The Island

by Peter Benchley

  “So am I.”

  “Thirsty, too.”

  Maynard nodded. “To hell with it; let’s go in. Maybe the phone’s fixed.”

  While Justin brought in the lines, Maynard looked out over the water. He saw something ahead, to the west: a small brown dot that lay low in the water. He made sure the rods were secure in their holders, put the boat in gear, and headed west.

  “I thought we were going back,” Justin said.

  “We are. In a minute.” Maynard pointed at the dot.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. A turtle, maybe, or a shark. We’ll check it out.”

  “What for?”

  “Just because . . .” Maynard smiled. “On Seventy-eighth Street you can go days, weeks even, without seeing a shark. Admit it.”

  The dot took shape quickly. “It’s a boat,” Justin said.

  “More like a canoe.”

  “How’d it get there?”

  “Must’ve dritfed up from there . . . West Caicos.” Maynard gestured at a gray lump on the western horizon.

  The boat was a hollow log, tapered on both ends. Maynard circled it slowly. It was empty, save for a single, rough-hewn paddle.

  “Look!” Justin pointed. “Over there.”

  Maynard squinted. The sun was high, the flat surface of the sea a mirror. “What d’you see?”

  “Someone swimming.”

  “Sure.” Maynard was still blinded by the brilliant curtain of sunlight. “Driftwood, I bet.”

  “Driftwood doesn’t wave.”

  Maynard crouched beside Justin, beneath the canopy, and shielded his eyes. He saw a tiny silhouette. An arm, waving. “I’ll be damned. Must’ve fallen overboard.”

  It was a young girl, buoyed by an orange kapok life jacket. She was waving, but in a manner that struck Maynard as peculiar: There was nothing frenzied about her wave, nothing desperate. Her arm moved back and forth as regularly as a metronome. And she did not shout or cry out or say a word, even when they drew near.

  Maynard put the boat in neutral, letting it coast up to the girl. “Are you hurt?” he called.

  She said nothing, but she shook her head: no.

  He turned off the engine, to eliminate the possibility of an accident with the propeller. He knelt in the stern as it glided to the girl and held his hand out for her to grab. “Glad we came along. You could float out here for a week without seeing anybody.” His fingers touched her wrist. She was fair-skinned and blond and, he guessed, no more than twelve or thirteen years old. “How’d you get all the way out here?”

  He gripped her wrist, braced himself against the transom, and pulled. Something was wrong: She was too heavy. And in her eyes was a flash of panic, of terror. “What’s the . . . ?”

  She was yanked downward, out of Maynard’s grasp. He saw a rubber tube protruding from her dress, behind her head.

  There was a splash, a burst of water, a blur as something flew at his face. He fell backward, and an ax buried itself in the deck.

  Maynard backed away from the stern and scrambled to his feet. The girl was gone, and now a man crouched in the boat, panting, drooling water from his mouth and nose. His long hair was plastered to his head and shoulders. Bits of seaweed dripped from his beard. His shirt was torn and stained, his trousers tattered. His feet were wrapped in uncured animal skins that were lashed to his legs by rawhide thongs. He had no teeth.

  Holding the ax above his head, never taking his eyes off Maynard, the man reached behind him and bent down. He hauled a boy aboard—dark-haired, skinny, with black, darting eyes.

  The man passed the ax to the boy. “Now, lad”—he pointed a finger at Maynard—“do him!”

  “Justin?” Maynard snapped his head around. Justin was cowering behind the steering console. “Stay there!”

  The boy held the ax clumsily.

  “Do him, I say!” the man shouted.

  The boy did not move.

  From his belt the man withdrew a slim, double-edged dirk. He poked it under the boy’s ear, drawing blood. “You Portugee bastard! You do what you been taught!”

  Maynard reached under his shirt and drew his pistol. He chambered a bullet and pointed the pistol at the man. “Drop it.” The pistol trembled in his hand. He had never pointed a loaded gun at another human being. His upbringing, his training, his experience, had conditioned him to avoid pointing a weapon at a living thing. If you ever point a gun at another man, his father had said, you’d better want him dead.

