Sea of Two Suns

by Nicholas McAuliff

  “I am sorry,” said Simon again.

  “Get out of my quarters,” whispered the captain.

  And the young sailor did as he was bid leaving only Francisco and the captain.

  “Greeners,” said Francisco. The Mexican picked up the bottle and poured the little left into he and the captain’s glasses. “We always said we would save this bottle for the Tesoro Grande.”

  “If there be such a thing. Get him on watch. Two watches, consecutively. Let him try to refute that.”

  Francisco shook his head. “Isaac volunteered for three.”

  “You are always scribing that book,” said Arnaaluk. “Even under the moon.”

  Isaac turned and saw a smile. “Better way to pass watch,” he said.

  The last lights of the captain’s quarters had faded and the rest of the men slept in the forecastle.

  “You should be watching for bergs and fire,” she quipped.

  “Perhaps you can tell the captain I’ve done something wrong. I am sure he will be above deck in a flurry to correct me.”

  She sat on a tub of spare coil near the helm and Isaac sat too.

  “Did I raise you?” asked the writer. “Forgive, I oft pace like Simon does on watch.”

  She shook her head and looked around. “I dreamed and woke sudden. Not often do I dream.”

  “Of?”

  “A great owl. It soared overtop the ship, snowy as they are in these lands. It didn’t look down. It glided in silence, the size of the whaleboat.”

  “I see. Well I seldom dream these days.”

  “What do you dream of when you do?”

  “Many nights back I dreamed of the hearth. Watching people below, the flurry of Bleeker Street. As I would do after a day at the Messenger. Certain comfort in watching others bustle about when your labor is done, strange it is. But they were all shadows walking in the dark. I had the sense of the mid-night yet no lanterns glowed. They walked about as if the workday bustled, quiet shapes. As if I were looking down on a street somewhere in Scheol. Still I felt comfort in the scene.”

  “Lukas at least can make us feel at home.”

  “Quite a nice feast.”

  “Goat gets old like everything else,” said Arnaaluk.

  “I fear there will be no more feasting lest we snatch our silver haul.”

  “We are close I think,” The Cree said, turning and looking at the dark sea as if admiring it.

  Isaac studied her hair in the starlight which was like an ebony sheet smelling of lemon and rose. “Have you other kin on Baffin Island?” he asked.

  “No. We had heard of two cousins who we knew only as children. Had gone to settle in your South Carolina, god knows why. I do not think our paths are meant to cross again. Such woe, such sorrow,” she said. “Beget by the love of fur and possession and the hatred of the wood.”

  “And your husband?”

  “He was killed at Fort Oswego some years after the Brits fell, for choosing the wrong flag. Though it was not even his flag.”

  “I am sorry,” said Isaac.

  She sighed. “Sorry about our uncle, sorry about my husband. Save the hollow gestures writer,” she said. “You are above them.”

  Isaac shook his head and looked portside. “Did your husband fight under the French flag?”

  “In his actions but not his heart, such that most of us had no choice.”

  “Aye,” said Isaac.

  “Aye,” she said. “As if you understand.”

  “I was not a soldier nor trapper. I am an Italian born Jew who took up the pen.”

  “I know,” she said scanning him up and down.

  “Have you children?”

  “No,” she said. “After the white locusts devoured our land, I think I would never bring a child into that subjugated world. It seems me and my brother arrived too late. Have you a wife?”

  “She passed some years back.”

  Arnaaluk said nothing and handed Isaac a piece of jerked seal meat and she pulled one out of her pouch for herself and they ate.

  “No Cree or Inuk or southern Indian in your lands ever fought under any flag,” Arnaaluk went on. “Though they may have said such. All of you whites must label and box everything you see and designate it under some banner. The sky and the sea are our flags. For they do not wither and rot and require a replacement through bloodshed nor do they revere steel and iron and gunpowder as their gods.”

  “You love to label me however.”

  “I know you are not one of them thereby it shocks me to see you here.”

  “You do not know me,” Isaac said. “You know little of me, in fact.”

