Islands in the Stream (41 page)

“Somebody burned the shacks,” he said. “Somebody tried to put them out and there are bodies in the ashes. You can’t smell them from here because of the wind.”

“How many bodies?”

“We counted nine. There could be more.”

“Men or women?”

“Both.”

“Are there any tracks?”

“Nothing. It’s rained since. Heavy rain. The sand is still pitted with it.”

The wide-shouldered Basque whose name was Ara said, “They’ve been dead a week anyway. Birds haven’t worked on them but the land crabs are working on them.”

“How do you know they have been dead a week?”

“No one can say exactly,” Ara said. “But they have been dead about a week. From the land crab trails the rain was about three days ago.”

“How was the water?”

“It looked all right.”

“Did you bring it?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see why they would have poisoned the water,” Ara said. “It smelled good so I tasted it and brought it.”

“You shouldn’t have tasted it.”

“It smelled good and there was no reason to believe it was poisoned.”

“Who killed the people?”

“Anybody.”

“Didn’t you check?”

“No. We came to tell you. You are the skipper.”

“All right,” said Thomas Hudson. He went below and buckled on his revolver. There was a sheath knife on the other side of the belt, the side that rode high, and the weight of the gun was on his leg. He stopped in the galley and took a spoon and put it in his pocket.

“Ara, you and Henry come ashore. Willie come in with the dinghy and then see if you can get some conches. Let Peters sleep.” To his mate he said, “Check the engines, please, and all tanks.”

The water was clear and lovely over the white sand bottom and he could see every ridge and wrinkle in the sand. As they waded ashore when the dinghy grounded on a ridge of sand he felt small fish playing around his toes and looked down and saw they were tiny pompano. Maybe they are not true pompano, he thought. But they look exactly like them and they are most friendly.

“Henry,” he said when they were ashore. “You take the windward beach and walk it all the way up to the mangroves. Watch for tracks or anything else. Meet me here. Ara, you take the other beach and do the same.”

He did not have to ask where the bodies were. He saw the tracks that led to them and heard the rattle of the land crabs in the dry bush. He looked out at his ship and the line of the breakers and Willie in the stern of the skiff with a water glass looking over the side for conches while the skiff drifted.

Since I have to do it I might as well get it over with, he thought. But this day was built for something else. It is strange how they had such a rain here where there was no need for it and we had nothing. How long is it now that we have seen the rams go by on either side and never had a drop?

The wind was blowing heavily and had blown now, day and night, for more than fifty days. It had become a part of the man and it did not make him nervous. It fortified him and gave him strength and he hoped that it would never stop.

We wait always for something that does not come, he thought. But it is easier waiting with the wind than in a calm or with the capriciousness and malignancy of squalls. There is always water somewhere. Let it stay dry. We can always find it. There is water on all these keys if you know how to look for it.

Now, he thought to himself. Go in and get it over with.

The wind helped him to get it over with. As he crouched under the scorched sea-grape bushes and sifted the sand in double handfuls the wind blew the scent of what was just ahead of him away. He found nothing in the sand and he was puzzled but he looked in all the sand to windward of the burned shacks before he moved in. He had hoped to find what he looked for the easier way. But there was nothing.

Then, with the wind at his back, so that he turned and gulped it and then held his breath again he went to work with his knife probing into the charred deliquescence that the land crabs were feeding on. He touched a sudden hardness that rolled against a bone and dug it out with the spoon. He laid it on the sand with the spoon and probed and dug and found three more in the pile. Then he turned into the wind and cleaned the knife and the spoon in the sand. He took the four bullets in a handful of sand and with the knife and the spoon in his left hand made his way back through the brush.

A big land crab, obscenely white, reared back and lifted his claws at him.

“You on the way in, boy?” the man said to him. “I’m on the way out.”

The crab stood his ground with his claws raised high and the points open sharply.

“You’re getting pretty big for yourself,” the man said. He put his knife slowly in its sheath and the spoon in his pocket. Then he shifted the handful of sand with the four bullets in it to his left hand. He wiped his right hand on his shorts carefully. Then he drew the sweat-darkened, well-oiled .357 Magnum.

