Collection 1980 - Yondering (v5.0) (5 page)

Taking his sack, he walked forward and sat down with his back against the foremast.

Kahler came forward. “We’ll have chow pretty quick. One of those Bugis is a first-rate cook.” He glanced down at him. “How’d you survive on that reef? You must be tough.”

“I get along.”

“By this time they probably figure you’re dead,” Kahler said.

“Maybe.”

He knew what they were thinking. If something happened to him now, no one would know any better. Well, he promised himself, nothing was going to happen. He was going to meet Douglas at Woodlark.

When they went below to eat, he let them go first. He paused for a moment near one of the Bugi seamen. His Indonesian was just marketplace talk, but he could manage. He indicated the sack. “It is a trust,” he said, “from a dying man. He has a granddaughter who needs this.” He gestured toward the reef. “The sea was kind,” he said.

“You are favored,” the Bugi replied.

“If there is trouble—?”

“We are men of the sea. The troubles of white men are the troubles of white men.”

He went below. There was a plate of food at the empty place. Randall had not begun to eat. Coolly, before Randall could object, he switched plates with him.

“What’s the matter?” Randall demanded. “Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust nobody,” he said. “Nobody, Mr. Randall.”

“You know me?”

“I know you. Douglas told me about you.”

They exchanged glances. “Douglas? What do you know about him?”

“I’m his second mate. I’m joining him at Woodlark. Then we’ll arrange to get this”—he kicked the sack—“to that girl in Sydney.”

“Why bother?” Kahler said. “A man could have himself a time with that much gold.”

“And it will buy that girl an education.”

“Hell! She’ll get along—somehow.”

The food was good, and when supper was over, he took his gold and went on deck. Randall was a very tough, dangerous man. So were the others, and it was three to one. He could have used Douglas or Hildebrand. Or Charlie—most of all, Charlie.

The sails hung slack, and the moon was out. There was a Bugi at the wheel, another on lookout in the bow. These were tricky, dangerous waters, much of them unsurveyed. He settled himself against the mainmast for a night of watching.

The storm that had wrecked his boat had blown him east, far off his course. It could be no less than a hundred miles to Misima and probably a good bit more.

The hours dragged. A light breeze had come up, and the vessel was moving along at a good clip. The moon climbed to the zenith, then slid down toward the ocean again. He dozed. The warmth of the night, the easy motion of the schooner, the food in his stomach, helped to make him sleepy. But he stayed awake. They, of course, could sleep by turns.

At one time or another there had been a good bit of talk about Randall, Sanguo Pete, and Kahler. They had a hand in more than one bit of doubtful activity. He was half asleep when they suddenly closed in on him. At one moment he had been thinking of what he’d heard about them, and he must have dozed off, for they closed in quickly and silently. Some faint sound of bare feet on the deck must have warned him even as they reached for him.

He saw the gleam of starlight on steel, and he ripped up with his own knife. The man pulled back sharply, and his blade sliced open a shirt, and the tip of his knife drew a red line from navel to chin, nicking the chin hard as the man drew back.

Then he was on his feet. Somebody struck at him with a marlin spike, and he parried the blow with his blade and lunged. The knife went in; he felt his knuckles come up hard against warm flesh, and he withdrew the knife as he dodged a blow at his head.

The light was bad, for them as well as for him, and one might have been more successful than three; as it was, they got in each other’s way in the darkness. The man he had stabbed had gone to the deck, and in trying to crawl away, tripped up another.

He had his gun but dared not reach for it. It meant shifting the knife, and even a moment off guard would be all they would need.

One feinted a rush. The man on the deck was on his feet, and they were spreading out. Suddenly they closed in. The half light was confusing, and as he moved to get closer to one man, he heard another coming in from behind. He tried to make a quick half turn, but a belaying pin caught him alongside the skull. Only a glancing blow, but it dazed him, and he fell against the rail. He took a cut at the nearest man, missed but ripped into another. How seriously, he did not know. Then another blow caught him, and he felt himself falling.

He hit the water and went down. When he came up, the boat was swinging. The Bugi at the wheel was swinging the bow around. As the hull went away from him, the bow came to him, and there were the stays. He grabbed hold and pulled himself up to the bowsprit.

For a moment he hung there, gasping for breath. He could see them peering over the rail.

“Did you get him, cap?”

“Get him? You damned right I did! He’s a goner.” He turned then. “You cut bad, Pete?”

“I’m bleedin’. I got to get the blood stopped.”

“He got me, too,” Kahler said. “You sure we got him?”

Randall waved at the dark water. “You don’t see him, do you? We got him, all right.”

After a moment they went below, and the tall yellow seaman at the wheel glanced at the foremast against the sky, lined it up with his star. His expression did not change when he saw Dugan come over the bow and crouch low.

There was no sound but the rustle of bow wash, the creak of rigging, and a murmur of voices aft. He moved aft, exchanging one glance with the Bugi, and when he was close enough, he said, “Thanks.” Not knowing if the man understood, he repeated, “
Terima kasi
.”

He knew the Bugi had deliberately put the rigging below the bowsprit in his way. The wonder was that even with the distraction of the fighting Randall had not noticed it.

His gun was still in the side pocket of his pants, and he took it out, struggling a bit to do so, as the dungarees were a tight fit. He put the gun in his hip pocket where it was easier of access. He did not want to use a gun, and neither did they. Bullet scars were not easy to disguise and hard to explain when found on rails or deck houses.