  He cupped his left hand under his right, steadying the pistol.

  The man coiled into a compact ball, weaving from side to side like a cobra, shifting the knife from hand to hand.

  Maynard sighted along the top of the pistol barrel, trying to hold the muzzle at the man’s open mouth.

  The man screamed and sprang, and Maynard shot him in the face.

  The .32-caliber bullet was too small and too fast to knock the man down, so though he died in mid-air—the bullet entered his left eye and exited behind his right ear—he kept coming. His corpse hit the gunwale and bounced onto the deck at Maynard’s feet.

  Maynard was appalled. He stared down at the upturned face, at the one blank eye and at the oozing cavity where its partner had been. Seconds ago, this had been a man. Now it was carrion. He had caused this metamorphosis by moving his finger an eighth of an inch.

  Justin screamed, “Dad!”

  In the instant it took the warning to penetrate the muddle of Maynard’s mind, the dark boy was upon him like a gibbon—legs locked around his waist, a hand clawing at his face, an arm wildly swinging the hand ax, teeth snapping at his face and neck.

  Maynard could not see. He tried to pull the boy away, but the wiry limbs were like tentacles: As soon as one was disengaged, another would scratch or kick or slash. The pistol fell from his hand.

  Maynard staggered backward. He reached up and grabbed a handful of hair, but before he could pull, the boy turned his head and bit Maynard’s fingers to the bone. The ax dug at his back—short, slicing blows that lacerated the flesh. A hand clawed at his eyes, fingers probing to uproot his eyeballs. He stopped one hand, then the other, then felt teeth fasten on the skin of his cheek and tear away. He released a hand and punched at the biting mouth, and the hand he released drove a pointed fingernail deep into his ear.

  His brain shrieked: Overboard! Get in the water and he’ll have to let go. Blindly, he stumbled a few steps, took a deep breath, and flung himself into the air.

  He heard a strange, yet vaguely familiar, sound—a hollow, explosive roar, like the sound when the school bus he was riding in had skidded on ice and hit a tree. The sound subsided into a hum, and he was at a going-away party for someone at Today. Why was there a hum at the party? Someone tried to speak to him, but the voice was muffled by the hum. Then the party was outdoors in the wintertime, and he was so cold.

  Then the hum faded, too, and there was nothing.

  The boy squirmed out from under Maynard and left him on the deck, with his head sloshing in the drain beneath the outboard motor. On the motor itself, a patch of hair-tufted scalp hung from the steel brace Maynard’s head had struck. The boy leaned over the stern and helped the girl aboard. She shivered from long immersion in the sea. She reached behind her head to remove the rubber tube from her dress, but she could not grasp it. The boy put his hand up her dress and pulled the tube from below. It was in the shape of an inverted “Y.” He and the man had clung to the girl’s legs, breathing through the arms of the “Y.”

  Justin stood behind the console and looked at his father’s body. Blood from the wound in Maynard’s head dribbled down his neck into the drain, mixed with a puddle of oil and water, and ran out through a hole in the stern. Justin wanted to run to his father, to soothe his wound and beg him to awaken. He wanted his father to sit up and smile and say it had all been a joke. He shook, though he was not cold, and his teeth clacked together.

  The radio was on the console, beside his right hand. He slid his h
and a few inches to the left, turned the radio on, and removed the microphone from its bracket. He ducked down and pressed the Talk button on the microphone. “Help!” he whispered. “Help! They’ve killed my dad!” He looked up, in time to see the skinny boy’s fist descending in a wide arc. He tried to dodge, but the fist hit him behind the ear and spent him sprawling across the deck.

  “Nobody help you now,” said the boy. “Nobody help you ever again. You on you own, sum’-bitch!”

  The boy retrieved the dangling microphone. “Hey, Mary, let’s sing ’em de song.”

  Windsor stood at his kitchen counter, listening to the radio. The reception was faint and scratchy, but he had no difficulty deciphering the words. There were two voices, both high and young and very gay. They sang:

  Him cheat him friend of him last guinea

  Him kill both friar and priest—O dear!

  Him cut de t’roat of pickaninny,

  Bloody, bloody buccaneer!

