Beautiful Lies (11 page)

“Who's going to man the air pump?”

“You can.”

“It takes two men.”

“Then the others can take turns. They should be able to manage short shifts. They won't have anything left in their stomachs before long.”

“This is no place for amateurs.”

Tom fell silent. He realized the irony in his suggestion. Just weeks before he had argued against coming to the Graveyard. Now he was arguing for making a dive himself.

“We're a long way from help if you're injured,” Archer warned.

“I've done enough dives to know what chances I can take. Juan hasn't had any problems. I know you're anxious to get shell. We need to fill the hold before we go back. Let me give it a try.”

“You'd do this for me?”

“You risked your life for me, didn't you?”

Archer hesitated, but at last he gave a short nod. “Don't fool around down there. If you spot trouble, signal and we'll bring you right up.”

Tom clapped him on the back. “I will. I promise.”

“Anything you want me to tell your next of kin?”

Tom sobered quickly. “I'm coming up in one piece. But if anything ever does happen, Archer, take care of Willow for me. Please.”

“Take care of her?”

“Give her my share of whatever we own together. Help her invest it.”

Archer gave a reluctant nod.

Tom thought about their exchange as Bernard and Archer helped him into the suit. It was a piece of luck that he and Juan were so close in height and only a few adjustments had to be made. Tom would never equal Juan in skill, however, or the Japanese divers who seemed to be taking over the profession. He was too lanky and too easily absorbed by the wonders of the deep, but he was able to spot shell.

Tom was glad to be going down today. The lugger wouldn't be a pleasant environment until the sick men began to recover. And Archer's frustration was like a fierce wind pounding at a boat without sails. If Tom could find some shell, everyone would feel better, and he would have the pleasure of the dive to divert him.

He thought of Willow as Bernard fastened the helmet
in place. He had thought of little else since taking to sea. She was always with him, and he missed her even more than he had expected. He wished he could show her the ocean floor, with its brightly colored fish, its coral formations and rippling vegetation. Each time he dove, he felt more confident, and each time he explored more aggressively. He had seen sharks as large as dinghies, deadly sea snakes and underwater battles for survival that were a solemn reminder of how fleeting life could be. But so much of the ocean was miraculous. Few men had seen what he had, and he knew he would always look forward to the next dive, the next exploration.

“Test with foot,” a pale Juan said, as a last warning. “Take small steps. Don't step in grass. Watch always.”

“I'll be careful.” Tom signaled for Bernard to fasten the faceplate of the helmet. Then he stepped off the ladder, adjusted the valve of his helmet and began his slow descent.

He was accompanied on his journey by the steady clicking of the air pump above him and the gurgling rush of his own air bubbles to the surface. The sounds were comforting, and although they grew fainter as he descended, they would stay with him. If the time came when he ceased to hear them, the minutes of his life would be numbered.

When he was nearly to the bottom, he tugged once on his lifeline to let Bernard know he was all right. Before Juan had let Tom dive, he had carefully instructed him on the codes a diver must know. The lifeline and air pipe were the only forms of communication a diver had, and the signals had to be instinctive.

The water was cloudy, but clearer than the last time he'd gone down. A school of tiny silver fish darted past—herring, he guessed—pursued by a smaller school of something larger but clumsier. He stood perfectly still, hoping
not to be involved in the deadly game. Both schools passed him by like a useless stand of coral, and when he was sure the herring wouldn't return to attach themselves to his suit in terror, he began a slow, thumping walk across the bottom, searching for shell.

He remembered Juan's instructions. A man falling into a deep crevice was in mortal danger from the pressure in his own suit. The long fall would be so swift, there would not be time to adjust valves before a diver was jammed into the top of his own helmet, eyes bulging, body exploding in horrifying ways. He tested the floor as he moved, concentrating on avoiding areas hidden by the lush, mysterious meadow of underwater growth.

He hummed as he searched, his tenor buzzing against the faceplate. Archer had marked this place with a red buoy when yesterday's dive had ended, but Juan had warned him he would find little shell here. Juan had already gathered what was present, and had expected to drift to find more. When Tom was satisfied there was no point in combing the area again, he signaled Bernard to lift him from the bottom and set sail.

His job now was to drift under the boat, hanging from the lifeline and trying to picture the boat above, the currents, the wind, the waves, while he scouted for shell. If he saw promising terrain, he had to judge whether the boat could carry him there and how best to signal his wishes to Bernard. He had only drifted once. His other dives had simply been to explore the bottom, and what shell he'd found was luck. But today the drift was serious, and if he found even a little shell, it might ease the tensions above him.

Juan had given him hints on how to judge the best underwater landscape, but guessing accurately was a skill that took years to learn. He swung from the line, floating over
the bottom like an angel hovering over earth. He tried to distinguish one area from another and judge the potential value of each section of reef. But when they had covered some distance and it was increasingly clear his skills needed honing, he tugged to signal that he wanted to stop and explore.

