To Build A Shipt - Don Berry Read online

  "I expect I'm going to."

  "This here beast has got spots like a leopard, and a body like a camel and legs about eight feet long and a neck about ten feet long like a snake, only it's stiff. They can't bend it."

  "He1l, that ain't possible, Thomas. Allow a couple feet for the body and that makes him twenty feet tall."

  He nodded firmly. "That's it. I saw a picture of it. Twenty feet, I guess the big ones are maybe thirty feet or better up there. And that ain't the funniest, neither. Them beasts don't sleep, because they can't bend their legs to sit down or nothing. Everything's stiff on 'em. They just wander around all the time. How do you like that?"

  "You're making it all up, Thomas.'You do that all the time."

  "And they got horns on them, just little bitty horns. It was a English book," he added, just to clinch the argument. "They made it in England, with pictures and everything?

  "Well, if they can't sit down, and their neck's so stiff, just tell me how they get something to eat. Tell me that, will you, Thomas? What do they eat?"

  "Maybe they don't eat, neither. Maybe that's the only animal in the world that don't eat, you ever think of that?"

  That was so unreasonable even he could see. "Everything eats," ‘I told him, sure of my ground. "You eat, I eat, and your damned African beasts eat."

  He thought it over for a long time, and I could see I had him worried.

  "I remember," he said finally. "They eat each other's heads, I remember now."

  "Thomas, listen, where do you get such stupid ideas?"

  "That ain't stupid, Ben, that's logic. That's all there is to eat way up there, is their own heads. That's what they got them little horns for, to protect themselves from each other. Otherwise they'd all die from having their heads eat off."

  "By christ, I'll tell you if somebody was trying to eat my head off I'd want a damn big pair of horns."

  "Sure, but if they could protect themselves too good, then they'd all starve to death. It works out just right. That's what you call nature's wonders."

  I let him have his way, and I have never really found out the truth of the matter. If it is true that these beasts eat each other's own heads, I for one do not wish to hear about it, nature's wonders or not.

  In the morning we packed all the iron knees we could on our horses and set off. It would probably not have been difficult had we been expert packers, or even vaguely competent. But neither of us knew the first thing about it. We were learning as we went along, and I will say we learned a fair amount that first day. These deck knees were a sort of right-angle bracket shape, and very awkward for packing. At the time we thought the main thing about packing was to get the stuff on the horse, so we just loaded them into a kind of tarpaulin pack, laid the pack over the horse, jiggled a little to settle the load and tied it down. Thomas said he'd read how to make a diamond hitch and did several fancy things with the rope, none of which resembled a diamond in the least.

  Since I had no better ideas to offer we let it go at that. It was already noon when we started up the V-shaped depression of Nehkahnie that the Indians called the Meadow of the Ocean Waves. The horses were all behaving in a very peculiar fashion by this time. Even Thomas couldn't make out their style and he understood them very well from having such a horselike mind himself.

  "Thomas," I said, "what the hell's the matter with your animals?"

  "Damned if I know," he admitted. "They never acted like this before."

  They were—hunchy, is the only word I can think of. he 'They twisted and stretched their necks and hunched their backs and made pathetic snuffling noises. Thomas was genuinely worried about it. In thinking over their condition he was silent for once, and we plodded up the base of the V toward the high cliff, fighting our way through the head-high salal and manzanita that choked the trail.

  "Listen," he said suddenly, with such excitement that I stepped short in the middle of the trail. "Listen, Ben, when my horses get starved, like in snow or something, they eat each other's tails. Nibble 'em right off, they do."

  "Well, it ain't snowing and they ain't hungry now, are they?"

  "No, but it proves about them camelopards, don't it? I mean, if my horses eat each other's tails, why shouldn't them African beasts eat each other's heads?"

  "God damn, Thomas. Haven't you got anything better to think about?" I was sick to death of those monsters and I'd had awful dreams about them all night. "You figure out about your own animals and quit worrying about all that other stuff."

