John accepted one of the cups. He took a deep pull, relishing the burn down his throat. He gazed up at William. Shivering cold. Bedraggled. Ridiculous in that bear hide. Reeking of stale blood, salt, and sweat. Beautiful. He said, “You stink. You ain’t think to splash some of that ocean water on you whilst you was splashing around with that big fish?”
William smiled and squatted next to John. “That whole time I was fighting that mean old bastard, thinking what you’d say to me when I came back with a mouth full of teeth to carve into something for you kept me going.” He rested his hand on John’s shoulder.
“Careful. You’ll get old Gospel to come over and give’s a sermon ’bout the evils of sodomy, and I don’t know about you, but I prefer my sinnin’ in quiet,” John said.
“Be days before a whale this size is barreled and tucked away, unless the sharks find it first. We won’t have any idle hands for the devil’s tools, I reckon.”
John swatted William’s hand off his shoulder. “The devil! You think I’m old scratch?”
“You are a mighty temptation.” William’s voice turned serious. “That little Negro cabin boy? What happened with him? There’s been some whispers that he’s touched.”
“He fell. That’s all. Ain’t none of you hoodoo-fearing whaler men never fell?”
William pulled John’s hand to his mouth and kissed the knuckles. “I just know you’re fond of him. I wanted you to beware if things go sour.”
“A great big whale out there in less than a fortnight’s time, and you all are muttering about things going sour?” John laughed, but thought of the word “destruction” and all his mirth drained away.
* * *
Three days after the cutting in, John was working at the vise-bench, when Ezekiel, the other cabin boy, rushed in, flustered. John looked up from his work. “What is it, boy?”
“Mr. Wood! Mr. Sherman sent me in to find you he said to bring a saw!”
“Bring a saw? where?”
“The fo’c’sle! Ethan Anderson’s arm’s gone all wrong!”
John nodded, took a moment to select his sharpest and a yard of clean cloth, and followed the boy. The forecastle, never a sweet-smelling place, was rank with the smell of sick and rot. Ethan’s twisted arm had turned black. It wept pus through a poultice. Ethan moaned. His face in the lantern-light was pale. His lips were gray. John pressed gently on the arm near the wound and heard a crackling sound like logs splitting in a fire. John pursed his lips. “Zeke, get the boy whiskey.”
Ethan’s eyes were dull. “Don’t mean to gainsay you, Carpenter, but I dreamt of a black dog. Death’s coming, and I’d rather go into the sea intact.”
“If that arm don’t go, death will surely come. You had a misfortune, is all. Don’t mean the end.”
Ethan managed a smile. “My fortune ended the day I signed up to the Gracie-Ella.”
John looked over to Simon Sherman, the steward, who stood striped by shadows just beyond the dying boy. He wiped a thin hand across an ungenerous mouth and sniffed. “Well, Mr. Wood? You heard the man. Leave him to die in peace. Go find Gospel, he’ll want to say some prayers for his soul, I imagine.”
John put away his saw and found his way to the deck where he saw To’afa looming over the captain. The harpooner was six and a half feet if he was an inch, and the expression he wore would fit a desert prophet. “Sir, may I have permission to speak plainly?”
The captain winked at John. He stroked his salt-and-pepper beard. “To’afa, you seem about to burst if I say no. So out with it!”
“Sir, I have served you with the best of my skill. My arm has been yours. Why have you chosen to imperil me with the placement of an unrepentant sinner?”
“Imperil is a strong word.” The captain beckoned to John. “Mr. Wood, what’s your perception of sin aboard this ship of mine?”
“Seems to me like pumping the bilge and repairing rotten boards occupies my time in a way that I ain’t really considered it, sir.”
To’afa wheeled on him. “This is no matter for sly jests. I have seen how you coddle that little heathen. You ought to talk sense to him!”
“Who ain’t got sense, now?”
“That cabin boy, Pip. I know you feel a fondness for him out of your shared bondage. But he invokes heathen gods! He makes offerings and worships idols. This cannot stand!”