He was disheartened already, and the day had just begun. The possibilities were limitless, and if he explored them all, he could spend his life underwater and never find an oyster. He lowered himself to the bottom and began the weighted, cumbersome walk again, bending once to dislodge a suspicious mound, then dropping it back in place when it turned out to be a lump of coral dressed in tuberous black vegetation. Gold and white fish, iridescent in what sunlight made its way to the bottom, frisked back and forth in front of his helmet, and several larger fish, blue-black and eyes bulging, appraised them from the sidelines, like overweight matrons at a lawn tennis match.

The hunt was unsuccessful. He signaled and began another drift, only choosing to stop again because his frustration had built to a climax. His experience here was much the same. He could imagine the men above him growing sullen and impatient. Keeping a diver underwater was never an easy task, and with so many of the crew sick, it would be harder than usual.

After a time he gave up on this spot, too. He was already growing tired, and he knew that soon it would be time to surface and rest. He doubted the men would send him down again.

He signaled for another drift and was almost surprised when Bernard complied. He concentrated on the undulating sweep of the floor, searching as he passed for telltale clumps, for the foliage he had mechanically chopped off
Juan's shell on the lugger. He tried to remember how the shell he had found had looked when it was on the bottom, what kind of sea life it had been near, what kind of setting he had found it in.

Fatigue began to eat away at him, or perhaps disgust. He had believed he had some talent for this, but today was proof he didn't. He would stop once again, but the effort would yield nothing. Bernard would haul him up, and he would have to tell the men he had failed. Archer, always impatient, would be curt and sarcastic. The others would be disappointed.

He jerked sharply for Bernard to stop. The signal was automatic, and only afterwards did he realize he'd signaled before the thought had fully formed. He gazed at the floor to his right. The reef was subtly different here, the plant life more verdant. He and Archer had not prospected for gold long enough to know the thrill of a strike, but he suspected it was something like this. This section of the bottom looked different, and it felt different. He signaled where he wanted Bernard to go, and he waited until he was close enough to begin his exploration.

The floor felt right under his feet, and he moved easily and well, as careful as he needed to be but not overly cautious. For once the fish seemed to melt into the background. He was dimly aware of brilliant blue binghi fish, but he passed them by without a real look. A small shark swam by, but it was easily intimidated by his air bubbles and disappeared quickly.

He found his first shell just fifteen feet from where he had touched the bottom. He was not a diver, but he did know shell. This one was old, and perhaps the largest he had ever seen. He grinned with delight as he stuffed it into his bag and began the search for more.

T
here was a celebration of sorts that evening. Most of the men were still feeling too ill to eat, but not to toast Tom's success with strong tea. He hadn't set any records. In fact, his find had been less than Juan's on an average day. But the fact that he'd brought up any shell at all had seemed like good luck.

“You open shell tonight. See what you got,” Juan told him. “Good luck follow you today.”

Tom had expected to pile his shell with the shell that hadn't been opened yesterday, but he could see Juan thought this was important. Tom had the diver's right to anything found inside.

“Want some help?” Archer asked later, when the men, worn by their illness, were asleep before the skies had completely darkened. Even Bernard, who had assumed extra duties all day, was snoring somewhere at the stern.

“With the two of us, we can finish before the light's too poor.” Tom settled down to the task. He was used to opening shell, but he never enjoyed it. He was sorry to separate the oysters from their opalescent homes.

“What's it like down there?” Archer said, chopping growth from an oyster before he tossed it to Tom.

“Like another world.”

“I don't know why you go down. It's not a white man's place.”

“It's a magnificent sight.”

Archer was silent, working at another shell. He tossed it on the pile at Tom's feet before he spoke. “I couldn't do it.”

Tom had never heard Archer admit there was anything he couldn't do. He felt a swell of affection for his friend. “Sure you could. You just don't want to.”

“Every time someone puts that helmet over your head…?” Archer shook his own. “You could die like that.”

“Or I could die in my sleep, or from falling off a horse, or from Wong Fai's cooking.”

Archer laughed. “I never said Wong's curry was good for you, either.”

“I like being down there. When I was a boy, I'd stare at the sky and wonder who was living on the stars. I'll never find out, but the ocean floor might as well be a star or a planet.”

“I was too busy to stare at anything. Too busy riding after somebody else's steers and hoeing their weeds. Too busy getting whupped if I didn't work fast enough.”

Tom knew how completely Archer's childhood ruled him. “The way you're working, you'll have your own steers someday, Archer. See if you don't.”

“My pa worked all the time. He got up way before dawn, and he kept right on working till he dropped in his tracks at night. And all that work never got him a damned thing.”

