Chasing The Sun

 The evening sea air always carries a special sound in the foaming sunset waves, sometimes pulling his gaze to the thickening horizon on the left side of the ship, where the blue sky darkens first. Reis was sure that they were sailing strictly to the south — the compass’s arrow could not lie. Even the color of the sky reassured him that everything was as it should be, and the compass, purchased for a couple of coins from a fortune teller at the inn, was well, just a compass. Nothing extraordinary. Though the old woman insisted that he was still on the right path, still following his ‘destiny’, Reis had stopped believing in such fairy tales a long time ago. Tales suitable only for an evening with a pint of beer in hand at one of Tortuga's pubs after a successful return to land. Reis could bet what money he had left on him that these stories were ‘invented’ by tipsy sailors who could sincerely swear they'd seen the Flying Dutchman, the tentacle of a passing kraken, or even by an old fortune teller hawking worthless trinkets as magic cards or lucky bracelets made of seashells. 

   ‘Compass of fate,’ she’d called it. Laughable in Reis’s opinion. It was just an ordinary trinket, but he urgently needed any compass for a small sum to finally return the borrowed one to his quartermaster. Julian had managed to remind him of this in a businesslike manner with his very first step down the gangway. Even with the captain, he sometimes adopted a lecturing tone, but Reis simply ignored it — a habit that had likely developed after countless hours spent dealing with the crew. Julian was either respected or feared by everyone aboard the Ouida, and at sea, broad shoulders and strong arms mattered far more than the dark color of his skin. There was no question why Julian was the quartermaster.

    Back to the subject... It was a pity that Reis's favorite compass had been carelessly drowned somewhere in the depths of the sea just a couple of days before arriving in Tortuga. Now, having checked a few compasses with some of the crew, it was possible to sail safely along the eastern shore of unfamiliar South America. 

     Reis had long argued with the crew as to whether or not they needed to go through the unknown waters around the mainland, but the arguments of the whole crew that everyone was shoveling gold from the prairies on the west coast of North America and selling it for three times the price on the other side of the Pacific were hard to argue against. Besides, Julian and Renato supported the team, and if the quartermaster and first mate were in the mood to travel, it seemed pointless to argue against it. And the stupefying smell of gold on the other side of the continent convinced Reis even more. The thirst for the glittering coins was, as always, stronger. 

   The first two months were perfectly calm, ordinary, and even boring: a tailwind, calm latitudes, familiar waters, and enough provisions to reach St. Lucia's Bay in full force and without too much trouble. The crew wandered around the coastal town complaining that no ships had been seen. Renato sighed sadly over a bowl of soup at the inn, tucking his tar-black hair into a tight ponytail, saying that the last time they'd boarded a ship had been last year. Reis was simply unimpressed, and fell into the creaky bed in one of the inn's rooms, ignoring the suggestion of a couple of sailors to check out the local brothel near the old monastery; getting a good night's sleep in a soft bed where the floor beneath your feet wasn't rocked by the slow-moving waves was a priority. 

    The second distance to the village near the river La Plata promised the same drowsy, calm waves, and the sailors already had time to bet on how many days it would be before anything interesting appeared on the horizon, except for the vast blue coastal waters and the barely visible land always on the starboard side. Renato was content to take the money he had won, for after two weeks of their boring journey, something indeed happened. 

    The first to notice the oddities, as always, was Bastian, who sat in the crow's nest (his hooked nose and squeaky voice made him look like a crow) at the top of the main mast, idly counting the sparse clouds in the sky and thinking of what they looked like. He did not even immediately notice something strange on the horizon, but his senses, trained by the harsh pirate life, told him to look through binoculars into the sea. The shout that there was a dinghy on the starboard side woke up the bosuns on deck, who were resting near the masts, with one eye watching the young men scrubbing the floor. On the captain's bridge Reis at the helm only leisurely took out a folding telescope from his pocket. Maybe it was just the usual fishermen who had swum farther out, or maybe the current had swept the boat away from the shore because of a weak knot. The bosuns had already poured out a couple of flattering words to Bastian, to which he merely threw in: "Shut your mouths, you, deck fools," and went on to watch the clouds. He had done his part. Now it was up to the first mate. 

