68 Knots (19 page)

Near the bow, Joy gazed down at the seals with an expression of deep affection. “
Muy bonito
. Very beautiful,” she said to Jesse. “They look like cute, patient little friends.”

Jesse nodded, his homemade tattoos rippling in the sweaty sunlight. “They stick together. Like family.”

“What do you think their view of the world is?” Joy asked.

“Peaceful,” Jesse said. “Peaceful and relaxed and trusting. Not bad. Lie around in the sun. Spend time with each other. Dive into the water and eat all the food you want. Always trusting your friends to keep you safe. Friends and family.”

Joy shook her head slowly. “They're so lucky,” she said.

In the stern, at the wheel, Logan suddenly grinned. “Hey!” he called out, spotting a chance to be a hero for once. “Is anyone else, like, thinking what I'm thinking?”

Marietta scowled. “I doubt it,” she said.

“Steaks,” Logan said.

Marietta eased herself back down on her mat, rolled her T-shirt up into a tight tuck across her chest, and sighed. “We've been over that,” she said. “With juniper.”

“Not
those
steaks,” Logan said. He gestured toward the seals. “
These
steaks. We've caught lobsters to feed ourselves. So like, why not catch a seal?”

“What are you talking about?” Marietta said drowsily.

“For dinner,” Logan said. “We'll row over to those rocks in the dinghy, and we'll go on, like, a seal hunt! Ready—aim—fire! We'll bring back fresh seal steaks for everyone!”

It didn't take long for word of Logan's idea to spread throughout the ship. The crew gathered around the wheel.

“Count me out,” Arthur said. “For all we know, seal meat tastes like shit. I mean that literally. Besides, I'm not going to kill some seal just because we're tired of eating ham.”

“Neither am I,” Dawn said, her green eyes angry. “These creatures have done us no harm, and it would be cruel to shatter their lives with our greed.”

“Actually, I don't see the difference,” Joy said. The others stared at her in surprise. “Look, I take live lobsters, drop them into boiling water, and clamp a lid on so they can't get out. To eat, we have to kill. God gave us these animals so we could live. If you get your food from a supermarket, that just means you have someone else do the killing for you.”

The argument continued until Logan raised his hand. “Excuse me, everyone!” he said. “I'm totally going on a seal hunt, and whoever wants to come along can go. If you don't like it, don't go—and don't eat the steaks. Now who's going with me?”

Joy agreed to go, which surprised everyone again. “Hey,” she said, “I'd rather hunt for food than steal it.” BillFi joined also. Crystal looked over at the seals, then she shook her head.

“Not me,” she said. “My money is on the seals.”

“That makes three of us,” Logan said. “That's perfect. Now—we'll need something to use as clubs.”

Crystal nodded. “Belaying pins,” she said.

“What pins?” Logan asked.

“Belaying pins, nimrod,” Crystal said, putting her hands on her hips. “Long wooden pins with handles on the ends. Perfect for cracking a skull.”

“Where are they?” Logan asked.

“Right over there.” Crystal pointed to the rigging on the starboard side. “Help yourself.”

“Then we're all set,” Logan said. “Let's drop anchor and get started.”

A short while later, the seal hunters hunkered down in the dinghy, trying not to scare their prey. Their bare feet chilled in the puddle of seawater that always seemed to slosh on the dinghy floor. Logan rowed the boat slowly across the water toward a small cluster of glistening seal-covered rocks. BillFi, crouched in the bow, whispered back that eight seals were basking just up ahead. Joy, next to him, shrugged. She could see nothing but an undulating mass of beige fur.

“Here's the plan,” Logan wheezed. He felt excited at the prospect of leading an adventure. He grinned as the others looked to him for guidance. When I bring back a big seal and we all have seal steaks tonight, he thought, Crystal will pay attention to me then. She'll have to. I'll be a hero.

He paused at the oars and peered ahead through sunglasses and the low brim of a baseball cap. “We'll, like, glide up to the rocks very quietly, tie up on a rock, and get out. Then we'll creep up to a seal, and when I nod, we'll swing our clubs and totally hit it in the head. Badda-bam! We'll have to be quick so we don't scare it away.”

The others nodded. Joy moved her arm slowly and pointed ahead.

“We're almost there,” she whispered. “We should get out right there between those two rocks.”

“Okay,” Logan said. “We'll wait till the water is, like, shallow, then we'll go. Jump out at my command.”

He guided the dinghy between the rocks, and Joy got ready to jump. The boat was just five feet away from dry granite. Logan raised his hand.

“No!” BillFi said to Logan. “Too soon! We're not—”

“NOW!” Logan whispered. Joy swung her legs over the rail, pushed off, and vanished deep under the water.

On board the
Dreadnought
, Arthur was watching the action through binoculars. It was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud.

Joy lunged up through the surface, sputtering, and grabbed onto the dinghy's rail.

“I thought you said to—” she said.

BillFi laughed. “I tried to tell you,” he said. “I tried to tell you. It gets deep really fast here. Really deep. You have to get out on the dry rock, or you could be in twenty feet of water. It gets deep really fast here.”

“Great,” Joy said. “
Muchas gracias
. Thanks for telling me.”

BillFi looked crestfallen. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I tried. I'm sorry.”

With Joy holding onto the rail, Logan rowed the boat closer to the rocks. Joy tossed her belaying pins onto the granite and scrambled up out of the water.

The seals were gone.

“Oh, shit,” BillFi said, pushing his glasses higher up his nose. “They're not here. They're gone. Not here anymore. Let's go find another rock.”

