Islands in the Stream (12 page)

“Goddam,” Eddy said. “Did you ever see such a hammerhead? Thank God they show on the surface when they hook up. Thank God for that. The bastards always get on top. Did you
see
him go?”

“Give me a box of shells,” Thomas Hudson said. He was shaky and hollow sick feeling inside. “Come on in here,” he shouted. They were swimming alongside of the dinghy and Roger was pushing David up over the gunwale.

“They might as well fish,” Eddy said. “Any shark in the ocean will go for
him
now. He’ll call the whole ocean up. Did you see him go on his back, Tom, and then that damned roll? Jesus, what a hammerhead. Did you see the kid with the fish ready to throw him? That’s my Davy boy. Oh what a old Davy boy.”

“They better come in.”

“Sure they better. I was just talking. They’ll come in. Don’t worry they won’t come in.”

“God, it was a terrible thing. Where did you have that gun?”

“Commissioner made some trouble about me having it ashore so I’ve been keeping it in the locker under my bunk.”

“You certainly can shoot it.”

“Hell, who couldn’t shoot it with that shark going toward that old Davy boy waiting there quiet with that fish to throw? Looking straight at where the shark was coming. Hell, I don’t care if I never see anything else in my goddam life.”

They came up over the side out of the dinghy. The kids were wet and very excited and Roger was very shaken. He went over and shook hands with Eddy and Eddy said, “We never should have let them get out like that on this tide.”

Roger shook his head and put his arm around Eddy.

“My fault,” Eddy said. “I was born here. You’re a stranger. It wasn’t your fault. I’m the one that’s responsible.”

“You lived up to your responsibilities all right,” Roger said.

“Hell,” Eddy said. “Nobody could miss him at that range.”

“Could you see him, Dave?” Andrew asked very politely.

“Only his fin till just at the end. Then I could see him before Eddy hit him and he went down and then came out on his back.”

Eddy was rubbing him with a towel and Thomas Hudson could see the goose pimples still over his legs and back and shoulders.

“I never saw anything like when he came out of water and started to go on his back,” young Tom said. “I never saw anything in the world like that.”

“You won’t see a lot of things like that,” his father told him.

“He must have weighed eleven hundred pounds,” Eddy said. “I don’t think they make a bigger hammerhead. Jesus, Roger, did you see that fin on him?”

“I saw it,” Roger said.

“Do you think we can get him?” David asked.

“Hell no,” Eddy said. “He went down rolling over and over to hell knows where. He’s down in eighty fathoms and the whole ocean will eat on him. He’s calling them up now.”

“I wish we could have got him,” David said.

“Take it easy, Davy boy. You got the goose flesh on you still.”

“Were you very scared, Dave?” Andrew asked.

“Yes,” David told him.

“What were you going to do?” Tom asked, very respectfully.

“I was going to throw the fish to him,” David said and as Thomas Hudson watched him the little sharp wave of pimples spread over his shoulders. “Then I was going to hit him in the middle of his face with the grains.”

“Oh hell,” Eddy said and he turned away with the towel. “What do you want to drink, Roger?”

“Have you got any hemlock?” Roger asked him.

“Cut it out, Roger,” Thomas Hudson said. “We were all responsible.”

“Irresponsible.”

“It’s over.”

“All right.”

“I’ll make some gin drinks,” Eddy said. “Tom had a gin drink when it happened.”

“It’s still up there.”

“It won’t be any damn good now,” Eddy said. “I’ll make you a fresh one.”

“You’re pretty good, Davy,” young Tom told him very proudly. “Wait till I tell the boys about this at school.”

“They wouldn’t believe it,” David said. “Don’t tell them if I’m going there.”

“Why?” young Tom asked.

“I don’t know,” David said. Then he started to cry like a little boy. “Oh shit, I couldn’t stand it if they didn’t believe it.”

Thomas Hudson picked him up and held him in
his arms with his head against his chest and the other kids turned away and Roger looked away and then Eddy came out with three drinks with his thumb in
one of them. Thomas Hudson could tell he’d had another one below.

“What’s the matter with you, Davy?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Good,” Eddy said. “That’s the way I like to hear you talk, you damn old son of a bitch. Get down and quit blubbering and let your old man drink.”

David stood there standing very straight.

“Is it OK to fish that part in low tide?” he asked Eddy.

“Nothing will bother you,” Eddy said. “There’s morays. But nothing big will come in. They can’t make it at low tide.”

