Rich Man's Coffin Page 8

  That does seem to make sense, he thought. “All right.” Said Black Jack. “I’ll give it a go.”

  “Great, now listen closely.”

  Suddenly, from up on the hill, the loud cry came: “Thar she blows! And close... one mile! Two spouts! Thar she blows!”

  Sam’s face had frozen as he heard the Lookout’s shout, and he listened for the vital, subtle clues laced throughout the report such as type of whale, number, and distance. Sam yelled to Black Jack, “C’mon, then! Follow me and do everything I tell you.” Sam scrambled for the gear, shoving items into Jack’s arms and running for the water. As they reached the water, he shouted, “Now, Jack, grab the aft. Let’s turn her right. That’s it, now into the waves. Chuck the gear in. Here come the rest of the boys!”

  Men came sprinting from all points on the beach, sand flying behind them as they pumped their arms and legs. They bounded into the waves and dashed into the skiff, splashing Sam and Black Jack as they stood waist deep in the waves steadying the boat. The oars seemed to mechanically rise out of the bottom of the boat and set themselves in the rings as the two men on either end hoisted themselves in. The boat cleared the waves and it was away.

  “Dig in, boys! I’ve got the sights on her!” Sam shouted as he slapped the steering oar into the salty spray.

  Black Jack scarcely had time to consider the fantastic speed of the boat, as he was soon racked with searing pain and gasping for breath from rowing. The other men rowed methodically and swiftly, tight-lipped and silent with stone faces in their precise motion. Their steely-eyed glint reflected determination as they pounded incessantly and efficiently on the blurred surface of the sea, all in perfect unison as the boat picked up tremendous speed. The fury of their stroke combined with the barking of the Headsman to create a hypnotic marine opera that held the aching aft-oarsman spellbound. Before the entire effect of the rapidly unfolding scene could settle completely upon Black Jack, the boat glanced off the back of the whale. The oarsmen stopped and the boat fell silent, save for its gurgling wake.

  “Alongside, boys!” Sam yelled. The whale floated calmly in the water. It seemed to be resting, almost waiting for its hunters; not at all like the frenzied beast that Arthur had imagined. Sam parked his oar and picked up the harpoon. He looked around to see the other boat still struggling to reach its catch, about a half mile away. He slowly swung the heavy harpoon above the heads of the crew.

  To Black Jack, the great animal seemed docile: Much like the cows back home. The whale did not seem anything like the great beast that Sam had used so many choice words to describe.

  “She’s got a calf! Stand by!” shouted Sam.

  Black Jack thought about the cows with calves back home, and how easy it was to lead the mother once the calf was in tow. That did not seem to be the case here. Still, he thought, there had to be an easier way than attacking the whale head on: Even a gentle cow will turn into a raging banshee if you run it through with a sharp stick, he thought.

  Suddenly, the Headsman tensed his grip on the cumbersome harpoon. Sam said, “All right, it’s on! Ready!” He leveraged his weapon into position, the attached line trailing behind to its coil sitting just in front of Black Jack. The oarsmen simultaneously brought in their paddles with the synchronized execution of gunmen in a firing squad. They grabbed the rail tightly just inside the gunwale, and braced their feet against the cross boards on the floor of the boat. Black Jack sensed their urgency and copied their movements. Sam braced his back foot, and said, “All right, Jack.” His strain from holding the harpoon overhead for so long was beginning to show in his quivering arms. He asked Black Jack, “Do you see where the line comes over the loggerhead and into the boat at your feet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. That is where you will see smoke. You are to pour water on the line, and keep pouring no matter what, or the line will part and we will lose the whale, understood?”

  Black Jack nodded.

  “Excellent.” Hissed Sam, like an excited snake. Without hesitation, he turned his head toward the wet, gray mound in the water and launched his harpoon, thrusting all of his worldly strength into a spot just behind the blowhole.

  To Black Jack, it all seemed to happen in slow motion: The blade glinted as it met the shiny, black skin, with the hooked razor disappearing beneath the slick flesh making a sickening slicing sound. Within a split second, thick, purple blood began to weep from the wound, forming a large dome-shaped droplet around the shaft of the harpoon. Black Jack watched in terror as if the cut were his own. He envisioned the pain of past childhood scars: How the horrible sensation hesitated before flooding the mind with fiery alarm. It must have been the same for the whale.

