Ghost Sea: A Novel (Dugger/Nello Series) (15 page)

KATE

The Pass

All night we paddle through the stars, the water is so smooth, reflecting them. We’re only two now. At dawn we paddle into a narrow pass and hide among small islands to wait. After a while there comes a noise of rushing water, but I can’t see past the islands. Before noon it stops. We wait. Then it starts up again. I see the tops of the sails. I want to shout out but I don’t; useless in the noise. When we come out from behind the islands, I start to laugh because we had come at dawn on water like a mirror and now we sink between waves so high I can see only the sky. Rushing mountains of foam come at us and I laugh and shout as I haven’t since I was a child when lightning ripped the sky and thunder shook our house. I’m not a bit scared. There is an ugly black boat near the sails. Then it sinks. Somehow it seems right. The sails vanish in the fog. That seems right too. After that the sea goes crazy. So beautiful.

I
THOUGHT
I had gone deaf and senseless. I no longer heard the cataracts, no longer felt us falling, no longer felt the whirlpools tossing, flinging us about. We sailed slowly, upright and silent. The wind fell; the fog thickened. I was untying myself from the mizzen when into that ghostly world rose a cry,
“Oi vita, oi vita mia, oi core ‘e ‘chistu core, se,”
boisterous, passionate, full of hope. “Come on, Charlie, I’ll teach you.
“Oi vita, oi vita mia.”

N
ELLO SAID THERE
was an island up ahead in the middle of the channel, he wasn’t sure how far, so we had better drop the anchor before it was too late to drop anything.

We fed out twenty fathoms but the anchor rode just hung straight down.

“There’s no bottom!” I yelled, and cinched the rode on the samson post.

“There will be.”

There was. We caught and swung around in the current pointing back at the invisible pass, set the anchor hard so the rode no longer bounced, dropped the sails, and hung there on the hook.

I leaned against the mizzen and took my first deep breath in hours. Back in the narrows I had imagined the uncontrollable joy, the sense of conquest that would overwhelm me once out the other side, but there was none.

Then we bailed. We were all soaked to the skin anyway, so we waded into the flooded cabin. I manned the bilge pump, Hay and Charlie bailed with pails into the galley sink, and Nello dried out and cranked the Easthope. At first it wheezed asthmatically, then coughed, then started with its lonesome bang. He took off the salt water intake hose, tied the tea sieve on its end so it wouldn’t get plugged, and stuck it in the bilge. The Easthope pumped, and we bailed, and stroke by stroke, pail by pail, we took the sea from the cabin and heaved it back into the sea.

When the water was gone, we wiped the cabin dry and tented an awning over the mizzen boom to cover the cockpit. We hung our wet clothes all around it, fired up the galley stove, heated up pails of water, drank some rum, then took turns sitting naked in the cockpit and dousing each other to get rid of the salt. Except Sayami, who we left tied up, barely conscious, in the shadows. And Charlie, who was too damn shy, so he went in the darkest corner of the cockpit, sat with his back to us, and only then did he let us douse him. Then he covered up and went below and came back wearing a clean white shirt and black baggy pants, looking even more innocent than before.

The night was dark and hushed; it was slack tide. Charlie fried onions and threw in oysters and they steamed and sizzled in the pan. We passed the rum and Nello kept singing songs from Naples and Sorrento, and Hay seemed to know a few and sang along with him in a dreadful accent.

The cabin grew stifling. We hooked the storm lantern on a boom bail over the cockpit; the wet clothes swung against the wall of fog like tired dancers at a carnival. Nello played his squeezebox.

Sayami lay tied up in his corner. The bullets had gone through him, one through his side and one through his arm, and the salt water had cleansed his wounds and stopped most of the bleeding, so we bound him up and he looked weak but alive.

Hay drank. When the bottle was passed to him, he filled his cup, and in almost the same motion emptied it and jumped back into one of Nello’s songs.

