Sea of Two Suns

by Nicholas McAuliff

“Get a fire going, now!” snapped Captain Hildale.

  Hildale’s men followed the order. Three hot springs jutted steam toward the heavens. Around one were piles of timber and old butts and barrels and stones made to resemble cairns but blackened and dead and devoid of any color.

  “I am Francisco,” said the Mexican brea-thlessly. “The freeze seems tame does it not? Very tame?”

  “Tamer than our stay with the Inuit at Baffin Island,” Jerimiah said through gasps.

  Hildale laughed. “Perhaps we have found Hyperborea!”

  All the crew stripped and already a higher fire was roaring inland.

  “Here be Julius,” Francisco went on, pointing to the crew without distinguishment. “This is Jerimiah, our surgeon Lukas, and Isaac Isaacson, who writes for The New York Messenger. There comes our trapper and hunter, Herb.”

  The hunter wheezed and trudged through the shallows, his elephant gun gripped tight in front of his chest.

  “Obliged,” said the writer, stepping in and shaking hands with the giant.

  The giant clasped Isaac’s single hand in both of his, smiling and shaking it until the smile turned to a laugh.

  The writer and Mexican looked at one another.

  “Now, where is your captain?” asked Captain Hildale, pointing in Francisco’s face. “I mean no offense, of course. I can see by your disposition, and your Mexican eyes, that you do not seem to have the bearing of a captain. Again, no offense intended!”

  “No offense taken,” said Francisco. “When I captain my own whaleship, I’ll plot this island on the maps of the region’s seas Northwest of New France. The Cielo Rojo, she will be called.”

  Nearby Hildale’s silent crew looked on with empty eyes. Only audible was the captain’s ceaseless cursing as he stripped and slapped soaking wet clothes against ancient rocks as if to take out his rage against nature or the nigh indestructible terrain.

  “There is our captain,” said Francisco.

  “New France!” exclaimed Captain Hildale. “Surprised to hear the French still scurry the woods of the frozen furs.”

  The fire roared ceaselessly; the crew of The Roc wrapped themselves in dirty sailcloth while their clothes hung stretched over stones and sticks. Hildale’s crew sat opposite the men.

  “You will need to sleep with us tonight,” said Captain Hildale. Too cold even with fire. Too cold out by the sea,” he said pointing to a cave above the dunes from which grey smoke plumed. His eyes were hollow but his frame still well-fed. A contrast to his silent crew. “First, more on this Fur and Pine.”

  “Fur and Pine creates their own fable and yields not to the changing tides of the wood,” said Francisco.

  Under the crew was tattered and rotted burlap which did little to insulate from the freezing stone and sand.

  “After the Limeys violated the Treaty of Paris and lined London port with a fleet of frigates,” the Mexican went on. “Made the Spanish Armada look like a pirate fleet. In any case, they learned from the Armada, too confident after that victory. As is sometimes the case the underlings rallied and like tigers pushed off any offensive sent sailing their way…it could have been a fleet of God’s angels and still they would have been smitten atop the coastal seas. They say the tower of London rang for days such that men could hear it out to sea. Still the Brits were crushed such as they never had been before, and it seemed, for that one night, the sun did indeed set upon English rule.”

  “Aye!” Jerimiah yelled. “Aye yet it rose again, did it not? A less brilliant sun, albeit. Like that of a spring afternoon perhaps, where the summer would not follow again.”

  “Even fifty miles of the northern Missouri,” said the hunter. “We as Americans fight for scraps, as mangy dogs do when the wolves are done, I would guess. Still have to fly the Limey flag above our own.”

  “Though the Brits like to claim three forts still along the southern coasts,” replied Francisco. “They are but puppets to the French. The chief trader of the Rupert’s Land who calls himself Ordained by God,” said Francisco.

  “Ah Rupert’s Land,” replied Captain Hildale. “A small parcel compared to that frozen sea of trees, I have heard.”

  “Have you been to Quebec? New France? America?” asked Francisco. He stuffed steaming food into his mouth and blew on it as he chewed, waving his hands in front of his face.

  Captain Hildale shook his head. “I know that Rupert’s land now extends northward, east and west.”

