A Dolphins Dream (38 page)

"Look at that!"

He pointed off to starboard. Compton didn't see it at first, the blackness of the ocean and the multi-moons reflecting off the water were disorienting but then the triangle fin appeared, cutting the surface like a plow through luminescent soil.

"That's a bloody big shark," said Moses who had stopped rowing and in whose voice Compton noted a distinctly different pitch.

Compton eyed the dorsal fin as it cut near the boat. The phosphorescent body glided beneath the hull and he observed it with strange detachment. His observations turned inward, for he was more curious at his own reaction to the shark than to the shark itself.

"That was a hammerhead," declared Moses. "I have seen them before out here. A big one like that scared the shit out of me one night when I was fishing. I thought it was the Sea God that had come for me. I rowed home as fast as this boat could move. Those hammerheads are ugly, eh. A real beast. They make my skin itch."

"I don't know," said Compton. "It's all different high and dry in a boat. They seem so removed, like birds on the wing. There's no sense of danger, I don't feel threatened at all. Kind of strange isn't it?"

"Not so strange, Keli. The Sea God has changed you, eh."

"You think so, Moses? Maybe. Something has changed, everything has changed."

"Only you have changed, Keli."

Compton took another turn on the oars, wrapping a rag around their ends to soften the bite on his hands. He rowed for a half-hour before they began to bleed in earnest. It was enough time to give Moses a rest and after turning the oars back over to him, they made Qamea in two hours.

The cuts on Compton's chest, stomach and legs healed dramatically in the next week, though his hands remained tender through constant use. He practiced everyday with the gun out of the water, aiming at leaves, making the spot the size of an eraser on a pencil and squeezing the trigger of the uncocked gun. 

Fifteen days after his first visit to Dilolomo he was back in the water, moving at a leisurely pace to the East Point. The water embraced and intoxicated him and was a sanctuary from all that existed outside of it. The ocean dissolved his thoughts of Sinaca and the breath-hold sustained the infinite present for the length of every dive. The fish played their role in the suspension of time, until a sudden noise or movement startled them into flight and they accelerated into the hyperspace of the future. The currents of time moved in surreptitious directions, never maintaining an even plane as they are structured to do in the world of man.

A large coral trout turned, its curiosity drawing it to that which lay so fixed to the bottom. The fish moved slowly in its own time, often doubling back on itself but always moving upward of the motionless figure. Compton, in deliberate, slow-motion lifted toward the silvered heavens of the surface and the coral trout circled, ts thd, eyeing him as he ascended. A few minutes later, when Compton reappeared, the coral trout watched him fall like a wingless falcon from another sky. On the bottom again he waited patiently as the fish unhurriedly moved to inspect the motionless intruder, weaving its way on the force of its curiosity. When the fish was very close but not close enough Compton, out of breath, lifted again, drifting up and out of sight into the lighted ceiling. Compton came again and again, and each time the curiosity of the coral trout brought it a foot closer. On the sixth dive he held out the gun so that he would not need to move it and waited. The fish came slowly, turned away and came back again as a constriction built in Compton's throat. Inch-by-inch the fish moved closer and his lungs shouted their need but he ignored the call. The fish came yet another few inches closer and he focused on a small point directly behind its pectoral fin and let the spear fly. Completely out of breath, he could not wait to see what happened and kicked frantically for the ceiling. Exploding through the surface and pulling the snorkel from his mouth, he bellowed dizzying breaths. Catching wind and replacing the snorkel, he looked down. The coral trout was on its side, quivering and turning in a tight circle. Its backbone had been struck but not cleanly broken and so it floundered on the bottom with the spear in it. Unable to dive until he regained his breath, he watched the first white tip circle in. By the time he was able to sustain a decent breath, four sharks on the edge of frenzy darted in and out on the downed coral trout. He dove directly into the circle of sharks and hit one with the wooden stock of the spear gun, driving it off and scattering the others. Reaching the fish, he opened a gill and thrust a hand into it and swam to the surface. The fish was larger than he had first estimated, close to forty pounds. When he cleared the surface he bellowed a wild cry of triumph, the howl coming unexpected from a depth unfamiliar. He lay in rapt wonder of the fish and his reaction to the feat. In that moment, he realized the truth of Aprosa words; every shot must be a kill shot. There could be no insurance in the dragline that discouraged impeccability. There was no other way to hunt, he declared to himself. More importantly, no other way to live.