The captain stood. Even at his more modest height, he struck an imposing figure. His voice was low and calm. “I trust your objection is to my choosing to have Pip crew my whaleboat? Do you have a suitable replacement for Mr. Anderson? Will you perform the laying on of hands to heal his ruined arm? Or would you prefer I take that half-wit mooncalf Ezekiel to row? I would take the devil himself over that weakling and poltroon. If you have any objections to Pip and his savage worship, I suggest that you live up to your moniker and convert him, Gospel.”
To’afa looked thunderstruck. The captain turned his back on him and walked slow and stately aft.
To’afa looked to John as if he could spit. “Does my faith amuse you, Carpenter?”
John’s voice was soft in reply. “It is your faith that has sent me forth. Ethan Anderson is not long for this world. Mr. Sherman has sent me to ask you to say a few prayers for his soul in the next one.”
To’afa nodded. “I shall collect my Bible.” He looked in the direction of the captain. “I hope the old man does not regret taking no heed of my words on that devil-worshipping boy.”
* * *
On the day they buried Ethan at sea, one of the foremast hands caught sign of whales. Right whales this time, two, mother and calf. As the crew made muster again for the whaleboats, William pressed something hard and cool into John’s hand. It was a sperm whale’s tooth, carved into scrimshaw. John recognized his own face carved into the surface, rough edges smoothed away, and surrounded by fanciful flowers. He watched William bound across deck to his whaleboat and smothered a rueful smile.
* * *
It was after nautical twilight when the whaleboats returned. The crew sung no work songs, and the slapping of the oars against the ocean struck John as sepulchral. It reminded him of the creaking of a hearse. Once aboard, the captain’s face was pinched and Gospel walked behind him with his head down, muttering prayers beneath his breath. William found John and embraced him in sight of God and the crew. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
John grabbed William by the chin. “What you sorry for?”
“The boy Pip—he . . .”
“Where is he?”
“The hunt was good at first. Old Gospel got right into her with his whale iron, she were fastened, and—” Tears and snot streamed down William’s big honest face. “Whale sounded and snapped two lines. The sea churned into froth. All the whaleboats rocked, mine nearly overturned. Pip. He just dove into the ocean after the whale. It must be a fit of madness. We searched until it was half-dark, but he never surfaced.”
“I see,” said John in a cold fury. He looked over at To’afa’s broad back. “You sure he ain’t had any help.”
William shook his head. “Gospel’s a sanctimonious bastard. But he wouldn’t bring no actual harm to a child beyond sermonizing.”
“Ain’t needed for the cutting in, am I? Reckon I have work to do below-deck,” John said.
John was not settled at his vise-bench for more than a moment before William’s shadow fell between him and the lamp. Chisel in hand he said, “Thought I told you I had work.”
“Thought maybe you could use me in grief as you do in joy.” William’s tone was bashful.
“You think that? We sailing together on a ship for two years, but after that I ain’t so sure I’ll sign back on. Seems a short time for you to be studying my grief.”
“Six year we sailed together since I was a green hand and you—”
“Bought myself free from a cabinetmaker?”
William’s voice was patient, pleading. “And you came aboard to be this ship’s carpenter, even if you are too skilled by half. What I
mean to say is, I don’t see no future for me without you in it, John Wood. I keep my lay by, don’t spend more than necessary. I’ve set aside some money. I could set you up a shop to work your trade, buy land for a house, and—”
John sighed. “William, I like you. I likes your body. I likes my body when it is with yours. But future? Ain’t no future for any Negro and a white man in the goddamned Union ’cept as master and slave. I been a slave, I’ll be in my grave before I return to that.” John looked down at his lathe to avoid the hurt he knew was in William’s eyes.
“You’re wrong, John Wood. I love you as any man loves his wife. More. I love you so much that it is the filling up and making of me, and sometimes feel like to shatter when you’re not near.”
