Far Tortuga (12 page)
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
Wodie, dat is foolishness! Dat is duppy talk! (
raises voice
) De only unlucky thing about de turtle fishery is de set of de wind, and de other thing is, if you are not setting your nets where de turtle are—
dat
is bad luck. (
laughs
) Dat is de
worst
kind of luck, cause you won’t get no turtle.
Copm Raib? Copm Raib? Ain’t you de one believes in turtle eyesight—?
Turtle eyesight is something dat I have observed myself! Many times I seen’m do dat, from de catboat, when we was out doggin’m! Times when de water so riled up dat a mon can’t see nothin, not even if he way up on de masthead. Look like a dish of milk. And de onliest way dat you find de set is by havin good bearins, dead reckonin, and den you grope de bottom to see if you come to de right place. Well, dem times, turtle pick up where dey is feedin and head straight back for dere coral head or pan shoal, straight, straight, straight! And de onliest way dey could do dis is turtle
eye
sight: dey must
see
through dat water with turtle eyesight, same as a mon would see through a hazy sun or something!
Must be divine guidance, dat is how
I
would express it, ain’t dat right, Copm Raib?
Raib contemplates Vemon for a long time.
Need more den divine guidance for a job like
dat
.
Still got duppies down dere at East End, ain’t dat right, Wodie?
Wodie smiles, eyes closed.
Y’know, I never seen a duppy, and dis is funny, for I born with a caul, and people dat haves a caul s’posed to see duppies better someway. But dey plenty in my family
has
seen duppies. My grandmother had a brother by de name of Billy, and one night he goin home in de full moon light. And when he got to a certain spot in de road, he seen a ruffly hen and chicks. So he say to hisself, Well, look, dis is some of de neighbors’ chickens, so before anything destroy dem, I will corry dem home, bring dem back in de mornin. So he take up dis ruffly hen on his arm, and go walkin down de road goin home. And when he got by de cemetery, he say de hen look up in his face like dat. (
grimaces
) Hen say, You ever see teeth like dis? Say, Take me and corry me back where you took me
from
! He was so frightened he wanted to throw her down. She say, No, don’t put me down; corry me back where you took me
from
! And he turn around and corry her back, and den he took off, cause dat hen had as fierce a set of teeth as he ever seen.
A silence.
Wodie opens his eyes wide, beside himself and shy. When he speaks again, his voice is high and singsong, sweet. The men stare at the stained white of his blind eye.
Course, mostways you never see de duppies, dey just got dere little ways of lettin you know dat dey are dere, like knockin something down, and things like dat. And when you
do
see something, most de time it just a kind of fireball, shape like a egg. See dat mostly over gravestones, but fireballs are common by de side de road, or under eaves, or out by de front gate—just hangin in de air. Now dat fireball might be a duppy, somebody dat is just died, or it might be de night spirit of some livin person who is out haggin—left dere body behind, y’know. Dey takes de form of a fireball or a night bird. But usually dat fireball is de spirit of someone dat is crossin over. Most de time it just kind of a glow like you can see in rotten fish, but sometimes de person’s face is dere, and dey are times when de whole body is seen, like in dat famous case in de hurricane year of 1919. A fella on a ship way up in de Gulf of Mexico seen dis woman hangin in de cabin doorway, and when dey got back home to Caymans two weeks later dey found out dat on de very same night Vaney Bush had hung herself in Georgetown—
Wodie! One thing we don’t need aboard of here—
Oh, Copm, you was livin in dat hurricane year, you can tell dat tale better den me—
I ’member dat goddom hurricane okay, I run right out de windward side de house—
Don’t ’member about Vaney Bush?
The men turn one by one to regard the Captain. He sucks his teeth.
Well, it were a MacTaggart, I believe, who seen poor Vaney in de cabin door, and I got to say dat dis case were very mysterious. But you go talkin about hens with teeth …
Half Moon Cay. A low cay of red mangrove, with a small beach inset in the limestone of the leeward shore. On the crest of the beach is a wind-worn lean-to and a catboat, but there is no sign of man. Sooty terns rise and settle.
At the
Eden’
s rail, Will Parchment holds to his chest a package of coffee and cigarettes, canned fruit and comics.
Dat boat of Will’s dere is a fine little boat. And dat boy just left her behind.
Will? Nemmine, Will—we pick up dat boat on de way home!
Copm Raib? Will tellin me dat dis port boat leakin—we could change her for dat one over dere!
Okay by me, if dass what Will want to do.
No, mon. I de pilot of dis port boat here, not dat boat on de beach.
Will returns into the deckhouse and puts the package back in its place under the small duffel that serves him as a pillow.
Dat Will’s boat, okay. So his boy ain’t drowned, cause Conwell too coward to go out cept in fair weather, and not always den. What dem rangers done is leave de job, abandon dat boat, and go off on some passin vessel, cause dey too shiftless to stay
here and tend dere nets. Dass all it is. To see dat boy make a ass of de father dat way, dat love him for some goddom reason, I tell you dat make me sad as hell!
