Of course the locals say that the filly that suddenly appeared one day in the channel, swimming for the shores of Cabin Boy Bay, was a gift sent from Cleopatra. Maybe that was the case, or more likely, she’d been washed overboard from a passing ship, or perhaps she’d even swum from Cuba or Haiti. Wherever she came from, it did not matter to Mr. Twain. We named her Ocean, and from the instant she saw him, she was constantly at Mr. Twain’s side—whether in the corral or when we were riding around the island.
With my worries about Mr. Twain suddenly disappearing, I found myself out of excuses to stay. I set a deadline for the end of the month. I would pack up all my things, and Solomon would take me to Key West on the Lucretia. But first I would spend a few days with Ix-Nay and Diver enjoying what we had created. We sped over to Crooked Island to see Sammy Raye’s new boat and fish with the boys. It was quite a toy.
When I first came to Cayo Loco, I was shocked at how long the days in the hot sun seemed to last. Now, suddenly, they seemed to pass at alarming speed. There I was, on my last official day as the lighthouse restorer of Cayo Loco. All there was left for me to do was fire up the soul of the light one more time before I left.
I climbed up into the tower with Solomon, Ix-Nay, and Diver that last night, and we went through the familiar routine of priming the fuel tanks, winding the weights, and lighting the light. Then we sat there for the whole night in silence, watching the light. With each revolution of the bull’s-eye lens, a story or a memory came into my mind as I replayed the events since I left Wyoming behind and set off to take another road.
In the morning, we doused the flame, covered the lens, and wound our way down the stairway. Nothing else needed to be said. Solomon headed for the ship, and Diver went to his cottage. I couldn’t sleep and asked Ix-Nay to take a ride with me. We made for the corral, where we saddled up Mr. Twain and Ocean and took them for a final ride around Cayo Loco.
I am not good at long good-byes or farewell parties where everybody gets all rummed up and sentimental. That kind of behavior makes tough decisions even harder for me. More than anyone, Ix-Nay understood this. Hell, he had taught me whatever patience I had found. We rode around the island in silence. Ix-Nay had never been a man of many words; he did not possess that gringo flaw of sharing and embellishing his adventures. As we rode up to Osprey Point and looked over Cleopatra’s grave to the ocean beyond, his wisdom once again worked its magic. As had happened often over the last month, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the loss of my dear friend, and I began to cry. It only lasted a minute, and then I wiped my eyes, blew my nose, and recovered my composure with a few deep breaths.
“Old friend,” Ix-Nay said, “grief is like the wake behind a boat. It starts out as a huge wave that follows close behind you and is big enough to swamp and drown you if you suddenly stop moving forward. But if you do keep moving, the big wake will eventually dissipate. And after a long enough time, the waters of your life get calm again, and that is when the memories of those who have left begin to shine as bright and as enduring as the stars above.”
Somewhere between the waves of grief and the heaven full of shining memories, my life suddenly made sense. I said farewell to my old friend and turned my pony toward the shore.
I had opted to spend my last morning fishing alone on Fortune Island at a spot that Diver and I had found and kept secret, where a large school of tarpon had decided to vacation for the winter. I would fish the morning, then rendezvous with the Lucretia, and after we hoisted my new little skiff on board, I would head out for my new home in Key West.
The ocean was flat as a pancake, and the trip across to Acklins Bight took a little under two hours. As I passed by the Fish Cays, I spotted what I at first thought was an oil slick. It might have been the glare of the morning sun or my lack of sleep the night before, but to my amazement, as I got closer, the slick turned out to be a huge school of bonefish at the mouth of the channel. They were literally being herded toward the shallow water by a school of lemon sharks, whose pointed dorsal fins showed they had the school completely surrounded. As they were driving the bonefish along, a pair of dolphins picked off the disoriented and frightened stragglers with sudden, swift charges. In all my time on the water, I had never seen sharks and dolphins in a coordinated attack. It was a sign that this was to be no ordinary day.
