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Land Pirates

Seger Lansdale

    The sun shown as bright as gold bullion in a treasure chest sky, and it promised of fair winds and following seas. All afternoon, Barney Holland, Don Hoyt, and Jason Jakes had been making final preparations on their large raft that would take them out through the drainage ditch to the mighty Red River, and Lake Winnipeg beyond. At midnight tonight, Land Pirates would become Sea Pirates!
    Giant fish swam in those dark, mysterious depths of Lake Winnipeg in southern Canada. Just as Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer had fired Barney’s imagination for piracy, his father’s In-Fisherman magazines had filled his dreamy brain with visions of Walleye and Lake Trout bigger than their raft. The fish in Canada grew so huge that one could feed three nine-year old boys for more than two weeks!
    A warm breeze floated across the North Dakota prairie, fluttering the grass blades in great and flowing waves. The summer air plumed Barney’s fertile imagination with visions of leading his buccaneers on the great sail, conquering riverside towns and villages, exploring uncharted islands; and discovering lost treasure chests sunken somewhere in the fathomless depths of the Red River or Lake Winnipeg.
    “I have my doubts,” said Jason Jakes, his chubby face sweating despite the breeze. He hitched up his jeans over his round butt. “I have my doubts it will float at all.”
    Don Hoyt looked at him, his handsome Hispanic face impassive. He was a big boy for his age: a bane and bait for bullies, and a dreamboat and darling for the girls. His chambray shirt was rolled up to his elbows, exposing unusually powerful forearms and big hands. He was one of those boys seemingly born with biceps. He said nothing, waiting on Barney Holland. Don often let him and Jason do the talking.
    Barney blinked behind his thick, geek glasses; every bit the bookish intellectual and every bit proud of it. He invited Jason’s critiques, almost encouraged them. Nobody else at school liked Jason Jakes; he was too much of a downer to hang around. But Barney Holland used him as an asset. Jason served as a check and balance in his thinking.
    “We’ve been over this already,” Barney said.
    “Yes, and we should’ve been more interested in nautical design than Tom Sawyer.”
    Barney grinned. “I’m to take that as I should’ve been more interested in nautical design,” he said to Don Hoyt, who gave him a wry smile, “instead of Tom Sawyer.”
    “This raft is going to sink!” Jason was very good with the factual, perhaps too good. Barney believed one day he would make for a stellar prosecuting attorney. “I mean, look at that thing!”
     They stood together, looking at the “thing,” which approximated a large raft. They had built it over a two month period, gathering scraps of lumber from around the neighborhood; stealing stray boards from trash heaps at a nearby construction site; and hammering it all together with hammers and nails surreptitiously borrowed from their fathers’ tool sheds. All but one of the hammers had been returned, and the nails had remained in a raft best described as “makeshift;” though Barney might admit that word too was more than a little generous when looking at their pirate ship. There wasn’t a straight line anywhere on it. The raft was a jumble of boards, and the only thing linear about it at all was the big rope tied on the front end. But it had made for a wonderful summer project, filling up their daylight hours in a most productive fashion. At midnight came the ultimate test: would it float?
    “We won’t know if it will sink until we get it out on the water,” Barney said.
    “What if it happens on the Red? You’ve seen the dam at Lindenwood Park. You know, right outside Fargo?” Jason asked sarcastically. “What if we sink there? We will surely drown!”
    Don Hoyt picked up the remaining hammer and went over to the raft and started pounding at various nails for the umpteenth time. He walked around, banging here and there, the blows echoing across the fields. He did this every time Jason mentioned drowning. Not for the first time was Barney reminded that he hadn’t seen Don at swimming lessons over the last few summers.
    “If it sinks, it will do so in the drainage ditch,” he said.
    “Really? What do you think, Don?”
    Jason Jakes practically worshipped the ground Don Hoyt walked on. Don was someone he could never be: a giant amongst his classmates. He was Conan lumbering around the boys, Romeo sauntering around the girls.