  "It's the breakers," he said, frowning. "It's the sound of the breakers that makes them nervous."

  "Didn't bother them coming up," I said. "Why start now?" He had no answer for that one."

  The trail around the cliff at Neahkahnie was much lower down than it is now, almost at the very edge of the bluff. It followed a little natural ledge around, and at one point you were practically hanging out over the ocean, five hundred feet up. I'll make no secret that the standard way to get around this particular point was to coon it on your hands and knees and nobody was ashamed of it. A few years before, an Indian boy from Clatsop Plains had fallen over there with a horse, and they said his ghost came back to haunt it. I wasn't interested in Indian ghosts, but I was concerned that my own didn't make an appearance too soon. However, with the packed horses we had no choice but to stay upright, and we took them across one by one.

  It all went well until the third animal, which I was leading. I was side-shuffling with my belly up against the cliff and we were going very slowly, which was the only way possible. Thomas was waiting on the other side. This animal was particularly nervous and irritable and I was worried about him. I had reached broad ground on the opposite side of the passage, and was gently easing the animal toward me. Suddenly the damn fool hunched his back.

  The cinch broke, and the pack of iron knees was loosened. It swung around under his belly, throwing him off balance. The animal's rear legs were just at the last of the narrow ledge, and he scrambled frantically. His rump seemed to move slowly out over the open as his hind legs flailed at the loose rock of the trail. The suddenly shifted weight of the pack under his belly, pulled him steadily down. I hauled at the lines with all my strength, digging my heels in and hollering for Thomas. He rushed past me from behind, drawing his butcher knife as he came. With remarkable speed he slipped the knife under the pack ropes and cut it loose. The pack clanked once against the ledge, then went hurtling down toward the rocks and breakers below, followed by a trickling stream of rock.

  Once relieved of the weight the horse was able to get I purchase with his hooves, and with Thomas and me hauling for life we finally got him back up on safe ground. The poor animal stood there with his head down, shaking like an aspen leaf.

  Thomas was rubbing him and talking to him and smoothing his coat, when suddenly he said, "Ben, look here at this."

  The hair was all rubbed off the animal's back in random spots. They were not yet sores, but would have been before long.

  "That's what's wrong with the horses," Thomas said. . "'I`hem iron things is poking hell out of them."

  "Jesus," I said, looking at the nearly raw patch. "They must really be hurting?"

  "Damn! If you'd been more careful with the packing this wouldn't—"

  "You packed this animal, Thomas. I remember."

  "The hell I—well, never mind. Let's look at the others."

  . We stripped the fourth animal of his pack before bringing him over the ledge. We unpacked them all and looked them over. That had been the trouble. As soon as the packs were removed they lost their nervousness and settled down.

  Fortunately none of the others was as badly hurt as the one who'd thrown his pack, the one Thomas had packed so badly. We distributed the three remaining loads into four, which would help some. Mostly we repacked a lot more carefully, having learned that the first consideration in loading a horse is not the load, but the horse. If you can't get your animal comfortable he is not going to carry. Sooner or later he will get ri
d of the pack, and in this case we were lucky not to lose the animal as well.

  Ever after this time that point on the trail was known as Kahnie's Toll Gate. This was how the custom started of throwing a coin into the sea there, as ransom for your crossing. You always had to leave something behind for that passage and it was better to do it voluntarily than have it taken away from you, as had happened with our pack and the Indian boy before.

  This was our only difficulty with the animals on the trip. I will say, however, that by the time we reached the Bay again I knew much more about those crazy damned animals in Africa than I had any use for.

  We got the horses unloaded and Thomas went off home to take care of the poor beasts. I went up to talk to Vaughn about the trip and tell him how it had gone. Thinking to amuse him I recounted our adventures in a light way, and told him how amusing old butt-head Thomas had been about everything. After about an hour I left, and as I was walking back to my own cabin I saw Thomas himself coming up toward Vaughn's. I figured he was probably going to complain about his horses, which had been his own fault for no knowing how to pack them properly. I was glad I'd gotten there first so Vaughn wouldn't get any erroneous ideas about the way things were.