  “Have you been long here?” inquired the captain from afar. He stood in the dark on the outside of the fire, Julius behind him.

  “I’m hungry!” Julius whined.

  “Shut up!” snapped the captain.

  “Why not sit and have chow, captain?” asked Francisco.

  The pirate captain’s eyes leveled on those of the Mexican’s then met Hildale’s.

  Captain Hildale looked up and cocked his head, an orange glow on a now orange beard, his smile wide. For a long moment the two captains looked at one another. “Why not come sit by the fire,” Hildale finally said. “Warm yourself and take a rest.”

  “Has your ship been run aground?” the pirate captain asked. “Why have you no plans for rescue?”

  Hildale stood slowly, balancing himself, then laughed and marched toward the pirate captain.

  The two met hands.

  “Let me introduce my crew!” said Captain Hildale. He turned his head while keeping the pirate’s hands locked in his own colossal fists. As he did so the pirate wrenched his hands away. Hildale looked at him and smiled, then looked back toward the fire.

  “Men!” screamed Hildale. “Men!” And arising from the fire came a line of men, some wrapped with old cloth, others bound completely with hemp and burlap sewn together.

  “This is your crew?” asked the pirate captain.

  “Aye captain!” shouted Hildale. “For are we not on a ship now? Are we not really at sea? In fact, did we ever leave? In any case, these are my men. My first mate, Mr. Tacky,” he said, and a tall and emaciated black bearded man scurried up and nodded his head.

  “Mr. Tacky,” Francisco repeated and stepped in. “I am first mate as well,” he said and the two clasped hand to forearm.

  “The rest, you may call my sons,” Hildale said. “For their names and ranks have no import here. I am their captain! So we have two captains,” he yelled.

  The pirate captain nodded at the men but offered no handshake. “We hunger,” he said. “We can trade. Have you any provisions here, any game to be found past those dunes?”

  Hildale shook his head. “There won’t be a feast to be had, captain. Where the seaweed stains the waters, you may try for whatever frozen fish skirt just shoreside.”

  “What!” said the captain. “Have you no ration?”

  “Crabs!” screamed Julius. “Crabs, crabs, crabs!” he shouted.

  Hildale laughed heartily. “Crabs!” he yelled and Julius laughed harder. “No crabs here my stunted friend.”

  “The night just bleeds into the land, becomes one with it. It’s as if the desert drinks the sky,” said Francisco.

  The men half slumbered around the dying fire. Coals smoldered and a tiny light came from the cave inlet above the dunes. The captain slept as did Julius. All around the men lie in a circle while some kept talking. Jerimiah paced about the circle with the hunter’s elephant gun in tow.

  “We freeze due to his pride,” Isaac whispered. The writer shivered under burlap and sailcloth.

  “I agree with the pirate for once,” said Francisco. “I would rather freeze than be butchered by Hildale and his men. There is something wrong with all of this.”

  “Perhaps instead of describing Mexican skies you should rouse the captain and see how we avoid freezing to death,” snapped Isaac. “Has he gone mad?”

  “We will not freeze. My job is not negotiator, Isaac. If the captain says we sleep outside, we sleep outside.”

  Isaac groaned and looked toward the bobbing Roc. Inside a single light beamed from the
captain’s quarters, where Simon rested.

  “Perhaps your lot was to be a poet Francisco,” said Herb.

  “I know yours was not to be a sailor, my friend. Nor a trapper it would seem.”

  “Had I the humor for it, I would rise and meet your words with a jest of my own,” said Herb sleepily. “Alas, I am tired Mexican.”

  Isaac turned his head and focused on Francisco. The orange of the coals lined his face, which peered upwards at the brilliant spray of stars decorating the night.

  “The highest point of summer,” Francisco said. “The sun sets over the hills but the coyotes never cease their whining cries. And the skies glow like a dying fire. They turn the cacti to just black shadows. Fields of them in the dark. Scattered and vast in the desert as it rolls back into nothingness. It was as if God...threw octli across the black firmament to finish his creation. As a painter may, I would guess.”

  “Maybe he did,” said the hunter.

  “Maybe he did,” whispered Isaac.

