Heartbroke Bay (22 page)
Authors: Lynn D'urso
Three weeks of cold rain. The creeks swell and can be heard roaring from the mountainsides
.
Dutch develops a gagging, phlegm-spitting cough that tears at his boney chest. The leather of their boots never dries; their feet grow wrinkled and soft. The ringing, back-and-forth cries of ravens resonate among the trees. Probing and persistent, the ceaseless litany of
kawks
,
klook-klook
s, and pealing bell calls digs at Hans, stirring unnamed fears in his superstitious Viking blood. His grandfather’s Old World phrase for a flock of the black birds was
an unkindness
of ravens, and the old man delighted in frightening young Hans with the legend of Odin’s pets, Hugin and Munin, who perch on the angry god’s shoulders every morning to whisper the news of the world in his ear, particularly the misdeeds of young boys.
.
Dutch develops a gagging, phlegm-spitting cough that tears at his boney chest. The leather of their boots never dries; their feet grow wrinkled and soft. The ringing, back-and-forth cries of ravens resonate among the trees. Probing and persistent, the ceaseless litany of
kawks
,
klook-klook
s, and pealing bell calls digs at Hans, stirring unnamed fears in his superstitious Viking blood. His grandfather’s Old World phrase for a flock of the black birds was
an unkindness
of ravens, and the old man delighted in frightening young Hans with the legend of Odin’s pets, Hugin and Munin, who perch on the angry god’s shoulders every morning to whisper the news of the world in his ear, particularly the misdeeds of young boys.
Early one morning Hannah hears the shotgun bark once, then again, as Hans fires a fusillade into the trees. The report of the shotgun wipes out all other sounds, stilling the shrieking of an eagle and the brassy call of a jay. But the outraged cries of the
unkindness
of ravens fade slowly into the trees, profaning the gunman as they go.
unkindness
of ravens fade slowly into the trees, profaning the gunman as they go.
Dutch’s cough worsens. One day he returns from prospecting the beach west of the diggings with a fantastic story of having seen an odd bear. “Strange-colored animal, sorta shiny all over. Silver, he was. Or maybe gold. Big bugger, too.” He persists so hopefully and insistently in the face of Hans’s mockery that Hannah worries that his cough has brought a feverish delusion.
Harky does not speak for days. He is a prodigy of labor, burning away unnamed angers by digging without cease, hauling and shoring, carting and cutting. The
thok
of his ax knocking cordwood into stove wood resounds into the night.
thok
of his ax knocking cordwood into stove wood resounds into the night.
Hans mutters darkly, measuring and remeasuring the sparsity of his gold.
Dear Diary,There was an earthquake in the night. Hans describes it as a “small one,” and mocks my fright. The others felt and heard nothing as they slept aboard the boat. There was a rumbling sound beforehand that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, then a trembling of the ground that rattled the pots and pans. It was quite the most frightening experience of my life and has left me quite nervous. All day I have been starting at the slightest sound. It gives one a feeling of terrible helplessness to feel that even the earth itself can no longer be trusted.
July advances into August, with summer growing weaker and the days becoming shorter; night assumes a larger role in the order of things. Once again, stars appear as points of light overhead, and when the moon is full, the icy white surface of the glacier shines between crenellated, black-shadowed walls. At night, the wind bites with teeth sharpened over the ice field, but during the day, the land basks in a warm breeze.
Hannah sighs with relief. At last the rains have eased, bringing a few days of blue, marshmallow-clouded skies, and for a change the take from the sluice box has been generous. Hans’s mood is much improved at the evening meal.
The warm amber light of the lantern falls around the miners as they sit down to heaping plates of bannock and beans, its golden color matched by a glow behind the peaks to the east that hints at a moonrise to come. A fast-moving cloud bank moves in from the west, eating up the sky, throwing a shadow across the stars, and by the time Hannah has scoured and rinsed the dishes, a crescent moon has risen, slid across the sky into the oncoming clouds. Throughout the night, the wind clocks west, south, then west again, gathering its energy.