When I was drunk enough I pulled out my harmonica and played along with the songs I remembered from the throaty Italians selling sweets in our street-fairs. We stopped only to eat Charlie’s onions and oysters whose smell filled the cold wet air, and some slimy lichee nuts that I normally hated but was so drunk I actually loved,
“O sole, ‘o sole mio, sta ‘nfront a te, sta ‘nfront a te!”

Charlie threw timid glances at Nello, who responded, “I like your oysters, Charlie. You make us all fat like seals.” But Charlie instead of smiling looked off into the night and the deep darkness. When I closed my eyes, I could see the dark canoe gliding silently north.

Nello stood as best he could, played a livelier tune, swayed from foot to foot so that bit by bit the ketch began to roll. Then he leaned down close to Charlie, who just took long sips from his cup of tea, which Hay had laced with rum.

“Non mange piu non dorme piu che pecunderia! Gue picceri’ che vene a di ‘sta gelusia?”
Nello sang.

And when Charlie gave a faint smile, Nello, encouraged, swayed and sang louder, and Hay, drunk as a skunk, got up and did a little dance.

They were doing drunken dance steps up the side deck and down into the cockpit, and I blew my drunken lungs into the harmonica, and Nello spun, and Hay pulled Charlie up to dance. Charlie was timid at first, reluctant to move, but the rum got the best of him, and Hay did something like a Charleston with his knees, and that made Charlie laugh and follow, and they jumped up on the side deck and down onto the bridge deck,
“Comm’aggi ‘a fa pe ‘te truve? I’ senza te nun posso sta!”
Again and again he sang the refrain, and Hay leapt and Charlie spun around and around, and the string in his hair came loose and his long hair flew about, and he spun on the bridge deck but spun once too often, slipped, and fell toward the rail, toward the sea. Hay made a deft lunge to save him, managing to grab only the long tail of his shirt, and Charlie’s shirt ripped away and he fell back against the lifelines. Nello stopped dead as if someone had choked his breath. I was so shocked I blew a long single note. Hay swayed gently, holding Charlie’s empty shirt, and Charlie stood half naked in the lantern’s glow, hair plastered, and below the dark hair shone her pale flesh—her small but perfect breasts. She didn’t move but her face changed and softened. All the tension drained away.

Nello squeezed the squeezebox. He looked at the night, then looked back at her, then began, almost in a whisper,
“Era la festa di San Gennaro, ll’anno appresso cante e suone…bancarelle e prucessione…chi se po dimentica?”

His voice slowly strengthened, and I got enough breath back to begin to blow the tune. Charlie sat up.
“C’era la banda di Pignataro, centinaia di bancarelle.”
She took back her shirt from Hay, covered up her breasts with her arms across them, tossed her hair off her face, and began to sway.
“Dove sta Zaza? Oh Madonna mia. Come fa Zaza, sensa sua zia?”
With her gaze at first on Nello, then away in some distance, she danced—no longer the stiff gestures of a child trying to please grown-ups, but the movements of a woman capturing a man.

I
TOOK THE
first anchor watch.

Hay snored in his cabin and I shut his door to drown him to a drone. The galley stove blazed; the cabin was steamy, and I turned down the wicks, snuffed the lamps, and climbed out into the mist. As I slid shut the main hatch, I glanced down through the skylight into the aft cabin, and saw them in the soft flicker of a lamp, Charlie, her white flesh aglow, and Nello touching her with incomparable carefulness and wonder, as if discovering a new universe, one star at a time.

I bundled up in the cockpit and stared at the wall of fog, beyond which I could envision nothing.

A
t dawn the fog changed from black to gray. The island was still obscured but a breeze stirred and the fog now thickened into banks, now thinned into tatters, revealed a point here, a bluff there, or a clump of cedars drooping over the sea.

There was a peace about this place that we were reluctant to disturb. We moved about quietly. I hauled up the main, Hay folded the still-wet clothes and the awning, and Nello began taking in anchor rode, while keeping a protective eye on Charlie, who helped in the cockpit then went down into the galley, softly humming,
“Oi vita, oi vita mia.”
The space on the boat seemed much greater now—all of us remained a bit more distant, walked by Charlie with more care, addressed her more politely.

