Mr. Davenport carefully unrolled the paper. If he noticed my bruised face, he said nothing about it. He leaned over his desk, staring down at my drawing with his hands on his thighs. Then he rose, took off his glasses, and stared at it again.
“I gave you this assignment for the purpose of reflection,” he said, finally. “I half expected a sketch of a child praying or some sort of church scenes. Instead, Dawson, you give me this—”
The door swung open followed by giggling voices.
“Do not disturb us!” Mr. Davenport shouted, pounding his fist on the desk.
The sound of feet shuffling back into the yard echoed into silence. Mr. Davenport looked at me blankly, as adults often do when they lose their thoughts. I wanted to blurt out that I had tried all those things, but they just didn’t work. They just weren’t true.
I had used every piece of paper I possessed. I had taken a canister of Diamine ink powder and mixed it with water till it ran as red as blood. I hadn’t slept in the two days since the hunt, and I still.…
“Dawson, you’re wasting time here. You realize that, don’t you?” he said, biting on an earpiece to his glasses.
“I wouldn’t say—” I mumbled.
“This transcends any work a student has ever produced for me in fifteen years of teaching,” he continued. “The depth of feeling it evokes shakes me to my core.”
Other than offering a weak “thank you,” I didn’t know what else to say. Mr. Davenport said I belonged at a fine arts school. They were expensive, he said, but he would make sure that I got into one. A chum of his from Eton knew the administrator of an art institute in Sydney. He was planning to see him when we were in recess during the Harvest Festival later in the week.
“My God, Dawson, you’re exceptional,” he exclaimed.
It was hard for me to look at my drawing with him looking, too. From this distance, the screaming girl standing alone in the open boat, arms outstretched, her gown and tortured face covered in blood, looked small, insignificant. Up close, the horror on my face still frightened me.
The rest of the day passed like shoreline fog. Images and moments came into focus only to disappear again. Arizona tended to my lip and chin cuts with a bottle of colloidal silver she kept in her purse. No one asked how my injuries had happened, but I imagined each had misguided ideas about them.
All the while, I kept thinking that if Figgie hadn’t been honest with me about my drawings, all that praise would have been out the window. My thoughts turned to leaving for boarding school and Laura’s troubles in The Getting of Wisdom.
Being away from Papa, Abe, and the orcas…How could I live without my nightly ventures with Jungay? What about Figgie?
Figgie wanted to see where I spent my days, so I asked him to meet me after class in the back schoolyard. I waited by the tree where all the ruckus had started last week, with no sign of Figgie. I looked about anxiously when I heard a horse whinny. Looking up into the colorful leaves, I spotted those dancing almond eyes.
“Thought I heard a horse. What are you doing up there?” I asked.
“So, this is school,” he said, jumping down.
“And who do we have here?” said Arizona, plowing down the steps.
“He’s a friend,” I stammered.
“I am Calagun,” Figgie said, offering his hand to Arizona.
“Calagun, what an interesting name,” Arizona swooned, dropping her handkerchief. Would you like a ride in my new carriage? Father felt I deserved it for all my hard work.”
“Thanks,” I said, stonily, “but we’re meeting Papa at the shipyard.”
“Do say hello to him for me. Father and I so enjoyed the meal we shared on Saturday,” cooed Arizona, snapping the reins.
Figgie picked up the handkerchief and put it in his pocket.
“Is that your—?” he began.
“Don’t pay her no mind,” I said. “Did you find him?”
Figgie gave me the lowdown as we walked over to McMahon’s shipyard. The expedition hadn’t gone easy. Papa snuck up on the Town Horse in the Widow Nesbitt’s yard, only to have him charge through her hung laundry. Chasing a stallion with a lopsided gait wearing old ladies’ undergarments into a wedding party was front-page news for the Hook & Harpoon. Papa and Figgie knocked over a painter’s ladder and chased the Town Horse to Cooper’s Brewery, where they secured the Town Horse to a building railing and reposed to McMahon’s to recover.
The group soon gathered there as well.
“Calagun here knows his horses,” said Papa, rubbing the bridge of the animal’s nose, “and I’m betting on him being right.”
