For his part, Ready was pleased to take his wife sailing, for he loved the sea nearly as much as he loved her. He was happy to teach her how to raise and set the sail and how to pay attention to the wind and currents. But he had no intention whatsoever of taking her to Ruka. He had discussed everything with Mr. Bucknell and Chief Kalapa, and they had agreed that such a plan was impossible. So Ready stalled for time by proposing outlandish ways that they might capture her baby, such as creating diversions, perhaps even blowing up one of the barges. He thought it was remarkable how she thought every plan he proposed was a good one. It reflected her desperation, he supposed.
Kathleen was as unaware of her husband’s deceit as he was of hers. What she did know was that he loved her, loved her with all his heart, because he showed it in so many ways. He showed it when he cooked her breakfast in the morning and cleaned up the treehouse and made the bed while she was at school; and in how he came to the school bringing her lunch, and how he helped her straighten the classroom after the lessons. He showed it when he held her hand and walked with her along the path to the treehouse. He showed it when he helped her cook supper and in how he never failed to compliment her cooking. He showed his love when he quietly read aloud for her enjoyment and amusement from a book borrowed from Mr. Bucknell’s library. And he showed it when at night he held her. Oh, Ready O’Neal loved Kathleen, the fallen nun, and she believed it with certainty. And, before long, though she did not believe it would happen, she came to love him, too, at least as much as she could. It wasn’t a passionate love, no, but a quiet joy at his presence, and a trust that he would always be there if she needed him to be.
Kathleen also showed Ready her esteem. She even said it aloud, at least once. “Ready O’Neal,” she said one morning over a breakfast he had prepared of breadfruit fritters, fresh papaya, and coffee leavened with coconut milk and raw cane sugar, “yer a fine man, ye are. I’m glad yer my husband.” This small compliment, as very small as it was, was enough to cause Ready to light up as if the sun itself had risen in his heart. This gave her nearly as much joy as apparently she had given him. She would miss him, she reflected, when she was back on Ruka. If she was going back. The truth was she was starting to change her mind about that. Ready had shown her love such as she never imagined existed. Perhaps there was another way; perhaps she might yet convince Captain Thurlow or maybe Colonel Burr to send after a mighty force to frighten Yoshu into surrender. Perhaps. There were so many possibilities. She felt hopeful, for the first time in such a long time.
Now they were at sea, he managing the sail, she sitting on the thwart of the canoe, with Laddy at her feet. The canoe was skimming along the clean, bright sea, and she was wondering what she might prepare for the evening meal. It was a serene, pristine moment.
Then the world changed completely and forever, as it so often does. Ready said, “Help me now, Kathleen. Help me quick turn about.”
His sudden urgent appeal confused her, and at first she moved slowly. Then she saw fear in his eyes and turned to look where he was looking. Her hand went to her mouth at the sight of it, an ugly gray flat slab of a barge coming around the eastern headland. “Sweet Mary,” she breathed and crossed herself, convinced that all she had dreaded, but wanted, was about to come to pass.
There was never a chance that they could outrun the barge, only that they might slip into water too shallow for it to follow. Ready had a pistol with him but kept it holstered. There were at least a dozen armed Japanese on the barge that he could see, not to mention a large-caliber machine gun on its bridge. Any shooting he did would invite instant annihilation.
“Ready,” Kathleen said calmly, “Yoshu is on board. I’m certain of it. I think it’s going to be all right.”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“I’ll go with him.” She unsheathed the K-bar they kept on board to clean fish, then stood and touched the point of its blade to her throat. She began to yell in Japanese at the barge.
“Kathleen, what are you doing? Sit down!” Ready scolded. “Put that knife away! And stop yelling. What are you saying?”
“I am threatening suicide if they harm ye. Yoshu may not believe me, but he will hesitate. Go into the water now, my sweet Ready. Swim to the village. Take Laddy with you.”