“That doesn't mean the same thing's going to happen to you.”

Archer tossed another shell at Tom. “You're right, because I'm not the same as him. He thought if he lived right, good things were bound to happen. Me, I know better. A real man grabs whatever comes his way—and some things that don't.”

Tom gave a wry smile. “Yeah, that's what my father did. He grabbed everything within grabbing range and made himself a rich man. But he never grabbed enough to make him happy.”

“And you think you'll be happy if you live the way you're planning?”

“I'm already happy.”

Archer abandoned the shell for a moment. “Happy? Now?”

“Damned right. I've got you. I've got Willow. I've got the
Odyssey.
I like being out on the water. I like Australia. What else do I need, Archer?”

“Good sense.”

Tom waited for his friend to launch into another tirade against Willow, but Archer passed up the opportunity. He picked up the next shell, and Tom glanced at it as Archer turned it over and over in his hands. “This one's a monster.”

Tom recognized the shell by its size. “That's the first one I found today. I'd about given up hope, then there it was.”

Archer scraped off what little growth clung to it and silently passed it to Tom.

“I almost hate to open it,” Tom admitted. “As oysters go, this one's somebody's grandpa.”

“Throw it back, then. I don't care.”

Tom weighed the shell in his hands, but he doubted it would live after so much time out of the water. “Too much sentiment and we'll never get you the first cow.” He jimmied his knife into the crack and pried open the shell. But
he was almost reluctant to probe. Oysters had no personality, he told himself, and he'd opened thousands of shells; but this one was different, because of its size and the good luck he associated with it.

He felt along the rim with his finger, poking and pressing. Then he stopped.

Archer looked up from cleaning another oyster, and he stopped, too. He didn't ask the obvious question. The crew was asleep, or so it seemed, but someone could still be awake, listening and hoping….

He lifted a brow in question. Tom looked down at the shell, sliding his forefinger a little farther. Then he dug with his thumb, stretching it wider and farther than he'd ever guessed he would need to. He was breathing faster, and his heart sped up to fill his chest with the crescendoing resonance of a drum tattoo.

Archer leaned forward. Tom slowly squeezed his fingers together and brought out a pearl.

“My God.” Archer whispered the words so softly they disappeared against the creaking of the chain and the waves lapping against the lugger's sides.

Tom stared at the pearl in his palm, the largest, most magnificent pearl he had ever seen, a pearl larger than a sparrow's egg. A pearl was the only gem that emerged from its natural home in nearly finished form. No gem cutter chipped it from its surroundings or ground and polished it. Washed and shined by a soft cloth, it immediately glowed like the precious freak of nature it was. Tiny flaws might be peeled away, one skin at a time by an expert, but many pearls were perfect from the moment they left the oyster.

Perfect was too poor a word to describe this one.

Archer held out his hand. For a moment Tom was re
luctant to hand over the pearl. He rolled it in his palm once more, treasuring the feel of it, then he dropped it into Archer's hand.

“I don't believe it.” Again Archer spoke so softly that even Tom had trouble making out his words.

“Is it as valuable as I think?” Tom mouthed.

“More so.” Archer held it between his thumb and forefinger, turning the pearl around and around. “Superb. Priceless.”

“Shall we wake up Juan and examine it in the cabin?”

Archer nodded. There was no way to hide this find from the diver. The cabin was the only place they could really take a good look at the pearl, and Juan's bed was there, alongside Archer's.

Tom looked down at the oyster that had given him this treasure. There was no way it could survive this assault, but somehow, he could not cut the animal from its home and throw the shell in the hold to be made into buttons. He bundled it back together as best he could and went to the side. He dropped it over as gently as he could to let the oyster die in familiar surroundings.

“You're a fool,” Archer said at his side, but he said it with affection. “A damned stupid, sentimental fool, but one hell of a diver.”

Tom had been wealthy, but never because of his own efforts. “We're rich men,” he said.

In the moonlight, Archer's eyes glowed. “Let's see how rich.”

They woke Juan, who was tossing back and forth fretfully in discomfort. Tom waited until the lantern had been lit and Juan was fully awake before he told him what had transpired.

Then Archer took the pearl from his shirt pocket and laid it on a white handkerchief on the bunk beside Juan.

In the stronger light, the pearl was transformed. Its luster was celestial, its shape a perfect sphere, its size immense enough to be the dominant jewel in any monarch's crown.

Juan's eyes widened, and he drew a deep, shaky breath. “Such a stone I never seen.”

“It's as silver as it is white,” Archer said. “A rare enough color. And I can't see a flaw on it anywhere.” He rolled it over with his fingertip. “It's as big as a marble. Bigger.”

“Price will be great for this pearl,” Juan said.

“The pearl of great price.” Tom shook his head.

