A Dolphins Dream (43 page)

"That is why you are safe with Sinaca," continued Moses, unfazed. "You will not be sacrificed. You are her lover, the dolphin. You will see, the two of you always will be in the water, like sea creatures."

Compton reset the shell in a circle convinced that all the logic Moses could muster would never persuade him that he was being dreamed by a dolphin. “Moses, you have stretched my beliefs further than I ever thought possible. You have shown me things I would never otherwise see but this is too much to accept. I’ll give you this though. The prospect of dying at any moment is really no different from ordinary life. Life is a precious thing, as you have constantly pointed out. It becomes even more precious with the awareness of death and the possibility it could come at any moment. I’ll hold that thought."

Moses saw the conviction in Keli’s eyes and nodded in acceptance. He smiled his gap-toothed smile. “Don’t start thinking now, Keli. It is nothing to worry about, eh." Moses stood away from the table and Compton followed his lead. "We leave at the sun in the morning. Do you still want to spear the fish?”

“I cannot change my life now. I want to thank you for all you have done for me. You are a true friend, the likes of which I have never known. I am ready for tomorrow.” Compton held out his hand and Moses smiled and shook it.

“Get plenty of sleep tonight, be ready for the journey."

"I'll be ready." Compton walked Moses down to the boat and stood on the beach as he rowed out into the twilight, an illuminated shadow in his ancient boat who looked as old as time.

Rrkably, Compton slept undisturbed through the night and awoke in a shadowless dawn at the sound of the outboard coming around the East Point. In its whine registered the sounds of urgency and restraint, triggering an adrenaline surge, which instantly warmed him in the chilly dawn.

Moses’ boat never looked more shipshape. When the long gun was placed along the gunnels, it marked the journey that was before them in no uncertain terms. Compton climbed aboard, anxious to be underway and Moses, sensing the moment as well, wordlessly shoved off, started the engine and engaged the gears in sure handed movements.

They motored west down the island, past the long beach and around the west point, skirting the barrier reef that enclosed the resort, straight southwest to the far point that marked the westernmost edge of the island. Once past this point they were out of the lee of the island and on the open seas where rolling ground swells increased two-fold in height and breadth. The size and strength of the swells was not unexpected and Moses instantly calculated their speed and power, taking surface readings on the currents for a later time when such information could be of paramount value.

"If these swells stay the same height and speed we ought to be able to get some decent sightings," added Compton. "But I wouldn't want them to get much higher."

“The bearings are off the southern tip of Taveuni, the East End of Laucala and the southeast end of Qamea,” said Moses, indicating all three points off the boat. “There is another island that is across the way many miles, Naitaba. It would be of help if we find it. But to find it we must know where to look, eh.”

Moses ran the outboard at three-quarter throttle to conserve on fuel and not pound the boat unnecessarily against the quartering swells. They settled into the pulse of boat and sea, each man seeking refuge within himself.

The idea of being dreamed by a dolphin began to intrigue Compton, more to occupy his time in this long journey than to acknowledge its validity. Somewhere he had read that life, for the most part, was lived as a dream and that all of mankind, save for a few, had no concept of true reality. It seems apparent, he observed, that from this perspective, my life in the civilized world was a dream-life. What I thought was real and important wasn’t and what I thought was complete nonsense has become real. In this boat, on this Fiji water, I have a better chance of discovering my true self. If this is another dream, then it's a preferable one, for here I can take my clues from the natural world where they are unfailing clear and though harsh, remain a consistent reflection. In the end, what does it matter? Maybe what Moses said was true, we are all dreamed by something else. Perhaps we are dreamed into life over and over again. What's better, I wonder, to be the dreamed or the dreamer?

From Compton's unconscious floated a question that tumbled from his throat.

"What would make the dolphin stop dreaming me?"

Moses responded as if the question were perfectly reasonable. "Maybe he gets tired of the way you live."

"Well then, I should avoid living a boring life."

"Yeah, yeah, avoid a boring life. Keep the dolphin interested and you will live a long time, eh."

There was a crazy sense to it that Compton found wonderfully easy to accept. Too easy, and he dismissed it before it could burrow into his logic and tamper with his convictions.

