Oh Brother

What are the odds? Captain Smith wondered as he watched the wooden sloop, with a black skull and crossbones flag sailing past his sandy desert island on the clear Caribbean waters.

Through his spyglass he watched a band of rapscallion pirates lower their plank, thrust a black-bearded man onto it, then poke and prod him into the shark-infested waters. Roars from the crew of “blow the man down,” mixed with the gentle waves crashing on the shore.

What are the odds? Captain Smith wondered once he had trudged onto the beach of the desert island. He looked up, squinted past the high noon sun at another captain standing tall, hands on his hips wearing a puffy, white, unbuttoned shirt and an impractically large, bejeweled, maroon red, broad-brimmed Cavalier hat, adorned with three colorful parrot feathers.

“Ahoy there, big brother,” Smith the Red said down to the man in the surf while twirling the ends of his curly mustache.

Smith the Black scooped up his own sopping wet, black Tricorn hat from the surf and shook it dry before placing it upon his head.

“Curse my rotten luck,” he muttered and marched out of the water. “Of all the desert islands to be marooned on, God plagued me be castaway on the same one as ye.” He pushed past his younger brother and stomped toward the trees of the island.

“After all these years, brother, this is how you say hello?” Smith the Red said following behind his elder brother.

Smith the Black turned on his heels and socked his younger brother in the face, knocking him to the ground.

“Ye be no brother of mine.”

…

The island was a long, narrow pile of sand, with a few dozen palm trees, dotted with some tropical bush and colorful flowers. There was no pool of fresh water, and the only animals were a few birds there for nesting season.

Smith the Black began his time on their island by building a shelter, fashioned from the branches of downed trees, twigs, and palm tree leaves, laid across a long, low-hanging, upward bent palm tree. Inside his shelter, he dug a small hole and placed a pile of twigs, sticks, and peels of some old brown coconuts next to it. Then he gathered a bunch of old branches and dry palm leaves into a pile on the beach and used his spyglass to concentrate the sunlight on the pile until it ignited. Then transferred his fire into the safety of his shelter on a torch and curled up next to it.

“And what is it ye be making shelter for? Three days been on this island now I have, there be no cloud or storm sign in all that time,” Smith the Red said, nestled in a hammock he had hung between two palm trees made from material washed ashore from a previous shipwreck.

“Mares’ tails and mackerel scales make lofty ships carry low sails. I came from the south this morning and it was on the horizon behind us. That, and this north-easterly wind, means you will look every bit the fool I know ye to be, come sundown.”

…

“Why should I?” Smith the Black shouted over the sound of clapping thunder and pouring rain. He stood at the entrance of his shelter, hand on the hilt of his cutlass. Smith the Red pouted from outside of the shelter, his curly mustache sagged from wetness. He turned away and, using his hands and scabbard, began digging out a hole in the sand. He lined the bottom of it with thick layers of palm leaves. The water began filling the cupped leaves until it overflowed into the sand.

“This holds enough water to last us three days each. Be that not enough to earn my keep?” Smith the Red shouted.

Smith the Black snarled at his younger brother. “Aye, but we ought to be digging a couple more of these first, fore we go in.” He undressed down to his skivvies and helped his brother dig three more identical holes before returning to the shelter and the two both warmed beside each other next to the small fire he had made. “I might be keeping you warm and dry tonight, but there will be no talking. I’ve nothing to say to ye.”

…

At dawn the next morning, Smith the Black used his cutlass to sharpen the branch of one of the island's bushes into a spear. Then waded out into knee-high waters and stabbed at the fish swimming near his hairy toes.

Smith the Red watched from the comfort of his hammock and chuckled to himself when, after hours of laborious fishing, Smith the Black returned ashore with only two fish in hand.

“Best not be counting on me to be sharing. This lot is got from my labor and is thus for me and me alone. Lazy good-for-nothing mutineers feed themselves on this here island,” Smith the Black said.

“I wouldn’t be asking you to share brother, we’d both be starved by the time we got done eating that puny meal anyway.”

