by Doug Kelly
“Row to the beach,” ordered Aton.
“We should keep going,” Hauk punctuated his reply with a groan as he pulled the oars, wanting to put distance between himself and the dead vessel.
“We could scavenge it for supplies.”
“But it’s a warning. The gods are angry. We need to leave this place; only death lives here.” He shook his head sternly. “We should go. We need to leave.” Venting his agitation, he pulled even harder at the oars.
“Don’t be afraid of superstitions. Would a necklace of alligator claws make you feel better?”
Hauk understood what Aton had said. He remembered the woman at the ferry in Acadia. She had admired her amulet made from alligator claws, and bragged about its promises of strength for whoever possessed it, but she had still groaned like the old woman that she was when she had poled her boat from the shore to ferry them across the channel. Therefore, if her amulet possessed no special power, maybe the gods were not real. Hauk’s superstitious beliefs wrestled with his respect for Aton’s intellect. Aton’s intellect emerged victorious, but Hauk’s hesitation subconsciously persisted, so he beached the boat at what he considered, or his remaining subconscious superstitions considered, to be a safe distance from the black ship. Their little boat was only half way out of the water. Without hesitating, Aton jumped from their vessel. He found a fallen branch with a tip sharp enough to plunge into the sandy beach, then he wrapped the mooring rope around it to secure their boat from drifting away.
Hauk stood beside the stake as if he was protecting it. He had attached the scabbard to his belt, the sword was in it, and his right hand was on the handle. “Go ahead; I’ll stay here with the boat.”
“What if evil spirits attack me?” Aton taunted him jokingly, but his attempt at humor did not work.
Hauk grumbled an insult and turned his back.
Aton began a slow jog to the ship. He spun around once to see that Hauk had turned back around, curiously watching Aton go toward the stranded vessel. A trail of evenly spaced footsteps formed a dotted line in the sand between him and his new friend.
At the ship, Aton stared at the beach sand for any sign of footprints, new or old, and saw nothing. It was obvious that no one had left or boarded this ship in quite some time. Its crew must have disappeared after abandoning it where it lay on its sandy grave. It was a small island, so where could the crew have gone?
“Hello,” Aton yelled a greeting, although he did not expect to hear a reply. Another wave rolled by, the boards creaked again, and the torn sail flapped in the breeze.
The dark coating on the wood appeared to be an oily ash and not charred from flame. Apparently, fire had not burned the ship. Now that he was next to the stranded vessel, he could see a rope ladder hanging over its side. Confident that no one was on the ship, he tossed his bow and arrows onto a dry section of sand on the beach, and grabbed the ladder to climb aboard the vessel. It was not a tall ship, just high enough to have an area for cargo and sleeping quarters under the deck, so after only a few steps up the ladder, his head was over the balustrade. He saw no one, so he swung himself over the guardrail and onto the deck. He stood there silently and stared at the black filth covering everything as he felt the gentle rocking of the ship on a wave, like a sleeping giant turning on its bed during a dream, trying to find a comfortable position while napping, then it sank back down to the sandy grave after the wave passed. He noticed that the filth from the rope ladder had transferred to his hands, so he tried to rub his palms together, but wiping his hands only smeared it and increased the stain’s foul odor.
The color white caught his attention at the rear of the ship. White objects were protruding from what appeared to be a pile of cloth near the tiller. As he got closer, it was obvious that the pile of rags was actually clothing, covered with the same dark filth that covered the ship. The rags held sun-bleached bones exactly were the unfortunate person who had worn the stained clothes must have collapsed to his death. Whatever was covering the ship must have done so while the sailor was alive or shortly after death because the bones were pure white. All the flesh was gone; just the bones framed the pile of littered clothes. The ship must have been there for quite a long time. Aton took a few steps backward before turning away from the skeleton, and then he went toward the bow of the ship. No birds were roosting on top of the mast, yard, or railing. As he walked away, he speculated that no birds had nested here after the strange fifth had covered the ship, because there were no bird droppings. The white splatter of guano would have been obvious as it contrasted with the dark background of the mysterious ship. Birds had completely avoided it for some bizarre, unknown reason.