Ready looked up at the sail, willing the wind to blow harder. Miraculously, it did. “I think we have a chance,” he said and steered toward the western headland and the rocks.
“What are ye doing?” she demanded.
“He’ll not have you!”
“Ready, spill the wind from the sail! I have to do this!”
But Ready kept the sail blooming in the stiff breeze. Kathleen grabbed a line and tried to cut it with the K-bar. Ready reached out and stayed her hand. “I said sit down! Obey me, wife!” Bullets sang past his head, but he kept his eye on the rocks ahead. “When we strike,” he said, “we’ll be knocked over. Brace yourself!”
Wild-eyed, she turned to face the onrushing boulders, saw the waves crashing on them, their beards of algae and sea grass whipping in the sea’s spewing embrace. Then nothing made sense as the canoe tipped up on its bow, its mast and sail fell over, and the sea clutched her, tossing her into the turbulence. She somersaulted underwater and came up flailing at a big rock that stuck brazenly from the turbulent sea like a giant gray tooth. She grabbed it but the sea tore her off it, sucked her down, spat her out again until she found herself within a swirling eddy that gradually subsided. Her feet touched sand. “Ready!” she called, fearful that he had been smashed against the rocks.
“Right here, Mrs. O’Neal,” Ready replied and swam across the white-flecked water into her arms.
She held onto him. “I was afraid I had lost ye.”
“Takes more than a little white water to drown a Killakeet boy. Ah, here’s Laddy, too.”
She took the paddling dog under her arm, but then they heard the awful noise of machine-gun fire, mixed with the crack of rifles, though no bullets struck around them. Ready turned and saw the barge had disappeared.
“What’s happening?” Kathleen asked as they scrambled up on the beach.
“They’re attacking the village,” Ready replied.
She began to pray.
“Kathleen,” Ready said, “I think it’s a time to fight, not to pray.”
She crossed herself, then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, we will fight.”
Josh was on his way back to the village. It had been a good day. He had delivered the charcoal to the Spurlocks, then spent a few hours yarning with Carl and having a sumptuous lunch served by his wives, finishing with a drink or two of Spurlock’s private whiskey stock. Josh had just crested the mountain when he heard the unmistakable chatter of a Japanese machine gun. Hoping the marines were just practicing, he ran to the clearing and up on the rocks for a view of the village. What he saw was the nightmare he’d been dreading for so long. A Japanese barge was entering the lagoon. He choked back his worry for his family and started running.
Ready and Kathleen dodged along a path skirting the sea. Both machine guns on the opposing sides of the lagoon were chattering away at the barge. The barge, shuddering from the impact of the bullets, had stopped. “It’s snagged the cable!” Ready cheered.
They reached the machine gun being manned by Garcia and one of the Ruka fella boys. Here they had a clear view of the barge. Ready happily noted that at least a dozen Japanese soldiers had been shot down. The Japanese boatswain was desperately turning the wheel and pushing and pulling the throttle and gears, trying to break the barge loose from the hemp cable, which had apparently wrapped around the propeller.
Then a second barge came rushing into the lagoon and then slowed to idle behind the entangled one. Ready saw Kathleen suddenly dart down to the beach and throw herself into the water. She began to swim toward the barges. Ready, disbelieving at first what he was seeing, threw down the rifle and chased after her.
Josh had run all the way down the mountain to his
house and looked inside but found no one there. He’d then sprinted to Rose’s sister’s house and found Manda. She looked up from her play with a smile. “Lots of noise,” she said.
“Yes, dear, lots of noise,” Josh answered. Then, to Rose’s sister, “Where’s Rose?”
“She went fishing,” the sister said. “She said she told you.”
Josh ran to the beach where he found Burr contemplating three dead Japanese who had slogged to shore, only to be shot down by the women’s militia. “We took their measure, Josh,” he said proudly.
“Have you seen Rose and Turu?” Josh cried, his voice wild.
Burr blinked in surprise at his demand. “Why, no. Why do you ask?”
