Dash in the Blue Pacific (8 page)

“
They want to kill me,” Dash said to
the back of Tiki’s head, thinking about the guffaws his father had
inspired over an antique dung scraper, followed the next day by the
not so hilarious ribbing Dash had received at school.

“
They worry because the Volcano is
shaking the ground. The village will die if she spills her blood.
Feeding you to her will make her calm, stop the
shivers.”

“
Lava,” he said, trying to step as
lightly as possible on the dead foliage carpeting the tunnel. “Her
blood is lava, right?” Some of the chopped vines stood up in
spikes. He hefted supplies bundled in a woven mat one of the
warriors had shoved into his arms. It was stuffed with wood and
rock items, along with candles and a magnesium fire starter in its
original package.

“
The missioners called it ‘lava,’
but it comes from her heart, is her blood.”

“
Her blood, then. Tell me about the
ceremony. Who were the men with guns?”

“
White men like you.”

“
Where do they take the girls?”
Anxiety rose at the idea of losing his sole ally, the only person
not interested in throwing him in the volcano or smashing him with
heavy stones. He hoped he’d misunderstood the ceremony, that it was
a reenactment of something from a hundred years ago—Washington
crossing the Delaware in lousy weather, for instance—and she was
just another kid wanting to be on board to wave the stars and
stripes.

She ignored the question, kept walking, water
sloshing. “It will be safe down here. The warriors are only brave
when they are drunk, and all of them are afraid of what lives
outside the light.”

He searched the living walls by the dancing
light of the tapered candle, noticed all the dark hiding spots and
noise-filled divots. Their progress was slower despite the downhill
pitch. Bats had twice swooped down and nearly touched the flame.
Didn’t some bats drink blood? He wondered what the tunnel would be
like without the candle or bright daylight at each far end, the
walls closing in to swallow them whole. The droning was energy
filled, an electric pulse from countless insects. The intensity was
near maddening, even though it wasn’t particularly loud. It was a
power plant with a breached core making his fingertips ache, his
toes itch.

He would sleep with a nightlight and can of the
deadliest bug spray for the rest of his life once rescuers took him
away.

“
Is the noise always like
this?”

She spoke over her shoulder. “The jungle knows
when the gods are upset. It talks all night and doesn’t sleep good
in the day.”

She lifted the candle higher, the flame parting
another floating black swarm. The formation regrouped behind them
and faded into the darkness.

“
The jungle was curious when you
came. It would have eaten anyone else left on its edges. The jungle
even reaches into the sea for scraps. But it let you live. That is
why Manu knows you have a special use.”

“
All this eating,” he said. “The
ocean, the volcano. And people are scraps?”

“
We all ate tonight.” She stopped
and turned, the candle under her chin casting terrible shadows.
“The eating never stops, whether you are a shitter bug or village
chief. It never stops until you are made of nothing, until the fish
pick you clean and the Sea God swallows the bones.”

The moon at the end of the tunnel was high and
nearly full. They arranged the supplies at his cave’s yawning
mouth, a lava tube exit hole somehow attached to the active
volcano. Dash inspected the rolled sleeping mat, which would
provide immeasurable comfort. He’d also been issued a
three-foot-long bamboo spear, and flat round stones with razor
sharp sides, perhaps to gut fish he’d be required to hunt on his
own. Tiki quickly gathered brown leaves and pieces of dead
vine.

“
Watch me.”

She jammed the candle into a crevasse, then
used her teeth to tear open the fire starter package. She separated
the striker from the silver block labeled magnesium. “You shave
some from the block then use the other side to make spark. It looks
like magic, but isn’t.”

A flick of her wrist and white hot sparks
jumped from the bar onto the kindling, a curl of smoke rising from
a yellow baby flame. She reached for a new candle, ran the long
stick under her nose with her eyes closed, then put wick to
flame.

