Free The Meq by Steve Cash

Woodget and I came ashore after dark with his first and second mates. “This is a human cargo,” he said, “a job beneath me, but still worth the money.”
    As we made our way up a rocky path, he told me we were transporting the mistress of Antoine Boutrain, a well-known captain of the French shipping firm Bourdes, to New Orleans.
    “Seems the good captain has a beautiful and loving wife at home,” he said, “but he likes to have this one meet him in different ports around the world. She cannot sail with him, so this time she sails with us. He is a warped man, I tell you, probably from trading that damned Chilean nitrate, but he pays well and guess what more is in it, Z?”
    “I think I know,” I said.
    Captain Woodget stopped on the path and turned to look at me. It was dark all around us, but I could feel his eyes bearing down.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, “I mean, I’m not sure, but then again, I am.”
    “Damnit, Z, say what you mean!” he fumed.
    “This woman,” I said, “this mistress you’re picking up, she has an entourage; two of them, two Basque like me, right?”
    “Holy Trident and dammit to hell! How did you know that? Only Captain Boutrain told me and I told no one.”
    I looked in Captain Woodget’s face. He knew me as well as anyone by now.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    We left the rocky way and started on a path of sand between the seagrass and weeds. The ground leveled out. We could see the house ahead of us, alone and lit by candles, white against the black sky.
    I heard the song first. The lonely notes. The ancient melody and words woven into the night. Two voices exchanging lines, sad lines in a forgotten language; singing, swelling, falling. I knew that language. It was Papa dying, singing Mama’s song.
    Captain Woodget asked if I was all right. I nodded and we walked toward the house.
    The captain introduced himself and his first and second mates to the mistress, whose name was Isabelle, and was ushered in. I hung back in the shadows. The singing had stopped, if it had even begun. I turned and made my way in the dark around the house to the rear, which sloped down through the marsh and rocks toward the Atlantic, a thousand yards away. I stood in the silence.
    Then I felt them. I couldn’t hear them, but I felt them. I felt them closing in, coming nearer. I knew they would and they knew I would feel them. It was what we knew. It was knowledge I had never been taught, but now could never forget.
    “I am Unai,” he said.
    I turned to my left.
    “I am Usoa,” she said.
    I turned to my right.
    I looked back and forth between them, our eyes exchanging greeting and welcome. They had come to within ten feet of me and never made a sound. They were both dressed in loose black trousers tucked into leather boots laced to the knees. They wore broad-collared cotton shirts and no jewelry, except that he had a necklace around his neck and she a priceless blue diamond in her pierced right ear. They looked like twins, and if they were twins, I could have been their triplet.
    “I am Zianno,” I said.
    “We know,” they said in unison.
    “I heard you singing, I think. What is it?”
    “It is an old Meq song,” Unai said, walking over to Usoa and taking her hand in his.
    “It is about Home,” Usoa said, “and return, the longing for return.”
    “It was beautiful, but I don’t know the language.”
    “You will,” Unai said.
    “It will come to you,” Usoa said.
    “But how?”
    “Be patient,” Unai said, “you have come a long way, Zianno. You are learning, believe me, but I should introduce myself formally. I am Unai Txori, Egizahar Meq, through the tribe of Caristies, protectors of the Stone of Silence.”
    He lifted Usoa’s hand. “And I am Usoa Ijitu, Egizahar Meq, through the tribe of Autrigons,” she said.
    I didn’t know what to say. It had been over twelve years since I’d seen one of my own kind and the last time had been almost too short