He decided that her reluctance was based, at least in part, on a profound fear of the unknown. Before he could even hope she would listen to another proposal, he would have to—somehow, subtly—convince her that she could survive off the island.
After what she referred to as “the morning breed,” she would feed him. Maynard had learned never to look at his food, always to hold his breath before he took a bite (thus blocking his sense of taste) and to hum when he chewed, so he would not hear, as once he had, the crunch of a bird’s skull between his teeth. If Beth chanced to look away while he ate, Maynard hurried to pluck the insects and slugs from his bowl, but usually she monitored his every bite. She was like a fastidious cat owner, determined to maintain her pet at the peak of health.
They always took a morning walk, watching the shipwrights caulking hulls and sewing sails, the women doing laundry (boiling clothes in sea water) and collecting roots and birds’ eggs, the cattle-tender plying his charges with herbs and massages to encourage healthy deliveries, the swineherd—a young man blinded, Maynard was told, when a battery exploded and sprayed him with acid—squatting in the hog yard lamenting the sorry state of his diseased pigs, and Nau and Hizzoner sitting cross-legged on a knoll overlooking the sea, searching for signs of success from their scouts.
Beth took him by the armory—a hut, always guarded, beside Nau’s—only when the children were somewhere else. He begged her to let him see Justin, even from a distance or from hiding, but always she gently refused. He is gone, she would say, he is a new person. Maynard’s elliptical arguments—one went: “If I’m dead and he’s a new person, he won’t see me and I won’t recognize him, so what’s the harm?”—were met with a silent smile.
Most of the day he spent chained to the roof of the hut (the combination lock had been replaced by a key lock), writing, dipping a sharpened quill into a bowl of fish blood (for richness of color) mixed with berry juice (for permanent set) and scratching the saga of the l’Ollonois line onto a roll of brown wrapping paper acquired, he assumed, from some unlucky vessel. The writing was drudge work, but it gave him relief from his otherwise ceaseless pursuit of a way to escape.
He thought he had thought of everything, and everything he had thought of amounted to either fantasy or suicide. All his options began with him getting loose from the chain around his neck. That he could do, either by picking the lock or, if he had to, by dismantling the hut and lugging the chain with him. Stealing a boat was unlikely, and if he succeeded he still could not be sure of freeing Justin. If he could get a boat and Justin and some water, he could poke holes in the other boats and render them temporarily useless, then put to sea. But he had seen how quickly a damaged boat could be repaired, and how expert these men were at reading winds and tides. He would be caught before he had gone a mile.
His plan had to be perfect, for he could not risk failure. He would not be given another chance; he would be killed instantly. The prospect of his own death was bothering him less and less; he had almost accepted his end as imminent. But his end would spell Justin’s, too—not a physical demise, but the end of opportunity, condemnation to a life barren of promise. Maynard had no designs on immortality for himself, would not be chagrined to leave the world no better a place than he had entered. But he didn’t like these sentiments in himself: He wanted to want immortality, wanted to want to change the world. And most of all, he wanted Justin to have the chance.
Now and then, he thought of trying prayer, but he felt like a wretched hypocrite. It was the same impulse he had felt as a child: “Dear Lord, if you’ll let me pass this exam (or get this date with Susie, or whatever), I swear I’ll . . .” As soon as the crisis passed, prayer was forgotten.
What would he do if he got away? How would he change his life? He didn’t know. He would appreciate it more, that was for sure, would treat every minute as something precious—not something to be preserved, safely, for its own sake, but something to be filled with experience and learning. He had lost his capacity for wonder; he would try to regain it, and to keep it alive in Justin. But all those thoughts were safe and easy. He had first to confront the hard one: How the hell was he going to get off this island?