Oh, dey plenty like Conwell in Caymans, Copm: all de young fellas dat way now. Hang round de tourists like a bunch of barra.
Plenty like dat in Roatán, too, mon—modern time. And dey no tourists dere to hang around—dey just hang around all by dereselves.
I tellin you, he like a crab, dat boy, de way he shift along. He got a big mouth and no sense. Go from one thing to de next. He like one of dem poor egg birds flyin round dere—worse, cause at least dey tryin to get on with life. But he don’t even
try
. One way or de other, I guess I got about eighteen children, and I can truthfully say dey ain’t one of dem I trade for dat one Will got!
Anchored in the lee of Half Moon Cay, the ship rides steady. Between dark shapes of lime-crusted turtle grass, the moving shadow is a manta.
Rangers?
Huh? Don’t know about rangin down here in Honduras? (
frowns
) What we calls
rangers
? Dat is left behind onto de cays? Well, dere is three rangers and sometimes a cook, to cook for dem. Give’m a catboat and nets, and den some water and some rice, beans, coffee, flour, things like dat. Matches. Sometimes dere two boats on de one cay. At de peak of de shark fishery, dey corried twenty boats on de
A.M. Adams
stacked up in her bows, and all of de crews and all of dere stores and gear. Course de boats pretty well nested and lashed down, or de seas could roll dem over. De
Adams
might leave fifty, sixty fellas rangin, pick dem up again on her way home.
Rangin. S’posin dey runs out of water? And den food?
De ranger knows he goin to be dere six to ten weeks, and he takes stores for dat time. He not worried about his meats—fish and all dat—he gets dat as he want it. It just dry stores and water. Got to have sufficient water. On a few of dose cays, if you starvin for water, you could scratch down in de sand and get something to save your life, but it pretty salty. You just keep diggin and tastin, and when it get to de place where you can’t make it, den you stop.
Athens stands and stretches.
Oh, mon. Dey speaks about de pirates of Cayman. I took a swear dat I would never go back rangin in dis life. When dese West Bay coptins land you, dey doesn’t give a domn for you after dat, especially if it wasn’t dem dat paid to fit you out. Dey maroon dere grandmother if somebody paid de money down to rig her out.
Byrum nods, cracking his knuckles.
Athens tellin you de God’s truth, Speedy. One time he maroon four rangers on de cays … who? Dis coptin here dat’s always shoutin about justice! Oh, mon! Dat was what de old people likes to call a real conflaption! Sailed home to Cayman leavin four of dem fellas behind on de cays with insufficient water, and den he told dere families dat dey were doin very, very fine, and after dat he forgot about’m. Dis were nothin but hoggishness; prob’ly he smugglin, or runnin guns down to Colombia. He decide he got business at home, so he go home, not takin de time to pick dem up. Mon, dey were just lucky dat another vessel come along. But one fella from Old Bush dere, he run out of water, and den he got scared, thinkin de ship were mashed up and were never goin to come, and so he
row
all de way to some Wika village on de Sponnish coast. He row forty, fifty mile, and he arrive dere in very bad shape; he domn lucky he alive.
He all right again now, dey say. Put him away in de asylum, y’know—wavin his arms, givin orders at de crossins, all of dat. De distress of dat experience done it to him. But now he able to hondle hisself again, and he come home.
Athens coughs violently.
Oh, mon. Raib Avers is so bad and so angry and so cruel dat he don’t even like hiss
elf
! But he don’t frig with
me
, I tell you
dat
! See de way he pick on Vemon and de boy dere, and even Will? Cause Will love dat mon someway, so dass what he get. But he don’t pick on
me
, no mon!
Maybe he scared you beat him up.
Dat could be, mon. Dat could be.
In a sudden silence, Athens opens his eyes: Raib has come aft from the engine room and now stands over him. Relighting his bent cigarette, Athens ignores him.
Oh, yes!
Still
got pirates! Dey come by dere ways naturally, from times gone back. Dem ones dat burned de old
Clarinda
to de water line—
Raib, half smiling, nods at Athens, who will not meet his gaze for fear of laughing. The Captain reaches down and sets Athens’ cap straight on his head.
How you feelin, Athens?
Okay. Pretty good. (
coughs anew
) I gone take de first train straight to hell.
Well, what Athens been sayin about pirates is correct, and he just de mon to know about it, bein dat his uncle committed de last high-sea piracy in de Cayman Islands. Oh, yes! (
grins
) Gideon Ebanks! 1931! Killed five of dem Cuban Sponnish. Den he run off into de mangroves, I b’lieve, where dey found him dead. (
shrugs
) Anyways, before de first settlements down at East End, dere was shipwreckers over dere back of West Bay. Dere at Northwest. No huts hardly—dey was just hidin in de bushes. Hidin from de world. Prob’ly dey got marooned dereselves, and dey wanted to give other folks a taste of it. False beacon fires. Right up to de turn of dis century, de island families did very well off dat: used to pray to de Good Lord to send dem a wreck, and run right out of church, dey say, when a ship struck. But de last high-sea piracy, dat was in 1931.