The Island (22 page)

“Just passing,” Beth apologized. “We’ll be gone.”

Maynard expected Nau to nod curtly and turn his gaze back to the sea. Instead, he said, “How goes your scribbling?”

“A little more every day.”

“And now you know all there is to know about us.”

“Hardly. I know a few of the ‘whats’—what you do, the way you got here, what you live on—but I don’t know any of the ‘whys,’ like why you stay, why you do what you do, why no one has found you.”

“Too many questions. The middle one first: We do what we do to live. Life is staying alive. Why has no one found us? We take great care. No one comes to us; we go to them.”

Maynard gestured at the two pinnaces. “None of them has ever struck out on his own, tried to escape?”

“Rarely, and never successfully. Each man is watched by another, and in each boat there is one man—at least—whose life is mine several times over. But it is not an issue. What would they escape to?”

“The unknown. For all they know, it may be better than this.”

“There is no unknown. They know what is there. They have been taught. Some—Tue-Barbe will be one—have recollections, but time allows us to cast them in their true light.”

“What
do they know is out there?”

“Governments of crafty rascals and damned villains, half dedicated to preserving their own suet and the other half to throwing them over so they may purvey their own villainy. Misery, hunger, drones who serve queens they know not. Thus it has been since the beginning, and thus it shall be.”

“What do you have here? Misery, sickness, drudgery . . .”

“. . . freedom . . .”

“To do what? Kill people?”

“Kill, kill, kill . . . why does death so concern you? A mountain explodes and thousands die; a river overflows and thousands die; nations war on each other and millions die. Those are accepted as nature’s way. But an administrative death”—Nau drew a finger across his throat—“raises the hackles of the righteous, while in fact it is as natural as the others—a clean, quick, sure way of excising a sore, a vital surgery. He who ignores a festering wound, and trusts it to sort itself out, poisons the whole. Cut it out and burn it closed and be done with it.”

“I can’t accept that,” Maynard said.

Nau laughed aloud. “Said the chancre to the surgeon, ‘I can’t accept that. ’Tis the unkindest cut of all.’ What you can accept, or cannot accept, is of no concern to me. Or to you. It will be done.”

“What purpose will it serve?”

“We will be rid of you, shed of an annoyance or, worse, of an agitation.”

“And of a chronicler,” Maynard said hopefully. “You need a chronicler.”

“Not one whose mind is deep-poisoned, whose ways are set. If I need one, I will teach one.”

“How long do you think all this can last?”

Nau shrugged. “A day, a year, an age. Who knows? They say it ended three hundred years ago, but it did not.”

“It will.”

“Of course. And when it ends, it ends. I am a simple man and I have a simple charge, as did my father and as will my son: to keep one generation alive.”

“How old is your son?”

“I have no son.”

“Then how . . . ?” Maynard’s words were throttled by a tug on the chain.

Nau smiled at Beth. “It matters not, Goody.” He said to Maynard, “I had a son. His mother died bearing him—the best of all signs, for it meant that all her strength, not just a part, had gone into the body of the child. He was killed in an engagement.”

“How old was he?”

“Ten. He was being readied for . . .”

“Ten? At
ten
he was fighting?”

“Surely. At thirteen he would be a man. He fought well but not cautiously. He was too eager to please. So he died.”

The pinnaces slid, one after another, into the cove. Nau rose and stretched his legs. “I have been giving thought to something,” he said. “I need not ask you; I need not tell you. But I think it might give you pleasure, so I will tell you.”

Reprieve, Maynard thought, and he said, “Please do.”

“When you have done your job for Goody, and have been sent on your way, I think I shall adopt Tue-Barbe. I think he has leadership within him.”

Maynard stood, stunned, unable to speak.

Nau patted him on the shoulder. “I thought that would please you,” he said, and he walked down the hill toward the cove.

A noise jarred Maynard awake in the darkness. It was a horn, a hollow, mournful monotone that he imagined as similar to the sound that summoned biblical armies to battle.

Beth was already up. Hurriedly, she wrapped the chain around his neck and motioned him to the door.

“What’s . . . ?”

“The hunt. Go!”

“At night?”

“Go!” She kicked at him. “A tenth of this one is mine. I’ll not be late.”

She trotted along the paths, and he followed her footsteps.

