The Emissary

by Patricia Cori

  “Looks like somebody’s made a friend,” Jimbo said.

  Fin whined. Waited. Something strange was going on outside.

  She put out her half-smoked cigar. “Excuse me a moment,” she told Jimbo, and then she walked up to Fin, who waited anxiously at the door, where several jackets were hanging on a rack. She helped herself into one, and followed him out on deck—over to the railing, where he got up on his hind legs, with his front paws on the edge, and stood there, whimpering and crying, as he stared out into the darkness of the midnight sea.

  At first she couldn’t make out what it was that was agitating him, but then Jamie saw what he saw. There was a small pod of dolphins, leaping in and out of the water—not too far from the ship—and they were chattering and communicating with Fin. He barked, they chirped and whistled—it was a dialogue. He barked at Jamie, telling her he wanted to go into the water. She could hear him pleading with her.

  Jimbo heard the barking from inside and called out, commanding Fin to come back in. He looked longingly at the water, wanting to go play with the dolphins.

  Jamie watched in amazement. “Sorry, fella—the boss has spoken.”

  “Fin! Get your ass back in here!” Jimbo’s booming command resounded through the doorway. Fin tucked his tail between his legs and he and Jamie returned to the lounge. He slinked straight over to Jimbo, obedient—but fearful, because he wasn’t used to being reprimanded, especially by Jimbo, who usually cut him so much slack. Jimbo roughed him up, playfully. “You’re okay, boy—I just want you to leave those damned dolphins alone, you hear me?”

  Jamie was so intrigued. Apparently this wasn’t out of the ordinary—Fin had direct contact with dolphins. She was eager to talk more about it, but it would have to wait until the light of day, after the captain had slept off his drunk.

  “I worry about you, boy,” Jimbo said, putting his head down close to Fin’s and throwing his arms around the dog’s neck.

  Aware of how drunk Jimbo was becoming, Doc stood up and announced to everyone that it was time to turn in. “We’ve got an early-morning wake-up call and a full-day sail ahead, people. Let’s call it a night.” He started turning off lights, and Alberto picked up glasses, to run the dishwasher before closing up shop. Sam and Liz said their goodnights and walked out together. Philippe volunteered to take Fin out for a quick walk in the parking lot, so that he could do his thing before going to bed.

  “You make sure and keep him on the leash,” Jimbo said, “or he’ll be jumpin’ off the dock again.”

  Jamie ignored Doc and stayed, observing Jimbo. What an interesting man he was. Behind that tough exterior, she felt his vulnerability and loneliness, no matter how well he managed to keep it hidden. She could see him. Jimbo the sailorman had gotten lost somewhere out at sea, and never really ever made it home again. He was searching for something—a lighthouse to guide him back from some dark place in his soul. Filled with a sense of compassion and tenderness, she walked over to Jimbo’s chair, leaned over, and hugged him. “Thank you for letting me in,” she said, and then she kissed him on the head and left.

  “Okay, Jimmy, that’s it for tonight,” said Doc. “C’mon, I’ll walk you home.”

  Jimbo was still feeling that gentle moment—innocence—something that happened so rarely in his life anymore. “She’s all right, this Miss Jamie, eh, Doc? A real class act.” He reached for the bottle to pour another glass, but Doc took it from him.

  “That’s it for tonight, Jimmy. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Where’s the Fin man?”

  “He knows where to find you—now come on, let’s get you to bed.”

  Doc held out an arm, as Jimbo steadied himself.

  “Just like old times, eh, Doc?”

  “Yeah, Jimmy boy, just like old times,” Doc grumbled, under his breath. He held Jimbo up, helping him walk down to his quarters, just barely managing to get him to the bed before he blacked out. As Doc was reaching up into the storage cabinet to get blankets to throw over Jimbo, Fin came quietly into the room and brushed up close to his master, licking his hand and whimpering.

  Doc patted him on the head as he was leaving. “He’s okay, boy. It’s just another Saturday night.”

  And then Fin curled up in his bed, right next to his master: the captain who truly feared the sea, and his dog, who loved it for him.