John made his expression stony. He crushed down the part of him that wanted to recite to William the Song of Solomon, that wanted to cradle him in his arms and rock him to the rhythm of the boat. “We have sweetness here. Sweetness never lasts. Let it linger on your tongue while it can.”
“Do I mean nothing more to you than the cockroach-ridden molasses you sweeten your coffee with?” William clenched his fists.
John looked at the lathe. “What I mean is, we got two years. Ain’t no point in expecting more.”
“I knew what you meant,” William said. John watched him walk away. When William was out of sight, John pulled out the scrimshaw portrait from under his shirt, where it had dangled on a cord to rest next to his heart.
* * *
Restless, late to bed, but too tired to find himself elsewhere, John headed midship where he had his hammock. Across from him the blacksmith snored. Above the blacksmith, William slept. His arms hung down limply, and the careworn look on his face had vanished. John put out the lantern. He settled into his hammock, turning to face away from William. His mind raced darkly, but sleep took him in moments.
He dreamt of the poor lost cabin boy Pip sitting at the right hand of a handsome brown-skinned youth with green eyes and wavy hair. The youth rested indolently on a coral throne. His full-lipped mouth pouted prettily, but the sea-green eyes were piercing, knowing. An enormous mirror gauzed over with black crepe rested just beyond the throne. All else was darkness. Pip spoke, but the voice was like the roar of the ocean, and John knew the words belonged to the melancholy youth. “You break bread with thieves. They seek to plunder my seas the same as they have plundered the land before them.” He gestured behind him. John knew without seeing that there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of shuffling figures in that unspeakable darkness. The youth nodded. Pip spoke again. “You feel them. The whales sing to keep them calm, to prevent them from despairing of never seeing Guinea. These the plundered lost in crossing. I have given them homes and solace.”
John felt himself transfixed by those green eyes. Pip spoke in his own voice. “Ain’t right what they done to us. Ain’t right what they do the whales. They’d burn us both up for lamp oil, and then when we’s gone seek to take more.”
The dead, John knew they were the dead with certainty, began to shuffle into almost visible ranks beyond the coral throne. They cried out in languages that were strange to him.
The voice of thunder issued from Pip’s mouth again. “Until the moon is dark.”
John awoke, the visions fresh in his head. He saw that William had already arisen and left his hammock empty. After washing his face with cold seawater, and finding the vision did not fade from memory like most dreams, John resolved to see the captain.
The captain had just finished taking breakfast in his cabin with the mates. The first mate cast an ugly look at John when he asked if he might have a moment of the captain’s time, but the captain agreed and bid John to sit at his table. The mates cleared out in silence. The captain was still hale at nearly sixty, but John noticed a sag in his shoulders. He looked at John with something like regard and asked, “What troubles you?”
John put his head in his hands. He knew the captain to be a man of no great faith in things unseen. “Sir? Would you say I am honest?”
The captain inclined his head. “I know you to be an honest man. And one who never has shirked from toil.”
John swallowed. “As I am honest, and for the love I bear you as one who has served under your command for six years . . . I—”
“Out with it, man.”
“Captain, this ship must return to its home port.”
“Are you mad? We’re less than a month out. We had good fortune with that cachalot bull, but the ship’s holds are nearly empty.”
By instinct, John fell back into the flowery speech he knew appealed to white men of rank. “Sir, I swear by my life that death and perdition overhang this ship. My only care is to save the Gracie-Ella and her crew from this fate. And if I be honest—”
“Enough! I had not thought you to be a fool, John Wood. But if I hear that you have repeated this half-cocked notion of curses and witchcraft to any soul aboard, I swear by my life I’ll clap you in irons.” He thumped the table with a short-fingered fist. “Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You may leave.”
Another fortnight before the next whale sighting. It was an ugly, overcast afternoon on choppy seas. John was ill-tempered and worse rested. The night before he had troubling dreams of voices calling out to him in the darkness. He and William had scarcely spoken. But he caught William by the arm as the whaleboats swung on their davits. William’s face was unreadable. All John managed was, “Take care.”
