Sea of Two Suns

by Nicholas McAuliff

  “Supp-er,” said the man in scattered English.

  “Supper?” repeated Francisco.

  The man nodded fast. He pointed to the setting sun. “Dark,” he said, and gestured toward the grand igloo. “Supp-er and talk. Chief Panuk. My brother. Chief Panuk. Dark.”

  About the fire the orange glow was cast off weary faces. The Inuk Chief Panuk sat high upon carven ice draped with layers of furs. In front of him lay a board of steaming seal and a reindeer’s skull with the eyes still intact.

  Around the chief others sat on beds of auburn and snow-white furs, antlers seemed to emerge from the icy walls as if they were weeds. Slabs of shells and red glass beads hung over the entryway, seemingly hanging from the ice itself, but whisps of frigid air still licked at the men’s faces whenever another entered.

  The crew all sat together, opposite the fire in front of which sat the Chief Panuk and his retinue.

  “Ask him…ask him what became of the topographers who sailed through here last,” said the captain while looking at Chief Panuk. “Those sent by her majesty,” he said.

  “They know of these expeditions?” whispered Isaac. Francisco nodded his head as Nukilik spoke to the Inuit Chief.

  The chief leaned into Nukilik as the Cree spoke. Nukilik used hand gestures, straining. Arnaaluk too spoke but the chief became frustrated and motioned to two of his own men.

  “We speak the same tongue but different accents of that tongue,” said Nukilik. “You understand. Like your Indians of the far west. There is no such thing as one Inuk nor one Cree.”

  Francisco smiled and gestured to one of the Inuk women from the far corner. She was wrapped in gray and she smiled back.

  The chief laughed deeply while a white-clad hunter narrowed his eyes.

  The captain grimaced and pulled the grinning Mexican toward the huddle. “Ask him what became of the last troop that passed through here,” he said. “The white man. Her majesty’s expedition.”

  The two Cree without hesitation spoke forthright to the chief. The younger warriors at the chief’s heels eyed their brethren from across the sea. All eyes were lit in the night.

  In that igloo, under the frozen moon, it was as if all intents were known by the colors of those eyes, which glittered like gems in the firelight. As if their souls came through in the northern night, and thus secrets and trust and loyalties were not relevant.

  Suddenly the chief leaned toward Nukilik and put his hand atop the man’s shoulder. Nukilik looked at the ground and nodded as if accepting a hard truth.

  “What is this?” said the captain.

  “The chief wants to know why you desire so to sail north to the Bay,” said Nukilik. “He says none sail that far north. He says none ever did. He says there is no bounty there, not of Beluga or Minke or Seal.”

  “We don’t chase whales,” snarled the captain.

  Chief Panuk rose his chin and nodded rapidly, eyes annoyed, already understanding that which didn’t need translation.

  “Tell him Captain Turner was my sister,” said the captain, his eyes not leaving the chief’s.

  Smoke billowed in a straight funnel between them; up and out toward the frozen moon which peeked in through the smoke-hole. But their eyes smoldered through the fire and smoke. “Tell him I want to bury her bones in our country, where she belongs,” he said.

  After Nukilik spoke the chief nodded his head rapidly and spoke to his brother by his side.

  “They know of your Captain Turner,” said Nukilik. “Your voice does not have the same tone as hers, he says. Has she perished?”

  “She has,” said the pirate captain. “Last set sail to find the northwest passage in ‘twenty-nine.”

  Chief Panuk looked down and sighed.

  “She was a great woman, a warrior,” Nukilik translated. “She should have stayed here with us.”

  “You dig us into a hole with lies and they will spear us,” whispered Francisco. “Inuit don’t tolerate liars.”

  The chief narrowed his eyes and put up his hand. He muttered something to Nukilik without breaking eye contact with the captain.

  “The chief wants to know why Captain Turner would sail back North,” said Nukilik. “He says he knew her well. He says she was not a greedy woman. He says she spoke of the passage and had no interest in finding it. He says she was here for her own glory.”

  Everyone glowered at the pirate who sat wordless as a child caught in a lie.

  Chief Panuk looked down and shook his head. All rose.