“
Bees make candles.” She handed it
to him. “I’ll show you in the daytime. And I’ll show how to rub
your teeth with charcoal to keep them clean. Missioners brought the
fire starters to make us civilized. Light, Jesus Christ, and shiny
clackers make you righteous. They brought soap and these clothes
because the Son of God doesn’t want to look at lady bosoms and
filthy bums.” She snapped the waistband of her underpants. “There
aren’t new ones because they’ve been gone so long. You have Ooba’s.
He fell out of a tree and was sent into the waves. We’ll all be
naked again soon. I guess it was meant to be.”

Dash touched the waistband of the dead man’s
underwear. “The missioners taught Christianity?”

She nodded. “And that clap-clap and pagan gods
send you to a fiery hell at the bottom of the sea.”

He tried breaking a length of bamboo over his
knee, but failed and had to add it to the fire whole. She collected
rocks and shaped a small fire pit. They sat upwind of the smoke, on
a bench of smooth lava that grew tiny ferns where dirt had
collected in cracks.

“
Your people didn’t stop believing
in the Volcano God.”

She shrugged. “The missioners think their god
stays alive inside a book. They open the book to give him breath,
and to release his love in song and prayer.”

“
It’s not the missioners coming to
take you away.”

“
No, those are the white soldiers.
They have guns. Not all the missioners are white, but all the
soldiers are. That’s why the warriors want to feed you to the
Volcano. White skin is a special evil that brings sorrow to our
people.”

Dash hunched over his knobby knees. Every
explorer he’d learned about delivered disease and death. They
discovered what had already been discovered, planted flags in soil
mixed with bones of other people’s ancient ancestors.

“
You talk different than other white
men. Same language, but different sounds. Maybe that’s also why
Manu is waiting to hear from the Volcano. She brought you here, and
other gods did not claim you. Manu believes there is always a
reason for things to happen.”

“
I’m from America. I guess the
missioners taught English?”

“
They were from a church in
Australia, but their houses were in different places. Some lived
next to elephants and had the same color skin as me. Australia is
an island this big.” She held her arms in a circle. “There was a
book that showed maps of the whole world, but it burned in a fire
when I was little. Our teacher drew maps from memory. America is
far away. Many months by boat, she says.”

“
How often do people other than
soldiers come?”

She paused as if to think. “Only when a plane
crashes.”

Dash pictured some sort of Bermuda Triangle,
airplanes of all sizes in death spirals, caught by a magnetic field
and splashing down like meteors.

“
How often do planes
crash?”

“
Just one so far, but Manu says the
Volcano is angry with us. She will throw more stones before she
bleeds. Maybe more planes will fall.”

“
Manu says she’s angry because the
ground shakes?”

“
She punishes him by making his
bones hurt, and by making it hard for him to pee.”

“
Does he say why she’s
upset?”

Tiki picked a dry twig from the lava, ran it
around her toes as if making a chalk outline. “Only that our people
are doing something wrong. He is punished because he’s our chief,
but we feel it too. Not in our pee, but other ways.”

“
Like how?”

“
The fever comes to kill babies and
old people. And the hearts of everyone else are made heavy when the
dead are put into the sea.”

Dash began to suspect who the white soldiers
were. Not mythical bad guys from ancient times, but living human
beings coming to pick from a new crop.

“
The soldiers only take away pretty
girls? Never anyone else?”

“
Only girls who are ten. The
prettiest. They come during the hot season. It’s a great honor, but
I’ll miss Talei and Bulou. We were all best mates.”

“
And your mother?”

“
She was put into the sea when I was
little.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Me, too,” she said, feeding the
fire with strips of vine.

“
Where are the girls
taken?”

She took a deep breath, then used her hands
again. “To a place with houses taller than a volcano. So tall they
touch the clouds. Even the strongest birds can’t reach the front
door.”

Her mood changed, and her eyes lit as she
looked directly at him.