  When Black Jack’s head returned upright from bouncing off his back, the smell of smoke and the burning in his neck gave him an immediate bearing on reality which helped to quell his urge to vomit his heart out through his nose. He vaguely made out the line and the loggerhead, but nothing else within the tunnel of water would consent to focus as it rushed by. Black Jack, scarcely able to hold onto the rails, could not pick up a pale to dowse the hot, smoking rope. Luckily, he was relieved from his duty of bucket brigadier by the wave that broke in from behind him as the whale suddenly stopped and the boat continued. The skiff, filling with water, crashed into the back of the whale with great force, and the impact sent everyone who had lost their grip on the rail reeling forward in the boat. Black Jack found himself sitting among a pile of his comrades, drenched in blood and salt water. All of them looked and felt as though they had fallen together as a mob from a great height.

  Sam stood up and shouted, “Ready, ready, Lads! Hold fast!” He sprung from his seat at the bow and surveyed the whale, waiting for its next move. The blood from the wound was oozing out. No spray emanated from the whale’s spout. It floated motionless in the water as its ends began to sag lower in the waves. Sam yelled out, “Yes, boys! This looks like it will be an easy one. Hurrah!” The boat broke into cheers from men who had hardly had the strength to breathe not seconds before; and much waving of arms and slapping of backs took place. As they all looked around, the men saw the second whale, roughly a mile in the offing, slap its fluke menacingly at a skiff full of struggling men. Sam looked back into his boat, and said, “They’ll be right, mates. That one is just about to meet this one in whale hell!” The men laughed and cheered wildly again, over the prospect of two whales being brought back to the beach together. Black Jack stared, wild-eyed at the entire scene, taking it all in. His head buzzed and his blood coursed. He felt as if his very soul was on fire.

  “Black Jack, you all right?” Sam shouted to him over the cheering mob.

  “Oh yes, oh yes!” He shouted, his face sweaty and tingling as he smiled.

  “Good!” Sam said. “Everyone ready for the tow home?” He asked. The men yelled wildly. “Right then! We’ll wait ‘til she rolls over, and then and off we go. Everyone have a biscuit!”

  A half hour passed, and the fever pitch of the hunt evaporated from the boat as the men and their muscles stiffened in the cool ocean breeze. Bloody hell, a few exclaimed, as they stretched their arms and rubbed their legs. Goddamn, some grumbled, as they vomited their pain over the side. Black Jack shivered as he shared in their agony. His legs cramped, and a torn feeling ripped across his clammy chest. A cold southerly wind picked up, and dark clouds moved in front of the sun. The whale had yet to turn over.

  “All right, boys. Me thinks someone is telling us something here. This one’s not going to roll, so let’s get her moving.” Sam said. “Black Jack, let me show you something.” Black Jack crossed the wobbly skiff slowly, carefully placing his hands on men’s shoulders for support as he stepped. “Step up here with me.” Sam said calmly as he leaned out over his foot planted on the broad slope of the leviathan’s back. “C’mon then!” he said, turning back to look at Black Jack in the skiff still rocking from his leap. Black Jack warily placed a foot on the gunwale, paused, and then all at once sprung onto the back
of the whale, gingerly trotting up to meet Sam at the spine. “Good on ‘ya, mate. Now look at this. This is your classic dead whale. No worries. See how easy it is when you make a clean kill? No mucking around with flying fish!” He put his arm around Black Jack’s shoulders and pointed at the whale’s back. “Now! This is unusual: I’ve seen a whale or two that doesn’t roll; mind you, but not that often. We’ve just got to be careful on the tow. There can be fins flippin’ about, or undertow if she finally does pitch, or any number of dangers. You get the drift!”

  Black Jack nodded, too exhausted to speak.

  Sam went on, “Right! Now, before we go, I want you to examine the classic signs of a post-mortem whale. Note the limp, dangling posterior, with associated oblique lateral wrinkles. That tail has had it. Note how the blood has ceased to issue from the wound.” Sam pointed to the place where the harpoon sat mired in a mound of thick, clotted, brown gel. He finished his lecture by saying, “And if you concentrate real hard, you will already feel the little fishies and sharks tapping away at the sides of her belly!” Sam looked around confidently and pointed alongside, as Black Jack surveyed the scene with him.

