As we stood around our chief listening very carefully, he said, "They have a home there in a place they call Santa Barbara. It is cool in summer and warm in winter. They have fields where they grow things like melons and the sea is not far off. They want us to come and live with them."
"What if we do not like this place?" the chiefs son asked. "What if the sun does not shine like they say? And the sea is far away and has no fish in it?"
"We will come home then," the chief explained. "If it does not suit us we will take the trail and return."
One of the padres said, hoping to persuade us to leave, "The time has come for us to gather together, the Church and the Indians—both of us. And we must gather about the Missions, which, as you know, are many, a day apart on horseback from San Diego in the south to San Francisco in the north. They were meant to be forts, if need be, and so they are."
The other padre said, "First, the Mexican government took thousands of acres of our Mission lands. Then a war came between Mexico and the gringos, which the gringos won. Then the gringos took your lands and much of what was left of the Mission lands."
"The time has come for us to join together against the gringos, and the greedy Mexicans, and Spaniards," the first padre said. "Otherwise, there will be nothing left, not one acre, for any of us. Nothing! The white men and the Spanish women they married will have it all. They and the rich Mexicans and Spaniards. You will have nothing. Even less than you have now."
After that the two men talked for another day and on the third day seven of us went with them. We took everything we owned, some even took their dogs, though the padres said that it would be better if we left them behind in our village.
Mando went because he liked the sea and fishing. My friends Rosa and Anita went because they thought it all sounded adventurous and they would meet many boys. Everyone had a different reason for going, different from mine.
Mission Santa Barbara, where the padres were taking us, was near the Island of the Blue Dolphins. People, after my mother died, told me about my aunt who lived on this island and that she had lived there for many years alone. That was when I thought of going to Santa Barbara. I knew that there were Indians close by the Mission who owned canoes. Perhaps if I went there I could find one who would help me reach the island and bring Karana back. It was a wild thought, but it was why I left my home in Pala and followed the padres to the Mission at Santa Barbara.
I had never known my aunt, Karana. I was very young when my mother talked about the sister she loved, so I have forgotten most of the things she said.
But from what people said I did remember that Karana had leaped from the ship that had come to rescue our small tribe from the Island of the Blue Dolphins and take it to the mainland where it would be safe from the Aleuts who sailed down from far in the north and killed our people. She had leaped from the ship because in all the excitement of leaving, their brother had been left behind and she swam back to search for him.
But the captain of the ship would not wait. He was afraid of a storm that was coming and would not stay until Karana found him. It was in this way that she had been left behind on the Island of the Blue Dolphins.
And yet I wondered sometimes if Karana would want to live here at the Mission, although it seemed to me that she must have yearned for the place where her people had gone. I wondered because some days I liked living at the Mission and there were days when I longed for our village in the mountains, far from the sea and the men who went around quietly in their sandals and Enrica who told us what we could do and not do.
But because of what I had been told I had grown up with my mind set upon finding Karana. It was a silent promise I had made to myself. This was why I went to the Mission Santa Barbara with Father Vicente and why I stayed there when I was homesick for the mountains. It was the only way I could ever hope to find Karana, who was the last of my kin, except for Mando.
I remembered Captain Nidever who had made a voyage to the Island of the Blue Dolphins and had seen Karana's footsteps in the sand and had seen her fleeing up the cliff. Perhaps he would tell me about his voyage and give me advice that I could use.
4
THE NEXT day I took Father Vicente's burro and went to see Captain Nidever. He lived in an adobe shack on a cliff not far to the south. From his house there was a steep trail down to the shore.
On this morning I found him there sitting in the sun. He was carving a ship out of a small piece of wood. He was making the ship inside a bottle, putting the pieces together with glue. I had never seen a ship with masts and sails on the inside of a bottle in my life before.
I waited until he paused and looked out at the sea. Then I asked him about my aunt, Karana.
"I never talked to her," he said, holding the bottle up to the sun and turning it first one way, then another. "She ran like a catamount over the rocks, up the cliff, and disappeared."
"But you saw her with your own eyes?"
"Saw her and her footsteps, too."
"It could not be a man that you saw?"
"Men don't look like women even on that island. No, I saw her and her footsteps. Plain as day."
I then asked him what I had come to ask. "How did you go, señor, when you went to the island? Did you go to the south of Santa Rosa or to the north?"
"To neither side. As you know there are two islands there, Santa Cruz on your left and Santa Rosa on your right. There is a channel, a narrow channel, between them. It is through this channel that you go."
He put the bottle on the blanket spread out before him and gave me a quizzical look. "You don't have any real idea in your head about sailing to Dolphin Island, do you?"
"Yes."
"In what?"
"A whaleboat. It floated ashore in the storm."
"How long is she?"
"About six strides long."
"About eighteen feet, then. They're seaworthy and tough, these whaleboats. Who's going with you?"
"My brother."
"How old is he?"
"Twelve." I stretched the truth only a little.
Captain Nidever picked up the bottle and said nothing for a long time.
