Stebbins produced a flask of brandy and handed it to Zebulon, who drained it before he spoke.
"I was raised by my Ma and Pa a thousand miles from any settlement. They learned me about red niggers and how to trap and build a fire in a blizzard. Went my own way and made do. I crossed Pike's Peak barefoot; lived with the Sioux and the Hopi; hunted buffler in the Black Hills; scouted for the army; lived with the Shoshonis, who called me Man Trapped Between the Worlds; sliced off more than one man's top knot; stole horses from the Comanche and Arapahoe; trapped with Jake Spoon, him that declared war on the Crow Nation; picked nuggets off the ground in Californie as big as your fist; rustled steers from Colorady to Texas; rode the outlaw trail and was proud of it."
He paused, looking at the Count and Delilah as they strolled towards them. When the Count said something, pointing towards him, Delilah laughed and turned the other way, only to have the Count draw her back again.
"I advise you to keep your secrets to yourself," the Count said to Zebulon as they approached. "Or you'll find your name on a wanted poster, or, even worse, the front page of a New York tabloid."
"I'll give you ten-to-one odds he's not a Count or even a Russian," Stebbins said as the Count and Delilah continued their promenade. "He's nothing but a flim-flam man. Take my word. I know men like him."
Before Delilah followed the Count below, she glanced once more towards Zebulon. Come closer, her eyes said once again, and no matter n1batyou do, stay aiPPay.
Zebulon stared at a half-moon that had appeared over the horizon. Like a broken egg, he thought. Or a whore's earring.
S THEY APPROACHED THE EQUATOR, THE SHIP ENTERED that inversion of sea and sky known as the doldrums, an oppressive zone of entropy inhibiting all movement and sense of time. The smell of rotten food permeated the ship. Sails drooped and clouds hung over the horizon like unwashed laundry. Not a dolphin or whale or even bird could be seen. In the suffocating heat, words felt as heavy as bricks and passengers and crew moved about the deck as if under water. When an elderly sailor lay on his back, staring mutely at the drooping sails, no one had the energy to come to his aid. In a rare gesture of compassion, Captain Dorfheimer allowed a dozen skeletal slaves to be led up from the lower depths of a cargo hold, where they had been chained to a bulkhead. Like uncorked ghosts they dropped on the deck, showing no emotion even when two of their companions, dead from malnutrition and the stifling heat, were unceremoniously tossed overboard. Until then, no one except the crew had known of their existence.
At night the passengers slept on deck, except for Zebulon and the Count and Delilah, who remained below
Zebulon lay awake listening to the shifting tones of their muted conversations in an unknown tongue, words that were sometimes punctuated by shouts, followed by sighs and Delilah's exhausted sobs. When they were silent he imagined them making love. Once, just to make his presence known, he tried blasting a hole through the wall with his Colt, but when he pulled the trigger the chamber was empty.
On the seventh night of the doldrums, Delilah appeared in the cabin's hatchway, looking down on him as he slept. A bloody slash ran the length of her cheek and one breast had fallen out of her cotton shift. It was only when he felt her thigh next to his that he realized he wasn't dreaming.
They lay next to each other without moving, listening to the cello repeat the same monotonous scales over and over.
When the scales suddenly stopped, she placed his hand on her breast, whispering into his ear, "If I'm not there, and you're not here, then where are we?"
When the scales started up again, she walked out of the cabin.
I hat night at dinner the Captain observed that in all his many years at sea he had never encountered such a strange and difficult passage. He cautioned the passengers to keep within themselves, not to stare at the horizon, and to sleep as much as possible. From now on, water would be severely rationed and there would be one meal a day As a reward for their endurance and patience, they would have an extraordinary celebration when they finally crossed the equator, quite different from the usual initiations imposed on those who had never crossed the line before.
When the Count began to laugh hysterically; Delilah helped him to his feet and led him below.
The rest of the meal continued in silence, as if any random remark might unleash the same demonic forces.
ays stretched into weeks. The boundary between sea and sky dissolved into a greasy smudge. The hours no longer clanged from the poop deck and the smell of unwashed bodies and laundry hung over the ship like a premonition of plague. The crew barely performed the most minimal tasks and finally, not even those.
Except for an occasional appearance on the bridge, wearing Chinese slippers and baggy French underwear, Captain Dorfheimer remained in his cabin, struggling over a letter to his wife that compared his situation to an accelerating whirlpool of tedium, a condition that made him feel as if he was descending into a black hole. He no longer referred to his charts, and at the close of each day the logbook was marked with the same comment: No wind.
Passengers slumped on the deck as if stranded inside a waiting room. The German merchants staked out a place on the stern, playing a game of chess, sometimes taking an entire afternoon to move one piece. The Pole walked back and forth, slapping his forehead, singing and muttering to himself. Neither German noticed when he picked up a knight from the board and dropped it overboard. The Finn talked to the bare-breasted goddess on the ship's prow, confessing his marital sins as well as his secret sexual fantasies. Cox read the opening page of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire over and over. Zebulon lay on his back, staring at the empty, relentless sky. Once Delilah's ankles drifted past and he heard her say to the Finn: "Have… you… ever… been… to… Iceland…?" And always there was Stebbins, whose imagination he continued to fill with accounts of Indian wars, Texas shoot-outs, and gun running in Mexico. Or maybe it wasn't Stebbins but the lethargic drift of his own mind-stream.
Despite the brutal heat he continued to sleep in his cabin, listening to Delilah and the Count. When they were silent he wondered if they had died, until one night, just to find out, he opened the door to their cabin. The Count was sitting on the bunk, Delilah mounted on top of him, her legs wrapped around his waist.
"Abandon all hope all ye who enter here," the Count said, quoting Dante as Zebulon backed out the door.
nother week passed with no hint of wind. Aching lungs gasped for air, bodies remained unwashed, faces were swollen and blistered, stomachs cramped with diarrhea or constipation.
On the twenty-third day of the doldrums, the Polish merchant appeared on the stern deck, wearing a blue suit and tie and carrying a wooden suitcase. Counting out loud he took twenty-three steps to the ship's railing, then twenty-three steps back, then twenty-three forward again. No one noticed when he swung his legs over the railing.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced in a loud, determined voice, "kings and queens, sailors and sea creatures, slaves and masters. This man no longer knows if he is dead or alive. Perhaps he is not even Polish. Perhaps this life doesn't exist or has never existed. Perhaps this is not a ship but a floating coffin. Perhaps we are dreaming and will wake up to find that everything is the same.
When he jumped overboard, there wasn't enough time or energy to lower a lifeboat. Soon all that remained of him was his wooden suitcase, which they watched all that day and into the evening, float slowly towards the horizon like a miniature casket.