He had debated trying to get to the radio in Nau’s hut. If, as he had read in the covenant, there was a penalty for transmitting signals, that must mean that the radio was capable of transmission. But, supposing that he could co-opt the guard—and what, he thought amusedly, could he offer the man?—whom could he be sure of reaching? What would he say? One possibility was to send an S.O.S. to all ships, giving longitude and latitude (which he would have to guess). Another was to place a call to the Miami or Nassau marine operator. But to reach across five hundred or a thousand miles of open water and changing weather, that would have to be one formidable radio powered by a bank of batteries.
Always, Maynard’s musings ended with the faint hope that someone might be looking for them. When he found himself wallowing in that hope, he knew it was time to give his brain a rest. Nobody would be looking for him because nobody cared very much what happened to him, a thought that was mildly depressing but not at all surprising. He had no commitments, and no one had any to him. His disappearance would anger Hiller, to whom it would be an inconvenience, and annoy a couple of editors of other magazines who were expecting him to deliver free-lance pieces. Otherwise, no one would miss him, which didn’t particularly bother him. But the fact that it didn’t bother him, bothered him. He decided that, by God, there is more to life than surviving, and he laughed at himself for deciding that now.
Their one chance was Devon. By now, she would be frenzied. She would have demanded the mobilization of the militia, placed calls to the White House, and would be hectoring Hiller to distraction. Maynard’s worry was that all her flurry would generate no action, until it was too late.
At the end of the day, Beth would bathe Maynard in the ocean, feed him, and take him for another walk.
One evening, they found Nau sitting alone on a cliff above the cove, watching two of his pinnaces duel for puffs of breeze that would bring them home. Beth flicked the chain to urge Maynard along, but he resisted. Nau heard the clink of the chain and turned around.
“Just passing,” Beth apologized. “We’ll be gone.”
Maynard expected Nau to nod curtly and turn his gaze back to the sea. Instead, he said, “How goes your scribbling?”
“A little more every day.”
“And now you know all there is to know about us.”
“Hardly. I know a few of the ‘whats’—what you do, the way you got here, what you live on—but I don’t know any of the ‘whys,’ like why you stay, why you do what you do, why no one has found you.”
“Too many questions. The middle one first: We do what we do to live. Life is staying alive. Why has no one found us? We take great care. No one comes to us; we go to them.”
Maynard gestured at the two pinnaces. “None of them has ever struck out on his own, tried to escape?”
“Rarely, and never successfully. Each man is watched by another, and in each boat there is one man—at least—whose life is mine several times over. But it is not an issue. What would they escape to?”
“The unknown. For all they know, it may be better than this.”
“There is no unknown. They know what is there. They have been taught. Some—Tue-Barbe will be one—have recollections, but time allows us to cast them in their true light.”
“What do they know is out there?”
“Governments of crafty rascals and damned villains, half dedicated to preserving their own suet and the other half to throwing them over so they may purvey their own villainy. Misery, hunger, drones who serve queens they know not. Thus it has been since the beginning, and thus it shall be.”
“What do you have here? Misery, sickness, drudgery . . .”
“. . . freedom . . .”
“To do what? Kill people?”
“Kill, kill, kill . . . why does death so concern you? A mountai
n explodes and thousands die; a river overflows and thousands die; nations war on each other and millions die. Those are accepted as nature’s way. But an administrative death”—Nau drew a finger across his throat—“raises the hackles of the righteous, while in fact it is as natural as the others—a clean, quick, sure way of excising a sore, a vital surgery. He who ignores a festering wound, and trusts it to sort itself out, poisons the whole. Cut it out and burn it closed and be done with it.”
“I can’t accept that,” Maynard said.
Nau laughed aloud. “Said the chancre to the surgeon, ‘I can’t accept that. ’Tis the unkindest cut of all.’ What you can accept, or cannot accept, is of no concern to me. Or to you. It will be done.”
“What purpose will it serve?”
“We will be rid of you, shed of an annoyance or, worse, of an agitation.”
“And of a chronicler,” Maynard said hopefully. “You need a chronicler.”
“Not one whose mind is deep-poisoned, whose ways are set. If I need one, I will teach one.”
