I pushed myself too hard today and am paying the price for it now. Winter will be here before I know it — assuming the season’s still change — so I need to be ready. Today I finished a long-overdue inventory of just about everything worthwhile on the island — tools, clothing and, most importantly, food. There was a lot of food stashed in the cabins, and I’d let some of it go bad. That was stupid — the dogs are running pretty low. I’ve also noticed that they don’t obey me quite so well when they’re hungry. If I can’t keep the dogs well-fed, they might just decide I’d make a good meal.
Maybe I’m just getting paranoid — I am high, after all. Don’t judge, it’s just that the only reliable pain reliever on the island is growing behind Worner’s shack. But even that is of limited utility because I need to be able to think clearly to get anything done, so I’ve been waiting until my work is done to smoke. I’m pretty much in constant pain during the day (which could be the middle of the night for all I know), then I have to shove a wheelbarrow all over the island with a broken hand and a broken kneecap. So I overcompensate when I’m done working by smoking too much and then I find myself jumping at shadows, nodding off or eating too much of my limited food supply.
Sorry if I’m rambling, but the fault really lies with Worner’s impressive horticultural abilities. I’d have never pegged him for a guy with a green thumb, but you don’t really know anything about anyone, do you? I’m sure none of those guys would have believed in a million years that I’d still be alive. Makes you wonder what kind of surprises they had in them…especially Frank. When push came to shove, Frank was the only person in my life I could count on, and I didn’t really know him at all. And I guess he didn’t really know me either. Hell, I didn’t know me. I suppose I still don’t, which is why I’m writing this, right? No epiphanies yet, but I’ve got plenty of time… or at least I hope I do…
Culann awoke to a crucifying headache and a mouth that tasted like a litter box.
His head lay on Frank’s couch, while his body splayed out across the soiled carpet. He was covered with a towel for warmth. He didn’t know whether he’d gotten it himself or Frank had draped it over him. He pushed up to a sitting position, and Alphonse growled from a few feet away before dropping his chin back to the floor and scrunching his eyes shut.
“You ready?” Frank said from his bedroom doorway.
“What time is it?”
Once again, the sky was neither day-blue nor night-black, but Purgatory-white.
“Time to work.”
A month at sea stood before them. Culann brushed his teeth and washed his face.
He considered calling the whole thing off just to get a couple extra hours sleep, but figured Alphonse would probably eat him if they were left alone together.
“Who’s watching Alphonse while we’re gone?”
“Marge McGillicuddy — McGillicuddy’s wife — is going to feed him. She’s the resident animal-lover. We all pay her a dollar a day to put out food for the dogs, but they otherwise pretty much run wild when we’re gone.”
The cousins loaded their knapsacks in the truck and drove the quarter mile to the dock. The other men of the Orthrus—and they were all men—milled about, looking just as hungover as Culann, which gave him a little satisfaction.
The same Hawaiian-shirt-clad ferryboat driver from the two nights before nodded at Culann as he boarded. The little boat sank almost to the waterline with all the fishermen aboard, but their jolly pilot didn’t seem to notice. The boat splashed across the choppy, black water to a small town on the mainland called Three Fingers, named for the shape of coastline upon which it rested.
As they approached, Culann caught his first glimpse of the Orthrus. It was half a football field in length and nominally white, though rust had eaten through much of the paint. Frank gave Culann a crash course in nautical terminology.
“The ass-end is called the ‘stern.’ Our nets are cast off the stern, so this is called a ‘stern trawler.’ That bigass thing over there is called the ‘net drum.’”
The bigass thing Frank was referring to looked to Culann like a giant sewing bobbin, though he didn’t dare give voice to such an unmanly analogy. The ferryboat docked, and the cramped crew spurted out onto the dock, before scurrying aboard the Orthrus just seconds later.
“Frank,” Gus shouted, seemingly out of nowhere, “show this pantywaist where he sleeps and then bring his cherry ass back up here.”
And so began Culann’s stint as a greenhorn. In the still waters just off the mainland, the deck stood fifteen feet above the water line. Once the ship reached the open waters out beyond Pyrite, however, the Bering Sea crashed waves up and over the rails.
Culann was soaked within minutes of clearing the island.
He spent the next hour scurrying out the way of Gus’s boot, as he struggled to quickly learn the ways of the sea. Culann stopped to vomit over the railing as the ship lurched up and over twenty-foot swells. A decade spent teaching To Kill a Mockingbird to a bunch of whiny, little nosepickers had done nothing to prepare him for life at sea.
The combination of a hangover and seasickness cost him a good bit of stomach lining.
Plus, the ship smelled like a can of tuna that had been left open for three days. He was sweating from the exertion and heat of the sun, but shivering from the frigid water that rolled over the deck. He didn’t think it could be any worse until Gus grabbed him by the collar and hurled him to the deck.
“Puke on your own time, greenhorn. We got work to do.”
“But I’m sick.”
“You can get sick all you want, just pull your own weight. Otherwise, I’ll toss you over.”
Culann rose unsteadily and returned to his place beside Frank, who shook his head. They were untangling the fishing nets and loading them into the net drum, a fifteen-foot diameter hydraulic spool used to pull in the nets. As soon as Culann resumed work, he felt the bile rise in his throat. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Gus staring at him.
Culann turned around and vomited on the deck. Then he went back to work.
“Attaboy,” shouted Frank with a pat on the back.
Culann threw up again. He was convinced he’d made a terrible mistake. It wasn’t just the seasickness. His rubbery arms could barely lift the nets, torn skin hung from his soft palms, and his soggy boots were full of blisters.
And then there was Gus.
“My fifteen-year-old daughter is tougher than you,” Gus shouted with a slap to the back of the head. “If I see you nurse those delicate, little fingers of yours one more time, I’m chopping ‘em off.”
Culann wiped his oozing palms on his shirt and reached up for the net. When it slipped through Culann’s wet, raw hands, Gus pounced. He grabbed Culann by the shoulders and kicked his feet out from underneath him. Culann crashed to his stomach on the deck, and Gus pressed the greenhorn’s face into the net, slimy and foul-smelling as it was from the thousands of loads of fish it had hauled from the sea.
“This is the net,” Gus said. “Take a good look at it.”
The net was all Culann could see.
“We use the net to catch the fish,” Gus continued. “Without the net, we don’t catch any fish. The purpose of this little pleasure cruise is to catch fish, right?”
“Right,” Culann said.
“Very good, greenhorn. Now, if we don’t take good care of the net, we won’t catch any fish, will we?”
“No.”
“That’s right. Now, are we taking good care of the net when we drop it?”
“No.”
“Three in a row. I knew you were smart. Okay, genius, now I want you to pick up that fucking net and hang onto it like your life depended on it. Because it does. You got it?”
“Yes,” Culann replied.
He pushed himself up off the deck and started to rise to his feet. A wave smashed into the side of the ship, causing him to topple back over.
“I thought I told you to get up,” Gus shouted with a cuff across Culann’s cheek.
Culann pushed himself up again. The boat swayed under him, but he managed to keep his footing. He bent at the waist to snatch up the net. Gus kicked him in the backside, and Culann pitched face forward back into the net.
