Deadly Shoals (15 page)

Grasping the bridle in his hand, he approached her warily, because she had her back arched and her tail bunched up like a cat in a fight. As he shortened his grip she stretched out her neck and did her damnedest to bite him, and when he dodged clear she reared, trying to rip the rein out of his fist. This gave him the chance he needed—Wiki took a running jump as she dropped from the plunge, and launched himself into the saddle with the touch of a toe on her knee.

No sooner had he landed than she whirled round and round. The plain revolved dizzily around him, while the gauchos thundered past again, still in hot pursuit of the deer, which was now running in the opposite direction. The beast's end was near, though. When at last Wiki had the mare under control, it was to find that the buck was roped, and Manuel Bernantio had dismounted, drawing his facón. At a word, the gaucho's horse set its feet, and leaned powerfully back. The buck crashed to the ground, and the
rastreador
cut its extended throat.

After cleaning the blade by wiping it on the animal's hide, Bernantio stalked over in a clattering of iron spurs. He looked Wiki up and down, and then said sternly, “Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to be the man who brought down the buck,” Wiki confessed. His voice came out more of an abashed mutter than he had intended, and he couldn't quite meet Bernantio's disapproving stare. He felt a complete fool.

There was a long silence, and then the gaucho's severe expression relaxed. Perhaps, thought Wiki, Bernantio remembered that he had helped him save face after losing the tracks at the salt dunes, because he said, “My brother must have taught you that it is not only necessary for a gaucho to ride well, but that he must fall well, too. I will congratulate him, when I see him.”

“I thank you,” said Wiki humbly.

“But was he really the one who taught you the art of the
lazo
? That, I cannot believe, though it is truly said that only he who is born to the lariat can use it well.”

Wiki said nothing, feeling more sheepish than ever. Bernantio contemplated this philosophical tidbit for a meditative moment, and then went back to his horse. To Wiki's surprise, he came back with a bolas in his hands, and handed it up to him. “For you,
las
boleadoras
is much easier to learn,” he said. “Keep this one. A man never knows when again he will meet up with a buck.”

Wiki smiled in appreciation of his dry humor, but received the gift with due reverence. Unique to the south of South America, the three balls of stone had felled thousands of horses, and killed hundreds of the men who rode them. Every Indian warrior had carried several sets, as did the gauchos later. Manuel was right—using the bolas was much easier to learn than working the lasso, but the creation of a set wasn't quick and easy.

Each of the three stones—two as big as a half-grown child's fist, and the third the size and shape of an egg—had to be hammered into shape, wrapped in hide that was shrunk, then fastened to a three-foot length of thin, tough, greasy rawhide cord. Then, with the lashing of the free ends of the three cords together, the bolas was complete. A year ago, on the grassy pampas, Wiki and George had practiced for hours with bolas like these, under the close eye of Juán Bernantio, Manuel's brother, gripping the egg-shaped hand ball tight as they whirled
las
boleadoras
around their heads. Then with a jerk, it was released. If the strings hit the legs of the target, entangling was instant. Accuracy was the tricky part.

Back on the pampas, Wiki thought he'd done quite well. Now, he was keen to see if his eye and hand had retained any skill, but he didn't dare try them out in front of Manuel Bernantio's critical eye. Instead, he inspected the weapon, making admiring comments about the fine workmanship and the evenly weighted balls.

“But you must take immense care not to ensnare the legs of your mount,” Manuel advised at the end of this polite recital.

“I shall,” Wiki most sincerely assured him.

*   *   *

The four scientifics had taken the pilothouse over, the pilots not having returned, presumably still being in prison. As Wiki dismounted outside the cabin, he could hear their low, angry voices as they went over and over this business of being
marooned
by Captain Ringgold's highhanded actions.

He was still keen to hoist a rendezvous flag, but didn't go into the cabin to find one for a while. Instead, feeling guilty that he had misused the mare so, he picketed her where she could get at the best of the scant herbage, and then devoted twenty minutes to watering and grooming her. She didn't seem particularly grateful, instead stretching her neck and baring her huge yellow teeth in another try at a bite. Wiki backed off in a hurry, gave up trying to be kind, and walked into the cabin.

