They entered the corral. Each man saw to his own mount and then collectively to the three they’d apparently acquired. Malone patted the stallion on the neck. It snorted as if bored by the attention.
“Well, Worthless, they give you a hard time? Other way round, I reckon. Some folks are just dumber’n dirt, thinkin’ they could horsenap a unicorn.”
“A what?” Bridger had come up behind him and overheard. “I know what that is. A mythical creature. Somethin’ out of stories, that don’t exist.” The two mountain men regarded each other silently for a long moment. Then Bridger broke out into a wide smile. “Kind o’ like you, Malone.”
Malone smiled, too. Have to replace that restrainin’ patch quick, he mused. “I reckon so, Jim. Tell me: you ever had crawfish étouffée on saffron rice?”
“Huh-uh. Sounds like Frenchie food.”
“Sort of. With lemon chiffon cake for dessert.”
Bridger eyed him sideways. “Now, where you gonna git lemons up here, Amos? In late winter, no less.”
“Leave that to me, Jim.” Malone gestured with a nod. “Better get cleaned up. Looks to me like you might’ve had an accident.”
Bridger glanced around and down at his stained backside, thoroughly baffled. “Now, when’d I do that? I don’t recall…”
Malone put an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Let’s eat, Jim. Caiben, you ready for dinner?”
“Ain’t I always?” The third trapper joined his companions as they sloughed back toward the cabin.
Behind them Worthless shifted his phenomenally flexible anatomy and turned to thoughtfully eye the nearest mare.
Espying his intention, she gave a startled snort and bolted twelve feet.
The Purl of the Pacific
A lot of folks don’t know it, but part of the Old West just skipped over the Great Basin region and the West Coast to land full bore in the Sandwich Islands. Different natives (same treatment) and even cowboys. The cowboys, in fact, are still there, hanging around Makawao and Wailea, discussing weather and cattle and posing for the tourists.
But a different group of indigenous folks were there first, with a very different and equally rich culture. Not that it would make a difference to Amos Malone.
The man is, after all, all business. Just what kind of business is sometimes hard to figure.
* * *
—
“Shark!”
Amos Malone glanced back over his left shoulder. The men on the whaler Pernod, out of Nantucket, were running along the rail, shouting and gesticulating wildly. One native harpooner was actually hanging off the bowsprit as he did his level best to draw the mountain man’s attention to something in the water midway between himself and the ship.
Malone dropped his gaze and squinted. Sure enough, there it was: a dark, sickle-shaped fin cutting the water directly toward him. A couple of the whaler’s crewmen had rifles out and were frantically trying to load and aim. Malone hoped they’d take their time. They were as likely to hit him as the fish.
Tiger shark, by the look of it, Malone decided thoughtfully. Fourteen, maybe fifteen feet. It was still a ways off, uncertain what to make of this unprecedented intrusion into its home waters. In its piscine bafflement it had been preceded by company both common and illustrious, for Mad Amos Malone constituted something of an intrusion no matter where he went.
Leaning to his left, he peered into his mount’s eye. It rolled upward to regard him, its owner’s dyspeptic temperament much in evidence.
“Shark over there, Worthless.” He casually jabbed a thumb in the direction of the oncoming fin. “Just thought you’d like to know.”
Beneath him the enormous stocky steed of mightily confused parentage snorted once, whether by way of acknowledging the warning or indicating its contempt for their present mode of travel, one had no way of knowing. Transporting them both, the stallion was swimming easily for shore, Malone having decided not to wait for the first boat to be lowered. He was anxious to see this new cattle country, even if it was as hot as the Brazos Valley in July and twice as humid.
The water above the reef was refreshing, though, and the island lay close at hand. The bustling whaling town of Merciless Sun lay before him, cloud-swathed green mountains rising sharply behind it. A brilliant rainbow arched over the heavily eroded gullies that flayed the slopes, looking for all the world like a gigantic advertising sign raised by elves. Or in this instance, Malone reminded himself, Menehunes. Dozens of vessels, mostly whalers like the Pernod, swayed at anchor in the Lahaina roads behind him, their masts representing entire forests transported to the open sea.