  The men slept as the stars swirled above in the dark black veil.

  XXIV

  A scream came from the caves of men.

  “Unhand me!” came another scream.

  The light of dawn painted the frozen landscape a sinister yellow atop the blackened rock.

  Mr. Tacky was almost to the crew’s dying fire when he was tackled by three others. He cried as they lifted him. “Let me go,” he groaned.

  “Is anything amiss?” said Francisco.

  “Hoy!” shouted the captain, half asleep but rising. The crew of The Roc followed in waking.

  “No, no,” whispered one of Hildale’s men. “He had too much to drink,” he said as they dragged the crying Mr. Tacky out of sight.

  The captain looked toward the caves. “Two will keep watch as we sleep,” he said. “Two always. Me and Julius will take first watch. Put out the damned fire!”

  Jerimiah ignored the captain and continued rustling a bed of hot embers in which to warm the crew’s breakfast, however impoverished that meal may be.

  “I’m not finished!” screamed Julius through a mouthful of cold food.

  The captain slapped his brother once, twice, three times and food flew from Julius’s mouth.

  Francisco angrily kicked sand into the birthing fire until it was snuffed.

  From the high dunes Hildale emerged, looking down unto the men as the dawn shone behind him; his figure blotting out the rays.

  “There be a damned Minke beached yonder,” said the pirate captain. “There!” he yelled, pushing a gloved finger towards the island’s western rocky cliffs. The men trekked over jutted dunes and forests of ancient driftwood.

  “There!” yelled Julius, leaping up and down.

  The men crossed the circular path towards the shoreline, leading down the cliff face and unto the beach. And there the chorus of birds grew unbearable, they seemed to grow more outraged at the men’s presence. All about the sun was blotted by the birds both familiar and strange. An eagle sized bird looking like some kind of frozen vulture landed and the tiny petrels sailed swiftly aside.

  The carcass was a dead colossus: covered with whitened barnacles, its mouth was agape and eyes opened, staring into a black void. From its bloated belly, indiscernible tiny creatures skirted about. The waves brushed gently at the remnant of the great beast.

  The captain shot his flintlock pistol skyward, sending most of the seabirds up where they circled the carcass like vultures. “Here is food for three moons,” he said. “Here is oil for light. Here is bone for spear and blade. Why in god’s name have they not butchered this bounty as of yet? Been here at least a day,” said the captain, his eyes squinting in the sunlight.

  Isaac and Francisco looked on without advice.

  “We can butcher it under the moonlight and be gone by the first rays of dawn, captain,” said the Mexican.

  “And leave these people here to starve,” Isaac said, taking off his glasses. He wiped sand and soot from his face.

  “Still!” said the captain. “Still you fail to see where you are.”

  “This is not the world you know, Isaac,” said the Mexican. “These men have been ashore for too long. And have thus gone insane. We cannot aid them now. Danger grows the longer we stay ashore.”

  “Then tell me again why we landed?”

  Francisco and the writer eyed the captain who ignored them and continued examining the bloated whale.

  “Shall I swim to the ship, captain?” asked Francisco.

  “Nay!” The captain snarled. Hildale and his insane crew will suspect something is amiss. In the night, we will signal the deckhand to ready the ship. Be ready, aye. This may come to blows ere this very sun sets.”

  All was still on the island, about the island, and about the lapping sea rearing its nightly waves unto the shore. Night birds cried sparsely as Captain Hildale walked barefoot toward the bloated Minke Whale. It seemed to illuminate a blue hue under the moonlight. As Hildale approached the thing, he peered at The Roc, bobbing silently above its anchor.

  Hildale swatted at tiny feasting petrels and they flew into the night in silence. He peered at the forward ocean, where all was still. He knapped flint together atop the torch until it was alight, and his bare feet skirted against the tide which glowed white in the moonlight. He planted the torch and stared at the sea.

  With an iron hook he sliced into the whale’s flank, and with a thin dagger he separated a slab of blubber and skin long as his own arm. Enough for one man. He knelt and placed the slab into a pocket made from old linen. He waited, kneeling. Still nothing came, until the waters parted and seemed to rise in a mound as if they were dunes of flowing blue sand. The few remaining whines from the birds above ceased to stark silence.

