Zia (6 page)

I had noticed as I sat waiting in the galley that the man on watch had walked the deck on the opposite side of the ship. He had walked to the bow and then to the stern. Then he stayed at each place for several minutes, then walked slowly back. He never walked on the left side of the ship because casks of whale oil were piled there.

One of his boots squeaked and I could hear each step that he took. He was now at the stern. I looked around the corner of the galley door and saw him standing there by the wheel gazing out at the sea. The ship's ladder hung from the bulwarks, not far from where he stood.

I waited in the shadows until I heard the squeak of his boot pass the galley door. Quietly in my bare feet I slipped out and ran along the deck to the place near the captain's door where I was to meet Mando. He was not there. I could hear the squeak of the watchman's boot. He had reached the bow of the ship. He would stand there for a short time and then come back.

I decided that if Mando did not come at once I would go myself. There was a small moon and I could see the top of the ladder, the two iron hooks that held it to the bulwarks. I ran toward it, climbed over, and found the first step.

The sea was dark. The boats were tethered to a long boom at the bottom of the ladder. I heard a sound beneath me as I went down and as I came to the last rung I saw a figure crouching in one of the boats. It was Mando. I saw the dull flash of his knife. He was cutting the rope that held the first of the longboats. It was a boat that the captain used.

"Take ours," I whispered to him.

"It is the last one out," he answered.

Above me I heard the tread of the watchman moving back from the bow. I jumped into the boat where Mando was hacking at the rope. "Crouch and make no noise," I said.

The watchman passed us and went to the stern. He came back slowly and stopped at the head of the ladder. I held on to Mando and both of us did not move until the watchman went on. Then Mando began to hack at the rope again.

"There is a knot in the rope. Have you tried to untie it?" I asked.

"I have tried. It is a special knot and I can do nothing with it."

"Let us take our boat," I whispered.

"What does it matter?" Mando said.

"It is ours," I said and climbed out of the captain's boat and into the one alongside.

Mando followed me. "A boat is a boat," he said.

"
Island Girl
is smaller and easier to handle," I said to end the argument.

We had reached her when I heard the squeak as the watchman moved above us. We crouched until he passed and came back. Then we both hacked hard at the rope that held us to the boom and freed ourselves.

I let myself over the side and, kicking my feet, slowly moved the boat to the side of the ship where the watchman did not pass.

Above us hung the monstrous heads. We passed a carcass and a second carcass, which had been stripped of all its fat. Mando took hold of the bones and helped me move the boat. Halfway along I told him to shove us away.

We left the carcass, moving with the tide and the waves in the direction of the island. Mando was in the water beside me. If the watchman had passed along our side of the ship he could have seen us. Still, if he had looked toward the island when he stood at the bow or the stern, he could have seen us, too, even though we were moving slowly and quietly, grasping the rudder.

When the first light showed in the east, we reached the kelp bed that surrounds the island. The kelp was heavy and we could not push through it. We climbed in the boat and lay there, resting and trying to get warm. I looked off toward the coast. It was dim and far away.

"The tide is against us," I said. "We will rest and wait for a while. But we should go on. They will be out looking for us, and the first place they look will be here."

"It is another hour before breakfast," Mando said. "They will eat and go on deck. It will be two hours before anyone will notice that a boat is missing. Maybe it will be longer."

I wondered if, after all, he wanted to be caught and taken back to the ship.

"The cook will miss me in the galley," I said. "And the captain will miss you when his morning tea is not brought on the silver tray. They will know we are gone before the hour is out."

I looked again at the distant shore. It was too far away to see the sand dunes or the waves breaking. The island was between us and the ship and I could not see her either.

It was then that I noticed the rudder. It was made of three oar-shaped slats, each one longer than my arm, and fastened to the boat with light iron straps. I dug my knife into the wood and saw that we could free the bolts that held it.

By the time the sun was rising we had the rudder off. The three slats were held together by wooden pegs. We broke them loose and had two pieces that we could use as paddles.

"
Vámanos
!" I said. "The wind is with us and the tide soon will be."

Mando looked over his shoulder, in the direction of the ship. Slowly he put his paddle in the water and we set out for the distant shore.

When the sun was well up we had cleared the island and could see the three masts of the ship on the horizon. The makeshift paddles were not as good as oars, but we were gaining headway nonetheless. The tide and wind were with us and the mainland now was clear. I could see the tower of Mission Ventura.

Mando was torn between the shore and the ship. He kept looking back over his shoulder until the topmost masts disappeared. From time to time, even then he would look back and sigh.

"You are sorry," I said, "that they did not send out their longboats and catch us."

"Nothing happens at the Mission," he said. "You work in the fields and clean the weeds out of the water ditches and sweep up the courtyard and light the candles."

"On the
Boston Boy
you would carry tea to the captain. That is all," I replied. "It is not much. But if you want to be a sailor, Father Vicente will see that you find a place on one of the ships. Maybe a ship where you will be a sailor and not a servant."

I had never been on this Ventura shore before in a boat. It looked like the shore at Santa Barbara farther up the coast, but there was a spit of land that ran out that had a rocky point. Between the spit and the shore was a cave. The water seemed to be quiet there and the breakers smaller than they were farther to the south. It was this cave that I aimed for.

As we approached the breakers and were squaring the boat, holding it back as best we could to catch one of the smaller waves, a current caught us. It had foam around its edges and was running swift in a line with the beach toward the rocky spit.

"Paddle hard away from the shore," I shouted to my brother. "That way we may free ourselves from the current."

We both put all our strength into turning the boat away from the breakers, thinking that we could wait until the current let us free.

But the current, with its white edges, held the boat and bore us past the cave and toward the rocks, as if we were a chip of wood.

"Be ready to jump," I said.

