The darkening porch matched my mood as I got madder and madder thinking about what Papa had said to me. At the same time, Papa didn’t say “you can never” or “you can’t be a whaler,” he only mentioned the crew wouldn’t serve with a girl who wasn’t worthy. I sat on the steps bathed in blue after-light and did some thinking. Maybe I could learn my way into this. If I showed Papa I knew my way around a whaleboat, he’d have to give me a shot. There was one person who could tell me if my plan would work or was even worth trying.
Abraham Hobson.
Since it was Sunday the day after next, there wouldn’t be any picking and likely no whaling the way those beasts loafed about the bay. That gave me some free time to visit Abe.
I jumped up from the porch steps to take a good stretch before bunking down. That was when I saw it – a ghastly shadow in the distance moving from the forest edge to the graves. At first it looked like a flying fox or maybe a cassowary, but this was much larger. It was the shape of a person for sure. The apparition wavered slowly through the headstones as though drawn by a breeze. There were ghosts enough around to know this was the real thing. Ebenezer Dodd himself haunts the Doddspoint Lighthouse. During a hunter’s moon, the barren couple that hanged themselves in the old stone cottage call for any idle, wasteful children to help them.
As quickly as it appeared, the dark specter vanished like hot breath on glass. Shaken, I danced up the steps and into the parlor. The front door slammed shut with me against it. Papa glanced up over his spectacles. He was reading Lord Jim again with a plate of cold meat, biscuits, and a cup of buttermilk to keep him company.
“There’s more in the icebox,” he offered, looking back down at his book.
“No thanks,” I said, striking a match to the hallway candle.
I thumped slowly up the stairs, trying to hold the flame. The light pushed in with a soft amber glow, as if the room were dripping with honey. I lit the big lamp next to my old captain’s desk. As I started getting into my night things, I looked on the desktop and there was a fourth pencil. This one was blue. I raced down the stairs half-dressed.
“Has anyone been in my room?” I shouted frantically. “Has anyone come into the house?”
“No one here but us,” growled Papa. “Put something decent on, for land sakes.”
I ran back up and flung open the porthole again. Outside it was as black as the inside of a stove. As hard as I tried to see, nothing rose from the bleakness. I reached down and grabbed Mr. Nubbles by the scruff of his neck. He meowed sorrowfully, flailing his black and white paws.
“What’d ya see, you mangy oaf?” I said, scratching under his chin. “By jangles, I ought to make mittens out of the lot of ya.”
5.
The next morning when I began pulling out the apple racks, I found two black bush rats. They tried to scamper out, but I grabbed one by the tail and caught the other under my boot.
The twitchy one I grabbed by the tail yanked this way and that trying to gnaw at me. The other lay quiet under my heel, knowing his days were numbered. I didn’t want to prolong the poor vermin’s misery, nor take any pleasure in my duties.
Gripping its tail, I whirled him about and whapped his head on Papa’s anvil. Sensing impending doom, the other scratched and clawed at the barn floor. It didn’t seem a fair or noble fight, so I reached over and dropped a heavy lump hammer on it.
During the rest of my chores, I looked out at the graves. Those twenty gray stones seem so settled, part of the scenery. I tried to imagine that ghost floating around and it made me smile. Perhaps I let my humors or the night vapors get the best of me. I rolled those four pencils around in my pocket to feel where they were. I figured to go over to the graves after hanging the wash.
Passersby who spotted our laundry flapping in the breeze from the exposed mainmast spars atop the roof believed Loch Bultarra was some sort of a rescue station. I always tried to look serious when people asked what type of approaching storm my bloomers and Papa’s skivvies were warning them about. With the last sheets snapping in a westerly tacking breeze, our homestead looked like a packet ship at full sail.
On laundry day, I also made a point of spending time in the widow’s walk. I pictured Mum up there with my spyglass searching the bay. With no wife to pace its floor longing for the boats to return, the walk remained a glum hollow space haunted by Papa.
After a leftover bean sandwich, I told Papa I was going for my walkabout. He knew I visited the family during them. One day I’m going figure how he can come with me so we can do proper grieving together.
But not this day.
I needed to find out what the devil was stalking me. It wasn’t any of the crew playing me because none of them had the patience to drag things out this long.
I made my way over to the wee glen down the gully past Loch Bultarra. I checked grave after grave, but there was no sign of any ghostly presence. Propped against Nana Effie’s stone was a shingle-sized piece of wood nearly as thin as cardboard. Behind Nana’s grave was another piece of wood and beyond that several more. I picked them up as I walked. The wood slices trailed into the dark green forest.
Dingoes roamed there for sure, along with venomous snakes, water dragons, and deadly funnel spiders. Many a bludger walked in never to walk out. I stood holding my paper-like shingles and wondered what to do. A lone kookaburra circled overhead, landing high in a boppel tree. It sang a little tune Mum might have hummed to me.
I edged my way into the gully, carefully stepping on the damp rocks.
Phosphorescent moss clung to sun-neglected areas of the forest. The canopy of lush green leaves and column-like trees made it feel as if I were entering a great cathedral rather than a forest. Without much sky to navigate my way, I could easily get lost. I began breaking the wood shingles into strips that I left along the way. Breadcrumbs to help me find my way back.