  “We all sleep now,” said Chief Panuk’s brother in broken English. “And in morning perhaps you have new story.”

  Chief Panuk pursed his lips tight and shook his head, tilting his neck northwest. “Eholg,” he shouted.

  “Eh-holg?” Nukilik repeated slowly.

  The Inuit chief pointed northwest, where the sun shot splintered rays into the men’s already squinted eyes.

  The Crew gathered supplies and Francisco spoke to two women by Chief Panuk’s igloo. He made exaggerated motions and a group of children tackled him laughing.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” shouted the captain from afar.

  “E-holg!” the chief shouted, long and drawn out. The man’s eyes were white with anger as he cast his hands toward the ground, as if trying to explain a difficult concept to a child. The children themselves were suddenly quiet, some watching from atop the shored broken berg, some from the ground where they stopped wrestling Francisco while Miska still circled and barked.

  “Well,” said the pirate as Nukilik approached.

  “He says none sail farther northwest,” said Nukilik. He says we are foolish and have not enough provisions. He says there is no sea bounty there.”

  “We fucking know!” yelled the pirate.

  Men carving blocks of ice stopped and looked on in silence. Now the whole icy settlement looked on too. Women stopped their scraping of hides, some holding spears and ice shivs in hand. The children looked on, still standing atop their icy fortress.

  “No one goes north of the bay,” Nukilik said again after a delay. “He says I should never have left my people. Perhaps he is right.”

  “He won’t guide us then? He won’t point our compass?” The captain hissed.

  “No, captain. No one goes there, he says even the children know that.”

  “He doesn’t speak of the passage?” said Isaac.

  The captain looked at the writer. “I grow tired of your façade,” he said. “You know nothing of the sea and have contributed almost nothing to this quest. Like a babe, you are just there. So keep your mouth shut!”

  Nukilik shook his head. “He speaks of snow bears, I think. They do not fear men and gather in larger numbers on the bergs north of these islands. They are dangerous things, indeed, and sometimes revered.”

  “Precisely why I am here,” said the hunter confidently. He raised his eyebrows and held out the elephant gun with one iron hand, as if displaying a trophy.

  “Friend,” said Nukilik. “These are not your Grizzley Bears of the New World,” he said, shaking his head. “But alas, I know how to stay out of their way. Why the chief is so convicted on this is beyond my understanding.”

  “He doesn’t speak of the ice?” inquired the captain, returning with a silver cup in hand.

  “No,” replied Nukilik. “He doesn’t speak of ice.”

  “What else said he?”

  “He said it has been generations, since his grandfather’s grandfather’s time when the second sun shone both upon and from the frozen bay. A terrible thing.”

  The captain threw up his hands, the silver cup still clasped in his right.

  “I cannot understand all his words, captain. But the bulk of them, I do think, yes.”

  “The second sun? The silver shine they speak of?” asked Isaac.

  “Indeed, in the bay where none tread,” replied Nukilik. “A sun upon high and a lesser sun below that. The Sea of Two Suns.”

  “But the lower sun is a trick,” s
aid Jerimiah as he approached wheezing with sacks over his shoulder. “Flares out like stars in the frozen air. Mast hands know this, anyone who has sailed the depths of north or south knows this.”

  “I care not for Eskimo fables,” yelled the captain. He sighed and from his satchel produced a steel dagger, the hilt inlaid with a rough-cut cloudy gemstone.

  “Captain,” said Nukilik, eyeing the silver cup and shaking his head. “We are beyond that.”

  “I’ll tell you what we are beyond, deckhand,” said the captain.

  And pacing toward Chief Panuk’s brother the captain thrust out the silver cup and forced a broken-toothed smile across a scarred face.

  The Inuk knocked the cup out of the captain’s hands.

  At once all were there, Isaac was not aware of his legs running under him.

  “Hoy!” came a shout from Francisco.

  Miska and the children followed the Mexican, the hound barking aggressively and the Inuit dogs howling even more fiercely from their tethers.

  The captain and Inuk rolled atop the freeze, the chief’s deep voice already bellowing from the central igloo as a father scolding quarreling brothers.