A few hours later the tide slid away, revealing a long sand bar which the younger brother walked along with his hammock under his arm, to the edge of a coral reef that outlined the island. Then, he waded into the water, right up to the wall of the reef, and lay his hammock in the water, like a parachute behind him. He walked to the edge of the sandbar, slowly at first, dragging the hammock as a net, gently cupping the reef fish into it. Then he ran from the water and wrangled a dozen fish into his net.

“What was that ye said about sharing?” Smith the Red said as he made his triumphant return. Smith the Black was turning his catch over a fire. Just as Red reached the end of the sand bar, one of the ends of his hammock came loose and all the fish fell to the sand. They flopped into the water and swam to safety except for one which he had managed to wrap his boney fingers tightly around.

“Used the wrong knot ye did,” Smith the Black said later.

“Ye always need to be right, don’t ye? Aye, that be why no one likes ye. Be that why ye crew marooned ye here?”

“No one liked me, ‘except the cap’n that was. And he liked me well enough 'cause he knew I WAS always right,” Smith the Black said with vitriol in his voice. “There I was, busting my rump, breaking my back, getting in good with the captain, and you, my own kin, couldn’t stand for it. Ye, of all people, plotted against me.”

“Are ye daft? It had been the crew what wanted you killed. I was the one convinced them to drop ye off instead. They were talking mutiny without me plenty. ‘Twas I what secured your release.”

“Release? Put me, the best mate, the cap’n, and all the other loyalists on a dingy and surrender us to the royal navy you did. Released me into a cage you did.”

“Aye, it was that or the sharks. They didn’t just want you walking the plank brother, no, they wanted to chum the waters first. Not that you could understand. You scalawag of a brother. All my years I spent growing up in your shadow with not a ray of shine for myself but what might make a sprout grow. And finally, I am seen. Finally, I am accepted. Thrust me on their shoulders they did, right into the sunlight. ‘Cap’n?’, said I, when ‘twas I they wanted to lead them. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could be cap’n. But I had to. I had to know what real glory felt like, brother. Don’t ye see?”

“Aye, I see. Ye should know a scalawag of a brother, being one such yourself. Perhaps ye forgot how ‘twas I who saved us. First, it was Pa was to go, then Ma. And I was left to save but a pup, age of seven you were, from this harsh world but I was not but a pup myself. Left ye on the street I should, had I known what a mangy mutt of a brother you would become. Even after all I did for ye, steal my glory you did.”

“Forget? I forget nothing. A relief it was to hear my brother, Smith the Black had found his way, not just to safety, but to be Cap’n of his own ship.”

“Glad I am to know what relief you felt. Hatred is all I felt when, wherever we would go, I would have to hear mutterings of Smith the Red. Mix us up they would. Half a mind, I have, to slay ye still.” Smith the Black jumped to his feet and unsheathed his sword.

“Do it then. Doing me a favor ye would. Save me from the fate of being trapped, the rest of my days, with the likes of you.” Smith the Reds lips quivered, and his voice cracked as he finished.

Looking into his younger brother’s eyes, which were brown except for a green circle around them, exactly like their mothers, caused sudden and vivid memories to return to Black. He recalled Red’s squeaky boyhood voice so clearly, he could hear it.

“It’s my turn to be the cap’n now Chawlie,” Red had said.

“Ok Davie,” Black enjoyed sharing the spotlight back then. The two boys used to play sailors, hoping to one day follow in their father’s footsteps. They would go down to the dock with their mother and watch for his ship on the horizon, competing for who could spot it first. The day their father’s ship did not return, his brother had the same forlorn expression he has now.

Smith the Black dropped his sword, turned his back to his brother, plopped into the sand, and returned to his fish. Smith the Red marched back to the reef with his brothers' spear in hand.

…

The brothers spent the next three days existing around each other. Circling around one another, gathering coconuts, fishing, and resting, all without saying a single word. Until, one morning, Smith the Red, with his fishing haul in his multi-purpose hammock, approached his brother’s fire. Silently, he skewered two fish onto the spit and hung them over the fire. Brothers rarely say they are sorry to one another and rarely do they need to. Forgiveness is always assumed among brothers of a certain bond.

“The way I see it, brother,” Smith the Red began. “We can spend our remaining days avoiding each other, waiting for scurvy or a drought to dry us to death or we can die trying to make our way to the mainland.”