We sailed out the anchor, took the island to starboard, and edged along the shore out of fog bank into brilliant patches of light, then back into the gloom again.

Still tied to the mizzenmast, Sayami had come to. He huddled in the cockpit while Nello washed his wounds with warm salt water, hissing and twitching until Nello lost his temper and shook him.

“Maybe the water’s too hot,” Hay suggested.

Nello stirred it so it would cool. When he began wrapping the new bandage, Hay again advised. “Not too tight. You’ll cut off the circulation.”

“Here,” Nello snapped, throwing down the bandage. “You shot him; you fix him!”

Hay took over timidly.

“What the hell you shoot him for, anyway?”

“He was going to shoot Captain Dugger.”

“Going to, going to! The road to hell is paved with good intentions. He lowered his rifle.”

“I was sure he’d shoot.”

“Yeah!” Nello snapped at Sayami. “What the hell was that all about?”

Sayami looked insulted. “I was doing my job. I was told the captain was wanted for murder. A thousand-dollar reward.”

I was caught by total surprise. “A thousand dollars? For me?”

“Paid by the state of California, for you alive. If you wound up dead he’d pay it to me himself.”

“Hopkins?”

“Who’s Hopkins?”

“So why didn’t you shoot?” Nello snapped.

“Why have it on my conscience? The Dutchman was going to sink you anyway. Besides, I saw his face.”

“I bet you saw my face; you aimed right between my eyes.”

Sayami formed a sad smile. “That’s just it,” he said. “I can’t shoot people once I see their faces. Especially fools in love. He told me about you and her. He knew all about it.”

No one moved. No one spoke. Hay stared frozen. Nello leaned on the bridge deck in confusion. The fog opened and sunlight turned the mist around us golden.

“Who?”
Nello asked.

“What?”

“You said,
he
knew,
he
told me. Who is
he
?”

Sayami looked quizzically at him. “
He
, the husband.
Her
husband.
Hay
.
Mr. Hay.
He would have paid me the reward.
He
. Who do you think?”

Nello spun and grabbed Hay by the collar. “You son of a bitch! You offered him a thousand bucks to kill Cappy?”

“No. Honestly. I…”

“He just said! Didn’t you hear?”

“What do you want from
him
?” Sayami burst in. “
He
doesn’t know anything.”

Nello, without letting go of Hay, yanked out his knife and held it at Sayami’s throat. “I’m not in the mood for this!” he hissed. “Who’s bull-fucking who here?”

“He’s crazy!” Hay yelled. “I never said a word of it!”

“It’s true,” Sayami said. “It wasn’t him! It was the
husband
.
Hay!”

Nello held the knife, trying to figure out who to sink it into. Then he lowered it. But he held on to Hay, maybe just to have something to hold on to. Sayami picked up the bandage and went on wrapping his own arm. “I let go a thousand dollars out of some sentimental crap,” he said bitterly. “And another five hundred for him,” he said, pointing at Hay. “Mr. Hay said he’d give me five hundred to kill that wimpy son of a bitch because he was after her too. I guess he doesn’t like competition, our Mr. Hay.”

Nello scooped some cold dew off the deck and rubbed it on his face. “What did you say?” he said.

“When?” Sayami asked, annoyed.

“You said Hay promised you five hundred to kill
him
. But
he is
Hay.”

“He maybe
your
Hay, but he ain’t
my
Hay.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Sayami said. “I know Hay and I know
him
. He works for Hay. Olson. A professor, studies Indians. Gets paid to go collect things.” Then he laughed, “Like his wife.”

“This true?” Nello said. “You Olson? Work for Hay?”

“Yes.”

“And love his wife on the side.”

“I’m not alone in that.”