“Can we go at low tide, papa?”

“If Eddy says so. Eddy’s the boss man.”

“Hell, Tom,” Eddy said, and he was very happy, his Mercurochromed lips were happy and his bloodshot eyes as happy as eyes could be. “Anybody couldn’t hit that damned no-good hammerhead with one of those things ought to throw the damn thing away before he’d get in trouble with it.”

“You hit him plenty,” Thomas Hudson said. “You hit him wonderfully. I wish I could tell you how you hit him.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Eddy said. “I’ll see that old evil son of a bitch going on his back the rest of my life. Did you ever see anything look more evil?”

They sat there waiting for the lunch and Thomas Hudson was looking out to sea where Joseph had sculled out to where the shark had gone down. Joseph was looking over the side of the dinghy into a water glass.

“Can you see anything?” Thomas Hudson called to him.

“Too deep, Mr. Tom. He went down right over the shelf. He’s laying on the bottom now.”

“I wish we could have gotten his jaws,” young Tom said. “Wouldn’t you like to have them all bleached and hanging up, papa?”

“I think they would give me bad dreams,” Andrew said. “I’m just as glad we haven’t got them.”

“They’d be a wonderful trophy,” young Tom said. “That would be something to take to school.”

“They’d belong to Dave if we had them,” Andrew said.

“No. They’d belong to Eddy,” young Tom said. “I believe he’d give them to me if I asked him for them.”

“He’d give them to Dave,” Andrew said.

“I don’t think maybe you should go out again so soon, Dave,” Thomas Hudson said.

“It won’t be till plenty of time after lunch,” David said. “We have to wait for the low tide.”

“I mean goggle-fish so soon.”

“Eddy said it was all right.”

“I know. But I’m still pretty spooked.”

“But Eddy knows.”

“You wouldn’t like to just not go as a present to me?”

“Certainly, papa, if you want. But I love it underwater. I guess I love it more than anything. And if Eddy says—”

“OK,” said Thomas Hudson. “People aren’t supposed to ask for presents anyway.”

“Papa, I didn’t mean it like that. I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Only Eddy said—”

“What about a moray? Eddy mentioned morays.”

“Papa, there’s
always
morays.
You
taught me not to be afraid of morays and how to handle them and how to watch out for them and the kind of holes they live in.”

“I know. And I let you go out there where that shark came.”

“Papa, we were all out there. Don’t make yourself some sort of special guilt about it. I just went too far out and I lost that good yellowtail after I’d speared him and he bloodied the water and that called the shark.”

“Didn’t he come just like a hound though?” Thomas Hudson said. He was trying to get rid of the emotion. “I’ve seen them come at really great speed like that before. There was one that used to live off Signal Rock that used to come that way on the smell of a bait. I’m very ashamed I couldn’t hit him.”

“You were shooting awfully close to him, papa,” young Tom said.

“I was doing everything but hit him.”

“He wasn’t coming for me, papa,” David said. “He was coming for the fish.”

“He’d have taken you, though,” Eddy said. He was setting the table. “Don’t ever fool yourself he wouldn’t with that fish smell on you and the blood in the water. He’d have hit a horse. He’d have hit anything. Good God, don’t talk about it. I’ll have to have another drink.”

“Eddy,” David said. “Will it really be safe on the low tide?”

“Sure. Didn’t I tell you so before?”

“You aren’t making some sort of a point, are you?” Thomas Hudson asked David. He had stopped looking out across the water and he was all right again. He knew that what David was doing was what he should do no matter why he was doing it and he knew he had been selfish about it.

“Papa, all I mean is that I love it better than anything else and it’s such a wonderful day for it and we never know when it might blow—”

“And Eddy says,” Thomas Hudson interrupted.

“And Eddy says,” David grinned with him.

“Eddy says the hell with all of you. Come on and eat it up now before I throw it the hell overboard.” He stood there with the bowl of salad, the platter of browned fish, and the mashed potatoes. “Where’s that Joe?”

“He went to look for the shark.”

“He’s crazy.”

When Eddy went below and young Tom was passing the food, Andrew whispered to his father, “Papa, is Eddy a rummy?”

Thomas Hudson was serving the cold, marinated potato salad covered with rough-ground black pepper. He had shown Eddy how to make it the way they used to make it at the Brasserie Lipp in Paris and it was one of the best things Eddy made on the boat.

