Sea of Two Suns

by Nicholas McAuliff

  “Check their persons,” growled the Irishman. “Check everything, and kill their horses.”

  IV

  The tavern stank of sweat and urine and the air was thick as a summer day, though the late October winds outside hinted at the coming freeze.

  Isaac Isaacson shuffled through East River dock workers, their hands and faces browned with soot. He shuffled past a laughing woman. He shuffled past men on their way up the business world but not yet high enough to mingle with those whom they aspired to be.

  A man in a white silken shirt nodded to him and Isaac asked for a whiskey and finished it in three sips. He looked around the place and a few pairs of eyes looked back unblinking.

  At last he met a pair of emerald-green eyes set on a face that was weathered but not worn. The face smiled and the man raised a glass.

  Isaac raised his empty glass and walked toward the man.

  The man sat with arms crossed, his feet up on the table before him. He pushed at the table with his long boots, balancing precariously on two back legs of his stool. He had locks of black that hinted brown and lines around dark eyes. He was broad-shouldered but lean and wore a heavy fur despite the heat of the place.

  “Look at you!” said the man, standing and pushing and pulling Isaac like a toy and towering over him. The two embraced and then sat facing one another.

  “Francisco my friend,” said Isaac. “How is Maria?”

  Francisco’s smile faded. “She is well for now, Isaac. Thank you for asking.”

  “Well for now?” replied Isaac.

  “Sí! That is what I said,” said Francisco. The man downed a dark liquor and beckoned Isaac to do the same as he refilled his own cup.

  “Forgive me,” said Isaac. He took his shot and pursed his lips. “That’s not whiskey,” he whispered.

  “Grog,” muttered Francisco. “Rum and lemon juice, not your fine whiskey from Tribeca, I imagine.”

  “Tribeca is not so great,” Isaac said. “Some have tastes even too fine for me.”

  “Thought I’d give you a taste of what whalers drink at sea. Since you will soon be upon the waters, aye?”

  “May soon be upon the waters, Francisco,” Isaac replied. “My partners at the Messenger think me a fool. I think me a fool.”

  Francisco shook his head and took a drink. “Journey is there if you want it Isaac.”

  “Where have you been staying?”

  “Here and there.”

  “Don’t take kindly to Mexicans here,” came a booming voice. The chatter of the crowd quieted.

  Francisco laughed softly without looking up.

  The writer turned and behind them sat three men. All sturdy as lions, their hair and beards yellow like lions’ manes too, and their eyes sparkled with the killer instinct of lions.

  Instantly Isaac put up his hands.

  “I says, don’t take kindly to Mexicans here!” the blond man shouted again.

  This time a few scurried out the door, even silhouette figures passing outside leered in under the flaming streetlights.

  “Don’t want none of that, ya hear?” screamed the barkeep.

  Francisco threw out his hands. “I’m not here for bravado,” he said.

  “Ain’t no bravado involved,” growled the blond man. He took a drink.

  Francisco scanned the room. “Come,” he said, putting a hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “This is not a place for men of the sea.”

  As they stood so too did the other men. Francisco and Isaac walked toward the door and they followed.

  “You a whaler?” barked the leader. “Mexican whalers ain’t welcome here. Try your luck in the California lands!”

  “You are right my friend,” said Francisco. “For now me and my friend desire sleep and no hot blood fills our veins.”

  The man’s blue eyes burned through Isaac. “I’ll smash your friend’s skull first,” he said. “So that you watch him die.”

  But the Mexican in one motion spun and had a stout derringer pressed to the blond man’s forehead. The man’s mouth fell open but he kept his gaze on the Mexican. “Go on,” he whispered.

  “Francisco!” Isaac tugged at the Mexican’s arm. “Let us go, come!”

  Francisco stood motionless as the blond man leaned his head into the barrel. Francisco grinned and cocked the weapon, pushing it harder into the man’s head.

  The man turned and walked toward the bar, slamming bottles and glasses and smashing stools to the ground.