    Renato, who had fallen asleep, hastily tucked the loose strands of his ponytail behind his ears, sprang out of his cabin and raced toward the bow of the ship. Reis only smiled kindly at this: Renato was the captain's righthand man, but he ran around the deck like a newly hired youngster, as if he had never been at sea for five years. He looked at something in the approaching point for a long time, and then he shouted: "There's a man waving his hat at us, probably the captain." And then everybody really woke up. Curious young men, interested sailors, a couple of bosuns, someone even came up from the hold to see what had happened.

   As the ship drew nearer, the man's silhouette became clearer: the disheveled shirt, the tattoos on his chest, and even the triangular hat in his hands were visible from a distance, and some words were even recognizable, though Reis could only understand "captain" and "rescue". The crew was not allowed to slow down, Reis figured it would take too much effort and they'd lose time stopping, though it wasn't even known if the poor man on the dinghy was the captain.

   “Throw down the ropes on the starboard side! If he wants to live, he’ll grab onto them,“ he said, somewhat indifferently, and noticing that all were at work, he called to his mate. “Renato! Hold the wheel straight, I'll be right there!” And feeling him grasp the wheel, Reis stepped back to the starboard bulwark. It was evident that the man in the boat began to wave his hat a little less briskly, but Reis only noted that the position of the dinghy was a little far from the ship, and taking the helm back in his hands, he twisted to the right and leveled off almost immediately. By his reckoning this should have been enough for the "captain" to reach the ropes. 

   Shifting responsibility for the steering wheel back to Renato, Reis walked to the edge and grinned when he saw that, as always, he had been d*mn accurate in his senses — the ropes were dangling just in the path the dinghy would take. The unknown man was mutely shocked and unable to grasp the first rope, but the second one seemed to fall into his hands, so Reis proudly stroked the wooden railing beside him, mentally praising the decorative wooden figure at the bow of the ship: his girl had done a fine job. So when he leisurely descended from the captain's bridge, the crew had already managed to pull the unknown man out and kept the ropes away. The "captain" didn't even have time to say anything and, clutching his head, fell to the deck, which had been scrubbed a minute earlier, dropping his hat.

   Reis had an inkling that the unknown man might faint, but he didn't want to alarm Alec right now. He'd been treating one of the gunners all night who had a stomach ulcer, and the ship's doctor had more important things to do than a fainting sailor, anyway. Reis reacted quickly, immediately assigning tasks to several of the young men: one to measure unknown's pulse, another to check his breathing, a third to pick his pockets. Reis squatted beside the unknown man, touching his forehead with the back of his hand. It looked like sunstroke or dehydration, so while the young men gave him water, Reis took another close look at the man. From the tattoos scattered all over his body to the calluses on his palms, Reis could tell they'd picked up a pirate. Dark skin, overgrown hair, noticeable stubble. Almost everyone aboard the Ouida fit that description, even Reis. Except that unknown man had the copper shimmer in his disheveled brown hair that made him stand out.

 A fisherman knows a fisherman, Reis thought, but his gaze caught the engraving on his belt buckle. It was interesting to examine it or to take it for himself, so without further thought he reached to remove the belt from the unknown man. An eyebrow lifted with a shadow of distaste on Reis' impenetrable face when this obscure pirate intercepted his hands a few moments later, a smirk spreading across his face. A playful amber gleam seemed to sparkle for a moment from beneath half-opened eyelids.

   “Easy, baby, we're in public,“ he said, his eyes wide with fatigue, but Reis just ripped off the ends of his belt and stood beside the pirate, throwing off his weakened arms. “You don't have to be so aggressive about undressing me, we still haven’t introduced ourselves properly. Can you tell me what ship I'm on, sweetheart?”

   Shaking off the nonexistent dust, he tried to pull himself up, but Julian had already managed to emerge from the hold and point the muzz