path: root/cuts.txt

But the sea could feel distant, like a relative you barely know. You have a connection, but you don't always feel it. The see is old and distant like the memory of a smell you can't quite smell again, you try to sniff deeper, but the harder you try the more it recedes. The soul of the sea was too old, to vague to understand in a human way. Very few could ever feel at home in the sea. 




## following your path campfire talk

It was a quiet night. Her father usually played the fiddle and Aunt Māra and her husband and Kadiatu and Tamba would dance, but tonight he never reached for the instrument. They sat talking, or quietly watching the flames flicker.

She loved the way everyone's face glowed ruddy orange around the fire. Faces were more animated, expressions sharper and clearer, everything looked better by firelight she decided. She wondered briefly what she would do if they lived in a house somewhere, with no fire to sit around but hearth or an iron stove. She glanced up at the stars. It was good to live outdoors, she wasn't sure why anyone would want to cut themselves off from the world by spending all their time in a house.

"Papa? Why do people live in houses?"

Her father laughed. He glanced around the fire at everyone and sighed. "I do believe it's because they don't know any better." He smiled at her.

"We should tell them."

"No we should not," said her sister. "Then they would all come out here and there would be nowhere for us to have our camp and make tar and careen ships."

Tamba was nodding. "You don't want everyone rushing out here."

"They would not come, my darling." Her father stared at the fire. "You could tell them and tell them til you turn blue in the face and they would not believe you. Even if they came out here and saw why we love it, saw that they to could live this way they would not. It is not an easy thing to do you know. The comforts that house offers, the ease of living in the city, these are not things that are so easy to let go of. We don't think of them because we have never had them, or not for long, but for people accustomed to them it is difficult to leave them behind. They do not believe that they can leave them behind."

Everyone was quiet. Kobayashi smiled. "Shipwreck like me, then you learn."

Her father laughed. "I prefer the way I came to it, by birth, but I suppose a shipwreck would do it. It takes something, something to jar you out of the habits and patterns that shape your life so that you see life, instead of your life. And once you see life, that never leaves you and it'll make you change your own in a hurry.

"What if you saw life and realized it was supposed to be in a house."

"The devil's best advocate this one." Her father smiled at her. "Then you had damn well better get you a house. How you live isn't that important my girl, what's important is that you live how you are supposed to. Not everyone need live the same way. Some people need a house to do what they are to do, others of us need the sea and a way upon it do what we're supposed to do."

"What are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know what you're supposed to do Birdie, I know what I am supposed to do, but it took me a very long time to discover it, so don't feel rushed." He laughed. "Some people spend most of their lives trying to figure out what they're doing with the their lives, I was nearly one of them."

"What are you supposed to do?"

"Well now, why does that matter to you my girl? Everyone has a path, there's no need to know everyone else's path though. It's enough work just to keep track of your own."

"How do I discover what I am supposed to do?"

"Well. That's hard to say. I have known people who seem to have just been born knowing. They have been getting after it since the day they were born it seems like. Then on the other side there are those who never seem to even think that there might be something they should be doing. And in between those two extremes are most of the rest of us, stumbling our way along, groping the dark it seems like many times. I have had many false starts, blind alleys, paths that turned out to not lead where I thought they led. At your age Birdie, I hadn't even had the thought "what am I supposed to do" so if it makes you feel any better you're far ahead of me."

Birdie smiled. "Well I do know I want a ship, not some silly house."

She expected her father to smile, but he did not. "Houses aren't silly Birdie. Everyone has their own path remember. Our path is not better than any other. It is different, that is all. Don't look down on others who are on a different path, if anything, we help them."

"But you said not to tell them how much better it is to live outdoors because they will all come out here and take our island."

He smiled at her. "Helping them isn't telling them to be just like you. Helping them is trying to see what they need, and if you can help them with that need. If they ask for help. The secret to helping is to wait, wait until it's asked for. If someone doesn't want your help, that's okay, they might not need it. They might need to keep on struggling with whatever they're struggling with or succeeding with whatever they're succeeding at."

"So I just worry about me and what I am supposed to be doing?"

"That's a good place to start. Once you've parsed that out and got yourself on the path, then you're in a better position to help other people find their way. If you just jump in to help when you yourself haven't plotted a course yet, well then you're liable to run a whole fleet of ships onto the rocks rather than just your own. Make sure you have your course, then you can signal the fleet how to set the sails."