  “I don’t see no fish or sharks down there, Sam.”

  Sam froze; and then his eyes turned to the harpoon. He stared hard at it for a couple of seconds, watching it rise in synchrony with the waves bobbing the beast. The large pole suddenly twitched. “Hang on!” Cried Sam, as he ran to the rigid, upright, wooden weapon. He dropped to his knees at the base of the harpoon and thrust his hands into the crusty, wet wound. He pried back the sides of the slit and put his head down to peer into the gap. A second passed, and then suddenly a solid column of bright, red blood gushed into his face, blowing his head back with its force. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, and another hot, bloody geyser shot into his face and down his throat. He choked and gurgled as he pulled away, struggling to yell through his bloody spit, “Set to, boys!” He stumbled wildly down the whale’s back, springing backward into the boat, sputtering and coughing. “Jack! Get in, Jack! She’s not done yet!” He yelled.

  The men watched in horror as Black Jack took one step toward them on the undulating back of the beast. Then, he disappeared into a torrential vortex of blue, gray, and black water that ripped him violently and swiftly from their view.

  Chapter 11

  Foam swirled around Arthur’s head as he bobbed in the open ocean. Tidal swells churned the waves and carried him up and down through areas of smooth and rough undulating sea. Cold rain pelted his face, as froth and fog played havoc with his eyes. The wind howled in his wet ears. Brine filled his mouth and washed his nose like a strong, salty drink. He could only defend himself by treading water faster and harder.

  He could see the misty outline of a distant, hilly coast. He was rushing along, as if carried on a large, swift offshore river. He sensed that he was speeding south. Further and faster he sped within the torrent helping to keep him afloat. He saw features of land as they appeared through fog. There were jetties giving way to bays, alternating with bluffs and beaches. Looks all right from here, he thought, if I could just break free and swim.

  He rounded a sharp outcropping of rocky cliff and copped a brief reprieve from the undertow. The water relented as the current slowed. It spread thin and dissipated over the top of a kelp bed broaching the surface with thick tatters. The water calmed and rippled slightly in a swirling circle. It regained its turquoise tincture as it washed over the seaweed garden. Black Jack waded among the plants and felt his way through the tranquil grotto. He looked around as he waded through the peaceful little bay toward a sandy beach.

  He began to swim, sea vegetation tickling his body as he stroked through the tendrils. His canvass clothes hung on him soaked and heavy. He struggled for shore. Underwater vegetation gave way to sand in the shallow surf, and shortly he was able to stand. He stood up, and the clouds parted. The sun shined down upon him. Vapor rising from his body refracted the sunlight into several sharp rays surrounding his head and shoulders, forming a heavenly rainbow. He was warmed. The dry, white sand before him was bright and hot. It was as though the rain had not come to this bay at all. Birds sang loudly and flew about, and copious colorful fruit dangled from emerald trees.

  There he stood in all his glory, freshly baptized, saved from death and delivered to this uninhabited garden. The shore was a long, smooth crescent, and Arthur stood as an actor alone on a large stage. The beach extended from a low reef on the far right across to a cathedral rock cave protruding into the water on the far left.

  How far am I from Te Awaiti Bay, he wondered? His time adrift was a blur now, and he could not accurately measure his travel down the coast. He figured that it must be close to normal quitting time. Soon, the men would be bringing the whales back to the station and lashing them to the sheers. There would be jubilation throughout the village. But will they look for me, he wondered? The question hit him hard. Black Jack asked himself, How likely is it that an exhausted white man, bent on celebrating his catch, is gonna want to venture out again into dark waters to rescue a drowning black man?

  Arthur ran through the possibilities in his mind before giving himself a fair answer to the question. He thought it funny that, as a slave he seemed much more valuable, but now that he was free, he might not be so prized. He became bitter. Was his value to the Master in money, or power and control? What was his value to the whalers? He pondered.

  As he stood there stewing with spite, he saw something stir among the trees at the back of the beach. Maybe he was tired or had salt in his eyes, but he would have sworn to his mother on a Bible that he saw a chicken the size of a horse! It ran past an opening in the brush, paused momentarily, and then vanished. A bird that size wouldn’t have eaten worms, Arthur thought. It would have devoured large snakes! But come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any of those here either.

