And so I consider “Rain Magic” the most remarkable story l ever had anything to do with. I’m sorry I colored it up with fiction of my own invention. I wish I’d left it as it was, regardless of lack of connective incident and consistent motivation.
Somewhere in the shifting sands of the California desert is an old prospector, hiding from the rain, digging for gold, cherishing lost memories. His sun-puckered eyes have seen sights that few men have seen. His life has been a tragedy so weird, so bizarre that it challenges credulity. Yet of him it can be said, “He has lived.”
— Erle Stanley Gardner
Chapter 1
Through the Breakers
No, no... no more coffee. Thanks. Been asleep, eh? Well, don’t look so worried about it. Mighty nice of you to wake me up. What day is it?
Thursday, eh? I’ve been asleep two days then — oh, it is? Then it’s been nine days. That’s more like it. It was the rain, you see. I tried to get back to my tent, but the storm came up too fast. It’s the smell of the damp green things in a rain. The doctors tell me it’s auto-hypnosis. They’re wrong. M’Gamba told me I’d always be that way when I smelled the jungle smell. It’s the sleeping sickness in my veins. That’s why I came to the desert. It doesn’t rain out here more than once or twice a year.
When it does rain the jungle smells come back and the sleeping sickness gets me. Funny how my memory comes back after those long sleeps. It was the drugged bread, king-kee they called it; but the language ain’t never been written down. Sort of a graduated monkey talk it was.
It’s hot here, come over in the shadow of this Joshuay palm. That’s better.
Ever been to sea? No? Then you won’t understand.
It was down off the coast of Africa. Anything can happen off the coast of Africa. After the storms, the Sahara dust comes and paints the rigging white. Yes, sir, three hundred miles out to sea I’ve seen it. And for a hundred miles you can get the smell of the jungles. When the wind’s right.
It was an awful gale. You don’t see ’em like it very often. We tried to let go the deckload of lumber, but the chains jammed. The Dutchmen took to the riggin’ jabberin’ prayers. They were a weak-kneed lot. It was the Irishman that stayed with it. He was a cursin’ devil.
He got busy with an ax. The load had listed and we was heeled over to port. The Dutchmen in the riggin’ prayin’, an’ the Irishman down on the lumber cursin’. A wave took him over and then another wave washed him back again. I see it with my own eyes. He didn’t give up. He just cursed harder than ever. And he got the chains loose, too. The deckload slid off and she righted.
But it was heavy weather and it got worse. The sky was just a mass of whirlin’ wind and the water came over until she didn’t get rid of one wave before the next bunch of green water was on top of her.
The rudder carried away. I thought everything was gone, but she lived through it. We got blown in, almost on top of the shore. When the gale died we could see it. There was a species of palm stickin’ up against the sky, tall trees they were, and below ’em was a solid mass of green stuff, and it stunk. The whole thing was decayin’ an’ steamin’ just like the inside of a rotten, damp log.
The old man was a bad one. It was a hell ship an’ no mistake. I’d been shanghaied, an’ I wanted back. Thirty pound I had in my pocket when I felt the drink rockin’ my head. I knew then, but it was too late. The last I remembered was the grinnin’ face of the tout smilin’ at me through a blue haze.
The grub was rotten. The old man was a devil when he was sober, an’ worse when he was drunk. The Irish mate cursed all the time, cursed and worked. Between ’em they drove the men, drove us like sheep.
The moon was half full. After the storm the waves were rollin’ in on a good sea breeze. There wasn’t any whitecaps. The wind just piled the water up until the breakers stood fourteen feet high before they curled an’ raced up the beach.
But the breakers didn’t look so bad from the deck of the ship. Not in the light of the half moon they didn’t. We’d been at work on the rudder an’ there was a raft over the side. I was on watch, an’ the old man was drunk, awful drunk. I don’t know when the idea came to me, but it seemed to have always been there. It just popped out in front when it got a chance.
I was halfway down the rope before I really knew what I was doin’. My bare feet hit the raft an’ my sailor knife was workin’ on the rope before I had a chance to even think things over.
But I had a chance on the road in, riding the breakers. I had a chance even as soon as the rope was cut. The old man came and stood on the rail, lookin’ at the weather, too drunk to know what he was looking at, but cockin’ his bleary eye at the sky outa habit.
He’d have seen me, drunk as he was, if he’d looked down, but he didn’t. If he’d caught me then I’d have been flayed alive. He’d have sobered up just special for the occasion.
I drifted away from him. The moon was on the other side of the hull, leavin’ it just a big, black blotch o’ shadow, ripplin’ on the water, heavin’ up into the sky. Then I drifted out of the shadow and into golden water. The moon showed over the top of the boat, an’ the sharks got busy.
I’d heard they never struck at a man while he was strugglin’. Maybe it’s true. I kept movin’, hands and feet goin’. The raft was only an inch or two outa water, an’ it was narrow. The sharks cut through the water like hissin’ shadows. I was afraid one of ’em would grab a hand or a foot an’ drag me down, but they didn’t. I could keep the rest of me outa the water, but not my hands an’ feet. I had to paddle with ’em to get into shore before the wind and tide changed. I sure didn’t want to be left floatin’ around there with no sail, nor food; nothin’ but sharks.
From the ship the breakers looked easy an’ lazylike. When I got in closer I saw they were monsters. They’d rise up an’ blot out all the land, even the tops of the high trees. Just before they’d break they’d send streamers of spray, high up in the heavens. Then they’d come down with a crash.
But I couldn’t turn back. The sharks and the wind and the tide were all against me, and the old man would have killed me.
I rode in on a couple of breakers, and then the third one broke behind me. The raft an’ me, maybe the sharks all got mixed up together. My feet struck the sand, but they wouldn’t stay there.
The strong undertow was cuttin’ the sand out from under me. I could feel it racin’ along over my toes, an’ then I started back an’ down.
The undertow sucked me under another wave, somethin’ alive brushed against my back, an’ then tons o’ water came down over me. That time I was on the bottom an’ I rolled along with sand an’ water bein’ pumped into my innards. I thought it was the end, but there was a lull in the big ones, an’ a couple o’ little ones came an’ rolled me up on the beach.
I was more dead than alive. The water had made me groggy, an’ I was sore from the pummelin’ I’d got. I staggered up the strip of sand an’ into the jungle.
A little ways back was a cave, an’ into the cave I flopped. The water oozed out of my insides like from a soaked sponge. My lungs an’ stomach an’ ears were all full. I tried to get over a log an’ let ’er drain out, but I was too weak. I felt everything turnin’ black to me.
The next thing I knew it was gettin’ dawn an’ shadowy shapes were flittin’ around. I thought they was black angels an’ they were goin’ to smother me. They stunk with a musty smell, an’ they settled all over me.
Then I could feel the blood runnin’ over my skin. It got a little lighter, an’ I could see. I was in a bat cave an’ the bats were comin’ back. They’d found me an’ were settin’ on me in clouds, suckin’ blood.