Culann saw how arbitrary this last act had been. It would not be sufficient to become a competent seaman, however unlikely that may be. He was not one of these men. He did not belong among them. Gus degraded him for the sheer joy of it. It seemed clear to Culann that he’d have fared better with Vic DeLuca.
Since he didn’t really know how to do anything else, Culann’s main duty was to sort the catch. They were licensed to catch halibut, large, flat fish with both eyes on the same side of their bodies, but the nets also indiscriminately pulled in other, out-of-season bottomfish. The enormous nets pulled in hundreds of pounds of fish and dumped them into the bay, which looked like a giant pickup truck bed in the middle of the stern. The catch was so large that fish overflowed out of the bay and onto the deck.
“Start sorting,” Gus bellowed before kicking Culann in the back.
The greenhorn dropped to his hands and knees and searched for any fish that weren’t halibut, which amounted to almost a third of the catch. The ones that he sorted out were nearly impossible to hold on to. He wrapped his arms around a twenty-pound, rust-colored cod and stood up. He tiptoed through the writhing mass of aquatic life to toss the fish over the railing when the cod whipped out of his grasp. He chased after it, slipping on the wet deck before tripping over a pile of fish. He landed on another cod, which he clamped onto. He worked his way back up to his feet and over to the railing, and was just about to throw the fish over the side when he caught a glimpse of McGillicuddy out the corner of his eye. McGillicuddy swung a flounder like a baseball bat right into the back of Culann’s head. He dropped to his knees, and the cod squirted from his hands. All work on the vessel stopped as the crew laughed at Culann.
“Get back to work,” Gus shouted. “Captain’s coming. You don’t want him catching you with your thumbs up your asses, do you?”
Culann pulled himself up to his feet just as the Captain came into view. He was the only man on board the ship who did not reside in Pyrite, so Culann hadn’t met him at the bar. The Captain looked more like an aviator than a seaman in a brown bomber jacket and reflective sunglasses. He was about sixty years old with salt-and-pepper hair and a firm jaw set in an authoritative scowl. He strolled about the deck with a stogie clamped between his teeth. He nodded at his crew as he walked by, but didn’t say anything.
Culann resumed sorting. He pounced on the flounder McGillicuddy had whacked him with and wrestled it over the side. It splashed against the waves before slipping under the surface.
“Good job, kid,” Worner said. “Let me give you some advice. Start here at the edge and work your way to the middle. That way, you’ll have cleared some space out for yourself, and you’ll have less to trip over.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Worner replied with a pat on the shoulder.
An hour later, the catch was sorted and flash-frozen, and the crew was mercifully sent below deck for dinner. Culann was hungrier than he’d ever been in his life and not entirely confident that he had enough strength left in his arms to raise a fork to his lips.
The men filed into the mess, and Culann found himself wedged in between McGillicuddy and Worner.
“Sorry about the fish-slap,” McGillicuddy said with a grin, “it’s just part of being a greenhorn.”
“I gathered that,” Culann replied. “No hard feelings.”
“That’s the attitude,” Worner said. “If you can handle this jerkoff’s tomfoolery, you’ll do just fine.”
“I don’t have a problem with tomfoolery,” Culann said. “I’m more worried that Gus is going to kill me.”
“Just think of it like this,” Worner said. “Nothing could be worse than today, right? Ergo, tomorrow will be better.”
As they moved towards the grill, a shaggy-haired sailor named Watkins walked down the line with a large pitcher and a spoon. He fed each man one bite and then moved on.
“What’s that?” Culann asked.
“We’re taking communion,” McGillicuddly said, genuflecting.
“It’s concentrated orange juice,” Worner explained. “Everybody takes one spoonful a day so we don’t get scurvy.”
This was not an ailment Culann had ever before had reason to fear. When he reached the end of the line, the cook handed him a plate with four deep-fried cod filets on it and nothing else.
“Is this all there is to eat?” he asked.
“We eat what we catch, kid,” Worner replied. “There’s a whole ocean of seafood just below our feet. Why would we bother packing provisions?”
“I’m not sure I can eat fish after handling them all day.”
“Only other option is to starve.”
Frank waved them over to a table smack dab in the middle of the mess. Culann eased onto the bench next to him, and Worner and McGillicuddy sat on the other side.
“You’re looking good out there, cuz,” Frank said.
“Really?”
“No,” Frank replied, causing the other two to guffaw and slap the table.
“We’re just jerking you around,” Frank said. “You’ll do better tomorrow. By the end of the voyage, you’ll be a pro.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
Worner pulled a leather haversack from under his seat and rested it on the table.
He drew a battered iron ball out of the bag and plunked it onto the table, followed by a notebook, pen and a silver dollar. Culann eyed these objects with curiosity.
“You up for a game, greenhorn?”
“What’s the game?”
“Flip a coin. Ten bucks a flip. I’ll keep track in my notebook, and we’ll settle up after we get paid.”
“Is this the Civil War cannonball you mentioned?”
“It’s my good luck charm. I never gamble without it.”
“I guess I’ll play.”
Worner handed him the silver dollar. Culann flipped it and Worner called out “heads” while it was in the air. It came up heads. Worner scribbled the result in his notebook and invited Culann to flip again. Again, Worner called out “heads” and the coin complied.
“How about you flip it this time?” Culann asked.
Worner complied and Culann called “heads.” It came up tails. After Worner won seven straight flips, Culann quit. He did some quick math in his head and figured that there was less than one percent chance of pure luck producing such an outcome.
“I told you my cannonball is lucky,” Worner said with a flash of teeth as he tallied up his winnings.
The table got quiet after the game. The four concentrated on eating their cod and drinking their water. Culann couldn’t stop thinking about how good a frothy draft beer would taste right now. His next drink was a month away. He hoped a little chatter would take his mind off his thirst.
“What’s the deal with the Captain?” Culann asked.
“Nobody knows,” Frank answered, leaning back in his chair to let his hairy navel peek out from under his t-shirt. “Gus is the only one who ever talks to him, and Gus won’t say peep about it.”
“Does he live on the island?”
“Nah,” McGillicuddy said. “He comes up from the Caribbean somewhere. The Cayman islands or someplace like that where they don’t make you pay taxes.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Frank replied. “He’s supposed to be some kind of survivalist who spends his winters in a log cabin in the Yukon just to see how tough he is.”
Worner scratched his gray beard in contemplation for a moment.
“I’ve been going out on the Captain’s ship for about twenty years,” he said, “and I’ve never heard him say a word. I heard he was a fighter pilot back in ‘Nam, but who the hell knows? I sure as hell am not about to ask him to hang out at the VFW Hall with me.”
“You ask me,” McGillicuddy chimed in, “the son of a bitch is looking for
something out here.”
“Yeah,” Frank said, “he’s looking for fish.”
McGillicuddy’s ever-present smile disappeared for a heartbeat, before returning wider than ever.
“Culann,” he said spreading his big hands on the table, “you think this fatass cousin of yours can swim home from here?”
“What do you think he’s looking for?” Culann asked with a smirk. “A white whale?”
“Beats me,” McGillicuddy responded. “Maybe he’s looking for the fountain of youth. Maybe true love. Maybe he lost his wallet out here. But there’s something weird going on. Every year we cover the same stretch of sea, even though the fishing’s just as good or better to the north. Right, Worner?”
