Immortal Water Read online

  They stop for the night near Ocala. After dinner Ross jogs down a dirt road that runs through orange groves. The run loosens up his aches from the drive. When he arrives back he is pleasantly tired. He has not ruminated this time at all. The terrain so new and the trees aromatic, he has been able to put things aside. Emily phoned home to Robert while he was out. It is snowing that night in Ontario. It makes her feel strange to know she’s in Florida.

  They turn in early and Ross, despite his fatigue, dreams again.

  It is not the dream of before, not the sea. This one is jungle-like. This one has visited him several times. Familiar. Muck, lacing tree branches, deep greens and black water. He does not know yet that this dream will obsess him, shake his life as no other thing has. Eventually it will become the dreaded dream: the dream that returns time and again while he searches for its meaning.

  He is driving a car; driving down a dirt lane under mammoth trees smothered in Spanish moss that sways as if it were conscious. He is on a quest with some unnamed goal. There is someone else in the car with him: a woman — some ethereal presence. Yet he can’t take his eyes off the corridor running between the trees to see who it is. The track is precarious. It is rutted and narrow and overhung with branches like fingers which scrape on the roof of the car. He worries about his car’s paint. He keeps to the narrow trail. The person with him is some kind of guide. She is not Emily. He does not know her, does not even attempt a look at her. The path narrows further. Danger on either side. Then the trees form a wall in front of them: a green leafy mass. The car can go no further.

  He stops the car and gets out. The air about him is thick and hot. It stinks of mould. He can feel sweat trickle down his back. He spies an opening, an aperture through the branches, forbidding and shadowed. He sees his hand in front of him pointing down that dark tunnel.

  “Don’t go in there, Ross,” the woman’s voice utters. Not Emily’s. “You’ll be alone.”

  “I am alone,” he says back.

  A hand on his shoulder. Cold hand. He shrugs it off but it returns; on his shoulder like ice. She is trying to stop him from following his path.

  “Ross. Ross?”

  A woman’s voice; this one familiar.

  He comes heavily back to consciousness.

  Emily shakes him gently, a silhouette in the darkened room.

  “Are you alright, Ross? You’re sweating buckets.”

  “I was ... dreaming.”

  His heart is beating too fast, pounding. He is drenched in salt sweat. Emily turns on the light. The light snaps off the final fragments of the dream.

  “Are you sick?” she asks quietly.

  “No. No, I’m alright, Em. Just a nightmare. I’ve never ... it felt so real.”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind: old, bearded trees. Spanish moss.

  A guide?

  “It’s passed now?” she says.

  “What?”

  “Your dream?” Her voice is filled with dread. She is frightened.

  “What time is it?” he asks.

  “Nearly five. What was it about?”

  “What?”

  “Your dream.”

  “I can’t remember,” he says, lying.

  “Do you want to get up?”

  Anything not to think of trees.

  “Might as well” — he tries to sound calm — “get an early start. Beat the traffic.”

  “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “I’m fine.” He hears himself sounding stronger.

  Yet the dream recurs in flickering traces as he drives. The yawn of the passage winks in and out of his mind. The voice warning him. Ross finds it hard to concentrate. Who was it with him? Who told him not to enter the passage? Emily discerns something is wrong. She knows better than to say anything.

  When the rainstorm hits it comes with a fury. The rain pelts against the windshield, so hard and heavy the car’s wipers have trouble keeping up. Neither of them can speak now as Ross concentrates on the road and Emily marvels at the force of the storm. There are purpling clouds and splits of forked lightning and always the incessant downpour. From beneath the car waves seem to wash up from the road. It is hard for Ross to hold the car straight.

