A Humble Catch
Faith, Friendship, and a Shadow on the Sea
This is a Flash Fiction piece I submitted for my first competition. My group was given 48 hours to turn around a 1000-word Historical Fiction piece set at a beach, and a footstool had to appear somewhere in the story.
This piece is a dramatization of the events of California’s most famous pirate attacks, by the French-born privateer Hippolyte Bouchard. During November and December 1818, a group of Chumash converts successfully thwarted Bouchard’s attack on Mission Santa Bárbara without bloodshed.
The protagonist, Fray Antonio, is based on the actual head priest at the time, Father Antonio Ripoll. All dialogue and other characters are entirely fictional.
“The fishing is always best in the late afternoon.”
At least, that’s what Fray Antonio was told in preparation for his assignment. However, after two years at Mission Santa Barbara, he had some doubt. The beach had grown much colder. The evening winds blowing down from the mountains made his dark wool tunic feel like cheesecloth. “Don’t you think?” asked Antonio, jabbing his spear into the shallows. “Xutash?”
“Hmm,” said the man.
In Antonio's experience, the Chumash were frustratingly agreeable, even when they disagreed. Interacting with them was an invitation to penitence and patience, welcome or otherwise. It had taken some time to convince Xutash to forsake his native Barbareño.
“I think,” said Xutash, “I will not fish more in the afternoon.”
As Xutash meticulously gathered his nets, the friar ogled his friend’s exquisite fish basket. A study in craftsmanship, with its tessellated yellows and browns; even half empty, it gave the appearance of being full of rockfish and surfperch. Antonio's own basket was barren.
Father, forgive my envy of this unbeliever.
At the sound of his name, Antonio turned to find one of the Chumash converts, Pablo née Kiwoy, tearing through the sand like the fires that occasionally ravaged the area.
“Padre! Rancho Ortega! The pirates — ” Pablo hunched, gulping air. “All of Refugio Canyon — you must come back to the mission.” He stood, and regarded Xutash with disdain, as if from atop a wall.
Antonio glared at the communicant. “Bathing in the light of Christ deprives not our heathen brothers the opportunity to do likewise, child. Xutash — ” Antonio turned, but his friend had already gone. Antonio picked up his spear and basket — thanked God for the generous rockfish Xutash must have slipped into it — and started back.
Antonio slept poorly that night, and left for the beach right after the second bell. He wasn’t interested in fishing, but he needed to think.
Two Argentinian ships, a frigate and a brig, had sacked the rancho only twenty miles north yesterday. And the presidio at Monterey a week ago. The pirates left after six days of looting and burning the town. Four hundred men? Santa Barbara boasted a presidio with a garrison of fifty. How could so few defend them from such a force?
The gritty sensation of sand in the toes of his sandals, and the commingled scent of kelp and saltwater, commandeered his attention. Xutash was already there. “The peace of Christ be with you!” Antonio called.
While Xutash fished, the friar relayed the events of the previous evening. Clergy could not fight in battle, he explained, though they did have some weapons. The Chumash neophytes might be compelled to fight, but had no training. The soldiers had weapons, and a sense of duty, but their ideas were entirely ballistic in nature. “I know the Lord will provide an answer, but I cannot see it.” He looked down, and noted Xutash’s overflowing basket of fish. “Xutash, how do you always catch so many fish, and I, with the hand of God to guide me, always catch so few?”
Xutash exhaled, and turned to face the Franciscan, for once. “Antonio, every day you come, and we fish. But you do not see fish. You see food. You see only what you wish to, and so, you do not see what is. You look into my basket ... Just a few fish, viewed from a distance, make the mouth water for a feast.”
“Xutash,” said Antonio, “will you help me see the fish?”
Xutash returned to the mission with Antonio. His plan was not foolproof, but had merit. The pirates would arrive by sea, and likely assess the mission’s defenses from the safety of deep water. Antonio armed the new converts with anything available: machetes, bows, ceremonial lances. Together, with Xutash and the presidio’s soldiers, Antonio drilled the Chumash in swordplay and archery over the course of two grueling days. By the end of the second day, the company had withered to twenty-five. Those who remained trained with eyes jaundiced from dread.
Antonio caught Xutash’s arm as he started to walk home. “Such fear in them,” he said.
Xutash shrugged. “They know your brothers will not fight when the rooster crows.”
Antonio double-taked. San Pedro. “Their faith fails them.”
“You gave them this faith, Antonio. Is it not yours to keep?”
The third day, Comandante de la Guerra of the presidio appointed Pablo company commander, after Xutash refused. Antonio was thrilled for the fledgling leader, but Pablo himself appeared reserved.
“The Lord would forgive him a little pride,” Antonio whispered to Xutash.
Xutash grunted. He yelled something in Barbareño, which ricocheted around the courtyard.
Antonio scrutinized the faces of the men, snatching the odd noun here and there. Pablo and the other converts had stiffened at Xutash’s use of Kiwoy, Pablo’s given name. “Pablo?”
Pablo watched the ground. “Xutash asks why I defend the invader’s home.”
Antonio shrank. “And?”
Pablo looked through him. His Spanish was dry tinder on a powder keg of emotion. “This is my home, now. I have nothing left.”
On the fourth day, lookouts alerted the mission to two ships bearing south. The friars prayed, and according to Xutash’s plan, Antonio assembled his cadre of archers, blades, and lancers. Through the narrow end of a spyglass, the Compañía de Urbanos Realistas would imply an army two hundred strong.
“All that remains is a flag bearer,” Antonio announced. “Who requests this honor?”
None stepped forward.
“Xutash, do they understand?”
Xutash, again, intoned the loping chop of his mother tongue. “They understand.”
They marched through the village, unsure how the day would end. At the sight of ships in the bay, the company missed a step. A murmur swept through them. Antonio hoisted the flag higher, and looked to Xutash, who remained watchful.
Suddenly, uniformed infantry swept into the vanguard from both sides. Cavalry followed, shoring up the flanks. Antonio spun at the sound of decorated soldiers augmenting the rear, as well. It was the garrison from the presidio.
“¡Adelante!” shouted Pablo, energized.
“¡Adelante!” yelled Antonio, with the rest.
The company crossed the rocky threshold marking the start of the beach, and unfurled upon the sand. For thirty tenuous minutes, they waited. Then, Chumash and soldiers all, cheered, as the pirates weighed anchor and moved down the coast without testing the density of Antonio’s beloved banks.
The next day, Fray Antonio woke long before matins. He reflexively reached for the spear behind his door, then remembered he wouldn’t need it. Instead, he grabbed the footstool and basin from beneath his bed, and set off for the beach.
It was still dark when he arrived, but he could plainly see sardines nibbling plankton among the shoals. He set the wood stool well back from the tide, and filled the basin. He waited. And prayed. Time passed, and he waited still.
Finally, Xutash stepped down the beach toward Antonio, like a fox, wary of the hunter’s trap. He eyed the footstool and basin. “What is this?”
“This morning, I saw many fish.” Antonio gestured toward the stool. “May I wash your feet?”