“How long do you think all this can last?”
Nau shrugged. “A day, a year, an age. Who knows? They say it ended three hundred years ago, but it did not.”
“It will.”
“Of course. And when it ends, it ends. I am a simple man and I have a simple charge, as did my father and as will my son: to keep one generation alive.”
“How old is your son?”
“I have no son.”
“Then how . . . ?” Maynard’s words were throttled by a tug on the chain.
Nau smiled at Beth. “It matters not, Goody.” He said to Maynard, “I had a son. His mother died bearing him—the best of all signs, for it meant that all her strength, not just a part, had gone into the body of the child. He was killed in an engagement.”
“How old was he?”
“Ten. He was being readied for . . .”
“Ten? At ten he was fighting?”
“Surely. At thirteen he would be a man. He fought well but not cautiously. He was too eager to please. So he died.”
The pinnaces slid, one after another, into the cove. Nau rose and stretched his legs. “I have been giving thought to something,” he said. “I need not ask you; I need not tell you. But I think it might give you pleasure, so I will tell you.”
Reprieve, Maynard thought, and he said, “Please do.”
“When you have done your job for Goody, and have been sent on your way, I think I shall adopt Tue-Barbe. I think he has leadership within him.”
Maynard stood, stunned, unable to speak.
Nau patted him on the shoulder. “I thought that would please you,” he said, and he walked down the hill toward the cove.
A noise jarred Maynard awake in the darkness. It was a horn, a hollow, mournful monotone that he imagined as similar to the sound that summoned biblical armies to battle.
Beth was already up. Hurriedly, she wrapped the chain around his neck and motioned him to the door.
“What’s . . . ?”
“The hunt. Go!”
“At night?”
“Go!” She kicked at him. “A tenth of this one is mine. I’ll not be late.”
She trotted along the paths, and he followed her footsteps.
Night was almost over; between bushes he could see patches of twilight dawn. He heard coughs and wheezes and muttered curses and the crackle of branches breaking, as other people ran along other paths.
They arrived at a clearing, and Beth slowed to a walk. The other women halted at the edge of the clearing, but Beth—evidently because she had a stake in the proceedings—was permitted to advance, and to take Maynard with her.
Nau stood before his hut, with pistol bandoliers across his chest and cutlass and dirk at his belt. Beside him stood Hizzoner and before them Manuel and Justin. A flashlight was stuck in the sand, facing upward, and the beam reflected fear and excitement from Justin’s eyes.
A huge pot sat at the center of the circle, and when all the armed men were present, Hizzoner stepped forward and poured gunpowder from a powder horn into the pot. “Drink,” he said, stirring the brew, “so ye each may have the strength of ten, so ye may bring honor to the company and to yourself, and so ye may fear no evil. Amen.”
Solemnly, each man dipped into the pot, using a cup or a hat or his hands. The men coughed and sputtered and laughed and slapped each other on the back and drank again.
Nau urged the two boys forward. Maynard saw that Manuel knew what to expect: He held his breath and splashed the liquid into his face. He choked, and his eyes watered. To Maynard’s surprise, Manuel drank a second time, as if he also knew that he would need the courage the liquor offered.
Maynard hoped that Justin would look at him before he drank, for he wanted to exchange a smile or a wink. Partly, he wanted to give the boy support and encouragement; mostly, he wanted to reassure himself of the strength of the bond between them.
But Justin did not look at him. He cupped his hands and dipped them and swallowed all he could, before his gag reflex took hold and sprayed liquid in a fine shower. The men laughed, but Justin did not blush. He drank again, and this time he kept it all down.
The men cheered. Nau clapped Justin on the back, and Justin smiled proudly.
A knot formed in Maynard’s stomach, and his ears felt hot.
“Goody,” Nau said to Beth, “this will be your legacy from Roche. May it be rich.”