“You got something there. In twenty years we’ve never veered more than a couple of miles outside of the same area. I just figured the Captain’s a creature of habit. After all, we’ve always done fine. Why risk getting skunked somewhere else when you know there’s fish right here?”
After dinner, the two cousins headed back above deck so Frank could have a cigarette. They passed the Captain, who was returning from his evening constitutional.
“Good night, Cap,” Frank said.
The Captain pitched the stub of his cigar into the ocean for a reply and headed back onto the bridge.
“I guess he’s not much for small talk,” Culann said.
“We’re not here for stimulating conversation,” Frank said. “The Captain leads us to fish and pays us our fair share. That’s all I need him to do.”
Culann leaned against the railing. He looked out at the horizon where the white sky above him met the black sea below, each stretching out into its own infinity. The vastness of the world stood in stark contrast to the cramped quarters where he’d be spending the night.
He didn’t bother slipping out of his fishscale-encrusted clothes. He fell asleep within seconds of crawling into his bunk. He awoke a few minutes later to find a two-foot-long halibut flopping against his body while McGillicuddy and Worner giggled over him. He shoved the fish to the floor and went back to sleep.
His eyes seemed like they then immediately reopened, although it was six hours later, as Gus yanked him out of bed. The old man flashed a wide grin as he jarred Culann from his slumber. The other crew members, just as sleep-deprived, nevertheless laughed as he stumbled, bleary-eyed to the mess for breakfast of fried cod and a spoonful of concentrated orange juice. He promptly threw it all back up.
This day was incrementally better. Gus still clouted him regularly, although Culann gave him slightly less occasion to do so. Worner showed him how to hold a fish like a football so he wouldn’t fumble so often. By the end of the day, he managed to sort a ton of fish in half-an-hour.
As the last load came in, he saw the Captain staring out of the porthole on the bridge. The old man’s eyes were obscured as always by his sunglasses, but he was looking directly at Culann. The greenhorn spun around to look busy and bumped into Frank, who shoved him aside. Culann slipped on the saltwater-soaked deck and landed on his hindquarters, which were already plum-purple from previous slips and Gus’s boots.
“Damnit, Culann. Get your head out of your ass.”
“I’m sorry, Frank,” he said, unable to hide the hurt in his voice.
“Look, I didn’t mean to knock you over, but you need to watch where you’re going and you better get the fuck up before you get buried.”
Culann scampered to his feet just as the crew pulled the last load over the side. Hundreds of fish flopped over the deck, arching their backs and gasping for air.
“Hey, greenhorn,” a voice called out.
Culann turned his head and got walloped in the chin with a rockfish. His legs flew out from under him and he landed flat on his back. The air shot out of his lungs. He gasped on the deck like the fish surrounding him, which caused his mates to laugh even harder.
Culann’s seasickness had died down to a steady, low-level nausea over the next few days. His abdominal muscles ached, along with every other part of his body. He was covered in bruises of varying shades — the fresh ones came in royal-purple or charcoal-black while the older ones faded to diarrhea shades of yellow and green. He leaned against the railing to stretch his sore muscles in the warm air. It was four o’clock in the morning, but Culann still squinted against the glare of the sun that would not set until the end of the July.
Fifty yards out from the ship, a blue whale breached and turned, sunning its broad belly. It floated on its back for a few moments before slamming its flukes against the surface and disappearing into a plume of saltwater.
“Thar she blows,” Culann said, though no one else was there to hear it.
Like Ishmael, he’d gone from lording it as a country schoolmaster to getting thumped and punched about as a sailor. As if to illustrate the point, Gus came charging out of the bridge towards him. Culann ran to the stern where the first nets of the day were being reeled in.
“What was that daydreaming you’re doing over there?” Frank asked.
“I saw a whale.”
“You want to look at whales, go to Seaworld,” Frank replied. “We got work to do.”
As the nets came in, Culann saw they’d tangled on the way up. If they went into the net drum tangled, they might get stuck in there, and the whole thing would need to be manually cleared out, like a paper jam in a twenty-foot tall printer. Culann threw one leg over the side and hooked his foot in the railing to stabilize himself, then leaned his whole body over the edge so he could reach the snarl. He plunged his hands into the knot and wrestled it free just in time to avoid clogging the net drum. Frank reached up and yanked Culann’s arm out before it followed the nets into the drum.
“Hell yeah, greenhorn,” McGillicuddy called out. “Nice save.”
Worner grabbed him in a good-natured headlock. Even Gus gave him a short nod of appreciation. Culann chewed his lip to keep from smiling. This was his first noticeable display of competence. Then Frank grabbed his arm and spun him around.
“Don’t listen to them, Culann,” Frank said. “You almost got your arm tore off to save fifteen minutes of extra work.”
“Thanks for the tip, but can you at least be happy for me that I finally did something right?”
“Christ, Culann. Don’t you realize that I’m the only one on this ship who actually cares if you die? Do not try to impress these assholes. Just keep doing a shitty job and come home in one piece.”
Culann slumped his shoulders and walked to the other end of the deck without responding. It was clear to him that he’d gotten on Frank’s nerves, maybe due to the close quarters or by simply invading this world that was so far from the one that Frank had escaped. Culann was grateful to Frank for helping him get out here, but Frank’s unwillingness to acknowledge his improvement stung. The whole purpose of this voyage was to become a new man or die trying, and for the first time, Culann believed he was going to succeed in leaving his old life behind. Why couldn’t Frank be happy for him?
He continued to improve over the next week. His stomach settled, and the soreness in his muscles solidified into strength. His hands sorted fish, untangled lines and hauled nets like they’d been doing it for years. Though Gus still slapped him around, he did so with less frequency and intensity than he had in the first week at sea.
Culann avoided Frank as much as was possible on the incapacious ship. He’d gotten over Frank’s harsh words, but didn’t want to annoy his cousin further. He instead spent most of his time with Worner, who seemed to view Culann as some sort of protégé who tagged along as Worner conducted his rounds. Worner was the ship’s chief medical officer by virtue of his combat medic experience in Vietnam. He had not undergone any medical training since the fall of Saigon, however, and he had nothing but a grocery store first-aid kit to work with. Nevertheless, the men showed great faith in his healing abilities as he bound wounds and dispensed aspirin.
“Hey, kid,” Worner said. “You ever see a splinter like this?”
A fat, filthy fisherman by the name of Garue sat on a crate with his palm upstretched. Culann crouched down next to Worner to examine it. The seas were rough, so Culann had to steady himself to take a good look. The splinter ran perfectly straight just under the surface of the skin for half-an-inch before disappearing into the inflamed meat of the man’s hand.
“It’s not wood,” Worner continued. “It’s a piece of steel cable. How do you suppose we get it out?”
“With tweezers?”
“Tweezers? Hah! I thought you were a schoolteacher. Didn’t you learn anything in science class? Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Worner scurried below deck. Culann marveled at how spryly this man twice his age could move. Worner returned shortly with a strange tool. One end was a ring, which he wore around his finger. A short wire connected the ring to a stout copper stub that looked like a car’s cigarette lighter.
“Watch this.”
Worner held the sailor’s injured hand with his left hand. He pressed his thumb down on top of the splinter. He brought his right hand, which held the tool, to the entry hole. He slowly drew back his right hand, and the splinter slid out after it.