  Hildale’s eyes went to the ground and his body shook as the whale was dragged out of sight until all was quiet again.

  Around the fire a score of men sat and bit into hard bread. The fire seemed to grow taller as they ate. The captain sat on one side, flanked by Francisco and the hunter, and Hildale on the other.

  Behind the bearded captain sat his followers, all hollow-eyed.

  “Thank you for this meal,” said Hildale. “For we have not had bread in some time. Brittle as it is,” he said, glaring down at the log of hardtack before them.

  “What do you eat here?” asked the Mexican. “Forgive me, not much, I know. We too share your hunger. Surely fruits do not sustain you, not for this long. How long have you been here?”

  On a flat stone in front of the men were yellowed fruits larger than apples. Inexplicably they grew on the far side of the island and provided slight nourishment.

  Hildale laughed. “Your Mexican asks many questions,” he said, ignoring Francisco and making eye contact with the captain.

  The captain grunted and snapped a fistful of bread off the larger loaf.

  “I asked you a question, sir,” said the Mexican.

  “Ah,” said Hildale. “That you did. Well, these fruits seem be enough to satisfy us, truly,” he said.

  “Fruit!” exclaimed Francisco. “This time of year, and this far north?”

  “Never seen such a thing,” said Jerimiah.

  “By the hot springs yonder,” said Hildale. “They grow in plenty. We partake of meat on the half-moon. Now we break bread together, ha!”

  Francisco tossed a piece of soaked hardtack to the sand where Miska had it downed in seconds.

  “As they did at the last supper!” exclaimed Hildale. “Long long ago!”

  A silence passed.

  “Have you heard tale of the silver gleam? Have you entertained other sailors before our coming? A Captain Turner?

  “More questions from the Mexican,” said Hildale.

  The hunter laughed.

  “Call me Mexican one more time,” snarled Francisco.

  Again Hildale laughed and his men followed in a soft laugh behind him.

  “Why have you not constructed a raft?” asked the pirate. “You could make for the
mainland when the summer comes. There is life there. What do you here?”

  “I do not think we could make the mainland, captain,” said Hildale.

  “Has thy seen a silver gleam northwest?” the captain grunted. “Have any others stowed here speaking of treasure?”

  Hildale shook his head rapidly. “No treasure to be found here, captain,” he said. “No visitors to our homely rock.”

  “Have you a blacksmith?” asked Jerimiah. “Had you attempted repairs?”

  “Died,” said Hildale. “In the stormy sea,” he said, pointing towards The Roc. “Sturdy ship,” he said, keeping his eyes on the vessel. “Have a man on board?”

  The pirate captain glared at Hildale wordless.

  “There be silver not far from here, Captain Hildale,” said Jerimiah.

  The captain side-eyed Jerimiah.

  Behind Hildale, his followers made no eye contact and chewed loudly. Like a group of Holsteins eating mindlessly from the green.

  From a sheath on his cloth beltloop Hildale loosed a glinting whalebone machete the size of a short sword, handle made of bone too and all white. He chopped down at the food and it sliced apart easily, he rolled it over the bread and handed bits to his men.

  “Why do your men not speak?” asked Isaac.

  Hildale stood and violently plunged the machete into a knot of driftwood. His movements were wooden and he looked to be made of wood himself. He chewed loudly and shook his head, hands on his hips.

  “Nothing to say,” said Captain Hildale. “Nothing to say. Mr. Tacky!” he yelled, and the tall man stood.

  There following were the rest of Hildale’s crew.

  Mr. Tacky’s eyes were a faded blue.

  “Tell these men our story,” said Hildale. “Tell them how we came to our beautiful island.”

  Mr. Tacky stood silent for a long minute. “Run aground,” he blurted. “Run aground we did, those moons ago. Aye!” the man yelled.

  “How many moons?” said Isaac.

  Mr. Tacky grasped his arms in front of him. “No whales anymore,” said Mr. Tacky, ignoring the writer. “No whales since the tryworks ran dry and the rudder came off. Clean off!”

  Captain Hildale laughed and tugged at Mr. Tacky’s arm.