Wild Wind Westward Page 10

  “I do not think I am ready yet,” he told Dubin.

  The captain reacted in disgust. “I do not think I am ready yet,” he repeated, mockingly. “I guess I overestimated you. You are just another dumb Sven down off the mountain farm. Go back down to the boiler room and don’t come up until you’re ready to make a deal. You’ll never get anywhere until you learn how to make a deal. And you’ll never get off this hunk of iron, either, unless I say so,” he added for good measure as Eric left his cabin.

  But, descending the ladder back to the boiler room, Eric was of another mind. We shall see, he said to himself of Dubin’s threats, we shall see.

  By day, feeding the fierce furnaces of the engines, he wondered what New York would be like, how he might safely—if not legally—go down from the ship and enter into a new life. By night, on his narrow bunk in the overheated boiler room, he thought of Kristin, thought only of Kristin, until he seemed to himself as red and fevered as the mighty fires that ran the ship. He writhed in agony, knowing that now, this very moment, his beloved might be in the embrace of quirt-scarred Rolfson, the rich arrogant scion pounding her with his body, enjoying the vast pleasure for which Kristin’s own body had been fashioned since the beginning of time. Red flashes shot behind Eric’s eyes when he suffered that vision. Yet she will always be true to me, he told himself, just as I shall always be true to her, no matter what.

  It was a fine, high promise, a holy vow, but it did not help much when he was fiery in his hot bunk in the fierce boiler room, lost from his home country.

  Kristin, I will never betray you with anyone, he prayed to the furnaces, the bulkheads, the iron rind of hull. What else had he left to pray to?

  Oh, Kristin. He remembered everything. How she looked and how she felt to his hands and lips and body, how she kissed and moved and made him feel. And then he remembered, with a tiny laugh that was almost like a sob, how hungry, how famished she was after lovemaking. The next time, he promised himself, the next time I shall have a feast waiting for you.

  Fine world. Great vow. Black ocean. Gray ship.

  Eric slept, waiting for America.

  Finally, Havana was behind them. First Mate Dropkin was a new resident of Cuba, and the holds of the Anandale were filled with bizarre fruit Eric had never seen in Norway: bananas, mangoes, peaches and pears. The shipment was off limits to all crewmen—fruit meant money, and money was not to be eaten—but Dubin called Eric to his cabin again and offered a huge basket of bananas and peaches and pears. Eric took a pear and bit into it. Softer than an apple, sweeter.

  “Sven,” he said, “about that first mate business…”

  “Eric.”

  “All right, Eric. Eric, let’s talk turkey. As first mate you’ll do the work for me, but you’ll have access to every delight this world offers. Every port. This ship will be your world. I’m tired of the responsibility. You do the work and make the money for me, and I swear the sweetness of that pear on your tongue will be surpassed one-hundredfold by the taste of the juices of young girls hungry for you. My next voyage, after New York, is to the South Pacific. And Asia,” he added, for good measure. “You make a deal with me, and—”

  “All right,” Eric said. “I accept. I’ll take the job.”

  Dubin was startled by this sudden change of mind.

  “You agree?”

  “Yes. But one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I do not wish to take up the duties in New York. It is too large a thing for me. Let me observe you, and how things are to proceed. Then, when we leave for the South Pacific, I shall begin in earnest”

  Dubin the dealer thought it over. Was there a trick, a ruse, in Eric’s offer? There did not seem to be.

  “It is agreed,” he said, offering his hand.

  Eric shook it, conscious of his falsity. He did not like the feeling; it seemed as if he had compromised, if not abnegated, some ancestral core of strength and purity deep in his soul. Yet Dubin was a master of trickery and deceit, and it seemed not unclean to fight him with his own weapons and on his ground.