It had been a long time since I had slept on the beach in the light of day, but I was feeling the effects of my sleepless night. It was time for a nap, and the tide wouldn’t be right for fishing anyway until just before eleven. I found a campsite beneath a stand of Norfolk pines that cast a blanket of shade across the sand.
I gathered a pile of driftwood and coconut husks and lit a small fire upwind from where I had strung my hammock between two pines. There was just enough of a breeze to push the smoke over my camp and keep the horseflies and no-see-ums at bay. My rods were rigged, and the boat was secure.
Before settling in for my nap, I grabbed my mask and snorkel and swam out to the channel to see what I could find. The shallow water over the flats gave way to the channel just past a large bed of turtle grass, where I grabbed two conches for lunch.
I floated in the still water of the slack tide of the channel. In food-chain terms, this was like one of those great diners off the beaten path. The outgoing tide was a liquid conveyor belt that served up the weaker swimmers to a host of creatures lying in wait at the mouth of the channel. It took me only a few minutes to make out the long, dark shapes eight feet under me, cruising on the bottom.
I counted twenty fish, some well over a hundred pounds. They would come to the surface once the current got rolling. I figured I had two hours. I swam back to the beach, dried off, and dropped into the hammock.
I looked up from the hammock and saw the crescent of the waxing moon still very visible in the bright blue sky overhead. Watching the moon above me, I had a sudden sense of my place amid the mysterious inner workings of the universal clock. As I rocked in my hammock, the earth was spinning like a giant gyroscope as it orbited the sun. Out there beyond the blue, the distant invisible planets and the Milky Way moved with us.
It never seemed so grand and mysterious in a classroom. Maybe teachers ought to approach astronomy from a hammock on a deserted beach as well as from the lenses of giant telescopes. The earlier in life we know we are part of something magical and mysterious, the better off we are.
At that point, the inertia of the hammock overcame the rotation of the earth, and the spinning of our galaxy and everything else drifted away as I slept.
I was awakened a few hours later, not by the alarm I had set on my watch but by people speaking in tongues. It took me a few minutes to realize that they were not coming from my dream but from out on the open ocean, and the language I was hearing was French. When I turned in my hammock, I saw the most beautiful little ketch under sail coming up the channel. She looked to be about thirty-five feet long and towed a small tender astern. Her sails were perfectly trimmed and drove the dark-green hull steadily through the calm water. She had a raised cabin sole just aft of the main mast that sported two portholes, and the sides of the cabin were painted white to match her waistcoat. At the helm, a single sailor in yellow foul-weather gear sat on the weather rail of the small cockpit and gingerly worked the boat upstream.
I was impressed with the beauty of the boat and the sailing job that I was witnessing. At the same time, I was ever so appreciative of the fact that whoever was driving the boat was sailing rather than motoring to anchor in my secret fishing hole. The noise from an engine would be tantamount to a cherry-bomb explosion as far as those big tarpon I had discovered earlier were concerned.
I climbed out of the hammock, got my binoculars out of my bag, and scanned the water ahead of the boat. The fish were still rolling happily. I swept the glasses back to the sailboat. I could make out a small French flag flapping from the backstay above the helm, and the helmsman was no man. She wore that familiar look in her eyes of an all-night passage, but it only added to
her natural beauty.
The long, sun-streaked ponytail that hung down over her jacket was held in place with what I knew to be a sail tie. She looked to be in her late thirties, very tan and very confident, and she was all business at the wheel. Her eyes flashed between the approaching shallow water off her bow and the set of mainsail.
As I watched, she slowly and quietly rounded the little boat up into the wind, lowered and furled her main, and then sprang forward and eased the anchor over the side. She remained there until she got it set, and the boat corrected course and settled back on the line.
I broke out in solitary applause. The clapping sound echoed across the flat and stunned her for a moment, as she saw me for the first time. She paused and then waved. It is amazing how a smile from a beautiful woman who drops anchor on top of the fishing hole you have been dreaming about for days can completely make you forget about fishing.