  She stood and straddled him and took off her heavy furs and then her shift, seemingly immune to the frosted air whipping about her beige flesh. She let her hair down and handed Isaac the ivory hair pin.

  “Arnaaluk,” he said.

  “Enough,” she replied and ran her hands under the heavy fur adorning his shoulders.

  She pushed his shoulders against the helm and kissed him and he kissed her back.

  “We’ll run aground, damn you!” The captain snarled and his lips parted as would a wild dog’s when confronted with adversity.

  Miska himself barked happily seemingly in response to the captain.

  The pirate captain seemed to be fighting the helm more than steering the wheel.

  Isaac sat against a sea chest, half sleeping, wondering why the captain permitted such a thing.

  Overhead was an azure blue in a cloudless sky, underfoot was white as snow. Save for the broken crisscrossing of blue seawater which trailed like fluid blue snakes navigating the icy expanse. Appearing in form then disappearing again to merge with the formless.

  “Not if we drop anchor, captain,” shouted Francisco. “There,” he said, pointing northeast toward the tiny island.

  Yellowed crags and broken, flattened bergs occupied the thing. It had a tarnished look to it, as an old coin does when left untouched too long. But whining petrels made their way from and to the sharp stones which were overcast by red in the distant sun. And where those rocks jutted was a blue expanse devoid of ice, as if the birds were beckoning the men yonder.

  “No!” said the captain.

  “Let her have this,” said the Mexican sailor. He stepped into the captain. “The men are weary. Weariness at sea, captain…”

  “God damnit!” snapped the captain. He violently spun the helm and the compass needle followed suit as the freezing sun shot down upon it. The men were bathed in a light which speckled like pastel across the deck.

  “Cree!” screamed the captain.

  “We are two different people, captain,” replied Nukilik as he approached. “Our uncle is buried with the shamans. We would like to stop there. Just for some time.”

  Tiny puddles on the deck refracted green light.

  For a moment, Isaac peered at the little light puddles. They ebbed and flowed, they expanded and shrank as did the tides. His lips were cracked, his palate ached.

  His mind saw New York; his mind saw the crocus’s purple hue. The chandelier overhead gave and took different light patterns. Patterns like those that would jettison from her crystalline whale-oil lamp albeit less brightly. He felt the sensation of red wine on his tongue, heard the cries of children laughing as they ran about the long windows of The New York Messenger.

  From those windows, light used to sail inside too, casting greenly like those same little light puddles but without a backdrop of suffering. Light about the table, about the feast, about the loved ones as the chickadees and jays sang from outside.

  Last he saw her of jet-black hair and sea blue eyes. Covered head to toe in satin. Approaching as she sometimes did, wearing that peculiar grin. Just prior to laughter, a grin telling a joke between them, that which only they both understood.

  “We sometimes ate in the courtyard,” said Isaac.

  Suddenly the light puddles again were nothing more than filth and the oppression of the sea. Suddenly again was the ca
ptain grasping the helm so hard it almost creaked in pain.

  The men turned and looked at the writer. “Ivory-white were the fountains and lavender in the air about her,” he blurted out. “Always lavender.”

  The captain and Francisco looked at one another and turned back toward the helm.

  “Hands on!” ordered the captain. The cry of the birds drowned out the snapping sails. The grating grind of the keel upon ice had ceased. Blue water only rushed them toward the shore, from which the yellowed crags were now monumental claws reaching over the crew’s tiny vessel.

  “Drop anchor,” screamed the captain, and the Inuit brother and sister laughed excitedly from below deck. An explosion of footsteps followed.

  Arnaaluk was first. Her white heavy furs and her glee making her like a queen of the frozen sea. Like a girl she ran about the deck. She squeezed the captain’s arm and he nodded once, his face still twisted.

  Followed were Jerimiah, whose eyes were puffy, and the dog who barked impatiently behind the old sailor.

  Arnaaluk squatted down and hugged the animal. “You stay put!” she whispered and the hound barked once as if in response. She winked at Isaac and slung her harpoon.

  Isaac grasped Nukilik’s arm and the goliath Inuk looked down at him. “Watch her well,” the writer said.