  There is a truck ahead. It is splashing up water, along with the rain pouring down, making it nearly impossible to see. Ross considers pulling onto the shoulder but if he does, he thinks, he will become an obstruction. A vehicle might clip his rear left. He cannot stop. Road travel is really a matter of inches. Too far to one side or the other and vehicles collide. He cannot pull off. He grips the wheel tightly, Emily notices and gasps as he pulls into the passing lane. For a moment the liquid spatter conceals everything. For a moment he must drive on faith: that the truck driver knows he is there, that no one comes up behind him, that he will not hit what might be ahead. It is a very long, dangerous moment. Then suddenly he is past the truck’s splash and, despite the rain, can see again with his car’s wipers smacking back and forth at full tilt.

  He relaxes slightly yet remains alert. The storm lasts twenty minutes. It is twenty minutes of tension which exhausts them both. And suddenly, the sun reappears, as though nothing had happened. The rain has soaked into the ground or drained efficiently from I-75. Only the trees droop lower, their grey beards weighing them down.

  They drive in silence until they reach Tampa. The road becomes choked with traffic. It seems the storm has had its effect here. There has been an accident. They pass the scene of the mishap: a transport truck has run over a car. The car is crushed, the truck still on top of it leaning at a precarious angle. There are firefighters desperately trying to free the people trapped inside. Ross does not think they will be alive. The storm takes certain travellers for its own. They are thankful it is not them. Emily talks about tricks of fate, how someone could simply be out for a drive and suddenly life would change, or end, meaninglessly.

  Cancer is like a car accident.

  On the night of her birthday she told him everything. The cancer not cured: the tortures of surgery, chemo and radiation all for nothing except they have given her a little more time; Ross, a little more time. He had no idea what to say to her, how to comfort her through his own shock. He could only embrace her wordlessly. The candles on the birthday cake remained lit as the two held each other. She’d been making a birthday wish when she’d told him, knowing her wish would never come true. It was simply a matter of time.

  “How much time?” Ross asked, desperation in his voice. “Did they say anything at all?”

  “It could be a year. I don’t know.”

  “Surely they must have a better idea than that?”

  And with that declaration of his despair, Emily seemed to have gathered her power around her. She pushed him away just enough to gain an objective distance, impatient with his lack of thought.

  “All I know is I’m not going to let it tear at me. I’ve had a good life and I don’t want it ending in bitterness. We have time left to do things together and with the kids. I don’t want you to tell them. Eventually they’ll have to know, but not now. I don’t want this to be the only thing in our lives.”

  “Em, don’t say that.” But she was swathed in determination.

  “It has to be said. I’m not giving in to it and I don’t want you to either. That would destroy me.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want. I promise.”

  By the time they’d returned to the table, the candles had melted, their flame gone, wax smothering the cake’s icing. Each ate a slice without the icing. Emily had insisted.

  A highway patrolman waves them around the accident. Ross resolves to pay more attention to the road. Accidents will do that.

  Bitter. Bitter.

  At Fort Myers they cross the bridge that soars over the Caloosahatchee River and then leave behind I-75 for the first time in twelve hundred miles. They turn onto a little highway that follows the river and leads to the causeway for Sanibel Island. Over a bridge it’s as though they’ve journeye
d back in time. The road is a narrow, slow two-lane with its blacktop cracking. It is called Periwinkle Way. Many homes along it are old and comfortable looking. It is not as it was, but close enough.

  “Oh Ross,” Emily says, smiling, “thank God we came back here.”

  “I was worried you’d be disappointed.”

  “I expected more development.”

  “It’s nice they left some of it.”

  “We’re going to have a lovely time.”

  “It’s still different. Older,” he murmurs.

  “So are we,” she responds cautiously.

  It comes to him abruptly then that they have arrived here together, yet somehow separately. This is the last time she will see this place. She has come here to end. He has come, he knows now, for some kind of beginning. Just what it might be he has no idea. The dreams are its harbinger; the dreaded, frightening dreams which will not go away.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he says with another lie. “I can feel it.”

  “Now we just have to find the cottage.”

  “It’s up near the north end by Wulfert ... take a while.”

  “Ross, we’ve got all the time in the world.”