“No,” Nello said. “It seems to be the national pastime.” He went below, and I heard him clang the bottle on his teeth as he took a slug of rum.

“Why didn’t Hay come for her himself?” I said.

“Safer this way.” Sayami shrugged, then vinced in pain. “His fortune is from insurance. He loves insurance. He wanted to insure that he stayed alive.”

W
E WERE SO
close to shore that even in the cold fog I could smell the cedars. We had to tack. The current ran strong against us now and although the wind had stiffened, we barely clawed along. Nello checked the jib, then came back to the cockpit, tidied up the sheets, and, holding a coil of rope in his hand, said mostly to himself, “I’ll be damned if I close my eyes tonight; never know who the hell
I
might wake up to be.”

He adjusted the main with meticulous precision. “Cappy, I know you’re glad Hay isn’t here. But if he’s not here, then where exactly is he?”

I
FELT MYSELF
shivering, and not just from the cold. I could not conjure up the world beyond the fog, and now our world aboard was slipping into chaos. I closed my eyes to try to see her, but now that Hay wasn’t Hay, she seemed just as vague as the faint shapes in the mist.

Sayami finished his bandage and now tried to tie it off. Nello had to help him.

“So I lost a thousand bucks on you and five hundred on him. I figure somebody owes me something for my human kindness. Something besides bullet holes.”

We ignored him.

“Now I know Hay gave him five hundred spending money,” he went on, pointing at Olson. “I think this is as good a time to spend it as any. What do you think, Mr. Olson? If I can earn five hundred by killing you, I think it’s only fair I get that much to let you live.”

“Shut up!” Nello hissed, and wrenched his bandage. “Or I’ll let you bleed to death.”

The wind hardened. The fog rent. We were beating nicely now because inlets opened both to port and starboard, causing the current to slow. I looked around for the canoe. Olson looked too. But there was nothing dark and flat at the edges of the fog.

Charlie, her face flushed from the heat of the stove, poked her head out the hatch. When she saw Nello she broke into a smile. “Everybody hungry?” she said.

B
Y LATE MORNING
the current slacked and we pulled long tacks between mountainous shores. The fog lifted but only to the masthead, leaving us with the sensation of sailing under a burden. Sayami slept. Olson went to take up his old post by the mast, then he seemed to remember something—perhaps that he was no longer Hay—and with his head down came aft and went below. I pitied him; he had lost a lot all in one blow, even his name. In a way he scared me more than Sayami; not only was he smart and a good shot, but he had nothing left to lose.

I was sitting in the cockpit filling the logbook with banalities—the only thing that really mattered were the engine hours to keep track of the gas—when I noticed Nello’s hands grip the spokes hard. His eyes were tight.

“Besides the hangover, what’s eating you?” I said.

“Nothing. Life’s ducky.”

“Come on. We’re out of the pass alive; there’s no one after us; you have the sweetest woman down there who’d walk on coals for you—”

“Exactly!” he snapped. “I always knew God had it in for me, but not this much.”

“Don’t kid me. You’re in love.”

“For chrissake, Cappy! Her age.”

“You were made for each other.”

“Except she was made twenty years too late. Look at my face! Looks like they fought the war on it, then went home and left the trenches.”

“Come on, she worships you. And you care for her. Hell, you even cared for her before she was a she.”

“That’s just it,” he said. “I don’t want her to waste her life nursing an old man.” He looked away.

“You poor bugger,” I said. “You really got it bad. It’s all right to have it bad, just so you don’t float off and leave reality behind, ‘cause then up it pops in front of you, in the form of a barely submerged rock that rips open the hull and sends us to the bottom. All because you didn’t see the kelp bed that signaled a rock as plain as day.”

“I see it, thanks.” And he nodded past the port bow, where the floating fronds of kelp glistened more random than the ripples.