William pulled his arm away. “Take care?”
John felt his cheeks burn hot. “I love you, too.”
William grabbed John then, pulled him close to his chest and kissed him hard and deep and slow. Gospel squawked in protest, and John heard noises of disgust, but his heart thundered in his chest loud enough to drown out the roar of the ocean and he kissed William back.
“I’ll take care,” William said. Then he bounded over to his whaleboat with a joyous whoop.
The moon was a sliver in the sky when the whaleboats returned. John heard the captain cursing and spouting imprecations across the water. When all the whaleboats were pulled up, John’s heart sank. The second mate’s boat had absent both its boatkeeper and its harpooner. William was nowhere to be seen.
He overheard one of the hands from the boat talking to the steward. “Bad hunt. Lost two. The second mate and his harpooner. Harpooner got caught in the line, second mate went to cut and got carried over. Whale rammed him up against the boat.”
John felt a great shudder of grief. The captain passed by without meeting his eyes. A choking sound died in his chest, and he ran to the railing and vomited.
To’afa crossed his arms across his chest and surveyed the smashed timber. Without looking in John’s direction he said, “The wages of sin.”
Another hand said, “And after all that loss, damn whale sounded before we could bleed its black heart away.”
* * *
The next morning a squall came hard out of the west. Waves battered the ship. Its creaks and moans sounded like cracks and wails. Listless but dry-eyed, John made his inspections, filling in leaks with oakum, yelling at Ezekiel to help him pump water out of the bilge. The moon would be dark tonight, he knew. He carried out his tasks diligently with dread growing in his chest like wet rot. He remembered William telling him he saw no future without him and laughed without humor.
That night the storm quieted abruptly. John went above-deck to examine the masts and the yardarm, when in the night’s stillness the ocean roiled. Whales in their multitudes flanked the ship aft and starboard. No foremast hand called out this sighting. The captain himself was left speechless. Right whales, humpbacks, sperm whales, fin whales, in numbers beyond counting were, a phalanx of the sea. Some hand, not clever enough to be terrified, broke the silence to opine that these whales represented riches beyond the dreams of avarice. It began shortly after. A sperm whale rammed the boat with his large square head. There was a crunch and crackle as wood splintered. The ship, o
ver a hundred foot long from stem to stern, rocked and shuddered. The captain screamed, “Mr. Wood! See that you keep us afloat!”
John ran down below-decks and into the hold. The ship shuddered with repeated assaults. A great fracture ran along the keel, and John knew the situation was hopeless. The hold was taking on water fast, and oakum wouldn’t slow it down. Still, he picked up his hammer and rolled an empty cask over to the worst leak in an attempt to slow it. Another heavy crash and the ship listed hard to port before righting itself. Thunder pealed. John set to breaking apart the barrels in an effort to shore up the ship. The thunder spoke to him. “John Wood,” the voice was Pip’s. “You ain’t gonna save them, but you can save yourself. You bought your freedom once, and I give it back to you now.”
Hearing the truth of this, John reached inside his shirt for the piece of scrimshaw, and clutching it abandoned his task, tearing out of the hold and onto the deck. For a mad moment, John thought to go back, grab his satchel with his grandmother’s hair, and his freedom papers, run his hand over the words on the vise bench. Then the whales struck again, and the deck listed, causing John to slide into the mast, where he clung for dear life. There was a scream, and he saw the first mate tumble overboard into the churning water. The captain kept his footing, and shouted for whale irons. The last John saw of him, he thrust a harpoon into the air and vowed to the heavens that he would fight and kill every last fish in the ocean.
When the ship righted, John scrambled over splintering wood and dodged falling debris. Crab-walking midship on the port side, he tucked himself into a spare whaleboat, cut it loose from the davit, and trusted fate during the long drop into the night-dark water. A bull sperm whale, black as obsidian but with green eyes, breached nearby, and the force of his splashdown pushed the whaleboat away from the doomed Gracie-Ella as she sank out of sight.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 Page 35
