“Erik, hurry up. They’re going to be here soon!”

“I’m…going as quickly…as I can,” his younger brother sputtered, trying to work his way down the hill. Erik breathed poorly at the best of times, each gasp a labor. Mostly, James had learned to tolerate it, and he always had a sharp word for neighborhood boys who mocked Erik’s ailment. Today, though, he felt impatient.

From the top of the hill, James had seen the ship in the distance, its weathered topsails pushed forward by the very wind easing it to shore. They were close enough that some of the salt in the humid summer air had deposited itself in his clothing, wet with humidity and the sweat he’d generated rushing up from town and down toward the water.

“Wait…for me…” Erik yelled from behind him, and James obeyed, tapping his foot with kinetic energy. He now realized just how much sea was still left between the vessel and the shore; from up high it had seemed close. He still shook with anticipation, but stopped admonishing his brother to hurry.

From his shirt pocket, James took out the last letter he’d received from Reg. He’d carried it with him all morning, since Ruth Charles had run past their door yelling that the Wampanoag had been sighted. He had carefully removed it from the small wooden chest in the sitting room where their mother stored it, and folded the paper gently along the same lines where Reg had creased it before handing it to the post boy.

The ink had started to fade; it had been more than a year since the letter arrived, and nearly twice that long since Reg had penned it.

“Can…I see…the cat?” Erik asked when he caught up to James and saw the letter. Along with his description of riding the trade winds and his quick notes about the other crew members, Reg had included a bevy of sketches of strange animals he had encountered on the way south. Erik took a particular interest in a drawing of a wild cat, one with thin ears that stood straight up before branching into fringes of fur. Their brother hadn’t given it a name, and it looked like none in any of their books.

“No, not again.” James folded the letter and put it back in his pocket. “You kept us all awake last night with your crying.” Erik looked down sheepishly. Ever since he had seen the picture of the cat months ago, he claimed to see it in the night, crouching in the corner of their shared bedroom or stalking the fields near the house. James knew they were only nightmares, but didn’t understand Erik’s periodic desire to see the picture that inspired them. Five years earlier, when he was his brother’s age, he could see feeling unsettled by the way Reg had captured the animal’s narrowed eyes and its straight-ahead stare.

Their older brother always had a gift with a pen and ink. Personally, James liked the drawing of a strange animal with a long tail striped like a raccoon’s but thinner and curvier. The cat was a looser image, with few defined lines other than those in the face that looked like it saw any viewer as possible prey.

Once Erik had caught his breath, the boys worked their way to where the crowd had gathered to watch the Wampanoag’s slow drift toward home. James wedged his way between some of the older boys, clearing a path for Erik to follow. “Pardon…me…I’m right…behind you.”

James was tall enough now to stand out in the crowd, letting him mingle with others without worrying about his brother losing him. Already, more than fifty people waited near shore, and standing among the old men, women, and other youths made James feel grown. His shoulders were broad enough now, and his stride long enough, that strangers could mark him as one of the oldest boys not yet put to sea.

Reg had been not much older than James when he took his first trip, boarding the Chestnut almost eleven years ago. In another few years, Erik would be of age, if he could get his breathing under control. James worried about leaving his brother when it was his turn, but he would need to contribute.

Waiting for the craft to drift closer to shore, James took out the letter and looked at it again. The family had few books, so he had read Reg’s letter often enough that he could recite most of it from memory. Some of the words his brother had acquired in South America had strange spellings, and James knew the way he pronounced them probably wasn’t right. There were some he wanted to ask Reg about.

More, he wanted to ask Reg how about the girl he’d drawn in an earlier letter. She didn’t look like any of the girls James had ever seen, her hair longer and wavier, and Reg had sketched her eyes darker and bigger than anyone’s in town. Their mother had noticed his fascination with the picture and taken the letter after they’d all read it.

“I…want…to…see…the…cat,” Erik interrupted him. “Please.”

“Swear you won’t have nightmares.”

“I…can’t…control…that…”

“Then if you do, don’t say anything about them. You have to be quiet, or Mother will take this letter like the last one.” James did not know if that was true, but he couldn’t bear another night of waking to Erik screaming.

His younger brother couldn’t have known that their father would sometimes wake up yelling the name of a friend he’d lost at sea years earlier. The last time it happened, Erik was still in his cradle. Reg and James had heard the commotion and watched their mother wrap her husband in her arms and rock him, soothing him the way she would a child. He put to sea a few days later, and though he didn’t die until several weeks into the journey, Reg had already begun to mourn him nearly a year before the vagabond letter blaming malnutrition arrived. The next time a ship went out, it counted the oldest boy among its crew.

Erik took a break from staring at the letter. “What…does…Reg…look…like…now?” he asked.

