Days of the Python (Python Trilogy Book 1)

by David Jurk

  The next morning, I was up before the sun, the red eye poking a ruby hole in the pre-dawn heavens behind me. I could remember no dreams from the night past, and felt rested and prepared, desperately excited at the prospect of land. It seemed impossible to recall with any clarity what the planet looked like in colors other than blue and grey. As I waited, the sea seemed to court me with its beauty, lifting from dark steel to a glassy metallic blue, then lightening to a vivid aquamarine.

  Ultimately, I smelled the land before I saw it; intensely sharp and pungent – so vivid and visceral that I felt like weeping, partly I suppose from relief to be near land after my first true voyage at sea, and perhaps also a little from the loneliness of arriving alone.

  But it passed and as the sky continued to lighten and the horizon sharpen, I suddenly saw the impossibly emerald flanks of Mount Waialeale, her peak consumed in wreaths of clouds, rise before me out of the sea. I was left without speech or as much as a thought in my head – it was simply the most startlingly beautiful view of land I’d ever seen. I literally stood transfixed, and I now I did cry, the tears whipped from my face by the wind. I had lived on the sea for twenty-eight days; I’d left the land and now come back to it. With all that the Python had done, with the death of Rachel ever there in my soul; still, I had accomplished this fundamental, primordial, human thing – ventured out across the trackless ocean and found a distant shore. Whatever happened to me, whatever this new world held for me, this voyage would never be diminished, never spoiled, never taken away from me. It was enough, for now – maybe it was enough forever – to just be standing there on Windswept and watching as the emerald green brilliance of Kauai grew ever closer.

  But of course, at some point the contemplative must give way to the practical. There was never much opportunity when sailing to remain self-congratulatory for long; made it across an ocean, did you? Good on ya, mate, as Ray would say; now go figure out how to make landfall without wrecking your boat.

  I asked Ray to display the Nawiliwili Bay charts, knowing that without the internet all he had were those stored in his drives. We were now working with a finite resource; one that would never be updated, never expanded. It was going to have to do.

  The chart he displayed showed us about fifteen kilometers southwest of the harbor and closing at six knots. The entrance was simple, with no obstructions or reefs and plenty of depth. This won’t be so bad, I thought, but winched Windswept’s dagger boards up anyway, leaving just a meter of them in the water to limit sideslip and help steerage.

  I could see the harbor light just to starboard and knew I needed to stay well south of the northern shore where it stood, with its mass of rocks. Coming straight in from the southeast was the way to do it, I thought; make a straight approach to the northern end of the breakwall, do a quick, tight turn-about to port, and there we’d be, in the protected bay inside. And once there, forget the docks – stay out a bit, away from land. If there’s a mooring ball, fine, if not, drop two anchors on a bridle and make them stick.

  As we entered the outer bay, I unlocked the tag end of the mainsail halyard from the winch and let it slowly unwind, and before I went forward to secure the main, furled the jib as well. We slowed, gliding to little more than a crawl, and I was up and forward, securing the mainsail.

  Back in the cockpit, I gave the motors a bit of throttle and we slid past the rocks at the harbor mouth. Reaching the end of the breakwater, I slowed to the point that the props hardly turned, and we crept forward, maintaining our heading parallel to the rocks. The water was smooth as glass and the only boat near us was an old, rotting trimaran, huge – nearly thirty meters long. It had been moored there since before Rachel and I had been here the first time. I steered around her, seeing that she’d deteriorated further, her fiberglass cracked and peeling off in great scabs. She was moored to an underwater cable and if I couldn’t find anything else, I thought I could at least attach to that. But as we slid past, I saw half a dozen orange mooring balls and steered for them. We slid up to the first one, and with fond thoughts of Emma in mind, I gently backed the motors for an instant, stopping us dead in the calm water. Walking casually out onto the starboard ama, I secured a short spring line to the cable the ball was attached to, and we were made fast, swinging gently around toward shore with the incoming tide.

