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room out there in all that sunny stillness.  I was sweating profusely, but for some reason, a Godly one I supposed, my partner’s shirt was still dry as could be.    
    “Ernest,” I said, as a droplet fell from my eyebrow, “would you mind if I went below?  I’d like to lie down for a while.  We got up awfully early this morning, and this heat is . . .”
    “Sure, go ahead.  But you’d better drink some of that water first.  It’s in the cooler.”
    I fished a cold plastic bottle out of the ice, took two long swallows then went down below.
    As I stepped into Pilar’s dark cabin, it felt as if I were entering a cabin of a different sort.  With its close wooden walls and ceiling, it seemed like a small, isolated North Woods cabin.  Like a place where you might find a silent monk down on his knees.  The seagoing quarters of the late great Ernest Hemingway not only had that ambience, it also seemed every bit as hallowed.  But there was something else in the belly of the Pilar .  Something I don’t think you’d find in a monk’s humble cabin.  There were ghosts.  Not only could I feel them, but I could see them as well.

Chapter 6
     
     
     
     
    Inside that quiet cabin I first saw one of Hem’s long gone writer friends.  John Dos Passos , the illegitimate socialist son of an industrialist supporter, was sitting with his wife, Katy, on a green sofa.  They each had a drink in hand and both looked very happy.  I saw a young Ernest sitting at a small desk down there.  He was scribbling notes about a battle he had recently fought from his deck-mounted fighting chair.  I could see members of his “mob” and the Pilar’s crew crowded in the cabin.  They were toasting drinks to another successful day’s fishing.  Then I noticed that Ernest had moved.  He was now sitting, smiling, and joking with his last three wives at the small dining table.  Then, up ahead, I heard something else.  Sounds were coming from beyond an open doorway leading to the sleeping quarters.  They were moans.
    All at once a faint chorus of pleasurable female moans wafted into the room.  It filled the air and lingered like a soft, satisfied hum.  For some reason none of the other guests seemed to notice. 
    Not believing my ears, I smacked the side of my head a few times.  It wasn’t until I started walking toward the portal that the gentle choir grew fainter.  When I stepped into the miniature bedroom, the sound ceased completely.  Just like that, there was silence again.  But as I stood between the two small beds, there was something else in the air—something every bit as unnerving as what I’d just heard.  It was a smell, a scent.  Permeating the eerie silence was a combination of fragrances—a sweet, subtle mélange of many different perfumes.   
    Whoosh, I thought, I’d better get some sleep.  This heat’s getting to me more than I realized.         
    I took one last gulp from the water I’d been carrying and put the empty bottle on a table; then I lay down on one of the bunks.  The bed was not very long.  I had to jackknife my legs at the knees to fit on it.  But that didn’t matter.  After only a few minutes of trying to decide whether or not I was losing my head or what I had just witnessed had in fact been real, I fell into a dreamy state of unconsciousness.  Then my subconscious took over.  And that mysterious, uncontrollable part of the human mind started sending me messages. 
    I dreamed of an incredibly beautiful lady.  She was the type of woman who made men howl in the privacy of their own secret dreams.  Long, thick, auburn hair streamed down both sides of her fresh-cream face, and her exotic emerald eyes held me a willing prisoner.  She had a rare strain of beauty that not only tortures men with desire but overwhelms them with an unexplainable jealousy as well—a jealousy rooted in the realization that she belongs to someone else and cannot be theirs.  Though she was