Ship Breaker

9

“BLOOD AND RUST!” Nailer leaped back. “She’s not a deader! She’s alive!”

“What?” Pima scrambled away from the girl.

“Her eyes moved! I saw them!” Nailer’s heart hammered in his chest. He fought the urge to bolt from the cabin. The girl lay still now, but his skin was crawling. “I cut her and she moved.”

“I didn’t see-” Pima stopped midsentence.

The drowned girl’s dark eyes focused on her. They went from Pima to Nailer, and back to Pima.

“Fates,” Nailer whispered. Cold fingers ran up his spine, raising hackles. It was like their knives had summoned her ghost back into her body. The dead girl’s lips started to move. No words came out. Just a barely audible hiss.

“That’s some creepy shit,” Pima murmured.

The girl continued whispering, a steady stream of sibilants, a chant, a plea, all so low they could barely make out the words. Against his better judgment, Nailer crept forward, drawn by her eyes and desperation. The girl’s gold-decorated fingers twitched, reached for him.

Pima came up behind. The girl strained toward them, but they both stayed out of her grasp. More whispered words: prayer sounds, begging, an exhalation of storm and salt terror. Her eyes searched the cabin, widened in fear, terrified by something only she could see. Her gaze locked on Nailer again, desperate, pleading. Still she whispered. He leaned closer, straining to understand her words. The girl’s hands fluttered weakly against his arms, reached up to touch his face, a movement light as butterflies as she tried to pull him close. He leaned in, letting the drowned girl’s fingers clutch at him.

Her whispering lips brushed his ear.

She was praying. Soft begging words to Ganesha and the Buddha, to Kali-Mary Mercy and the Christian God… she was praying to anything at all, begging the Fates to let her walk from the shadow of death. Pleas spilled from her lips, a desperate trickle. She was broken, soon to die, but still the words slipped out in a steady whisper. Tum karuna ke saagar Tum palankarta hail Mary full of grace Ajahn Chan Bodhisattva, release me from suffering…

He drew away. Her fingers slipped from his cheek like orchid petals falling.

“She’s dying,” Pima said.

The girl’s eyes had become unfocused. Her lips still moved but she seemed to be losing energy now, losing her will to pray. The words were a quiet punctuation to the larger sounds of the ocean and coast outside: gulls calling, the surf, the creak and shift of the wrecked ship.

Gradually the words stopped. Her body stilled.

Pima and Nailer exchanged glances.

The gold on the girl’s fingers glittered.

Pima lifted her knife. “Fates, that’s creepy. Let’s get the gold and get the hell out of here.”

“You gonna cut her fingers off while she’s still breathing?”

“She’s not breathing for long.” Pima pointed at the bed and sea chests and debris piled on top of her. “She’s a goner. If I slit her throat, I’m doing her a favor.” She crept close and prodded the girl’s hand. The drowned girl didn’t respond. “She’s dead now, anyway.” Pima pressed the knife to the girl’s finger again.

The girl’s eyes snapped open.

“Please,” she whispered.

Pima pressed her lips together, ignoring the words. The girl’s free hand brushed at Pima’s face and Pima swatted it away. Pima leaned on the knife and blood welled up. The girl didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away, just watched, black eyes begging as the knife cut into her brown skin.

“Please,” she said again.

Nailer’s skin crawled. “Don’t do it, Pima.”

Pima glanced up at him. “You going to get squeamish on me? You think you’re going to save her? Be her white knight like in Mom’s kiddie stories? You’re just a beach rat and she’s a swank. She gets out of here, this ship’s hers and we lose everything.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Don’t be stupid. This is only scavenge if she’s not standing on it saying it’s hers. All that silver we found? All this gold on her fingers? You know this boat’s hers. You know it. Look at the room she’s in.” Pima waved a hand at the wreckage around them. “She’s no servant, that’s for sure. She’s a damn swank. We let her out, we lose everything.”

She looked at the girl. “Sorry, swank. You’re worth more dead than alive.” She glanced at Nailer. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll put her down first.” She moved the knife to the girl’s smooth brown throat.

The girl’s eyes went to him, starving for salvation, but she didn’t speak again. Only stared.

“Don’t cut her,” Nailer said. “We can’t make a Lucky Strike like this… It would be like Sloth was with me.”

