The Plover

by Brian Doyle

  * * *

  Later that morning it was Piko who noticed a slight change in the wind, a slight change in the species of birds lazing by, the advent of vegetative detritus in the water; the latter probably from a storm or series of storms washing over a sizeable landmass, he says. The Leewards, says Declan. We should be among them this morning. Nihoa and Nalukakala, Kauo and Kanemiloha’i, Punahonu and Papaapoho and Pihemanu, Mokumanamana and Mokupapapa, recite Piko and Pipa, happily recounting the Plover’s first venture among the Seamounts, forever ago, back when I was talkless, says Pipa, grinning.

  A pod of whales, and then a second, followed a little later by porpoises, in arrowed phalanxes and formations; a second albatross, crossing the path of the first as precisely as a stitch; more terns by the hour; and then, far to the southwest, what certainly looked like an osprey but could not possibly have been an osprey, said Piko, unless it was.

  It was Taromauri who noticed that the gull on the cabin roof had dozed all morning, which was unusual; and by noon the bird had slumped over and lay on her side, gasping fitfully. Piko climbed up and examined her, but found no evidence of disease or damage, not that I am an expert on gull anatomy and physiology anyways, he said. But I think she’s dying, yes. I have no idea why but I am pretty sure that’s what’s happening.

  Taromauri lifted Pipa to the roof and clambered up herself and they sat with the gull. Taromauri put the bird’s head in Pipa’s hands. The gull’s eyes were closed and her breastbone heaved and staggered. The men climbed up one by one to touch the bird and make some last quiet remark to her; Declan muttered misneach and said quietly, bird, you were a hell of a good crew when it was just you and me, and you were even better later, and I owe you, and then he climbed down and went below to work on the hull patch for a while. Early in the afternoon they all heard, or thought they heard, the gull murmur something gentle, in the tone that people use when they say blessings or thanks, but no one could quite make out the words. Late in the afternoon the gull died, her head still cupped in Pipa’s hands. Taromauri lifted Pipa down and Piko sat with her in the stern. Enrique, sitting up, watched silently. Danilo made a small fire on the hatch cover. When it was hot enough Taromauri placed the body of the gull in the flames and they all watched as the fire ate the gull. When the first ashes fluttered up the minister reached for them but Taromauri shook her head and after that the ashes swirled and flew wherever they wanted. Some ashes got caught in various hair and some spun into mouths and noses but no one sneezed or gagged or said anything. The fire burned all the way down to tiny embers. Most of the ashes swirled up and over the railings and out to sea but some went into the cabin and peppered the chair and wheel and windows. One little group of four or five ash grains went into the cabin and swirled around like they were looking for something and then jumped all together right through the hole in the window from Enrique’s bullet and whirled away to starboard. Danilo used a long thin stick to push the embers closer together as they ebbed until there was nothing left to burn and the fire went out. Still no one said anything. After a while Danilo used his stick to separate what was left of the fire and when the ashes were cool Taromauri and Piko scooped them up carefully and carried them to the stern and let them sift into the sea. Piko saved a last little pinch of them and put them in Pipa’s hands and Pipa didn’t say anything but her father knew what she meant and he helped her open her hands and let the last of the ash drift into the sea. By then it was time for dinner but no one felt like cooking so they had fruit and tea and two bags of almonds that miraculously appeared between Volume the Sixth of Edmund Burke’s Writings & Speeches (India: The Launching of the Hastings Impeachment) and Volume the Seventh (India: The Hastings Trial). Then everyone went to bed early, Declan taking the first watch.

  * * *

  He watched the stars be born; ever since he was a boy he loved to sit outside as dusk slid into dark and one by five by fifty the stars emerged, insisted, flared awake; in the worst years with his father raging or icy or drunk he would climb out of his attic room and sit on the roof, watching nighthawks and owls whir against the stars; the first few times he crawled out on the roof he was frightened, but soon enough it felt like the deck of a boat up there, tight and safe, above all seethe and turmoil; many nights in late summer he had slept on the roof, tied to the chimney with the first jackline of his maritime career, made from shreds of rope, shards of horse harness, plaited blackberry and plantain and spruce fibers, and the braided inner bark of cedar trees; he had worked for weeks on that jackline, and well remembered his father’s sneering laugh when he found it. Yet that line had lasted all the years of his childhood, and indeed never broke; it was lost overboard in one of the first storms he experienced when he first bought the Plover, and was learning how to maneuver it through thrashing water. Probably that jackline is alive and well somewhere under the sea to this day, he thought. Probably being used by a young seal or something, jacklining himself to his rock perch at night, a thought that made him grin in the dark.

  Sir? came a voice in the dark; Enrique.

  What?

  Can we talk?

  About what? says Declan, realizing that his baseball bat is tucked under the stern railing, right behind the tent.

  What happens now?

  What happens now is that we drop you off on an island.

  Then what?

  What do I care?

  Pause.

  Why did you rescue me?

  I didn’t, says Declan. Another guy did. I would have left you in the water, probably.

  Really?

  Probably.

  Pause.

  I’m sorry.

