Authors: Sid Fleischman
I learned that Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones had scurried about the city painting portraits to raise money, and had had to sell his coach as well. He had stocked the boat with oats and provisions. He hadn't sold the horses, but traded them back to Tornapo for Billygoat and Sunflower.
“It leaves us quite bankrupt ourselves,” he admitted, lighting his clay pipe. “Of course, we might be able to sell the ice in Matamoros. It's apt to prove quite a novelty in those hot latitudes. But I don't mind admitting I've gambled everything on your treasure.”
I flashed him a cautious look. I was no longer certain what to believe or how I felt about him. “We have no map,” I said. “You know that full well.”
He pushed hard on the tiller. “I know nothing of the sort. You're forgetting I'm known in some quarters as Charles Balthazar Jones,
artiste extraordinaire.”
“You travel under so many names I don't know who you are,” I murmured.
“Sometimes I forget myself,” he grinned. “But you can be certain of one thing. I've an artist's eye. That map's etched in my head. I could sketch it with my eyes shut.”
When dawn broke we were afloat in the Gulf of Mexico.
He knew no more about navigation than I did, but the problem didn't trouble him for a moment. He turned the tiller over to me and told me to keep the shoreline in view on our right. That way it would be impossible to get lost.
“Has it occurred to you, sir, that we're taking a river-boat into the open sea?” I remarked.
“Water is water,” he answered, dismissing the matter with a wave of the hand.
“Don't you calculate she's flat-bottomed, being a river scow?”
“I haven't the slightest notion,” he replied. “And I don't intend to look.”
Fortunately the sea was calm and I must admit it was almighty pleasant sailing along through the soft morning air. Gulls wheeled about to have a look at us from time to time, and what they thought at the sight of two horses at sea, munching oats, I couldn't imagine.
Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones busied himself at the old wood stove, cooking up a skillet of fresh shrimp. He had spared no expense, it appeared to me, in provisioning the boat. He opened a
tin
of peaches and we ate breakfast under the canvas awning hanging in shreds over the tiller.
The day passed like a dream and I didn't care if I never set foot on dry land again. I kept the thin shoreline on our right, and we lumbered along free as a fish. There were moments when it struck me as foolhardy to be sailing with a boat captain who clearly had never been to sea before, but the thought didn't appear to trouble him.
We took turns at the tiller and it didn't take me long to explore every inch of the
River Swan.
The sawdust covering the huge ice block must have been three feet thick to keep it from melting. I dug down and discovered enough shrimp and lobster on ice to last for weeks to come, and a brace of pheasants as well. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones was certainly a man to travel in comfort.
“I don't see any frozen rats,” I said.
“Then help yourself.”
I chipped off a piece of ice to suck on, the day having warmed up considerably, and joined him in the shade of the awning. He sat with an arm around the heavy tiller and his feet propped on an overturned bucket.
“I don't see an anchor anywhere aboard,” I said.
“We won't be needing one,” he answered.
I stared at him. “You aim to sail at night, sir?”
“That's my intention. It's the only way to make up for lost time.”
I suddenly wished I knew how to swim. Then it occurred to me that if we ran aground in the night I'd only get my feet wet. I'd be able to walk ashore.
I sucked on the chunk of ice. “Was it the gypsies who told you about my pa?” I asked suddenly.
“Told me what?”
“That's he's likely somewhere along the Mexican border.”
“We'll find him,” he answered, puffing away at his pipe.
“I'm not looking for him,” I muttered. “You are, sir.”
“That's clearly understood,” he said.
“What do you aim to do if you catch up with him?”
He pulled down the brim of his hat. He peered at the distant horizon. But he didn't
answer.
We had all day to get the hang of tacking about in the wind and managed not to run aground that night. Not that there was any moon to light the shore. But when we ventured too close we could hear the hiss of the surf. Then we got busy and steered away.