  Isaac pulled Francisco by the arm and they left the place under the heavy eyes of all inside.

  The streets outside were barren though a few window lamps glowed tenderly, sheltered from the cold night. A dog barked, a couple ran by laughing and holding hands, a bottle shattered somewhere distant.

  “Put the damned pistol away,” Isaac said.

  Francisco tucked the weapon into his lapel.

  “Let us go back to my loft,” said Isaac. “Warm by the fire. We can eat something and talk.”

  “Very good,” said Francisco.

  Isaac looked down the street nervously. “If we can procure a damned coach at this hour,” he said. He eyed Francisco up and down. “Where are your things? Have you even a seabag with you?”

  “No,” said Francisco. “You just saw why.”

  The distant clatter of Clydesdale hooves came first, then finally from the far thoroughfare two flames bobbed through the fog as if a ghostly horseman rode to them.

  “Coachman!” yelled Isaac, raising his hand. “Hoy! Two for Bleeker Street!”

  The fire crackled gently and rose. Isaac stirred the kindling until the stove roared. He closed it and the glow illuminated all the apartment through iron bars. They sat on felted plush scarlet chairs.

  Around them was a mahogany bookshelf and divans and a fine sideboard which was stuffed with porcelain dishware. A grandfather clock ticked endlessly and large circular portraits dotted the walls.

  “Right then,” said Isaac. He rubbed his hands together in the dark apartment and frost came from the men’s mouths. “Shortly we shall warm,” he said.

  In the growing illumination there was exposed a painting of The New York Messenger building, more aggrandized than it was. There was the fat man from the New York Messenger. Isaac himself hung the highest above the stove. And a couple of older disposition, stern faced and taciturn and dressed all in black. Also hung was a painting of a woman, almost dreamlike, with jet black hair and sea blue eyes. Another woman hung beside the sideboard, resembling Julia from the same New York Messenger.

  “A wood burning stove,” said Francisco. The Mexican’s eyes scanned the room. Tiny teacup candle holders glowed dimly with oil and illuminated the darker corners.

  Isaac rose and pulled a book from the huge shelf. “Aye,” said Isaac. “Hard to come by and dangerous. But alas, you feel that? Not like the open hearth.”

  “Aye. In Durango we seldom need to light the hearth. Save for some early morns.”

  The two sat in silence for a space, only the sound of Isaac flipping pages and Francisco smoking a corncob pipe.

  Isaac rose and put the book back and from an icebox retrieved three rows of hard sausages, a loaf of black bread and a block of brittle white cheese. From the same box he procured a decanter filled with brandy.

  “Who are all these people?” said Francisco, motioning to the portraits on the wall.

  “My mother and father, my brethren at The Messenger, my uncle,” said Isaac motioning toward the entire group without distinguishing between them.

  “To think of surrounding myself with all the scoundrels I have sailed with,” scoffed Francisco.

  Isaac’s eyes shot up red. “They are not scoundrels. And we shall likely be together for a long time, aye?”

  Francisco nodded. “And the woman, the one of brown hair?”

  “Ah yes. Julia. A fellow editor and writer. A friend for two decades now.” Isaac bit into a sausage unceremoniously.

  Francisco leaned back and grinned, his green ey
es fixed on the writer.

  “What?” Isaac said muffled as he chewed.

  “What happened?” asked Francisco.

  “A friend, I say!” Isaac yelled.

  Francisco rested his chin on his fist and stared.

  “It did not work!” yelled Isaac.

  “Ah!” said Francisco. “There we are.”

  The writer pointed to porcelain bowl resting on the sideboard. “Fresh water if you like, Francisco,” he said.

  Francisco shook his head. “Brandy will do me well,” he said. “I do not thirst this time of year.”

  “I see. Alas, it did not work.”

  “Whalers don’t have that problem at sea.”

  “There are no women at sea.”

  “You don’t know of Captain Turner then.”

  “Ah,” said Isaac. I stand corrected. I have heard the name. Some of the stories.”

