He spent over an hour trying to find a place he could wait, but he found himself standing most of the time, needing to move. After he walked back into the wheelhouse and leaned against the side for ten minutes, the captain blurted out something that Edward didn’t understand.
“Almost dere,” Mr. Bones said.
Edward looked out the windscreen and noticed a rectangular dash on the horizon in front of them. The form grew terribly slow as the boat seesawed its way forward. It took another twenty minutes before they were up against it, a three thousand-foot long mesa in the middle of nowhere. He watched as the ocean swelled and smashed into sheer forty-foot cliffs on the north side, exploding into spray that reached halfway up.
Mr. Bones took out binoculars from somewhere, stood up, and scanned the very top of the mesa where guano covered the ledges like cake icing. Except for a white lighthouse tower and shorebirds circling the sky above, they could see no other sign of activity on the top. When they were close, Mr. Bones gave an order to go around the island. He wanted to see if anyone was on the other side.
The shrimp boat waddled across the swells, the back face of the island cliff revealed bit-by-bit as they moved. There was no other boat. On the eastern side they found a steel ladder bolted into the rock in the shadows, above a partially submerged shelf. There was a strong lateral current flowing around the island. The captain worked to break through this and bring the shrimper against the calmer water next to shelf. Mr. Bones’ men set out bumpers. Barry held a coiled line and took four tries to lasso an iron cleat bolted to the rock. After Barry had the boat tied up, Mr. Bones walked out of the wheelhouse. He held onto the eave to steady himself, and ordered his men to get ready.
Barry waddled over to the engine console and pulled open a hatch. He reached deep inside the hull, his face almost touching the deck, and pulled out three rifles. Barry righted himself. Two of the weapons looked like AK-47s. The third weapon was another common army rifle that Edward couldn’t name. Each of Mr. Bones’ men got one. And each examined his weapon, removing the clip, pulling on the bolt, checking it with an owner’s familiarity while the swell lifted and dropped the boat.
Edward kept a hand on the side of the boat to stay up as he watched the men working. They could dispose of him and no one would ever know. He hadn’t told anyone he would go with Mr. Bones, and no one had seen them leaving together. Spindrift off the waves hit him and he shivered.
“Barry!” Mr. Bones looked up at his man as soon as the three had shouldered their guns. “Barry, get up on top. Check id out.”
Barry’s eyes bulged. He opened his mouth and curled his tongue, acting as if about to cough. He looked over at the washed shelf and the ladder, his gaze rose, following the ladder up to the very top, four-stories up, where the reddish cliff met bright blue sky.
“Me? Yo, boss, you want me climb up dere?” He coughed. He started gasping tiredly.
Mr. Bones put his hands on his hips.
“What you dink I say? I didn’t know dere two Barry on dis boot. Now get your ass up dere.”
“Yo, boss, you know I throw out my knee—”
“You throw out your knee doin what? Reclining on dat La-z-boy chair?”
“No, boss. You know I throw it out walkin down the hill last week. And I got some sea sickness—”
“You tellin me you can’t even climb dis ladder? What if dey got some man up dere!” Mr. Bones took his glasses off and swung them around violently. “We sittin ‘ere like duck and you can’t get your fat ass up one ladder? Unh!” Mr. Bones shook his head at the deck, taking in a breath through his teeth. “Y’all know what gonna ‘appen right now? What gonna happen is dis. I tell you what – y’all going on diet. No more steak, no more chips, no more ice cream.” Mr. Bones started counting with his fingers. “No more French fries, no more KFC. Dat all I see y’all eaten. And what you do? Sit on your fat ass allll day long! Sittin and watchin TV. Dat sedentary. Dat what you is. Sedentary and everyone know it juss lookin at you.”
“But, boss. My knee.” Barry’s eyes grew at the same time his body seemed to bend, shrink like a child who needed to show his sickness.
“Doonh you say no more excuse. We in a bad place right ‘ere. Bad place. And I tell you climb up and check id out and you can’t! I doonh care who, but someone gonna start climbin or you swimming home. Now, who it gonna be? Huh? Who?”
“I’ll do it.” Edward stepped in front of Mr. Bones, his eyes wide, disbelieving what he was doing.
As he looked Edward over, Mr. Bones’ jaw muscles pumped. After a few moments, the steam seemed to have left him.
“Good. Good. I know we early. Juss bein safe. You go see dat nobody up dere plannin no ambush, you know. We cover you from ‘ere.”
Edward nodded and griped the side. He climbed over as the boat rocked, stepping onto the shelf while the swell spilled off it. The rock was covered in barnacles that he felt through his sneakers. He took two steps and reached the ladder, taking hold of the chest-level rung. Before he considered what he was doing, he began climbing.
He took care to get a solid handhold at each damp rung. Ten feet up, the rungs were dry and he climbed faster, feeling more confident with the repeated movement. When he was more than halfway up, he looked down and froze. If he fell, he would fall thirty feet and hit either the rock shelf or the deck of the boat. He would break his back. Probably die slowly and painfully. He forced himself to look up, straight up, up at the sky, up at a calming blank of blue. He told himself to keep going, but nothing would move. His hands stayed where they were gripping the rungs.
“You juss ‘bout dere! Keep goin!” Mr. Bones had his glasses back on and watched him.
Edward took a breath with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he looked at the next rung and willed his right hand to take hold of it. It moved. Then he willed his left hand up. He repeated this four times and passed the mast of the trawler behind him. The rungs descended before his face until the ledge appeared. Then he stopped again. What was he to do if it was an ambush? Yell down and try to slide away? Would Mr. Bones tell his men to fire up with him in the way? Edward was sure he would. If Mr. Bones had cared about his safety, Mr. Bones would have given him a gun. Edward started to look down, but stopped himself. He imagined if it was an ambush, they would have fired on the boat before letting someone climb up. Unless they wanted to capture him for some reason. He swallowed. His arms and hands were getting tired. He shook his head before slowly lifted his body up, peeking over the side of the rock.
He was struck in the face by the displaced wind rushing around the island. His hair flew up. He blinked and looked around. There was no one. He stepped off the ladder onto a path that was a mix of sand and shell. He covered his eyes with both hands, squinted, and surveyed the length of Sombrero Island, a barren landscape of white rock and patches of grass. Edward followed the path for a few yards, pausing long enough to turn around in a complete circle and look out at that razor’s edge where water and sky met. There were no other landmasses in sight. He walked a little farther and studied the lighthouse and structures around it, nothing but concrete shells, missing doors and windows, long ago abandoned.
The only things he saw moving were the brown seabirds hovering over the ledges and brooding on grassy nests. Edward stepped within three feet of one, expecting it to fly off, but it only adjusted its position, appearing completely unconcerned by his presence. He noticed a concrete tombstone nearby. Its worn and chalky texture helping camouflaged it among the large rocks scattered around the plain. He read the only remaining words carved into: January 1876.
There was no one around. He could feel it. There hadn’t been anyone there in a long time. Edward returned to the ladder and looked back one last time at the rock and unbroken horizon beyond its edges. The coarseness of the surface produced the illusion that it merged with a calm sea at the same level. As he looked out, a horrible loneliness fell over him. Even though the sky was bright and blue, the sun brilliant, the air clear, he could feel the emptiness still eating away at him. The mesa might have been the most isolated place on Earth, but it wasn’t the location that made it so. Edward knew a man could live in a city with a million people and cut himself off from the world.