  “I will Isaac,” Nukilik replied.

  From the bow-side gunwale Nukilik lifted his stowed war harpoon. The war harpoon’s ivory tip seemed to reflect the color of ice around them. Nukilik pricked it once with his fingertip. The sashes tied around it were crimson and blue and silver, like melting hoarfrost still sparkling atop the earth.

  They entered the whaleboat.

  “Lower the whaleboat,” said Francisco. Miska barked furiously and Isaac held him by the waist as he stood and leaned his paws onto the bulkhead and twice tried to dive overboard.

  And as the brother and sister approached the stony shore the birds silenced; the sun seemed to wane and the whaleboat became a smaller speck upon the steppes of infinite blue.

  “Four revolutions,” said the captain as he flipped the hourglass at the helm on its head.

  Lukas ascended the ladder with a ragged King James bible pressed to his chest, keeping an open page. Others played dice on the quarterdeck, Julius grasping his knees and rocking back and forth watching them.

  “Forgive my hubris captain,” said Lukas suddenly. “But have we the time for these inland stops? It is a race to the silver gleam, said Captain Turner back shoreside.”

  “No. No we fucking don’t,” said the captain, glaring at Francisco. The captain paced below deck, heavy thudding steps as if his feet were assaulting the ladder.

  From a golden-skinned monocular Francisco peered toward the bluffs. He saw black petrels increasing their flight paths to the sea, all quiet. A single Eider hobbling amidst giant black stones. On that stony shore he saw Arnaaluk sprinting towards a sheer ashy cliff face, which led high to the sharpened overhang.

  Nukilik trailed her. Atop the flattened island sprouted tufts of shrubbery still showing a pale green hue, and toward the far side of the island were only boulders and scattered frozen dunes.

  “Are they heading to the top?” asked Isaac.

  “Seems so,” Francisco replied. From his monocular he saw brother and sister, their hands on each other’s shoulders. Nukilik walked backward while Arnaaluk held onto her brother and walked forward about a circular cliff face from which parts of the cliff fell in clumps.

  A shot rang abruptly, and a second of a softer echo. The hunter laughed.

  Isaac followed the smoke billowing from both Herb’s Hall-rifle and flintlock pistol. He wielded the rifle one handed as if it were a second pistol. He loaded again and fired, and a third seabird fell to the ocean without ceremony.

  “Again with that!” yelled Isaac.

  “Passes the time newsman,” the hunter shrieked. He laughed again and downed a fourth bird with his flintlock.

  “Save it for the ice bears,” said Francisco. He put the monocular back to his eye, but the Cree were out of sight.

  Unseen was the opposite side of the island where the burial ground of those Inuit heroes of old were said to lie undisturbed under the infinite starlight of the frozen dome.

  Francisco pressed an ear to the hatch. From within rumbling and pacing was heard, a shatter of glass which quickly muted, a curse.

  “Captain,” called Francisco, gently tapping on the hatch.

  “Do not ever tell me what I said!” came a voice from within.

  Francisco merely pushed open the door which was unhinged. “Where is my brother?

  “Asleep in the forecastle,” Said Francisco. He shut the hatch.

  “Julius!” the captain boomed. “Julius!”

  “Asleep say I! Like all else save for you.”

  “And what of you, Francisco? You want to be captain? Yes?” The captain was nose to nose with Francisco before the Mexican finished his utterance.

  “In a year’s time,” Francisco replied. “First I want to find the silver haul and buy a ship. Three voyages as first mate. Because you and your haughty American shipmates would never see a Mexican sailor command one.”

  “I ain’t a whaler!” said the captain. He reached for a tall vial of whiskey, yet unopened. He downed it in one motion, not breaking eye contact with the other man.

  “It is dark,” Francisco said. “Arnaaluk and Nukilik have not returned, but they signaled us with a fire from the top hillside of the island. They mean to sleep there tonight, I think,” said Francisco.

  “Fucking Eskimos!” The captain swiped for another vial of clear spirits, and in doing so knocked three toward the deck, where they shattered. He dug his fingers into his bald head and shook.