I busied myself with untying the skiff, and I headed for the channel. The sun, which had dropped behind a cloud, suddenly reappeared and blinded me momentarily. I angled off, and when my sight returned, I saw the woman on the sailboat perched naked on the stern. It was a lovely sight indeed.
In the old days, I had read stories about marooned survivors or sailors too long at sea mistaking everything from manatees to maidenheads for mermaids. As the naked captain stood on the stern of her vessel, motionless for a moment, and then did a perfect dive into the water, I knew this was no vision. The splash of her entry spooked several big fish that had been floating behind the boat, but fishing had taken a backseat to the woman in the water.
“Good morning,” I said, hailing her from about twenty yards.
“Good morning,” she answered in English laced with an unmistakable French accent. She had a pleasant smile.
I was trying to act nonchalant as she bobbed on the surface, completely comfortable with her nakedness. There were no tan lines on her thin but firm frame. Her hair was slicked back close to her scalp as she did a lazy backstroke toward her boat, where I read the name that was painted on the stern: RÊVE BLEU—CALVI.
“You are a long way from Corsica,” I said.
“You know Corsica?” she asked as she continued to kick.
“No, but I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”
“It is. You are a fly fisherman?” she asked.
I was startled by her accurate assessment. “Yes, I am.”
“I’ve always wanted to try it. I like the idea of fishing quietly, and it is beautiful to watch.”
“My name is Tully Mars,” I said.
“And I am Sophie Diamant.”
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. You certainly have a beautiful boat.”
“Thank you.” She paused and studied the Bariellete from her viewpoint below the bow. “That is a very interesting skiff. What does the face on the bow represent?”
“It’s a Mayan god of the sea.” I used the pole to hold the skiff steady against the tugging current.
“You are a long way from Mexico,” she said with a smile.
“Punta Margarita.” I laughed, thinking how long it had been since I had left those shores.
“What are you fishing for?”
Just then, a big fish rolled within casting distance off the starboard bow of the skiff. “Excuse me a second,” I said. I secured the pole to the platform, stepped down lightly, and tiptoed quickly and quietly to the bow, where I had my rod laid out. I grabbed it, checked my line for tangles, made one false cast, and then dropped the fly between the naked Sophie and the wake left by the rolling fish.
I saw the dark shadow appear behind the moving fly and felt the familiar powerful tug on the thin line. The fly line went taut, and the rod bent in half. It was only seconds before the water show would begin.
I stood there in the hot sun, sweating in anticipation. I didn’t have to wait long. The big fish rose out of the water in a vertical leap. He was well over a hundred pounds and bent my rod as if it were made of rubber. He shook his body so violently that the gill plates behind his head rattled, and he landed on his back, sending up an explosion of water.
“My God!” Sophie yelled. “It’s a tarpon!” She then began speaking rapidly in French, calling to the boat.
As the fish jumped the second time, the head of a young girl popped out of the companionway. “Regarde, Montana!” Sophie said, pointing at the fish. The little girl was the spitting image of the woman in the water except that her hair was completely blond and curled in ringlets. She wore a bright red dress. In one hand she was munching what appeared to be a large, golden-brown croissant, and blue jam was smeared around her mouth.
The big fish made a series of acrobatic leaps, and the final one saw him completely rotate his five-foot length in the air and do a backflip, which freed the barbless hook from his rock-hard jaw. He made a final defiant jump and disappeared below the surface.
The little girl on the boat began to clap.
“Do you do that for all the girls you meet, Mr. Mars?” Sophie asked.
“Who are you?” the little girl called out to me. Her directness took me by surprise, but before I could answer, her mother interrupted, speaking sternly to her in French. The little girl listened intently to her mother, then said in perfect English, “My name is Montana. I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Mars.”
“You can call me Tully, Montana.”
“Where did that big fish go?” she asked.