The ocean of green in front of me was silent and immovable. I ascended a steep hill as though entering a winding tower. At the top, I rested in the crook of a root to a massive eucalyptus tree that was wider than a whaleboat and as tall as I could see. I felt humbled by its presence and quickly moved along the rim of the hill. I thought of turning back but a yearning to see more drove me down the gully into the tapestry of willowing ferns, flora, and draping moss. I heard a sudden rush of leaves behind me, then one to my left. The wood strips I’d placed to create a trail were gone. It could be playful dingoes…or something else.
“If anyone’s there, show yourself!” I shouted.
I sat on a stone outcrop and began sketching the landmarks around me on the shingles I had left to remember where I’d been. I walked further into the thick vegetation, stopping now and again to sketch landmark plants along the way. I pushed aside brush and vines from low-hanging tree limbs. A poisonous tiger snake slinked through the branches above, eyeing me curiously. Now I knew how those rats felt in the apple racks. The ground cover was as high as my waist. As I sketched my location, the pencil point broke.
While I looked in my pocket for another, I heard a great swoosh like a hawk landing.
I snapped up.
Just inches from my nose, the upside-down torso of a bare-chested boy dangled.
Smiling.
His long wavy black hair billowed downward, dancing like a waterspout on the bay. His almond-shaped eyes glowed.
“Might you require this?” he asked, holding a pencil sharpener between his thumb and forefinger.
My mouth opened, but no words came out. I looked up and saw only the empty branch where he’d once hung among a blanket of leaves.
“It came with the set,” I heard him say behind me. And there he was standing with his arm extended holding the sharpener in his open palm. He wore a copper inscribed medallion around his neck and white knickers tied with a drawstring. His skin was dark as cocoa.
“You’re the one that’s been hunting me like I
was a wild boar,” I shouted, taking a roundhouse swing.
“I assure you I meant no harm,” he said, backing away.
“Then who are you?” I asked.
“I am from the village across the inlet.”
“I know the crew from there, how’s it I’ve never seen you?”
“I have been training with Uncle for my station in life.”
“Well, station this!” I shouted, swinging at him again.
I might as well have been grabbing at wave caps for all the good it did me. He vanished with every swing I took, reappearing just out of arm’s reach, with that glint of sunshine smile.
“Your perceptions of my intentions are somewhat askew,” he said, effortlessly popping off the base of a tree.
“Only thing wrong with what I’m seeing is you’re in the picture,” I said, taking a big step as I launched a kick at his gut with my right leg.
As I planted my foot, it slipped on the follow-through.
I was heading to meet whatever crawlers were on the forest floor when a firm grip took hold of my forearm. I could hear tons of critters hovering near my head.
“Please,” he said, holding his open hand with the sharpener still in it, “it’s meant for you.”
“Seeing you got the upper hand, thank you,” I croaked.
Before I could say Free Ned Kelly, I was back on my feet, dizzy from all that dangling. The blood rushed to my head as he continued to look at me quizzically.
“Are you satisfactory?” he asked.
“Steady as a stockman’s hobble,” I muttered, unbuttoning my dress pocket and placing the sharpener next to the pencils.
“My name is Calagun,” he said, eyeing the landscape.
“I’m Savannah, Savannah Dawson,” I replied, offering my hand to shake.
“Indeed, you are related to the master whaler, Caleb,” he said, with a firm grip. “I am joining his crew as an oarsman this season. What is your chosen role?”
This fella was full of surprises. My chosen role? How could Papa allow a total stranger into our boats and keep me away? Rolling oakum last season, I did hear some of the girls talking about a young prince. Still, I didn’t want to reveal too much about myself.
“Aye, his cook,” I answered.
“Cook?” he said, “my observations suggest you are much more than that.”
“True,” I said, brushing myself off. “I’m also the washerwoman, an apple picker, holystone roller and whatever else needs to be done that no one wants to do.”
“That seems quite odd,” the boy said, folding his arms across his chest. “Are you not an heir as Queens Elizabeth and Victoria were?” he asked.
“I am at that, ain’t I?” I said, proudly standing up straight. “But Papa rules over me pretty good these days.”
“I see,” he said.
“The rest of us are over yonder,” I said, pointing back toward the glen, “but I guess you know that.”
“During my initiation, I wandered through there on occasion,” he said, flashing that smile again. “My tossing ceremony was held not far away.”
“That’s onya!” I said, having overheard the crew talk about the arduous manhood rituals of the villagers. “We don’t have anything like that to brag about at Loch Bultarra.”
“Loch Bultarra,” he said, grazing a hand across his chin. “Scottish for ‘lake’ and Bultarra meaning the ‘joining of two lands’ in my tongue. It’s a symbol of the bond between our grandfathers who founded the whaling station.”
My mouth hung open like a caught cod. It strewth me through my bones it did. Loch Bultarra had always been a funny name to me. How’s it I’d never met this lad before and he knew more about Pop Alex than I did? Why didn’t I know more about his family than he did mine?
“Savannah is a very pretty name,” he said, changing the subject.
