The Shoalman

A tiny rock stabs out of the rolling glass. They bark at our tiny boat as we close the distance. A few scuffle and leap to the tide in search of scraps and, as we grow closer, we see him: in the midst of them, crouched, huddled, enmeshed in oil-slicked fur coats, rising out of the blubber and the flippers and the barking, a cloaked figure, his garb black as their pelts, but dull as ore.

He turns his head to us as we approach, dark, obscured by the setting sun behind and the philosophic, crashing waves. His beard, from his hood, we could see, twisted in the wind, algae and barnacles. We all swayed, enthralled, our boat now idling along side, the sun no longer in align with his perch we stare into his eyes, like the gaze of a tempest, grey-blue and ancient, holding it, as long as we could, at bay. His head follows us, his comrades still barking or plunging into the water.

Another wave struck the island as we reach his back and he seemed to vanish, like a needle bird, into the crest, but as the spray cleared, we saw him, shot up from the rock as a geyser, his cloak having shed in his wake, we now perceived his full form and in that same instant realized with horror that all of his company had scattered from the rock to converge on our vessel, and he remained, a column of indignation. They began to strike blows to the hull with the crowns of head, seeking weak planks. Our ship shook violently in the placid, dead wind waters and still, he had us mesmerized: where feet should have supported him, he balanced on a silky tail of supple muscle and ragged fur and above the ripples of his stomach, two full breasts hung like the sea had filled him up and bloomed there and in his vein twined fist he brandished a triton. This was like no pitchfork for throwing hay, it seemed the moon and sun had shaved off splinters and fashioned this harpoon. His eyes were still, soft, and gentle as the silent lightening on the horizon and they seemed to span ages.

After what must have been the better part of the season all wrapped into a single breath of salt, one of the locals we hired on as extra hand screamed a single word over the thunder beneath the waves, which now shook the nails from our deck. I looked to Roman as he, clutching my shoulder in passing to go support the men below, defending against the lions that leaped up from the sea, told me it was the name given one of the lesser gods said to preserve this coast; I would later learn that once a servant of Poseidon, now having forsaken that order, he was beyond even pagan prayers.

We knew now, as he raised his glimmering triton to the sky, that the sea lions had never intended only scraps, and we understood that, the native superstition, which had long kept out commercial operations such as ours, was in fact, wisdom.

Those of us who survived with only bruises and cuts from the sea lions dragging us to shore have no delusions that this was not a rescue for our sakes, but for the life of our story.