“Right about what?” I asked.
“The horse’s diet,” added Figgie, patting the stallion’s belly.
“He figures moldy hay is what got this big fella listing sideways,” said Papa.
“How do you cure that?” I asked.
“What goes in must come out,” said Figgie, sounding like a doctor.
We watched as he put together a concoction of herbs, barks, and grains that Papa had brought to straighten out the animal’s innards. The horse wouldn’t eat it, so Figgie picked up two jugs from Cooper’s Brewery and poured several quarts of flat Victoria Bitter and Cooper’s Stout into the mixture. The horse suspiciously sniffed the bucket, whinnied once, and dove in face first. As Papa held the feedbag, a thunderous rumble echoed off the walls.
“What was that?” asked Aiden innocently.
“Sounds like Gabriel’s horn to me, son,” said Papa, laughing.
The rest of us held our noses as we rushed out for fresh air. Whatever the horse had eaten from neighborhood yards, he deposited back ten-fold on his way to the shad. Figgie pulled the bloated horse by the bridle, guiding him down to the docks. The heavy clumping of iron shoes on wood announced our presence just as much as the trumpeting from the horse’s other end. Crews on the trawlers, tugs, and bay craft took notice while our group paraded down the quay. Foghorns, ship whistles, and hooting seamen joined our cacophony of wind.
When we reached the ramp to the lower dock, the harbormaster waited with two armed constables and a shovel. His right eye rolled about on us like a cue ball after a billiards break. He wanted to know by what authority we were removing this horse from Paradise. Papa said he was declaring unclaimed wildlife as his own, since no one had hitherto proclaimed ownership of the steed.
The three of them scratched their heads and gammed. While we waited, Aiden and Benjamin began pulling strips of peeling green paint off a trawler lifeboat. I paid them no mind until I saw the paint underneath. It was white, blue, and yellow—Dawson Station colors.
I elbowed Papa and he nodded at me with a side glance. Figgie’s horse meal continued to work its charms until the three magistrates finally caved to their sense of smell.
A horse on a sailboat is a peculiar sight indeed. One colicky kick could send us all to the bottom of the bay. But this horse was more interested in Figgie’s concoction of beer meal than his surroundings. I stood upwind with Papa at the wheel and asked him about our stolen whaleboat from the previous season.
“I suspected the trawlers had something to do with it,” he said.
“Make them give it back,” I said, the hair bristling on the back of my neck.
Papa pointed out that we held all the cards now. “We’re better off not laying them all on the table until we’ve upped the ante a bit,” he said.
Papa asked Figgie to trim the mainsail while I pulled the jib leeward.
As the shad docked at Loch Bultarra, the whale, filled with deadly gases, had arisen to live again as oil for our lamps, lubricants for our machines, and bones for our corsets. Gamming with Papa and the others, Abe figured double shifts through the week should finish the flensing before the Harvest Festival started.
That began the night of long knives.
I heard
the singing sound of steel on bone and the groans of those “cutting in” to take blankets of blubber for the pots. The next morning billowing black smoke laid a shroud over the inlet. The stench of burning blood, blubber, and grease etched its way into every crevice of the station. With each slab of blubber dropped in the caldrons, the image of that stillborn calf would not leave my mind. I begged for forgiveness; none was forthcoming. I had to live with my actions.
My sole consolation during those long hours of boiling was to see Miah’s tiny top fin playfully darting about in the bay.
Every day the stacks of oil barrels grew larger and my bruises grew lighter.
The horse improved, too. He ran with strength and grace, the moldy hay problems now behind him in more ways than one.
“He’s feeling his oats,” Papa said.
Figgie rode him every day—first bareback, then with a saddle and blinders. He took a page from my book, setting up a mini-course using fences, hedges, and walls to jump, just as I had done with my cats and the tub line. The big fella moved with grace and readily took to the terrain. Figgie said he was a bit of a swooper, which meant that he liked to challenge the pack from the back. He would wait for the other horses to tire out before running hard.