Moses came in the afternoon and was suitably impressed with the coral trout.

"That is the best eating fish. A big one, too. One shot dead, eh."

"Not quite," answered Compton. "I didn't have enough range but it was close enough. Another week of diving off this point and I'll be ready for the deep reef and the mackerel."

"You be a Fiji hunter soon. Then what will you do?"

Compton shrugged and in a moment of jest blurted, "I guess I'll go back to the States with my world record mackerel."

Moses appeared unfazed by the declaration, as if the subject had already been discussed. “And you will forget the lessons that Fiji give you," sweeping his hand over Orchid Beach.

Compton touched a scar on his hand.

"There's truth in what you say. Unless, of course, I take you with me."

"We would have to take Fiji with us, eh. Beauty does not travel long in the mind. It is lost to the moment that stands before us."

Moses pointed to the branches of the fallen tree and jumped out of the chair onto the sand.

"See, the first orchids bloom. The tree will soon be filled with these yellow beauties. It is a beautiful sight, yet it is forgotten easily. Maybe that's why nature must do it over and over again so that we don't forget what is beauty.

"You're right, Moses," Compton said wistfully. "I'll forget all of this one day. It's so vivid now, I think it'd be impossible to forget. But one day it'll be reduced to bits and pieces of my memory and a few scars."

Compton looked up at the tree and out across the water to Taveuni, then back to Moses. “Sometimes it's hard to believe I'm really here at all. After I'm gone it will…" Hetrailed off, contemplating a future barren of his present state.

Moses climbed part way up the tree and tickled a testicular bulb of a yet unopened orchid while Compton gazed out to sea, still lost in speculations of his eventual departure. Jumping from the tree, Moses landed inches away from his face.

"Keli, my friend, Steven Morris, who builds the boats wants to come to Qamea and live next year. I show you where he wants to build his bure. It's very near here."

"All right," agreed Compton, stumbling from his speculations.

"Yes, but first I show you the land we build it on. There is a beach hidden behind the mangroves jes' the other side of the point. Put on your shoes."

They hiked up to the jungle toward the East Point on a narrow path through groves of ferns, hanging vines, past tall trees, then back down to the shoreline and the mangroves. There it opened up to a small beach and above it lay a cleared area sloping gently toward the jungle.

"This place is beautiful," remarked Compton, genuinely impressed. "If you chopped off the tops of the mangroves, he'd have a full view of the ocean. No wind in here, perfect." 

"Yes, and this ground can be used for the garden," said Moses, pointing east and west.

"What about fresh water?"

"Come, I show you."

Near the tide's edge was an area strewn with black boulders that melted into its sister lava. A pool rested in the crater of an outcropping of rocks. Moses scooped out the water and tasted it.

"This is fresh water from a spring. When the tide comes in it becomes a bit salty. But if a wall was built to keep out the tide, he have all the fresh water he need for himself and the garden."

"How did you find this spot?"

"There are places like this everywhere, eh. But Fiji man is lazy and doesn't want to do the work to make em' right. They want the fresh water next to the bure that is already built. This place has too much work."

"Very little work, really, and he'd have a great place. Look, he'd be right by the East Point there, just jump in the water and all the dinner he could ever eat is right there."

Compton sat on a boulder and looked out through the mangroves to the East Point where his mind descended below the surface and visualized the reef, the soft corals, the caves and fish exactly as it was and would always be.

"Perfect," he said to himself.