Night was almost over; between bushes he could see patches of twilight dawn. He heard coughs and wheezes and muttered curses and the crackle of branches breaking, as other people ran along other paths.

They arrived at a clearing, and Beth slowed to a walk. The other women halted at the edge of the clearing, but Beth—evidently because she had a stake in the proceedings—was permitted to advance, and to take Maynard with her.

Nau stood before his hut, with pistol bandoliers across his chest and cutlass and dirk at his belt. Beside him stood Hizzoner and before them Manuel and Justin. A flashlight was stuck in the sand, facing upward, and the beam reflected fear and excitement from Justin’s eyes.

A huge pot sat at the center of the circle, and when all the armed men were present, Hizzoner stepped forward and poured gunpowder from a powder horn into the pot. “Drink,” he said, stirring the brew, “so ye each may have the strength of ten, so ye may bring honor to the company and to yourself, and so ye may fear no evil. Amen.”

Solemnly, each man dipped into the pot, using a cup or a hat or his hands. The men coughed and sputtered and laughed and slapped each other on the back and drank again.

Nau urged the two boys forward. Maynard saw that Manuel knew what to expect: He held his breath and splashed the liquid into his face. He choked, and his eyes watered. To Maynard’s surprise, Manuel drank a second time, as if he also knew that he would need the courage the liquor offered.

Maynard hoped that Justin would look at him before he drank, for he wanted to exchange a smile or a wink. Partly, he wanted to give the boy support and encouragement; mostly, he wanted to reassure himself of the strength of the bond between them.

But Justin did not look at him. He cupped his hands and dipped them and swallowed all he could, before his gag reflex took hold and sprayed liquid in a fine shower. The men laughed, but Justin did not blush. He drank again, and this time he kept it all down.

The men cheered. Nau clapped Justin on the back, and Justin smiled proudly.

A knot formed in Maynard’s stomach, and his ears felt hot.

“Goody,” Nau said to Beth, “this will be your legacy from Roche. May it be rich.”

“It cannot
but
be richer than
he,
l’Ollonois.” Beth laughed and drank from the pot. A shudder passed through her shoulders, and she coughed. “God love the innkeeper! My guts cry out, brimstone!” She laughed and drank some more.

“Now you, scribe,” Nau said to Maynard. “You do not want to face this day without fire in your belly.”

As Maynard bent over the pot, he glanced at Justin. The boy was smiling at him. Maynard smiled back, and winked. Then he saw that Justin’s eyes were glazed, his smile frozen, his gaze fixed not on his father but on some distant, private vision.

Maynard drank. He swallowed slowly, squeezing the liquid down his gullet in a thin stream. It burned his throat, spread a web of warmth through his chest, and landed in the pit of his empty stomach like a rain of lava. Its stringent aftertaste was of rum and raw alcohol and sulphur.

Nau held up his hands, commanding silence. A few of the men darted to the pot for another draft, then returned to their ranks.

“We have word of a ship rich-laden,” Nau said, “coming under sail from the sou’west. Her cargo is unknown, her crew a baker’s dozen. She is surely armed. If any man among you would withdraw, let him speak.”

A chorus of “No!” was followed by more laughter, more quick trips to the liquor pot.

“The shares will be as always, with this exception: Goody Sansdents will take the tenth part, of her choice, before the spoils are divided. Any man who holds back from the company will suffer present death.” Nau put a hand on the shoulder of each of the boys. “To each of the lads will go a half share, for to them will fall the task of firing the prize.”

Manuel grinned. Justin’s vacant smile did not change.

“You’re not taking
him!”
Maynard shouted pointing at Justin.

“Aye, scribe, and you too!” Nau smiled. “He must learn his surgery, and you must chronicle it. Goody, you and the scribe will ride in Hizzoner’s pinnace. The boys will be with me. And now,” he raised his voice to the company, “let us prepare. If our number be small, our hearts are great, and the fewer persons we are, the more union and better share in the spoils.’’

Nau’s last statement was spoken with a lilt that suggested to Maynard that it was a ritual, and when Nau was finished, Hizzoner stepped forward and continued it.

“Bow your wretched heads,” Hizzoner said. “O Lord, sail with us on this day, for we go forth to trials we know not of. Keep firm our hearts and strong our arms, for what we do we do in Thy name, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.”