  Still, Eric felt tainted as the Anandale steamed into New York Harbor in gray January, ice forming on her masts, the hard cold wind of America buffeting her steel. Eric came up on deck for a moment to see the land he meant to conquer for himself, and at the moment of first sighting he floundered even in his staunch brave Viking heart. Such vastness, and such wonder. Compared to this raw, sprawling city, great Oslo was but a fishing village! And when he looked up the mighty river, which Dubin told him was called Hudson, and when he looked off to the western wilderness, called Jersey, and saw the untrammeled expanse of this land, Eric stood on the deck in awe. Here in this harbor, confluence of city and river, ocean and wilderness, spirit and sky, was a force beyond the mere natural. America was not a country. No, it was a creature, a being, a living thing. Eric sensed it, felt it, felt drawn toward it and simultaneously judged by it, as if he had suddenly, against all expectation, come faith to faith with an alien god.

  So here you are, Eric Starbane, said America to him.

  Eric Gunnarson, corrected the new Viking. My old name is gone.

  Ah, replied America, undisturbed, what does it matter? In my cities and forests, upon my plains and prairies and hills, up and down my rivers, atop my soaring mountains, all within my borders which are as large as the borders of the earth, I give you the chance to win back your name. So how is that to you?

  That, said Eric to waiting America, is what I am here for!

  It will not be easy, America said.

  No, thought Eric. First I must find a way off the ship. The officious-looking man at the bottom of the gangway, blue cap pulled low on his head, was a discouraging omen, a harbinger of the many difficulties lying in wait for Eric. After being denounced as a foreigner by this miserable creature in uniform, Eric went back to his bunk to plan. Dubin had men watching him; he knew that. The American officials kept a close eye on the comings and goings of ship personnel. A hue and cry had arisen in America in recent years over “foreigners.” New York had, it seemed, too many already. And then there was the city itself. Should Eric escape the shop and elude the authorities what would he do? According to standard procedure half the crew had been given liberty by Captain Dubin, to swell the coffers of the more disreputable bars and brothels of lower New York, and the remainder of the men stayed aboard the ship, to await their own pleasure the next evening. Briefly, Eric had considered liberty as a chance to drift away into this vast city. Dubin divested him of this notion.

  “I know you want liberty,” he soothed, “but no can do, my friend. I plan to keep you under my thumb. What did you do back there in Norway. Kill a man mebbe?”

  “We all do what we have to do,” Eric said.

  Dubin gave him a suspicious look. “What would you be thinkin’ of, young man? What you need that city for, anyway? Just get drunk, get in a fight, catch yourself a dose of something to make your peter burn like hell. Look, just you wait, when we get to Tahiti, I’ll have some native girls brought up on deck. We can do that sort of stuff out in the Pacific. No one gives a damn, least of all the girls. They’ll suck you off in broad daylight, lick their chops, and smile.”

  “Well, can I have my wages, at least?” Eric asked.

  “What for? Don’t you trust me? You don’t need ’em now, anyway.”

  The Anandale, Dubin had estimated, would require roughly three days of unloading, during which time cranes aboard the ship would dip into the holds, be attached to crates of cargo, these crates to be swung onto the docks for distribution in the city. Three days during which time the boilers would not require stoking. Eric would be, for those three days, superfluous. Lying on his bunk, forming and rejecting plan after plan to escape the ship, he finally fashioned a ploy that might work.

  “Captain,” he asked, as unloading began the next morning, “since there’s no work for me in the boiler room, I might as well help transfer the cargo.”

  “Hey! Good man
,” Dubin agreed, distracted somewhat, having to handle more work than usual due to his dismissal of First Mate Dropkin. “Get down in the hold there, and straighten things out. Some of those guys down there are still drunk from last night.”

  So for an entire morning, Eric worked in the hold, shouting guidance to the crane operator, and himself fastening the huge hook of the crane onto the cables which bound the cargo crates. Then, after a wolfed lunch of bread, sausage, and pale American beer, when work was beginning again, he assigned another sailor to his task in the hold and rode a cargo crate up onto the deck of the Anandale. The blustery clouds of the previous day had blown inland; the weather now was harsh, bright, bitterly cold. But all afternoon, his fingers and toes growing numb, he supervised the crane as it lifted cargo from the ship to horse-drawn wagons along the dock. While he worked, Eric also kept a close watch on Dubin, who remained on board the ship. The captain disappeared more and more frequently into his cabin, there to nip brandy. Late in the afternoon Dubin made another such foray, and Eric had to decide. It was now or never. The winter sun dropped almost visibly toward the frigid, gold-and-rose-blasted horizon of the American wilderness, and the silhouettes of New York’s buildings stood stolidly against a cold and darkening sky.