    Don merely shrugged his big shoulders and kept hammering away, as if he didn’t have a care in the world one way or the other.
    Jason’s face beamed. Don Hoyt was just the coolest!
    “No one’s going to drown,” Barney said, raising his voice loud enough for Don to hear him over the battering hammer. “You will see, later tonight.”
    “What will we see, later tonight?” came a voice from behind a stand of bushes. No one had noticed Mackey Prochnow’s approach. He stepped out from behind his hiding place and strutted up to them, his lean and grubby face hard in the afternoon sun. His eyes were muddy brown and clouded with hatred. Dressed in a threadbare t-shirt and jeans with holes in the knees, a faint smell of urine coincided with his arrival, carried to the Land Pirates by the warm breeze. Their greatest fear had just been realized: the discovery of the raft by their arch tormentor and nemesis, Mackey Prochnow.
    Barney Holland shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, and hooked his fingers in the linings to keep them from trembling. Jason Jakes stepped back, averting his gaze from Prochnow’s piercing eyes. But Don Hoyt stopped hammering, stood up tall and straight and looked unflinchingly at the little bully, and when he was sure that Prochnow had noticed him, he went back to banging at the raft.
    “What are you panty waists doing out here?” Mackey asked. He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and pushed his left foot forward in a cocky pose.
    “Building a nautical instrument of inter-coastal navigation,” said Barney.
    “A what?”
    Barney Holland smiled inwardly. His vocabulary-judo typically confused and frustrated bullies. He had learned that big words could not only educate; they could irritate too, especially when used against someone who felt inferior for not understanding their meaning. Such people never blamed themselves for their lack of an education; instead, they hated you for your abundance of it. They could get so confused and frustrated that sometimes they stopped talking to you altogether. Then they would leave. That was what Barney was working towards now. He hoped to confuse and frustrate Mackey badly enough to make him want to just shut up and go home.
    But Jason wasn’t helping things.
    “It’s a raft,” he said.
    Mackey Prochnow turned his sour gaze on him. “You don’t think I can see that, pigeon head?”
    Barney saw that Don’s face was clouding with anger. The muscular boy’s lips were drawing down tightly in a menacing frown. The banging of the hammer in his thick hand increased in sound and frequency. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! He kept hammering away, circling the raft in tight circles like a shark.
    “I’ll be Captain,” Prochnow announced.
    “We already got one.”
    Shut up, Jason! Barney thought, then jumped in. “The command position for the intercontinental undertaking will most certainly prove arduous, and it will require a captain familiar with both meteorological and astrological phenomenon. A well-versed familiarity with oceanic traversing, barometric pressures, ...”
    “What the hell is he talking about?” Mackey asked. He took a menacing step towards Barney. His fists were balled up at his sides.
    “He’s trying to break it to you easy, Mack... I mean, Mackey,” Jason swallowed. His mouth had gone dry. Mackey Prochnow hated being called “Mack.”
    “Barney is the Captain. Yes, he’s trying to tell you that he’s the Captain.”
    “You know what?” Mackey raised his fist and stalked towards Barney. “I’m going to punch you right in that educated mouth of yours!”
    BANG! The hammer sounded one final, booming time before Don Hoyt tossed it aside. He straightened to his full height and stepped in front of Mackey Prochnow. His hands hung loosely at his sides. He looked as relaxed as a veteran gunfighter on the verge of a draw. But Barney Holland had seen him like this before. Don was a person of action and when he would fight, which was rarely, he truly kicked ass unlike anyone Barney had ever seen!
    So much for the vocabulary-judo.
    “No one’s punching anyone tonight, Prochnow,” Don said.
    “You stay out of this.”
    “I’m already in it. I’m a Land Pirate! And by the way, not only are you not punching anyone tonight, you are never laying a hand on my friends again.”
    “Is that right?” Mackey asked, but then swallowed nervously. Barney saw too that his hands were shaking at his sides. His non-verbal cues didn’t jibe with his macho words.