They looked hot, too, Malone reflected. Everything hereabouts looked hot.
The Pernod’s captain had sympathized with his passenger’s desire to get ashore but was dead set against any attempt to do so without the use of a boat.
“Most of these ships stink of whale oil, Mr. Malone, sir, and the great-toothed fish that ply these waters are always ready for a handout in the most literal sense of the word. Furthermore, if you will not be insulted by my saying so, no matter how well your animal may have weathered the journey from San Francisco, it is no seal, sir, to easily swim this distance to shore. Especially with a rider so large as yourself seated astride its back.”
Malone had smiled down through his great, unfurled nimbus of a beard. “Now, don’t you go worryin’ about ol’ Worthless, Captain. He’s a right fine swimmer and takes to the water like a fish.”
In point of fact, Malone’s unclassifiable steed had once swum Lake Superior from the American side to the Canadian at the height of a ferocious autumn storm. The captain would not have believed that, either, unless he happened to be familiar with a unicorn’s extraordinary powers of endurance, which he was not. With his horn kept cut down and filed flat, Worthless’s true lineage remained a necessary mystery to all who encountered the exceptional, if ill-dispositioned, creature.
The shark was quite close now, not even bothering to circle. The men on the boat were frantic.
Worthless turned his head, located the shark, and kicked out all in one swift motion. A portion of the lagoon foamed. His left hoof caught the fish beneath its jaw and knocked it clean out of the water. It lay there belly up, floating and dazed. The frenzy aboard the ship was instantly transformed into stunned silence. A dozen or so sharp, pointed teeth, forcibly ejected from their intimidating loci, spiraled lazily down through the crystal-clear water and came to rest on the sandy bottom, but not before being thoroughly investigated by half a dozen spotted butterfly fish, a couple of Moorish idols, and one humuhumunukunukuapua’a (one humuhumunukunukuapua’a being more than enough).
The silence was replaced by several startled but enthusiastic cheers from the crew. Malone leaned forward and whispered in his mount’s ear.
“Don’t get no swelled head, now, horse. It were only a dang fish.” Beneath him Worthless blew bubbles in the salt water. Perhaps recognizing a kindred spirit if not species, several sea horses had attached themselves to his tail.
The town of Merciless Sun (or Lahaina, as it was called in the native tongue) certainly lived up to its name. Emerging from the water alongside the short stone jetty, Malone carefully unpacked his kit and removed his mount’s tack, spreading it all out in the sun to dry. Handling it as gently as a baby, he unwrapped his Sharps rifle from its waterproof oilskin holder. Not much use for a buffalo gun on an island with no buffalo, he knew, but the Sharps was as much a part of him as his beard or underwear. Or for that matter the great, white-dappled, jet-black, misogynistic stallion that stood nearby, nibbling at the exquisite tropical flowers that grew wild where the jetty met the land.
Not everyone glanced in Amos Malone’s direction when he passed, but most did. At six foot ten and a slice of homemade chocolate cake over three hundred pounds, he tended to draw the eye no matter where he went. Nor was the attire of a
mountain man common garb in a seaport town situated in the middle of the great Pacific.
He’d come to this island as a favor to John Cochran, Esq., of Fort Worth, Texas. Père Cochran had been advised of the excellent prospects to be realized by raising cattle in the islands for export by ship to California, where there was an exploding market for beef thanks to the recent discovery in that territory of large quantities of a certain yellow metal. Never having visited this particular island and owing Cochran a favor, Malone had agreed to evaluate the possibilities in return for passage and expenses.
Certainly the town of Lahaina was booming. Among its statistics the 1846 census had listed 3,445 natives, 112 foreigners, 600 seamen, 155 adobe houses, 822 grass houses, 59 stone and wooden houses, and 528 dogs, among other items. But not much in the way of cattle, though Cochran had assured Malone that other entrepreneurs had started to run them elsewhere on the island, using españoles, imported Latin cowboys, known to the locals as paniolos.