With all the barrels sealed and delivered and the carcass towed away, Dawson Station closed for the festival. Everyone headed to Paradise for the big race the next day. School let out at noon, and we skipped over to the old General Gordon Arms Hotel where half the crew was bedding down on Papa’s veteran discount.
Dinner there was as fancy as could be. There were red-checkered tablecloths in the dining room, and we all ordered pie floaters with tommy sauce. The young ones liked dropping the meat pie into the pea soup. After dinner the men lit their cigars and slowly made their way to the music room. I corralled all the poddies into our second-floor room where yours truly was in charge. I told the six of them to play quietly until I got back.
I went to visit Figgie in the paddock.
“You hungry, mate?” I asked, tossing him a meat pie wrapped in a napkin.
He devoured it and I felt bad that no one else had given him food. Figgie said he missed Uncle’s turtle dinners. I did, too. I asked him about the track conditions and the field he was facing. Twenty horses were entered in the race, he told me. Two came from as far away as Sydney. Figgie picked up a horseshoe nail and began outlining the track in the dirt. The Town Horse leaned his large head over us, as if he, too, were listening.
The track was three miles long with twenty-four obstacles: fifteen log fences, or brushes called sticks; three streams; four hedges; and two stone walls. The more Figgie described the course, the more dangerous it seemed. He told me Bittermen had constructed a fifty-foot-high tower for the race callers to shout out the action. This wasn’t kid’s fun; it was an adult extravaganza with Figgie in the middle of it.
“Are you worried about the race?” I asked.
“We have a good horse,” he said, finishing the pie. “We should do well.”
“Papa has so much riding on this, it scares me a bit,” I added.
“Look at this big fella, he’s a born chaser if there ever was one,” said Figgie, slapping the horse’s flanks. “If he gets near a track with other horses, he’ll be on his toes.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“He loves feeding off the crowd,” said Figgie. “He’d rather die than disappoint and now he has a name.”
Figgie explained that Papa wanted to keep calling him The Horse, but the racing stewards wouldn’t allow it. Finally, Papa settled on Crack the Wind.
“I almost forgot,” I said, startling myself.
I removed the chock pin from my blouse and fixed it to his jockey shirt that hung from a hook.
“For good luck,” I added.
“I will honor it and your family,” Figgie said with that smile.
We sat on boxes, kicking our legs. I thought of our kiss in the glen, but I didn’t want to ignite his dash-fire before such an important event. I gave him a hearty hug and ran up to my room, availing myself of the fancy indoor loo in the hall on the way. Pulling the overhead chain, I was afraid the rusty water closet might douse me instead. Snuggling down with all those warm little bodies I was watching over reminded me how much I missed my cats, wee Kayle, and my home. Every flea room, bed, and open space in Paradise was booked that night.
This tub of humanity was simmering toward a boil. As any failed cook knows, if you don’t let the steam out, the pot will boil over. Things figured to get a lot more heated before they cooled off.
25.
To see all the action, the next morning I took my spyglass and trudged up to the rooftop of Hooks, Lines & Sinks while Papa attended to the horse and Figgie. Overnight, the warm bay air had climbed ashore and cooled to fog over the crisp fall landscape. We were at the highest point in Paradise waiting for the gloaming to clear from the hills and rooftops. Bittermen paced the streets in his white suit, as if every minute’s delay might cost him an extra minute of glory.
Fists filled with money changed hands as old ladies with penny purses played the neddies. The scuttlebutt had us as a roughie, or longshot, meaning the punt paid well if we won. At eighteen hands, they said Crack the Wind was too tall and our rider too short. Other bookies wouldn’t place bets on us because Figgie was riding. They called him a darkie and said only true blues ought to race. Well, there’s no one truer to this land than Figgie in my book.
The sun came on strong, drying the fields and stone paths. As the sky cleared, we beheld a sight that sent murmurs through the crowd. The comet appeared bigger than ever. It looked about ready to burst through the blue sky and swallow us whole. I got nervous every time I glanced up. The comet clamor gave way to another punting frenzy that reached a fever pitch as the trumpets blared, “Call to the post!”