“It’s not the same at all. Sloth was crew. She swore blood oath with you. She didn’t have morals. But this swank?” Pima tapped the drowned girl with her knife. “She’s not crew. She’s just a boss girl with a lot of gold.” She made a face. “If we pigstick her, we’re rich. No more crew for life, right?”

The gold glittered on the girl’s fingers. Nailer struggled with his conflicting emotions. It was more wealth than he had ever seen. More wealth than most of the crews collected in years off the ships, and yet it decorated this girl’s fingers as casually as Moon Girl pierced her lip with steel.

Pima pressed her case. “This is once in a lifetime, Nailer. We play it smart, or we’re screwed for life.” She was shaking and a glitter of tears showed in her eyes. “I don’t like it either.” She looked down at the girl. “It’s not personal. It’s just her or us.”

“Maybe she’ll give us a reward for saving her,” he said.

“We both know that’s not the way it works.” Pima looked at him sadly. “That’s for fairy tales and Pearly’s mom’s stories about the rajah who falls in love with his servant girl. We either get rich, or we die on heavy crew-if we’re lucky. Maybe we walk oil scavenge until our legs get sores and your dad beats your head in. What else? The Harvesters? The nailsheds? We can always run red rippers and crystal slide out to the wrecks until Lawson & Carlson string us up. That’s what we get. And swanky here? She goes right back to her rich girl life.”

Pima paused. “Or we get out. With this gold, we get out for good.”

Nailer stared at the girl. A few days ago, he would have cut her. He would have apologized to those desperate eyes, and put the knife in her neck. He would have made it a fast kill so she wouldn’t suffer-he wouldn’t hurt her the way his dad liked to hurt people-but still he would have cut her dead, and then he would have stripped that gold off her waterlogged corpse and walked away. He would have felt sorry, sure, would even have put an offering on the Scavenge God’s scale to help her get on to whatever afterlife she believed in. But she would have been dead and he would have called himself lucky.

Now, though, the dark reek of the oil room filled his mind-the memory of being up to his neck in warm death staring up at Sloth high above him, her little LED paint mark glowing-salvation if only he could convince her, if only he could reach out and touch that part of her that cared for something other than herself, knowing that there was a lever inside her somewhere, and if only he could pull it, she would go for help and he would be saved and everything would be fine.

He’d been so desperate to get Sloth to care.

But he hadn’t been able to find the lever. Or maybe the lever hadn’t been there after all. Some people couldn’t see any farther than themselves. People like Sloth.

People like his dad.

Richard Lopez wouldn’t hesitate. He’d slash the rich girl’s throat and take the rings and shake the blood off them and laugh. A week ago, Nailer knew for a fact that he could have done the same. This swank girl wasn’t crew. He didn’t owe her anything. But now, after his time in the oil room, all he could think of was how much he’d wanted Sloth to believe that his life was just as important as hers.

The gold on the drowned girl’s fingers glittered.

What was wrong with him? Nailer wanted to punch a wall. Why couldn’t he just be smart? Why couldn’t he just crew up and cut the girl and take the scavenge? Nailer could almost hear his father laughing at him. Mocking him for his stupidity. But as Nailer stared into the drowned girl’s pleading eyes, they might as well have been his own.

“I’m sorry, Pima,” he said. “I can’t do it. We got to help her.”

Pima slumped. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Hell.” Pima wiped her eyes. “I should pigstick her anyway. You’d thank me later.”

“Don’t. Please. We both know it’s not right.”

“Right? What’s right? Look at all that gold.”

“Don’t cut her throat.”

Pima grimaced, but she withdrew her knife. “Maybe she’ll let us keep the silverware.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Already he was regretting the choice, watching his hopes for a different future fall away. Tomorrow he and Pima would be ship breaking again, and this girl would either live and walk away, or she’d alert the rest of the Bright Sands ship breakers to the scavenge, and either way, he was out of luck. He’d been lucky, and now he was throwing it away.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and he wasn’t sure if it was Pima he was sorry for, or himself, or the girl who blinked at him with wide black eyes, and who, if he was very lucky indeed, might not make it through the night. “I’m sorry.”