  For what?

  All of it.

  Yeh. Whatever.

  I caused fear and I am sorry.

  Yeh. We’re still dropping you off at a hospital. Make your own way.

  Pause.

  May I have some water?

  Declan considers for a moment. He could wake Taromauri, who is sleeping in the bow; he could tell the guy to wait until morning; or he could lean in and get the bat with his left hand as his right delivers water. He gets water and leans in and gets the bat with his left hand as his right delivers the water.

  Thank you.

  Yeh.

  My name is Enrique.

  Yeh.

  That is my real name. My mother blessed me with it.

  Sure.

  What is your name?

  Captain.

  Pause.

  I understand your anger, said Enrique quietly, and there is nothing I can do now but apologize. I am sorry. I am especially sorry to have frightened the child.

  Pause.

  I see how you love your boat, said Enrique. I liked mine, but I didn’t love it.

  Pause.

  I liked what it could do, said Enrique, but not the way you like yours for what it is.

  Yeh, whatever, says Declan. You want more water?

  No, thank you.

  Pause.

  Thank you for rescuing me, said Enrique, so quietly that Declan unconsciously leaned in another inch in the dark to hear him. I thought I died. It never occurred to me that I would live. I thought I died in the fire. What a surprise to wake up here.

  Declan felt a silent presence behind him; Taromauri, who had heard the voices. She took the water cup and filled it and gave it to Enrique and sat down. How a person that large can fold down without a sound is a total blessed mystery to me, thought Declan. No one said anything for a long time and during that time about a thousand stars appeared without the slightest fanfare. We take stars totally for granted, as Declan said later to Piko. Jesus blessed miracles, they are, and we casually look up and say stupid things like hey, stars, when we should by rights be moaning and gibbering in wonder and fear that fecking nuclear furnaces are burning in the sky in numbers and at distances we cannot even imagine let alone bless me calculate. After a while Taromauri put her hand on Declan’s shoulder and he got the message and left her on watch and went below to sle
ep.

  * * *

  In the morning Declan and the minister are in the cabin sipping coffee and Declan says are you actually serious about this whole Pacifica thing or is this some kind of political con or shell game or circus or what?

  Quite serious, said the minister. I am aware it sounds unworkable but I believe it can happen, with the right stimulatory activity and shepherding of creative energies. Nor is this a subtle entrepreneurial venture in which I stand to make a great deal of money. I believe that I have a role to play in helping a remarkable idea come to fruition. I do not wish to command the idea, I do not wish to profit from it, but I do very much wish to see it accomplished, and I believe it is eminently accomplishable. Consider the relevant facts. There are some thirty thousand islands in what we call the Pacific Ocean, although that immense basin has been called many other names over many millennia. The basin itself measures something like sixty million square miles. It is the biggest thing on Earth. But because it is mostly water with mountaintops peeking up here and there, we do not think of it as we think of other sorts of space, which are mostly contiguous mountains with water glimmering here and there. These latter constructs we consider countries, but not the former; this seems odd to me and I would like to amend the way we think about this. It seems to me that an enormous blue place in which hundreds of thousands of people live riveting and creative lives, in manners and cultures established over many centuries by their ancestors and forebears, surrounded by natural resources of intricacy and wealth for the most part still beyond our understanding or abuse, is indeed a country, a remarkable nation unlike any that ever was, and I cannot see any reason why it should not be called so, and organized as such for the protection and celebration of its character and inhabitants, and seen and saluted as such by the other nations of the world, not one of which can boast the natural resources and fascinating creative possibilities of Pacifica. Also I do not see any reason why any former imperial power in Pacifica should be given any sort of control, possession, or preference here, considering that imperial powers by nature arrive and steal and commit destruction as a matter of course, nor do I see any reason why current or rising imperial powers, of any sort or stripe, be they economic, cultural, or political, should be acknowledged as having the slightest right whatsoever to commit ruin and theft upon the people, lands, waters, and atmosphere of Pacifica. It seems to me that Pacifica is a proud and remarkable country, and should be defined and acknowledged and protected as such, and not be treated as a playground or gift basket for countries that think they can pluck islands here and there like ripe fruit, and thrash as they like through the ocean for all manner of treasures and riches, and treat people like slaves and serfs, and cut islands in half and pit the halves against each other, or persist in thinking that a theft that occurred centuries ago has any modern legitimacy by virtue of its hoary age. It seems to me that the residents of Pacifica ought to be able to decide for themselves how to organize themselves as a coherent economic, cultural, and political force, and that any former, current, or rising power that has the gall to insist that it can or should decide for the residents of Pacifica how they ought to organize themselves and conduct their lives is foolish, ridiculous, selfish, and criminal.

  Thought this through a bit, I see, said Declan.

  A bit.

  What about violence?

  What about it?

  People shoot people who take away the money trough.

  I think there are ways around that, said the minister.

  Around violence?

  Yes.

  Are you an idiot?

  I don’t think so.

  You know your history, said Declan. You know how it works. Violence is who we are. Our daily bread. Hey, you got kidnapped and dumped at sea, you know what it is. Not to mention you were just in a gun battle, basically.

