diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'lbh.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | lbh.txt | 20 |
1 files changed, 14 insertions, 6 deletions
@@ -191,9 +191,9 @@ On the way she walked over the dunes into the area that would become her home fo When she got to Wanderer everyone was already up and unloading barrels. There was no breakfast in sight and her stomach was growling. "Lulu, good of you to join us again" Her father smiled, but his tone of voice told her she was late. Papa did not suffer anyone not pulling their weight. She looked around. Henry and Birdie were bringing things up from the hold and stacking them as best they could with the deck listing hard to starboard. Wanderer was aground now that the tide was out. -Her father and Tamba were alongside Wanderer, looking over the pirogue, which had been stored for months now in the hold. They seemed satisfied with it and set it in the muddy water next to Wanderer. The pirogue was small, narrow boat, like a canoe but with a sail. They called it *Delos*. It could comfortably hold three people and load of cargo. It could hold more if you didn't mind being uncomfortable. It was what they used to fish the bank, get upriver to the trading post, and get back and forth between shore and any ships anchored offshore. +Her father and Tamba were alongside Wanderer, looking over the pirogue, which had been stored for months now in the hold. They seemed satisfied with it and set it in the muddy water next to Wanderer. The pirogue was small, narrow boat, like a canoe but with a sail. They called it *Delos* because like the island it seem to float between worlds. It could comfortably hold three people and load of cargo. It could hold more if you didn't mind being uncomfortable. It was what they used to fish the bank, get upriver to the trading post, and get back and forth between shore and any ships anchored offshore. -She was about to ask her father were Aunt Māra and her cousins were when she felt herself grabbed from behind and swept off the ground into her Aunt Māra's arms. She was squeezed tight against a warm soft chest. "Lulu. I've missed you so much." Aunt Māra kissed her cheeks before she put her down and spun her around. Lulu wrapped her arms around her. "Māra, I missed you." +She was about to ask her father where Aunt Māra and her cousins were when she felt herself grabbed from behind and swept off the ground into her Aunt Māra's arms. She was squeezed tight against a warm soft chest. "Lulu. I've missed you so much." Aunt Māra kissed her cheeks before she put her down and spun her around. Lulu wrapped her arms around her. "Māra, I missed you." "Hi Lu." said a shy voice behind her. She slipped slowly out of Auntie Māra's embrace and turned to face her cousin Francis. He looked older. She wondered if she did too. His front teeth had finished growing in and he looked somehow like an adult. Lulu wasn't sure she liked this look, but she hugged him anyway. @@ -205,17 +205,17 @@ She was about to ask her father were Aunt Māra and her cousins were when she fe "By yourself?" -She looked at him like he had two heads. "Of course." She could see the way he whithered under her looks and it made her feel guilty. She didn't mean to make him feel bad, but he asked such silly things sometimes, and she had no time for questions which seemed to her to have obvious answers. It made her dislike him a little for making her feel like she was a mean person. She was pretty sure she wasn't a mean person. Why did Francis seem like he thought she might be? +She looked at him like he had two heads. "Of course." She could see the way he whithered under her looks and it made her feel guilty. She didn't mean to make him feel bad, but he asked such silly things sometimes, and she had no time for questions which seemed to her to have obvious answers. It made her dislike him a little for making her feel like she was a mean person. She was pretty sure she wasn't a mean person. Why did it seem like Francis thought she might be? Henry and Owen saved her from further awkwardness by zooming by at top speed, chasing each other with wooden swords. "Hi Lu!" screamed Owen as he dodged around her and dove into the oak shrubs after Henry, who hadn't even acknowledged her existence. -Francis took the opportunity to go back to where he and Birdie were helping unload stores from the ship. Lulu watched him go, feeling that sinking feeling she got every autumn when her brother and sister abandoned her. They didn't mean to. They didn't really, especially Birdie, who always went out of her way to make sure everyone was included in everything. Still, Birdie and Francis were like a little team. And Owen in Henry were another little team. Lulu did not have a team. There was just Lulu. In some ways she liked this. It left her free to do the things she wanted without anyone interfering. She could spent her time with Aunt Māra, or go exploring the rivers and marshes in Delos. She loved sailing the muddy, reedy shallows. She love to drift along under the big oaks that stretched out over the river. She loved to beach the little boat and use the vines hanging down from the oak branches to swing out over the river and drop midstream, into delicious cool pools of black water. Sometimes she would spend the afternoon hunting plants in the thickets. Other days she raided birds nests of their eggs. Maybe she reasoned, she had the biggest team of all. Maybe the whole island was her team. This thought made her smile. +Francis took the opportunity to go back to where he and Birdie were helping unload stores from the ship. Lulu