  Being warm and dry from the sun now, Black Jack decided to ditch his wet clothes and hang them on a bush. Naked, he began to explore the bay in the remaining daylight. He was very thirsty, and he was happy to find a small, fresh-water stream running out of the brush right through the beach trickling into the sea. It flowed out of the high hills rimming the beach. The rear of the beach remained fairly flat for a few hundred yards, until it met the base of the hills where it began to rise steeply yet smoothly. Next to the stream just beyond the high-tide line were two large rock formations, side-by-side, roughly the size of huts. Black Jack squatted and drank from the cool stream with a cupped hand as he eyed the structures. He noticed that they rested on grassy knolls just above the level of the stream so that they were given protection from the rising tide in front and any possible flooding from the stream. In addition to the high grass around their bases, the rocks were surrounded by large plants which consisted of radiating, long, blade-shaped leaves growing from a center at the ground and spreading out and up above Black Jack’s head. In the center was a single, straight, slender, brown stalk that sported several pods of stringy, silky, white clumps at its top. It seemed to Black Jack to be the tropical version of a very large cotton plant.

  Walking around the two rocks, Black Jack found an opening in one at ground level. It was a small cave, obscured by the bladed plants, and suited for a man. Crawling in, he found that the floor consisted of warm, dry, soft sand, and the walls and ceiling were solid, smooth stone. The entrance was roughly a yard high and the same wide, and it traveled back into the rock for roughly three yards. The cave ran parallel to the beach, and perpendicular to the wind and the waves, so it was fairly weatherproof. Black Jack found that he had more than ample room to sit, lie down, and even to sprawl out. He thought that he wouldn’t find better housing before evening. He would want to be up early to look for his crew’s approaching boats, he thought.

  He left the cave to explore. Moving among the rocks, he gathered the smooth, long, broad leaves of the strange, bladed plants. He was drawn to them because the leaves also reminded him of a plant his mama had used to weave baskets
. The blades were tough and sinewy, yet soft and smooth at the same time. They were ideal for making a mat on the floor of his temporary abode. Within several minutes he had covered the ground of his hole lengthwise, and a few moments later he had added a complete layer interwoven across the first. He didn’t see much that could be done to improve upon this basic design. So with fresh water and suitable shelter, his thoughts turned to food.

  He wandered further upstream.

  Maybe them little crayfish will be hidin’ out somewhere, he thought. After a time searching unsuccessfully, he saw something else. Stopping and looking into the water, he watched the dark object dart from one side of the stream to the other and then disappear. After staring at empty water for several seconds, he started searching for crayfish again. Suddenly, he saw the strange object again. It seemed similar to a snake, but it was swimming.

  An underwater serpent, he thought! Now, I’ve seen everything. He cautiously grabbed a nearby plant stalk and crept to the side of stream, slipping the stick silently under the surface and soundly striking the black eel as it slithered from side to side.

  The eel went limp and floated to the top. Black Jack fetched it with his stick. It dangled and curved as it wrapped around, with smooth, flat, black sides and fish eyes. Upon closer inspection it looked more like a fish than a snake, and he wondered which it would taste more like. With no way to start a fire, Black Jack would have to eat his catch cold. He did not let the situation dampen his spirit, rather he celebrated his good fortune with ingenuity.

  Black Jack laid the eel upon a rock in the sun, and it became warm before long. His found another sharp stick, and he sliced open the eel’s skin and gutted it. He made two large filets, ending up with roughly a handful of meat. He gorged himself. In fact, he made so little time of consuming his meal, that it took him another few minutes after finishing to realize that he was full. Shortly after that, he began to feel sleepy. He took a few gulps of the cool stream water, meandered back down to the beach, and crawled into the cave. Warm hues of yellow, orange, violet, and blue floated by his door, seeming to salute him respectfully as they passed in the march of twilight. He counted his blessings. He thought back briefly to flying off the back of the beast, and then he said his prayers. God, please forgive me and deliver me from my nakedness. Now I lay me down to sleep. He drifted off into bliss, hoping that his clothes would be dry by morning.