“It’s a magnet,” he proclaimed with a satisfied smile.
Garue rubbed his palm, then inspected the empty hole. He thanked Worner and went back to work.
“You see, kid, you got to stop and think. If I’d gone with the first thing that popped into my head, we would have torn the hell out of his hand trying to dig that thing out with tweezers, and he’d have probably gotten an infection. I know you think this place is all about toughness, but brains make a difference out here. You got more brains than anyone on this ship, so you just got to figure out how to apply them to new situations.”
“Thanks,” Culann replied. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Don’t mention it. Now let’s go give those dummies a hand with that net.”
Culann rushed over to help guide a fish-laden net back into the net drum. A wave splashed over the side and into his face just as he arrived. The end of the net started to tangle up again, so he leaned over the railing to straighten it out. He felt a hand grip the back of his belt.
“I told you not to do that anymore,” Frank said.
With Frank holding on to him, Culann could still reach the snarl and wouldn’t have to worry about falling over the edge. He tugged at the knot and almost had it loose.
“Goddamnit, Culann. Let go of the net.”
With one last tug, the tangle came free in Culann’s hands. He pulled his arms out, but his right hand caught in the net just as it reached the drum and began winding around.
The net pinned his hand against the drum, which revolved quickly away from him. The barnacle-encrusted net pressed against his flesh while the rotating drum stretched his arm up and back. The tendons of his shoulder muscles burned with strain. Frank leaped up onto Culann’s back and yanked his hand out with both arms. Culann was free, but the rescue had flayed off a piece of his palm. Blood dripped from his hand onto his jeans.
“I told you not to do that,” Frank said. “I told you not to!”
“Sorry, Frank,” Culann replied.
He cradled the wounded appendage to his chest. Blood pooled thick and dark in his palm. He tipped his hand down to allow the blood to pour onto the deck at his feet.
The cut stung from the saltwater crashing onto the deck. Worner bent down to examine it.
“You dumbshit.”
This appeared to be the extent of his diagnosis. Worner wrapped an entire roll of gauze around the hand.
“Shouldn’t you wash it first,” Culann asked.
“You just got ten gallons of water dumped on your head. Wound’s as clean as it’s going to get.”
Employing a now-familiar curative, Worner wrapped the whole thing in duct tape. Culann’s hand looked like it was encased in a silver boxing glove. A little blood still trickled out the side, but Worner seemed pleased with his work.
It didn’t take long for Gus to come tearing after Culann.
“Quit lying down on the job,” he roared before latching onto the greenhorn’s ear and yanking him to his feet.
The crew had just emptied the net onto the deck, and Culann ran over to help sort.
“Hey, greenhorn, can you give me a hand over here?” McGillicuddy called out from behind him.
Culann turned right into an airborne cod, which caught him flush on the chin. He tumbled over and broke his fall with his bad hand, sending pain zapping up his arm. A thirty-pound halibut twitched and slapped him in the face with its tail. He rolled across the writhing mass of fish, shoved himself back up to his feet with his good hand, and went back to work.
A few hours later, Culann’s hand throbbed in its filthy dressing, and he shivered despite the bleary sunlight warming the deck. He dropped to his knees and began sorting the next catch. The fish writhed beneath him, a seething sea of silver. He struggled to concentrate on the mind-numbing task at hand, and found himself instead scanning the array of fishfaces in front of him, marveling at how they resembled people he knew, if he looked closely enough. He caught a glimpse of an old neighbor here, his optometrist there, even the puckered lips of his junior high girlfriend. These fish weren’t so different from the people he’d known. What right did he have to pluck them from their home?
Culann asked them if they wanted to be caught, and they cried out in unison, No, no, let us go!
The fever broke two days later. Despite Worner’s ministrations, the cut in Culann’s hand had gotten infected. The Orthrus did not return to port to secure medical assistance, but it had hailed another vessel with an actual doctor on board. She cleaned the wound and pumped him full of antibiotics. The doctor told Frank that Culann was lucky the hand hadn’t needed to be amputated.
Culann came to in his bunk. His clothes were soaked through with sweat. He felt something hard pressing into his side. He reached down and found a heavy metal ball.
“My granddad’s cannonball,” Worner said as he snatched it back up. “I told you it was lucky.”
“You were having some crazy dreams,” Frank said. “You were howling like a wolf.”
Culann sat up and saw a dozen men crowded around his bunk. Almost tenderly, Gus told Culann to get his candyass back to work, assuring him that he would not be paid for the two days he’d spent dozing on the job. Having survived his trial of blood, the rest of the crew stopped laughing at Culann and hitting him in the head with fish when his back was turned. He was one of them.
Now the hours flew by. Culann learned to shut off his brain and follow the pulses of the ship. He went where he was needed without the aid of Gus’s boot. His muscles hardened, his hands calloused, he slept like a corpse each night, untroubled by bad memories. This adventure was proving to be everything he’d hoped it would be. He was becoming a man, at the tender age of thirty-three.
While sorting through a churning mass of halibut, Culann spotted something not native to these waters. The sturdy and close-knit net had dredged up an object, perfectly spherical and the size of a shot put. It was made of metal, but so smooth it was impossible to tell what kind of metal. It was as black as the ocean bottom with strange silver lettering etched onto the surface.
“Looks Russian or something,” Frank said.
“No,” Worner said, “it’s Greek, ancient Greek. It looks just like the letters on a frat house.”
“Those ain’t any letters I’ve ever seen,” McGillicuddy said. “This thing came from outer space. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
A crowd formed around them. As the only educated man on board, Culann was asked to render a verdict on the origin of these symbols. He didn’t know what to think.
He wasn’t familiar enough with the Cyrillic alphabet or ancient Greek to judge the first two hypotheses, and of course he had no way of knowing what extraterrestrial writing might look like. He scanned the symbols again, trying to discern their meaning. No two symbols were exactly alike. They resembled familiar geometric shapes, but only partly so. There were right angles and acute angles, but they never connected with one another to form triangles. They often intersected with the arc of an unfinished circle. Sometimes the fractional shapes stood alone, sometimes they connected with one another. The spacing between symbols was haphazard, with no visible rows or columns. Yet taken as a whole, the symbols projected a sense of uniformity. It seemed to emit a kind of cold heat; it was cool to the touch, but his hand warmed as he held it.
“I have no idea,” he replied.
They passed the orb around. Every member of the crew examined it, and all came away puzzled. The debate continued.
“I bet it’s some Russian superweapon left over from the Cold War,” Frank said.
“You think the Cold War’s over?” Worner asked. “That’s exactly what they want you to think. If this thing’s a Russian superweapon, my money’s on something brand new. Those bastards have just been waiting for us to let our guard down.”
Worner paused for a moment to allow the crew to consider the implications of Russkie revanchism, before he continued.
“But it’s not a Russian superweapon. Where are the wires and circuits and stuff?
This thing is old. Not Cold War old, but ancient. That explains the Greek letters.”
“But what the hell are ancient Greek letters doing in the Bering Sea?” Frank challenged.
“You ever hear of Atlantis?” Worner shot back. “Most advanced civilization the world has ever known. Maybe this is some kind of Atlantis technology that’s been roving across the seabed for three thousand years.”