Josh ran to the lagoon canoes and found his was gone. Nango was there. “I saw them, Jahtalo,” he replied to Josh’s desperate query. “They took the canoe. They were going fishing.”
“But I didn’t tell her good-bye,” Josh croaked. “Nango, I didn’t tell her good-bye!”
Ready pulled Kathleen ashore and threw her down, then got on top of her, holding her hands. She struggled briefly, then subsided. “What did you think you were doing?” he demanded.
“I was going to end this!” she cried.
“You were going to get yourself killed!” He looked across the lagoon. The first barge was still there, though empty of men. The second barge was steadily withdrawing with the men it had rescued.
Kathleen struggled to her feet and began to walk along the beach. She had seen Josh, and she needed to talk to him. Ready, still astonished at what she had done, followed.
Kathleen stopped Josh as he walked up from the canoes. He looked at her dully, noting somewhere in his mind that she was dripping wet. Ready, also wet, stood behind her, looking unhappy and not a little desperate. “Captain Thurlow, please, ye must listen,” Kathleen said. “Take me to Ruka and hand me over. It is the only way to stop this. I tried to do it just now, but me fool of a husband stopped me.”
Her demand had no meaning to Josh. Nothing had meaning except for the one thing, his family. “Have you seen Rose?” he asked her. “Or Turu?”
“No, I haven’t. What’s wrong?”
“She went fishing,” Josh replied, his voice thick. “With Turu. Did you see which way the second barge came?”
Ready answered. “From around the eastern headland, I think. It must have been hiding in the cove behind it. What’s wrong, Captain?”
Burr walked up to them. “I’m sure Rose and the boy are all right,” he said. “Smart girl like her. Smart boy, too. Good boat handler. I’m certain of it!”
Josh wasn’t certain. He wasn’t certain at all. “I didn’t tell her good-bye,” he said hollowly, then ran toward the headland to climb it, to see.
He arrived there breathless, though he was scarcely aware of the climb. Perched on the point of the peninsula, he studied the cove below but, for the moment, saw nothing but a crystal sea, furrowed by small advancing waves that curved toward shore. Then he looked farther out, squinting, trying to pick up any object that might be dancing among the white horses of the turbulent sea. He saw nothing except the barge, which was heading eastward, receding into the gathering pallor of the late afternoon.
Kathleen, panting, came up behind him. “Do ye see them?” she asked with hope.
“No.”
She stood beside him and caught her breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I caused this. All of it.”
“Yes,” Josh replied bitterly. “You did.”
“But I asked that ye hand me over to Yoshu.”
Josh started to reply, then shook his head.
“Shall we pray for their safety?”
He looked hard at her. “It seems to me your prayers don’t work.”
She nodded. “ ‘Tis true. They don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll find them.”
“How?”
Josh didn’t answer. He knew anything he said would only come out filled with spite and anger. It would hurt her, and, though at that moment he didn’t much care, he knew Rose wouldn’t like it. He walked past Kathleen back to the village, not caring if she followed or not.
Night was falling and there was nothing he could do now to find his wife and son. But Josh would find them, and he knew where to look, though they weren’t there, not yet. It would take a little while, but he intended to be there when they arrived.
51
Josh waited until sunrise. He did not sleep. There had been but one visitor in the evening, one of the lookouts. The fella boy had seen the second barge coming around the eastern end of the island. He had struck the alarm gong repeatedly to warn the village and also to warn Rose and Turu, whom he had seen in the cove. With great sorrow, he told Josh the alarm had not come in time. Though Rose and Turu were able to paddle out of the cove and into the open water, the barge had deliberately altered course and run over them. To his mounting horror and despair, Josh imagined the scene over and over, Rose and Turu desperately paddling while the big steel barge came down on them. The lookout had said there had been no shooting. It was a deliberate and callous act, no doubt meant to terrify the helpless occupants of the canoe for the amusement of the Japanese. The barge had struck the canoe broadside, spilling his wife and son into the water, then plowing across them with its giant, churning propeller. The lookout said he had spotted the broken bodies of Rose and Toru, bobbing loose-limbed in the wake of the barge, but then the attack had begun in the lagoon and he could no longer watch what happened to them.
