The two boats drift apart. Speedy steps the mast.
Now don’t be fearful, Buddy! We be lookin out for you! Good luck, Mist’ Will! Take care of dat old wind coptin you got dere!
Will nods. The soot on Buddy’s face is streaked.
The starboard boat falls rapidly downwind. In the port boat, the two stiff figures are black sticks on the white sky.
Late afternoon.
On the horizon, the sail of the port boat rises and falls, tilting and luffing in the gathering seas.
Ain’t ridin right. She wallerin.
She shippin too much water, Byrum. Best take dem fellas with us in dis boat, before de night fall.
Never heard what de mate said? Long’s dat old log’red still alive, dem two never leave him, and dey ain’t no room here for de three.
Best take dem in before de sea do.
You de one in charge of dis boat boat now? (grunts) Dat mon be dead before de mornin, maybe we take dem fellas with us den. (groans) Christ! Dis shoulder killin me!
Sundown.
Never took time to set dem turtles free. Never took time.
Domn one-eye Jonah! Just when we needin every hand we got, you runnin around cuttin de lashins on dem turtle—!
Sea turtle must go back into de sea …
De most of dem went down with de vessel! Dem turtles drowned!
Searching the rough seas to the eastward, Speedy speaks across his tattered shoulder.
Byrum? Easy, mon. You fellas help me look for dat port boat.
Captain Raib Avers.
night rain
the wind rises
the wind dies
squall
In sleep, Wodie whimpers once and sleeps again.
Jim Eden Avers.
William Parchment.
Daybreak.
The sea is still. In the starboard boat two figures hunch, awaiting sun; the third is curled under the seats.
No sign of dem.
We should have took dem in with us—dat what you sayin?
Easy, mon. Maybe dey off dere to de sout’ward.
Wodie rises and, in singsong, speaks.
Copm Raib die in de twilight time, de boy and de mate drown in de night.
SHUT UP DAT FUCKIN MOUTH!
Chin rested on the silvered splinters of the gunwale, Wodie stares sightlessly into the east.
Last night I dreamin dat I see Will Parchment’s grave. And in de dream I smellin graveyard jasmie. Not de wild jasmie dat grow so sweet—
SHUT UP DAT MOUTH, OR YOU GOIN OVER DE SIDE!
Nemmine now, Byrum—he just wanderin. Wanderin and wonderin.
horizon
Noon.
The catboat lifts and falls on long smooth swells.
Resting on his oars, Byrum glares around the mute horizon.
See dat? Empty! Howlin dis last fortnight like de winds of hell, and now when we needs dat wind to make de coast, dere is dead calm!
Wodie giggles.
Oh, wind die, too. De wind die, too. De sun just a pure ball of light, and dat mean dry dry weather.
Speedy pours one mouthful from the bottle.
Dere’s your portion, Wodie. Don’t go spillin.
Midafternoon.
A noddy lights upon the tiller. It cocks its silvered head.
See dere? It waitin.
How you know dat? How you know?
I see birds flyin in de corners of de sky, dey towardin de last light to de west, and I get feelins, and I know!
The bird raises its wings, and the wind lifts it; it flies away westward, into bright wastes of ocean afternoon.
Dusk.
One day I was in de bushes nearby what dey calls de Shadow Pond cause dey ain’t but de shadow of water in it, and dat day I found dis old coconut tree dat I knew never belonged dere, and beside it dis nut with a young sprout comin out, so I say to myself, De old people put dis coconut tree down so a mon could get a drink, and I gone to do de same. So I plont dat tree, and so de story end.
Tell him stop talkin about WATER!—
Dass good, Wodie. I plont some young trees when I get home, small plonts. On my own ground. In de Bay Islands.
Oh, I know everything dat grows, cause I were reared up in de Island, and by dat I come to know things. De old people tellin dat fore de hurricane of ’32, all de sea front dere in Bodden Town were Jennifer and sea grape and coco-plum and lavender. Oh, coco-plum! Dey tastes so nice, boys! Cocoes!
When Wodie sits up straight and claps, Byrum slaps his big hand on the tiller, then cries out, clutching his shoulder.
Pig food! Maybe de niggers eats dat at East End, but back home in West Bay we calls dat pig food!
Noon.
My grandmother dat were a slave woman dat a white mon got by his cook over dere by Prospect, she seen dis pirate standin in de Gun Bay road dat had no head—
Give me dat water for you knock it over!
Let him do what he want with it, Byrum.
Never heard Will say dat I in charge of dis boat? Never heard dat?
Speedy does not answer. They gauge each other, red-eyed, dry lips parted. Byrum’s big face is loose, on the point of tears.
Dis Jonah say he dyin! He admit it! He givin up on life!
Maybe two more days of no wind and dis heat, you find a reason to take my water too. Ain’t hard to find a reason when you thirsty.
Well, givin dis one water is a waste! He spillin it!
Speedy shrugs.