“What a steaming pile of horseshit,” McGillicuddy countered. “If anybody has advanced technology it’s the aliens. This is probably some space probe sending signals across the galaxy. Some ET is listening to us right now and laughing at what a couple of dumbasses you guys are.”
Debate continued as they hauled the next load out of the water. Culann didn’t believe in aliens or Atlantis, and was certainly skeptical of claims of secret Soviet superweapons. He leaned back and enjoyed the more elaborate conspiracies, mythologies and cosmologies the sailors developed to explain this thing. McGillicuddy and Worner advocated their positions so zealously it looked like they might come to blows. Many heads nodded in agreement as Frank staved off violence by diplomatically hypothesizing alien technology lent to the Atlanteans before disappearing for centuries to be later uncovered by the Russians.
“Quit dicking around,” Gus chimed in before confiscating the orb and heading to the bridge.
The men stood around as McGillicuddy prepared the drum to cast the nets back out. They continued to chatter about the odd object they’d plucked from the ocean.
Culann leaned against the rail. Thunder growled in the distance. Dark clouds from the south crawled across the water towards the ship. He didn’t look forward to the rough seas they undoubtedly dragged with them.
Culann turned to see Gus slam the door to the bridge and stalk across the deck, muttering profanely the whole way. He clenched his teeth and fists, and blood flooded his face. Crew members hopped out of his way as he stomped over to the net drum.
“That’s it,” he growled.
Worner was the only man brave enough to ask, “What’s it?”
Gus raked his fingers through the short beard he’d grown over his days at sea.
“That’s it,” he repeated. “We’re done.”
“We’re done for the day already?” Worner asked.
“Not for the day,” Gus replied. “We’re going home.”
The men howled.
“We’ve only been gone two-and-a-half weeks,” Frank said with palms upturned.
“You’re stealing money from my pocket.”
“I’m not stealing nothing,” Gus said. “It’s the Captain’s call. And besides, you all get your share of what we caught so far.”
“Yeah, but that’s only half of what we got coming to us,” Worner said, clenching his weathered hands into fists. “Is the Captain going to pay us the difference?”
“What do you think?” Gus replied.
“I think he can go fuck himself, and so can you.” McGillicuddy pressed up against Gus, towering over him. Culann thought for a moment that the first mate was going to get tossed into the sea. “He can’t jew us out of our shares. I’m gonna set him straight.”
McGillicuddy shoved Gus aside with a brush of his broad arm. Gus grabbed the arm and yanked McGillicuddy back. He shoved his face into that of the larger man, causing Culann to now worry that McGillicuddy was about to get thrown over the side.
“You go fuck your self, you dumb Mick,” Gus said “The Captain said that anyone who gives him any shit about this is not going with us next year. And you know damn well that your lazy ass doesn’t have any other worked lined up this summer.”
McGillicuddy turned away from Gus and headed over to the rail to spit into the ocean.
“What the hell else are we supposed to do?” Worner asked. “Sell insurance?”
“That’s not my problem,” Gus replied. “All I know is that if you want to ever work on this ship again, you better leave the Captain alone.”
“Why’s he doing this?” Frank asked.
“You think he tells me?” Gus replied. “He just said, ‘Tell them we’re going home.’ I tried arguing, but he told me I’d be out for next year if I didn’t shut up, same as you guys.”
“How do we even know there’s going to be a next year?” Frank asked.
“We don’t,” Gus answered. “But I sure as hell can’t take that risk.”
“I can,” said Worner. “I’m old and I don’t give a fuck. If he wants to blackball me, I can live with that.”
“Give him hell, Worner,” Frank shouted. “If he doesn’t knock this shit off, we’ll go on strike right now. He can’t get this ship back home by himself.”
A short cheer of solidarity arose from the crew.
“Fuck a strike,” McGillicuddy said, turning back to face the crew. “How about a mutiny?”
A louder cheer arose.
“You want me to go with you?” Frank asked.
“I think I can handle it,” Worner replied.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” Gus warned.
“Listen, man. I’ve crawled through jungle full of cobras and landmines. I’ve had Viet Cong shooting at me from twenty feet away. That son of a bitch doesn’t scare me.”
Gus shook his head.
“Besides,” Worner continued with a grin, “my granddad’s lucky cannonball is in my bedroll. Nothing bad can happen to me while it’s on the ship.”
Worner marched to the bridge, regaining the military bearing of his Army days.
He held his head high and swung his arms purposefully from his squared shoulders. As he came within ten feet of the bridge, the door banged open, and out stepped the Captain.
He held a revolver in his hand, which he pointed at Worner’s head. Worner stopped. The crew stood silently as the two men stared at one another. Worner raised his hands and eased back a few steps. After a few moments, the Captain lowered his weapon and returned to the bridge.
There was no more talk of a strike, much less a mutiny.
“That bastard pulled iron on me,” Worner said as they enjoyed their last dinner together aboard the Orthrus. “I don’t believe it.”
“Do you think he was serious?” Culann asked. He didn’t have much experience with guns. Having come from a town where handguns were banned, it had been shocking to see one brandished so easily.
“He was serious,” McGillicuddy said. “I don’t know a thing about that man
except that he is always serious. Worner’s lucky to be going home in one piece.”
“Oh, balls,” Worner said. “That’s not the first gun that’s been pointed at me. I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
“Well this may be par for the course for John Wayne here,” McGillicuddy said,
“but I’d have been pissing my pants.”
“No doubt about that,” Worner said with a smile. He leaned back and scratched the long, ropy bicep of his left arm with his right hand. “You draft-dodging pussy.”
“Yep, I dodged the draft by about twenty years.”
“I’m glad you two pricks can joke about his,” Frank said. He shook his downturned head, causing his bushy beard to brush against his stained t-shirt. “I needed that money. I’m screwed.”
“Then I must be double-screwed,” Culann said, “since I’m living on your couch.”
It was more than that. This voyage was supposed to be Culann’s trial by fire, where he would emerge a better man or die trying. By cutting it short, he was losing his chance at redemption. He needed to find a new way to prove himself to himself.
“It’s that thing we fished out of the water,” McGillicuddy said. “That’s what the Captain was looking for. That’s why he called it off.”
“Makes as much sense as anything,” Frank said, “but who cares why he did it?”
“Wait a minute,” Culann said, “McGillicuddy might be on to something. We found the orb, and then the Captain sent us home within a matter of minutes. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but we don’t have any other theories.”
“So what?” Frank replied.
“Well,” Culann continued, “assuming the theory is correct, it stands to reason that the orb is worth more to the Captain than two weeks worth of fish.”
“Who cares?”
“Well, technically I’m the one who found it.”
“You want that thing?” Frank asked.
“I didn’t before, but we have to consider the possibility that it’s valuable. Maybe we can sell it to recoup our losses. Even if we can’t, I want it just so the Captain doesn’t get to have it.”
“So what are you gonna do?” McGillicuddy asked. “Tell him ‘finders keepers’?”
“I’m going to steal it back,” Culann answered.
The thought had not occurred to him until it emerged from his mouth, but he realized this was what he had to. By stealing the orb, Culann could face danger and right an injustice. This was the quest he needed to complete. This idea pushed rational thoughts out of Culann’s mind.
“He’ll kill you, greenhorn,” Worner said.