At first light the sky turns the color of a gun. The wind begins to rise, sucking the canvas roof into loose billowing shapes that snap and crack above the roar of heavy surf.
The rain begins as an intermittent mist that steadies into a downpour, as the miners trudge away to their work. Hannah stands in the doorway, watching the stones of the beach go dark and shining and the color of the sea change to match the sky.
Driven by the wind and the pull of the moon, saltwater brims into the bay until it laps into the beach grass along the rim of the fjord. When the tide turns, the outrushing water boils through the channel, slamming head-on into the incoming surf. Alone, Hannah struggles to secure the roof with a lashing of lines and strategically placed cobbles, but the wind fights unfairly, twisting its hold on the canvas, flinging her aside. She wonders that the storm has not driven the men from the diggings and curses the bright light of gold, which so thrills, stupefies, and blinds that anyone would consider its pursuit in such weather.
The rain becomes blinding, rendering the mountains and ocean invisible beyond its dark wall, and when it eases, Hannah sees the furious, windblown bay seething about the cutter.
Tara Keane
bucks against her anchor line, hobbyhorsing and plunging, ducking the angry spray. A small iceberg fallen free from the glacier passes the cutter, sailing absurdly into the face of the wind. It takes Hannah a moment to realize that the bulk of its body, seven-tenths submerged, is being swept so strongly by the falling tide that it overcomes the wind pushing in from the west. Charging like a buffalo straight into the eye of the wind, the ice is at first perplexing to Hannah for its oddity, but puzzlement quickly builds into alarm as another, larger berg appears from the gloom.
Tara Keane
bucks against her anchor line, hobbyhorsing and plunging, ducking the angry spray. A small iceberg fallen free from the glacier passes the cutter, sailing absurdly into the face of the wind. It takes Hannah a moment to realize that the bulk of its body, seven-tenths submerged, is being swept so strongly by the falling tide that it overcomes the wind pushing in from the west. Charging like a buffalo straight into the eye of the wind, the ice is at first perplexing to Hannah for its oddity, but puzzlement quickly builds into alarm as another, larger berg appears from the gloom.
Looming larger than the cutter, the second is a massive blue and white juggernaut untroubled by the waves breaking against its base. Hannah stares in frozen panic as it trundles on a course calculated to take it directly and inevitably into the ship. She sprints for the cabin, emerges with the shotgun, raises it to her shoulder and fires. Anyone watching would think her desperately insane: The shotgun has no more effect on the iceberg than it would on a slow-moving train. She fires again, drops the firearm, and clutches at her bruised shoulder before crying out, “Dear God!” and screaming into the wind “Hans! Harky! Help, for the love of God, help!”
The iceberg spins slowly, seeming to stall for a moment. The surf roars and dares it to keep coming; the frozen blue monster rolls and bobs slightly, as if nodding its acceptance of the challenge.
Tara
bucks like a frightened horse, kicking and rising, slamming at her tether.
Tara
bucks like a frightened horse, kicking and rising, slamming at her tether.
Hannah scrambles to reload the shotgun, frantic to signal the men. The report—an impotent
pop
—is torn away by the wind. The sound of the ice taking the cutter comes to her as a terrible grating, the crunch of a predator gnawing at a bone.
pop
—is torn away by the wind. The sound of the ice taking the cutter comes to her as a terrible grating, the crunch of a predator gnawing at a bone.
Stung by the rain, she sinks to the ground, throws her arms around her knees, and wails a death song for the cutter.
ELEVEN
“From hell to breakfast.”
This is how Harky describes the shattering of
Tara Keane
’s bones along the shore. “Just broke and scattered from hell to breakfast.”
Tara Keane
’s bones along the shore. “Just broke and scattered from hell to breakfast.”