“You still have a chance,” he said to the land crab. “Nobody blames you. You’re having your pleasure and doing your duty.”

The crab did not move and his claws were held high. He was a big crab, nearly a foot across, and the man shot him between his eyes and the crab disintegrated.

“Those damn .357’s are hard to get now because draft-dodging FBI’s have to use them to hunt down draft-dodgers,” the man said. “But a man has to fire a shot sometime or he doesn’t know how he is shooting.”

Poor old crab, he thought. All he was practicing was his trade. But he ought to have shuffled along.

He came out onto the beach and saw where his ship was riding and the steady line of the surf and Willie anchored now and diving for conches. He cleaned his knife properly and scrubbed the spoon and washed it and then washed the four bullets. He held them in his hand and looked at them as a man who was panning for gold, expecting only flakes, would look at four nuggets in his pan. The four bullets had black noses. Now the meat was out of them, the short twist rifling showed clearly. They were 9mm standard issue for the Schmeisser machine pistol.

They made the man very happy.

They picked up all the hulls, he thought. But they left these as plain as calling cards. Now I must try to think it out. We know two things. They left nobody on the Cay and the boats are gone. Go on from there, boy. You’re supposed to be able to think.

But he did not think. Instead he lay back on the sand with his pistol pulled over so it lay between his legs and he watched the sculpture that the wind and sand had made of a piece of driftwood. It was gray and sanded and it was embedded in the white, floury sand. It looked as though it were in an exhibition. It should be in the Salon d’Automne.

He heard the breaking roar of the seas on the reef and he thought, I would like to paint this. He lay and looked at the sky which had nothing but east wind in it and the four bullets were in the buttoned-down change pocket of his shorts. He knew they were the rest of his life. But he did not wish to think about them now nor make all the practical thinking that he must make. I will enjoy the gray wood, he thought. Now we know that we have our enemies and that they cannot escape. Neither can we. But there is no necessity to think about it until Ara and Henry are back. Ara will find something. There is something to be found and he is not a fool. A beach tells many lies but somewhere the truth is always written. He felt the bullets in his change pocket and then he elbowed his way back to where the sand was drier and even whiter, if there could be a comparison in such whiteness, and he lay with his head against the gray piece of driftwood and his pistol between his legs.

“How long have you been my girl?” he said to the pistol.

“Don’t answer,” he said to the pistol. “Lie there good and I will see you kill something better than land crabs when the time comes.”

He was lying there
looking out at the line of the surf and he had it pretty well thought out by the time he saw Ara and Henry coming down the beach. He saw them and then looked away from them and out to sea again. He had tried not to think about it and to relax but it had been impossible. Now he would relax until they came and he would think of nothing but the sea on the reef. But there was not time. They came too fast.

“What did you find?” he asked Ara who sat down by the gray driftwood. Henry sat beside him.

“I found one. A young man. Dead.”

“He was a German all right,” Henry said. “He only had on shorts and he had very long hair, blond and sun-streaked, and he was face down in the sand.”

“Where was he shot?”

“At the base of the spine and in the back of the neck,” Ara said. “
Rematado.
Here are the bullets. I washed them.”

“Yes,” said Thomas Hudson. “I have four like them.”

“They’re 9mm Luger aren’t they?” Henry asked. “It’s the same caliber as our .38’s.”

“These with the black ends are for the machine pistol,” Thomas Hudson said. “Thanks for digging them out, doctor.”

“At your orders,” Ara said. “The neck one had gone clean through and I found it in the sand. Henry cut out the other one.”

“I didn’t mind it,” Henry said. “The wind and the sun had sort of dried him. It was like cutting into a pie. He wasn’t like those in there. Why did they kill him, Tom?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think?” Ara asked. “Did they come in here to make repairs?”

“No. They’ve lost their boat.”

“Yes,” Ara said. “They took the boats.”

“Why was the sailor killed?” Henry asked. “You forgive me if I don’t sound too intelligent, Tom. But you know how much I want to do what I can and I’m so happy we have contact.”