“Tide’s coming in,” Pima said. “If you’re going to be a hero rescuer, you’d better do it quick.”

The girl was stuck under all sorts of junk, a wealth of sea chests and the big four-poster bed. It took them almost an hour to pull all the stuff free. The girl didn’t say anything more as they worked. Once she gasped as they shifted a chest off her, and Nailer worried that they’d perhaps crushed her in the shifting wreckage, but when they finally pulled her body free, soaked and shivering in the failing light, she seemed whole. Her skin was bloody and her clothes were torn and sopping, but she was alive.

Pima inspected her body. “Damn, Nailer, she’s almost as lucky as you.” And then she made a face of disgust when she realized that with Nailer’s bad arm, Pima was going to be the rescuer after all.

“She’s not going to kiss you for a thank-you if you don’t crew up.” She smirked.

“Shut up,” Nailer muttered, but he was suddenly aware of the girl’s slim form under her wet clothes, the curve of her body, the flash of thigh and throat that showed in the torn fabric of her skirt and blouse.

Pima just laughed. She levered the drowned girl out of the cabin and down through the canted corridors of the ship until they spilled out the hole in the hull. The girl was heavy, barely able to walk or help in any way. She might as well have been a corpse, Pima commented as she grunted and dragged the girl out. It took both of them to lower her over the side and into the lapping waters of the tide, Nailer awkwardly holding her and lowering her down into Pima’s upstretched arms, and then both of them staggering and stumbling in the increasing surf.

“Get the damn silver,” Pima grunted. “At least get that sack off. If anyone else finds the ship, we want that hidden.”

Nailer clambered back through the ship, collecting. When he stood again at the edge of the hull’s cracked hollow, Pima was standing alone in the water, foam up to her thighs. For a moment he thought she’d drowned the girl, but then he saw a flash of pale clothing on the rocks at the base of the island.

Pima grinned. “You thought I pigstuck her, didn’t you?”

“No.”

Pima just laughed. Waves sloshed around her, splashing up her dark legs, soaking her shorts. The ship creaked in the roll of the waves. “Tide’s coming,” Pima said. “Let’s get going.”

Nailer looked across the bay to where the ship-breaking yards shone in the fading sun. “We’re never going to get her back over the sand in time.”

“You want me to run for a boat?” Pima asked.

“No. I’m beat. Let’s hold here on the island and cross in the morning. Maybe we can think of some way to deal with the rest of the scavenge by then.”

Pima glanced back at the girl where she lay balled up and shivering. “Yeah, okay. She won’t care, one way or the other.” She pointed back into the ship. “But if we’re staying, let’s find what we can in there. There’s food. Plenty of other stuff. We’ll camp on the island and bring her over tomorrow.”

Nailer gave her a mock salute. “Good idea.”

He headed back to the pantry, hunting. He found muffins waterlogged with salt. Bruised mangoes and bananas and pomegranates, all scattered through the galley. Saltbeef that was still good and seemed to have barely been touched. A cured ham. There was so much meat he couldn’t believe it. Against his will, he was already salivating.

He dragged everything back to where the hull was cracked. He climbed down carefully, cradling everything in a net bag he found in the galley. The water was getting deeper, all right. It tugged and drew at him as he slogged out of the surf, keeping the food high. After ferrying everything from the ship, he noticed their rescued girl shivering and went back to the ship again. It was almost dark inside now. He found blankets of rich wool, damp but still warm, and dragged them out with the rest of the scavenge.

He crossed with waves at his waist, yanked about by frothing surf, holding the blankets over his head. He stumbled up on shore and dumped his load of blankets. He glanced at where the girl was shivering. “You still didn’t kill her, huh?”

“I told you I wouldn’t.” Pima jerked her head toward the shivering girl. “You got stuff for a fire?”

Nailer shrugged. “Nah.”

“Come on, Nailer!” Pima made a face of exasperation. “She’ll need a fire if you want her to live.” She headed back into the wreck, slogging through the rush of the darkening waves.

“See if there’s fresh water in there, too!” Nailer called after her.

He picked up the load of blankets and started hauling them to higher ground, hunting for something on the hillside that had a semblance of being flat. Eventually he found an area beside the roots of a cypress tree that wasn’t so bad. He started clearing space amongst the rocks and kudzu vines.