  9

  The Ides of March

  Jamie woke up feeling like the inside of an ashtray, stinking of smoke and still scorched from the burn of the scotch and cigar in her throat and mouth. She wasn’t a smoker and she rarely drank hard liquor, and now she was paying for doing both: the price of wearing cool shoes for Jimbo.

  The gentle sway of the ship in the water had rocked her through the night like an infant in the womb, and now, with the soft hum of the engines, she felt cocooned and so dreamy-like she just couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed. She split the curtains over the headboard enough to allow a sliver of light to crack the shell of darkness in which she lay nested, waking from such deep sleep and slowly adjusting to daylight. Jamie lay there, meditating, wondering what gifts would be given to her on Day One of her passing, hopefully without incident, through the Ides of March.

  And yes, she was superstitious.

  The sound of male voices and some scurrying around outside on deck invaded, creating a sense of obligation to get up and get going. Begrudgingly, she leaned over to check the time: 10:30. She could not believe her eyes. How in the world had she slept that late? Surely one glass of scotch couldn’t have knocked her out to the point that she would sleep more than ten hours! She threw on her robe and went into the living room, where she pulled back the curtains on a beautiful sunny day, with only ocean as her landscape. She slid open the doors and stepped out onto her private terrace—breathing the pure, ionized air and the vitality of the open seas deeply into her lungs, and reminding the cells of her body what oxygen was really like.

  By the time she showered and dressed, and then walked out onto the main deck, the sun was bright and unexpectedly warm, considering the season. She stood at the railing, gazing out at the water, loving how the sun threw itself over and under the waves, bouncing light through the ocean like diamonds of the gods: Apollo’s jeweled laughter. So very few people in the world really ever saw light that way, and she was filled with gratitude that she was blessed to be one who did.

  Without a trace of wind on the water, The Deepwater drifted like a feather on gentle waves, in the soft morning light of early spring. Jamie saw Sam and Philippe, both dressed in trunks and T-shirts, busily pulling scuba gear out of the hold and checking the tanks. The main door swung open and Liz stepped out in an exotic bikini, with a diaphanous leopard-print scarf tied loosely over her hips—looking like she had just finished shooting the cover of Sports Illustrated. Both of the men stopped talking and gawked as Liz took center stage. Distracted, Sam tuned out Philippe and approached Liz. He had still barely noticed Jamie was even there.

  “Can you help me suit up?” Liz asked, knowing how good she looked.

  Sam could not resist ogling her body. “I can, but what a shame to cover all that up in rubber.”

  “Now, isn’t that something a girl should be saying to her date?”

  “Well, yeah, that might just be what she’d be saying.”

  “Are you going to come with me, then?”

  “Oh yeah … I’m coming, for sure.”

  An unintentional intruder, Jamie tried to ignore the sexual banter. She turned one of the deck chairs to face the water, and lay down with her back to them.

  “Ah! I didn’t see you there—good morning to you!” Liz said, calling over to Jamie.

  Jamie waved from her chair, her back turned towards them.

  “We’re floating for a while. The captain’s letting us take advantage of this amazing weather and the calm, so we’re going in.” As an afterthought, Liz added, politely, “Would you like to join us?”

  Sam cringed. To his relief, Jamie thanked Liz, b
ut said she had only just woken up and was still recovering from the night before. The two proceeded to the supply area, where Liz struggled into the wetsuit, with Sam watching lasciviously from behind as she bent over to get the difficult wetsuit pulled up on her legs and then over her hips. Sam could not help but stare, feasting on her sensuous curves and perfect body—just like she wanted him to.

  “Are you going to help me out here?” She motioned to him to zip her up. With his hands on her back, slowly pulling the zipper up from her lower back, all the way up to her neck, the sexual tension between them sizzled.

  Just when Jamie had decided to escape to the dining room to find herself a cup of coffee, Jimbo magically appeared, carrying a thermos and two mugs. He walked out to Jamie and greeted her. “Rumor has it we both missed breakfast this morning.”

  “I was hoping no one noticed,” she said, looking up at him.

  “Coffee?”