  He wishes he could believe her.

  5

  ... and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

  —JOB 39:25

  Spring — The Past

  The wind howled him awake: wrenching him from a nightmare of Moors advancing in a wild attack, their women ululating behind them the way they did when they sensed victory, the way it was when he first knew war. It was the wind that had made this dream, that and the hard roll of the ship. For a few seconds he was stunned. Accustomed to war’s nightmares he had no time now to analyse this one. Another battle was taking place.

  His ship shuddered around him. From above he heard the loud snap of sail as it filled with a gust and then pounding feet running along the deck. He was up quickly and dressing, grasping at handholds to steady himself. The cabin pitched and rolled throwing him off balance. He sat on the bunk pulling on his boots. The witch was awake. Her hand grabbed his wrist tightly.

  “What is wrong?” she asked, her voice matching the grasp of her hand.

  “Storm,” he answered shortly. “Sotil was right. It feels bad.”

  “You are worried.”

  “Feel the ship.”

  “What will you do?”

  “What I can.”

  “I will come with you.”

  “Don’t be a fool. Stay here. You’re safer below.”

  “Your sailors will blame me for this,” she said.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “That priest will blame me,” she said louder, but he was already gone. The cabin door slammed. She was left alone in the moving dark.

  Sheets, cascades of rain met him on the deck driving pellets into his face. Veins of lightning shot the sky turning the night into weird, flashing colours and bursts of thunder cracked with a supernatural violence. Then the ship rolled again and he felt the sea rising up to drown the deck. He grabbed a railing as spume washed over him, tugging at him, wanting to sweep him into its maw. When it passed he climbed quickly up a stern ladder.

  Sotil was on the after deck. In the illuminations of lightning Juan Ponce caught a glimpse of his pilot’s face, tight with tension. The boatswain was beside him ready for his commands. Their captain-general greeted them harshly.

  “Why was I not awakened?”

  “It came upon us but a while ago!” Sotil had to shout to be heard. “It wasn’t so bad until now. I’m sending the helmsman below. The whip staff will do us no good in this. He must be at the rudder.”

  “Are all hands stood to?”

  “They are, your honour!” the boatswain replied. He was a tough old sea-dog named Fernando Medel, built square and strong and with nerves of iron. He actually smiled as he answered. The boatswain was in his element.

  “We must tree the sails!” Sotil ordered. “If it isn’t done quickly, we’ll lose some of them. Have men ready to haul in immediately!”

  “Aye, sir!” The boatswain smiled more grimly this time and left for the main deck already relaying orders. His voice was nearly as loud as the thunder.

  “Have you any orders, captain-general?” Sotil turned to Juan Ponce.

  “It’s your command, pilot. Do what you must but do it quickly. This will get worse.”

  “We’ll have to come about and close haul. If it does get worse, it’s our only chance!”

  In the lightning bursts Juan Ponce watched his sailors climb the rat lines up to the yards while others stood to at the clew lines ready to release them. He knew how dangerous this was and cursed himself for not listening to his pilot and reefing the sails in the evening calm. Now it was too late and men might die for his error. Glancing across at Sotil he saw the same emotions. But there was no time for recrimination. The pilot stepped up to the railing to shout commands.

  At his word men hauled down on the clew lines drawing the main course up into itself. The men on the yard, holding desperately to it with their legs, hauled in and slowly the great sail, fighting them for its freedom, began to furl. Other parties worked the foresail. It was like watching men in a madhouse, the sweeps of rain and waves and wind adding to the illusion as they buffeted the ship. Men clawed at the rigging and shrieked to each other to be heard above the howl. Big breakers lashed at the ship, their tips as high as the freeboard, their spray as they broke upon the deck, iridescent.