The weather held steady as you could please. There was a smart little breeze, enough to swell the sail. When I had nothing better to do I set up a piece of stove wood and practiced with my fetching stick. I was getting so I hardly missed.
Within a week I came to feel like an able-bodied seaman. I was taking a strong fancy to the
River Swan.
She might be slow and flat-bottomed and not much to look at, but she was a friendly old scow. And hard-working as a mule.
With the treasure money, I thought, we might build a new cabin and paint her up in bright colors, like a gypsy
vardo,
and have a fine boat to adventure in.
But I suspicioned that Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones was already making plans of his own, and I calculated they didn't include me. He was a lone kind of man. The day would come when he'd decide we ought to go our separate ways. Well, maybe I'd buy the
River Swan
with my share of the treasure.
Several days later we spotted wild cattle strung along the surf and cooling off in the breakers.
“Longhorns,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones remarked.
I watched them for hours. “How far do you reckon we've come?”
“We're making splendid time. Splendid. It wouldn't surprise me if we run smack into Mexico any day now. Mrs. Daggatt and the General are certainly trailing behind.”
I fed the horses and drew buckets of seawater to wet down the sawdust. The day was heating up something fierce. The ice was a valuable cargo and it wouldn't do to reach Matamoros without the price of a shovel.
Toward noon the breeze died away. The sail fell slack as a curtain.
I said, “We've lost the wind.”
“Nothing to worry about,
chavo.
It'll spring up again.”
We
sat becalmed for six confounded days.
20
THE CAKE OF ICE
A breeze sprang up in the night. Only it wasn't a breeze. It was a howling wind.
I was awakened as the
River Swan
gave a sudden lurch. Then her flat bottom smacked the water like a cannon shot, and we were off among the swells.
I was on my feet by then and so was Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones. “Grab the tiller!” he cried out, making for the mast. “We'll head her in to shore!”
Again the boat cracked against a swell and threw us off our feet. She bucked and rolled and groaned in all her joints. I crawled to the stern on my hands and knees, with water exploding from the bow. When I reached the tiller it was whipping about something fearful. I finally caught hold, but not for long. The boat gave another lurch and the tiller almost heaved me overboard.
I returned to the battle. The scow dipped and rose and slammed against the sea. I caught sight of Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones amidship trying to take in the sail before we capsized. But the next thing I knew the mast snapped and the canvas flew off like a newspaper in the wind.
The night was infernally dark. I could hear the whinnying of the horses in their corral.
Finally Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones joined me at the stern and together we got the tiller more or less tamed. I'd have been glad to head for shore, but we were so turned around I wasn't sure where it stood. Neither was he.
“Maybe we ought to head into the wind!” I shouted. “I've always heard that!”
“Capital!” he answered. “A splendid idea!”
But we couldn't head into the wind. With the sail gone the boat wouldn't respond to the tiller.
“I believe this calls for a sea anchor,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones remarked, and I realized with a start that he knew more about boats than he had let on. “Quickly. Come on.”
Together we loosened the iron, potbellied stove and shifted it forward. Then he loosened the tarpaulin lashed down over the ice and we rolled the stove onto the canvas. He drew up the
corners,
forming a weighted sack, and secured it to the stout forward towline.
“Over the side,
chavo!”
he shouted.
We lifted the sea anchor and dropped it over the bow. It sank like a stone, stretching the rope tight, and the boat began swinging around into the wind.
“Perfect,” he said. “Excellent. We should ride out the weather nicely.”
All night long the boat jerked about like a wild animal on a tether. The flat bottom slapped against the sea and nearly jarred my teeth loose. I was certain we would burst into kindling any moment.
But we didn't. The
River Swan
was sturdy as an ox. Somehow we got through the night, and in the hours before dawn the winds eased to a mere whistle and the sea got tired of heaving about. It flattened out as the storm whisked itself away, leaving behind a scattering of whitecaps like tufts of cotton.