    “Yeah, that’s right,” Don said, “and don’t you know it! We agreed long ago that we would never fight, never find out who is really best. I’m ready to change my mind.” He shoved Mackey on the shoulder. Come on!” He shoved him harder. “Throw down, you little punk! Throw down!” Mackey Procknow looked scared and started backing up.
    Don rushed forward and backhanded him hard across the face. The blow sounded like the smacking of a leather strop and the bully reeled. When Mackey regained his balance, he looked back at Don Hoyt, clutching his chin. Tears were rolling down his cheeks and his knees were shaking. He wasn’t willing to throw down.
    Don evaluated him for a moment, before turning away confidently and picking the hammer back up. He turned back to Mackey Prochnow and pointed at him with it. “If we aren’t going to fight, you can go home now,” he said. “I’m giving you permission. If I ever get wind that you have so much as threatened Barney and Jason, you are dead meat.”
    Mackey still stood transfixed, as if hypnotized and unable to move.
    “Well, get going!” bellowed Don, and Mackey Prochnow took off.
    Barney took no joy in hearing the bully’s humiliated sobs fading in the night. He never enjoyed another person’s pain. This world was hard enough as it was without making it worse by gloating over someone else’s troubles.
    But Jason Jakes started laughing. “That was awesome!”
    “Shut up, Jason.”
    “That was so cool! Don, I can’t say how much I appreciate...”
    “You heard Barney. Shut up.”
    “Ok, ok, sure.” Jason turned away.
    Barney could still hear him muttering under his breath about how “awesome it all was,” and really, who could blame him? Jason was the kid who usually got his jaw jacked at least once a week by Mackey. But now, those days were over, and Don Hoyt would grow to even more mythical proportions in Jason Jakes’ mind.
    Ever a person of quick emotions and quicker actions, Don turned to Barney. “What’s next, Captain?”
    “Let’s go home and eat some supper. Get some sleep; then sneak out and come back at midnight with our wagons.” He smiled, feeling so good inside. “Tonight, it’s Land Pirates ho!”

    They returned shortly after midnight, their flashlight beams slicing like cutlasses through the huddled darkness. Clouds flitted across the moon, but plunged the stars in a blackened sea, giving the wide-open prairie an almost haunted feeling. The tall grass was still and moist, and it dampened their jeans and sneakers. The crickets were silent. It was as if the night held its breath, awaiting their arrival.
    “This is scary,” said Jason Jakes. “Maybe we should just wait and launch in the morning.”
    “No, I want to get underway tonight,” Barney said. He was panning his flashlight beam left and right in a futile effort to dispel the darkness.
    “It will sink just as fast in the morning.”
    “Are you scared, Jason?” asked Don Hoyt. “Sure are talking a lot.” Don was slightly out front to provide cover against any unseen adversaries.
    “I’m not scared.” Jason’s tone betrayed him. He was scared all right. “I said, ‘this is scary,’ not ‘I’m scared.’”
    “By the way, I’m so thankful, Don. Did I mention to you how thankful I am that you saved us from Mackey?”
    “More than a hundred times so far, and the night is still young,” said Barney. He suddenly stopped in his tracks, the flashlight in his one hand, his other hand holding his wagon handle. “Hey, what’s that smell?”
    Don and Jason stopped leading their wagons too. The Land Pirates stood quietly in the darkness. A slight breeze had kicked up from beyond the drainage ditch and was blowing in their faces. They were less than fifteen yards away from the raft.
    “Don?” Barney asked. He sniffed at the air. “You smell that?”
    Don Hoyt dropped his wagon handle and turned to him. “Wait here. I will go investigate.”
    “I think I smell it too,” Jason said. He took in a deep breath. “Oh God, that’s bad!”
    “Drainage ditch?” Barney asked.
    “Something like it; no doubt. I don’t know. We have never been out here before this late at night.” He sniffed at the air again. “It’s coming from the direction of the raft. Look, Don is almost there. He’ll tell us.”
