Chapter 9

 

            It was dark by the time I got back to the huts. Everything was ready. I knew what I had to do. Still, I needed to be sure. If Harvey wasn’t like the rest of them, then everything changed. The natives still weren’t back. It made me uneasy. Either they were looking in all the wrong places or they were watching my every move.

            I walked to Harvey’s hut. Laughter was coming from inside. I closed my eyes and opened the door. A blast of warm air hit me. I let my eyes open a bit.

            The room was dimly lit by torches. A fire burned against one wall. Harvey was laughing, sitting behind a desk. It looked like his desk from the ship, but I couldn’t be sure.

            His eyebrows perked up as he saw me. “Scott!”

            “Hi.”

            “Scott! It’s amazing! Look at all this gold!”

            Gold statues, coins, and jewelry were scattered all over the room.

            “Oh no, not him too,” I thought. I couldn’t stay. I turned to go.

            “Scott?” Harvey took on a caring tone.

            I turned back.

            “Yea?”

            He was staring at the cloth sack I’d snatched. “Is that rum?”

            I put my hand on the door. “Yes, it is.”

            “Give it to me.” It was happening. It was about to happen.

            He yelled, “Give it to me I want it!”

            I looked into his blue eyes; eyes that once held care. Now, they gleamed with the shine of gold.

            “Goodbye Uncle Harvey,” I said and closed the door.

            “No!” he yelled, slamming himself into the door, trying to break it down. I walked away from the banging, from the sounds of Dan and Rose making love, from the dead eyes of Robert, from the slurping sounds of Zheng as he ate.

           

            There was one hut left, one voice left to hear, one way to get out. I pushed the door of Dad’s hut open. Brightness stung my eyes. I shielded my face with my elbow, walking blindly through the light. I gripped the burlap sack tight in my hand.

            The room came into focus. Everything I expected was there. My Dad sat high in a golden chair. Red carpet stretched across the room. I didn’t look at the rest. All that I needed was in that chair. I stomped across the carpet to my father.

            He looked up from trimming his nails.

            “Uck! Scott! Get away from here this instant; people can’t see you with me.”

            Without thinking, I pulled the rum bottle out of the bag and shoved the neck in my father’s throat. It poured in, dribbling down his neck. Tears blurred my vision. My father threw the bottle across the room and stumbled to his feet, wobbling from side to side. A different sin grew from the depths of his mind, pushing out the sin of pride.    

            The world became hazy. I saw flashes of chairs, windows, and then darkness. Light flooded the room. I looked around. It was a bedroom. I threw off the covers and moved to the door. The floor rocked beneath me. I pushed through the door. Dan was standing on the railing of the ship. I ran to him. We hugged, embraced, cried. I asked what had happened. He said that the ship went under and that Rose and I were picked up by this ship a day later. The cold sent me into some kind of shock and I hadn’t been well since. I asked about Dad and the rest of the crew. He said that they couldn’t be found. He only got away from the ship because Dad pushed him overboard.

            Everything mashed together in my head. I didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. I wanted to run to Dad. To tell him that I was sorry I ever made him feel embarrassed.

            Later, I told Dan about my dream and how I was sorry if I’d ever done anything to him. He said that it’s life to have to have some kind of sin in you. I asked about Suzie’s book, but he said it was lost when they pulled me in.

            Dan told me that he would take care of me. Rose said she would too. He’d make sure I’d have a place to stay. We made port in a day. Everyone left the boat but me. I felt like if I left the sea, I’d be leaving them. And be leaving Suzie. She was still an ocean apart and maybe would be farther away if she moved. I stared into the waves, thinking of the rum I’d found on the bottom. Harvey, Robert, Zheng, and Dad were all there on the bottom with that rum. They all saw the see as an escape, and the land was my escape from death. I thought of Suzie and what she said, of how the important thing was the journey. I’d arrived at the port, but I’d had so much taken from me on the journey. On the deck, the red haired gentlemen I saw in the picture was waiting for something that wasn’t going to come. I turned and faced the town, looking at where the waves had taken me and the horror that was behind.