The Last Whalerby: Capt. Nicholas Stevensson Karas

THE LAST WHALER

By Nicholas Stevensson Karas

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Capt. Nicholas Stevensson Karas
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-7439-9

Chapter One

The Abduction

Friday December 2, 1865 Sag Harbor. L.I., N.Y.

Ice-cold water begins to affect Ben-quam's ability to concentrate. It rises above his knees as he slowly walks over the soft, muddy bottom of a small tidal pond the Shinnecocks call Neish-Mimipeek (Eel Pond). Through a small outlet, its level rises and falls with that of Great Peconic Bay. The sun had set a half-hour ago and the teen-aged Indian now has difficulty seeing his way. He slowly feels the bottom ahead by constantly stabbing the mud with the tri-prong-headed spear.

"Just one more," he says with trembling lips. "Just one more and I can go home."

Eleven eels are strung together through their gills by a long cord that is tied to his belt. They float and sink behind him as he walks. Occasionally, he breaks through thin, skim ice that is just forming. It is a cold December evening. On the verge of quitting, he suddenly feels the telltale wiggle of an eel on the end of his spear.

Quickly he adds it to the stringer. As he walks out of the water he begins searching the horizon south of the pond for a break in the line of scrub pines that dominate the land. He finds it and climbs a well-worn path up a slight hill. The Shinnecocks call the path Niamuck, "the-place-between-the-bays." Centuries of Indians created it by dragging their wooden dugout canoes back-and-forth from North Sea (Peconic Bay) to South Bay (Shinnecock Bay). Whites call it Canoe Place. The path rises but a few feet onto a level plain and joins the Montauk Trail. The Trail is a sandy, dirt road, rutted by wagon wheels and horse tracks. Far to the east, it begins at Montauk Point and ends on the banks of the East River across from Manhattan.

Benquam shivers in the cold night air. For warmth he begins running slowly to the east, toward his reservation. As he does, he thinks how his mother and aunt will smoke the eels for days. Both families will have a traditional Christmas treat. He wishes he had speared more when his thoughts are suddenly interrupted by the sound of horses and a wagon on the road behind him. He turns, and in the last vestiges of a fading twilight sees two men on the rig. He thinks they must be lost. They near him and stop.

"Do you need help?" he asks the driver, a bearded man. He does not answer nor does he see a third man jump off the back of the wagon. The man silently, quickly comes forward. In his hands is an open burlap bag. He pulls it over Benquam's head. A second man jumps off the seat and wraps his arms around the Indian. Holding him immobile, someone begins tying his hands behind his back. Together they throw him into the back of the wagon on a bed of hay. Before they close the tailgate someone binds his feet.

The 15-year old lies in the back of a wagon, steadily bouncing off its hard boards as the horse-drawn wagon races down the sandy road. Benquam is dumbfounded as to why this is happening to him. What would they want from me? he asks himself. Wild questions flit about in his mind as to why the men he sought to help did this to him.

The driver steadily whips the horses keeping them at a fast past for more than two hours. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the horses, now exhausted, slow. Suddenly, the wagon's ironclad wheels begin rattling over cobblestones, then abruptly come to a stop. As he lies there, listening to men talking in hushed voices, Benquam feels the push of a light breeze against the bag on his head. His nostrils flare. He senses the air is laden with salt. They are at a landing, at a dock. He hears loose lines, somewhere above him, played by the wind as they rattle against the mast of a ship. He knows where he is.

What will they do with me? he asks himself. He momentarily struggles with the ropes on his hands and feet but they are still tightly tied.

After a few minutes, he hears someone open the wagon's tailgate. Two strong hands pull him off. The next moment he is flung into the air and onto a man's shoulder. Someone else's hands steady him there. The man climbs up a ramp carrying him onto a ship. He stands there for a moment as if not knowing where to go. Benquam feels the man sway slightly as the ship gently rocks.

"Open dah hatch, damn it!

"Dis kid's heavy," the man says quietly to someone else as he now heads for the forecastle. "I ain't gonna wait wid him all day."

He carries the boy through a hatch then down a ladder, bumping the boy's head and shoulders against the sides of the narrow passageway.

"Pud him in da back," another voice says.

Benquam is abruptly dropped onto the straw-filled mattress of a lower bunk.

His hands are untied but the sack remains on his head without the rope. He hears someone come down the ladder while rattling something metallic. As he lies in the bunk, his right leg is pulled out and clamped in a shackle. The activity's noise disturbs a man who is asleep in the upper bunk.

"Whatcha got derh?" he asks.

"Yur good luck charm," the man says as he locks the shackles to a bunk post. "You might as well git up. It's midnight. Yur watch is already mustering on deck."

"Someone will be here in the morning to look after you," one of the men who kidnapped him says to Benquam. "You'll be okay here."

This is a new voice, one that Benquam has not heard before. Was it the driver, he thinks? His voice is deep, his speech slow, reassuring.

"Don't worry, nothing bad is going to happen to you. Life could be worse. At least you're still alive. You've got a great voyage before you."

"What kind of ship is this?" Benquam asks.

"Can't you tell by the smell? I guess not," he says. "It's been a while since there's been a whale on her decks. It's a whaler."

The man finds a blanket and throws it over the boy.

"Sleep tight," he says as he climbs the ladder.

Benquam lies there without moving. He feels the boat continually rocking at the dock. He hears men snoring and activity on deck outside.

My father will wonder why I never came home. My mother will cry. She cries easily. Damn these men! He reaches for his ankle and feels the leg iron firmly gripping his leg. Somehow he falls asleep.

* * *

"Oh Ben, where are you, my son?" cries an elderly women. "He has never done this before. Maybe he drowned."

At first Benquam's father does not answer. Finally, he says, "There's light enough now. I will go to the crossing-over place to look for him."

Benquam's uncle also goes with him. They walk past the reservation store that is still dark inside. They reach the sandy road and turn west to the crossing-over place. The sun has just topped the horizon when the man sees a flash of light along the south edge of the road.

"What's a stringer of eels doing here?" he asks his brother. "This is not a good sign. There's his spear. This must be what Ben speared. He carried the eels and spear with him."

Lights are now on in the store as they head back. Wood smoke from a newly-started fire is pouring out the chimney. Benquam's father drops the eels next to the steps and goes inside. He smells a pot of coffee boiling on a potbellied stove as three elderly men sit around it waiting with empty cups in their hands.

"Has anyone seen my son Ben?"

They all answer no.

"He was spearing eels...