  It was noon; we had made it to Kauai.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHE COULD NOT stop herself from watching as the plane rose into the prevailing breeze and disappeared between the cumuli of the afternoon’s weather. For a few moments more, she stood and watched the patterns of sunlight dappling the clouds. This is the end of it, she thought.

  Her bicycle lay in a heap along the security fence and she walked to it and pulled it upright, straightening the heavy pack lashed to the rear carrier. It was a bit of a mess, the bike; she had no place to store it and the rain and salt air had worked it over. But it had gotten her to the airport to see the two of them off, and now it would take her to her new life.

  She got on and shoved off, by instinct steering westward toward the airport exit and the coast road to Alofi, then realizing her mistake, bumped to a stop. Technically, she would not be an illegal resident until the next morning, but she was guessing if the NZ saw a native after this last plane had lifted off, they’d be asking questions. She needed to stay away from the main roads, so she walked the bike back around to the east, then rode it past the terminal building and onto the Lalokafika road.

  The airport was silent now, mostly emptied of people, and with the exception of the charter flights, would stay that way forever. As she pedaled slowly past, the runway appeared to her like a long, bleached bone, dead and white in the sun. All the tears that had been shed here, she thought, all the people wanting to go, wanting to stay – the great exodus. Was anyone left now, like her? Or, she wondered, am I the last Niuean?

  And for the hundredth time, she thought of Mana, wishing with all the strength in her heart she were still alive. She’d never have gone, and no NZ alive would find Mana if Mana didn’t want to be found. Now she must be like her, smart and unyielding; unafraid and confident in her own abilities.

  She rode on, settling herself into an easy rhythm. The way to Liku was pleasant enough, though having not come this way in a very long time, she was surprised to see houses where there had been none before. Why build houses, she wondered, when every day there’d been fewer people? They were squat, ugly cement block bungalows and now that they were emptied of people, of life, the yards surrounding them filled with debris; old furniture, appliances, ancient television sets. Most of them had cars parked in the yards, or in front along the road - decent cars, too. Not surprising they’d be left, she supposed; who’d want to pay the transport fees to ship a car? There would be the resettlement money and the subsidies - plenty for a new car in Auckland, right? This was the bitter truth – we sold our island for a life in the suburbs, for cars and shopping and all the state-subsidized booze.

  Well, the trash was their problem now, she thought. Or maybe the NZ would just let everything sit and rot. Does anyone think they paid us to leave because they care about the island? As of tomorrow morning, the whole of Niue was nothing more than an exotic dive park intended to bring important tourist money into the NZ coffers; a dive park that that used to be a country. It made for great advertising, colorful brochures.

  She pedaled past the decaying houses with their lawns of trash, thinking of them as shipwrecks, like capsized boats with all their contents turned to flotsam in the sea. And in time the land, like the sea, would claim it all, swamp it, suck it under. They’ll just be green mounds of scrub and vines and no one to know differently, no one to say I lived here once.

  But I’ll know, she thought, I’ll be here to say it. And pedaling on, she said it out loud to give it meaning and strength; “I’ll be here.”

  When she made it to Liku, she felt the need to rest a bit and think things over, so she stopped and feeling a bit silly squatted down behin
d some bushes and peed. Who was here to see her? The eighteen kilometers had taken her three hours and she was concerned about the daylight left to her. If she couldn’t manage a better turn of speed, she’d not make it to the cliff path before dark. It was treacherous enough in daylight; it’d be very dodgy indeed lit only by starlight.

  Still, no worries, she thought; she was off the gravel now and had the bitumen road all the way to Mutalau and surely, she’d go faster on the pavement. She got up and shoved off, continuing steadily through Liku village. Passing the male, she spotted a pack of half dozen or so dogs ahead of her, angling from her right, and stopped in the middle of the road, straddling the bike, to watch them. They were rangy, and something about them made her uneasy; perhaps just the nature of their movements, quick and feral. The dogs, spotting her, stopped as well, watching her in turn. They were panting in the heat, tongues lolling out of open mouths and appeared completely unafraid.