Well, he figured to see for himself. Repacking his now-dry kit and securing it to Worthless’s broad back, he set out to find lodging for the evening.
* * *
—
As it turned out, lodging wasn’t the problem. It was finding a place where a man could sleep. Used to spending the night out in the wilderness beneath the open and silent bowl of the sky, Malone had been forced to endure for weeks the unending rustle of sailors and ship. Looking forward to a little terrestrial peace and quiet, he discovered he’d made landfall in one of the noisiest towns in creation. Whaler and sailor alike started partying early and in earnest, the magnitude of their merrymaking only intensifying with the lateness of the hour.
Giggling, laughing native men and women as well as hopefully hymning missionaries contributed to the boisterous ballyhoo, and it was about two A.M. when a restless Malone recovered Worthless from his stable and set off in search of a piece of ground where the stars could serve as silent company for the remainder of the night.
The shore south of Lahaina was rocky and difficult, but the trail that led to the central part of the island was well maintained from much use. When at last he came down out of the hills onto the flat, semiarid peninsula that divided the two mountainous halves of the island, he turned to his right and soon came to a beach of fine white sand. Slipping easily out of the saddle, he started forward in search of a quiet place among the kiawe trees in which to spend the balance of the night.
Not expecting to see any buildings, he was therefore much surprised when he found himself confronted by a six-foot-high wall of finely worked rock. Atop the solid stone platform stood a long, simple structure of wood posts and poles roofed with thatch. A small fire was burning at the near end, silhouetting the figure of a native seated cross-legged before it.
Malone examined the sky. Among the millions of visible stars were a few clouds. Rain, he had been told, fell in biblical quantities on the eastern side of the island but far less frequently in the west. Still, he had experienced one aqueous immersion already this morning and had no desire to spend the night saturated by another.
“Aloha, y’all,” he said, addressing the native. The man jumped to his feet as if shot. Malone immediately saw that he was clad in the simplest of raiment instead of the contemporary European fashion favored in comparatively sophisticated Lahaina by so many of the locals. The woven tapa around his waist was complemented by a simple yet well-made headdress. In his right hand he brandished a formidable club carved of koa wood studded on two sides with sharks’ teeth.
He started yelling in the local tongue until he saw by the light of the stars and his fire that his nocturnal visitor was neither demon nor commoner but something in between.
“Parlez-vous français?”
“I’d prefer English. I’m an American. Malone’s the name. Amos Malone.”
The man, who was quite large and well muscled but small compared to Malone (as was, for that matter, the great majority of the human race), stepped to the edge of the platform to confront his caller. After appraising the indifferent Worthless with a critical eye, he crouched low to study the animal’s rider.
“Malone,” he repeated. “I know English good. Learned in missionary school.” He gestured sharply with the club. “You come from Lahaina?” Malone nodded. “You must go away from here. This heiau is kapu.”
“Sorry.” Malone was properly apologetic. “Didn’t know. You reckon there’s a place hereabouts where a man could get a night’s sleep without bein’ disturbed by more hollerin’ and howlin’ than a pack o’ coyotes fightin’ over a dead buffalo?”
The man frowned. He possessed the exceptionally fine complexion of his people, and his eyes flashed alertly in the flickering light.
“Coyote? Buffalo?”
“Never mind.” Malone turned to leave. “I’ll just find another place.”
There was silence for a moment. Then the solitary supplicant called out to his visitor. “You do not like the sounds of Lahaina?”
Malone turned back. “Fine fer partyin’. Not so good fer sleeping.” He tilted his head back. “I prefer the company o’ stars to men.”
“Ah.” The local had a penetrating, piercing stare Malone had encountered before, but not frequently. “Come closer, haole.” Malone complied and met the other’s gaze evenly.
After several moments during which the only sound was the crackle of fire and the cry of a few insomniac seabirds, the man nodded to himself. “Yes, I can see it. You are a kahuna. A teacher, a sorcerer. But what kind?”