Throughout the long night, Josh sat alone in his house. He longed for mangojack but resisted it. Though he did his best to keep his mind blank, the insidious thought kept creeping in that this had happened before. Naanni had been murdered, too, and her death had been because of something he had done. Now the deaths of Rose and Turu had been his fault as well. Why had he taught her how to fish? Why had he failed to listen when she’d told him she and Turu were off to fish? If he had listened, he might have stopped them from going without him to protect them. But he hadn’t listened. He’d gone on his headstrong way.
The house was empty, silent to all but his own quiet movements as he made coffee, then hooked a gourd of water to his hip and gathered the other things he would need. Manda was with Rose’s sister. She would be all right. He had sat with her for a while the previous evening and explained as best he could that something had happened to her mother and her brother but that he was going to find them and she was not to worry. It had made Manda sad, but children in those latitudes had an accepting manner about them, understanding that time rolled on, that there was no way of turning it back, that what happened simply happened, and there was no hope of changing it. They are blessed that way, Josh thought.
Josh passed Chief Kalapa, who stood in the doorway of his house. They did not speak. Nor did he speak to Mr. Bucknell as he passed the government house, though the old Britisher tipped his hat from his makeshift desk and his stacks of useless paperwork. Josh climbed the path up the great mountain, oblivious to the beauty of the blooming oleander and the waving elephant ears of the giant philodendron. He took no note of the myriad colorful birds in the high branches above, nor even heard their twittering songs, as he made his way to the Beach of the Dead Whales. For there, he thought, he would find his precious wife and beloved son, tossed up as jetsam by the odd current that carried all discarded things from the village.
In the late morning, he reached the ridge above the beach where once he had searched for ambergris and had instead received a lesson in humility and truth from Rose. He studied the cove far below, sorting through the bones and the other debris. His facial expression fixed in stone, his eyes claimed what he had come to find, though dreaded. For a moment, he thought that he might be overwhelmed by his grief, that he wouldn’t be able to do what must be done. He searched for strength but there was little he could find. He felt hollow, depleted, and briefly wished that he might descend into insanity and not return. Better to wander through life with his e
yes rolling and his mind empty than live with the self-loathing that pressed down on him like the taunting hand of a petulant giant.
A shadow passed over him, and he looked up to see what had made it. The sun blistered his eyes, but through it he saw what he somehow knew he would see. “Hello, Purdy,” he said, putting down the shovel he carried and unslinging the rifle on his shoulder. “Come closer, my dear friend.”
If indeed it was Purdy, the pelican complacently drifted in lazy circles, its great wings outstretched. “Why did you let this happen?” Josh demanded of it, then squeezed off his shot.
The rifle barked, the sound instantly absorbed by the great roar of the sea smashing into the beach below, echoing up through the cove. The pelican, though surely struck, did not fall. Instead, it vanished, and then Josh was aware that something else had joined him, something small but impossible to ignore. It was a megapode, a vulturelike bird that walked on big webbed feet and could not fly, and Josh feared that he recognized it. “Is that you, Dave?”
If it was Dave, the mascot bird of Josh’s crew back on Melagi, it did not signify it in any way. It climbed up on a small cairn of rocks and turned its head, presenting Josh with one of its big black eyes, inviting him to look inside.
“I will not look inside your eye,” Josh told it. “I do not trust what you’ve shown me, neither the past nor the future nor the present, for it is seen through your own wicked light.”
The megapode vanished. Josh felt abandoned, then realized with a start it was the way he was supposed to feel, along with everyone on the earth. “But why?” he asked heaven. Heaven did not deign to reply.