watched him go, feeling that sinking feeling she got every autumn when her brother and sister abandoned her. They didn't mean to. They didn't really, especially Birdie, who always went out of her way to make sure everyone was included in everything. Still, Birdie and Francis were like a little team. And Owen in Henry were another little team. Lulu did not have a team. There was just Lulu. In some ways she liked this. It left her free to do the things she wanted without anyone interfering. She could spent her time cooking with Aunt Māra, training with Kobayashi, or exploring the rivers and marshes in Delos. She loved sailing the muddy, reedy shallows. She love to drift along under the big oaks that stretched out over the river. She loved to beach the little boat and use the vines hanging down from the oak branches to swing out over the river and drop midstream, into delicious cool pools of black water. Sometimes she would spend the afternoon hunting plants in the thickets. Other days she raided birds nests of their eggs. Maybe she reasoned, she had the biggest team of all. Maybe the whole island was her team. This thought made her smile. Lulu went back up onto the ship to help gather up the cooking pots, taking extra care with Kobayashi's precious rice steaming baskets. Kobayashi was Japanese and while he would eat the rice that was grown in the Carolinas because he wasn't about to starve to death, whenever he could he bought rice from ships returning from Asia. He never boiled it, he shook his head at the way the Africans and Lulu's family boiled their rice. Instead he boiled water and put the rice in a woven basket over the boiling water and let the steam cook it. It took longer, but even Tamba admitted it was the best rice he'd ever had. Lulu would never tell Kobayashi, but she liked the Carolina rice better. It was mushier, nuttier. It became part of the fish stews in ways that Kobayashi's rice never did. Although she liked his better when they were eating dried fish or Pemmican at sea. Maybe, she thought as she walked down the path to camp, she liked both kinds of rice. Maybe there wasn't a best rice, maybe there was the best rice for each thing. That was what Papa always said, there is no best, best for this, best for that, best for now, but no best always. All morning Lulu helped haul food and gear out of Wanderer and down the trail to the cluster of dunes at the south eastern tip of the island. Here, alongside the mouth of the southern Edisto river they used a sheltered area of dunes to make camp. It had been their winter home for three years now, ever since the northern end of the island shifted and the water turned too salty to even cook with. Her cousins continued to make their camp at the north end of the island. -Kobayashi, Tamba and her father set about constructing their camp, which consisted of little more than a thatched hut, built to a design the native people, most of whom were now gone, had showed them. It was, as all great shelters are, ingeniously simple. First they set up a pole structure made half of oak timbers, which gave it strength, and half of pine timbers, which were bent to give it shape. The structure was then covered with thatching made of reeds. Her father and Tamba had the basic structure done by mid afternoon. For the time being they draped an old, but freshly tarred, sail over the top to stop the rain. In the next few weeks everyone would chip in to make the thatching, which would slowly take the place of the sail cloth. Eventually it would cover the entire hut, down to the sand, except for one spot toward the rear, which her father called the back door. No one ever used it, but you could, if you lay down and wormed or rolled your way under the last layer of thatch, slip outside. +Kobayashi, Tamba and her father set about constructing their camp, which consisted of little more than a thatched hut, built to a design the native people, most of whom were now gone, had shown them. It was, as all great shelters are, ingeniously simple. First they set up a pole structure made half of oak timbers, which gave it strength, and half of pine timbers, which were bent to give it shape. The structure was then covered with thatching made of reeds. Her father and Tamba had the basic structure done by mid afternoon. For the time being they draped an old, but freshly tarred, sail over the top to stop the rain. In the next few weeks everyone would chip in to make the thatching, which would slowly take the place of the sail cloth. Eventually it would cover the entire hut, down to the sand, except for one spot toward the rear, which her father called the back door. No one ever used it, but you could, if you lay down and wormed or rolled your way under the last layer of thatch, slip outside. With the structure up, Lulu and her sister set about cleaning the inside, picking sticks and other debris out of the sand they'd be walking on, sitting in, and sometimes sleeping on for the next five or six months. Aunt Māra helped them hang the hammocks, which they'd use for beds when the weather drove them inside. Most of the time it was warm enough to sleep outside with a sheet and one of Aunt Māra's quilts, which is how Lulu, Birdie and Henry preferred it. The hut was better than being rained on, but the rest of the time they would rarely be in it for more than a few minutes at a time. @@ -233,6 +233,14 @@ Her father arranged the tripod and tested its balance with a kettle full of wate Lulu sat now and watched as Papa lit a fire. He said a prayer thanking Hestia, goddess of the hearth, and threw some Frankincense resin on the