"You and your brother," he said, "in an eighteen-footer. You've got more nerve than I have. There's a lot of water out yonder and heavy winds and rocks and reefs. What kind of a sail do you carry?"
"None."
"How do you get there?"
"We will row."
Captain Nidever snorted. "You know how far it is to Dolphin Island?"
I shook my head.
"Sixty miles if it's a foot. Have you ever rowed sixty miles through waves that sweep down from Alaska and a wind that seldom blows less than twenty-five knots?"
"No."
"Have you ever rowed six miles?"
"No."
Captain Nidever dabbed some glue on a splinter of wood and put it in the bottle using tweezers, holding his breath while he did so. Then he put the bottle down again and gave me a careful look.
"You're a strong girl," he said, "and your brother is strong too. But my advice is to stay home. You'll never make the island, what with heavy seas, fog and wind, no sails, and no experience."
I listened and was silent, but what Captain Nidever said did not change my mind. I got up and shook the sand from my skirt and thanked him for his advice.
"I'll be going out there one of these days," he said. "Got a deal with the Chumash, who live down the beach, for a couple of their big canoes. If it goes through I'll be leaving for the island sometime before summer's end. And this time I'll find your aunt. She's a regular mountain goat, the way she climbs cliffs. She has a dog as big as two dogs and she runs like a deer but I'll find her."
When I got back to the Mission and finished my daily work I went in search of my brother. He was in the shop, filing on a piece of iron that he was making into a fishhook.
"You have a hundred hooks already," I said.
"Now it is a hundred and one. This," he said, holding it up, "will catch t
he biggest pez espada that ever swam in the sea." It was thicker than his thumb and three times as long. "It will catch a whale."
"We are not going out to catch whales," I said, "or espadas either."
From that day on I began to save dried beef and food we could use for a week's voyage.
Mando said that we would live on what the sea brought us. Fish and lobsters, abalone and mussels from the rocks on the islands we passed.
"We will live off the sea with what I catch," he bragged. "You don't need to worry. I'll catch a duck or two also."
But I still saved food that would keep for a week or more, in case we failed to catch anything with all of Mando's hooks. The boat was well stocked by the time we were ready to go. Our store would last a week should we need it.
We told no one, not even Father Vicente. Nor Father Merced, who might tell Captain Cordova at the garrison, which was near the Mission, and have the captain put us in prison for stealing something that belongs to the Mission.
We planned to leave two nights before the full moon, after the last bell before bed. The afternoon before we left, Captain Nidever came to the Mission and told me again that it was a foolish thing to do.
"If you were a sailor. If you had experience on the sea, even on the water near our islands, I would say nothing. But you are going into a treacherous world of winds and seas that can be very rough in a very small boat."
Mando spoke up. "Mukat and Zando will guard us."
Captain Nidever looked puzzled, not having heard the names of our Indian gods before. He saw that we could not be persuaded, that we had stubbornly closed our minds.
"When you get to Santa Cruz, anchor on the far side of the island, close to shore, in the kelp bed."
"We have an anchor that weighs forty pounds," Mando said.
"When you drop her," he said, "climb to the highest ridge and look far off to your left. If the day is clear, you'll see the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Then with your compass, mark the direction."
"We have none."
"No compass? You'll end up in China."
He reached in his jacket and took out something that looked like a watch.
"Here's one I'm not using," he said. Captain Nidever showed me the marks and letters on its face. "The needle always points north, no matter how you hold it," he explained.
He turned the compass in his hand and I saw that the needle always pointed toward the chapel door, as if Mukat were holding it fast.
"Put the compass on a rock," he said, "and turn it until the needle points to the letter "N." Then you must sight off to the island and put down the direction you read exactly—the direction to the Island of the Blue Dolphins. When you leave, head the boat that way, but make sure the needle is always over the letter "N." Without currents and winds you shouldn't be off more than three miles by nightfall and maybe five miles by the next. But from that distance you'll easily see the island." He closed the lid of the compass and gave it to me. "Don't forget to bring it back," he said, moving off down the beach.
"I will bring it back," I promised him. "And Karana, too."
He stopped. "If it gets too rough and you're taking on water, don't be afraid to turn back. You can always try again, you know. Remember that he who turns his stern to wind and spray, lives to sail another day."
5
MANDO FOUND a piece of cloth for a square sail and made a small mast, but on the night we left, with the moon shining on the water and the sea calm, the sail blew away before we had gone a league.
We rowed all night, rowing together and one at a time, resting when our hands began to hurt. We followed the line of the surf that showed white in the moon. At dawn we were down the coast, near Mission Ventura.
The surf was heavy here. Off in the west I could see the cliffs of Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa. Mando caught a dorado near the surf but he was too tired to clean it, so we ate a strip of jerky and two tortillas apiece.
There was no wind, only swells coming from the northwest. Rowing was easy in the smooth water and we reached the kelp bed on the south point of Santa Cruz. We worked our way through the kelp into a quiet cove. We moored our boat with strands of kelp instead of the heavy anchor and waded ashore, carrying the fish Mando had caught.