Stealing the orb would not be easy. It was somewhere on the bridge, but Culann didn’t know where. In fact, Culann had never stepped foot on the bridge, nor had anyone else besides Gus, so he had no idea where he’d be looking. From the portholes, Culann could only see the steering wheel and some of the instruments; he didn’t know how far back the bridge went. The Captain didn’t sleep with the rest of the crew below deck or dine with them in the mess, so there had to be some kind of living accommodations connected to the bridge, but Culann didn’t have a clue what the layout might be. Plus, if the orb was as valuable as they were hoping it was, the Captain wouldn’t just leave it lying out in plain sight. To top it all off, the Captain only ever left the bridge to smoke his cigars or to point a gun at Worner.
“Give it up,” Frank said. “It can’t be done. All you’re going to do is get yourself kicked off the ship, maybe killed.”
He and Culann were the only two members of the crew still awake. Having only slept a few hours a night for the past two weeks, the others hopped into their bunks right after dinner. As angry as they were, the prospect of a good night’s sleep was too inviting.
“What about Gus?” Culann asked. “You think he could help us?”
“First off, what’s this ‘us’ shit? I don’t mind you shacking up with me up here, but I’m not getting shot for you. This is your crazy idea, and you’re going to have to go it alone.”
“Fine. Do you think Gus would help me?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re not exactly Gus’s favorite person in the world.
Besides, he needs this job. He’s got a daughter to take care of. He’s not gonna stick his dick on the line because you got some wild idea that this thing is worth money.”
“But Gus was just as mad about going home as everybody else. Maybe even more so.”
“Yeah, but mad don’t mean crazy. Let’s say you somehow manage to steal that thing. What happens when you find out it’s some worthless magician’s prop that fell off a cruise ship?”
“It doesn’t matter what it’s worth to me. It is obviously worth something to the Captain. That alone is reason enough to take it.”
Frank eyed his cousin for a moment.
“What’s this really about?” he asked. “Why are you so hell-bent on doing this?”
Culann paused before answering, “I need to do something, Frank. Something big.”
“Why?”
“To make up for what I did.”
“C’mon, Culann, You said yourself that it was all a misunderstanding. There’s no sense getting yourself killed because some little girl’s daddy went ape shit.”
“Whatever happened changed my life. It doesn’t matter if I was culpable or not. I can’t go back to the way things used to be. I need to start a new life up here, and to do that I need to become a new person. A month at sea would have done that, but the Captain took it away from me.”
“What’s the difference between two weeks and a month? You’re already a hell of a lot tougher than you were when you got here.”
“The difference is that I set out to do a month, not two weeks. The goal doesn’t matter, but once the goal is set, I need to achieve it. Since I can’t do a month at sea, I need to do something else.”
“Okay, but why do have to steal this thing from the Captain? Why don’t you pick some other stupid scheme that won’t get you shot? Hell, we can get on another ship, and then you go prove how tough you are to some other crew.”
“It’s not about proving anything to the crew. This is about me. Stealing the orb from the Captain is what popped in my head, and I can’t forget it now. The fact that it’s so hard tells me I’m on the right track. It’s got to be something big — this is like the Labors of Heracles.”
“The what?”
“Never mind. Just help me figure out how to do this.”
“I told you, you’re on your own here. I can’t get mixed up in this.”
“I’m not asking you to help me steal it. Just help me figure out how I can steal it.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Frank asked. “I don’t know where it is. I don’t know how you’re going to slip onto the bridge without the Captain shooting you full of holes.”
“I know that,” Culann replied. “I need you to help me figure out how to get Gus to help me.”
I’ve had some time—a lot of time, actually—to think about all of the choices I made that led me to my current predicament. Stealing the orb is pretty high on the list.
For one thing, it was really out of character for me. This is why Frank had such a hard time figuring out why I was doing it. He was the adventure-seeker. I was generally more concerned about my own comfort.
This isn’t entirely true, though. In stealing the orb, I acted on an impulse. To the extent I even considered the consequences, I underestimated them. (Although there was of course no way I could have foreseen what happened, I should have known something bad would happen.) It was this type of behavior that got me exiled to Alaska in the first place.
So maybe all of my bad choices were part of one big character flaw. I suppose this should be reassuring, since it means I can become a decent human being by just fixing that one flaw. I just hope that flaw is not too big to fix.
And that I have enough time left to fix it.
Enlisting Gus’s aid proved less challenging than they’d thought. The old man wouldn’t help them steal the orb, of course, and they were pretty sure he’d rat them out if he found out what they were up to. But as long as he didn’t know they were planning to steal the orb, he’d have no reason to consider its whereabouts privileged information. It was simply a matter of striking up a conversation and eliciting the necessary information.
This is where Frank came in. Gus had spent the last seventeen days abusing Culann, so Culann had been doing his best to avoid the first mate, even when off the clock. He couldn’t now plop down next to Gus and start shooting the breeze without arousing suspicion. But Frank had earned the man’s respect—or at least tolerance—and it wouldn’t be out of character for him to chat with Gus.
At breakfast on their last day at sea, Gus sat alone at the end of one of the long, cafeteria-style tables in the mess. He normally ate with the other old-timers, but on this day he bore the brunt of the crew’s anger against the Captain. He responded to the ostracism with uncharacteristic good cheer. He smiled at nothing and made a great show of savoring his thirty-fourth straight serving of fresh-caught cod. It looked to Culann like the old man was working hard to show how little the crew’s ire bothered him.
“They leave you alone?” Frank said with his own forced smile as he sat down across from Gus. “Must be the smell.”
“You’re not exactly a perfume ad yourself, smartass,” Gus replied. His posture relaxed, and he allowed his artificial smile to fade into his usual scowl.
“What about you, greenhorn?” he asked Culann, who hovered in mock nervousness above his cousin. “You gonna eat with me, or you giving me the cold shoulder, too?”
“Come on, cuz,” Frank said, “he won’t bite.”
Culann tried to project an air of surrender as he sat down next to his cousin.
“So it looks like you’re getting off easy,” Gus said to Culann.
“I was just getting the hang of things when the Captain called it off. I could have gone another couple of weeks.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Gus replied.
“What do you think, Gus?” Frank asked. “Why do you think we’re going home?”
“No clue.”
“McGillicuddy thinks it’s the orb,” Frank continued.
“The what?” Gus responded.
“That weird ball Culann fished out.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
“Fine,” Frank said. “Do you think the weird ball has anything to do with why we’re heading home?”
“Maybe.”
“What did the Captain say about it when you brought it to him?”
“He didn’t say anything. First he sent me out to see what you dickheads were gawking at. I got standing orders to bring anything unusual we find straight to him. When I brought it back to him, he just said, ‘Let me see that.’ So I gave it to him.”
“What did he do with it?”
“He just looked at it for a while and rubbed his fingers over the writing. Looked to me like he was just trying to figure out what the hell it was, just like you idiots were.”
“You think he’s gonna keep it?”
“Looks like it. I saw him stuff it in a backpack under his bed.”
“Where’s his bed?” Frank asked.
Gus shot him a perplexed look. Culann bit his lip. They had all the information they needed, and now Frank was coming on too strong.
“What’s with all the questions?” Gus asked.
“Nothing, it’s just…” Frank’s voice trailed off.