I was trying to come up with the answer, but I was feeling extremely awkward. There I was, explaining the natural world to a little girl while her gorgeous mother casually climbed naked from the sea, grabbed a towel from the lifeline, and wrapped up.
“Do you just play with them, or do you try to catch them?” Montana asked.
“Both,” I said.
“Do you see that one?” she asked.
“Where?”
“Behind you, silly,” she said with a giggle.
“Montana,” her mother said.
I looked to where Montana had pointed, and the large, expanding ripples on the surface indicated that a fish had indeed just rolled up there. I did not cast again, and Montana disappeared back in the cabin.
“She speaks very good English,” I said.
“Her father was American,” Sophie told me as she ran her hands through her hair. “It seems as if I dropped my anchor on your fishing spot. For that I am very sorry.”
“It’s a big channel. Besides, they wouldn’t have even been here if you had motored in.”
“My grandfather always taught me that they called the engines auxiliary because they were only to be used if the wind wouldn’t get you where you wanted to go. But still, I disturbed your spot.”
“The fish won’t go far,” I said.
“Well, if you don’t find them again, at least we could make you breakfast for ruining your fishing spot.”
Montana reappeared with a fresh croissant and extended her arm out over the transom toward me. “Want one?” she asked.
I put down my fly rod and picked up my pole. “Breakfast sounds wonderful.”
“Then throw me a line,” Sophie said.
As I secured the Bariellete to one of the stern cleats on Rêve Bleu, a wonderful bakery aroma came from the galley below.
“Just drop your shoes and come down,” Sophie called out from below.
“I don’t wear shoes,” I said.
“Then you are closer to eating than you think.”
I descended into the cabin of the boat. I immediately felt a strange sense of familiarity that I couldn’t quite figure out. Having been used to the spacious but dark quarters of the Lucretia for so long, I found Sophie’s ship to be tiny but bright, and more of a home. There were colorful Moroccan throw rugs on the cabin sole, and the bulkheads were covered with photographs. Two small paintings were hung on each side of the forward bulkhead. Sophie was wedged into the small galley, studying the omelet pan on the burner of the gimballed stove and whisking eggs in a small wooden bowl. Nets
drooped from brass hooks above her head and were filled with fruits and vegetables. Montana was seated at the table coloring in a book.
“Hello, Mr. Mars,” she said.
“Hello, Montana. What are you drawing?”
“You,” she answered.
Sophie went about the almost second-nature, effortless process of cooking. Bacon now sizzled in a pan as she surgically diced an onion with a piece of French bread clenched between her teeth. “I hope you like onions,” she managed to say.
“I eat everything.”
My stomach began to growl. I remembered that I hadn’t eaten since dawn, when I’d had a peanut-butter sandwich for a snack.
“The bread is an old trick to keep you from crying when you cut onions,” Sophie mumbled. She finished chopping, dropped the pile of diced onions in the pan with the bacon, and tossed the piece of bread through the open porthole above her head. “I am still thinking about that fish jumping. That was amazing to see,” Sophie said as she poured the eggs into the hot pan and concentrated on creating an omelet. “I have fished all my life, but there are so few fish in the Mediterranean.” She dropped the bacon-and-onion mixture into the eggs and artfully flipped the omelet. “I have read about tarpon and seen videos and pictures, but like most things, it never comes close to the actual experience. I never really thought that a fish so big could jump so high.” Sophie gently eased the omelet onto a plate that was garnished with sliced mangoes and watermelon.
“Where did you find watermelon out here?” I asked.
“In the Dominican Republic. Please sit,” she said.
I eased by the galley and accidentally collided with Sophie’s shoulder as she turned to reach for a dish towel to wipe her brow. I caught a whiff of jasmine. I took a seat on the opposite side of the table from Montana.
“Well,” I said, “there is still a lot of morning left, and a few more hours on this tide. That school should be settled back down. Want to give it a try after breakfast?”