    They watched Don Hoyt circle the raft, panning his flashlight beam up and down its length. He then stopped for moment. Bending over, he shined the beam directly down on the deck, as if he were trying to get a better look at something.
    “Why it’s shit!” he suddenly cried, his head snapping up like someone had hit him with an uppercut.
    “Are you sure?” asked Jason, the ever factual.
    “I think I know shit when I see it!”
    I have no argument with that, Barney thought, as he lagged behind the ever-inquisitive Jason Jakes, who had dropped his wagon handle and was now running over for a better look.
    “Damn,” he said, upon reaching the raft and leaning over with his flashlight. “Somebody shit on our boat.”
    Barney went over too and then turned away, his stomach rolling. The turd was massive, stinky and gross, and almost beyond description.
    His eyes were already watering when he mumbled, “Get a stick and clean it off.”
    “I’m not cleaning it off,” Jason said. He shook his head with two quick snaps. “No way!”
    “You’re the first mate!” Don Hoyt pointed out.
    “You’re the executive officer!” Jason countered. “I seem to remember that our commanding officer was looking at you when he gave the order.”
    “He was not! He was looking at the ground. Besides, there is the chain of command!”
    “Shut up, both of you,” Barney said. “Let me catch my breath.” He removed his thick glasses and rubbed his forearm across his sweating face.
    Jason looked at Barney, and then turned back to Don. “I wonder who did it?” he asked, his voice a harsh whisper in the night.
    “Mackey Prochnow, who else? Wait until I catch that little shrimp. I’m going to pound the living tar out of him!”
    Barney straightened up and put his glasses back on. “No one’s pounding on anyone. Mackey’s had his revenge now, if it was him at all.”
    “Oh, it was him all right,” Jason said. He was nodding with great conviction. “I remember one day when he was being nice to me. We went out to the field across from his house and played with our Tonka trucks on that giant sand pile. It got to be late, and Mackey had to go, but he didn’t want to go home and use the toilet because his mom would make him stay in. So he pulled his pants down right there and took a shit!”
    “That is so gross,” Don said.
    “Well, that’s what happened.” Jason Jakes shrugged. “It was huge, I tell you.” He shined his flashlight down on the raft again. “Kind of like this one.”
    “Jason, please,” Barney said. His eyes were streaming again behind his glasses. He gagged once.
    “For a little guy, he’s got some incredible bowels!”
    “Come on! Let up, will you?” asked Don.
    “I’m just saying! Incredible bowels!”
    Barney rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. Opening them slowly again, he said, “Since neither one of you is willing to clean it off, I guess I will.” He sounded like he was readying for his own funeral.
    “I can go get a stick,” offered Don Hoyt. Barney gave him an incredulous look and he shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, Barn. Normally, I can do almost anything once I make up my mind, but this is too much for me.”
    “We will delay the launch until tomorrow morning,” Barney said. “Skip church and come back with a bucket. Put the raft in the water and I’ll get onboard with the bucket and wash it off.”
    “Sounds like a plan,” Jason said. He sounded relieved, but then he quickly added, “Maybe.” He gave them a secretive little smile.
    “What do you mean?” Don asked.
    “Oh, nothing. Should we leave the wagons here tonight? Don’t see any point in taking them all the way home only to bring them back again in the morning.”
    “I like your thinking, Jason.” Barney slowly shook his head. “Man, what a world we live in. To think he would shit on our boat! Well, come on shipmates. We will come back in the morning and take care of this.”
    “I’m sure we will,” Jason said. “Then we shall go sailing off like Tom Sawyer in Mark Twain’s novel.”
    Neither Barney nor Don missed the sarcasm in their chubby friend’s voice. He clearly still believed that the raft would sink.

    It must have rained at some point after midnight because when the Land Pirates returned the following morning, after having skipped Sunday school and still dressed in their Sunday best, the prairie was wet and muddy.