  I think there are ways around it, said the minister. I don’t think this is the way it always has to be. I think if people imagine new ways to be then there will be ways to work in different ways than the ways people have worked in the past. I think violence will eventually be useless. It will wither away because no one uses it, like a muscle that never flexes. Too many people will laugh at it for anyone to use it anymore.

  Nah, said Declan. It’s our oldest skill. We’re great at it now and we’ll get better. Eventually we’ll get so good at it that we’ll wipe ourselves out and the world will reboot and probably gulls or jellyfish will run the next version.

  Well, said the minister.

  Yeh, weird line of talk, let’s get some breakfast going for our country, what say? Whyn’t you catch some fish, you got the touch, and I’ll get a little fire going. Can’t believe the captain allows fires on the hatch. What are we, fecking Sea Scouts?

  * * *

  Two hours later they came upon a lovely little atoll and anchored for a while to stretch and swim and fish and clean the boat and air out bedding and collect firewood and doze and gab and yawp and laugh and repaint the hatch because someone has been making fires on the cover and the paint job is not what it should be on a blessed shipshape ship as if this was a shipshape ship for chrissake look at all the gull poop on the roof and there’s a bullet hole in the cabin window my God who’s in charge of maintenance here? Taromauri and Danilo carried Enrique to the beach and walked him up and down for a while to get his new skin used to movement; that must have hurt like hell but he never said a word, observed Danilo, after they established Enrique in a little shady grove and Taromauri had again thoroughly rubbed him down with ointment.

  That was maybe the greatest day in the history of days, said Pipa much later, to a gaggle of children who stared at their teacher like you would stare at a person who was telling you about her cool voyage to Mars when she was a child. That was an even greater day than the first day we spent in the Leeward Islands, when my father and I were first on the boat, because this time we had three new friends, maybe four. There were birds everywhere, all sorts of brilliant birds. There was manuoko the tern, and ‘a, the booby, and ‘i’iwi and ‘o’u’ and nukupu, the honeycreepers, and pueo, the little owl, and ‘io, the hawk, and huna kai, the sanderling, and uau, the petrel, and the plover—what is the word for the plover, who can tell me? Kolea, that’s right, very good, Mahealani. Who can name another bird that I would have seen in the Leewards? Anyone? Ukeke, the turnstone, very good, Puanani, yes, there were turnstones on the beach. One more? Anyone? Amaui, the thrush, good, Marcos—we did not see a thrush that day but yes, amaui could well have been there. One more? ‘Iwa, the thief, the frigate bird, good, Mehana, yes, we saw ‘iwa. Piha’ekelo, the mynah, no. No parking lots with food scraps for old piha’ekelo—he is not much of a wild bird anymore, I think. Very good guesses, though. Five extra minutes’ recess today! But let me finish telling you the story. We had some absolutely great days, the greatest great days, on that journey. There was the first day we were in the Leewards, when I got sunburnt and my father caught a fish with his hand swimming underwater and Captain O Donnell tried to catch fish with his bow and arrows and we laughed so hard I thought our eyeballs were going to fall out and roll across the deck, but they didn’t. There was a day when we saw a blue whale right next to the boat and the whale was so much bigger than a boat we thought it was a blue island until it rolled and smiled at us and slid away into the deep like a dream bigger and bluer than any dream you ever had before. There was the day I got my voice back after not being able to speak for four whole years, imagine all the words that were piled up inside me waiting to come out! There was the day I was washed over the railing of the boat into the sea and almost went to the bottom to be turned into a fish but my father caught my foot and Captain O Donnell caught my father’s beard and we were all okay! There was the day I met my dear friend Taromauri whom you met when she came into class to tell stories last week, as you remember. And there was the second day we were in the Leewards, which was the most perfect day of all, the greatest great day we had on that journey, partly because we all k
new it was one of our last days together but not the last day, which is a delicious and bittersweet feeling, which you will feel near the end of this school year, trust me. Now I will tell you what we did that day, and you take your paints and pencils, and either draw what stimulates your imagination as I tell you the story, or start your own story from my story, or invent a song for a fish or bird or plant or wind or person, okay? Everyone understand the assignment? You decide for yourself what to do, but you have to start something, and have fun. What you start today is your homework for the weekend, and I will look at them on Monday when we are back together. Okay? Ready?

  * * *

  While Declan fiddled with the hull patch for the four hundredth fecking time, cursing and humming and trying to recite from memory Edmund Burke’s entire speech on reconciliation with the American colonies, and Enrique dozed in the little shady grove, the other five members of the crew wandered the atoll for a while, collecting driftwood and stretching their legs; Taromauri carried Pipa like an oak carries an acorn. Then they made a tiny fire and sat on the beach lazing and talking and vaguely pondering a concerted fishing expedition in the shallows, although as Danilo said after a steady diet of fish it’s interesting how the prospect of fish for dinner is not what it used to be. After a while they got to talking about Declan and after more while they essentially quizzed Piko about Declan because he had known him longest and in other contexts other than captainesque.