“Have an idea, do ye, for how we may be doing that?”

“Aye. We’ll make ourselves a raft. Just big enough for two and a pair of oars. The mainland is only a day sailing east of here. I know ‘cause that be the direction from where I came when I was dropped here.”

“A day sailing on a ship is not equal to a day sailing on a raft.”

“That’s right. We’ll have to secure enough water and food before then to last us three days each. I figure that be the most we can haul on such a raft. Cook the fish, we will beforehand. Fill coconuts with our remaining fresh water and paddle hard the entire way, we will.”

Black paused and rubbed his hands through his scraggly beard. “Aye, if death be the only destination best to be running from it than waiting for it. Though I must admit, I know not how to build such a raft with what little materials we have.”

“I have an idea.”

The brothers burned the trunks of three palm trees and hacked them down with their cutlasses. Using a combination of their swords and sharp rocks they chipped the trees into logs. Then, using every strap of leather, cloth, and string they could muster, even the laces of their boots, they bound the logs together.

“Hold it will.”

“Hold it must.”

…

“Brother,” Black said while the two sat around a fire the night before their departure. “What was it caused ye be marooned on this island in the anyway?”

Red smirked a little as he answered. “A fool I was for choosing to captain mutineers. Be in the blood of some men, it does, and none more than that crew. Complaining and whining over every little thing they did. Mutineers they were, mutineers they are, and mutineers they will be again. And ye?”

“Ye were right before when ye said no one likes me for being right all the time. Mean as an alley dog I was. Not a single mate aboard.”

Red began to chuckle and so did Black. The brother's laughter grew and carried far over the island's waters.

…

“Heave,” the brothers gripped their raft firmly and set into a runner's stance.

“Ho!” the brothers dashed as fast as they could and shoved their raft with all their strength into the surf during a descending high tide. Their handmade oars were not the most beautiful or the most effective but they paddled hard until they got past the breaking waves.

They used the sun and the stars to navigate to their destination which was due East. During the day they would cover themselves with palm leaves to protect them from the sun. Most of the paddling was done at night or in the morning, with cool air and low sunlight to keep from overheating. When they paddled, they paddled hard. The thought of a future where they are both starved to the point of killing each other put a determination in them to get ashore.

As their rations dwindled to nothing, the strength of their oars dwindled as well. By the morning of the fourth day they had run out of both food and water. Smith the Red's glamor and glitz were long gone, now mostly used as pieces to hold the raft together.

The brothers were down to skin and bones. Their skin had a dark leathery tan. Except for his glorious red hat, Smith the Red's glamor and glitz were all used to tie the raft together. He looked like a beggar with a stolen hat.

“Well brother, this be it I suppose,” Smith the Black said weakly. “Let us not get to the point of starvation where we be killing each other. Rather be going out as your brother I would.” It was the closest Black had ever come to telling his brother that he loved him.

The two looked at each other as if it would be the last time they would see each other’s eyes. Smith the Black sat up, placed his cutlass in his lap, and touched the blade gingerly. The tip of his finger split on the sharp blade, so he knew he would suffer as little as possible. Smith the Red faced away. He did not want to see.

Black closed his eyes, using his final moment to take in all the senses of the sea that he so loved. The water lapping against the raft, the salty-smelling breeze gently blowing past, the seagull squawking overhead.

“Brother,” Smith the Red interrupted. He sat up, pointed ahead, and weakly continued, “land ho.” His finger trembled at the sight of a mountain peaking over the horizon.

“Land ho!” The brothers shouted together. They laughed and hugged one another. Then back to work, it was. They put their oars to water and paddled with all their might. Both stared at the land ahead as if it would vanish if they took their eyes off it.

When they got through the last of the surf, they laid their foreheads in the sand crying in gratitude. They hugged each other as they wept. Then collapsed beside each other. Shouts from people calling for aid reached them faintly over the sound of the surf.

“Say, Brother,” Smith the Red said. Turned his head toward his younger brother.

“Do ye know what a pirate's favorite letter be?”

Black furrowed his brow.

“Some say, it’s aye, others the argh, but truly it be... the sea.”

Smith the Black and Smith the Red were found laying on the beach, splayed like a starfish, chuckling over a bad joke.