James tried to describe him, but realized five years’ time could have played havoc with any of his descriptors. The voyage on the Wampanoag was Reg’s third, and his second extended journey. The last time Reg had returned home, James hadn’t recognized him. He’d lost weight from the lack of rations, and his hair had prematurely thinned.

How much was the journey and how much was normal for the time gone by, James wasn’t sure. Erik had been a little boy, not yet in school, when Reg left last time, but James had watched him age, the gradual change blunting the impact of how different his young brother had become.

“Look…they’re…coming…” Erik panted, pointing to where nearly a dozen old, stooped men were tying thick ropes to secure the wooden craft to the dock. The ship wore the effects of its long voyage; in his mind’s eye, James could roughly picture what it had looked like shiny and new.

For the next few hours, seamen in various states of exhaustion left the craft and worked their way through the gathered crowd. All of these men were familiar to most of the adults, who clapped them on the shoulder or offered to help with their cargo while they sought out their wives or parents.

James recognized many of them, and tipped his cap to a few who made eye contact, but he mostly kept his focus on finding Reg. He maneuvered around other waiting families, careful to make sure Erik was still following him, but couldn’t see his elder brother anywhere.

“I…don’t…think…he’s…here,” Erik said as some of the older boys helped the crew start unloading casks and barrels, rolling the supplies down the gangplank.

James sought a familiar face among the crew, someone he could ask, and settled on Cyrus Joseph, who had sailed on his father’s last trip. He was making some notes in the ship’s register, counting shares quietly aloud to himself.

“Mr. Joseph, do you know where Reg is?” James asked. When Cyrus looked up but didn’t reply, he spoke faster. “Pardon me. I’m James Browning; you knew my father. My brother Reg was on the Wampanoag…

“He’s not on the ship,” the man said.

“I’m quite sure he was. I have a letter here that he sent…” James realized Erik still had it, but Cyrus interrupted his thought.

“He was on the ship. Until…”

“If he died, they should have sent a letter.”

“Worse than that. He abandoned us when we were in port. Ran away with a woman.” Cyrus flipped through the volume in front of him, looking for something specific.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t do that.”

“Here it is,” the sailor said. He showed James his brother’s name on the register, and moved his index finger along as he read. “Reginald Browning. Deserted. May of last year.”

“Last year?” James examined the line his father’s old shipmate indicated with what remained of a gnarled index finger.

“You can read? You understand?”

James nodded. He knew what that meant. Usually when a man died aboard ship, as his father had, the crew passed his share of the voyage to his family upon a successful return. A deserter forfeited that tradition.

“If it makes you feel better, he wasn’t the only one. Three of our boys chose the charms of native women over their lives here.”

“Did the captain try to bring them…to justice?” James thought he sounded a little like Erik with his stammering, but he knew to choose his words carefully if he still wanted a berth on the ship one day. Without anything to show for Reg’s journey, that would mean the next time out.

“Aye, but as far as I know, they were alive and well when we left port. If that helps.” If it had, James couldn’t admit it in front of the old salt, but it hadn’t. Burying a son would have broken his mother’s heart, but having one choose to desert them might do more than that.

He thanked Cyrus for his help and listlessly headed away from shore toward home, forgetting to check on Erik, who dutifully found him in the crowd and followed a few steps behind.

“What…did…the…man…say?” Erik asked, but James only shook his head and said he had to tell Mother first.

James didn’t talk to her about it until Erik had gone to bed. She said little, but seemed to grow smaller before his eyes. He sat up with her until she fell asleep, and then went to bed himself.

He didn’t sleep much, however. This time, James found it was his turn to wake in terror during the night, sweaty and afraid.

It wasn’t the drawing of the cat that haunted him, but that of the beautiful woman. He knew she couldn’t be the one Reg went with, but his dreams said otherwise. James woke up crying from the image of her and the man he imagined his brother now looked like running away from some exotic shore.

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  • Jeff Fleischer is an author based in Chicago with eight published books. His works include “Civic Minded: What Everyone Should Know about the US Government” (2024), “Votes of Confidence: 3rd Edition” (2024), “Animal Husbandry (and Other Fictions)” (2024), and “A Hot Mess: How the Climate Crisis is Changing Our World” (2021). His earlier books, such as “Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections” and “Rockin’ the Boat: 50 Iconic Revolutionaries from Joan of Arc to Malcolm X,” explore topics ranging from government and elections to history and mass hysterias. His journalism spans a wide range of topics, from politics to sports, appearing in outlets such as Mother Jones, Sydney Morning Herald, and more. He holds degrees in journalism and history from Indiana University and a master’s in magazine journalism from Northwestern University. Jeff has lived and worked globally, contributing his storytelling expertise across genres and media.
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