Those were not Drew’s thoughts and emotions as he sat with an arm resting on the warm metal of the Charley Noble. The sea doesn’t care a whit for what happens to those who sail upon her, he reminded himself. Or for those who dive into her depths. Yet, of them all, he, the youngest, was the least able to grasp that Artemis was gone forever. He found himself turning around, every now and then, with the expectation of seeing Artemis beside him. When he spotted a mossy lobster pot drifting on the tide in the distance, he thought for a moment that it was Artemis’s head, bobbing to the surface. He squinted at the far-off object, half hoping to see the strong brown arms stroking toward the boat, and then Artemis climbing up the Jacob’s ladder to laugh that wonderful laugh of his and tell them that he had gone for a long, refreshing swim.

And so the long day waned. They did not shape a course for Key West, or cook dinner, or check the barometer, which had fallen. They did not do anything, bound to inaction by a profound, paralyzing gloom that had become a fifth member of their crew. It stood by the helm, inhabited the cabin and the bunks below; it crouched in the bilges and hung from the crosstrees and shrouds aloft. And so the long day waned, and the sun bloodied the escarpment of cloud that had just begun to rear above the western horizon. Each boy recalled the hoary adage “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” and naturally it struck them now with a cruel mockery. Had Artemis been able to speak to them from the world of souls, he would have told them not to concern themselves with such thoughts; he would have told them to snap out of their funk and set sail for safe harbor, because in tropic latitudes during hurricane season, a deep crimson sunset was anything but a sailor’s delight.

Part Three

IN ANOTHER COUNTRY

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