  “An Irish girl,” said Francisco as he downed a drink. “Irish spill onto American shores now. Some with blood on their hands. Some with blood in their hearts. Mercenaries for Fur and Pine.”

  “I am aware,” grunted Isaac.

  “The other painted woman up there,” said Francisco, pointing toward the countenance of the jet black-haired woman hanging above the hearth.

  “My wife,” said Isaac.

  “I see,” said Francisco. “I did not know you married,” he said.

  “For seven years,” replied Isaac. “There was her divan,” he said, pointing towards the mahogany crested bench beside which stood a tall whale oil lamp. Like a crystalline double hourglass. It was layered with a blanket of dust. “She would read there often into the night,” he said.

  “And where be she now?”

  “She died in childbirth,” said Isaac, scribbling something intently and looking through a monocle downward on the document which he was inspecting.

  “Isaac,” said Francisco. The writer looked up from his work as if annoyed. “I am sorry my brother,” said the Mexican.

  “Yes,” said Isaac. He took up his pen again and peered at the document. “Well sorry shall not change what is.”

  “And the child?”

  “Died as well,” said Isaac flatly.

  A time passed with only the fire speaking. “I do feel the chill in here, though it wanes,” said Francisco at last.

  “Whenever it is wet,” said Isaac. “Not even the cold, the wet, Francisco. This building sprang up shortly after the war, and it feels.”

  “The Seven Years’ War?”

  “The Revolution,” Isaac corrected. “I swear to God, the wet seeps through the walls. I hate this early winter rain.”

  Francisco sniggered. “You may want to amend that view, for where you will be going,” he said. “This is not wet. This is not cold.”

  “No,” said Isaac. He cupped his hands together as frost shot from his mouth. “God damnit,” he said.

  White curtains flowed inward from the far casement.

  “Shutter that, would you,” said Isaac.

  Francisco rose and a hard slam echoed as the far window was shut and the wooden shutters behind it.

  “Here,” said Isaac. “Let us eat.”

  Francisco tore into the meat barehanded while Isaac slowly put out dishware. China plates, fine forks and knives and a golden rimmed bowl which held little peppermint balls.

  “When is the last time you ate?” asked Isaac.

  “Day before last,” said Francisco.

  Isaac sighed and shook his head. “You cannot travel this far without food. Why did you not bring any monies? You said you did well on your last voyage. Two years in the South Pacific, for god sakes. What lay did you take?”

  “My shillings are back in Durango,” Francisco said, ripping a fistful of bread. “Again, you just saw why.”

  “I am not sure they are safer there,” quipped Isaac.

  “What do you know of the south? Scarcely can a man ride north from Durango without death befalling, whether by some scattered Indians or those from your lands who stick their fingers westward and beget death and blood and despair.”

  “You look as a Mexican but speak as an American, save for the tinge to your voice. I think that just angers them more, Francisco.”

  A pause came. “I am no stranger to anger,” said Francisco. “Let them stew. I can speak American as well as my native tongue which is more than I can say for you.”

  The Rain finally stopped and time did too, it would seem. Brandy was poured from the bottle until that bottle was almost empty. Nuts and dried fruits were consumed, though the peppermint was never touched, and square book-sized playing cards lie strewn about the board in front of the men.

  “We should sleep,” said Isaac finally. We never even discussed the voyage.”

  “Aye,” said Francisco, rising. “That is what tomorrow is for, I suppose. We should leave for Boston before the sun is up. We would be wise to take that new railway for a stretch past Albany and then see about horses.”

  “Tomorrow!” Isaac exclaimed and ripped off his glasses. “I assumed we would sail come spring. I have work, Francisco. I have deadlines and-”

  “Word of the silver gleam spreads from Labrador to your Carolinas,” The Mexican replied. “We leave tomorrow if you want your story. And I want my damned silver. Pirate loot or not.”

  “Is it wise to sail this close to winter?”

  “No Isaac, it is not wise. But we skirt the edge of the freeze and take our chances and return before the deep of winter, should all go well.”

