“Take three men in and have a look,” he said. “I’m going to he down a while. Remember you’re scientists.”
When they were scientists no weapons showed and they wore machetes and wide straw hats such as Bahaman spongers wear. These the crew referred to as “sombreros científicos.” The larger they were the more scientific they were considered.
“Someone has stolen my scientific hat,” a heavy-shouldered Basque with thick eyebrows that came together over his nose said. “Give me a bag of frags for science’s sake.”
“Take my scientific hat,” another Basque said. “It’s twice as scientific as yours.”
“What a scientific hat,” the widest of the Basques said. “I feel like Einstein in this one. Thomas, can we take specimens?”
“No,” the man said. “Antonio knows what I want him to do. You keep your damned scientific eyes open.”
“I’ll look for water.”
“It’s behind where the village was,” the man said. “See how it is. We had probably better fill.”
“H2O,” the Basque said. “That scientific stuff. Hey, you worthless scientist. You hat stealer. Give us four five-gallon jugs so we won’t waste the trip.”
The other Basque put four wicker-covered jugs in the dinghy.
The man heard them talking. “Don’t hit me in the back with that damned scientific oar.”
“I do it only for science.”
“Fornicate science and his brother.”
“Science’s sister.”
“Penicilina is her name.”
The man watched them rowing toward the too white beach. I should have gone in, he thought. But I was up all night and I’ve steered twelve hours. Antonio can size it up as well as I can. But I wonder what the hell has happened.
He looked once at the reef and then at the shore and at the current of clean water running against the side and making little eddies in the lee. Then he shut his eyes and turned on his side and went to sleep.
He woke as the dinghy came alongside and he knew it was something bad when he saw their faces. His mate was sweating as he always did with trouble or bad news. He was a dry man and he did not sweat easily.
“Somebody burned the shacks,” he said. “Somebody tried to put them out and there are bodies in the ashes. You can’t smell them from here because of the wind.”
“How many bodies?”
“We counted nine. There could be more.”
“Men or women?”
“Both.”
“Are there any tracks?”
“Nothing. It’s rained since. Heavy rain. The sand is still pitted with it.”
The wide-shouldered Basque whose name was Ara said, “They’ve been dead a week anyway. Birds haven’t worked on them but the land crabs are working on them.”
“How do you know they have been dead a week?”
“No one can say exactly,” Ara said. “But they have been dead about a week. From the land crab trails the rain was about three days ago.”
“How was the water?”
“It looked all right.”
“Did you bring it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see why they would have poisoned the water,” Ara said. “It smelled good so I tasted it and brought it.”
“You shouldn’t have tasted it.”
“It smelled good and there was no reason to believe it was poisoned.”
“Who killed the people?”
“Anybody.”
“Didn’t you check?”
“No. We came to tell you. You are the skipper.”
“All right,” said Thomas Hudson. He went below and buckled on his revolver. There was a sheath knife on the other side of the belt, the side that rode high, and the weight of the gun was on his leg. He stopped in the galley and took a spoon and put it in his pocket.
“Ara, you and Henry come ashore. Willie come in with the dinghy and then see if you can get some conches. Let Peters sleep.” To his mate he said, “Check the engines, please, and all tanks.”
The water was clear and lovely over the white sand bottom and he could see every ridge and wrinkle in the sand. As they waded ashore when the dinghy grounded on a ridge of sand he felt small fish playing around his toes and looked down and saw they were tiny pompano. Maybe they are not true pompano, he thought. But they look exactly like them and they are most friendly.
“Henry,” he said when they were ashore. “You take the windward beach and walk it all the way up to the mangroves. Watch for tracks or anything else. Meet me here. Ara, you take the other beach and do the same.”
He did not have to ask where the bodies were. He saw the tracks that led to them and heard the rattle of the land crabs in the dry bush. He looked out at his ship and the line of the breakers and Willie in the stern of the skiff with a water glass looking over the side for conches while the skiff drifted.
Since I have to do it I might as well get it over with, he thought. But this day was built for something else. It is strange how they had such a rain here where there was no need for it and we had nothing. How long is it now that we have seen the rams go by on either side and never had a drop?
The wind was blowing heavily and had blown now, day and night, for more than fifty days. It had become a part of the man and it did not make him nervous. It fortified him and gave him strength and he hoped that it would never stop.
We wait always for something that does not come, he thought. But it is easier waiting with the wind than in a calm or with the capriciousness and malignancy of squalls. There is always water somewhere. Let it stay dry. We can always find it. There is water on all these keys if you know how to look for it.
Now, he thought to himself. Go in and get it over with.
The wind helped him to get it over with. As he crouched under the scorched sea-grape bushes and sifted the sand in double handfuls the wind blew the scent of what was just ahead of him away. He found nothing in the sand and he was puzzled but he looked in all the sand to windward of the burned shacks before he moved in. He had hoped to find what he looked for the easier way. But there was nothing.
Then, with the wind at his back, so that he turned and gulped it and then held his breath again he went to work with his knife probing into the charred deliquescence that the land crabs were feeding on. He touched a sudden hardness that rolled against a bone and dug it out with the spoon. He laid it on the sand with the spoon and probed and dug and found three more in the pile. Then he turned into the wind and cleaned the knife and the spoon in the sand. He took the four bullets in a handful of sand and with the knife and the spoon in his left hand made his way back through the brush.
A big land crab, obscenely white, reared back and lifted his claws at him.
“You on the way in, boy?” the man said to him. “I’m on the way out.”
The crab stood his ground with his claws raised high and the points open sharply.
“You’re getting pretty big for yourself,” the man said. He put his knife slowly in its sheath and the spoon in his pocket. Then he shifted the handful of sand with the four bullets in it to his left hand. He wiped his right hand on his shorts carefully. Then he drew the sweat-darkened, well-oiled .357 Magnum.
“You still have a chance,” he said to the land crab. “Nobody blames you. You’re having your pleasure and doing your duty.”
The crab did not move and his claws were held high. He was a big crab, nearly a foot across, and the man shot him between his eyes and the crab disintegrated.
“Those damn .357’s are hard to get now because draft-dodging FBI’s have to use them to hunt down draft-dodgers,” the man said. “But a man has to fire a shot sometime or he doesn’t know how he is shooting.”