  “Shoo,” she yelled, and saw them tense, ears pricked towards her. Abruptly, they started forward again, trotting across the male grounds and out onto the road twenty meters ahead of where she stood. The lead dog was large, heavy-coated and dark; some sort of shepherd mix she thought. As it loped along it kept its head turned toward her, lowered to shoulder height, its teeth showing whitely. The pack behind it moved in unison, evenly spaced in orderly single file, as though they were an army platoon out to drill. How extraordinary, she thought, suddenly conscious of her vulnerability, her soft flesh.

  As they cleared the road and disappeared into the brush and trees on the west side, she waited to give them time to pass further from her. Moving again, reaching the point they’d crossed into the trees, she thought she could hear them, thought she could hear low growls and snarling some distance into the woods. She stood on the pedals then, working the bike for all it was worth, imagining them emerging back onto the road, following her.

  For the next kilometer, she pushed herself hard enough to be out of breath and leave her legs burning. Then her fear gave way to irritation; she’d let herself be spooked for no reason, hadn’t she? Dogs were pack animals after all – let loose that’s what they’d do, revert to the instinct to form a group. It didn’t mean they’d been turned into human hunters.

  Slowing, she pedaled on and in a few minutes came to a cluster of houses – some with their doors yawning open. She imagined dogs inside, using them as dens. Would they do that? She wondered if the people who had abandoned the houses had left doors open for their animals. If you weren’t coming back, why not? And what of all these dogs, then? What if they got very hungry? If they became aggressive and it got bad for the tourists, would the NZ begin to hunt them? As the little settlement faded behind her, it occurred to her that this was no longer the same island on which she’d grown up. This island had no people, had packs of wild dogs and rotting houses.

  She thought she might be half way to Mutalau when she came across a farm on the east side of the road, saw the rows of trees and shrubs behind the house and immediately spotted clusters of banana and mango among a smattering of breadfruit trees. Aware suddenly of how hungry she was, she pedaled to the house and laid the bike against it, struggling again with the heavy awkwardness of the pack. Here was a chance to conserve the few provisions she had, maybe even add to them. Hesitating as she crossed the front yard; feeling foolish, she called out “Hello?” twice, then walked around to the back searching for ripe fruit. She’d prefer a mango or two, but a banana would sit just as well.

  And she found both; picking a banana and two beautifully ripe mangoes she went back to the bike and carefully placed the mangoes into netting sewn on the pack, peeled the banana and got back on the bike. Pedaling slowly, balanced with one hand, she ate the banana and thought about the life she faced, contemplated something as simple as eating. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known it, but finding this fruit brought quite clearly to her the reality of no more stores, no more shopping. She was determined to remember this place; it wouldn’t be much of a ride from the cliff and to be able to have fresh fruit like this was worth the risk of travelling on the road.

  After the banana she was thirsty and pulled her water bottle from its webbing, slumping in disappointment as she found it empty; in her haste this morning, she’d packed it without filling it. What would have been no more than an irritation the day before was now much more serious. The municipal pumps had been shut down across the island, except for Alofi and the few houses designated for the NZ guides. Niue had no rivers, no fresh water at all save for a few natural springs driven by deep-reservoir rain water pushed to the surface through the limestone. It was one of these, one she’d discovered years before, that she now planned on for survival. But until she reached it there would be nothing to drink. And if her secret spring had dried up? She pushed the thought away; it would be there because it must be.

  The shadows began deepening, invading the road from the west, and she briefly considered waiting until morning to attempt the cliff trail. When she finally got to the outskirts of Mutalau it was nearly dusk, and she imagined herself breaking into one of the empty houses for the night, then going on in the morning. But there was such an oppressive air of abandonment about the place, trash blowing about in the early evening breeze, that the thought turned her stomach. No, she was determined; she’d go on tonight as planned.