The day broke clear and still, as if to mock the roaring hours of the night. It was no surprise that the shoreline had disappeared from view. We had drifted far to sea.
The boat was ankle-deep in water. She was loose in all her joints and couldn't last much longer. But we were still afloat, and that was enough for Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones.
We set about the task of hauling up the canvas sea anchor. Then he knocked apart the corral for its timbers, giving the horses the freedom of the boat, and managed to lash together a short mast. Together we rigged up something of a sail with the wet canvas and he cocked an eye toward the sun. Then he pointed west.
“If Mexico's not in that direction somebody moved it,” he smiled, and took the tiller. The
River Swan
began inching westward.
I fetched a bucket and began to bail out the boat. But the more I bailed the more I suspicioned the worst. “I think we're springing one leak after the other,” I said.
“No doubt,” he answered, undaunted, and lashed the tiller in place. We both busied ourselves with buckets.
By noon it seemed to me that we had bailed out half the Gulf of Mexico, but we were still ankle-deep in water.
When the shoreline appeared like a streak of white chalk on the horizon I gave a leap and a yell and thought we were saved. Never did I see such a welcome sight.
“Keep
bailing,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said, without bothering to look up.
Hour by hour the shore drew closer and the water about our feet grew deeper. We couldn't have been more than a mile from land when the tired old bottom timbers gave up the ghost. Seawater gushed in and the
River Swan
gave a final groan and sank from under our feet.
It happened so fast I didn't have time to grab out for something to hold onto. Billygoat and Sunflower were in the sea around me and so was Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones.
“Catch one of the horses by the mane!” he yelled. “Or the tail!”
But for the first moment I was so occupied trying to keep my head above water that all I could do was kick and thrash. By the second moment the horses were already out of reach and swimming in a panic toward shore.
Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones grabbed me by the shirt collar. “Where in tarnation did you learn to swim
that
way?” he said.
“I'm not swimming,” I sputtered. “I'm drowning.”
“Nonsense.”
Only a few chunks of stove wood were left of the
RiverSwan.
But the huge cake of ice had floated free and bobbed about as slick as glass.
He dragged me toward it. Less than a foot rose above the surface, but for me it was like touching land. It was smooth and slippery and I had a terrible time climbing aboard. He finally gave me a mighty heave and there I was â flat on a block of ice.
We could hear the distant crack of surf along the beach, and after a while he determined that the tide was rushing in.
“There's not room for the two of us up there,” he said. “You'll float ashore.”
“Yes, sir,” I muttered. “Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.”
I held his wrist a long time while he rested himself in the water. It seemed like the first time I had actually touched him. A moment later he was gone, swimming toward the beach.
I calculated I hadn't a thing to worry about as long as I held on. Of course, the ice was freezing one side of me and the sun was baking the other. But I
was
drifting closer to shore.
I would have been glad to thaw one side of me and freeze the other, but every time I tried to turn over on the glassy surface I felt myself slip. So I just held on.
It was a while before I awoke to the fact that the ice was melting away in the tropic waters.
The
sun wasn't helping any either.
Directly I was lying more in the water than out. The cake of ice was shrinking fast. Earlier I hadn't had time to realize that I was scared, but now I had plenty of time. I was scared. By the time I reached the breakers I was hanging onto a puny lump of ice. I wanted to call out to Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones, but when I raised my head he was gone from the beach.
A wave caught me and tore me loose from the ice. I was certain I was a goner, and went tumbling underwater. A moment later I was astonished to be able to rise on my feet.
I was standing in shallow water.
I shook myself off and walked ashore, feeling silly as a goose. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones reappeared on the crest of a sand dune. He had gone to fetch up the horses.
We sat in the warm sand for a while and took stock.
Our provisions were gone and we hadn't a drop of fresh water to drink. We didn't exactly know where we were or if there was a town within fifty miles. But we had horses to ride and, amazingly, I still had the fetching stick in my back pocket.