“It cannot but be richer than he, l’Ollonois.” Beth laughed and drank from the pot. A shudder passed through her shoulders, and she coughed. “God love the innkeeper! My guts cry out, brimstone!” She laughed and drank some more.
“Now you, scribe,” Nau said to Maynard. “You do not want to face this day without fire in your belly.”
As Maynard bent over the pot, he glanced at Justin. The boy was smiling at him. Maynard smiled back, and winked. Then he saw that Justin’s eyes were glazed, his smile frozen, his gaze fixed not on his father but on some distant, private vision.
Maynard drank. He swallowed slowly, squeezing the liquid down his gullet in a thin stream. It burned his throat, spread a web of warmth through his chest, and landed in the pit of his empty stomach like a rain of lava. Its stringent aftertaste was of rum and raw alcohol and sulphur.
Nau held up his hands, commanding silence. A few of the men darted to the pot for another draft, then returned to their ranks.
“We have word of a ship rich-laden,” Nau said, “coming under sail from the sou’west. Her cargo is unknown, her crew a baker’s dozen. She is surely armed. If any man among you would withdraw, let him speak.”
A chorus of “No!” was followed by more laughter, more quick trips to the liquor pot.
“The shares will be as always, with this exception: Goody Sansdents will take the tenth part, of her choice, before the spoils are divided. Any man who holds back from the company will suffer present death.” Nau put a hand on the shoulder of each of the boys. “To each of the lads will go a half share, for to them will fall the task of firing the prize.”
Manuel grinned. Justin’s vacant smile did not change.
“You’re not taking him!” Maynard shouted pointing at Justin.
“Aye, scribe, and you too!” Nau smiled. “He must learn his surgery, and you must chronicle it. Goody, you and the scribe will ride in Hizzoner’s pinnace. The boys will be with me. And now,” he raised his voice to the company, “let us prepare. If our number be small, our hearts are great, and the fewer persons we are, the more union and better share in the spoils.’’
Nau’s last statement was spoken with a lilt that suggested to Maynard that it was a ritual, and when Nau was finished, Hizzoner stepped forward and continued it.
“Bow your wretched heads,” Hizzoner said. “O Lord, sail with us on this day, for we go forth to trials we know not of. Keep firm our hearts and strong our arms, for what we do we do in Thy name, through Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.”
The benediction over, Nau said, �
��Fire your furnaces, lads, get damned hot, for this will be a day like the old days.”
Each pinnace carried six men. The boys were extra, as were Maynard and Beth. They sat amidships, before the mast, where they could be watched from fore and aft and where no reckless movement, no sudden shifting of weight, would pose a hazard to the stability of the tippy boat.
The commander was in the stern, at the tiller. His second—in Maynard’s boat the second was a stubble-faced young man who had filed his canine teeth into fangs and whom Maynard had heard called Jack the Bat—crouched between the thwarts and tended the sail. On the bow thwart sat a marksman. A long-barrel, full-stock Kentucky rifle rested in brackets beside him. Cubbyholes had been carved in the bow, and in these he kept his powder horn, his bullets, and spare flints. The other men sat by the four oars. Each man had a pistol, a hand ax, a cutlass, and a dagger. They were drunk but quiet, disciplined enough to know when they had fueled themselves to the proper pitch.
They rowed out of the cove. In open water the sails were raised, and the pinnaces glided noiselessly before the gentle wind. The sun had risen behind them; flecks of gold flashed on the gray ocean.
Nau’s boat led the way. Maynard looked at the backs of the men, and he could pick Justin’s out—straight and tense—by the shoulder-holster strap that crossed his shirt.
The island had receded behind them to a gray-green smudge on the horizon, when Nau whistled. His second dropped the sail, and the seconds in the other boats did as well. There were no other boats on any horizon.
They waited, hunched over in the pinnaces, listening to the lapping of the water against the wooden hulls and to the occasional splashes as fish broke water in flight or pursuit. The sun rose higher and hotter, and Maynard felt his back beginning to burn.
The Island Page 17
