“I will tell him,” Paquette said. “I must be going now before it’s dark. Would you like to eat with us tonight?”
Meding shook her head. “I am going now to see Jess. I will fish with him tonight if he agrees to take me along, then go to Arena Island to look for another sea heron egg. Nick-Nick, I am afraid, will not be found.”
When Paquette had gone, Meding gathered her orphaned chicks and put them in a covered basket along with a handful of seeds. She put the basket inside the house for the night. They will be safe, she thought, from whatever or whoever is doing these things to us.
Well after midnight, Meding held the tiller while Jess waded and pushed his boat away from the beach. When he was up to his chest in the water, he scrambled aboard and started the old pump engine while Meding lit the boat’s running light, a candle waxed to the bottom of an old wine bottle. The other fishermen from the village were already gone, their running lights barely visible miles away beyond the reef. The night was warm, wet, and black like the ocean water; the only sounds the quiet lap of the sea on the reef and the chug-chug of their engine. Jess sat on top of the engine hatch, bamboo tiller in hand, and steered the boat carefully through the gap in the reef, then pointed the bow toward Arena Island. They couldn’t see the island, but knew that from their village it lay directly beneath the three stars of the constellation Orion.
The boat was slow, so it was much later when they saw the black profile of Arena looming ahead. Jess killed the engine and dropped the anchor, careful not to make a splash. He then lowered a sounding line and pulled it back up, measuring the depth of the water beneath the boat. Satisfied with their location, he made himself comfortable on the engine hatch. They would wait, then put out the net about an hour before dawn. The fish would be feeding then.
Meding poured two cups of coffee from her thermos and handed one of them to Jess.
“This morning, when the child came to get me, you were about to tell me of suspicions you have about the American,” she said.
“Yes,” Jess replied. “At the party, Tassig told the men that whatever the bandits want we should give to them so they do not make trouble for us. The other men were unsure of what we should do. The American said that what Tassig suggested would be the wrong thing to do; that the more we give to the bandits, the more they will take, and the worse it will become for us. He suggested that instead we should all of us, as a group, make a stand and tell them that their cause is not our cause; that we will not make trouble for them but neither will we give them our food or pay them a tax.”
Meding said nothing. Jess sipped his coffee, then continued. “It was about two days after this discussion at Paquette’s party that the unexplained things started happening in Antipuluan. I suspect that he wants us to believe it is the bandits who are responsible so that we will become angry and do as he advised us to do. The American is a professional soldier and knows of using such tactics to make things happen. Also, he would not have to actually do anything himself. He has money and there are many in this province who will steal animals and make people disappear if they are paid enough pesos to do it.”
“I don’t understand why you believe the American would do this,” Meding said.
“The American has said that he wants to live here with Paquette and his son. I think he is concerned about what will happen here in the future. He knows that he is not one of us and fears that he may have to face the bandits alone.”
“That would be a reasonable fear,” Meding said, “but I don’t think the American is so easily frightened and I think you may have misjudged his character. Have you considered that perhaps it is the bandits who are doing these things; that they want us to suspect the American and make him leave Antipuluan so that they will feel free to come and go in the village as they always have before? Perhaps they are nearby but are afraid to come into the village while the American is here.”
“It is another possibility,” Jess admitted. He finished his coffee and rinsed the cup. “We must get ready to fish now,” he said.
The sky was growing light in the east as Jess pulled up the anchor. With an oar, he sculled the boat along, parallel with the island’s shoreline, while dropping sections of his fishing net over the side. Floats began to trail out in the water behind them. In a few minutes the net was out. Again he dropped the anchor and sat down to wait, this time without conversation.
As they waited and watched, the approaching sun slowly pushed back the ceiling of stars. To the west, the mountains of the big island turned from black to gray to green as the sun lifted above the horizon. Close by, Arena Island emerged from the gray to become an emerald gem circled by a band of white sand. Jess stirred from his makeshift bunk on the engine hatch and motioned to Meding. It was time to bring in the net. With one arm, Jess paddled the boat along the line of floats; with the other arm, he reached down and dragged the net over the gunwale a section at a time. Fish caught in the mesh squirmed, their silver sides flashing in the bright morning sunlight. Soon their catch lay between them on the bottom of the boat. While Jess sorted the fish and put them on stringers, Meding folded and stowed the net in the bow. When the work was finished, Jess started the engine and they headed for Arena. Meding sat in the bow to watch for submerged reefs. They both laughed as a sea snake poked its head above the water, saw the boat, and quickly ducked back beneath the placid green surface of the sea.
They made their landfall in a pristine cove between two points of rock and sand. Meding waded ashore, waved to Jess, and started off down the beach.
When she got back to the boat, the sun was high overhead. She had been ashore on Arena much longer than she had intended. She had found a sea heron nest, and the egg she sought was safely wrapped in a cloth she carried in her hand. She had also found something else — something more important; something she had to keep to herself, at least for the present. Jess was annoyed with her.
“By the time we get back to the village, the fish buyers will have left for Narra,” he grumbled. As Meding climbed aboard, he pushed the boat out into the water, jumped aboard, and started the engine.
“I’m sorry,” Meding said, but she offered no explanation. To make up time, Jess ran the old engine harder than he normally would; the bow and the outriggers sliced through the water as they closed the distance to the big island at a ten-knot clip.
Gliding over the shallows they saw that most of the other fishing boats from the village were pulled up on the sand. They exchanged waves with fishermen patching their nets on the beach and with pre-school children playing in the shade of the coconut palm and mangrove trees that bordered the beach. Near a cluster of nippa huts, they saw a group of men and women gathered around several brightly colored motor tricycles.
“Good,” Jess said, “at least some of the fish buyers are still here.” He cut the engine and they drifted forward until the bottom of the boat crunched in the sand. Meding waded ashore and secured the bow line to a tree trunk while Jess, stringers of fish over his arm, sloshed out of the water and headed for the group of people by the motor tricycles.
Later, the business of selling fish completed, Jess and Meding walked up the beach in the direction of Meding’s house. Jess had saved several choice fish and carried them dangling from his hand on a stringer. Meding carried the sea heron egg in its protective cloth. She had insisted on preparing fish and rice for their noon meal.
Shouts: “Madame Meding, Jess!”
They turned to see Paquette, the American, and their son on the beach behind them. Laughing, the three ran to catch up, racing each other in the loose sand. Paquette and the boy, running hard, arrived first. The American was right behind them, jogging easily.