Seven Tides

9 The Finding Word

 The harbor in Porto is cold in winter. The docks are chilly, especially at night. Most captains prefer the warmer climes of Lisboa and the Algarve. For a fifteen-year-old street boy who has never been further than the Coimbra monastery, those places sounded exotic and far away. It was my fate to only know the nearby docks of Porto. The monks would send me to buy fish in Porto once a week. With luck and good timing, I could leave the cloister early, and return the next day before sunset. Unfortunately, the boats were often late and wouldn't return until late afternoon, which meant I had to spend two nights huddled in a cold and damp Porto alley.

Gabriel was working on the docks when we first met. He saw me in the mornings trying to stay warm and learned that I was living with the monks in Coimbra. He offered me a bed whenever I needed it. In the months that followed, we became good friends. On slow days at the dock, he would borrow a skiff and we would fish and drift and talk the whole day away. He taught me to sail, and I helped him with books. Our stories were very similar, both having lost our fathers at a young age and having to fend for ourselves.

His father was the first mate on Diogo Cão's ship. They were making the second of two voyages along the west coast of Africa when a sudden storm caught them out at sea, but no one really knows for certain because they found no trace of the ship or crew. Cão, was also the first explorer to discover and sail up the Congo river, where he encountered a secretive shamanistic tribe with great magical ability. A year after the ship's disappearance in 1486, merchant traders reported spotting his ghost ship up the Congo river.

Gabriel wanted to follow in his father's sailing legacy, but his mother became ill and so he stayed on the docks in Porto, mending nets and sails, hauling fish and freight. We had been friends for three years when his mother passed away. It was not long after that he asked me to join him and his uncle on the Santiago. It was Gabriel's stories of his father's incredible adventures that convinced me to join the crew.

Gray sheets of rain hard driven by torrential winds descend on the village. Cabral does not wait for Dante and Alvarez. The Santiago weighs anchor and makes for open water. They skirt around the storm as it heads inland from the north. The Crew hoists the foresail as they round the most northern pinnacle. Gale-force winds instantly hit the ship and push it into the grey mist and quickly out to sea.

"We go now. We go high rocks!" Yanca shouts over the rising wind. "Hurry! We go to secret place on high rocks." Vintu and Amak follow him. Kitsanaku pushes Muala and Piala ahead of her. The rest of us have no other choice, but to trust and follow him.

"Quickly! Tutlenac come!" He says, as he leans into the fierce wind whipping across the beach.

Baskets, bags, and ropes; we toss them all in as the boat slides into the water. The rain comes at us sideways, chopping the surface of the water into spray, making it impossible to see. The breaking whitecaps provide the only bearing between sea and sky. The wind howls above us as the storm sweeps across the shore. Silva, Dante and the two native men strain at the oars, pulling hard to gain distance past the shallow, more dangerous waters. Gabriel and I are on the tiller. Yanca squats in the bow, squinting through the pelting rain with Kitsanaku and Muala by his side. Piala hides beneath them in the bow, covered in a tarp.

As we near the second pinnacle, Muala tugs at my arm. "Boontoo, look!" She points toward the north breaker. We hear the drums before we see anything. The sound rolls across the water like the frenzied pounding of a great beast's heart. At first, there is only the spume of whitecaps and slashing rain. Then one long canoe cuts through the murky grayness; then another, and another pass around the north breaker. They remain close to the shore, trying to avoid the reef, but the undercurrent catches two of the canoes and smashes them to bits on the rocks. They do not see us, or they are more concerned with their own survival.