“We haven’t contact,” Thomas Hudson said. “But Christ we’ve got a lovely scent.”

“Breast high?” Henry asked hopefully.

“Don’t mention that word to me.”

“But Tom, who killed the sailor and why?”

“Family trouble,” Thomas Hudson said. “Did you ever see a man shot in the base of the spine for kindness? Afterwards whoever did it was kind and shot him in the neck.”

“Maybe there were two,” said Ara.

“Did you find the hulls?”

“No,” Ara said. “I looked where they would be. Even if it was a machine pistol it would not have thrown them further than I looked.”

“It could be the same methodical bastard that picked up the other ones.”

“Where would they go?” Ara asked. “Where would they make for with the boats?”

“They have to go south,” Thomas said. “You know damned well they can’t go north.”

“And we?”

“I’m trying to think in their heads,” Thomas Hudson said. “I haven’t many facts to go on.”

“You have the deads and the boats gone,” Henry said. “You can think it out, Tom.”

“And one known weapon and where did they lose their undersea boat and how many are they? Stir that and add we couldn’t raise Guantánamo last night and add how many keys there are south of here plus when we have to fill our tanks. Add Peters and serve.”

“It will be all right, Tom.”

“Sure,” Thomas Hudson said. “All right and all wrong are identical twins in this business.”

“You’re confident we will get them though, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Thomas Hudson said. “Now go and flag Willie in and let Antonio get started on his conches. We will have chowder. Ara, you load all the water you can in the next three hours. Tell Antonio to go ahead on the motors. I want to get out of here before dark. Was there nothing on the island? No pigs nor any fowl?”

“Nothing,” Ara told him. “They took everything.”

“Well, they will have to eat them. They have no feed for them and no ice. They are Germans so they are capable and they can get turtle in these months. I think we will find them at Lobos. It is logical they should take Lobos. Have Willie fill the ice-well with conches and we will take only enough water to the next key.”

He stopped and reconsidered, “No, I’m sorry. I was wrong. Fill water until sundown and I will take her out at moonrise. We lose three hours but we save six later on.”

“Did you taste the water?” Ara asked.

“Yes,” he said. “It was clean and good. You were quite right.”

“Thank you,” Ara said. “I will go now to call in Willie. He has been diving many.”

“Tom,” Henry asked. “Do you want me to stay with you or to carry water or what?”

“Carry water until you are too tired and then get some sleep. I want you on the bridge with me tonight.”

“Can I bring you a shirt or a sweater?” Henry asked.

“Bring me a shirt and one of the very light blankets,” Thomas Hudson said. “I can sleep now in the sun and the sand is dry. But later on it will be cool with the wind.”

“Isn’t the sand wonderful? I’ve never known such dry or powdery sand.”

“The wind has beaten it for many years.”

“Will we get them, Tommy?”

“Of course,” Thomas Hudson said. “There is no doubt of it at all.”

“Please forgive me if I am ever stupid,” Henry said.

“You were forgiven when you were born,” Thomas Hudson said. “You are a very brave boy, Henry, and I am fond of you and trust you. You’re not stupid either.”

“You truly think we will have a fight?”

“I know it. Do not think about that. Think about details. Think about all the things you should do and how we should be a happy ship until we fight. I’ll think about the fight.”

“I will go and do my duty as well as I can,” Henry said. “I wish we could practice the fight so I could do my part better.”

Thomas Hudson said, “You’ll do it all right. I do not see any way that we can miss it.”

“It’s been so very long,” Henry said.

“But everything is long,” Thomas Hudson told him. “And pursuit is the longest.”

“Get some sleep,” Henry said. “You never sleep any more.”

“I’ll sleep,” Thomas Hudson said.

“Where do you suppose they lost their own boat, Tom?” Ara asked.

“They got these boats here and they did away with these people a week ago, say. So they must be the one that Camagüey claimed. But they got somewhere close to here before they lost her. They didn’t sail any rubber boats into that wind.”

“Then they must have lost her east of here.”