  “Panuk!” shrieked a woman.

  Chief Panuk picked up to a gait.

  The captain pummeled Panuk’s brother with fists, but the Inuk drew a stubby ivory dagger and thrust it into the captain’s lower left flank, in and out and measured, only the tip of the blade bloodied.

  The captain screamed and rolled aside.

  The Inuk rose and the chief grasped his brother’s arms. The two bickered as brothers would.

  “Captain!” screamed Francisco. And Francisco hoisted the captain off the ice. The silver cup lay flat and beaten atop that ice, as if hammered by a blacksmith, and the gem inlaid dagger was nowhere to be seen.

  “Off!” screamed the captain.

  “You need to see where you are,” hissed Francisco into the captain’s ear. “Not everything is dominable!”

  Chief Panuk walked toward the men, his eyes thin slits. He spoke to Nukilik briefly, who nodded his head.

  “We have to leave,” said Nukilik. “He says he who bleeds first in a fight is always banished, it is their custom. Had it been the chief’s brother, he would have been banished.”

  Francisco sneered. “Get to the whaleboat,” he said. And without acknowledgment all walked toward the shore, the captain limping and foaming at the mouth and cussing.

  One word in English came booming from the chief: “South!” he yelled, pointing toward the southern sky. “South!”

  And they sailed northwest anyway, the chief throwing up his hands in disappointment.

  The children jumped down from the icy block and sprinted as if they would catch The Roc in a game of tag. They ran skirting the icy edges of their home and followed the ship until they became dots jumping and waving and yelling atop the ice.

  XVIII

  The seas where still, though soft gales rushed overtop the waters leaving wrinkled crests in the sheets of blue. They cooled Francisco’s face and he closed his eyes to the wind. From the helm he surveyed ahead as Lukas stitched his raw shoulder. White shapes dotted the far sky and small sheets of ice scraped under the hull, sounding like icy fingers beckoning the men to the deep.

  “Wish this wind would cease,” said the surgeon.

  “Then we would cease too,” replied Francisco.

  “Now how did this happen?” asked Lukas pointing to the gash upon Francisco’s shoulder.

  Francisco shook his head. “I think I fell against the harpoon when we boarded the whaleboat in haste. Thanks be to the captain for that.”

  “He may pray the Inuk’s blade was not slathered with blubber or blood.” Lukas stopped his work and wiped his brow. “Even I sweat up here, it seems. Probably the farthest north any man has ever sweat, any explorer or navigator or whaler, for that matter.”

  “Merchant vessels do not sail here,” replied Francisco. “Ships bound from Cambridge to California sure as hell do not. Nobody sails here. Save those fools who seek out a Northwest Passage.”

  “I am a fool!” came a garbled shout from aft and Jerimiah raised his hand and smiled.

  “As am I, my friend,” yelled Francisco. The Mexican felt a pinch as Lukas resumed his work.

  Francisco studied the surgeon. His hands were fleshy mallets but he worked as if he could balance creation in his palms.

  “A bit more,” said Lukas. “I have enjoyed our nightly talks. We seem to know as much as brothers would of one another.”

  Francisco grimaced. “The forced friendship that the sea begets, Lukas,” he said flatly. He took one more sip from a brass-colored flask then pocketed it and grimaced again as the surgeon ran needle and thread through flesh.

  “Oh stop,” Lukas grunted. “I’ve stitched through fingers before, whole fingers,” Lukas went on. “Never heard a man wail as such.”

  “Now I see why you were a stone mason! You lack tact.”

  “I’ve cut fingers from frozen hands, and watched men look at the severed digits. Feeling nothing, but only after they saw the fingers roll upon the deck did they scream.”

  “Dios! I’m sure they did.”

  “He was young, and strong, that one was,” said the surgeon.

  “Who is this now?”

  “Son of a German watch salesmen,” grunted the surgeon. “Long list of clients spanning from retired Nantucket captains to Vice President Calhoun, apparently. Alas the son was given the role of Boatsteerer though he never once held a harpoon. He couldn’t unfurl a sail; he couldn’t navigate by Polaris nor map nor Sextant or compass.”