“Anyone who knows me spends time trying to forget it,” I said, sheepishly.
“Calagun means ‘blue fig’ in English,” he added. “My mother’s Dreaming brought it to her before I was born.”
“Calie…” I stumbled, trying to pronounce his name.
“Ca-lla-gun,” he said, slowly trying to coax me.
“Cal...” I said, trying again. “Would you mind it if I just called you Figgie?”
6.
I followed Figgie away from the path I was taking. Anyone picked as an oarsman first time around is worth knowing in my book. For a moment I hesitated, staying a step back as he pushed ahead. The farther we moved away from where we’d met, the more he glided effortlessly through the brush. Like it or not, he was my compass home. I put my trust in him the way Papa did the wind or the stars at sea.
We paced along in silence for a bit when I up and asked, “So why the pencils, mate?”
Figgie didn’t answer right away but walked a few steps before stopping. He didn’t face me as he talked. “I hope you will use your talent to tell our story to the world,” he said, before continuing.
I laughed aloud and asked, “What talent might that be?”
“You are an artist,” he said, pausing again.
“You mean that chicken scratch I been doing over by the family plot?”
“Give yourself good measure, Savannah,” he said, glancing back. “We both know it’s more than that.”
“Well, perhaps,” I said, feeling the blood rush to my face again, “but I don’t know enough about your village to do right by it.”
“You’re more part of it than you realize,” he said, changing direction. “Initially, I did not recognize you with your mane shorn, but I knew only a true artist would be curious enough to follow the trail I made.”
“Ah, you’ve been spending too much time in the woop woop,” I said, not liking him putting his stickybeak in my business.
He froze. One leg high in the air, arms outstretched.
I got frightened, wondering if some snake I hadn’t heard of had bitten him full of paralysis. “Are you all right?” I asked, looking into his stone face, mouth and eyes wide open. He didn’t move or seem to breathe as I approached him. “Say something, dang it.”
“Apologize,” he said, without moving his lips.
“What?”
“Apologize, for your words have made me stone.”
I had a clear shot to slug him right there and walk away from all this nonsense. “So—sorry, mate,” I said, stomping my foot.
“There we go,” he said, continuing to walk without missing a step. “Cutting hair is a sign of death and mourning in our camp.”
“No one’s died near the station in a while,” I said, leaving it at that.
Figgie led us up a hill to a rocky outcrop. At the top we stood together. Although he was nearly a foot shorter than me, in a way I already looked up to him. Across the ravine, a cliff of red sandstone glowed molten gold in the afternoon sun. “The sand art you practice is sacred to us; it talks to the power from the Great Ancestors of the ground,” he said, pointing and speaking to the cliff more than me. “That was once the most sacred place of my people before the miners came.”
I heard the pain in his voice and saw the blight upon this place. I imagined the mountain face pristine again and tried to hold on to its beauty, but a sadness flowed over me, washing the image away.
“There is a bond between my village, our ancestors, and the Earth. The miners destroyed it. Now we can no longer connect with who we are.”
“Can’t you start over?” I asked. “Papa says in Scotland we always did that, it makes the faith grow stronger.”
We sat down on the big rock and he told me about the Dreaming. It was an odd conversation to have with someone I’d just met, but I was starting to feel as if I had known Figgie for a long time. His people didn’t have places of worship the way we did. In the beginning, he told me, the spirit ancestors created the Eart
h. When they finished, they became the land, sea, and sky.
“We don’t own the earth, the earth owns us,” he said, picking up a handful of soil. “This is where we began; this is where our spirits return to be reborn as a rock, bird, or fig tree.”
All objects were alive and part of the ancestors’ spirit world. The Dreaming was the way Figgie and his people stayed in touch with these spirits. It was something that he was born with and it stayed with him all the time. Through the Dreaming, the laws and the rules for living pass from the ancestors to the next generation.
Listening to Figgie yearn for what his people lost made me think my own problems weren’t so desperate after all.
“I’m honored you shared this with me,” I said, standing again. “How can I help?”
“Your artwork can show our culture in a way that will help the world understand us,” he said. “Please, come in country and visit our camp. After we shall return to your station.”
We ambled down the ridge toward a sand spit that dripped out the side of the river mouth like tobacco juice from an old sailor’s lips. I wore thick leather brogans and Figgie was in his bare feet. I asked if the sharp rocks and thorns bothered him much. He said no because the pain reminded him of what the plants are feeling from my heavy boots. So I took them off.
“That was unnecessary,” he said.
“Yet you’re glad I did it, aren’t you?” I said, wincing with every step.
“Indeed, I am,” he added, with a slight look back.
Smoke from the cooking fires mixed with a salty breeze as we approached the encampment. The dark brown wattle-board huts looked like tortoise shells strewn about the bone-white sand. We crossed to the river mouth on a bed of onyx nearly covered by the rising tide. From a distance, villagers said, we appeared to walk on the water. Figgie reached down into the soft wet sand and pulled up several oysters. He pried one open with a pocketknife and offered it to me.
“You must be hungry,” he said.
I devoured the cool plump flesh with the briny liquid in one gulp.
The Whaler's Daughter Page 3
