Log of Sloop Red Wolf 
8/7/33

Tied up dockside Casino Island with visitors aboard. Mr. & Mrs. Vander Walt looking for a delivery skipper to bring their yacht over from stateside in time for next season.

The Vander Walts were a pair of stylish wealthy muskrats from Southern California who had recently 'discovered' sailing and were full of enthusiasm about everything 'nautical'. Mrs. Vander Walt seemed especially taken by the “quaint antique curio” cutlass I kept on the bulkhead above my bunk. She seemed to think it was “just all so piratical and sea-doggy”!

“Yes Mam, it is a pretty toy” I told her…

The Walrus was a rusty overage scow and none of its crew were surprised when they were paid off in Havana Harbor after it couldn’t take on any new cargo. Havana was a busy shipping port and most of them went straight to sign aboard new ships. The young timber wolf had never been to Cuba before, though, and thought he’d see some of the sights before heading back to sea again. Throwing the sea bag containing his few possessions over his shoulder, he headed down the creaking gangplank & off into the town.

It was much later that night he met her; a sleek dark furred feline combining an air of thick sensuality with wide-eyed innocence in a heady mix he found intoxicating. It took little persuasion for him to follow her off to a small room off a maze of back alleyways, & lay his seabag beside the bed she lazily streched herself down on.

It was still later, in the pre-dawn, that he was awoken by the loud banging of the door! “My wooman!…I keel you Gringo!” someone growled as the door flew open and three figures rushed in, long knives in their hands. The wolf’s own hand went to the sea bag on the floor beside him & found the hilt of the old cutlass he’d kept as a souvenir of his first voyage.

There was nothing of art or gentlemanliness about the fight. It was fast, dirty, and mean! Even three knives, though, were scarcely even odds against the long heavy blade in the hands of an agile and enraged sailor! Then it was over. He was cut, but they were dead. The bed was empty. The girl had paused only long enough to grab her clothes and his wallet before bolting out a back way when the door first crashed open.

Thinking about it, the three were likely the girl’s partners, expecting to intimidate a sleepy and frightened victim with their knives, intending robbery rather than murder. But there had been no time for thinking by anyone.

Pulling himself together as fast as he could, the young wolf quickly left the bloody room and headed towards the docks, where he shipped out before the end of the day on an old freighter bound for the China Seas. He’d see the sea cook about cleaning out his wounds after they were well out on the clean ocean….

“…but don’t touch it. It’s still sharp.”

G.