The benediction over, Nau said, “Fire your furnaces, lads, get damned hot, for this will be a day like the old days.”

Each pinnace carried six men. The boys were extra, as were Maynard and Beth. They sat amidships, before the mast, where they could be watched from fore and aft and where no reckless movement, no sudden shifting of weight, would pose a hazard to the stability of the tippy boat.

The commander was in the stern, at the tiller. His second—in Maynard’s boat the second was a stubble-faced young man who had filed his canine teeth into fangs and whom Maynard had heard called Jack the Bat—crouched between the thwarts and tended the sail. On the bow thwart sat a marksman. A long-barrel, full-stock Kentucky rifle rested in brackets beside him. Cubbyholes had been carved in the bow, and in these he kept his powder horn, his bullets, and spare flints. The other men sat by the four oars. Each man had a pistol, a hand ax, a cutlass, and a dagger. They were drunk but quiet, disciplined enough to know when they had fueled themselves to the proper pitch.

They rowed out of the cove. In open water the sails were raised, and the pinnaces glided noiselessly before the gentle wind. The sun had risen behind them; flecks of gold flashed on the gray ocean.

Nau’s boat led the way. Maynard looked at the backs of the men, and he could pick Justin’s out—straight and tense—by the shoulder-holster strap that crossed his shirt.

The island had receded behind them to a gray-green smudge on the horizon, when Nau whistled. His second dropped the sail, and the seconds in the other boats did as well. There were no other boats on any horizon.

They waited, hunched over in the pinnaces, listening to the lapping of the water against the wooden hulls and to the occasional splashes as fish broke water in flight or pursuit. The sun rose higher and hotter, and Maynard felt his back beginning to burn.

“You have any grease with you?” he asked Beth.

“No.” Beth pushed a finger into the flesh atop Maynard’s shoulder. The skin paled in a circle, then flushed pink, again. “Jack-Bat,” she said, “pass the grog.”

Jack the Bat grumbled and pulled a stoneware jug from the bilges. Before he passed it to Beth, he uncorked it and took a long pull on it and said, “When you gonna ripen up, Beth? Damn waste of grog.”

“Soon, Jack-Bat, soon.” She poured the liquor over Maynard’s shoulders and rubbed it into his skin.

“Give him to drink, Goody,” said Hizzoner. “The fire within will keep the fire without.”

Maynard sipped from the jug. His back still stung, the skin was still hot and tight, but now he had something else on which to focus his attention: the embers glowing in his stomach.

The jug was passed around the pinnace and returned to the bilges.

Nau whistled and pointed, and heads turned to the southwest.

“By the gentle Jesus,” Hizzoner said. “That is a noble vessel.”

At first, Maynard could see nothing but the horizon. Then a pinpoint seemed to break the gray line, and gradually, as slowly as the hand of a clock moving from one minute to the next, the pinpoint stabilized and became a speck, a blemish, on the surface.

“A schooner,” Nau called. “A fine, robust bitch.”

Maynard squinted, but still the boat was an indistinct speck.

“You’ll sup tonight, lads,” Nau said. “What’ll you have?”

“Beef!” answered someone.

“Rum!” said another.

“Peaches for me!”

“Solomon Grundy!”

“Aye, that’s it,” Nau said, laughing. “A plate of Solomon Grundy would sit sweet. Hotten up, lads, and stow your jugs and say your honors and check your arms. There’s them that will sup with us and them that will sup with the devil, and nothing in between.”

The jug was passed again, and stowed. In the bow, the marksman loaded his Kentucky and laid it across his lap. In the stern, Hizzoner threaded pitch-soaked pieces of twine through his braided pigtail. Seeing Maynard eying him quizzically, Hizzoner said, “Does this bring memories, scribe?”

“Memories of what?”

“This was Teach’s trick. It abashed all but your forebear.”

“What did?”

“You’ll see.”

The sails were raised, and the little boats were sailed in circles, waiting the arrival of the schooner. It was a mile or so away, but its lines were clear: two masts, a full suit of sails, a sleek black hull. The schooner moved along smartly, using every breath of wind, its bow slicing the sea. It was at least a hundred feet long. Maynard could not imagine that the pinnaces would be able to intercept, let alone overtake, this juggernaut.

Hizzoner called to Nau, “Who will be the fox?”