## Bridie goes on a hunt

It was midday before the Henri and hunters returned with two boar and a deer. The crew had already built a fire and wasted no time cleaning the animals and loading them onto spits. Henri strutted about the camp like some great warrior hunter even though Birdie knew he hadn't had anything to do actually killing any of the animals. Her father caught her glaring at Henri's back and asked her why she was scowling. On a whim she told him it was because no one ever asked her to go hunting. Her father looked at her for a minute and then smiled. "Well Tamba's going again this afternoon to get something for us to bring when we head south, tell him you want to go." He turned and then spun back around and added, "And tell him I said you can use my gun."

Birdie's face lit up in a smile and she bolted off off to find Tamba before he headed back off into the island. He was sitting cross legged by the firepit, a bowl of rabbit stew in his lap. A kettle of water hung over the fire and was nearing a boil. She sat down across from Tamba, unsure what to say. He raised an eyebrow at her. She looked down at her hands in her lap. She took a deep breath. "I was hoping I could go on the hunt with you today."

Tamba did not say anything, he continued to chew on rabbit stew and watch her, squinting and narrowing his gaze. Finally he seemed satisfied. "Your father's gun?"

She nodded.

Tamba grunted. "Okay then. After the coffee, we hunt."

Tamba made coffee like her father, by pouring the boiling water over the grounds and then waiting for them to settle. Tamba lifted the kettle lid with a sticks and then carefully unwrapped the coffee grinder from the cloth it was kept wrapped in. It was her father's prize possession, something he'd acquired from a man in Boston the year before. Most people, her father included drank tea, but Tamba and her father were the only she's ever seen drink coffee. Birdie had tried it once, it was bitter and tasted like moldy wood smelled. She'd never asked for it again. 

"Why do you drink coffee?"

"Why do you want to hunt?"

"Because it's fun."

"There you go."

"Coffee is not fun. I've tried it, it's awful."

"It's awful to you. To me it is delicious. And fun." He smiled and began to grind. The rattling noise made him have to raise his voice to say, "get your father's gun, make sure it's loaded, you're only getting one shot."

Birdie darted into the hut. Her father had two rifles, one was a new gun he'd bought on their journey down from a gunsmith in Philadelphia. It was a massive thing, easily two heads longer than Birdie was tall. She knew her father did not mean for her to use it. She grabbed the shorter, English navy rifle from over the door where it hung. It was heavy and the steel strangely cool in her hand despite the heat of the day. She knew it was loaded, she was careful not to put her finger over the trigger, but she carried it as her father had taught her, as she would on the hunt, one hand on the trigger and flintlock, the other on the barrel just up from the trigger, that way it was balanced in her hands.

She brought it to Tamba who took it and examined it carefully. "This will do for our hunt. We will clean it when we return." 

She waited while Tamba drank his coffee and cleaned his own gun. He stood up and slid the ramrod out from it's place under the barrel. He took a small scrap of clean sailcloth and fastened it to the end of the ramrod. He scooped some boiling water still simmering in the kettle and poured it down the barrel. In one smooth, practiced motion he slammed the ramrod in after the water and rubbed it up and down, sending pulsing jets of powder-black water squirting out to base where the hole for the cap was located. Tamba lifted out the ramrod and repeat the process, this time though the water wasn't nearly as black. Tamba lifted out the ramrod, put another piece of sailcloth on the end, this one well greased with pig fat, and rammed it up and down. When it was well-coated he pulled it out and rubbed down the outside of the barrel and stock with a bit of grease.

Tamba let Birdie hold the gun when he fetched his powder horn and shot bag. When he came bag he open the metal cap of the powder horn and poured in gunpower. He glanced over at Birdie, shrugged and then poured in a little more. He tapped the barrel and shook the gun a little to get it all down at the base. Then he dropped in a bullet and used the ramrod, with a bit of cloth to pack the bullet into place. He put the ramrod back in the gunstock and placed a cap under the hammer. He slowly lowered down the hammer. "Well then, let's go."

The set off down the souther trail that led along the back of the marsh. Birdie was hoping they'd run across boar, but she knew deer were more plentiful on the island. The boar preferred the less swampy forests of the mainland that were not easily accessible without the pirogue.

Tamba walked quickly and quietly, with a sense of direction and purpose. 

As they walked through the woods Birdie worked up her courage to ask. "What made you say I could hunt with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean when I asked you, you stared at me for a long time, like you were figuring something out or testing me or something, I was just wondering what it was that I did that made you say yes."