“We’re just curious,” Culann interjected. “Aren’t you? We all think the orb is the reason we’re going home and we’d love to know just what it is.”
“What’s this got to do with me?”
“Could you ask the Captain for us?” Culann asked with the most naïve expression he could muster.
Gus burst out laughing. Frank supplied a laugh of his own, a little wooden for Culann’s taste, but Gus seemed to buy it.
“Go ask him yourself,” Gus said with a grin. “I dare you to go knock on the cabin door right now and ask him.”
“I tried telling him, Gus,” Frank said with a wooden smile. “But you know how those college boys are. They gotta know the answer to everything.”
“Kid, there’s some things you’re just better off not knowing.”
Culann and Frank were topside, leaning against the rail at the bow. The waves came short and choppy from the east, slowing the ship’s progress. A haze of clouds obscured the sun and cooled the air. A few miles out, lightning bit down on the horizon.
They only had a few hours until they hit port.
“How do you think this is going to play out?” Culann asked.
“Beats me,” Frank replied.
“Do you think Worner and McGillicuddy will help us?” Culann asked.
“Why not? I’m sure they’d love to see you get your head blown off.”
“Okay, but what about the cannonball? Do you think he’ll let us have it?”
“Ah, that’s going to have to be handled just right.”
The two headed down to the mess. McGillicuddy and Worner sat together at a table, sharing a can of concentrated orange juice. A few other anglers played poker at another table. It was odd for Culann to see the crew gone idle. The frenetic pace of the past two-and-a-half weeks had seemed an immutable aspect of the Orthrus.
The four huddled together for a few minutes while Culann explained the plan.
“You’re really going through with this?” Worner asked.
“Yes,” Culann replied. “Everyone is upset with the Captain, and I am going to make it right.”
“You’re nuts,” McGillicuddy said.
“You may be right,” Culann said, “but you have to agree that it would be nice to pull one over on the Captain.”
“Yeah,” McGillicuddy replied, “but is it worth it?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Culann said. “I never planned to make a career out of this, so if I get caught, it’s no big deal to me. And I’ll take full responsibility if anything goes wrong. I won’t let on that any of you knew anything about this.”
“It’s not the job, greenhorn,” Worner said. “He’ll kill you.”
“Not if we do this right.”
Worner and McGillicuddy and even Frank seemed to look at Culann with a certain level of respect that hadn’t been there before. This whole idea was absolutely asinine, but Culann was filled with determination and confidence when he spoke of it.
Without quite understanding how they’d reached this point, all four men had become convinced that stealing the orb held some significance beyond the childish prank it appeared to be.
“Okay, greenhorn,” Worner said. “What do you want from us?”
“We need your cannonball,” Frank said.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Worner said. “My granddad gave that to me.”
“What would you rather have?” Culann asked. “A hundred-and-fifty-year-old Civil War cannonball or a three-thousand-year-old artifact from the lost city of Atlantis?”
Worner reached back and tugged on his ponytail. Culann bit back a smile. Frank had been right about how to appeal to Worner.
“But it’s my good luck charm.”
“You’re damn right it is,” Frank said. “That’s why it brought you here. The cannonball led you to the most amazing find in the history of the world. You give us the cannonball, we’ll give you the Atlantis orb.”
“I get to keep it?”
“Absolutely,” Culann said. “If you provide the financing for this venture, you reap the profits.”
“I thought you were going to try to sell it to make up for the money we’re losing.”
“That’s still on option,” Culann said. “But it will be your decision. I don’t really care about the money. The mission itself is all I care about.”
“So what’s in it for me?” McGillicuddy asked.
“Come on,” Frank said. “You heard the plan. You know damn well that you can’t resist playing a prank this big — this is worth at least ten greenhorn fishslaps.”
“Fair enough,” McGillicuddy said with a smile. “I’m in if Worner is.”
“Okay,” Worner said after a moment’s reflection. “What else you need?”
“We’re going to need a diversion,” Culann said.
McGillicuddy’s blue eyes sparkled. “You leave that up to me.”
They finalized the plan and then assumed their positions. They were about ninety minutes out of port and could see the craggy coastline climbing out of the black water ahead. They were hoping the Captain would go for one last cigar before docking; if he didn’t, the whole plan went out the porthole. They’d have about five minutes to grab the orb while the Captain strolled around the deck a couple of times. Frank and Culann stood by the rail on the starboard side, about twenty feet from the door to the bridge. They wanted to keep within eyeshot without being too conspicuous.
Forty-five minutes later, the plan unfolded. The Captain stepped onto the deck, paused to light his cigar, and then ambled away. He walked with measured steps and he paused often to lean against the rail and look up at the heavy clouds above. Culann hoped the rain would hold off until they were done, lest it force the Captain to cut his stroll short.
With the Captain out of the way, that just left Gus. Culann and Frank couldn’t move until McGillicuddy completed his diversion. The cousins stood at the rail, muscles tensed, just waiting for Worner’s signal. The seconds felt like hours, and Culann began to doubt the reliability of the two rednecks who were so vital to the success of the mission.
And then they heard Worner’s weathered voice call out from the deck: “Man overboard!”
The engines shut down, causing Culann to lurch forward as the ship slowed.
Frank caught him. The door to the bridge flew open, and Gus charged out onto the deck.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, “I thought I was done babysitting these little faggots.”
When Gus had gone far enough away, Frank darted to the bridge, and Culann followed as quickly as he could with a cannonball jammed in his jockeys. Culann was expecting to see a large wooden wheel like in pirate movies, but the bridge looked more like the cockpit of a passenger jet. The wheel itself was indistinguishable from the steering wheel on a car, but it was surrounded by high-tech equipment with digital displays and an array of switches, buttons and dials.
“Over there,” Frank whispered, pointing to a small door at the back of the bridge.
The Captain’s quarters were small and Spartan, although far more luxurious than the cramped berths the crew members wedged themselves into each night. Shelves built into the wall held the Captain’s clothes, a few books on weather and navigation, and a pair of expensive-looking binoculars. A twin bed on a metal frame that was bolted to the floor took up most of the room. The bed was made, the blanket stretched so tight that no creases could be seen. Underneath were two black suitcases and an army-green knapsack.
“That’s gotta be it,” Frank said.
Culann bent down and pulled the bag out from under the bed. It was heavy. He unzipped the top and saw the orb there, wrapped in a white t-shirt.
“Okay, hurry up,” Frank said.
Culann pulled Worner’s cannonball from his underwear and dropped it in the knapsack. He unwrapped the orb, which was about twice as heavy as the cannonball, and stuffed it down his pants. His leg tingled as the orb made contact with his skin. He wrapped the cannonball up in the t-shirt and zipped the knapsack shut. The switch wouldn’t hold up under close scrutiny, but the cannonball was close enough in size and weight that the Captain might not notice.
“Be careful,” Frank said as Culann slid the knapsack back under the bed. “You gotta get it exactly right. A dude who makes his bed this perfectly is gonna notice if something’s out of place.”
Culann did his best, although he hadn’t paid close enough attention to the bag’s placement when he first saw it. He’d been too focused on grabbing the orb. It was heavy, too heavy for his underwear to hold, so he held his left hand over his crotch to support the orb’s weight. With his right hand, he pulled the hem of his t-shirt over the top to try to cover it all up. He hoped this would allow them to escape detection long enough to get the orb below deck, but he knew they’d be quickly found out if someone saw the obvious bulge in his pants.