flames. The sweet, light scent of Frankincense filled the air in the dunes. It smelled like home to Lulu. +With the fire going her father and Kobayashi began setting up the final element of camp, the ring. They took a circular piece of sailcloth about 20 feet in diameter with brass grommets ringing the outer edge, spaced about two feet apart. At each grommet there was a thin strip of leather which looped through the grommet and was tied off to a wooden stake at the other end. The stakes were then pounded into the sand and buried so that circle of sail cloth, while not quite taut, was tight enough to be swept free of sand. This was the ring in which they trained. + +Everyone aboard *Wanderer* was expect to wrestle. Skilled wrestling, which Kobayashi insisted should be called Jujutsu, was the only practical self defense on a ship. The deck of a ship is a crowded place. Coiled lines are everywhere, capstands, booms, rigging, railings, and dozens of other things scattered about make wielding a sword difficult. As her father told it, the ship he and the others had served together on was attacked by pirates off the coast of Batavia. While others swung swords wildly, rarely hitting their mark, Kobayashi came bounding out of the hold unarmed, but began ducking and weaving around the deck, knocking people out, flinging them overboard, and occasionally killing them, all without ever touching a weapon. Later, after the boarding party was repelled, and the ship out of harms way, her father had pulled Kobayashi aside and asked him to teach him how to fight like he had fought. This was the beginning of their friendship. Once trained her father had become a devotee of the Jujutsu way as Kobayashi explained it and he insisted that everyone, even young Henry, train in Jujutsu. + +Lulu watched as her father and Tamba finished staking out the ring. When that last stake was buried they both looked at each and her father gestured to the center. Tamba nodded and stripped off his shirt. Lulu still flinched at the scars on his back every time she saw them. + + + The long afternoon shadows began to race their way across the clearing they'd be calling home for the next six to eight months. Lulu turned and looked west. A little back from camp there was a line of oak trees that then gave way to the marsh where Wanderer would be anchored for the season. In the shade of those oaks they would soon construct great kilns that would be used to make the tar that brought them to the island in the first place. Across the flat reedy world of marsh was another line of oaks and then a no man's land of cypress swamp and brackish water that slowly, as you moved south, resolved itself into the southern fork of the Edisto River. Beyond that were the great pine forests of the low country where they would dig stumps and then haul them by barge and horse out here to the beach where they would burn them, slowly extracting the sap and then boiling it down into a sticky resin that sealed wood against the sea. They ate dinner as the sun set through the trees behind their half-finished hut. Lulu went down to the shore and rinsed her abalone bowl. The air had a hint of chill at the edge of it. The sea was cold on her feet. When she came back her father and Kobayashi were laying oak logs on the coals that had cooked dinner. It wasn't long before the fire was roaring and light filled the circle of dune. Lulu sat on a log of gray driftwood and watched her Uncle Cole play the fiddle while Birdie and her father danced in circles. Henry and Owen sat on a log next to her Aunt Māra and directly across the fire. Lulu smiled. She like winter camp, she liked her family. She knew enough of the world to know they were different. Perhaps even odd to most people. But she didn't care. She was glad they had a place to live their lives the way they wanted to, a place they could fish, a place they could weather storms. @@ -331,7 +339,7 @@ And so she did. But then the scowl returned to her face. "Well I don't care if t --- -Kobayashi was digging up a roasted boar when they got back to camp. He and Tamba had killed it with a single arrow the day before. "Lucky shot," Tamba had said when he told her father the story. They butchered the animal, splitting it between their camp, her cousin's camp down the beach, and a family of tk that were camped across the river mouth. Kobayashi, who claimed to have been a cook in the emperor's household before he was Shanghai'd from a Hayama bar, had buried their portion of the boar the day before in a pit of coals. He pulled it up and gently unwrapped it from the great leaves of seaweed he'd wrapped it in. +Kobayashi was digging up a roasted boar when they got back to camp. He and Tamba had killed it with a single arrow the day before. "Lucky shot," Tamba had said when he told her father the story. They butchered the animal, splitting it between their camp, her cousin's camp down the beach, and a family of Waccamaw that were camped across the river mouth. Kobayashi, who claimed to have been a cook in the emperor's household before he was Shanghai'd from a Hayama bar, had buried their portion of the boar the day before in a pit of coals. He pulled it up and gently unwrapped it from the great leaves of seaweed he'd wrapped it in. Her father and Henry dragged some driftwood up from the shore and soon they had a good blaze going. Her Aunt Māra and Uncle Cole came with their cousins. The incident on the beach was forgotten. The boar was sweet and salty and possibly the best thing Birdie could remember eating. The fat and juice drained into her rice and she ate until her belly ached. |