  Windsor did not wait for the laughter he knew would follow. He turned off his radio and said sadly, “May the wind sit in the shoulder of your sail, my friend.”

  C H A P T E R

  1 0

  Why were they pulling him? He told them he didn’t feel like dancing, but they wouldn’t listen. Now they were forcing him onto the floor, dragging him by his arms and legs. They were hurting him, but they didn’t care. The more it hurt him, the more they cheered. Please, something to drink. So thirsty! Just a sip. Then he would try to dance. Promise.

  The dancers left, the dream faded, and all that was left was the pain—a sharp throbbing in his head and, worse, the sensation that his arms and legs were being wrenched from their sockets.

  His eyes opened, and he saw the sky. He was on his back, but he felt nothing beneath him, only the agony in his shoulders and hips. He cocked his head forward, put his chin on his chest, and saw his feet—ropes around his ankles, suspending his legs from two wooden posts. His head lolled back, and he looked up at his hands—hanging from ropes to two more posts. Each rope led to a spoked wheel.

  He was on a rack.

  He turned his head to one side, then the other. He was in a small sand clearing, surrounded by brush. Alone.

  He heard radio music, an orchestra and chorus, a hymn: “His love is greater than the shining sea, greater than you and me, greater than the power of love, and He’s with you, like a hand in glove.”

  The hymn ended. A voice began, “And now, shipmate . . .” The voice stopped, and another—closer, alive—intoned: “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. Thus has our comrade, Roche Sansdents, a righteous man and true, gone to the lap of God. All men have one entrance into life, and the like going out. When shall we see him again? Who can number the sands of the sea, and the drops of rain, and the days of eternity?”

  A murmur of “Amen” from a somber crowd.

  A new voice, resonant, commanding: “Goody Sansdents, by covenant you are heir to Roche’s goods, and they shall pass to you. Likewise by covenant, you shall receive food from the common store, apparel as you shall have need, and the tenth part of the finest prize next taken. Likewise by covenant, to you shall fall the disposition of him who caused Roche to pass from this world.”

  A woman wailed a fierce, vengeful cry.

  Maynard tightened his stomach muscles and, holding his breath to prepare for the pain, arched his back and shot his arms upward, hoping to put enough slack in the ropes so he could wiggle his hands free. He failed and fell back, and the fibers in his shoulders were stretched to anguish. He screamed.

  “He wakes!” called a voice as the crowd approached the clearing.

  “Only to sleep again,” said another. “I’d sooner make the whole passage asleep.”

  “But when you reached the other side, you might be lost.”

  “Aye, but awake you have to see the face of death, and that’s a fright, they say.”

  “No more a fright than the face of your woman.”

  They filed into the clearing and stood on its perimeter.

  Maynard hung from the rack and looked at them. He was afraid, but pain and confusion had partly detached him from his fear. It was as if he was floating above himself, observing his own terror.

  They were all men, all tanned and filthy, their clothing stained with blood and grease. Some carried cutlasses, some axes, and all had at least one knife.

  When the ring around the clearing was complete, the men fell silent. The ring parted, and three people walked across the sand toward Maynard.

  The leader was a tall man, with a broad chest and a narrow waist, in his late thirties or early forties. His brown hair was sun-bleached and parted in the center of his head. A waxed mustache hung down on either side of his mouth. He wore a dirty white linen shirt with billowed sleeves and hand-sewn hide trousers that stopped just below his knees. His knobby, leathery feet were bare. Two bandoliers crossed over his chest. Each held a flintlock pistol.

  Behind the leader was an older man whose graying hair was tied behind his head in a pigtail. He wore a gray robe, cinched at the waist by a wide leather belt, and rubber foul-weather boots.

  Several paces behind the men shuffled the semblance of a woman. Her face was smeared with charcoal, her hair waxed in a Medusa cap. She wore a black overcoat, which she clutched tight around her middle. Her eyes were fixed on Maynard—moist, frenzied eyes that did not blink.

  The woman scuttled between the two men, leaned over Maynard, and spat in his face. Her breath reeked of rum.