Sanguo Pete loomed in the companionway and stood blinking at the change from light to darkness. There was a gash on his cheekbone that had been taped shut, and there was a large mouse over one eye. He hitched up his dungarees and started forward, a gun strapped to his hips. He had taken but two steps when he saw Dugan crouched close to the rail.

Pete broke his paralysis and yelled, then grabbed for his gun. It was too late to think about the future questions. As Pete’s hand closed on the butt, Dugan shot him.

Randall loomed in the companionway, but all he saw was the wink of fire from Dugan’s gun. He fell forward, half on deck.

Pete lay in the scuppers, his big body rolling slightly with the schooner.

The Bugi looked at Dugan and said, “No good mans.”

“No good,” Dugan agreed.

One by one he tilted them over the side and gave them to the sea.

“My ship is waiting at Woodlark Island,” Dugan said.

The Bugi glanced at him. “Is Cap’n Douglas ship. I know.” Suddenly he smiled. “I have two brother on your ship—long time now.”

“Two brothers? Well, I’ll be damned!”

Kahler was lying on the bunk when he went below. His body had been bandaged, but he had lost blood.

“We’re going to Woodlark,” Dugan said. “If you behave yourself, you might make it.”

Kahler closed his eyes, and Dugan lay down on the other bunk and looked up at the deck overhead. The day after tomorrow—

It would be good to be back aboard, lying in his own bunk. He remembered the brief note in the Pilot Book for the area.

This coral reef, discovered in 1825, lies about 82 miles east-northeast of Rossel Island. The reef is 18 miles in length, in a northeast and southwest direction. The greatest breadth is 3 miles, but in some places it is not more than a mile wide. At the northeastern end of the reef there are some rocks 6 feet high. No anchorage is available off the reef.

Wreck. The wreck of a large iron vessel above water lies (1880) on the middle of the southeastern side of the reef.

If they wanted to know any more, they could just ask him. He’d tell them.

B
Y THE
R
UINS OF ‘
E
L
W
ALARIEH’

F
ROM THE HILLSIDE above the ruins of El Walarieh one could watch the surf breaking along the shore, and although the grass was sparse, thin goats grazed among the occasional clumps of brushwood high on the hill behind me. It was a strange and lonely coast, not without its own wild beauty.

Three times I had been there before the boy approached. He was a thin boy with large, beautiful eyes and smooth brown skin. He squatted beside me, his shins brown and dirty, looking curiously toward the sea, where I was looking.

“You sit here often?”

“Yes, very often.”

“You look at something?”

“I look at the sea. I look at the sea and the shore, sometimes at the clouds.” I shifted my position a little. “It is very beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” He was astonished. “The sea is beautiful?” He looked again to be sure that I was not mildly insane.

“I like the sea, and I like to look at those ruins and to wonder who lived there, and what their lives were like.”

He glanced at the ancient, time-blackened ruins. “They are no good, even for goats. The roofs have fallen in. Why do you look at the sea and not at the goats? I think the goats are more beautiful than the sea. Look at them!”

I turned my head to please him. There were at least fifty, and they browsed or slept upon the hillside above me. They were white against the green of the hill. Yes, there was beauty there, too. He seemed pleased that I agreed with him.

“They are not my goats,” he explained, “but someday I shall own goats. Perhaps as many as these. Then you will see beauty. They shall be like white clouds upon the green sky of the hillside.”

He studied the camera that lay on the grass near my feet. “You have a machine,” he said. “What is it for?”

“To make pictures. I want to get pictures of the sea and the ruins.”

“Of the goats, too?”

To please him, I agreed. “Yes, also of the goats.”

The idea seemed to satisfy him, yet he was obviously puzzled, too. There was something he did not understand. He broached the idea to me, as one gentleman to another. “You take pictures of the sea and the ruins…also of the goats. Why do you take these?”

“To look at them. To catch their beauty.”

“But why a picture?” He was still puzzled. “They are here! You can see them without a picture. The sea is here, the sky, the ruins…the goats, too. They are always here.”

“Yes, but I shall not always be here. I shall go away, and I want them to remember, to look at many times.”

“You need the machine for that? I can remember. I can remember all of the goats. Each one of them.” He paused, thinking about it. “Ah! The machine then is your memory. It is very strange to remember with a machine.”

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. “I think you have machines for many things. I would not like that.”

The following day I was back on the hillside. It had not been my plan to come again, yet somehow the conversation left me unsatisfied. I had the feeling that somehow I’d been bested. I wanted the goatherd to understand.

When he saw me sitting there, he came down the hillside. He saluted me gravely, then sat down. I handed him a cigarette, and he accepted it gravely. “You have a woman?” he asked.

“No.”

“What, no woman? It is good for a man to have a woman.”

“No doubt.” He was, I thought, all of thirteen. “You have a woman?” I asked the question gravely.

He accepted it in the same manner. “No. I am young for a woman. And they are much trouble. I prefer the goats.”

“They are no trouble?”

He shrugged. “Goats are goats.”

The comment seemed to explain much. He smoked in silence, and I waited for him to speak again. “If I had a woman, I would beat her. Women are good when beaten often, but they are not so productive as goats.”

It was a question I did not wish to debate. He seemed to have all the advantage in the argument. He undoubtedly knew goats, and spoke of women with profound wisdom. I knew neither goats nor women.

“If you like the hillside,” he said at last, “why do you not stay? The picture will be no good. It will be the sea and the ruins only at one time, and they are not always the same. They change,” he added.

“My home is elsewhere. I must go back.”

“Then why do you leave? Is it not good there? I think you are very restless.” He looked at me. “Have you goats at home?”