Logan rowed the hunters a few hundred feet farther into the bay, and they started the drill over again. They kept their heads down, they waited without a sound, and—when the boat was bumping against hard rock—they clambered over the rail.

“Get down!” Logan whispered. They dropped to their bellies. The ashen granite was cool and rough, and it smelled of moss and seagull droppings. The hunters lay low and motionless.

“Okay,” Logan said. “Follow me.” He raised his head slowly. Twenty yards in front of him were a dozen seals, slowly raising
their heads. “This way.” He squirmed forward on his stomach, clutching a belaying pin in his right hand. After about ten yards, he stopped. “Lie still,” he wheezed. “Let them, like, calm down. Get used to us.”

The three hunters pressed their cheeks against the ragged rock. They didn't move. Three minutes went by, then Logan looked up.

Twenty yards in front of him were a dozen seals, watching him closely.

“Shit! They keep moving away,” he said. “Let's try it again, but stay low this time! Lll–oooooo–www!”

They crawled forward another ten yards. Logan looked up. The seals looked back at him. They were twenty yards away.

“Damn it!” Logan whispered. “Somebody isn't staying low enough. They totally keep seeing us.”

“Logan,” Joy said. “I have a feeling it doesn't matter how low we go. Watch this.”

She stood up.

The seals didn't move.

“Hello, seals,” Joy called out in a loud voice. “
Buenas dias
. Lovely day, isn't it? God does good work, wouldn't you say?”

They didn't move.

“You can get up now,” Joy said to her friends clinging to the granite at her feet. “We're not fooling anyone.”

The others stood up and brushed the moss and rock chips off their clothes.

“I don't think we're going to catch them,” BillFi said. “I don't think we're going to get close enough. I don't think we're going to catch them.”

“Yes, we will,” Logan said. “Now that we know we can stand up, it's, like, that much easier! Get your clubs ready. See
that big dark one over there? Seals can't move very fast on land. When I say ‘Go,' we'll all run over to it and totally hit it on the head. It'll be quick, and we'll get our seal.”

The seal Logan pointed to was large, fat, and chocolate brown, with white whiskers that stuck out like porcupine quills. It wasn't looking at them. It was resting in the sun, eyes closed, about ten yards from the water's edge.

“Get ready,” Logan said.

The hunters turned slowly to face their target.

“Get set.”

The hunters gripped their belaying pins.

“GO!”

The hunters bolted. They dashed across the rock, leaping nimbly over cracks and ridges. In an instant, they were almost upon their prey. They raised their belaying pins, drew in close—and the seal rolled over twice toward the ocean. Logan dove through the air toward it, his belaying pin raised high. He landed with a curse on the rocks, his belaying pin jammed painfully beneath his shoulder. Joy tumbled after the seal, but the seal shifted subtly, and Joy scrambled into waist-deep, chilly water. BillFi tried to anticipate its movements, darting this way and that. The seal anticipated his movements, darted that way and this, and left him standing alone on a rock. Then, apparently bored with the antics, the stout seal yawned, let fly with an audible belch, and flipped into the ocean.

It bobbed to the surface about twenty yards out and watched the three hunters standing still, sunburned and bleeding and hot, their belaying pins drooping downward.

Logan shook his head, wincing as he moved his skinned knees and scraped elbows. “Ham,” he said, flicking his hair away from his face. “I totally like ham. Don't you like ham? I
love ham. Some of my favorite food is ham. Fuck these seals. Let's get back to the ship.”

The others nodded. The
Dreadnought
seemed far away, but it also felt like home.

“
Muy bueno
. We love ham,” Joy said quietly. “Especially that canned kind with that yellow jelly all around the outside. I love that stuff.”

“Shit,” Logan said. He could feel his chance to impress Crystal slipping swiftly away.

Back on the
Dreadnought
that evening, the other sailors were supportive—at least, as supportive as they could be without laughing. They sat around the dining table, beneath Joy's latest Bible sign, which read, “With God all things are possible—Matthew 19:26,” eating a delicious ham and potato-au-gratin casserole Dawn had prepared.

“I had a hunch we'd need it,” she said. Logan sighed. No one had any faith in him at all, he thought, and he wasn't sure they were wrong.

Jesse raised his rum and Tang. As he grinned, the fresh green-and-black tattoos on his jaws stretched outward. “Noble hunters,” he said. “Loyal to the end.”

“To the hunters!” everyone cheered as they toasted their friends. Everyone except for Marietta. She brushed her hair and scowled. “It was a stupid idea,” she said. “You people looked like idiots out there.”

Arthur stood and held up his wine with a flourish. “My friends,” he said, bending his deep voice into something like a British accent, “there comes a time in the history of all great ships when some members of the crew must sacrifice everything—dignity, composure, even grace—in the interest of educating and enlightening the others on board. Our fearless
hunters, of course, could have captured a dozen seals easily, but that wouldn't have served their higher purpose. No, my friends, they were intent on reminding us all that food is not to be taken for granted. They were intent on teaching us of the difficulties and challenges that face those who rely on the earth and sea for sustenance. They were intent on demonstrating for us the staggering odds that hunters must overcome every day. They did not set out to replace our ham, my friends. No! They set out to replace our tired and cynical attitudes. They set out to replace our contempt for ham with appreciation, with admiration, with affection. They accomplished their goal in fine fashion, and we shall be eternally in their debt.”

He drank a swallow of wine and raised his glass again. “And they looked damn silly doing it!” he said.

“Damn silly!” cheered the others.

Logan grinned and shook his head. “Shit,” he said. He raised his glass and drank.