Tamba burst out laughing. "You give me too much credit little one. You give yourself too little. I wasn't testing you, I just had my mouthful. Didn't anyone tell you it's rude to talk with your mouth full?"

Birdie stopped in her tracks. "You mean you were just chewing."

He laughed again. "Yes, just chewing."

Birdie was embarrassed and she was thankful the deep evening shadows of the oaks hid her burning cheeks.

"Now, no more talking. We'll enter this grove up ahead, I have a tree I like, you are going to sit in a branch near me, where I can help you sight the gun and we will fire together okay? You know what to aim for?

"In the heart?"

"Yes, but where is the heart?"

"Think of a salt pork barrel."

"What?"

"Think of a deer, or a boar, or even a bear really, though don't shoot at a bear. Think of their body as a salt pork barrel. Now, imagine about one third of the way back from the front of the barrel there is an orange hanging by a string."

"An orange hanging by a string?"

"Yes. That orange is the deer's heart. You want to aim for that orange. It's in the middle of the animal's chest. Hit that and it will drop where it is. Miss it and we will be walking in some slough mud."












--- 

The afternoon sun was gone. The Wind began to roll ashore in gusts ar first, spitting cand off  the tops of the dunes, whiping it into the aire and then letting it settle again, some kind of dance between wind and done, one that ducked the dunes dipped the dunes, back, away from the sea, and then lifted them again in some kind of dance, light and bluri at the edges, stingin the skin of any create that might cut between them might be so bold as to cut between then. Very quickly though the dance became to fast to follow, the wind no longer let the sand dip, prefering the whirl it endlessly across the sandy shore dance floor. the sea because to instrde, waves moved higher as if draw by a tide, but it was not a tide it was wind, moved water over thousands of miles, piling it up here in th sahllows of the coastal water where it rose and surge forward., washing the frontal dunes first, then rising high enough to whipe out their camp, what was left, that the had not backed up was list, nothing more then the stones for the limns, though Birdie was sad to see them gone, pished out over the marsh. her father said perhaps they would find them, bu again, but Lyuly could not see how, the dunes were moving like soldier marching befor ethe wind, further bck buring reeds and sloughs and certainly and stones that folled down below them. 

The sy was dark, there was not trace of sun and it was impossible to tell the time, though Lulu thought it must be lat evening, her stomach gnaed at her sides , the water had made it all the way across the marsh, They'd see fish through helplessly across the reeds, left floudering when the storm surge pulled back, btu then it came again, more and more surging until it did not teceed anymore, but was simply the new leven of the sea.

The island they had chosen to make their stand was ten, perhaps twelve feet above the water line and now the water was threatening to rise hight enough to wash them off it. It was too late to move, the turned their boats over and her father started a small fire under one of them using the cials he had brought from came/ He kept it low, letting each twig burn to coals before allding more. 

Just enough to light toches later, if we need them he said to Birdie, who helped him stack twigs near the stern of the over turned boat. The wind was starting to blow sand up on the windward side of the overturned boat. Her father and Taba used their shuvels to pile up more and seal off the bow and windward side, making a reasonable windtight, perhaps even water tight barrier. They would know more about that when the rain began i. 

The all climed in, her father placed the stove pip in trought the sand to vent the fire. It was still smokey and hot under the boat, but it was bette rthan being out in the spitting sand and rain. Lulu sat down byt hte interance and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Her omother and sister sat on the other side of the entrance tunnel, Birdie in tk's lap. Her aunt and charles were back toward the stern with tk Tamba's wife. H, Henri crawled in and paused on hands and knees loock around. He laced at lulyu but went to his mama, taking a seat on her other leg, opposite Birdie. You cant sit like this all night she said, but we can fuddle for a little while.

Her father and Tamba were still outside, she could hear them shouting to each other, trying to be heard as the wind increased aroun the. She coud hear the his of wind blown sand hittin ght full above her head. TLight flickered at the tunnel crawlspace and seconds later the sky clapped in the thunderous roat that shock the cround so hard the little mountain Lulu had been idling shaping wiht ther hands of dry sand, flattened out noticably. It was only as it sank down again that Lyuluy realized she'd been sooping up sand and letting it run out of her hand like her mother's prize timer that always hung high in the rathers, out of reach even of Birdie and Lulu. No one used the glass timer but Papa and Mama. he used it to navigate some times, though her had not in a long time. I know these waters well enough.

