Far Tortuga (3 page)
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
Come up, den, Vemon! Dese fellas ain’t paid to h’ist you!
Dass okay, Copm Raib—we got’m.
Copm Raib? I comin, Copm Raib! You a hard mon, Copm Raib!
Goddom it to hell, if he too drunk to get hisself aboard of here, den hook dat hook into his pants and hike him up ass foremost, cause dat de way dat fool proceedin through dis life!
Byrum whistles for the sling, pointing at Vemon, who has folded his arms across his chest.
What say, Byrum!
What say, Will! Give us a hand with dis turtler here!
The men on deck grasp Vemon and haul him aboard; he puts his feet down gingerly on deck, brushing himself off. Now Byrum’s head appears over the rail.
Dis de right boat? Don’t look like de
Eden
to
me
!
How you been keepin, Byrum?
Not bad, Will. How yourself?
Dere he is! Big Byrum! What say, mon!
What say, Athens! I pleased to meet you again! How you been feelin?
Well, I
feelin
, dass about it.
Byrum, whistling, takes his suitcase aft into the deckhouse.
The Captain passes a propeller down to Speedy, who is stowing oars under the catboat thwarts.
You fit dis propeller to de shaft while Will filin de pin!
Okay, Doddy!
Raib Avers is a broad strong man in his middle fifties. His iron hair is patched with white, his bare feet are thick and brown, and his bold nose, in a leather face both wide and lean, has the cast of a full-blood Indian. Lines of merriment seam his face, but his eyes, discolored by sea weather, have a mean squint.
Byrum, hitching at his pants, appears on deck. He has put away his turquoise shirt and now wears khaki. With the Captain, he watches Speedy pull the catboat aft along the hull and tie it to the rudder shaft under the stern.
See dat black fella, Byrum? I gone make a first-class turtler out dat fella, cause he willin. And he
smart
. (
laughs
) Had to go all de way to Honduras to find a fella meets dat description in
dese
goddom days.
I seen’m on de quai. Tell me nemmine, he hondle dat oil drum by hisself. Little fella like dat—he
strong
!
Dass right. When dat boy say he do something, he
do
it.
Beneath the stern, a face bursts from the water. The face contemplates Byrum and the Captain, then disappears again, the black rump rolling on the emerald surface.
| NAME OF VESSEL : | LILLIAS EDEN |
| BRITISH REGISTRY : | 129459 |
| BUILDER : | N. Elroy Arch, Georgetown, Grand Cayman |
| RIGGED : | Schooner |
| STEM : | Spoon |
| STERN : | V |
| BUILD : | Carvel |
| NO. BULKHEADS : | 3 |
| FRAMEWORK AND DESCRIPTION OF VESSEL : | Wood Commercial |
| LENGTH : | 59.6 (from fore part of stem to the aft side of the head of the stern post) |
| BREADTH : | 18.1 |
| SHIP’S ARTICLES : | LILLIAS EDEN |
| Off. No. 129459; Gross 76.84; Net 69.89 |
SHIP’S MANIFEST
The sun is high now, and the day is hot.
Will is seated on the taffrail, working on a cotter pin with a big rat-tail file. Byrum adjusts the scuttlebutt, a diesel drum laid over on its side; water is dippered through a hole hatchet-hacked in its rusty surface. He lashes the drum to the foot of the mainmast, then turns to help Athens and the boy Buddy, who are stowing salt, sugar, corn meal, flour, beans, coffee, rice in the forward hatch. As the burlap sacks tumble together, motes of dust rise in the sun shaft of the hold.
… trouble down dere, dat right, Copm?
Dass what I tell’m, Copm Raib: me and Copm Raib, we ain’t
never
—
Get out de way, Vemon! Just cause you went one voyage with me to Honduras don’t mean you
know
something!
Under his striped cap, Vemon’s small features are still neat, but he is gaunt, with spindle shanks and the hunch of an old man. His eyes are meat-colored and do not hold, and his teeth are rotted out of his tattered skull. Mouth a black hole, he backs off with a big circular step, bones jerking; regaining his balance, he salutes.
… come out of it all right, dat what dey sayin.
I ain’t owin
dem
nothin, Byrum!
No, no, Copm, course not, only just watch out you don’t go dere again or dey shoot you in de back, bein dey so angry with you.
I ain’t
never
goin back! In dat country—Sponnish Honduras and den Nicaragua I talkin about—dey don’t care about life!
Me and de Coptin—
Goddom it, Vemon, if you sober enough to talk, you sober enough to work! Now dese two
guardias
, dere was a fight, and one
guardia
tell de woman of de other one dat he gone slit her throat. So de other one decide he gone ambush dis fella next mornin, by de dock. Right across from where dis vessel were hauled out. So dis mon were called in to get his breakfast, and he shot’m. Once in de shoulder, knock him down into de water, and den he poke his head around under de dock and shoot’m three more time, and de last one get’m in de neck!
I guess
dat
scuttled him, okay.
Well, dat be one hell of a breakfast! (
laughs
) Dat show you what kind of fella dey have in de lands of de Sponnish, where dey call you in to get your breakfast and den shoot you! I mean to say, dat one hell of a breakfast! Call you in dere …
Slowly, Raib stops speaking. His smile dies, his eyes tighten to a squint, and a low growl starting in his throat forms gradually into words: God
domn
!
A man has emerged from the engine hatch; he glances at the crew, then turns away, as if their work did not concern him. He has the feral air of a
bandito
, with sideburns, mustachio, bold gold teeth, hide sombrero with rawhide chin strap and rim stitching. He is in rags—torn, oil-soaked T-shirt, torn striped-pajama pants patched
with heavier materials than itself, and pointed shoes without laces or socks. One sallow hip protrudes from the torn pants seat, and a brown cigarillo, rolled by hand, sits extinguished in his mouth.
Dass him! Dass de one! Call hisself Brown, but he one of dem goddom Sponnish! Dat bent shaft, dat were nothin but faulty installation of de port engine by dat hombre dere! Tell me he engineer, and den he go and do a job like dat!
Though the Captain takes no pains to lower his voice, the man in the sombrero is expressionless; he gazes without interest at the island.
Dass him! He stupid! Dat de mon! He stupid as a goat!
Byrum and Athens fit a kerosene light into the binnacle; Vemon bends over them, hands on knees, trying to steady himself. Eventually the wheel is to be placed in the new pilot’s cabin, overlooking engine house, deck and sea, but for the moment it remains in its old position in the stern.
Now dat is a hell of a arrangement. Dat is a
hell
of a arrangement, dat is. De mon at de helm cannot even see where de ship
goin
! On all de boats I ever sailed on, I never seen nothin to beat
dat
!
He say he gots to leave it dat way, Byrum, bein he so broke. Spent all his money up down in Honduras, poor fella. Say he got to get a pile of turtle to pay for de next part of de job.
Well, dat is bullshit, Athens! All de money de mon made smugglin up dere to Cuba, buyin dem Cuban sharkskin? All dem years of runnin guns all over de Caribbean Sea?
All of de same, we gone make dis voyage with a bent shaft on de port engine, and with no cook, and with dis wheel in dis crazy way where de helmsman can’t see nothin but straight up de bunkey of de fellas layin in dere berths—