Beautiful Lies by Emilie Richards Page B

awning.
    He turned to Archer, whose scowling face was sprouting the beginning of a full beard. “It’s only going to get worse. Juan told us we wouldn’t want to sleep below. Tonight I’m going to spread my bedroll up here with the rest of the crew. There’ll be a place for you, too, if you want some sleep.”
    â€œSleep up here with cutthroats and murderers? When Juan is sleeping in the cabin?”
    Juan Fernandez was the Odyssey ’s diver, indisputably the most important man on board. He had come to Australia from Manila, and although he wasn’t the best diver in Broome, his record, measured in tons of pearl shell, was good.
    â€œGo ahead and take the other bed in the cabin, then,” Tom offered. “I’ll be just as happy out here in the fresh air.”
    Archer’s sour expression dissolved into something more pleasing. “If one of us doesn’t take the space, someone less deserving will. After all, we’re the ones who open shell.”
    Two mornings ago, just before their departure, John Garth had given them a quick lesson on shipboard life. Like the other pearling masters, John had made it a point to hire men of many differing backgrounds. A crew with inbred animosities and no common language was less apt to band together against a captain’s interests. So the lugger had a Manilaman diver, a Koepanger tender, a Chinese cook, two strong young Malayan boys to pump air when Juan was down below, and an old sailor from Japan whose years as a diver had left him nearly deaf and blind in one eye.
    And despite the fact that all the crew had extensive experience on pearling vessels, when decisions had to be made, Tom and Archer, who were brand-new, were in charge.
    â€œWhat do you suppose it’s like underwater?” Tom said. “Juan’s a lucky bastard, don’t you think?”
    â€œLucky? You had a good look at Toshiharu? That’s what diving will do to a man. I don’t know why Garth put him on this crew. He can’t hear. He can barely see. He stumbles and trips every time something gets in his way.”
    â€œHe’s here because he was John’s diver on his first voyage, and John feels responsible.”
    â€œThe skipper’s not much of a businessman, is he?”
    â€œYou would do the same.” Tom had lost sight of the spout, and he wondered idly where the whale was headed. “I know there are dangers down below, but I’d gladly take my chances.”
    â€œAsk Juan, why don’t you? Maybe he’ll let you take his place.” Archer wandered off in search of a more active way to spend his time.
    Juan came up from the hold, swaggering with a rolling, bowlegged gait, as if practicing for the long hours he spent on the ocean floor. An hour out of Broome he had abandoned his trousers and shirt in favor of the more practical sarong. His only other adornment was a gold cross around his neck.
    â€œWhat is it you looking at out there?”
    Tom already liked Juan, a deeply religious man who had erected an altar to the Virgin Mary in his cabin. “Eternity.”
    â€œToo many men seen eternity here.”
    â€œTell me what it’s like down below.”
    Juan was of average height and dark-skinned, with cropped hair as shiny and sleek as the pelt of a mink, and long-lashed, languid eyes that took in everything around him. Now his eyes grew dreamy. “Below’s not so lonely as this. Lot of fish. Lot of company. Up here a man keep looking for something but find nothing. Me, I think of home up here, but down below I think of nothing but shell.” Juan wandered away, too.
    Tom had thought of home hardly at all since he and Archer had left the United States. He wrote his parents regularly, but he had only received one letter in his years away. His father had demanded that he return immediately or lose his inheritance.
    Tom had never shared his father’s infatuation with wealth. He was happier