Islands in the Stream (56 page)

He lay there under the light blanket with the dressings on his three wounds. Gil had sifted them all full of sulfa when he dressed them and he could see sulfa spilled like sugar on the part of the deck where he had stood at the wheel while Gil had worked on him. When they had taken down the canvas, so he would have more air, he had noticed the three small holes where the bullets had come through and the others to the left and to the right. He had seen the gashes in the canvas from the grenade fragments.

As he lay there, Gil watched him and saw his salt-bleached head and his gray face above the light blanket. Gil was a simple boy. He was a great athlete and nearly as strong as Ara and if he could have hit a curve ball he would have been a very good ball player. He had a great throwing arm. Thomas Hudson looked at him and smiled, remembering the grenades. Then he smiled just to look at Gil and the long muscles of his arms.

“You should have been a pitcher,” he said and his voice sounded strange to him.

“I never had control.”

“You had it today.”

“Maybe it wasn’t really necessary before,” Gil smiled. “You want some water on your mouth, Tommy. Just nod your head.”

Thomas Hudson shook his head and looked out at the lake that was the inside passage. It showed white caps now. But they were the small waves of a good sailing breeze and beyond them he could see the blue hills of the Turiguaño.

That’s what we’ll do, he thought. We’ll head for the Central or for the other place and they may have a doctor there. No, it’s too late in the season. But they can fly a good surgeon in. They are all fine people in there. A bad surgeon is worse than none and I can lie quiet until he comes and they move me. I ought to take a lot of sulfa. But I shouldn’t drink water. Don’t worry about it, boy, he said to himself. All your life is just pointed toward it. But why couldn’t Ara not have shot that son of a bitch so we would have something to show for it all so it would have done some good. I don’t mean good. I mean so it would have been some use. Hell, if they had had the firepower we had. They must have pulled the other stakes on the channels to suck us into that one. But maybe if we had the prisoner he would be stupid and know nothing. He would have been useful to have had though. We are not being very useful now. Sure we are. We are detrapping that old turtle boat.

Think about after the war and when you will paint again. There are so many good ones to paint and if you paint as well as you really can and keep out of all other things and do that, it is the true thing. You can paint the sea better than anyone now if you will do it and not get mixed up in other things. Hang on good now to how you truly want to do it. You must hold hard to life to do it. But life is a cheap thing beside a man’s work. The only thing is that you need it. Hold it tight. Now is the true time you make your play. Make it now without hope of anything. You always coagulated well and you can make one more real play. We are not the lumpen-proletariat. We are the best and we do it for free.

“Tom, do you want some water?” Gil asked again.

Thomas Hudson shook his head.

Three chickenshit bullets, he thought, to fuck good painting and prove nothing. Why did the poor bastards ever make that error on the massacre key? They could have surrendered and been all right. I wonder who the one was who came out to surrender when Ara shot. He could have been like the boy they shot at massacre key. Why do they have to be such damned fanatics? We chased good and we will always fight. But I hope we are not fanatics.

Then he heard the noise of the outboard coming. He could not see it join them from where he lay and then Ara and Willie came up. Ara was sweating and they both were scratched by the brush.

“I am sorry, Tom,” Ara said.

“Shit,” said Thomas Hudson.

“Let’s haul ass out of here,” Willie said, “and I’ll tell you. Ara, get the hell down on the anchor and send Antonio up here to take her.”

“We’re going in to the Central. It’s faster.”

“Smart,” Willie said. “Now don’t talk, Tom, and let me tell you.” He stopped and put his hand on Thomas Hudson’s forehead lightly and reached under the blanket and felt the pulse accurately but very gently.

“Don’t die, you bastard,” he said. “Just hold it and don’t move.”

“Roger,” Thomas Hudson said.

“At the first fight there were three deads,” Willie explained. He was to windward of Thomas Hudson sitting on the deck and he smelled sour of sweat and his bad eye was swung wild again and all the plastic surgery on his face showed white. Thomas Hudson lay very quietly and listened to him.

“They had two burp guns only but they were set up good. Gil’s first extinguisher got them and the .50’s cut the shit out of them. Antonio hit them too. Henry can really shoot the .50’s.”

“He always could.”

“I mean with the heat on. So we detrapped that joint and it is very high now. Ara and I cut all the wires but we left the stuff. She’s OK and I’ll pinpoint the location of these other Krauts on the chart.”

The anchor was up and the motors were turning.

“We didn’t do so good, did we?” Thomas Hudson said.

“They outsmarted us. But we had the firepower. They didn’t do so good either. Don’t say anything to Ara about the prisoner. He feels bad enough. He says he squeezed off before he thought.”

The ship was heading toward the blue hills and gathering speed.

“Tommy,” Willie said. “I love you, you son of a bitch, and don’t die.”

Thomas Hudson looked at him without moving his head.

“Try and understand if it isn’t too hard.”

Thomas Hudson looked at him. He felt far away now and there were no problems at all. He felt the ship gathering her speed and the lovely throb of her engines against his shoulder blades which rested hard against the boards. He looked up and there was the sky that he had always loved and he looked across the great lagoon that he was quite sure, now, he would never paint and he eased his position a little to lessen the pain. The engines were around three thousand now, he thought, and they came through the deck and into him.

“I think I understand, Willie,” he said.

“Oh shit,” Willie said. “You never understand anybody that loves you.”

THE END.