  “A damned landsman,” grunted Francisco.

  “Aye. Insisted on the first kill and when a Right Whale be spotted a fortnight into our voyage, he was in the whaleboat. But he missed his throw and the harpoon line wrapped about his knee and pulled him overboard with the whale almost submerging the boat. And the line pulled taut around that knee and he skipped atop the tides like a stone thrown by a child.”

  “Ah,” said Francisco. “Standing rigid and leaning to, like most do when given their first harpoon. I made that mistake only once,” said Francisco, holding up his free hand and exposing a risen keloid spanning the width of his palm.

  “But he gripped my collar and pulled me in from the gurney and told me if I did not save above the knee, he would have me quartered on admission that I failed to treat him properly. But there was already corruption above the knee due to the severity of the rope burn. Bits of hemp too far in the wound. So we sawed only below, as he wished. But in the next three evenings his stump had purpled, and the evening after that it blackened. He would scream about the heat. ‘Take the fire!’ he would scream, though his legs and body were soaked through during the two-day November storm. Like this time of year where we sail now. But all else shivered while he screamed endlessly of the heat.”

  “Does he walk today?”

  “I sawed higher that third evening, with no more liquor to faze him. Not even a bit to bite. But he groaned in relief as the leg was cut above the thigh. Then the next evening, he lay wordless and expressionless as we cut to the hip. By the time the storm was passed, he laid dead. He wanted to experience the rough life of a whaleman, unhindered by his reputation. His father knowing nothing of the sea championed that cause.”

  “Yet he burdened everyone around him.”

  “Exactly. Have you ever heard the phrase, Francisco?”

  “What phrase? Your manner of speaking oft confuses me, Lukas.”

  “It confuses many,” the surgeon said. “What is it? Damned if I do…”

  “Damned if I don’t. The world has always been a plaything for the rich. While those who earn their lot must suffer and learn her hard lessons. Others are here only to suckle her tit, I suppose.”

  “Aye. But he wanted nothing more than to be a whaleman! At least from the shore. Many men have grand visions safe from shore, I have seen. But he wanted the experience.”

  “A
h. And it sounds like he got it.”

  “He did indeed. And I was put in irons. Five months, Francisco. Nearing Britain again Our first mate took pity on me, God knows why and in the night above deck I was thrown overboard before we landed ashore, a good way from London Port. Though he could not get the irons from me without raising a ruckus I think we both thought I had a better chance despite that.”

  “You swam to London Port clamped in irons?”

  “Indeed,” said the surgeon.

  “Perhaps you should have wielded a harpoon and lance rather than the scalpel.”

  “Perhaps. But scarcely a month later my sketched portrait dotted every alehouse and inn from York to Manchester. And such as it was, I had to leave the Queen’s country, my country. And here I am.”

  “Do your wife and son know you are alive?”

  “I know not,” said Lukas. “Five years before that voyage, she left one spring afternoon.”

  “Ah!” exclaimed Francisco as the surgeon tied his last stitch.

  Lukas gathered his tools in a leather pouch. “She warned me she would if I did not put down the bottle,” he went on. “And she did. Scooped up my boy and carried him sideways out to the carriage with her. Did not even utter a goodbye, Francisco.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “I can still remember the day. Just one day in time, Francisco. Many spring afternoons have passed since. Alas that day remains as frozen in time, the smells, the air, the way the Mourning Dove called, all of it frozen as this northern ice.”

  “I have had days as such,” said the Mexican. “Days as such,” he whispered.

  “Dead!” yelled the captain. “Dead,” he shouted again and scowled down at the expired piglet. Near, another goat stood motionless and silent in the pen’s corner.

  “It may have been diseased or sickly,” said Francisco. “Best toss it overboard.”

  “That be two nights’ chow for the lot of us,” said the captain. “Let’s cut it up and see.”

  “It smells of death,” captain, said Arnaaluk. “It smells of a sickly beast.”

  The captain sighed. “Overboard with it then. And when our bones freeze from hunger I’ll remind the men that it was you who threw overboard a slab of fresh pork.”