  The next day Vaughn decided I was too valuable a man to waste on just packing, and I went to work in the blacksmith shop. Vaughn himself went with Thomas, making four more trips to the wreck of the Shark after having taken one whole day to construct some sturdy pack-saddles. I couldn't say I envied him, and was just as happy to be working with somebody else.

  Thomas was a right enough fellow in his own way, but he was just plain butt-head about practically everything, particularly when it came to nature's wonders. There are some things in this world it just does a man no good to think about.

  2

  The blacksmith shop went up very fast. With three of us working we built her in two days, and were a little proud of ourselves. It wasn't much to speak of, more like a shed than anything, but the roof was good and tight and we felt we had done a creditable job to get her up so soon.

  A man we called the Bishop, whose name was Clark, was our blacksmith, and in the late afternoon of the second day of work he came wandering down to inspect his new property.

  "Well, sinners," he said, "I'm happy to see the congregation improving its time with good works."

  "Good work is right," I told him. "Look at her, a regular house."

  "Good works, I said," Clark corrected. "It ain't the same. No mind."

  He looked the shop over and the three of us who had built it watched anxiously. It seemed very important that he be impressed; after all, it was the first actual carpenter work on the Ship.

  "Not too bad, brothers," Clark admitted. "In fact, a first rate job."

  We grinned at each other, satisfied.

  "When do you start on the wood?" he said.

  "Wood? What wood?"

  "For the charcoal."

  I blinked and turned to my companions, who were just as mystified as I. "Well, Bishop—what exactly have you got in mind?"

  "Brothers," he explained cheerfully, "a smith has to have fre to work his iron, don't you even know that?"

  "Oh, hell, yes," I said. "Didn't even occur to me. But you can get that for yourself, can't you?"

  "Somebody's got to tend to the burning, make charcoal of it."

  "Well—I suppose we can do it. Or anyway we can get the wood in before it gets dark. How much you figure you'll need?"

  Clark frowned at the ground. "Don't really know—have to fnd out how much work there's going to be. We best go see Sam."

  So the four of us trooped unsuspectingly down to where Sam was laying out the ways, and asked him. He was different these days than any of us had ever seen him before. He was no easier to talk to, but the reasons seemed different. He was so lost in thinking about the Ship that he forgot to be shy.

  "Sam," Clark said, "these sinners got my smithy set up right smart. Now they're going to make charcoal. You ain't got any idea how many spikes and bolts you're going to want, have you?"

  Little Sam looked up. He was just as distracted as ever, but I noticed he didn't turn his eyes down as he did when he was in the shy way.

  "Yus," he said after a moment. He took a long stick from the ground. He walked off about ten feet, dragging it behind him in the sand, and I swear I thought he'd forgotten and was going home. But he turned and made a right angle with the stick and drew a line about five feet long. He came back to us and completed the circuit, finishing with a rectangle about ten feet by five. I was nervous and embarrassed, as I always am when somebody does things totally beyond my comprehension.

  "Well, Sam," I said hesitantly, "about them bolts and things."

  Without taking his eyes off us, Sam pointed to the drawn rectangle.

  "Bishop," he said. "You count the grains of sand inside them lines, all right? Then you make me a bolt for each grain of sand and twice that many spikes." He turned back to measuring some distance on the ground and forgot about us completely.

  We fidgeted for a minute, looking at his back, then walked off. Finally Clark cleared his throat. He tried to talk in the same bantering tone, but he wavered some.

  "Well, sinners," he said. "I got the idea I'm going to increase my blacksmithing experience right considerable on this boat."

  "Ship," I said. "How much wood, Bishop?"

  He looked down at the ground in front of him as we walked back toward the smithy of which we were so proud. "For that many bolts? Not too much. I expect about half the forest in Oregon ought to do the trick."