“Am I supposed to understand that?” Archer asked.

“It's from the Bible. I learned the verses as a child. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.'”

“This is a pearl men will sell anything they own to possess.” Archer stared at the pearl. “And it's ours. We could buy the kingdom of heaven with what we'll get for this pearl, or any other kingdom we desire.”

Tom stared at the pearl, too, but he didn't see kingdoms. He saw a contented future with Willow in a spacious pearler's bungalow, sons and daughters who would enrich his days, the satisfaction of knowing Archer could now embark on the life he had always dreamed of.

“This pearl make one man very rich,” Juan said. “Make two men sorry they be partners.”

“Surely it will sell for enough to give us both a good start?” Tom picked up the pearl and rested it in his palm. He savored the weight.

“Start, maybe, not kingdoms. Whatever you sell it for is not enough.”

Tom knew that what pearlers got for their stones in Broome was only a fraction of what the same pearls
brought in cities like London and Paris. But neither he nor Archer had the contacts or the income necessary to sell them elsewhere. “So it may take another season or two before we both have everything we want. At least we're on our way.”

“We'll be on our way to the jetty tomorrow,” Archer said. “We're going back to town to get supplies and take care of this. I don't want to risk anything happening to this pearl.”

Tom squeezed his fingers closed, wrapping the pearl in his own flesh. “Don't you think we should stay here as long as we can? The moment Juan feels better he can dive, but I can muddle through until then. The shell is good.”

“Do you really want to keep this pearl on board?”

Tom knew what Archer was asking. A pearl the value of this one could cause untold problems if the men discovered it. He trusted his crew. He genuinely liked and admired them all. But smaller pearls than this had caused mutinies.

“We'll have to keep it a secret,” he conceded. “Juan, you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

Juan gave a gruff nod.

Tom believed him. “I think we can take the risk. A few more days in the Graveyard and we can fill our hold. Then we can go back to town, unload everything and get fresh supplies.” Tom expected Archer to argue, but he didn't. He had been staring at Tom's hand. Now he looked up.

“For now you'll put it in the box?” Archer said.

Tom nodded. The pearler's box had been designed for moments like this. Copper tubing ran from a slot in the locked lid, making it impossible to get the pearl out once it had been placed inside. The only key was back in Broome at their bank.

“One more look.”

Tom straightened his fingers and arched his palm. The pearl gleamed in the lantern light. “Gentlemen, I give you the Pearl of Great Price.”

They were silent, each gazing intently at it, as if to memorize the sight and keep it with him. Then Tom pinched the pearl between his fingers and ceremoniously slid it into the box.

 

Archer hardly slept. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the pearl gleaming in Tom's hand. Tom, who had been born for pearls like this one. Tom, who had never been poor, who had never been alone, who had never wanted something so badly he couldn't sleep nights for thinking about it.

On the bunk beside his, Archer could hear Juan's restless tossing.

It wouldn't surprise him if they all sickened and died out on the ocean. Between the roaches, the rats, the sour drinking water, the poor quality of their food, they were doomed, at best, for disease. He hated the pearler's life, the ship, the heathen crew. But most of all, tonight he hated the joy he had felt when seeing the Pearl of Great Price for the first time, lying in Tom's hand.

What a fool he'd been. For more than a few moments he had believed the pearl would make a difference in his life. He had envisioned going back to Broome to tell Viola about it and to show the pearl to her father. After the first show of gratitude over Nakanishi's rescue, Sebastian Somerset had grown cooler toward Archer, as if he sensed Archer wanted more from him than an introduction into Broome society. But the pearl would have changed that.

Would have, if the pearl belonged to Archer exclusively.

The pearl was out of sight now, waiting in the pearler's box until the day when it would astound those lucky enough to glimpse it. But he could almost feel its presence and all the promises it made, simply by its existence.

Archer had not, in all the months of the lay-up, seen any pearl that was comparable. One owner would be rich enough to buy land
and
cattle, particularly if he had a lugger to sell and a hold nearly filled with shell.

But joint profits would have to be plowed back into the partnership. The money could be used to increase their fleet. They could be two-lugger admirals, or even three-or four-lugger, competing with men like Somerset with his vast number of ships, his quality equipment and talented divers. They could be small players in the pearl industry, reinvesting in themselves when the season was good, holding tight when it wasn't. In the end they could be, as Tom had said, comfortable.

Archer wondered if Viola would accept that life. If he gave up his dream of land and stayed in Broome, could he convince her to marry him anyway? When her father passed away, everything Sebastian owned would be hers, and she and Archer could sell it all and buy a spread as far away from Broome as Viola wanted to go. But even as he considered it, Archer knew she wouldn't wait. She would marry someone else, someone who could take her away while she still had youth and beauty to barter.