    “My Sunday best!” lamented Jason Jakes, as they walked along. He was tugging at his wet pant legs, a look of horror etched on his face. “Mom is going to kill me. No, Dad! Dad does this kind of killing!”
    “Stop worrying,” Barney said. “We are minutes away from leaving North Dakota forever.”
    The terror on Jason’s face quickly vanished, and in its place came that secretive little smile again. “We shall see.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “He’s still thinking the raft will sink,” Don said.
    “And when it does, it will prove that I was right.” Jason grinned, but then reconsidered. “But that means I’ll be right about Dad killing me too!”
    “Then all of us had better hope that it floats,” said Barney. “You won’t be the only one doomed.” He pointed at Don’s shoes, and then his own. “Look at our shoes – they are covered in mud.”
    “Oh no. So are mine.”
    Upon reaching the raft, with the morning sun already unbearably hot and the air humid, they made a most grisly discovery.
    “Flies,” Barney Holland said, throwing a hand over his mouth to suppress a gag.
    “Of course,” Jason replied. He grinned and went for his wagon.
    Don Hoyt gave Barney’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Are you sure you’re up to this, Captain?”
    Barney rattled the large plastic bucket he carried in his hand. “Have to be. You guys aren’t going to do it.”
    “True enough. True enough. Does this qualify as mutiny?”
    “Come on guys,” Jason said. He was losing his patience. “Sink or float: let’s find out!”
    They loaded up the heavy raft on the three wagons and started for the drainage ditch. The flies on the turd buzzed up and dive-bombed their faces. The boys tried to fan them away as they trudged along with the raft trailing behind them.
    “You know, the fly is really a most fascinating creature,” Jason said.
    Barney’s face turned a peculiar shade of green and Don didn’t miss it. “Save it, Jason,” he said.
    “Sure. Sorry Barn.”
    They reached the hill overlooking the drainage ditch. Two large concrete walls enclosed the water on each side, which ran in a north and south direction. The incline to the ditch was mowed, and its grade ran a little steep. Drops of dew glistened on the short grass, so the footing was going to be tricky while lowering the heavy raft down. Don Hoyt was strongest, so he would take the great rope tied to the raft in one hand, while holding his wagon handle in the other. Barney and Jason would take their wagon handles with both hands.
    Don looked to Barney. “What do you think, Captain?”
    “We will take it slow and easy. Everything will be all right.”
    “I’m not that strong,” Jason admitted. He looked embarrassed.
    “You won’t need to be. The three of us can handle it together,” Don said. “I hope.”
    Slowly, they started to back the raft down the incline. Their backs were bent, with their arms extended awkwardly out in front of them. The muscles stood out on Don Hoyt’s forearms and wrists as his hands tightened on the rope and the wagon handle. Beads of sweat dotted Barney Holland’s face. He was grunting with the effort as they baby-stepped their way down. Jason Jakes’ chubby hands trembled under the strain.
    They weren’t a quarter of the way down before Jason started to falter. His church shoes, hard-soled on the bottoms, began skidding on the grass, despite their being caked with mud. He gasped and let out a low moan, even as he was already going down on his butt. It was then that the raft and the wagons started making a mad dash for the ditch!
    “Let her go!” screamed Barney – too late – and Don Hoyt released the rope, but then accidentally grabbed his wagon handle with both hands. He and Barney were yanked off their feet like Superman and Shazam, landing on their bellies. Jason was screeching, kicking madly with his legs, his eyes looking ready to explode from his face. But then his heels caught in the ground, and he too belly-flopped!
    The ditch was coming up fast! The raft careened to the left, corrected itself, and then dipped sharply as it and the three wagons picked up more speed; rolling down the hill and dragging the screaming boys right along behind on their bellies, their hands strangling the wagon handles. If not for the heavy raft’s last terrific plunge, which pinned the wagons’ back tires just over the rim of the ditch’s concrete ledge, everyone and everything would’ve gone into the drink! But instead, the raft shot off alone and hit the water with a tremendous splash!