“Let’s go,” Frank said.
They cut through the bridge and glanced out a porthole. A crowd of sailors huddled near the starboard side. McGillicuddy and Worner had done well. They just needed to slip past the commotion and drop the orb off in their bunks.
“What are you two doing?”
The voice was commanding and measured. It was almost mechanical with the hint of an echo, as if it had bounced off canyon walls rather than a man’s throat. The voice dug deep into the pit of Culann’s stomach.
The Captain stood before them. Though his eyes were obscured by his ever-present sunglasses, Culann could feel them scanning his face, searching for signs of deception, signs of weakness. The Captain brought the stub of his cigar up to his mouth with his left hand, while his right slid under his jacket to where his pistol undoubtedly waited. Culann tried to swallow, but the saliva had evaporated from his mouth. He heard a click as the Captain’s hand emerged from beneath his jacket.
“We went in to shut off the engine,” Frank blurted out. “After we heard the ‘man overheard’ call.”
The Captain turned his impassive face toward Frank. Culann shifted his weight ever so slightly to try to hide the bulge at his groin. Frank squared up his shoulders, as if fortifying himself against the Captain’s overpowering gaze. All three men stood silently for a few moments.
“Never go on the bridge. Ever.”
With that, the Captain strode forward, forcing Frank and Culann to scurry out of the way. They turned and raced to their quarters, never once looking back. Down below, Culann crammed the orb into his duffel bag and then exhaled for the first time since hearing the Captain’s voice.
They headed topside to join the throng surrounding McGillicuddy, who sat shivering on the deck, wrapped in a blanket. He glanced up at them and smiled as Frank gave him a thumbs-up. Worner slid behind the two cousins and gave them each a fatherly squeeze on the shoulder. They’d just about pulled it off.
Culann took a moment to soak in the exhilaration of his victory. With the engines idle, the Orthrus bobbed calmly on the waves, and Culann felt relaxed for the first time since they’d embarked. He observed the total absence of color in the world around him.
The ship was the color of old gym socks, while the sea beneath them was black. The jagged coastline on the horizon was a pile of gray rocks, and the sky above was a swirling mass of dark clouds. He’d soon be on dry land, where he could start planning the next phase of his life, whatever that might entail.
As if it had been patiently waiting for Culann to first complete his mission, the rain chose that very moment to come pouring down. There had been no preamble of droplets. When the rain came, it came in earnest. Within seconds, Culann was soaked through to the skin, and the men scampered below deck and crowded into the mess, which quickly assumed the musty odor of wet dog. Culann yearned for a shower.
He and his co-conspirators sat together at one of the tables, but it was too crowded for them to discuss what they had done. The four men just grinned at one another.
McGillicuddy and Worner hadn’t yet been told of the close call with the Captain, a story Culann was already working through in his head to maximize its narrative impact on these strange men who were now his friends.
“Why haven’t they started the engines yet?” Frank wondered.
“Beats me,” said McGillicuddy. “That son of a bitch was in such a hurry to get home, you’d think we’d be high-tailin’ right now.”
“Hell, I’m ready to go home,” Worner said. “I don’t want to spend any more time cooped up in this sardine can with you creeps.”
“Something’s wrong,” Culann said. His throat tightened up.
The entire crew of the Orthrus looked up at once as Gus stood in the doorway to the mess. His eyes were narrow, and his scowl dug deeper than usual.
“Greenhorn, Frank,” he called out. All eyes turned towards the cousins.
“The Captain wants to see the both of you.”
“What were you two doing in here earlier?”
Frank and Culann leaned against the back wall of the bridge. The Captain stood before them, his face just inches away from theirs. He was even taller than Frank, so he towered over Culann, who felt like a child in the principal’s office. Except that he didn’t know any principals who carried guns under their jackets. Gus glared at Culann from over the Captain’s shoulder.
“We told you, Cap,” Frank said. “We went in to kill engines.”
The Captain let out a short, disdainful sigh. The pistol materialized in his right hand. He jammed it into Frank’s stomach.
“Gus killed the engines, not you. If you don’t tell me what you did, I’m going to kill you.”
“We didn’t do anything, uh, sir,” Culann stammered. “I just was curious. I wanted to see what it looked like in here. Frank didn’t have anything to do with it. He just came in to tell me that I wasn’t supposed to be in here. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
The gun now pressed against Culann’s ribs.
“You expect me to believe that?”
The Captain’s imperious voice boomed in concert with the thunder crashing outside. Culann pressed his body back as far as he could against the wall, as if he could press hard enough to pass through it. The gun dug into his side, and he resisted the urge to try to push it away with his hand.
“It’s the truth, sir.”
“Then why won’t the engines start?” the Captain shouted.
“Engines, sir?” Culann replied, genuinely puzzled.
“The goddamned engines won’t start. The radio is out, too. I find it hard to believe that you two just happened to be messing around in here before everything stopped working, and that the two events are not somehow related.”
“Honestly, Cap,” Frank said, “we didn’t touch anything in here.”
The gun wedged again into Frank’s broad belly.
“So it’s just a coincidence, is that it?”
“It must be, Cap. Maybe it was the storm. We could’ve gotten struck by lightning.”
“It makes sense, Captain,” Gus said. “I got an easier time believing we got zapped than that these two dipshits were smart enough to sabotage the ship.”
The Captain stood silently for a moment, the gun still all that separated him from Frank. Then he stepped back and slid his weapon back under his jacket. He jerked his thumb toward the door. Frank and Culann ducked their heads and hurried out into the deluge on the deck.
With the engines out and no working radio, the Orthrus bobbed on the stormy sea within sight of land for half a day before another ship came along. The whole time, Culann feared the Captain would peek under his bed and find the orb missing. But the Captain was fortunately preoccupied with the ship’s mechanical difficulties and efforts to arrange a tug back to shore. While the Captain, Gus, and a few of the handier sailors struggled with the engines, the rest of the crew lounged in absolute boredom down in the mess. Crammed together with thoughts of frustration on their minds and home tantalizingly out of reach, a few scuffles broke out. Worner busied himself by duct-taping the combatants’ wounds.
The storm broke around dusk, about which time a ship came close enough to see a few dozen sailors waving frantically from the deck. About an hour later, a tugboat pulled the Orthrus back into Three Fingers. When they disembarked, Culann stumbled as his feet felt the firmness of earth for the first time in over two weeks and he toppled to his knees. The other members of the crew, more accustomed to the transitions between land and sea, snickered at him as they shoved by. He was still a greenhorn, after all.
Twenty minutes later, they all boarded the ferry bound for Pyrite. As the boat pulled away, Culann watched the Captain smoke a cigar on the deck of the Orthrus while waiting for mechanics to arrive. The Captain shrank as the ferry neared Pyrite and then disappeared. For good, Culann hoped.
“You know what day it is?” Frank asked.
Culann had lost track of time almost immediately after going out to sea. He knew they’d been gone for seventeen days because others had said so, but he’d been too overwhelmed and exhausted to count the days himself. He couldn’t recall when they’d gone to sea.
“It’s the Fourth of July,” Frank said with a grin. “Party time.”