By the time he clambered back down to the shore, Pima had returned with a load of the clipper’s cracked furniture. She had also found a store of kerosene and a sparker in the mix of trash in the galley. After a few more times shuttling loads of food and fuel up to their camp, they finally hauled up the drowned girl. Nailer’s right shoulder and upper back burned with all the activity, and he was glad he hadn’t been forced onto light crew today. It was bad enough just doing this little bit of work.

Soon they got the furniture burning merrily, and Nailer cut slices of ham for them to gnaw on. “Good eating, huh?” he said, when Pima held out her hand for more.

“Yeah. Swanks live pretty damn good.”

“We’re pretty swank ourselves,” Nailer pointed out. He waved at the scavenged wealth around them. “We’re eating better than Lucky Strike tonight.”

As soon as he said it, he thought it could be true. The fire flickered before him, casting light on Pima and the drowned girl. Illuminating the bags of food, the sack of silver and tableware, the thick wool blankets of the North, the gold glittering on the drowned girl’s fingers, shining like stars in the crackle of the campfire. It was more than anyone in the ship-breaking yards had. And all of it was just wreckage for the drowned girl. Her wealth was huge. A ship full of food and luxury, her neck and fingers and wrists draped in gold and jewels, and a face more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. Not even Bapi’s magazine girls had been so pretty.

“She’s damn rich,” he muttered. “Look at everything she’s got. It’s more than even the magazines have.” In fact, he was realizing that the magazine pictures were pretending to reach this level of wealth, and yet somehow had no idea how to attain it. “You think she’s got a house of her own?” he asked.

Pima made a face. “Of course she has a house. All rich people have houses.”

“You think it’s as big as her ship?”

Pima hesitated, working over the thought. “I guess it could be.”

Nailer chewed his lip, considering their own rough shelters on the beach: squats made of branches and scavenged planks and palm leaves that blew away like trash whenever storms came.

The fire warmed and dried them and they were silent for a long time, watching as the furniture of the ship crackled and burned.

“Check it out,” Pima said suddenly.

The girl’s eyes, closed for a long time, were now open, watching the fire. Pima and Nailer studied the girl. The girl studied them in turn.

“You’re awake, huh?” Nailer said.

The girl didn’t respond. Her eyes watched them, silent as a child. Her lips didn’t move. She didn’t pray; she didn’t say anything. She blinked, staring at him, but still she said nothing.

Pima knelt down beside her. “You want some water? You thirsty?”

The girl’s eyes went to her, but she remained silent.

“You think she’s gone crazy?” Nailer asked.

Pima shook her head. “Hell if I know.” She took a small silver cup and poured water into it. She held it before the girl, watching. “You thirsty? Huh? You want some water?”

The girl made a weak motion and strained toward the cup. Pima brought the water to her lips and she sipped awkwardly. The girl’s eyes were more focused, watching both of them. Pima tried to give her more water, but she turned her face away and made to sit up instead. When she had pushed herself completely upright, she drew her limbs inward, curling her arms around her legs. The firelight flickered orange and bright on her face. Pima offered the water again, and this time the girl drank fully, finishing it and eyeing the jug wistfully.

“Give her more,” Nailer said, and again the girl drank, this time taking the cup in her own shaking hand. Water spilled down her chin as she drank greedily.

“Hey!” Pima grabbed the cup back. “Watch it! That’s all the water we’ve got tonight.”

She gave the girl a look of annoyance, then turned and rifled through the sack of fruit that Nailer had gathered. She came up with an orange that she sliced into wedges and offered to the girl. The girl took a wedge and ate greedily, then accepted another. She was almost feral in her fascination as she watched Pima slice chunks from the orange. But after another few bites, she lay down again, seeming to fold onto the ground with exhaustion.

She smiled weakly and murmured, “Thank you,” and then her eyes closed and she went silent.

Pima pursed her lips. She got up and pulled the blanket more fully over the girl’s still form. “Guess you’ve got a live one, Nailer.”

“Guess so.” Nailer didn’t know if he was relieved or saddened by the girl’s survival. She lay peaceful now, eyes closed, breathing deeply, asleep it seemed. If she had died, or been crazy, it would have been so much easier.

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” Pima muttered.