  And half the forest in Oregon was just about what we cut for him. We also had to build a kind of kiln to make charcoal of the wood, and it took us two days for that, same as for the smithy itself. It appeared as though things were going to be a little more complicated than we had them in our minds.

  * * *

  We built the blacksmith shop and we had to have charcoal, so we built the kiln. Then we had to have wood to feed the kiln, so we out trees. Then we had to get the trees back down to the kiln, so we built a mile and a quarter of drag road. Then the trees had to be bucked up and split to fit the kiln. Then the fire had to be kept.

  We had damn near every animal in the Bay working, men, horses, and milk cows. Eb Thomas had the beginnings of a little dairy herd, and they were transformed into oxen for a while, dragging the great fir and spruce logs down from my land. (I had offered some of my timber, thinking of it as a chance to get some free clearing done.) "

  This was not all for the blacksmith shop, of course—that required only half the Oregon forest. The other half we had to cut down for the Ship herself.

  Then we scraped up cash money, and that was hardest of all. Sam, who hadn't left our little ring of mountains since he arrived there, made a trip up to Astoria to buy the tools we needed. Christ, we didn't even have the tools. We didn't have anything, except the image.

  It occurred to me in later years that we duplicated the entire history of the world that May and early June. It had taken mankind as a whole several thousand years to transform itself from a bunch of vaguely associated farmers squatting on fertile land into a civilization capable of building a thing of such ungodly complexity as a Ship. We did it in a month.

  These first weeks there was never any problem of order, or what we were to do next. There was so much that you couldn't finish one job and have a smoke before your next week's work dropped on your back. We seemed to be scattered all over, some of us miles back in the woods, others in Astoria, others down on the beach with Sam, setting up the ways, others down looking over the wrecked ship at Netarts Bay and negotiating with the Indians, who claimed it was theirs, others simply packing and carrying like so many mules.

  You couldn't keep it all in your head, there wasn't any one thing that seemed more important than the rest. The ways themselves, where the Ship would stand, were only one tiny item in the midst of ten thousand. The complications we ran into with the blacksmith shop happened with e
verything. Every act bred a dozen others to back it up, and it all had to be done from scratch. It was like watching the swirling activity of a kicked anthill; you couldn't tell who was going where, or why, or what the hell he thought he was doing. You couldn't even tell one man from another after a while. You lost track.

  Eating and sleeping both got irregular as hell. Most of us were batches, and this is dangerous in such a situation. You get to working and you forget to eat, you forget to sleep, and there's nobody to remind you. What's worse is that if you have missed two meals in a row you consider it a sign of weakness that somebody else wants to eat. By christ, you've gone without food and you're still working—that other guy can do as much.

  And with the Ship, weakness was a form of treason; we couldn't afford the effeminacy of regular hours, regular food, regular sleep. A man who finally had enough and went off was followed by hostile glances from the others. He didn't care enough. He cared more about his lousybelly than about the Ship. We were contemptuous.

  In time this evened out, of course, because it is not an efficient way to work. You can't go without food and get your work done properly. But efficiency was the only reason. We regretted having to eat and sleep—but the Ship demanded it, so we did.

  The Ship had begun to drive us. She filled our minds and our bellies in a way nothing else could. She drove, haunted, cajoled, persuaded and bullied and threatened. And we worked for her. She was our nourishment, the image of her, and it was a magic thing that by its simple existence created energy out of nothing.

  And as yet we had not put down one single piece of wood for the Ship herself. Not one. We knew the first piece to go down was the keel—we knew that much. And that was all.

  The only man whb had any idea what he was doing was Little Sam Howard. I do not remember him speaking to anyone in this first month of preparation, myself or anyone else. At least not often. But he communicated somehow, and what he wanted done was done. Or perhaps the Ship communicated what she wanted done. The distinction between men and image was becoming vague. It was all done, but I can say neither how nor why, and could not at the time.