  “Now I know not much of the sea albeit-”

  “No! You do not!” shouted Francisco.

  Isaac paused. “Albeit,” he said slowly, “experienced men of rank and repute have barely made the voyage north without doom befalling them.”

  “Diablo Verano,” said Francisco as he took a drink.

  “Say again?”

  “Diablo Verano,” the Mexican repeated. “The hottest summer Durango has seen in the lifetimes of three men. The same the Inuit say from Baffin Island and the death trap that lies west of those islands. We will not be leaving the bay.”

  “The ice?”

  “We have faith in the Inuit and their long summer, such is why the silver gleam shines at all, they say.”

  “The Barbary Pirates!” said Isaac. “What in the hell happened to them?”

  Francisco shrugged. “They just stopped, Isaac. Followed the Queen’s last voyage to the Northwest Passage, figuring little resistance from men who were damned anyway and figuring men to be their loot. They underestimated the ice after decades of success in the South Pacific, and it became their end.”

  “Underestimation rarely has any gains,” replied Isaac.

  “No, no it does not.”

  “And you wrote the pirate? Before you wrote me, I understand.”

  “Aye,” said Francisco. “He takes rest in Albany with his brother two months of the year. Even that scoundrel needs a break from the sea it would seem. Should he live and should he be there he will have received my letter. If not, there will be plenty of seamen who tire of the whaling life, eager to chase the silver trove.”

  “Did he write back Francisco? And can you trust him?”

  “Trust? Absolutely not. But he never writes back.”

  “What manner of man is he?”

  Francisco smiled. “He will call himself leader of this voyage and I shall allow him,” he said. “I am merely putting a crew together.”

  “I hope we do not miss him,” replied Isaac.

  “If he is in Albany, he will have made Boston before we and then he will see about leasing a ship. He will wait for us.”

  “With my coin I assume?”

  “Such that you are obliged. Have you the ounce of gold you mentioned?”

  “I do,” said Isaac holding up a Spanish gold ounce. “Again, tell me by what logic men decided the Barbary’s stowed their loot in a frozen island in Baffin Bay?”

  “Seventeen ships were seen last mustered just south of
The Labrador Sea. This was before the silver gleam came about. But the Inuit say it was ere any pirates tread any ocean. They were not seen again. Not homebound, not ice locked such as the fate of most who tempt the northern waters. Speculation abounds of their missing headmen, their missing loot. Likely the ice as it takes most men who tread there. There is silver there, Isaac, whoever it belongs to, I care not. I was a pirate before I was a whaler.”

  “At least you can still sling a harpoon, Francisco. You have a trade that still lives.”

  “A vile trade.”

  “Same could be said of the fur trappers who scour dead woods. Remembering the glory of the litany of companies and the golden land.”

  “Mink, beaver and martin. Living things yes. But not like the whale, Isaac. Something about them intangible, though I fell three I felt a piece of myself slip away with each thrust of the lance.”

  “You did it not for greed, Francisco.”

  “When the Ambergris shined I felt no sorrow, Isaac. In my hands I felt the silver that it would bring. As I said, a piece of myself.”

  “We all need to make profit. Lest we be begging for the profit of others.”

  “But the sun is setting on the age of whales too,” said the Mexican. “We may be out there slinging harpoons until midnight yet, but the sun is setting Isaac. I am thirty-three now. By forty I don’t think you’ll see more than a dozen whaling vessels between Nantucket and San Francisco.”

  Isaac lurched back. “That’s a bold statement,” he said.

  “Ha!”

  “I have it outlined,” said Isaac. From snow to sea: The end of Fur and Pine and the Whaler’s Woes, he said extending his hands outward as if drawing on the horizon.

  “You tonto,” said the Mexican, downing a drink.

  “Speak again?”

  “Fur and Pine will demand an answer for that publication, assuming you survive the sea. That insane Jesuit turned chief trader is said to have consolidated the still lingering Hessians and Americans and all the Huron and now rules Fur and Pine like a kingdom from his northerly seat. To that he has one thousand French soldiers at his back.”