The wind cleared the fog, and after a few more tacks the sun beat down out of a pure blue sky and blazed blinding on the sea. The rail went under and stayed. She was struggling too hard—we had to reef. I kept the helm while Nello worked at the mast, easing the main halyard, hauling down the sail, cleating the downhaul, hauling the halyard with the sail now slatting, the lines snaking; then he tied in the reef lines one by one, cursing, pounding flat the sail, clawing. “Slack off, Cappy, I’m no fuckin’ Hercules!” It took a long time. But now she kept her rail up and sliced well through the seas.

He came back to the cockpit, coiled the mainsheet, then slammed it on the bridgedeck. “The strait’s blowing like a whore,” he burst out.

“Let her blow.”

“You kidding? It’s blowing twenty knots in here, that means a gale out there! And it’s so narrow you have to tack once a mile, and every time you tack you lose everything you gained. It’ll take us a week to beat fifty miles.”

I felt sorry for him; he had it bad; maybe worse than I. His movements were as hesitant as if he were doing everything for the first time.

“For chrissake,” I said kindly. “Jump in. When was the last time life gave you something to jump into?”

He didn’t answer. Fussed with the sheets.

“Anyway,” I said, “it’ll eat you alive if you don’t.”

At the end of our inlet, below the island’s mountains, we could see the strait, dense with marching waves. The gale blew their tops into a dense layer of mist.

J
UST OFF OUR
bow, a glistening geyser shot toward the sun. When the wind blew it apart, a dark fin rose, carved an arc, and slid under again. Then others came, five or six at once, and more geysers. “Good omen. Killer whales.” Nello grinned and pulled the tin bucket from the lazarette, leaned over the side, and carefully, so that the rush of water didn’t snatch it from his hand, he skimmed the top off a wave. He brought it back to Sayami and shook him awake. “Hey. I’m trying to save your life.” Sayami came drowsily to. Nello lifted the pail. “Put some in your mouth and spit it toward the whales. Move. The closer they are, the stronger the spell.”

They were close, alright, but had spread somewhat, allowing the ketch in among them.

Sayami sat up grimacing in pain, cupped his tied hands, then spat like a fountain over the side.

“Yell,
‘da’gibixla’ ye’golemex, n’noalakwe!’”
Nello shouted.

“Great,” I said. “Get him good and healthy so he can kill us.”

“The sooner he heals, the less we have to nurse him.”

“If you had let him drown, we wouldn’t have to nurse him at all.”

He watched the whales, watched them surface, arc, hang in the air looking at us with their great eyes, unperturbed, indifferent. Somehow I felt safer with them close. As soon as I felt safer, I sensed her again, nearby. I called Nello back, asked him where he thought they’d be.

“Depends,” he said. “On how tired he is. How much she helps. He’s so close to home now maybe he’ll rush right through. Only thirty miles before he turns in.”

“You just said fifty.”

“Fifty for us, thirty for him. There’s a canoe pass at high tide up a bay. We go another twenty.”

The whales, as if dancing, leapt into the air.

T
HE STRAIT BLEW
a gale right in our teeth, blew the words we uttered right back down our throats. The waves were dense, high, steep. The ketch bucked violently, endlessly, rose gallantly over one, but the next was right behind, and she slammed into its face as if into a wall. The ship’s bell clanged fiercely and the spray felt like hail. Nello steered. I stood stubbornly by the winches; I’d be damned if I let some cranky strait keep me from going north. Charlie sang, and Olson turned a color I had never seen before. We beat through green water for two hours and ended up three boat-lengths farther north.

“I was wrong!” Nello shouted in a lull. “It’ll take us a year!”

We pounded on.

“Over there!” he hollered, and pointed at a wedge of an island ending in a sandspit that sheltered a shoaling bay. At its marshy end, a float house listed in the mud.

It was late afternoon. “Fine,” I mumbled. “We could use a rest.”

We shot into the lee of the island, edged as close to the spit and the island as we dared, and dropped anchor. Even without the jib, the wind still blew the bow down and we dug in. It took two of us to wrestle in the main and lash it to the boom.

When Charlie lit the stove, the smoke blasted aft and swept down over the stern.