For three consecutive days Compton hunted the East Point. He was not interested in big fish but in small fish that were on the move. They were far more difficult to spear and the concentration required was demanding. He was placing the spear exactly where he wanted. On two fish he missed the mark by a hair's breadth and the shot on the third fish was dead center. He was seeing the spot and focusing down as he should but the currents and surge and the weightlessness made it difficult keeping the spear steady and maintaining the finite focus. Though this sort of exercise developed the concentration needed for accuracy on the big fish and though their kill spots were in proportion to their size, different problems were presented which could not be resolved anywhere but on the deep reef. There, the power of the fish and the depth of the dive were not contributing factors of a misplaced shot, but more a matter of life and death. Lesser fish than these mackerel had taken men to their graves.

Moses picked Compton up in the early morning well before the sun bloomed out of the sea. By the time they had rowed out to the deep reef it was far above the horizon. Compton had tied the shooting line near the base of the spear into a notch he had cut out with a small file. Because much of the momentum would be gone once the spear had traveled eighteen feet, he was reasonably confident that the line would hold the spear and the stress would be minimal. If, however, he were to miss the kill spot and the fish were to power off, nothing would stop irom taking the spear shaft. There were no wings at the tip of the spear to keep it in the flesh, much less a barb to hold it, so the shot had to be true.

The waxing moon was propelling the current into a force. It was under these same conditions that Compton had always seen the Silver Mackerel. He dropped down at the north edge expecting the fish to appear out of the blue as before. Suspended in neutral buoyancy he drifted like a dandelion in the wind of the current, moving east down the reef to its edge and then kicked hard to regain lost water. His legs were strong now and he didn't tire from steady kicking.

He worked the north edge of the reef for two hours without a sighting.

When the sun was high and he had all but given up, a single mackerel materialized over the east edge. It was over twenty kilos and it came slowly. He waited for it to close the distance. The spear was aimed, free of its wings and he of encumbering thoughts. The fish and the man drifted together in that curious stalking dance performed beneath the sea. When the fish was near and when the tip of the spear filled the spot, he pulled the trigger. The spear hit the fish, stopping it in its track, tipping it slightly from the impact as if it were casually looking up at the surface. He swam to the fish and, out of old habit, grasped the spear to draw the fish to him. The spear pulled out of the fish and the fish ignited into life as if a switch had been thrown. It whipped around hitting Compton in the chest with its tail and thundered off over the reef.

In the boat, Compton sat with Moses and tried to explain what had happened.

"The shot was right on. I hit the backbone but it didn't break. Just sort of paralyzed the fish and when I pulled on the spear it removed the blockage on the spinal column. The fish tore off like it was never hit. I have to get closer. It's going to take a short shot on those big fish, which have a lot of meat and bone to penetrate. I hit the spot, though. I was right on it."

Compton was pleased with himself, perhaps even a little surprised.

"I was right on it," he said again.

"Well, brother, soon you be taking off your fins and mask and snorkel and putting on a pair of goggles," Moses said with undisguised glee.

"No, I'll never get that far away from my civilized roots. Without fins in this current, I'd be clear over to Rabi by now. I couldn't dive thirty feet without a snorkel. This is as primitive as I'll get. But there's a certain sense of freedom, of resourcefulness, in not being umbilically attached to the machinery of the twentieth century. It was exhilarating. I'm ready to go tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow. The garden is lacking proper care, eh. But the next time, you do the rowing."

The marriage of Malia, daughter of Lavenia's sister, Ruth, to Benjamin, took place a week after Compton had lost the mackerel. Upon Moses’ insistence, Compton wore a sulu for the occasion. Moses arrived midmorning to allow plenty of time for the row and to utilize the current that was running west down the island. Compton sat in his usual place in the bow. When Moses was about to shove off he suddenly burst into giggles.

"What's so funny?" asked Compton.

Moses pointed to Compton's crotch. From his angle all that Compton possessed was dramatically exposed.

"What are your plans this evening, brother? You going to scare off all the women in the village."

 Compton snapped his legs shut.

"Hey, wearing a dress is new for me. Nobody showed me the right way to sit."