Ain’t we in friendship, Speedy-mon? I needin it!
Darkness.
You too quick dere with dat knife.
Best back up, Byrum. Best sit right up dere in de bow where we can see you.
I ONLY SAYIN DAT HE SHOULD NOT GO TALKIN ABOUT DYIN WHEN HE DO NOT KNOW!
Maybe he know. Maybe you so wild cause you b’lieve him.
Oh, yes! I seen de night birds flyin to de moon.
Noon.
Wodie’s hand lies on the turtle’s belly, black fingers taut on the pale calipee.
Where one old wreck struck on de reef was de flat we calls Old Anchor Flat, but dat growin up again long years ahead of me. Oh, yes! De corals is fillin it in.
Don’t spill dat, Wodie. Wodie? Dat little cup is all you gets today.
Course dere is duppies dat is facey enough to show dereselves—one dem rusty cats or a ruffly hen, sometimes a goat—and dere is times you will see one if you look back quick over your left shoulder, or rub your eyes with de eye water of a dog …
Shit! (spits) Ain’t gone to eat dis turtle?
Got to eat her raw. You ready to do dat?
Speedy splashes sea water on the turtle.
When we ready to eat her raw, why, den we eat her.
Noon.
In the parching sun, Byrum’s caked lips are caught on his dry teeth.
The water bottle stands in the shade of Speedy’s seat. Speedy whispers.
You touch dat bottle once more, mon, just once, I gone to move, mon, very very fast. So you got your own self to deal with, Byrum.
On the cracked blue paint of the thwart, Speedy lays down his knife with a hard rap.
I goin home, mon. Dat land in Roatán waitin for Speedy, fifty-five acres, mon, and cows. I take anybody with me dat don’t get in my way. If Wodie die, den I am sorry. If Byrum die, den I am sorry. But Speedy goin home.
Noon.
Dis de bad time of de day. Oh, yes.
Huh?
Oh, yes. Mon got no shadder. Very dangerous time. Cause de shadders of de dead is flyin round, lookin for people dat don’t have no shadder.
Afternoon.
De old people, dey taught me. I was just a boy dat loved to keep old people company. I loved to know something about de old people and de old ways. I loved …
Wodie sits up smiling, starts to speak again, sees Byrum, stops. He lies back again beside the turtle.
I dyin, Speedy.
Not Speedy, mon. Not dis year, anyways. I goin home.
Speedy winks at By
rum, but Byrum turns away.
Yah, mon. Been goin home all of my life, seem like, and dis time I meanin to remain.
Dark.
Byrum?
Course in de night, if you cotch a spider web across de face, or if you might hear an old cow lowin where no cow belongin, den you know dat dey are dere …
Face forward into de bow, Byrum. And stay dat way.
Fuckin black Honduran!
Dass me, okay. I nigger to de bone. (sighs) Wodie mon? Shut up, okay? I got to sleep a little, so lay down all across de thwart, tween me and Byrum.
Maybe he get me in de night!
No, mon. He get you, den he know I get him. De only way he gone get you is if he get me first.
Polaris
The turtle sighs.
Wodie lies flat on his back on the middle thwart, fingertips trailing in the bilges, bund eye rolled upward to the dying stars.
In the bow Byrum shifts a little, settles down again, body twisted aft. Soon one eye opens, and when he draws a breath and holds it, Speedy’s eyelid trembles. The knife lies by Speedy’s hand, wet with sea dew.
The universe is still.
Go in de water, Byrum.
NO!
Go in de water, mon.
Byrum Watler.
White sky.
Two figures in a boat. The world is empty.
I hearin birdsong but dere be no bird. Seem like I dreamin.
No, mon.
Speedy—?
No, mon. Ain’t no goin back.
You a hard mon, Speedy.
No, mon. I go ahead every day, do what I got to do.
Oh! I dyin here dis day! Gone to foller Byrum Watler into de sea!
Go den, Wodie. I can’t keep you.
Daybreak. High in the west, a lone cloud following the night is caught by the sun still under the horizon. The cloud turns pink.
Shark got him! Drawn to de blood! I feels it!
Hush, Wodie, hush.
I never walked de left-hand path, danced widdershins, nor worked nobody woe. But dey will say dat Wodie Greaves took de life of Byrum Watler out in de cays!
The hard line of the sky, surrounding.
It was a holiday in de month of May … oh, yes! Call dat de maypole, and de gumbo limbo, dat is called red birch. Oh, I was raised up in de island, and know everything dat grows dere, cause dat Old Rock is my home.
Wodie follows Speedy’s gaze to the wind banks in the eastern sky. His eye is staring.
Oh, yes! De corals is fillin it in!
I hoppy to see you hoppy again, Wodie.
Oh, we be hoppy in de bushes, too.
Best drink dis little water, mon. Cause we get wind out of dat sky, we gone to make it, hear me, mon?