  Now, he decided, as the sunlight waned. “Lift!” he yelled to the crane operator, and the machine yanked into the sky yet another crated increment of Caribbean cargo. It was a risky business, running fruit, but cold weather prevented spoilage. On the other hand, a shipper must make certain the goods did not freeze. This particular cargo of bananas, swung now from the Anandale to the New York pier, were quite ripe and highly succulent. Eric ate two of them, guiding the cargo to the dock, and jammed another half dozen into his coat pocket. If he ate but one a day, he calculated, he could live at least six days in New York, if he did not freeze first. Or perhaps he could sell one or two. He might have to. He had no money.

  The man in the blue cap, whom Eric now knew to be a police officer, was inspecting his watch when Eric rode the cargo down to the dock. He did not see Eric, or, if he did, presumed him to be just another working sailor. The men who took the crates and grunted them onto wagons did not pay attention to Eric either, and, amid the frenetic jumble of activity along the wharves, no one saw or cared about the tall blond sailor who walked hurriedly from the West Side docks, through the great barns of warehouses, and then into the dark swarm of streets in gray and freezing New York.

  But Eric did not feel the cold, just then. The only thing he felt was exhilaration. He decided to eat another banana before they froze.

  He walked fast for a time, head down, hands thrust deeply into his coat pockets for warmth, studying what he found. The buildings along the pier were obviously not places made to shelter people, but, as he walked north, many apartment houses, close against each other, filled block after block. Eric saw a number of hotels, some of them quite respectable, but he had no money. He saw a church, dark inside, and its doors were locked. He walked onward, found another church. Its doors were open, but inside it was stone cold. He decided against the church, at least for the time being. He could always return if he grew desperate for a place out of the wind. He walked on.

  Strangely, he did not feel discouraged, or fearful, or even anxious. He was in America. He was off the ship, his floating prison. No more could fate or desire be circumscribed by any man. Ahead, up the sidewalk, he saw a low building, its narrow windows flooding a glow of warmth upon the dirty snow. He went inside and recognized what it was: a tavern. Men were drinking along a bar, behind which jugs and bottles were arranged. The place was noisy. Half a dozen wooden tables stood near the iron stove, which was positioned in the center of the tavern, and several rough-looking men sat at the tables, eating and drinking. A few of them glanced at Eric when he entered the tavern, and a couple of them stared openly.

  Drawn by its warmth, Eric crossed to the stove and held his numb hands over the glow. He was aware of the men watching him, but tried not to pay them attention. He did not want a fight. At this moment warm bread and brandy would surpass the wealth of the world. Then, from a doorway behind the bar, appeared a young woman as beautiful as any Eric had ever seen, Kristin excepted. She had long, glossy red hair, cut in bangs across a fine forehead. Her face was oval in shape, at once strong and delicate, with soft, full lips, and wide, perfect cheekbones. Her eyes were green and brilliant, and her eyes met Eric’s as soon as she came out of the door. She was wearing a white apron against which pressed high, full breasts, and he could see the lush curves of her body, even beneath the loose, rude dress she wore. Instantly Eric was aware of himself as a man, the more so when the girl crossed to him. Her smile was warm, yet somehow tentative, as if she were simultaneously revealing and concealing some nameless, incalculable secret.

  “What can I bring you?” she asked, with a half-smile that teased and yet did not.

  Eric drew his hands away from the stove.

  “I have no money,” he said.

  A young man, who had been drinking, slouched over from the bar. A rangy, mustachioed, ruddy-faced rough-neck, he looked solicitously at the girl, then truculently at Eric.

  “What’s the trouble here?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to warm my hands. I will be leaving now.”

  “That’s all right,” said the girl softly.

  “Foreigner, aren’tcha?” pressed the roughneck, his eyes narrowed and threatening.

  Eric turned to leave.