  There was trouble on the foresail. The hemp had swollen with the wet and the men could not cast loose the lines. Sailors feverishly pulled at the thick ropes. Then the boatswain, cursing fearfully above the wind, took an axe to the lines, cutting them, letting them fly loose writhing like beheaded snakes. The sail, flapping wildly, began to furl. The canvas snapped in the wind like gunfire until the crew gained control of it. Finally, after what seemed hours, the martinets were secured on the yard and the sails were held close to their crosstrees. Immediately, Sotil shouted down the hatch for the helmsman below to come about. He used the wind in the mizzen to push the ship round and for a moment the sturdy caravel seemed to roll almost onto its side. Juan Ponce heard a man scream. He knew what it meant. Someone had lost his hold and been swept overboard. There would be no chance for him. The storm had claimed him for its own.

  This is like my dream, thought Juan Ponce. This is like war.

  The ship righted itself and faced into the storm, its lateen rigged mizzen holding it there, the helmsman below fighting the rudder to help it. A second helmsman was placed on the rudder as well to help the struggling sailor there who, each time the ship crested a wave and fell back into a trough, was tossed about like a doll on a puppeteer’s stick. Sotil ordered parties amidships to man the pumps. Other men lashed down cargo which had broken loose. The animals, kept below, had panicked. Word came up that two men had been trampled while trying to calm the horses. Mayhem. The storm’s fury increased.

  It bent its full force on the caravel. All night it tried and tried again to capsize the ship. It laid traps, ambuscades of deep troughs and wind shifts and huge breakers which would come at the vessel from two sides, choosing courses at random, turning and turning about in a maelstrom of seething water. Dawn came but few noticed, so deep and thick and low were the storm clouds. The air became lion coloured, then almost green.

  Below decks, the passenger-colonists fouled the air with sea sickness and the stench of terror. The master-atarms was sent to prevent their attempts to come up to the deck. Once loyal soldiers now seethed toward the hatches stopped by mariners locking the iron grates, imprisoning them in their roiling dungeon. Finally, it became necessary for Juan Ponce himself to confront them.

  At the head of the mutineers was the zealot.

  Bartolome de las Casas had come to the New World as a soldier. And while most mercenaries had arrived anticipating wealth and glory, the young Bartolome was different. He was an idealis
t. He had dreamed of the Indies as Columbus once had: a place for a new order and ultimately, a better humanity. What he’d found was not his dream. His employment, he’d discovered, was slaughter. He had served under Juan Ponce de Leon in the past: in the campaign to subjugate that part of the island of Hispaniola which the natives called Higuey. He had looked on as the hunting dogs routed out natives and the Spanish fell upon them with the fury of their arrogance: murdering, burning, turning innocents into slaves, all in the name of God and Mammon.

  It had sickened him.

  Juan Ponce de Leon had become the island’s governor as a result. Bartolome de las Casas had followed a different route. He’d joined the ranks of Dominican friars, renouncing all worldly possessions, steeping in asceticism and swearing upon his new-found, personal God to defend those hapless natives crushed under the boots of the conquistadors.

  He had chosen a very hard life.

  It showed in his face. It showed in the pinched flesh and harsh lines of malice, in the bitter, iron eyes which had lost their compassion, in the mouth that so quickly uttered curses upon those who stood against him. For the love which had at first guided him had twisted itself into hatred. The cause had become a crusade. His ideals turned to fanaticism and he, in the end, came to believe himself more important than his faith. He saw himself now as a symbol, a misunderstood Christ to these ignorant savages who so often would not heed his call. As for those Spaniards who scoffed at his evangelism, they would go to hell.

  That antipathy was focused now on the man he knew was a hypocrite. He was not fooled by Juan Ponce de Leon’s false prayers or noble status. Even his own inclusion on this damned voyage, forced by the Inquisition, was a sham. For Don Juan was a madman. Las Casas knew this. The old veteran had lost his faith and now made bargains with witches. The fury with which las Casas faced Ponce de Leon was as harsh as the storm above them.

  “Open this grate in the name of God!” he screamed through the iron lattice. The captain-general’s weathered face stared balefully back at him.