The scientifics were so preoccupied with their grumbling that they didn't notice his arrival. Mr. Hale and Doctors Fox and Holmes were crowded along one side of the table, watching Mr. Peale sketch while they talked. Wiki eased over behind the surgeons to have a look, and was instantly fascinated. Titian Peale was very talented indeed. The scene, executed in rapid black scribbles, was the lassoing of the buck, and the drawing leaped from the paper so vividly that Wiki could almost hear the last struggles of the deer.

What he did hear was the scientifics gossiping about Captain Wilkes. “Mind you,” Dr. Holmes was saying, “he
had
been overdoing it with those pendulum observations in Rio.”

“That's very true,” said Dr. Fox. “And taking a warm bath, followed by the exertion of dressing, triggered a natural syncopy. He fell into his servant's arms in a dead faint—not that I witnessed it myself, as by the time Gilchrist and I arrived he was conscious again.”

“Dr. Gilchrist told me that Wilkes was incapable of speech when he regained his senses,” confided Mr. Hale.

“Gilchrist told a
lot
of people that,” Dr. Fox answered tartly. “But his prognostication of a mental and nervous breakdown is quite unjustified. He even talked of sending Captain Wilkes back home, and replacing him with another commander! I simply recommended rest, and Captain Wilkes took my advice. After a good night's sleep he was as energetic and eloquent as ever.”

“Then it's little wonder he now considers
you
his personal surgeon, and spurns poor Gilchrist,” said Dr. Holmes, with some malice in his tone.

“Captain Wilkes is getting the best of medical care from me, I assure you,” Dr. Fox countered at once, adding defensively, “And no one likes Gilchrist, anyway.”

At the back of the group, Wiki lifted his brows, as this was news to him. Up until this moment he had been under the impression that Dr. Gilchrist, a portly, dignified man who was the chief surgeon of the expedition (though now, apparently, the ex-chief surgeon), had been respected by all. He was also feeling very troubled. As captain's clerk and translator, he had worked with Captain Wilkes for hours on end while the fleet was in Rio, and knew better than most what stresses afflicted the commander of the expedition. Not only was Wilkes faced with a constant struggle to satisfy the demands of a scientific corps, most of whom had no idea what the job of a shipmaster involved, but because of that strangely savage Navy Department decision not to give him the rank of captain to match that job, his temper was quick and uncertain. While it was becoming more and more apparent that the scientifics resented Captain Wilkes's manner, which they considered capricious and overbearing, and many expedition officers were expressing dismay at his increasing attacks of hysteria, Wiki understood the reason for the nervous outbreaks, and still held great respect for the man.

Wiki also thought that this was getting embarrassing, and it was high time he made his presence known. However, Dr. Holmes was saying insinuatingly to Fox, “I know a number of officers who are very unhappy that you scotched the idea of sending Captain Wilkes back to the States and replacing him with someone much less committed to the scientific aims of the expedition.”

“How could
anyone
be less committed to the scientific aims of the expedition?” Mr. Peale demanded in sarcastic tones. “Before we sailed Wilkes promised me most faithfully I would find the sailors ready and willing to do anything I asked, but instead I have to do everything myself—dissect, preserve, draw, write, and explain to the uninitiated!
All
the sailors are required for ship duties, and they're not willing to do anything extra to help. I boarded the
Peacock
with high expectations, only to find it is nothing but humbug!
I
can't think of anyone who could be less responsive to the ambitions of the scientific corps than Captain Wilkes!”

Then Wiki was distracted. Quite involuntarily, he leaned forward and pointed at two horsemen right at the back of the gaucho band, who were taking shadowy shape under Mr. Peale's pencil.

He said, “They shouldn't be carrying rifles—gauchos never carry guns.”

All four heads turned; all four men stared. Their expressions shifted from startled realization that they had been overheard to icy outrage at his temerity.

Titian Peale said frigidly, “I beg your pardon?”

“You told me you're not an artist,” Wiki said, his own tone slightly reproving.

There was a short pause. Then, with the same faint smile Wiki had seen before, Peale said, “I have a brother named Rembrandt and another named Rubens.”