“Did you see him shoot the shark?”

“I certainly did.”

“That isn’t the way rummies shoot.”

He put some salad on Andrew’s plate and took some for himself.

“The only reason I asked is because from where I’m sitting I can see in the galley and I’ve watched him take about eight drinks out of a bottle since we’ve been sitting here.”

“That’s his bottle,” Thomas Hudson explained and helped Andrew to some more salad. Andrew was the fastest eater he had ever seen. He said he had learned it at school. “Try and eat a little slower, Andy. Eddy always brings his own bottle on board. Nearly all good cooks drink a little. Some drink quite a lot.”

“I know he had eight. Wait. He’s taking nine now.”

“Damn you, Andrew,” David said.

“Cut it out,” Thomas Hudson said to both of them.

Young Tom broke in. “Here’s a fine wonderful man saves your brother’s life and he just takes a drink, or a few drinks, and you call him a rummy. You aren’t fit to associate with human beings.”

“I didn’t call him one. I just asked papa, to know if he is one. I’m not against rummies. I just like to know if a man is or not.”

“I’m going to buy Eddy a bottle of whatever it is he drinks with the very first money I get and I’m going to drink it with him,” young Tom said grandly.

“What’s that?” Eddy’s head showed in the companion-way with the old felt hat pushed onto the back of it showing the white above the sunburnt part of his face and a cigar sticking out of the corner of his Mercurochromed mouth. “Let me catch you drink anything but beer I beat the hell out of you. All three of you. Don’t you talk about drinking. Do you want more mashed potatoes?”

“Please, Eddy,” young Tom said and Eddy went below.

“That makes ten,” Andrew said, looking down the companionway.

“Oh shut up, horseman,” young Tom said to him. “Can’t you respect a great man?”

“Eat some more fish, David,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Which is that big yellowtail?”

“I don’t believe he’s cooked yet.”

“I’ll take a yellow grunt then.”

“They’re awfully sweet.”

“I think spearing makes them even better if you eat them right away because it bleeds them.”

“Papa, can I ask Eddy to have a drink with us?” young Tom asked.

“Sure,” Thomas Hudson said.

“He had one. Don’t you remember?” Andrew interrupted. “When we first came in he had one. You remember.”

“Papa, can I ask him to have another one with us now and to eat with us?”

“Of course,” Thomas Hudson said.

Young Tom went down below and Thomas Hudson heard him say, “Eddy, papa says would you please make a drink for yourself and come up and have it with us and eat with us.”

“Hell, Tommy,” Eddy said. “I never eat at noon. I just eat breakfast and at night.”

“What about having a drink with us?”

“I had a couple, Tommy.”

“Will you take one with me now and let me drink a bottle of beer with you?”

“Hell yes,” said Eddy. Thomas Hudson heard the icebox open and close. “Here’s to you, Tommy.”

Thomas Hudson heard the two bottles clink. He looked at Roger but Roger was looking out at the ocean.

“Here’s to you, Eddy,” he heard young Tom say. “It’s a great honor to drink with you.”

“Hell, Tommy,” Eddy told him. “It’s an honor to drink with you. I feel wonderful, Tommy. You see me shoot that old shark?”

“I certainly did, Eddy. Don’t you want to eat just a little something with us?”

“No, Tommy. True.”

“Would you like me to stay down here with you so you wouldn’t have to drink alone?”

“Hell no, Tommy. You aren’t getting mixed up on anything, are you? I don’t have to drink. I don’t have to do anything except cook a little and earn my goddam living. I just feel good, Tommy. Did you see me shoot him? True?”

“Eddy, it was the greatest thing I ever saw. I just asked you if you wanted somebody so as not to be lonesome.”

“I never been lonesome in my life,” Eddy told him. “I’m happy and I got here what makes me happier.”

“Eddy, I’d like to stay with you, anyway.”

“No, Tommy. Take this other platter of fish up and go up there where you belong.”

“I’d like to come back and stay.”

“I ain’t sick, Tommy. If I was ever sick I’d be happy to have you sit up with me. I’m just feeling the goddam best I ever felt ever.”

“Eddy, are you sure you’ve got enough of that bottle?”

“Hell yes. If I ever run out I’ll borrow some of Roger’s and your old man’s.”

“Well, then, I’ll take the fish up,” young Tom said. “I’m awfully glad you feel so good, Eddy. I think it’s wonderful.”