Malone scratched through his beard. “Depends on the moment. There’s folks think I’m a fairly versatile fella. You a kahuna, too, Mr.…?”
The native straightened, his coppery body glowing in the firelight. “I am…you could not pronounce my name. Call me Hau. In your English, that means ‘Iron.’ ”
Malone extended a hand, which the other grasped firmly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Hau you doin’?”
“Hau…?” It brought a slow smile to the other’s face. “You are not afraid? Many haoles find the heiaus frightening.” He gestured at the temple behind him.
Malone gazed past his host to study the wooden structure and its imposing platform. “Places of power and reverence only frighten the ignorant. Or those with something to hide.”
Hau nodded solemnly and turned aside. “Please. Come and share the fire with me. If you are truly a kahuna, or perhaps even a kupua, you are more than welcome here. It is the help of just such a one that I seek.”
With a hop and a jump, Malone was soon standing, and then sitting, across the fire from Hau. The native glanced in Worthless’s direction. “You do not tie your animal?”
“Tie Worthless? That’ll be the day. Don’t worry, he’ll stick around. Ain’t nobody else would tolerate him, anyways.” The unicorn glanced up and with great deliberation and malice aforethought turned its head and sneezed directly onto Malone’s saddlebags.
“What’s a kupua?”
“The child of a god. You can recognize them by their great strength and beauty. Or by their great ugliness and the terror they inspire in others.” Hau studied Malone’s face. “Possibly one can be both strong and ugly.”
Malone grinned. “Thanks fer the compliment. I think.”
“I am an ali’i, a noble.” Hau sat straighter. “I will always tell the truth.”
“And what is the truth tonight, Hau?” Malone picked up an unburned stick and casually toyed with the fire.
Hau leaned closer. “What do you know of Lahaina?”
Malone considered. “It’s hotter than the hinges o’ Hell, the whalers ’ave made it the liveliest port in the Pacific, and they’re always going at it hammer an’ tong with the missionaries. On t’ other hand, I understand there’s a real school above the town.”
“Lahainaluna, yes. A copy of your New England schools and almost twenty
years old now. A very good school that teaches both haole and local children modern ways.” His voice dropped. “That is why Kanaloaiki hates it.”
“Somebody hates a school? Thet ain’t right.”
“Not only the school,” Hau continued. “He hates everything about Lahaina and what it has done to the people. Since King Kamehameha III moved the kingdom’s capital to Honolulu, Kanaloaiki’s ire has only increased.”
Malone nodded. “Tell your friend things’ll settle down. There’s fewer whales this year than last, and so fewer whalers. There’ll be fewer still next year and the year after that. But the school should stay. It’s a good school, I hear, and a good school is a good thing.”
“Not to Kanaloaiki. He has vowed to destroy it, and all of Lahaina, and all who share in its life. He makes no distinctions. All are to die: haoles, missionaries, and local people alike. The town will be razed to the ground. Not even a breadfruit tree is to be left standing.”
“I see.” Malone considered the stars. “This Kanaloaiki, he’s a powerful chief with a lot o’ warriors who’ll follow him?”
“Worse.” Hau shook his head. “He is a kahuna ’ana’ana, a sorcerer who practices black magic. For more than a year now he has been gathering the materials for a great spell that he plans to cast on a certain mountain.” The ali’i pointed into the darkness. “That mountain.”
Turning, Malone could just make out the dark ridgeline of a nearly six-thousand-foot-high peak.
“That is Pu’u Kukui. It has been asleep for as long as we can remember. But the island is not. Less than seventy years ago there was a modest eruption far to the south of here, on the slopes of the House of the Sun.” He smiled. “I know this because I have been to the school. I know it did not happen because Pele was angry. It was geology.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Malone murmured. “This Kanaloaiki, he thinks he can reawaken the old volcano?”
Hau nodded solemnly. “Lahaina lies at its foot. The town will die, buried beneath fast-flowing superhot aa. Nothing will remain. The school, too, will be buried, and the ships offshore will go away and not come back. So Kanaloaiki intends. Thousands of people will die.”