We climbed the cliff, while it was still light. Off to the southwest I could see the outline of the Island of the Blue Dolphins. It looked near to us and clear, but I noticed that the water was not so calm between Santa Cruz and the Island of the Blue Dolphins as it was along the shore we had traveled during the night. On the horizon there were humps that looked like hills, but were really big waves.
I put the compass on a rock and turned it until the needle pointed to "N," as Captain Nidever had told me to do, and read the direction where the island lay.
We went back down the cliffs and built a fire of sticks and brush. We ate the fish and boiled mussels we pried off the rocks in the pot I had. We had a good meal, but the blankets I had brought were not heavy enough to keep us warm. It was cold and my hands hurt. I was glad to see the sun come up far across the channel.
It took Mando an hour, or so it seemed, to get his fishing line together. He tied the big hook he had made in the workshop to a piece of thin chain, and the chain to the lines and ropes he had gathered during the past month and strung together and coiled in a wine barrel. None of the lines were the same size or length, but they were all very heavy.
"I'll catch a pez espada as big as the boat," he said as we made our way out of the kelp and started off toward the island. I kept the compass in my lap while we rowed and looked at it from time to time to make sure we were going in the right direction, for we could no longer see the Island of the Blue Dolphins.
The wind was light and the waves had not built up yet. Dolphins came and played around the boat, back and forth across our bow. We saw five whales moving south, blowing fountains of mist in the air. Two flying fish came crashing aboard and Mando fastened one on his big hook and let out some of his line from the barrel.
"I'll catch an espada as big as the boat," Mando said.
"What will you do with one that big?"
"Tow it home and haul it up on the beach for everyone to see."
"You forget that we are headed for the island, not for home," I reminded him. "Nor to catch espadas."
It was clear to me that he thought of our voyage as a chance to fish and of little else.
He picked up the whaling harpoon, which he had brought along, and stopped rowing to brandish it over his head like a sword.
Far out, behind us, as he was brandishing the harpoon, I saw a fin. It was large and shining and caught the morning sun. It was moving slowly toward us, smoothly, like a knife cutting through the water. Then it slowly sank and I thought of it no more.
Mando put his harpoon down in a handy place, should he need it.
The sun was warm and a light wind came up, which felt good. My hands hurt and I tried different ways of holding the oar. Mando did the same and we went along very slowly for a while. But I watched the compass and kept it pointing right, as Captain Nidever had explained to me.
Mando had a bare foot on the line where it ran out from the barrel. The line began to move and he took his foot away and grabbed hold of it.
"I think," he said and stopped suddenly. The line was moving in his hand. "I think I have something. Maybe Señor Espada."
"I saw a fin a while ago," I said.
"Where?"
"Behind us."
"Why did you not say you saw a fin?"
"Because it disappeared before I could speak."
"That is no reason."
"We are not here to fish for espadas. That is a reason."
As I spoke, Mando pitched forward, holding tightly to the line.
"Let go!" I shouted.
The line was ripped from his grasp or else he would have been yanked overboard.
"Espada"! he gasped.
The barrel that held the coiled line began to jump. Then it turned over. I reach
ed out and wrapped my arms around it. Mando wrapped his arms around me. The line made a hissing noise as it came out of the barrel.
"How much is left?" Mando said.
My face was close to the barrel and I could see the coils of line clearly. "Less than half."
The boat, as we stopped rowing, began to rock. It turned its beam to the waves that had come up and that made it rock worse.
"I'll hold the barrel," I said to Mando. "Take the oars and turn the bow into the wind."
He unloosened his hold on me and took up the oars. The boat righted itself.
The line was singing now. There was less than a third of it left.
"Brace yourself," I shouted to Mando.
At the same time I wedged the barrel under the forward thwart and held it there, with my feet braced against an oak rib.
Before we left Mando had bored a hole in the bottom of the barrel, passed the line through the hole and tied a double knot. There was no way the line could come free.
The last loop whirred past my ear. There was a jar and the whole boat shivered, as if we had struck a rock. The line was taut as iron but it did not break. I clung to the barrel that was wedged against the thwart, using all my strength. Mando kept our bow into the wind. The pull on the line grew steady and now we were moving slowly toward the island.
"Maybe he will tow us to where we want to go," Mando said. "I'll speak to Zando and he will speak to Señor Espada."
He said something under his breath and made a sign with three fingers. The great fish moved toward the island in a straight line. He was swimming deep but straight for the Island of the Blue Dolphins.
To ease the strain I asked Mando to throw a double rope around the barrel and tie it down. Then I let go of the barrel and took hold of the line. It was as thick through as my little finger and big and rough.
The wind shifted and the waves grew stronger. We started to take water aboard. We bailed as best we could and kept the water ankle deep.
The sun was overhead. It was hot and bounced off the sea. We were moving slower than we could row, but we moved. Then the line slanted at a different angle. It moved straight down and swung the boat around. We were now headed in the direction of Santa Cruz, which we had left at dawn.