The horses strolled out of the paddock and paraded through the cheering crowd. Using a giant megaphone, the race caller announced each jockey and horse passing Bittermen and the city officials at the reviewing stand. Johnny Reb—the big red Bay that Bittermen owned that had won the Virginia Gold Cup—strutted past, shaking his mane. Comet Rider and Arch Duke Ferdinand from Sydney followed him. Sir Lancelot and Blind Ambition were a couple of Novice horses. Victoria and Shambhala, owned by a few jackaroos, were the only mares in the race. When Figgie rode our horse sidestep in front of the stage, they introduced him as “Collin at eight stones riding Wind.”
After the procession, Bittermen rose to address the crowd.
“Good people of Paradise,” he shouted into a megaphone, waving his Panama hat in the air. “Our city has endured many calamities over the years and we have always risen to the occasion. Today is a celebration of our good will and sportsmanship. Welcome to the first Annual City of Paradise National Chase.”
During the applause, I tried to find Arizona in the grandstand but she wasn’t there. The two race callers perched themselves up in Bittermen’s crow’s nest. I always looked forward to Papa taking us to Bega for the Cup races. I loved watching the lazy way the horses sauntered onto the track as the tapes rose. It’s a quiet moment before the eruption of straining muscle became the swishing of hooves atop spruce boughs and the thumping of heavy iron shoes upon the earthen track.
I got my spyglass out and had a good view of the starting point from where we stood on the roof of Hooks, Lines & Sinks. Figgie was easy to follow because he was riding the only white horse. Papa was by his side, leading our steed behind the tapes. Abe and Sam were too worried to watch and paced about, shouting out questions to me. Papa gave Figgie a gentle grasp about the neck, the way I imagined he had often done with Asa and Eli. I watched Bittermen give a slight sneer in Figgie’s direction when he assumed no one was watching. Bittermen held the starting gun aloft and fired. The sound echoed across the bay, followed by a constant dull crowd roar that reminded me
of a beehive.
“And they’re off!” shouted the first race caller into the megaphone with attached binoculars. “The first annual Paradise National Chase, a three-mile open race at no set weights is underway with a high sky and good visibility. Blind Ambition and Comet Rider are a bit behind the others as they go through the first set of sticks. Johnny Reb is moving up on the outside as Sir Lancelot, Victoria, and Arch Duke Ferdinand bunch toward the center. Neptune’s Daughter is the first faller.”
I yelled to Abe that the fallen horse looked fine as the rest made it through the hurdle. Three more horses fell before reaching the fifth fence. Abe kept asking where Figgie was in the pack, but I couldn’t see him in the rush of horseflesh.
“Johnny Reb is in the lead,” the caller cried.
By the time I found Figgie, Abe had already heard the announcer. “Crack the Wind is slowing to the back of the pack and looking stone motherless. As they make their way through the first quarter, the leaders go streaming onto Brunson’s pasture.”
As the other race caller picked up the action, I could see that Johnny Reb was well ahead, leaping over the first stone wall.
“After a hard right, the leaders jump the stream on Dover’s meadow. Crack the Wind, still in the back of the field, lingers behind Sir Lancelot, Comet Rider, and Victoria. Johnny Reb, shadowed by Great Sandy and Blind Ambition, holds the lead and dictates the chase.
“Turning toward the outside, Crack the Wind is in the ninth slot as they chase through the Umbara Orchard. The field thins taking the turn toward Amesly Road as Blind Ambition pulls up short. Crack the Wind narrowly avoids a dust-up at the tenth fence with Arch Duke Ferdinand, who is the fifth faller of the chase. At the halfway point, Comet Rider, Shambhala, and Sir Lancelot are bunching at the center as Crack the Wind continues to lag on the inside, forty lengths off the leader. Johnny Reb clears another hurdle thirty lengths ahead of his closest pursuer, Sir Lancelot. No horse has ever had a midpoint lead this large on the jumps circuit.”
The field was so spread out it was hard for me to relay positions to Abe. I didn’t have the heart to tell him and Sam that our horse looked even slower than the caller said. Poor Figgie was so much smaller than the other jockeys.
The Whaler's Daughter Page 18