And parents with eccentric tastes in naming their offspring, Wiki deduced. The other scientifics were still staring at him with cold disapproval, but he didn't bother to excuse himself, because he thought he had just as much right to be in the pilots' cabin as they did. Instead, he nodded, and turned to locate the box of signals. Taking his time, he sorted out the flag he wanted, acutely aware of them all watching and waiting for him to go. He was barely out the door when the rush of muttered comments began.

Outside, the atmosphere was a lot more convivial. The buck was roasting over a fire, and a gourd of freshly brewed maté was being passed around. The horses, crammed in a row along the hitching post, stamped and flicked their long tails at flies, and snorted as they cropped. One of the gauchos called out an invitation to join them, but Wiki merely waved and headed up the path to the headland.

Captain Stackpole was still on watch at the foot of the flagpole, squinting alertly out to sea. Wiki noticed that the whaleship, still spouting a cloud of red-tinged smoke, was perceptibly closer. She was definitely sailing this way, he saw. Then his quick eyes glimpsed the tiny triangle of the sail of a whaleboat heading toward the shore.

Wondering if Captain Stackpole had seen it, too, he threaded the blue and white checkered rendezvous flag onto the signal lanyard, and hauled it up. Standing back, he surveyed it with satisfaction as it stood out boldly from the flagstaff, then looked at the sea again, and said, “That's a big whale they're trying out.”

“Sixty barrels at least,” Stackpole agreed. He was now so disgracefully stubbled that it was hard to tell where the fringes of his beard stopped and began. His weathered face had gone round in shape with his delirious grin.

“The mate is keen to have you back on board,” Wiki observed.

“What?”

“He's sent a boat, which should be at the beach within the hour.”

“You say so? My God, boy!” Captain Stackpole peered at the scene with his hand held alongside his cheek to shade the setting sun, which streamed over his shoulder, and then let out an oath, and cried, “You're right!”

Without hesitation, he abandoned his horse, which cropped at the sparse grass at the foot of the flagpole where it was tethered, strode to the top of the path which led down the precipice, and headed down the narrow terraced track. As he bobbed downward, he called over his shoulder to Wiki, “My God, boy, I surely could use a man with sight like yours in the t'gallant crosstrees when we're on whaling ground!”

Then he was gone. The whaleboat was perceptibly closer, the onshore wind and the running tide helping its headlong progress. On impulse, Wiki followed, jumping onto the path and then running to keep his balance, one hand held out to push against the cliff face. It was exhilarating to leap from one terrace to another with the steady salt-laden wind in his face.

Considering what an unrelenting job it had been to climb the path, the descent seemed amazingly fast. Within ten minutes they were both standing on the gritty gray sand with surf foaming toward their feet, staring past the rolling breakers. At sea level the whaleboat seemed much farther off, the hull disappearing in the troughs of the waves, and only the top of the mast and a triangle of canvas showing up against the paling sky and the first dim stars.

She was going to be a little while yet. Stackpole visibly relaxed. He looked around, spied a big rock, used it as a seat, and hauled out his pipe. When he finally had it lit, he shook out the match, and puffed contentedly. Then Wiki, who was standing nearby with his feet braced and his thumbs hooked into his belt, found himself the subject of a very shrewd look.

Stackpole said, “You know something about whaling, young man.”

Wiki grinned, realizing that he had given himself away with that observation about the size of the whale. He walked over to the rock where he had perched while putting on his boots earlier, and sat down. He could feel the residue of the day's warmth through the seat of his pants, but knew it would soon be cold.

He said, “Shipped first on the Nantucketer
Paths of Duty,
seven years ago.”

“That old box?” Stackpole snorted. “You must've been a green boy.”

“Just passed my seventeenth birthday,” said Wiki, and they settled down to a cozy exchange of ships and captains and voyages. Their paths had never crossed, as Wiki had sailed the Pacific, and Stackpole the Atlantic, but they knew a surprising number of men in common. Even more oddly, after a while Wiki realized he was enjoying trading yarns with Stackpole. Not only was it like being back on home territory but it was a refreshing change from the scientifics.