            Moses continually checked bearings and made corrections while Compton deliberated over the swells, searching beneath the cobalt water that was as infinite as space, looking for a sign of the reef that he would not recognize until he had seen it.

Into the third hour, with the sun at its zenith, Moses cut the engine. "We should be very near but bearings by the eye can be off by miles. We eat, make our eyes sharp for the upswell of the reef."

"The swell has increased," observed Compton, "but not enough to obscure the high spot. Still, I wouldn't know where to look. It could be a hundred yards from here and we could miss it."

"Yeah, yeah. Plenty work to come."

Moses husked a coconut with his cane knife and shared the milk with Compton. He produced a cloth sack and carefully brought out a plate of smoked mackerel and taro chips.

"Mariah make this for us. Time to be a pig again, eh."

The sun and the sea had famished them and they ate everything. 

"Maybe we should've saved some of it," said Compton, sucking his fingers clean.

"Have you ever seen a pig save anything? We keep the meat of the coconut for later."

Moses stood and scanned the horizon. "I don't see Naitaba. The big boat fisherman say it would help greatly but Peter say that it would be hard if there’s swells. I have to line up the south end of Taveuni with the east tip of Laucala but it is not clear where is the tip."

They both stood but neither could differentiate between Qamea or Laucala, which had merged in the distance. The south end of Taveuni, to which Moses had referred, shimmered indistinctly on the horizon. Moses turned and fired up the engine.

"We go this way," and he wheeled to the northeast.

They ran on that heading for a half an hour. Moses then stood again and looked for the upswell that would indicate the high spot of the reef. The sameness of the sea rolled relentlessly out of the east, reducing the boat and its occupants to blemishes on its vast, perpetually moving skin.

Moses systematically ran on different points of his mental compass for half an hour each, trying to section off an area he believed held the reef. By mid-afternoon the wind had risen and there had been no sighting. Concern carved its way onto his face. He kept shaking his head with every fruitless sighting, exchanging looks with Compton but never saying anything.

Cumulus blew high and strong out of the east and the sea was churning white caps. The boat pitched and rolled and Moses picked up a near empty gas can and shook it. "We must return, Keli. We have only fuel to get back. The sea is rising up, eh. It will be a very hard ride home and we will use more fuel against the sea. Also, I think that a current is pushing us south."

"We must be close," said Compton, squinting into the sun-reflected water. "We can't quit now. It might be just a few hundred yards away."

Moses shook his head vehemently.

"It is becoming dangerous, Keli. We cannot spend the fuel."

"Even if we run low on fuel we can still make the lee of Qamea and then row to Taveuni."

"The current out here has taken boats away forever. We cannot row against such a current. This water very strong, Keli. We are only men."

"Just a half hour more," appealed Compton. "I might not get this chance again. Who knows what the fuel situation might be in a week.  This is my only chance."

Moses had not stopped shaking his head, even when he acceded.

"Alright, but jes' half hour. Then we leave."

Compton stood in the bow and hung onto the painter attempting to penetrate the swirling water, having no idea how he would ever be able to discern the white water of an upswell from the white water that cascaded over the breaking swells.

"You tell me where to go, Keli!" shouted Moses. "Let the small voice take you to the reef."

Compton pursed his lips and pointed loosely off the starboard beam. Moses swung the boat with deliberation to that course. They ran in that direction for fifteen minutes and Compton pointed off the port quarter and Moses turned the boat again. After a half a mile he pointed off to starboard and Moses altered course yet again. Squinting into the building chop, Compton waited expectantly for a sign, some indication of a change in the configuration of the seas.

"It is time, Keli," declared Moses. "We must go. Already we have used too much fuel."

"No, wait! That way!" pointed Compton to starboard. "Try over there. Five minutes. Gimme just five more minutes."

Moses wiped the palm of his hand on his shorts and swung the boat again, hefting up the last fuel tank to gauge what remained.

Compton's sore eyes were bloodshot and rummy from staring into the glare of the harsh sea. The low sun was a blinding white light across the sea in the west and it was in this direction that he had pointed and to which Moses had reluctantly turned.

After several minutes Moses spoke with unbending resolve. "That was it, Keli. No more five minutes," and he turned the boat on a course for Qamea.

Compton continued to look back into the water where the sun reflected in the white light of an electrical flash.