    The Land Pirates lay facedown, their forearms and wrists throbbing in pain. The three wagons were tipped back, their back tires just over the concrete ledge. They remained precariously balanced, but only as long as the boys could continue to hold onto the handles.
    Barney slowly lifted his head up, then spat out a mouthful of grass. He was struggling not to cry. One side of Don Hoyt’s face was smeared in mud, and he was too stunned to cry. But Jason Jakes was crying softly, and muttering into the turf, “My arms...my arms...do I still have my arms?”
    At least they had held on to their wagons.
    “That was close,” Barney said. His glasses sat slightly askew on his nose. He shook his head and they fell back in place.
    “Too close,” said Don. “What now?”
     “I wash the turd off. But I’m about to lose my grip here. Can you help me?”
    Don pushed down hard on his own wagon handle as he struggled up to his knees. He then pulled his wagon completely back up over the ledge and got to his feet.
    He helped Barney and Jason get their wagons up too. They all stood there for a moment, rubbing their forearms and wrists, looking at each other. Perhaps a little amazed to not be severely injured. They were sweating profusely and covered in grass stains and dirt. Their disheveled appearances gave Jason Jakes pause, and he started laughing, despite the tears still lingering on his cheeks. “My, will you look at us?” he said. Don and Barney started laughing too.
    After they had finished pulling their wagons back up the hill, they marched back down with the bucket and stood on top of the concrete ledge overlooking the drainage ditch.
    Don Hoyt wiped the mud from his face on his shirtsleeve. He said, “We are only moments away from becoming Sea Pirates!”
    The words had barely left his mouth when they all stood there in a stunned silence.
    Below them, through the murky surface of the flowing current, they saw the sunken raft. It lay on the bottom like a hulking shipwreck. But even more astonishing was the unexpected and immaculate ascension of Mackey Prochnow’s turd (or at least that which was reputed to have come from his incredible bowels). It rose slowly from the sunken raft and broke the water’s surface, bobbing a little, like the lone survivor from a disaster at sea. Then caught up in the flow, the turd started floating ghost-like down the ditch, sailing for the mighty Red River, and Lake Winnipeg beyond. The Land Pirates stood there with their mouths hanging opened, just watching it go.
    The bucket dropped from Barney’s limp fingers. After a few seconds, he said, “My God, it sank like the Titanic.”
    “The raft?” asked Jason, still lost in reverie, watching the turd as it slowly drifted out of sight. He blinked then and stammered, “Oh...yes...yes, of course – the raft! Like the Titanic, yes, but faster and without the iceberg.” A satisfied smile then illumined his face and he turned his glittering eyes on Barney.
    “What now?” asked Don Hoyt. Something obviously must be done. He was never one to sulk over anything.
    “You can say I told you so,” Barney said to Jason. “You know, ‘nautical design over Tom Sawyer’?”
    “Nah.” Jason grinned all the more. “I would rather say, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident...’”
    “Touché.”
    Don Hoyt was waiting. He crossed his arms over his chest in a gesture of impatience. “What now? Are we going to pout all day or what?”
    “Nope, no pouting,” Barney said. “We are going to build another one.”
    “And this time read books on nautical design?” Jason suggested.
    “Absolutely, while still dreaming of Tom Sawyer.”
    “I like that,” said Don.
    The three boys turned and headed for home. They were dirty, scratched, and bruised, battered; but not yet beaten. Groundings or spankings (or perhaps both!) were distinct possibilities for having ruined their Sunday best and for mucking up their shoes. But despite these storm clouds and some rough sailing ahead, they remained optimistic. For today, the sun still shown as bright as gold bullion in a treasure chest sky, and it still promised of fair winds and following seas; if not for the immediate future, then at least for summer days yet to unfold.
    They would get past all this. They would build the raft again, and next time, it would float. They would be Sea Pirates. For they remembered; and nursed in their hearts and minds, that while they were still Land Pirates today, there was always hope with the coming of a new tomorrow. They remained buoyed, by the enthusiasm of their irrepressible youth.

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