  “Mick, hush,” the girl said. “Mister, it’s all right. He didn’t mean no harm.”

  “Dammit, Joan, you are too kindhearted,” complained the young man, but the fight had gone out of him. He seemed amenable to the girl’s control. He addressed Eric again. “Well, you move along now, anyway.”

  The girl, Joan, demurred.

  “As a brother,” she told him, touching his face gently, as if she were soothing him, “you have your strong points. But as a charitable human being, you could use a little improvement.”

  “Ain’t too many people got rich being charitable human beings,” Mick protested dourly, hands thrust deeply into the pockets of coarse, patched trousers.

  Eric, sensing that Joan’s gentle instincts had, at least for the moment, prevailed over the harsher inclinations of her renegade brother, sought to bargain for food.

  “I have no money, as I said. But I am very hungry, and will do work for whatever you are able to give.”

  “Where the hell did you learn to talk like that?” Mick demanded, leaning forward. “I ain’t never heard that kind of la-de-da-de-da before. You just get off the boat? What country you from anyway?”

  “I think it’s kind of cute,” said Joan, looking at him closely with her large and lovely eyes.

  Mick was still staring, awaiting an answer to his questions. Eric was not sure how to respond. He did not want to mention the Anandale, or his manner of jumping ship, since it was not inconceivable that there existed a police procedure for capturing deserters. On the other hand, each moment he delayed in replying to skeptical Mick made Eric’s veracity more questionable.

  “I am from Norway,” he said simply, but truthfully. “I am here in your country to live and work. And I would gladly work now for a meal.”

  Mick, the roughneck, scowled and grunted.

  “You said you could use somebody,” Joan said, turning toward him, and putting her arm around his waist in a way that reminded Eric of a clever girl wiling a favor from a boy.

  “Yeah, but can we trust ’im?” retorted Mick, in a subdued, guttural grunt.

  One of the men who had been eating at a table mopped his face with a napkin, stood up, dropped a large silver coin next to his plate, and strode toward the door. He opened it peremptorily, and was just about to walk outside into the cold. But, suddenly, he froze there in the open doorway, muttered an explanation or curse in which God and damn played a part, slammed the door shut, and ran for the doorway behind the bar.

  “Cops!
” he cried.

  Joan’s eyes flashed to her brother, whose ruddy face was growing pale.

  “What is it?” asked Eric, puzzled. He had not understood the words “cops.”

  “Bloody police, that’s what it is,” Mick yelped in alarm, heading for the door through which the customer had disappeared.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll handle them,” said Joan, going toward the door that led to the street.

  Eric had little time to make a decision. If Mick was afraid of the police, they might indeed come into the tavern, looking for him. But they might also be looking for Eric himself, having been alerted by Captain Dubin, or the customs officer. It would be logical for them to search barrooms and hotels, especially the former; the sailors of the world were known to frequent taverns now and again. Eric heard hard footsteps crunching the snow on the street outside. He made his decision and rushed into the back room, a flight observed with interest by the beautiful Joan.

  The room behind the bar, lighted by kerosene lanterns, was a combination kitchen and storeroom. An iron cooking-stove glowed a dull red from flaming logs in its chamber, and a rickety, soot-ridden pipe led from the stove to an opening in the wall, exhausting the firesmoke. A side of beef, from which cuts had been taken, hung from a hook on the ceiling, jars of preserved foods occupied shelves along the walls, loaves of bread filled a wooden bin, the loaves looking like squat, golden lengths of firewood. There were several kegs of beer in one corner, and a stack of empty barrels stood beside the back door, which was open.

  Eric was just about to flee through it, when Mick appeared, frightened and panting. “They’re coming around in back,” he muttered, looking frantically for a hiding place in the kitchen. “Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?” he demanded of Eric.

  Now the footsteps of the advancing police could be heard in the alley. “Jesus Christ!” Mick moaned again. “You’re going to jinx it for me, sure.

  “No, you’re not,” he decided in the next moment. And, shoving a barrel aside, he reached down to the plank floor, jerked a length of flooring aside, said, “Any port in a storm,” and dived in.