“
The girls are given a house filled
with beautiful clothes, instead of these scungy old daks. They have
mirrors more clear than still water, and rows of bottles that
squirt perfume more pretty than flowers. The floors are so soft
it’s like walking on air. The chosen girls can eat whatever they
want from a big box that makes cold air and keeps away
bugs.”

“
Refrigerators,” he said.

She squinted, leaned toward him. “Did you have
one in your house?”

“
In my apartment, yes.”

“
Did you have a kitten? A magazine
that didn’t burn up has a picture of a kitten eating food from a
yellow bowl. It’s gray and fluffy and has blue eyes.”

He smiled. “No, kittens make me
sneeze.”

“
How?”

“
Well, it’s called allergies.
Something about their skin. It gets in the air and makes some
people sneeze.”

“
I’m going to have a kitten in my
house even if I sneeze all day. I’ll hold it in my arms while we
watch the birds fly below us.”

“
It sounds wonderful,” he said. “A
girl should have a kitten. Do the soldiers speak the same
English?”

“
Yes, like the missioners taught us.
But the missioners stopped coming when I was real little. They gave
up on us and went other places. Manu says they called us godless
heathens, but that shows how dumb they are. We have lots of gods.
Lots more than missioners. How many gods do you have?”

Dash was suddenly embarrassed about being a
godless heathen. “Pretty much the same as the missioners,” he
said.

Tiki held out both hands to count on her
fingers. “We have a Sea God and a God of the Sun. A Bird, Time, and
Dirt God. The Volcano God, Storm God, and Wave God. The Wave God is
different from the Sea God. That’s eight, and there’s one more,”
she said, frowning, trying to remember.

“
Our one god is supposed to watch
over everything.”

She shook her head. “The world is too big.” She
put a thumb and index finger together and held them to one eye.
“This island is only this big on my teacher’s map.”

“
Having lots of gods makes
sense.”

She nodded, then spoke in a low voice. “But it
makes people worry. So many gods to pull you underwater or make you
fall out of a tree. Gods bring thunder to keep you awake at night,
and wind to blow away your house.”

“
What god protects little girls from
soldiers?”

Tiki’s smooth lips formed a pout, her eyes
squeezed into a glare. “How much do
you
want to leave this
place? Do you want to grow old in a stinking jungle?”

“
But this is your home,” he said.
“These are your people, your family.”

“
Mama is gone.”

“
I can only imagine how much that
hurts.” When he reached to touch her shoulder, she slapped his hand
away with the same blind motion as the old woman in the aisle
seat.

Tiki lurched from the stone bench and kicked
sand over the fire, suddenly furious. “I’ll have two kittens if I’m
pretty enough,” she said, crossing her arms and turning her back to
him.

He groaned as he struggled to his feet. He was
tired and everything ached. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be
angry.”

The two lit candles had dripped wax into wide
pools, one now only a stub. He hadn’t noticed their small flames,
had wasted precious light he needed to survive.

“
I have to make a place to sleep.
Will you help?”

“
I’ll come back in the morning.” She
headed toward the path, then stopped and turned. “The Fire God is
the one I forgot. He mostly lives inside the Volcano to eat
whatever she swallows.”

Dash touched his throat. Going back into the
fire was a thousand times worse than going back into the
water.

“
I told you gods were scary,” she
said, then turned and disappeared into the black tunnel.

S
leek birds with white and
black painted bodies patrolled the sky, the calm sea mirroring
their aerodynamic designs and sweeping orbits. A slight wind left
the water mostly still—flat swells that lifted and lowered with
unstirred crests. Dash watched each bird take a turn abandoning
formation, shedding elevation until belly feathers kissed its
reflection. Dagger-like beaks cut the surface in narrow, car-length
incisions, stuttering once with a sideways flick of the head.
Graceful wings stroked the salty air, and the bird would ascend
with a small fish impaled, its flapping body working like a useless
propeller. The birds seemed to never miss.