Zia Read Free Page B

climbs cliffs. She has a dog as big as two dogs and she runs like a deer but I'll find her."
    When I got back to the Mission and finished my daily work I went in search of my brother. He was in the shop, filing on a piece of iron that he was making into a fishhook.
    "You have a hundred hooks already," I said.
    "Now it is a hundred and one. This," he said, holding it up, "will catch the biggest pez espada that ever swam in the sea." It was thicker than his thumb and three times as long. "It will catch a whale."
    "We are not going out to catch whales," I said, "or espadas either."
    From that day on I began to save dried beef and food we could use for a week's voyage.
    Mando said that we would live on what the sea brought us. Fish and lobsters, abalone and mussels from the rocks on the islands we passed.

    "We will live off the sea with what I catch," he bragged. "You don't need to worry. I'll catch a duck or two also."
    But I still saved food that would keep for a week or more, in case we failed to catch anything with all of Mando's hooks. The boat was well stocked by the time we were ready to go. Our store would last a week should we need it.
    We told no one, not even Father Vicente. Nor Father Merced, who might tell Captain Cordova at the garrison, which was near the Mission, and have the captain put us in prison for stealing something that belongs to the Mission.
    We planned to leave two nights before the full moon, after the last bell before bed. The afternoon before we left, Captain Nidever came to the Mission and told me again that it was a foolish thing to do.
    "If you were a sailor. If you had experience on the sea, even on the water near our islands, I would say nothing. But you are going into a treacherous world of winds and seas that can be very rough in a very small boat."
    Mando spoke up. "Mukat and Zando will guard us."
    Captain Nidever looked puzzled, not having heard the names of our Indian gods before. He saw that we could not be persuaded, that we had stubbornly closed our minds.

    "When you get to Santa Cruz, anchor on the far side of the island, close to shore, in the kelp bed."
    "We have an anchor that weighs forty pounds," Mando said.
    "When you drop her," he said, "climb to the highest ridge and look far off to your left. If the day is clear, you'll see the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Then with your compass, mark the direction."
    "We have none."
    "No compass? You'll end up in China."
    He reached in his jacket and took out something that looked like a watch.
    "Here's one I'm not using," he said. Captain Nidever showed me the marks and letters on its face. "The needle always points north, no matter how you hold it," he explained.
    He turned the compass in his hand and I saw that the needle always pointed toward the chapel door, as if Mukat were holding it fast.
    "Put the compass on a rock," he said, "and turn it until the needle points to the letter "N." Then you must sight off to the island and put down the direction you read exactly—the direction to the Island of the Blue Dolphins. When you leave, head the boat that way, but make sure the needle is always over the letter "N." Without currents and winds you shouldn't be off more than three miles by nightfall and maybe five miles by the next. But from that distance you'll easily see the island." He closed the lid of the compass and gave it to me. "Don't forget to bring it back," he said, moving off down the beach.

    "I will bring it back," I promised him. "And Karana, too."
    He stopped. "If it gets too rough and you're taking on water, don't be afraid to turn back. You can always try again, you know. Remember that he who turns his stern to wind and spray, lives to sail another day."

Chapter 5
    M ANDO FOUND a piece of cloth for a square sail and made a small mast, but on the night we left, with the moon shining on the water and the sea calm, the sail blew away before we had gone a league.

    We rowed all night, rowing together and one at a time, resting