The men stand aghast at the tangle of kindling and cordage awash in the surf. The pounding of the waves has chopped the cutter to pieces, dispersed the splinters along the beach, and begun to cover them with sand. Sodden articles of clothing lie scattered about the shore; a shirt with one arm akimbo, the other flung up in boneless despair; Harky’s union suit beaten into the sand and bent at the waist, its legs and arms kiltered at impossible angles. As they watch, the mast comes ashore, its once-slender length broken to pieces and formed into a haphazard bundle by the random knotting of halyards and downhauls.
It is Dutch who moves first, sprinting into the surf to grab at the miscellany of salvage that is all that remains of their supplies: a pot, a shirt, a short piece of line. Harky snags the broken mast by a tail of the halyard and heaves it shore. Hans grabs at a small wooden box of dried apples, but misses. Michael slumps and does nothing, standing in the rain and staring as his dream of a triumphant return to Ireland is broken across his shoulders and drowned.
A raven
hook-hook
’s from the forest; the grass behind Michael rustles with a sibilant slithering of fur. From within a bower of alders, the wrinkles of Negook’s old face deepen as he peers at the disaster, sniffing the wind. The sea smells of anger, the rain tastes of rage; Kah-Lituya is walking the land.
hook-hook
’s from the forest; the grass behind Michael rustles with a sibilant slithering of fur. From within a bower of alders, the wrinkles of Negook’s old face deepen as he peers at the disaster, sniffing the wind. The sea smells of anger, the rain tastes of rage; Kah-Lituya is walking the land.
We are in a frightful condition. Of food we have little; only what beans, rice, and dried fruit that were stored in the cabin; a few tins of tomatoes and one tin of milk that washed ashore; a metal bucket in which was stored cornmeal and barley (which has now been partially damaged by water); and a half pound of tea. Thank God Mr. Witt encouraged me to bring seeds for a garden, which now bears a few vegetables that will lend to our sustenance. Michael still has a shotgun, and a number of shells since he brought them into the cabin beforehand to protect them from the damp aboard the cutter.It was providential that I had chosen this day to wash and mend the men’s blankets, else all would have been lost. They are now without spare clothing, excepting a few items that came ashore from the wreck. Poor Michael is despondent and bitter, as are we all, with the exception of Harky, who is very brave and jokes about making “gold stew.”We must make preparations for a signal should a ship be sighted. Who can say when that might be? Has there ever been a more wretched party of castaways?
Michael and Harky are pegging together a bunk bed of rough timbers and planks. The small cabin is crowded now, with five people sleeping where once there were two. Dutch and Michael will have the new bunk beds, and Harky will sleep under the table. With no blanket to spare for a curtain, Hannah has had no privacy since the wreck, and the men must do her the courtesy of retiring outside “to check the weather” while she prepares for the night.
Harky aligns a board with a post, gripping it for Michael to peg. Hans toys with a knife and kindling, shaving long, slow curls into a pile at his feet. It has been three days since the iceberg took
Tara Keane
to her death, and no one has made any move to resume mining while they await rescue. A signal fire of logs and brush has been laid on the shore and covered with a scrap of mainsail. They’ve placed a pint of oil and matches at hand to light it quickly. They have devised a schedule of lookouts, with each person standing vigil for two hours throughout the day and night, in hopes of spotting a passing ship.
Tara Keane
to her death, and no one has made any move to resume mining while they await rescue. A signal fire of logs and brush has been laid on the shore and covered with a scrap of mainsail. They’ve placed a pint of oil and matches at hand to light it quickly. They have devised a schedule of lookouts, with each person standing vigil for two hours throughout the day and night, in hopes of spotting a passing ship.
Dutch is on watch. He sits on a stump at the side of the cabin, scratching random designs of his name in the sand with a stick. The weather has been decent since the storm, with bands of cloud lying across the tops of the mountains and the sun throwing out long shadows from the trees. Flocks of southbound shorebirds write twisting letters against the horizon, atwitter with the excitement of migration.
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