The Penalty Read Online Free Page A

liquid.
    At first the men rowed the boat. Then we passed a tongue of land and the wind and the waves grew. Sprays of water like thin rain landed on our skins, and the boat shuddered. I saw that Abela was afraid. The four men took their oars from the water and laid them down, then two of them untied the cords around the sail and it opened with a sound like thunder-crack, but softer. The boat swung and tipped. Abela hung his head between his knees and groaned. Morro shouted orders and pulled at a beam of wood fixed to the back of the boat. The sail filled with wind, and it was as if a great hand lifted us and we flew over the water. Morro drank from his bottle and then, amazing me, he began to sing.
    Our flight across the sea slowed. The sail rippled and banged. Morro called out, and the oarsmen pulled on ropes. The sail swung and filled its belly again. The boat leaned. The waves now came from behind us, and broke into small pieces and ran away. I began to see sticks and leaves and sometimes big fruits drift past us, and then thickening streams of different-coloured water. When I saw forest on both sides of the boat, I understood. We were on a river. A wide, slow, green river.
    My thoughts struggled in my head like a hooked fish. I wanted to believe I was coming home. Perhaps I had been in dream time, taken on a vision journey so I could receive the teachings of the dying pai. And now I was waking, returning to share the warning stories of what I had seen. Or perhaps the white men’s ship had sailed all the way round the bowl of the world, back to the beginning, and just beyond the next bend I would see my people waiting to greet me, glad that I had passed my manhood ordeal.
    The sail finally slumped and died. The men lashed it into bundles again and bent to their oars. I looked at Abela and saw that he too was full of wonder, and that home thoughts had tricked him, also. Because tears lay in the hollows below his eyes. How cruel hope is, and what a sly hunter!

 
    I N THE AFTERNOON of the second day the river changed its mood. I had slept through most of the morning so that the ache of remembering would not go on. I saw that although we seemed to be still in the same place, the water had coils in it and a rougher skin. The sky was grey like light shining on a knife. I smelled rain coming. Ahead of us, small islands covered in low bushes divided the river. I remember thinking it would be a good place to fish. Now the men broke their rhythm to let the river carry the boat closer to the trees. Then they would dig deep into the water, their muscles hard beneath their skins, and we would swing out again. They had good skill. But Morro had been rum-drunk the night before, and sat slumped with his arm on the steering beam, looking as if he had eaten bitter fruit.
    We were close to a low island made of sand and small stones when the rain came down on us. It was good steep rain, and I lifted my face to let it run into my mouth. Then something punched the bottom of the boat. The men lifted their oars and called out. Everything tipped. I thought of the terrifying Big Mouth that walked underwater in Loma’s river, and fear rose in my throat.
    But it was not that. We had wandered from the deep water, and the belly of the boat had run onto the soft floor of the river. It was Morro’s fault, and he tried to hide his shame inside anger. With shouts and kicks he drove us to one side of the boat while the oarsmen used their oars like poles on the other side. It seemed to work. The stern came free and drifted out, but then it was seized by the current. In a heartbeat, the boat swung round, its nose still stuck in the mud. Morro roared and fell upon the steering beam, but it was too late, and the oarsmen who now rushed to our side were blocked by our bodies and all was a confusion of arms and legs and chains. Now we were pointing back the way we had come, and in the grip of the river. Then another great blow to the belly of the boat and it