale only blows once.

         
“All right.”

         
“The mouth, mate!
 
You never want to see that coming back at you; but if you do, you’ll see the gates of Hell, for sure!”

         
“What do you mean?”

         
“I’ve seen it once, mate, and once was enough.
 
A big wrinkled head, and she looks like she’s smiling.
 
She’s
not
smiling, mate!
 
She’s got what looks like a big black iron curtain hanging all the way down where the teeth should be; and they’re as sharp as razors!
 
I’ve heard tell of the Headsman going right through them on a charging whale.
 
They found nothing but shreds and blood, mate, shreds and blood.”
 
Sam seemed to drift off on the last words.