  She reached out to take one of the mugs from his hands. “You must have read my mind.”

  He opened the thermos, and filled her cup. “I hear I got a little out of my head last night.”

  “So did I.”

  “I mean, I fell asleep with my clothes on … kind of more than just a little out of my head.”

  She took a sip of the coffee and grimaced. “Jimbo, this is the worst coffee I have ever drunk in my life!”

  Jimbo winked at her. “Made it myself.” He took a deep breath of sea air, which provoked a fit of phlegmatic, almost asthmatic retching—the smoker’s cough. “I gotta tell you, though, I never met a woman who knew her way around a good cigar … don’t you take that the wrong way, neither.”

  Farther back, near the gear locker, Sam got into his wetsuit. He and Liz disappeared down the stairwell to the lower deck and minutes later they appeared out on the Zodiac boat with Philippe, who was driving them a short distance from the ship, for safety.

  “I guess those two didn’t get the part about the big whites. They are sure as hell out there, lurking around.”

  “How is it that a master sailorman like you is so uncomfortable with the sea? It’s kind of a paradox, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah? I suppose it is, Miss Jamie … I suppose it is. Think of it as ‘respect.’ I have seen enough to know you have to respect the deep and never, ever underestimate the sea. People don’t realize it—not even the crew. We’re on automatic pilot all the time; the ship is top of the line, pure navigational wizardry. But there is so much that could go wrong out here. The ocean is a wild, untamed rhapsody. And them big whites are always out there, roaming around, looking for something. Lest you forget—my best friend was almost shark bait.”

  Fin appeared out of nowhere. He walked in between their two chairs, greeting them playfully, and then he leaned up on Jamie’s chaise, with his front paws over her legs.

  “He sure is enchanted with you.”

  Again, Fin bolted over to the ship’s railing and stood up against the railing, staring out at the water, and whining. He looked back at them, waiting.

  “What do you want, boy? Your friends back?”

  Fin was excited again. He came up to Jimbo’s side, nudging him.

  “You mean to tell me he goes out swimming in open ocean with divers?”

  “No ma’am. He goes out when the dolphins come.”

  Fin barked repeatedly.

  “I’m not thrilled about him going out there either, let me tell you that … but what am I supposed to do? When they come calling for him, I can’t contain him.”

  “You mean to tell me dolphins come looking for Fin? Get out!”

  “You’ll be seeing it with your own eyes in a minute.”

  Fin kept insisting, whining and nudging, until Jimbo stood up.

  “Oh yeah. He’s been jumping into the ocean ever since he was a pup. I don’t think he even knows he’s no fish!” Fin bit the cuff of his master’s jacket, pulling him towards the stairwell. “All right, all right, boy—let’s go. You just remember to stay close now, you hear?”

  Jamie picked up her camera and asked to come along, and they both walked Fin down to the lower deck, where Jimbo opened the dive hatch. Fin leaped out into the water, where, to Jamie’s amazement, two dolphins had just surfaced, about fifty feet from the ship. Fin swam out to them, adeptly, swimming and diving with them in the deep waters of the Pacific, just as comfortable in the ocean as he was running around on deck.

  “Oh my god! Look at him—he’s out there with dolphins! That is too much!” She slipped the camera band around her neck and started snapping pictures like crazy.

  “Oh yeah. Ever since he wandered into my life he’s been trying to swim away. Man, he loves them dolphins. They love him, too. That’s how he got the name ‘Fin.’ ”

  Fin played with the dolphins, so comfortable in the water that he looked more like a seal than a dog. Jamie could feel Jimbo’s anxiety building, though, and she knew he was afraid, with Fin out there in deep water.

  “I figure he must have been a dolphin in another life.”

  “In another life? Did you just say that?” Jamie teased. “Now, would that qualify as a woo woo point of view?”

  Jimbo never took his eyes off Fin. “Yeah, I guess so. I had this girlfriend, Ling, back in ’Nam for a little while. She was a Buddhist—she helped me understand a lot of things—taught me a lot.”

  Jamie held her camera on Fin and the dolphins, giving Jimbo space to talk about it if he wanted, or to run from the memory, without having to bare his soul to her. She just listened.