Then segue to the aligator at the door. First her father and Tamba come in, then the sad and curious aligator, then the brunt of the store the flashing sky, the calm of the key, the other side of the brunt, and the end of the night. Waking the next day, their hime cone, the whole cur of the shoreline different. And then the piece of tthe boat that they dind fishing the next day.

They bury him on land. The little boy, puffy and white, down. Chunks of flesh missing. Crabs eating them. They brun them in pyre, the sparks reach up like mingling wiht the stars, the after life, the next time around, etc. 

---

Scene of lulu and Bridie sailing with their father. The boat is a small coastal cruiser, junk rigged perhaps, or liek a dhak from the aftrican, Tamba and her father build the boat, cata maran single outrigger, oah rigged, triangular inverted sail, fast, stable, next to no draw, can handle some open water, but good at navigating inlet and marshes and rivers. Big enough to hold a descent catch, but also fast and capable to runnig good in from a ship to shore under the cover of sarkness. Her father helps unload ships that sail that come in the beginning. The firls see their father take the boat out at night. Meet the sail. He helps bring treasue and men ashore. Load it into wagons and smuggle it into Owen twon. guns and run. Lulu and Birdie get to help , this is their fist time. perhaps, something similar to ricing camp disaster? does that fir or do they simply see it happen and her father tells the story abroudn the fire. 

Need to get wise old Tamba in camp and telling stories. Not necessaryly all african stories. He;s sailed widely, all around the world and knows stories from nearly every culture. He becomes a way to get out of the rut of any one point of view. He tells tails I can borrow from the myths of many cultures. Thwich means I can't be accursed the approation, or at least not any one appropriation. If you steal from everyone everyon will be mad. Might as well I suupose. What's the harm. If you're going to go, go all the way.

Cuthie was swinging on the vine at the edge of the clearing as Birdie approached. He called out to her as he leaped off the limb and swung out wide over the racks of drying meat and lines of linens hanging in the noonday sun. His white teeth gleamed in the light and made his smile seem like it was a thousand times brighter than her own. She laughed and ran across the compound, jumping at his legs as he passed over her. She scrambled up the tree to the limb he'd leapt from. The branches of the TK were worn smooth from Tamba's hands and hers and Lulu's and Henri's and Francis'; and Charles's and countless other children who'd made the same climb to leap from the rope swing that Tamba had built. The tk nuts around the branch were she stood were gone already. She climbed up one branch higher, where the bark was still rough, fewer hands and feet had tread and she picked a tk nut. Tamba was still swinging, slower now, ever closer to equilibrium. 

When his swing had lost it's momentum he lowered himself hand over fist until he reached the end of the line and then he dropped to the forest floor. The line was just long enough, with a heavy knot at the end, that he could throw it up and over the branch where Birdie stood. 

She waited while he climbed back up and joined her on the limb. She handed him a nut and took the rope. She kept her eyes on his as she casually fell backward gripping the rope. Still, she knew her eyes betrayed her as she left the branch, no matter how many times she did it there was a jolt of fear that went shooting up her spine when all her weight settled onto the line, there was a lot ridding on that instant, it was the instant where you found out if the line would hold, if the branch would still bear your weight and then it was gone and you were with it, chasing the arc of an invisible pendulum out over the clearing Cuthie's family called home. 

Birdie looked down on the garden, the corn still only knee-high, not yet supporting the threading tendrils of bean plants. tk look up food crops of coastal carolina pre-contact. 

Eventually they realized he was not coming, he and samuel and charles and gone off hunting in the woods. They sometimes managed to bring back a rabbit, or a partiage or woodcock, but usually the returned empty handed with hard to believe stories of their nearly amzing feats. Lulu and Birdie usually just nodded and went on with whatever they were doing, though henri was ndid not otherwise tend ot exagerate or make up stories, which always made Birdie wonder if at least the stories he told might actually be true. Especially the stories about Tamba's people living deep in the woods. 


At the helm Birdie was de Graffe, fearless and fair, loved by the crew. 


They crested the last dune before the beach and all went tumbling, cartwheeling down to the firmer sand of the shoreline, along which lay the 




A groan escaped her. It was going to be a long, hot day made even hotter by the fires. IT was time to start making tar, a task Birdie loathed, though truthfully there weren't any tasks she didn't loath. She wanted to spend all day at the Arkhangelsk, with the new pot, with her sister, even her brother, even her cousins and her brother combined would be better than fetching wood and dried reeds all day and feeding them into ovens.
She stood up and wiggled her feet, letting them sink into the sand up to her ankles.