Near the front, he found a battened hatch that would lead below deck. He lifted the cover, leaned over the open hatch, and saw the rungs of a wooden ladder descend into the darkness below deck. He yelled another greeting, but only heard the faint echo of his voice reply back to him from the haunting dimness. The echo and mystery of the darkness made Aton crave to explore underneath. He stood up, cupped his hands to his mouth, and yelled toward Hauk.
“There’s no one here. We’re all alone.”
Hauk began to follow Aton’s footsteps in the white sand toward the ship.
Aton yelled again. “Hold on, get the flint and fire steel. We need to make torches. It’s too dark below deck.”
Hauk replied with a wave, went back to their boat, and jumped into it. He found the fire-starting implements Aton had requested, and then gathered driftwood to make a fire. Aton went onto the island, found dry branches among the scattered trees, and gathered an armful of twigs. He also gathered some dry Spanish moss and stuffed it between the branches before binding it all together with a flexible green vine to make hand-held torches. When finished, he brought them to the campfire Hauk already had ablaze.
“One for you.” Aton handed him an unlit torch.
Hauk grumbled a rejection of the idea, but reluctantly took the torch. He rolled his eyes, scowled, and then put the tip of the dry bundle of branches to the flame. “Let’s do this quickly.”
“Don’t be afraid of a few bones, brave man. Just follow me.”
Aton touched his torch to the flame and then turned to go toward the ship. He did not hear the soft crush of sand behind him, so he stopped walking and turned around to see Hauk remaining where he stood by the campfire. With his eyes, Aton questioned his new friend.
Hauk replied to Aton’s stare by yelling, “Bones!”
“Yes, a dead man. He died long ago. He can’t hurt you, and as you can plainly see, no spirits have ravished me. It’s safe.” With the flaming torch, Aton waved him toward the ship, and little red embers lifted into the air, caught inside tendrils of gray smoke.
“It’s a tomb. We can’t disturb the dead.”
Aton began walking away backwards, so he could face Hauk and judge his friend’s reaction as they talked. He spoke louder, irritated at Hauk’s reluctance and superstitious beliefs. “I promise to speak softly so I don’t wake the dead.”
“Alright, alright, but I warned you. If something…if anything happens…well, don’t blame me. I warned you.” Hauk jogged to catch up with Aton, and his torch left a trail of smoke in his wake.
At the rope ladder, Aton handed his torch to Hauk. He scurried up and went over the railing, indifferent to the ubiquitous dark stain that covered everything like a shadow of death. Hauk threw each of the torches to Aton like a spear, and he caught each one effortlessly. Then Hauk reluctantly put his hand on the black film covering the rope ladder, and he climbed it. At the top, peering over the balustrade, he craned his neck side to side and inspected the deck. Near the tiller, he saw the bag of bones, the haunting, disarticulated skeleton, and tried to ignore his fear of evil spirits as he swung his body over the railing. The scabbard of his sword clattered loudly against the old ship’s weathered wood.
At the open hatch, Hauk took both torches. Aton descended the ladder first and disappeared below deck. There was an echo when his
feet hit the floor. Aton called for his torch, so Hauk dropped it; bottom first, down the hatch. Aton snatched it from the air. The area below deck took on the soft glow of the orange flame. Harsh smoke hugged the ceiling and followed him like a stalking ghost. The dark film also covered everything down below, but it was not as thick.