  “In the middle of all that hell …” he said, his voice trailing away. Jimbo caught himself, showing too much, opening the valve—and he slammed it shut. “I realized … if more than four billion people on this planet believe in reincarnation, there has got to be something to it.”

  “Well, whaddya know?” said Jamie, affectionately. She understood that he wanted to take the conversation somewhere else, far from that time. Veterans of that despicable war never really wanted to talk about what they saw in Vietnam, or worse: what they did there. “I knew there was a kindred spirit down there, deep behind that crusty facade.”

  “Yeah …” he said, looking far away, his gaze fixed out on the horizon.

  Without warning, the dolphins started leaping in and out of the water, appearing agitated. One of them kept slapping his tail down hard on the water, as if suddenly he was trying to scare off Fin, who was confused and unsure. Two other dolphins appeared from the below and at once the scene shifted from serene to threatening. Fin looked back at the ship, barking—and they disappeared, as quickly as they had come. Poor Fin was undecided whether to go out after his friends or swim back to the ship … and Jimbo could feel it.

  “Okay, dude, get your ass back over here right now!”

  Fin started swimming towards the ship. He had drifted farther out with the dolphins, and he was struggling to get in, breathing hard. Jimbo threw a buoy out into the water, which Fin grabbed hold of with his teeth. Jimbo pulled him in, closer to the edge of the dive well, and then reached into the water with his strong hands, lifting Fin, who by now was panting hard and shivering uncontrollably, out of the deep, by the collar.

  “Damn, boy. This has got to stop,” Jimbo said. Trembling uncontrollably, Fin shook himself off from his head down to his tail, dowsing them both in a shower of cold ocean water. Jimbo removed his jacket, and threw it over the dog, wrapping him in it tightly. “Easy, boy …” he said, holding Fin close to him in his arms, trying to get him to warm up.

  “May I?” Jamie asked. She didn’t want to interfere, but she did know what to do.

  Reluctantly, Jimbo released his protective hold on Fin, and Jamie took over. Kneeling on the wet deck floor, she removed the jacket, then placed one hand on Fin’s back and the other on his chest. Utilizing the power of the focused mind over matter, she brought immense heat through her palms, and then sent it into his body, through the tissues, and down into his bones. In less than a minute, he stopped shaking completely,
and his breathing returned to normal.

  Fin jumped up on her; he made sounds Jimbo had never heard him make before, as if he were speaking to her. The two of them were completely connected, in a sort of mutual trance, communicating across species lines. Jimbo still didn’t know all that much about Jamie Hastings, but he knew his dog. He was witness to something extraordinary being exchanged between them and it was unmistakably real, and powerful.

  From being curious and sunny, Jamie suddenly became very serious, as if a dark cloud had passed over her. The agitation that Fin was experiencing had something to do with the dolphins, and their state of anxiety. But there was more to it—something deeper. As the thoughts ran across the screen of her mind, Fin barked, acknowledging that she was on track. He was that tuned in.

  “He wants to show you something, but he can’t—there’s something hidden,” Jamie said, curiously. “Something important.” She squeezed Jimbo’s hand. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  Jimbo reacted evasively to Jamie’s touch, or was it the words? He pulled his hand away and bent over to speak to Fin, shutting her out completely. “Yeah, you’re hungry. That’s what you’re talkin’ about … I hear you, boy—let’s get some grub.” Fin shook himself again. “I need to get up there and see what Alberto’s got going on for lunch,” Jimbo told Jamie, ending the conversation before it even really began. Whether something was hidden in the message of the dolphins, or deep in Jimbo’s soul, he didn’t want to know about it. Jamie knew she had accessed something he wasn’t going to talk about, and she knew well enough to let it go. Perhaps she had crossed the boundaries, touching him that way.

  Jimbo excused himself and led Fin back inside, leaving her, pensive, out on deck. Something called her to the bow of the ship—Mother Earth herself, no doubt. She watched the white cumulus clouds gather on the horizon. There, way out on the distant waves, she saw the first whale spouts, blowing high into the darkening sky.