  In the village center, at the male, the road curved sharply south-southwest and when she reached it, she let the bike coast to a halt. She walked it over to the community building and propped it against a wall, away from the road, unlashed the pack and slung it over her shoulders. Best to walk from here, she thought; the two-track out of town would be impossible on the bike with the weight of the pack on the back of it. When she had walked back onto the street, she glanced back at the bike – it was invisible against the north wall, no casual search would show anything. And even if they saw it, what would they think other than someone had abandoned an old bike?

  It felt good to be walking – much easier than pedaling the bike, especially so on the rocky, rutted two-track. Leading north out of the village, the trail ran in zig-zag fashion for half a kilometer to the coastline, where it reached the highest point of land on the island – a cliff of rock nearly one hundred meters high, plunging straight toward the ocean.

  Before she’d gotten half way along the trail, she could hear the pounding surf beyond, low and familiar. She continued winding her way through low scrub and rocks, careful not to turn an ankle. She passed by a small fale and stopped, regaining her breath. Again, she considered avoiding the cliff in the dark, staying here until morning, but hurried on, driven by the mosquitoes and her thirst. Everything depended now on the cave and the spring within it. If she couldn’t find it, or if she couldn’t manage the trail in the darkness, if the spring no longer had water; well – then like so much of her life, this would all go wrong.

  Finally gaining the ridge, the immensity of the Pacific spread darkly before her, she stopped to catch her breath and plan for the next bit – the descent down the cliff. From the east, low on the horizon, she caught sight of the red star, this strange new addition that had appeared so suddenly in the heavens. It set its red glow on the broad face of the cliff, and she stepped cautiously toward it, picking her way carefully among the sharp rocks, grateful for the illumination. Within ten meters she saw the dark outline of the first descending step and took it, then began winding her way back and forth on a series of shelves worn quite smooth. This was the easy part, she knew, and hunched her shoulders against the weight of the pack, nervous at what was coming.

  How long had it been? She considered; perhaps ten years, perhaps twelve, she wasn’t sure. That sunny day with her cousins, scrambling all over this cliff and thinking nothing of it, as if they were goats - that had been the day she’d found it. She could still feel the magic, edging into the cool shade of the cave, finding the water. And now, it would come to her again in its fullness, enabling her new life, providing the means for her to defy
the NZ, allow her to stay a Niuean.

  She pushed on, descending the increasingly ragged shelves for twenty meters, expecting and then finding them ultimately giving way to a near-vertical wall of solid limestone. In the twilight, it seemed completely sheer; all she could see was the occasional tuft of plants growing out of crevices in the otherwise smooth rock and she felt a quick moment of panic, wondering if she’d come the wrong way. But she knew this had to be it – there was no other path along this cliff for nearly a kilometer.

  She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself and studied the area below her feet until she saw a faint line in the wall, angling down and across. Balancing against the clumsiness of the pack, she faced forward and let her outside foot slide downward. She squatted down, balanced on one knee, and extended her foot as far below herself as possible. Feeling it finally come to rest on a narrow lip, she slid herself down onto it, bringing her other foot tight against the first. The ledge she now stood on was so narrow that her feet would not fit side by side. She held her right hand against wall, leaning inward, desperately searching with her fingers for the security of a handhold, and began sliding her feet, one after the other, along and down the narrow ledge.

  Below her, impossibly far it seemed to her, she could not only hear the roar of the surf, but could see the ghostly iridescence of waves impaled by wedges of limestone as they spent themselves against the cliff.

  How long it took her, sliding one foot then the other, she would never quite be sure of; she only knew it seemed never to end, as if the time spent sliding down this knife edge held the sum of her life. But finally, she came to the end, limp with relief as her feet found nearly flat rock, broken into an easy series of plateaus and jumbled boulders. From there, it was a matter of playing back in her mind the sequence of moves she had made that had led her that day to the discovery. Still, she must be careful – this was where she could easily lose her way.