Calico Pennants by David A. Ross Page A

from swimming ashore. The waves were huge and the effort took nearly all my energy. There was one brief moment when I thought I had drowned. Or that I might drown... Then, suddenly, I was face down in the sand, carried in by a wave. I looked for you, BV. But I couldn’t see you. Then I heard the engines. When the plane emerged from the clouds, I thought I could see the pilot’s face. Or perhaps I was confused from having had too little food and not enough water while we were lost at sea. It was several weeks, you know. At least I think it was, wasn’t it, BV?”
    With Buenaventura riding on Julian’s left shoulder, the companions started back down the trail Julian had cleared on his frantic ascent, and at times, with his wings spread out for support and balance, it appeared that the bird was steadying his partner, the man.
    For here Buenaventura was at last delivered from the indignities of human domination and returned to his natural element. Having spent the first year of his life performing in a four-parrot sideshow in front of the Pioneer Inn in Lahaina, he was reborn the day Woody Emory rescued him from such a degrading fate. Of course BV always felt a little out of place riding over the pipeline on Woody’s shoulder, but at least with Woody he was free to live in the natural world. Since his most recent adoption, however, BV was contemplating a rather more inclusive return to ephemeral life.
    Julian returned to the beach where he’d first swum ashore. The size of the waves had diminished considerably, and with the emergence of the sunshine the sea in the cove shone a tranquil shade of blue. The wet fronds of the palm trees glistened like cellophane, and the moist earth radiated a primal, musty scent.
    During his trek up the mountainside it had become apparent to Julian that even if the island were populated it was not going to be easy to locate the inhabitants. Umbrage was dense and there were no obvious paths leading from his landing point. He would have to camp out on the beach overnight—possibly longer.
    “Welcome home!” said Buenaventura.
    “If nobody comes for us, I don’t know what we’ll do,” Julian lamented.
    “Easy come, easy go,” said the bird.
    To retrieve much needed supplies from the Scoundrel, Julian stripped off his clothes to make the swim. Reaching down to untie the laces of his deck shoes he noticed that the crystal of his Rolex watch was shattered. He held the watch to his ear, but it was not ticking. The face of the watch appeared distorted through a water bubble, and Julian saw that the hands were frozen at 7:20, the precise hour that the Scoundrel had run aground on the reef. For the castaway such an irony was devoid of humor; possibly his future had ceased to exist at that moment, and perhaps he’d even begun backtracking into some primitive, if sublime, existence. He took off the watch and placed it inside the pocket of his perspiration-soaked shirt before wading into the water.
    Once on board the Scoundrel, he sorted through the many items he’d purchased in Hilo. Though wet from rain and ocean surf, most items were still useable. Of course his most immediate concern was food. After weeks adrift all that remained of his stock of provisions was a can of beans, some mushroom soup, half a box of oyster crackers, two dozen dried apricots, a little condensed milk, and about half a pound of Kona coffee.
    Yet one thing concerned him even more than his meager food supply: the need to devise some kind of anchor for his boat. Disabled as it was, the Scoundrel remained his best hope for returning to civilization.
    While he had enough chain link to reach bottom, Julian was able to find nothing on board he could employ as an anchor. Abandoning a more conventional approach, he put on his snorkel and went over the railing to assess the damages and further examine his boat’s position upon the reef. To his relief the hull of the cruiser had not been breached, but the waves generated by the