Centuries of June by Keith Donohue Page B

exclude him from their intimacies. For Waters, nothing but sneering disdain as Cain looking upon Abel, and for Jane, most deep contempt, her mere presence an itch, a burning coal in his breeches. Vats of palm wine he brewed and drank alone, and many a morning, he would be found muttering to himself to untangle a riddle that plagued his addled brain. Too late he realized he had given up one prize to speculate upon another.
    On Michaelmas, being a day to celebrate the harvest and eat the fatted goose, they proposed to Chard an excursion to Smith Island, so it was named, to find fit repast for their evening supper, a turkle perhaps, or a few cahows. The isle was also the spot whereon Mr. Carter had once found an old Spanish gold coin, and Chard accepted at once on the chance that more might be buried there. Off they set in the little fishing boat, Chard and Waters at the oars, Jane turned in the bow to face them, her collar loosed, the day fine and the sea calm. Their excursion reminded her of happier times when the three had been genuine friends. Beneath the bright sun, Waters broached the subject that was torturing them all. “Do you ever think, Mr. Chard, had I not happed upon theambergris that our present enmity may have been avoided? For it seems the promise of riches, sir, hath caused a great change unto you.”
    At once Chard drew in his oar and stopped rowing, obliging Waters to do the same lest they commence traveling in circles. The little boat bobbed on the swell as Chard fixed his glare upon him. “You? You happed upon the whale? ’Twas I what saw it first.”
    “Come now, Edward, let us be friends,” Waters implored. “We have good news to share this morn—”
    “You cannot say so. I found the amber grease, and by rights, I own the whale’s share of the whale.”
    “Jane and I, we have decided, we shall be wed—”
    “Mine!” he shouted. “And what’s this, wed? You cannot have her, Robert, nor the money either. I found her out first, just as I discovered the treasure.”
    “Mr. Chard, please,” Jane said. “We are in love.”
    “Love, is it? Love? You are mine, too, Jane Long, and I’m ne’er done with you. How dare you lay claim to what is mine, girl or amber grease.” With the butt end of the oar, he poked Waters in the ribs.
    “Leave off,” Waters shouted. He fingered the knife belted at his hip. “Once more, and I’ll cut your t’roat.”
    Leaning forward in the boat, Jane set it rocking upon the waves. “Good sirs, I entreat you.”
    “Entreat me not, thou jot. You are no better than a thief and a whore, you scarescrow.” He spat in the ocean. “He may have you, all I care, but that fortune is rightly mine, as I saw it first, damn you.”
    She reached to lay a hand upon his knee and calm him, but then drew back. “A quarter is yours, Mr. Chard. And half belongs to us.”
    The oar struck her so quickly and surely that Jane had no moment to raise a hand in defense. The blade of the wood hit the bone of her brow and split the skin like an overripe melon, a string of blooddribbling from the wound, and the blow knocked her upright where she sat. ’Tis said that in the moment of death, all of life passes through one’s final thoughts, and she did think in that split second of her mother with the youngest brat at the breast, thought of how she grabbed the wheel and saved the Sea Venture from drowning in the houricane, thought of Ravens smiling o’er her like a father, the men and women waving good-bye from the decks of the Patience and Deliverance , thought of Chard’s first kiss and the dream of life with Waters, all these contained in one moment, itself cleaved in two and both halves split further still, for what measure of time cannot be thus divided? There was no pain but the shock of the clock suddenly stopped as Long Jane Long slipped from the rowboat and into the Atlantic, and the world turned upside down, the sky now below her head, the waves above her feet. When she opened