Skeletons of the crew, lying supine on hammocks, startled Aton. The sailors looked as if they had died peacefully in their sleep. Aton had supposed that if he found human remains on a shipwreck, it would be a gruesome sight. Death would have contorted the bodies in dramatic poses, capturing the last moments of their lives as they struggled to save the ship. The stranded vessel had run between the rocks, but he now thought the crew must have already been dead by the time she found her final port. Their remains were not contorted. They appeared to have died in their sleep. The ship was a tomb; Hauk was right. Aton darted up the ladder to the deck and noticed that the crew had secured a small boat to the ship’s side. Where the other lifeboat should have been, there was an empty space. If she had wrecked, the crew could have had a chance of survival with a lifeboat, by rowing back to the mainland, but the sailors seemed to have died in their sleep, and the man near the tiller had died at his post. Some of the hammocks were empty, so maybe a few of the sailors had escaped. He speculated that one of the lifeboats appeared to be missing, but only maybe, because if it had ever been there, he could not have known.
Below deck, Aton found a large candle and lit it with his dying torch. Hauk took what remained of the burning branches and smoldering moss up the ladder and drew in a deep breath of fresh air when he reached the top. Below, the air had seemed stale and smoky from the torches. He threw the glowing remnants into the water, and they landed with a faint hiss. Aton waited in the soft light of the candle flame for his friend to descend the ladder. In the solitude of the dim light, a wave, larger this time, rolled past the boat, and the hammocks swayed peacefully. The remains, six of them, appeared more like mummies, which the sealed deck had protected from the sun and other elements of nature. The tight, desiccated skin on the faces of the corpses had pulled back their jaws so each skull revealed a macabre smile of rotten teeth in the flickering light.
Aton took slow cautious steps toward the cargo area. He stopped and listened to Hauk’s footsteps on the deck above as his friend went back to the open hatch. The deck planks were tight, waterproof, so if the hatch were not open and without the aid of a candle, complete darkness would have immersed him. From the hatch, a rectangular column of sunlight pierced the blackness and framed the ladder like a warning that this was his only escape from the dark dungeon.
With the brilliant light as a backdrop, Hauk leaned into the open hatch and asked, “Are you done yet?”
“We need to look around. I need your help.”
After descending the ladder, Hauk grumbled another disapproval and mumbled something loud enough about bad omens for Aton to hear, as he walked toward the flickering candlelight. The way the flame danced on the wick made it cast shifting shadows against the walls. Hauk felt like he was desecrating a grave by being here, and he constantly looked over his shoulder to where he was sure that a spirit was ready to grab him from the shifting shadows caused by the flickering candlelight. In his mind, he could feel a sailor’s cold, dead, and boney hands appear from the darkness and wrap around his throat. He raised his shoulders to protect his neck and he tightened his grip on his sword’s handle. Aton was in the lead and had not noticed Hauk’s trepidations. He was only thinking about what he could salvage from the ship. His attention was completely on the cargo area, and that was where he went. In the cargo area, there were some oak casks that he supposed contained liquor due to the type of barrel and wood used for its construction. The liquor was on a broken platform, which upon closer inspection, appeared as if someone had constructed it to hide contraband. The weight of the barrels had damaged the makeshift platform, partially exposing what the group of smugglers had hidden. Revealing what the sailors had concealed, the candlelight flickered its soft glow against a sturdy wooden chest, framed with rusty steel, and secured with a crude metal padlock. Aton handed Hauk the candle and tried to pull the trunk through the opening so they could inspect the contents, but it did not budge. There was nothing securing it to the floor. He had trouble moving it because of its weight.
“Put your back into it, boy,” Hauk impatiently urged him.
With a moan, Aton pulled the leather strap on the end of the trunk, and it finally slid, but abruptly stopped with a thud, as it hit a jutting board. Aton shoved a barrel out of his way. It landed on its side and rolled until it hit the hull. Aton could then step closer to the trunk’s other end, and he told Hauk to help pick it up so they could get it over what remained of the false platform that had hidden it from view. A few grunts and groans later, they removed it from the hidden compartment and slid it under the column of light stabbing thru the open hatch. Hauk hit the padlock with an iron rod, the clasp broke free from the trunk, and the padlock dropped to the floor.