One mon in a blue boat and de child face down in de mornin sea. One mon in a blue boat dat say goodbye, settin dere at de tiller in de manner dat you doin and lookin at me like de way you lookin. (weeps) Remember de way dat his eyes shine? I knew right away den, I had sign.
What you sayin, Wodie? Just drink dis little water.
De people, de people will be sorry to see
De graveyard for Bonnie and de gallows for me …
Dat is a sad song, Wodie, but you got a pretty voice.
Dat mon in de blue boat, dat mon is you.
The last light glances from the wings of a white tropic bird high in the south.
Night falling.
wild stars
horizon
night-blue sea
Wodie Greaves.
Noon.
White sun, white sky.
slap
slap
Parting the water, the great mantas catapult into the sky, spinning white bellies to the sun—black, white, white, black. Slowly they fall into the sea. In the windlessness the falls resound from the horizons.
Near the silent boat, a solitary ray rolls over and over in backward arcs, wings rippling, white belly with its eye-like gills revolving slowly just beneath the surface.
Nemmine, Speedy-mon. (sighs) My oh my.
Twin wing tips part the leaden surface, holding a moment as if listening. Then water rushes softly and is still.
Noon.
A man in a blue boat. Blue sky and breeze.
A loggerhead, rude shell awash, holds its ancient head at a hard angle; its eye reflects the sun as the blue boat passes.
Gone.
evening star
morning star
The sun, coming hard around the world.
Green seas of the continental shelf roll west toward the mainland.
At first light the trade wind freshens and the solitary man raises his head. Mangrove radicels, copra husks and half-sunk fronds of palm float in a milky sea.
black triangle—a fin
dark west horizon
The man balances the turtle on the gunwales. He rests a little, then cuts the flipper thongs and eases the turtle over the side.
Don’t cry, girl. Swim. Dass very very fine.
Still upside down, the turtle sinks, the blank face of its calipee pale in the deep. When it rights itself, the pale face vanishes.
the shadow of the coast
sun shaft and silence
old morning sea
bird cry and thundering
black beach
a figure alongshore, and white birds towarding
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City in 1927 and had already begun his writing career by the time he graduated from Yale University in 1950. The following year, he was a founder of The Paris Review. Besides At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he has published four other novels, including Far Tortuga. Mr. Matthiessen’s unique career as a naturalist and explorer has resulted in numerous and widely acclaimed books of nonfiction, among them The Tree Where Man Was Born, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The Snow Leopard, which won it. His other works of nonfiction include The Cloud Forest and Under the Mountain Wall (which together received an Award of Merit from the National Institute of Arts and Letters), The Wind Birds, Blue Meridian, Sand Rivers, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Indian Country, Men’s Lives, and, most recently, African Silences. His new novel is Killing Mister Watson.
ALSO BY PETER MATTHIESSEN
THE PETER MATTHIESSEN READER
edited by McKay Jenkins
In this single-volume collection of the distinguished author’s nonfiction are essays and excerpts that highlight the spiritual, literary, and political daring so crucial to Matthiessen’s vision. Comprehensive and engrossing, The Peter Matthiessen Reader celebrates an American voice unequaled in its commitment to literature’s noblest aspiration: to challenge us to perceive our world—as well as ourselves—truthfully and clearly.
Nonfiction
LOST MAN’S RIVER
In Lost Man’s River Matthiessen returns to the primeval landscape of the Florida Everglades, the setting of his bestseller Killing Mister Watson. In 1910 a sugarcane planter named E. J. Watson was gunned down by a group of his neighbors, perhaps in cold blood, perhaps in self defense. Years later, E. J.’s son Lucius tries to discover the truth of his father’s life and death. And even as Lucius tries to redeem his half-lost life by gathering the testimony (and braving the threats) of poachers and renegades, he struggles for the future of the remote country in which they live.
Fiction/Literature
AFRICAN SILENCES
A powerful and sobering account of the cataclysmic depredation of the African landscape and its wildlife. Through Peter Matthiessen’s eyes we see elephants, white rhinos, gorillas, and other endangered creatures of the wild. We share the drama of the journeys themselves, including a hazardous crossing of the continent in a light plane. And along the way, we learn of the human lives oppressed by bankrupt political regimes and economies.
Current Events/Travel
AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD
In a malarial outpost in South Amer
ica two misplaced gringos converge and clash. Martin Quarrier has come to convert the elusive Niaruna Indians to his brand of Christianity. Lewis Moon, a stateless mercenary who is himself part Indian, has come to kill them on behalf of the local comandante. Out of their struggle Peter Matthiessen has created a novel of Conradian richness that explores both the varieties of spiritual existence and the politics of cultural genocide.
Fiction/Literature
ON THE RIVER STYX
And Other Stories
“Mr. Matthiessen proves himself here to be a connoisseur of coiled tensions, between men and women, between people of different social classes, and, repeatedly, between races.… There is something almost mysterious about his achievement … qualities for which one can think of only classical or old-fashioned words: gravitas, grandeur, beauty.”