Under the Blood-Red Sun by Graham Salisbury Read Free Book Online

Billy.
    “Billy.”
    “Okay. So, Billy. You ever been on one boat?”
    “Only ocean liners … my dad works for Matson.”
    “Hoo,” Sanji said, making big eyes like he was impressed.Matson was the biggest shipping line in Honolulu, maybe even the whole Pacific Ocean.
    “Well, anyway,” Sanji went on, “the main thing is no fall off, yeah? Easy to fall in the water from this boat.”
    Papa’s sampan was about thirty feet long, mostly a flat, open deck with a small deckhouse toward the front where the engine was. Papa steered from a long-armed wooden tiller in the back. There was no shelter. You couldn’t even get out of the sun unless you went down into the fish box under the deckhouse, or else Papa hung the tarp up for shade. But the box made you sick just to smell it, and Papa never put up the tarp unless it was raining. He never thought to get out of the sun. He and Sanji didn’t even wear hats, which is why Papa’s face was ten times browner than the skin under his shirt and had a lot of lines on it, especially by his eyes.
    “I can keep myself aboard,” Billy said.
    Sanji nodded, and tapped Billy’s shoulder. “Good … One boy in the ocean hard to find.”
    Sanji was only nineteen, but he seemed much older. I guess it was because he was married already, and he had that truck and was working. “His parents must have been a couple of jokers,” I whispered. “Sanji means ‘three o’clock.’”
    Billy peeked over at Sanji.
    “And he’s got a three-year-old daughter, you know, which means he was only three years older than
us
when she was born.”
    Billy shook his head, and whispered, “Wow …”
    Papa thought Sanji was the greatest thing since diesel engines. He knew the ocean as well as anyone, Papa said.And Sanji was a good swimmer and he had courage, which sometimes came in handy. Like one time when they got a line wrapped up in the prop and Sanji went down to cut it loose or else they would have been stuck out there until somebody found them. When Sanji got in the water some sharks came nosing around and Papa had to throw chunks of fish meat out to them to keep them away. And Sanji just kept on working under the hull.
    I’d gone out on the boat lots of times, but I still worried because Papa didn’t have a radio, so he couldn’t call for help if we needed it. He couldn’t afford one. He said he was lucky just to make the payments on the boat. But with no radio … What if the engine broke? What if the prop got jammed? What if a shark had gotten Sanji that day?
    We finished loading up, and Papa walked the boat out of the black harbor. Even at that early hour, we passed fishermen squatting like toads on the rocks with their bamboo poles. Sanji waved at one of them, his deaf cousin. The shadowy man lifted his chin.
    Papa aimed the
Taiyo Maru
for open sea. The ocean was as smooth as melting ice, and the lights on shore shimmered out over the dark water like wobbly palm trees.
    Papa stood at the tiller, guiding it with his knee while he rummaged through a bucket of line, checking the hooks and sinkers. The boat rose and fell in the dark, smooth and easy, slicing the morning water. The engine chugged and vibrated in the floorboards and spat out smoky bubbles in the wake.
    “This is a good place, Tomikazu,” Papa suddenly said. “Smell that sweet air.”
    I faced into the breeze and took a long, thirsty breath. Sweet like the jungle. Clean, and rich with salt.
    “Ii-na
. Good, nah?” Papa said.
    I nodded. “Good.”
    •  •  •
    In an hour’s time the sun had colored the ocean silver, then deep, deep blue. And you could see puffy white clouds sitting stone-still way out on the horizon, where we were headed. Now, far behind, the purple-green island drew down into the sea as if it were sinking, looking like one pretty good wave could just roll right on over it.
    “Tomi,” Papa said, slowing the boat down to a crawl. He pointed his chin toward the racers. “Let ’um go.”
    Billy and