The Dolphin
Copyright© 2017 by Colin Barrett
Chapter 5
It is long to the place where Lone One says he will take me. We stay close to the land, for that is how Lone One says he will know when we are at that place.
Close to the land is also best for hunting. We hunt a second time, and then a time again; each time we eat well, but it slows us in our swimming. I see the boats and would like to go to them for the easy food to speed our journey, but Lone One will not go near them. He speaks of his shadow again. I do not understand, and he will not say more, but I help him to hunt. He grows stronger and less thin. I think how hard it must be for him to hunt alone with none to help and he as slow as he is.
As we swim we do not often speak. Lone One is content with silence between us, and I am still in shadow with Kitik and do not need speech either. But we are easy with each other, I am comfortable with him.
It is after a hunt, after we eat, that I ask him what for long I want to say. I ask him why is it that he follows me before, that now he swims with me so long and so far and it is not his search.
He swims close to me, but not with striking the way he does once before. “Why do you ask what you know, Minacou?” he says. He does not speak more.
I realize that I do know. His scent comes to me again and I know. I say nothing, it is not for me to speak and he does not choose to speak. But now both of us know what only he knows before.
In our next hunt I make error. When the food is there and I call to him to begin striking, I call him by his true name. He stops immediately and I must finish the hunt alone. I strike often and I do not stop to eat, but it is still a bad hunt. We will have to hunt again soon.
Afterwards he eats little, and then he comes near me. I see that he is not at ease. “Do not call me that name again,” he says. “It is shadow. It is another shadow, but still it is shadow. In the now they call me Lone One, and it is who I am.”
He says this with much strength, and then he goes for a time to be by himself. I do not understand. Why would one wish to not have his own name? But I will do as he asks. I will speak to him as Lone One in the time to be.
But I know that he is not Lone One. He is Acou, of whom Altauk once tells me.
He is my father.
“Maggie, can you do me a really big favor?”
“I don’t know, Jason, I don’t buy pigs in pokes,” she said. “What?”
“Well ... see, I’d kind of like to take a weekend,” he said, staring down at the apron. “Like ... maybe this one. And I can’t unless you—”
“—take the shows?” she finished for him.
“Right. So, well, would you?”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with little miss Barbie, would it?” she asked in a slightly brittle tone. Over the last couple of weeks a girl had been a frequent visitor, sometimes at the shows but more often during their sparsely attended training sessions. She always showed up with carefully coiffed hair and porcelain-doll makeup, and Maggie had quickly dubbed her Barbie after the popular doll. She’d teased Jason with the name a few times; he and the girl rarely spoke, but she’d noticed that her eyes were always on Jason and he in turn cast frequent, if what were clearly intended to be surreptitious, glances in her direction.
“Well... ,” he stammered, evidently embarrassed. Then he seemed to shrug it off. “You know how it is. She’s here with her folks, and I live here in the motel with Morris keeping his eye on me like he was my dad or something, and it’s kind of awkward. So she’s told them she’s going off to stay with a girlfriend this weekend, and...”
“I get it,” said Maggie a little astringently. “But when did your taste start running to jailbait?”
He was clearly annoyed. “Knock it off. She’s twenty, she works when she’s not traveling with her folks, she’s a beautician, and anyhow it’s bad enough having Morris act like dad without you doing mommy on me, OK?”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.