  “Captain! Why not lie down?”

  “Lie down, aye, Francisco. I will lie down. I’ll lie down in the grave.”

  “The grave may be a long way out. Assuming you care for your brother’s safety. As for the safety of your men, I will entertain no illusions.”

  “Say another word about my brother. Go on!”

  “Will you hold onto this forever? Until the end of time! What is done is done. Perhaps it was always meant to be. Julius’s lot in life, I mean.”

  The captain paced and as he did so dug his fingernails into his head again, from which blood now ran in tiny trails.

  “Jacob!” The Mexican shouted and grappled with the taller man, the pirate’s eyes bloodshot and spacey. “Jake god damnit!” he said.

  For a moment they tangled as would two adversaries; the captain’s liquored blood the only thing preventing the Mexican from getting overpowered.

  “Captain!” the pirate hissed.

  “What is done is done!” proclaimed Francisco.

  The captain unsheathed his curved Kukri. Francisco wrenched the thing out of the captain’s hands.

  Still they tumbled about the quarters, knocking the fine jade dishware from its shelf where it splintered. From the commotion the hunter and Isaac emerged below deck, pounding on the hatch.

  “Stop it!” again screamed the Mexican.

  “Open the hatch!” came the grumbling voice of the hunter, now unleashing two closed fists upon that hatch.

  “He’s liquored up,” came a muffled voice of the surgeon too.

  From outside the hatch the crew heard what sounded as two men fighting, glass shattering to the deck.

  “All the fuckin spirits are in there!” screamed the brutish hunter. “Open the god damn hatch!” he bellowed as a symphony of shattering glass went on.

  In the chambers, the captain slid down the hull, the fire gone from his eyes.

  Both men’s chests heaved in and out. A last lopsided vial of rum rolled with the tide and too splashed broken upon the deck.

  “There is a path in life for you, Francisco,” whispered the captain. “There is a role to be played,” he gasped. “Not such for me, or my brother!”

  “I am a Mexican whaler.”

  Another set
of fists banged at the hatch.

  “Away,” shouted Francisco. “Away!”

  With a curse Herb and Lukas followed the first mate’s command.

  The captain slumbered almost instantly and silently against the bulkhead where his spirit waned, the stench of liquor about him.

  Francisco closed the hatch and latched it from outside. Only Isaac remained; he sat steadfast against the bulkhead with hands wrapped around his knees.

  “Too much liquor,” said Francisco. “What do you here, still?” he said, his eyes scanning Isaac up and down.

  “Aye. No sleep came to me. The fire still burns on yonder island. A holy place for them.”

  “For the tribes and people’s West of the Bay, yes.”

  “Is it wise to sleep on that rock, Francisco? Perhaps we should lower the second whaleboat and-”

  “Nukilik is with her. I know you care for her. I think it would take all the Inuit of the north before Nukilik fell. Never have I seen a stronger man, and never shall, I think.”

  “Aye,” said the writer. Francisco extended a hand downwards, but Isaac ignored it and instead glared up at the Mexican wordless.

  “What?”

  “The way you attacked him. I have never seen you act thus. Not once, Francisco. The way you flared.”

  “Who?”

  “Simon.”

  “At dinner with the captain?”

  “Before that.”

  Francisco’s eyes indeed flared at present and he leaned down toward the sitting writer. “He wants to be a whaler! We have not been at sea for a moon. Do you know what three years at sea is like?”

  “No.”

  “No. Not like scribing and writing and pondering. He wants to be a whaleman then he will learn as I did.”

  “What is this wrath in you that I rarely see? You are a man of peace, aye? Yet back in New York I saw that wrath with the blond screaming man.”

  “My wrath is warranted when it emerges,” whispered Francisco.

  Isaac nodded his head. “You have a ferocious side to you brother,” he said.

  “Aye and your type never does Isaac. Save for when you have a purse to fill and an article to write. I am not passive as you are.”

  “I am not passive.”

  “Indeed you are.”

  Isaac went to rise and the ship bobbed as he did and he stumbled.