My Shipmate-Columbus Part 1

My Shipmate--Columbus.

by Stephen Wilder.

_We've been taught from childhood that the earth is round and that Columbus discovered America. But maybe we take too much on faith.

This first crossing for instance. Were you there? Did you see Columbus land? Here's the story of a man who can give us the straight facts._

The laughter brought spots of color to his cheeks. He stood there for a while, taking it, and then decided he had had enough and would sit down.

A whisper of amus.e.m.e.nt still stirred the room as he returned to his seat and the professor said,

"But just a moment, Mr. Jones. Won't you tell the cla.s.s what makes you think Columbus was not the 'bold skipper' the history books say he was.

After all, Mr. Jones, this is a history cla.s.s. If you know more or better history than the history books do, isn't it your duty to tell us?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: He clutched at his slashed veins and snarled into the face of death.]

"I didn't say he _wasn't_," Danny Jones said desperately as the laughter started again. Some profs were like that, he thought. Picking on one student and making the rest of the cla.s.s laugh and think what a great guy the prof was and what a prize dodo the hapless student was. "I said," Danny went on doggedly, "Columbus might not have been--maybe wasn't--the bold skipper the history books claim he was. I can't prove it. No one can. I haven't a time machine."

Again it was the wrong thing to say. The professor wagged a finger in front of his face and gave Danny a sly look. "Don't you," he said, "don't you indeed? I was beginning to think you had been willed H. G.

Wells' famous literary invention, young man." That one had the cla.s.s all but rolling in the aisles.

Danny said desperately, "No! No, I mean, they don't even know for sure if Columbus was born in Genoa. They just think he was. So they also could be wrong about--"

Abruptly the professor's face went serious. "My dear Mr. Jones," he said slowly, acidly, "don't you think we've had enough of fantasy? Don't you think we ought to return to history?"

Danny sat down and for a moment shut his eyes but remained conscious of everyone looking at him, staring at him, evaluating. It wasn't so easy, he decided, being a soph.o.m.ore transfer student from a big city college, where almost everything went and there was a certain amount of anonymity in the very size of the cla.s.ses, to a small town college where every face, after a week or so, was familiar. Danny wished he had kept his big yap shut about Columbus, but it was too late now. They'd be ribbing him for weeks....

On his way back to the dorm after cla.s.ses he was hailed by a student who lived down the hall from him, a fellow named Groves, who said, "How's the boy, Danny. Next thing you'll tell us is that Cortez was really a s.e.xy Spanish broad with a thirty-eight bust who conquered Montezuma and his Indians with s.e.x appeal. Get it, boy. I said--"

"Aw, lay off," Danny grumbled.

The other boy laughed, then shrugged, then said, "Oh yeah, forgot to tell you. There's a telegram waiting for you in the dorm. House-mother's got it. Well, see you, Vasco da Gama."

Danny trudged on to the Georgian-style dormitory and went inside, through the lobby and behind the stairs to the house-mother's office at the rear of the building. She was a kindly-looking old woman with a halo of white hair and a smile which made her a good copy of everyone's grandmother. But now her face was set in unexpectedly grim lines.

"Telegram for you, Danny," she said slowly. "They read it over the telephone first, then delivered it." She held out a yellow envelope.

"I'm afraid it's some bad news, Danny." She seemed somehow reluctant to part with the little yellow envelope.

"What is it?" Danny said.

"You'd better read it yourself. Here, sit down."

Danny nodded, took the envelope, sat down and opened it. He read, MR.

DANNY JONES, WHITNEY COLLEGE, WHITNEY, VIRGINIA. REGRET TO INFORM YOU UNCLE AVERILL Pa.s.sED AWAY LAST NIGHT PEACEFULLY IN HIS SLEEP LEAVING UNSPECIFIED PROPERTY TO YOU. It was signed with a name Danny did not recognize.

"I'm terribly sorry," the house-mother said, placing her hand on Danny's shoulder.

"Oh, that's all right, Mrs. Grange. It's all right. You see, Uncle Averill wasn't a young man. He must have been in his eighties."

"Were you very close to him, Danny?"

"No, not for a long time. When I was a kid--"

Mrs. Grange smiled.

"Well, when I was eight or nine, I used to see him all the time. We stayed at his place on the coast near St. Augustine, Florida, for a year. I--I feel sorry about Uncle Averill, Mrs. Grange, but I feel better about something that happened in cla.s.s today. I--I think Uncle Averill would have approved of how I acted."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Well, it's just he always said never to take any so-called fact for granted, especially in history. I can almost remember his voice now, the way he used to say, 'if ever there's an argument in history, sonny, all you ever get is the propaganda report of the side which won.' You know, Mrs. Grange, I think he was right. Of course, a lot of folks thought old Uncle Averill was a little queer. Touched in the head is what they said."

"They oughtn't to say such things."

"Always tinkering around in his bas.e.m.e.nt. Funny, n.o.body ever knew on what. He wouldn't let anybody near the place. He had a time lock and everything. What n.o.body could figure out is if he was trying so hard to guard something that was in the bas.e.m.e.nt, why did he sometimes disappear for weeks on end without even telling anybody where he went. And I remember," Danny went on musing, "every time he came back he went into that harangue about history, as if somehow he had confirmed his suspicions. He was a funny old guy but I liked him."

"You remembering him so vividly after all these years will be the best epitaph your uncle could have, Danny. But what are you going to do?

About what he left you, I mean."

"Uncle Averill always liked promptness. If he left something for me, he'd want me to pick it up immediately. I guess I ought to go down there to St. Augustine as fast as I can."

"But your cla.s.ses--"

"I'll have to take an emergency leave of absence."

"Under the circ.u.mstances, I'm sure the college will approve. Do you think your uncle left you anything--well--important?"

"Important?" Danny repeated the word. "No, I don't think so. Not by the world's standards. But it must have been important to Uncle Averill. He was a--you know, an image-breaker--"

"An iconoclast," supplied Mrs. Grange.

"Yes'm, an iconoclast. But I liked him."

Mrs. Grange nodded. "You'd better get over and see the Dean."

An hour later, Danny was at the bus depot, waiting for the Greyhound that would take him over to Richmond, where he would meet a train for the south and Florida.

It was a rambling white stucco house with a red tile roof and a pleasant grove of palm trees in front and flame-red hibiscus climbing the stucco.

The lawyer, whose name was Tartalion, met him at the door.

"I'll get right down to business, Mr. Jones," Tartalion said after they had entered the house. "Your uncle wanted it that way."

"Wait a minute," Danny said, "don't tell me they already had the funeral?"

"Your uncle didn't believe in funerals. His will stipulated cremation."

"But, it was so--"

"Sudden? I know, the will wasn't officially probated. But your uncle had a judge for a friend, and under the circ.u.mstances, his wishes were granted. Now, then, you know why you're here?"