We were both good swimmers and as the boat struck the rocks and keeled over we jumped. The water was cold. For a while we had to fight the tide that had swept us into the rocks. The rocks were too slippery to cling to and the barnacles cut my hands. Finally, we both freed ourselves from the rocky ledge and the tide and struck out for the beach, which was not far off.

Dozens of Indians were there on the beach as we staggered ashore. We were scratched and bruised but we were alive. It was sad to see the
Island Girl,
pounded by the waves, slowly drifting toward us.

The Indians gave us dry clothes and some bowls of clam soup and dried beef. We were exhausted and slept all afternoon and that night. In the morning Captain Nidever rode up to talk to us.

"If there is anything left of the
Island Girl,
" I told him, "it is yours, if you want it."

The boat had washed ashore and was in splinters.

"There's good wood left in her," he said. "I can use it."

I handed him the compass, which I had wrapped in oilskin before we left the ship and wore around my neck.

He unwrapped it and took some directions. "Good as new," he said. "Never thought I'd get it back. I'll use it when I go to the Island of the Blue Dolphins."

"When?" I said.

"Soon."

"When?" I asked again.

"Maybe in three months. Maybe sooner. Maybe later."

"Can I go with you?"

"We'll see," he said, putting the compass in his jacket. "Women aren't good luck on a ship."

"I brought the
Boston Boy
good luck. They harpooned four whales while I was aboard the ship."

"
Boston Boy?
"

He looked surprised so I told him what had happened to us on the whaler. When I had finished the story he still looked surprised.

"You're lucky you didn't end up in Boston," he said.

"Can I go with you?" I asked him again.

"I'll think it over," he said.

Chapter 11

E
VERY WEEK
during the rest of the summer I went down the beach to see Captain Nidever. Just before fall I saw him at the Chumash village near Ventura. It was a pretty village that sat on the curve of a shallow headland with a white beach in front of it. The Chumash kept their canoes on this beach and it was here that I found him talking with three men.

I waited until he was finished talking and then I went and stood by his horse. After he came over and got on his horse he looked down at me and smiled.

"I'll be going out to the island one of these days," he said.

"When will it be?" I asked him.

He pushed his hat, which had a high crown and a silver band around it, far back on his head.

"Well, I can't say exactly. Depends."

He was thinking and I waited for him to get through.

"I bought two canoes from the Chumash," he said.

I did not know why he needed two but I did not ask him.

"I'm lashing the canoes together, with a little deck between. That way we can put up a bigger sail. We can go faster and bring home more pelts with two canoes lashed together with a deck between. I am using some of the wood from what is left of your boat. What I need now is a stout sail."

"I can weave a sail, Captain Nidever. I have woven many mats at the Mission."

"It'll need to be stronger than a mat and tight to hold the wind."

"I can do both. I can weave the sail from reeds and young willows." In my excitement it did not matter to me that he was going to the island to kill otter and not to find Karana. "I can weave it as strong and tight as you wish."

"How long will it take?"

"I can only work at night," I said. "In the daytime I have to work for the Mission."

Captain Nidever pushed his hat back again. "Let's see. This is August. Could you do it by September? Around the middle."

I counted the days on my fingers. I counted the hours I would be able to work at night, since the lamps were put out at nine o'clock. I worked it all out by making marks in the sand.

"September," I said.

"Good," Captain Nidever said.

The Captain turned his big white horse around.

"The footprints you saw on the island last summer," I said. "How many did you see?"

"I didn't count them, miss. But I'd say a dozen or more. Looked as if whoever it was saw us first, ran out of the water across the sand, jumped up on a rock, and climbed a steep cliff. Scared, I guess, of white men."

"You are sure it was a girl?"

"Sure of it, as sure as you can be of anything. Not small feet, exactly, but not big either. Sort of in-between. A man wouldn't have been scared of us, I don't think. Any girl would run and hide, if she had any sense, that is."

I would have been scared, too. Neither Captain Nidever nor a friend of his named Curt were kindly looking men. They both carried guns and daggers. It would be wise to run from them and hide and not answer when they called.

I had been thinking about this for many months now. It was in my thoughts so I spoke it.

"When you go to the island," I said, "if you decide not to take me would you take one of the padres?"

"Why?"

"So the girl, so Karana, will see that he is not like other men. That he is dressed in different clothes and carries no weapons and has a kindly look. Then her fear will not keep her from coming with you."

"My look is not kindly?" the captain asked.

"No," I said, "with all respect to you. No."

The captain laughed.

"What size is this padre? Most of them can't lift one adobe brick without dropping it on their foot."

"He's not so big as you."

"Not many are," the captain said proudly.

"But he's half as big as you. And he does not eat much."

"When you come next time, perhaps next week, bring this padre and we'll see if he's half as big. The eating, I doubt. I've never seen one yet, big or small, who couldn't eat an ox."

"His name is Father Vicente," I said.

"I don't care about his name. Does he get seasick and can he lift an oar?"

I did not know about these things—oars and seasickness—but "He is a brave man," I said.

"We'll need that," the captain said. "Bravery is good to have."

"I will bring him here," I said. "And you can look and see for yourself."

"Bravery you can't see," said the captain. "But if he has a paunch, even a little one, don't bring him. That you can see and it means only one thing."

Captain Nidever had a paunch, but he was a big man and strong. Father Vicente did not have a paunch, even a small one, but he was not very strong.

"I will bring him," I said. "And myself, with your permission."

In answer, he tipped his hat and rode away.

Chapter 12

T
HE NEXT WEEK
, with my two friends, Rosa and Anita, I went to see Captain Nidever again.

It was a windy day but the sun was bright and hot. The tide was low and we walked along the beach until we came to the place where Captain Nidever was making his boat. It looked different since I had been there last.