  The tall man smiled at Maynard. “You wake.”

  “Who are you?” Maynard’s voice was a raspy croak.

  “Give him water,” the older man said. “You must never kill a thirsty man. He appears before God without communion. It is written.”

  From somewhere behind him, hands reached over Maynard’s head and squirted water from an animal bladder onto his face and into his mouth. He licked his lips and swallowed, and the ligaments in his shoulder complained at the minute motion. He looked at the tall man and asked again, “Who are you?”

  “Jean-David Nau. Tenth in a line.”

  “Where is my son?”

  “With the others.”

  “Please,” Maynard begged. “Let him go. He’s a baby.”

  “Let him go!” Nau laughed. “Indeed!”

  “Don’t kill him!” Maynard felt tears leak from his eyes. “Do anything to me, but don’t kill him!”

  “Kill him?” Nau looked perplexed. “Whatever for? Do I kill a soldier before he is old enough to fight? Do I kill a beast of burden before he is old enough to pull? No. He may have a short life, but it will be a merry one, and his end will be of his own making.”

  “And me?”

  “You,” Nau said flatly, “you will die.”

  “Why?”

  The older man replied, “It is our way.”

  “To hell with your way. Tell me what I can do. Anything. I don’t want to die.” Hearing himself speak, Maynard was surprised at how calm he sounded.

  “Do you fear death?” asked Nau. “Death is an adventure.”

  As quickly and illogically as calm had come upon Maynard, it deserted him. He screamed, “No!”

  “What kind of man are you? Are you craven? You should meet death with dignity.”

  “You be dignified. I’ve got one purpose in life, and that’s to stay alive.”

  “What do they call you?”

  “Maynard.”

  “Maynard! A noble name! A warrior’s name!”

  “Bullshit. It’s a name. Who are you?”

  “I have answered that.”

  “No . . . I mean who are you? What are you?”

  Nau raised his voice so the man around the edge of the clearing could hear. “Hear me! This man is Maynard. Is there man among you who does not know his blood?” The men murmured to one another. “It was his forebear that felled the mighty Teach, called Blackbeard.”

  Maynard did not
argue. He had no idea who his ancestors were, beyond his great-grandparents, but if survival lay in assuming a false genealogy, he was prepared to claim descent from Jesus of Nazareth or Genghis Khan.

  “Your blood is good,” said Nau. “So must your heart be.”

  “In that case . . .” Maynard said.

  Nau held up his hand, to silence Maynard. “Manuel!”

  The skinny boy hurried into the clearing.

  “Bring the lad.”

  “Aye, Ollonois.”

  Maynard said to Nau, “What did he call you?”

  “L’Ollonois. It is what the children are trained to call me. Like my father, and his father before him. Back and back and back to the first, who settled this land in the time of the second Charles.”

  Maynard knew the name. “He was a psychopath! He used to eat people’s hearts.”

  Nau smiled proudly. “Aye. He brooked no silence from prisoners.”

  “Indians cut him to pieces.”

  “Aye, and so fearful were they that the pieces would join again and come back to haunt them that they burned and scattered them to the four winds. There was a man who knew how to die!”

  The skinny boy returned to the clearing, leading Justin on a rope leash. Justin’s hands were tied behind him.

  Maynard turned his head. He expected Justin to be hysterical with fear, but the boy was glassy-eyed, numb. “Are you okay?” Maynard said.

  Justin did not answer.

  “Hizzoner,” Nau said to the older man, “tell him.”

  The man put a hand on Justin’s head and said, “There is a time to live and a time to die. The sire dies and the son carries his name. A man may die, but his name lives on. A man may die, but his deeds are sung forever. You will witness the rite of passage, and when it is done your name will reflect the glory of the past. You will be Maynard Tue-Barbe.”

  Nau raised his arms. “Maynard Tue-Barbe!”

  “Tue-Barbe, Tue-Barbe, Tue-Barbe . . .” The chant swelled among the men around the clearing and dissolved into a cheer.

  The noise seemed to awaken Justin. He looked at his father, and then at Nau, and he said softly, “Don’t kill him . . . please.”