Using the trunk lid’s worn leather handle, Aton flipped the top open and Hauk jumped back so fast it almost extinguished the candle. Hauk did not know why he had jumped back, probably nervous anxiety, of which Aton showed none. Inside were relics from the past, things that the ancient Americans had created. This crew must have scavenged for relics and treasure, and hid their spoils of adventure in the trunk. Now that they were under the open hatch with the light spilling through it, they no longer needed the candle. Hauk put the candle on a table and tried to make sense of the trunk’s contents. The chest’s closed lid seemed to have protected its contents from the mysterious dark coating.
Hauk refused to touch any of it, which left Aton to do the honors. The first thing he removed was a personalized license plate from the state of Louisiana. It had been imprinted with 4HER. From his studies of ancient books, Aton understood the number and letters, but not the meaning behind the thin piece of rectangular metal in his hands. The numerical symbol was still in use by the clans, so he understood the quantity, and the side-by-side placement of the next three symbols indicated a female gender, but he could not understand why the numbers and letters were associated with each other. He speculated that it was an accounting of four women and just tossed it to the side as a useless piece of metal. Some traders of ancient relics might have thought it was valuable, maybe even possessing spiritual qualities, since Americans had obviously manufactured it, but to Aton, it was worthless. By the time it landed on the floor’s wooden planks, he had forgotten about it.
Aton removed a few more items that he was also not entirely interested in: a black plastic comb, a cracked mirror, a stainless-steel cooking pot. Under the pot was a nickel-plated revolver. He removed it and looked down the empty barrel and cylinder. He had an idea that the device had great power, but was not sure how to summon it. Hauk had heard the same stories, which fellow warriors had occasionally told around campfires. They had heard that Americans had created hand-held weapons that could kill instantly from a great distance. Hauk was enthralled with its presence. His trepidation eased after seeing it, and he desperately wanted to touch and possess something with that kind of power. Aton gripped it, and a finger fell comfortably on the trigger. He held it up and pointed it at several objects, not understanding its function nor its potential danger, but it was not loaded. Hauk extended his hand and Aton gave him the pistol. Hauk wrapped his fingers around the textured grip, and his index finger fell contentedly on the trigger. He looked into the barrel and pulled the trigger. The empty revolver emitted a click, and he wondered if an enemy somewhere had just died. It did not seem like a very effective weapon after all, so he tossed it on the floor. Because nothing bad had happened after touching an American relic, Hauk began to relax. A glow-in-the-dark keychain, in the shape of a dollar sign, captured his attention, so he removed it from the wooden trunk and put it in his pocket as a souvenir. Aton had already removed a map that was not a relic. It was obvious that the map was of the
lake and the surrounding area, so he studied it under the column of light shining through the open hatch door above him, while Hauk rummaged through the remaining items.
Some unknown amateur artist or crude cartographer had used black ink to create the illustration on the thick yellowed parchment. The map illustrated the large dimensions of Lake Pontchartrain and the region around it, and it was very similar to a diagram he had recently seen. It was comparable to the map he had looked at while staying at Olar Regalyon’s estate during the spring festival. The cartographer had roughly outlined the lake with an indication of where the ancient city of Baton Rouge was located under a swampy section of its waters. At that location on the map were symbols for precious metals and jewelry, infused with a warning of great danger and caution to stay away for fear of a slow and painful death. Tiny sketches of skeletons had accentuated the warning, maybe for the illiterate who were so common. The other map had also been a serious caution to those who might travel there. Here, too, this map appeared to be a warning; he was not sure.
Then it occurred to him that it really was a dire caution to those seeking riches or relics for profit. The very ship they were now inside was full of death; it appeared that the entire crew had perished in their pursuit of old American possessions. Aton would heed the warning, but he was not sure of his current position on the lake because he had no instruments of navigation. The original premise of his journey was escape, and at the time of his hasty departure, precise navigation was irrelevant. All he had wanted to do was to put distance between himself and the past. He felt a wave of danger splash over his body. They had been sailing blindly with the wind, not concerned with exact position or direction. These factors were out of his control, so he kept his worries to himself and decided to let fate take its course. He threw the map on the growing pile of discarded relics.
