Thomas Mcguane - Gallatin Canyon

“You were espying on us!” said the younger.

On reflection, the older man seemed less pleased with this deception. “What besides water do you wish from us?” he asked rather formally.

“I’m not sure I even need water. I was looking for a place to rest. I’ve been in that storm, you see.”

“Yes, that was a storm.”

“I’m a bit tired.”

“Of course you are tired. One hardly drifts about in such a situation. Great exertion is called for.”

“I have to admit, I nearly lost my nerve.”

“Evidently you didn’t, for here you are. You have a safe anchorage, and this place is good for rest if nothing else.”

Caught up in this colloquy, Errol was reduced to a small bow.

“You’re our only guest,” said the younger man. “We ate the others.”

General laughter.

“Wrong ocean,” said Errol. General appreciative laughter except from the old man, who seemed a bit disoriented. Errol had a whorish need to include all in admiring his wit and rested his glance on the old man long enough to determine that he was blind.

It was agreed that he would go on sleeping on the yawl and borrow the skiff for transport. One of the women, tall and Indian-looking, with a bright yellow-and-black cloth tying her hair atop her head, informed him in English that when dinner was ready someone would come to the shore and make a noise. Noting his pause at her choice of language, she said, “I from Red Bays.”

The older of the two men who’d brought him said, back in Spanish, “You’ll come, of course.”

Errol bowed all round and said, “Enchanted.”

All replied, “Equally.”

Errol returned to his boat, rowing past the great fish swimming slowly around its stake, tying the skiff alongside and climbing back into the yawl and the security it offered, especially after its latest and probably worst storm. He found himself disturbed and so particularly dreading the dinner that he made himself sit in the cockpit and puzzle over his aversion to such companionable people, an aversion so strong that he only abandoned the thought of sailing off when he admitted he’d never find the way back over the bar. Isolation seemed to have the attraction of a drug, and he reluctantly intuited that he must not give in to it. He’d have been less apprehensive about that dinner if it had been at the White House, but he believed, if he could pass this small social test, he could begin to escape the superstitions and fears that were ruining his life.

He had a short rest on the quarter berth with its view of blue sky over the companionway. The stillness of the yawl was a miracle, and he laid his palms against the wooden sides of the hull in a kind of benediction, or at least thanksgiving. For now at least it gave him the feeling of home.

He smelled buttonwood smoke. The sun was going down and he had to close the companionway screen to keep out the mosquitoes that always seemed particular to their own area: these were small and quick, produced a precise bite that was almost a sting, and couldn’t be waved away. Presently, he heard someone beating on a piece of iron. Poking his head out the hatch, he saw the younger of the two men announcing dinner with two rusty pieces and gave him a wave, upon which the man retired up the path between the shell mounds. A fog of buttonwood smoke lay over the water at the mangrove shoreline.

He pulled the skiff onto the beach and secured its painter to a palm log, which, judging by the grooves worn in its trunk, was intended for that purpose. He pulled his belt tighter and straightened his shoulders before heading up the path for dinner. Excepting the woman from Andros, the group, including the blind old man, were sitting by the fire watching strips of turtle roast over the glowing coals; which the older of the two men raked toward him. The remains of the turtle were to one side, heaped within its shell, and seemed to have concentrated a particularly intense cloud of mosquitoes. When Errol saw the rum being passed around, he reassured himself that the supply would be limited. No liquor stores out here! he thought, with creepy hilarity.

The unhesitating first swallow made everything worthwhile and was followed by an oceanic wave of love for his companions. When the Andros woman came to the fire with plantains to be roasted, he reached the rum out to her. The younger of the two, Catarino, seized his hand, said, “No,” and took the bottle himself. The woman from Andros cast her eyes down and went on preparing the plantains. At Errol’s bafflement, Catarino explained. “She is our slave.”

Looking at the bottle of rum and wondering why Catarino was so slow in raising it to his lips, Errol asked, “How can that be?” He wondered if he had misunderstood the Spanish word but he repeated it, esclava, and had it confirmed. He reached for the rum but it went on to the old blind man.

Catarino patiently explained further. “As you can see, she is black.”

Errol emitted a consanguineous giggle lest his next statement give offense and dispel the convivial atmosphere and — he admitted to himself — result in the withholding of the rum. “But all of you are black, aren’t you?”

The blind man threw his head back and in a surprising rumble of a baritone asked incredulously, “Black and Spanish?” Catarino looked at him sternly.

“We are as white as you, sir. I hope this is understood.”

“Oh, it is, it is,” said Errol, with rising panic.

The older of the two men, Adan, gazed at him with a crooked smile and said, “You must be hungry.”

Not seeming to hear him, Errol asked, “Will she eat with us?”

“Clearly not,” the blind man rumbled. “The American would do well to turn to our repast and that which makes all men brothers.” He held up the bottle. Errol decided not to express his thought, Except the slaves, again less out of principle than a fear of causing the rum to be withheld. When the Andros woman came back to the fire, Errol asked her in English what her name was and she told him Angela. The others nodded their incomprehension but encouraged this foreign talk with smiles.

“I’m told you’re their slave.”

“They believe that,” she said complacently.

“And it’s because you’re black?”

At this, she stopped and gave voice to what was evidently dispassionate consideration. “How amusing I find this. I am a Seminole Indian. My great-grandfathers came to Red Bays in cayucos. Why else would the University of Florida send us so many anthropologists? We are all Indians in Red Bays. Why else would they bring us T-shirts from the Hard Rock Cafe and expensive tennis shoes to earn our trust, if we were not Indians?”

The others nodded happily; they were enjoying her indignation and seemed to understand that it was based on a discussion of her slave status.

“These disgraceful Spaniards don’t understand that they are blacks. They think their language protects them. How they’d love to be Indians!”

“Were you captured?”

Angela couldn’t control her mirth. She held the turban around her head with both hands and jiggled from head to toe with laughter. The others united in what seemed to be real pleasure, and she looked at them and rolled her eyes at the absurdity of the white man. This rather calmed things because, as his fellow whites, the Spanish-speaking blacks did not want to throw in their lot with their slave too emphatically. They wished to project that they were compassionate slaveholders who followed the dictates of humanity.

The rum landed back in Errol’s hands, and all the others, including Angela, generously relished his enthusiasm as he raised it to his lips and kept it there for a long time, not fully understanding how ravenous he was. But when he lowered the bottle something in his gaze caused them to fall silent. The moment passed as interest turned to the turtle and plantains. Noticing that Angela sat by herself on the step of one of the driftwood shacks, Errol asked her if she thought of herself as a slave.