A hundred and fifty yards away two waves came together and exploded in a towering funnel of water.

"There!” shouted Compton, pointing aft off the port quarter. "There it is! The upswell! We were right on top of it!"

The waves came together and crashed again as if to confirm the discovery. Moses turned the boat for a better look and the waves collided once again in thunderous explosion.

"That is it, Keli. Now we follow the reef for two miles north." Moses looked over the side. "You see the reef, Keli. Right there, all we had to do was look down, eh. Your little voice brought us to it."

Moses followed the trail of the white reef for two miles as Compton put on his diving gear. The sun was tittering on the upper most peaks of Taveuni when he entered the water. In the months he had been stalking fish he had never been in the water at this time of day and the underwater tension was a tangible thing. The small hairs on his arms and neck stood on end to receive the harbinger of the hunt. This was the hour when the pelagic fish were most active and when the undersea world came alive with a fierce energy fueled by a daylong hunger. It was a time when the sharks emerged from the abyss to prey on the weak and when the schools of bait squeezed tighter into dense balls that no light could penetrate. There was urgency in the movements of fish great and small that conjured both life and death in the immediate present. The electricity of tension shot through Compton and his adrenals involuntarily primed as he slipped into the water.

On the white reef, directly beneath him, an enormous school of silver blue bait twitched in choreographed vigilance. He cocked the spear and surveyed the reef as schools of bait hovered along its edges so dense they obscured the white coral beneath them. A school of barracuda skulked by in its slow, methodical fashion, weaving deceptively close to the bait. Suddenly the bait appeared to explode in a shower of fragmented light. A single barracuda hovered alone where the bait once was, tiny, sliver flakes like sequins, drifting from its mouth, then turning lazily toward its drifting school seeking refuge among its brethren. The reef was similar to the deep reef of Qamea, although it appeared deeper and was broken into two sections. In the narrow split that separated the reef, more bait hunkered for protection. He moved to the edge of the near reef where a pair of jacks, each over eighty pounds, cruised along the edge, and he dropped down. The jacks picked up his dive and altered course toward him. To his right and deeper, four mackerel, all as large as the Silver Fish, coasted in from the outside. Turning his spear from the jacks, he lined up on the mackerels. Within seconds they were upon him. Each was well over a hundred and twenty pounds. All records, surmised Compton. They drifted close enough for a shot but instead of pulling the trigger Compton lifted for the ceiling. The panorama of the reef, in its consummate wildness, laid bare the majesty of nature at her finest. The scene was breathtaking and it was for this that he rose to the surface. The reef was grander than all the manufactured dreams of the sea he had ever fantasized. It was everything the planet had once been and would never be again and he felt like the last man who would ever seeweror the fishermen with nets never see the empty space that is left when they are done.

Catching his breath, he forced himself to relax. Taking in deep inhales he watched the gigantic fish parade by in God's aquarium, the Sea God's aquarium, he corrected himself, where all the fish weighed over a hundred pounds. In the darkening waters the silver bodies of the fish glowed iridescent like metallic missiles against the blue background of the dimming depths. Taking a final breath, he dove and suspended at thirty feet where he could pick out a fish and set the angle for the shot. Three mackerel swung inside the reef near the split and he lined up on the leader. It advanced unerringly and he aimed, fixed now, having found the spot. Something to his right caused his eyes to flick and from the side there came another fish. Leaving the mackerel, he slowly turned on a fish that immediately dwarfed all others on the reef. It was a mackerel, of that he was sure but its size spoke of another kind of fish. Its head alone was larger than the jacks seen earlier but more than its size was the power that emanated from its alloyed skin. It moved as the Sea God moved fueled on an energy that came from another source. The power in the fish was intimidating and spoke of death and of life. All that he had understood of the ocean was embodied in the fish and in its predator way, as he closed swiftly. Moving with deliberateness that was uncalculated, he swung the spear gun. Then with a focus labored from his body, he let the ocean fall away and the fish fall away. He reduced the fish, from head to tail, from gill to pectoral fin, from eye to scale, from light to dark. He fixed the angle to a single spot in the center of a scale leaving a tiny, silver dot that filled his vision. The spot was but a few feet away when he let the spear fly.