Terrors (30 page)

“Sell ’em to the Europeans. You have any knives, guns, alcohol? The Ni Vanuatu make some fierce
kava
but they develop a taste for white man’s drinks pretty quick when they get their hands on it.”

“I thought you said it was against the law to
sell liquor to the natives.” Shanahan knew damned well the other had said as much, and he knew it was true but he also knew that there was very little law in the islands and Europeans tended to get away with anything thing they felt like doing.

“Oh, I never would do that, Mr. Shanahan. You said your name was Shanahan,
ja?”
The bartender’s smile revealed two rows of cracked and yellowed teeth.
“Well, I’m called
Meinheer van Roosevelt. Rip van Roosevelt
. From your accent I’d say you’re an American,
ja?
And I’m a Dutchman all right, but I think I would be famous in your country. Didn’t you have a well-known fellow named van Winkle, Rip van Winkle? And your President, the Rough Rider, hey? But I’m no Rip van Winkle and I’m no Rough Rider either, I’m just a fellow who buys and sells and
tries to make a living out here in the islands.” He paused. “And you, Splash Shanahan, what brought you to the middle of the ocean?”

Shanahan had his story ready and it wasn’t strictly a lie. He did have some trade goods that he’d picked up on Ambryn, Malekula, and Epi as he worked his way southward through the many islands that made up Vanuatu. He managed to earn a living, buying and selling.
The white settlers and natives alike were always hungry for metal
knives and tools, for books and magazines, for clothing made in the States or in Europe. The big steamers didn’t like to stop at every two-bit wharf and outpost in the islands. Most of the islands couldn’t dock a steamer anyway, and trade had to be conducted by launch or canoe. There was always plenty of work for a small boatman
like Shanahan.

And he’d met some great characters and sold some surprising goods, too. Pens, pencils, ink and paper were always in demand. He’d even picked up a portable typewriter from a tourist who was going to write a great novel of the sea and then decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble. Shanahan bought the machine from him for a couple of dollars and sold it at a nice profit to a real
writer named Russell holed up on Vanua Lava whose old portable had given up the ghost. The money that Shanahan made off that deal bought a basketful of pearls at Tongua and the pearls brought enough dollars from the next steamer passing through to support Shanahan for a year.

They had moved to a table now. Even though it was broad daylight outside the saloon was dark and it was deserted save
for van Roosevelt and Shanahan. Van Roosevelt had lighted a kerosene lamp and put it on the table between them. He brought a bottle of rum from behind the bar, and two glasses. He filled both glasses and lifted his own. “To the end of world, Shanahan. May it come soon. The sooner the better.”

Shanahan said, “I don’t use alcohol.”

“You won’t take a drink with me?” Van Roosevelt frowned.

“It
isn’t that. I—I can’t drink alcohol. It’s—a medical problem.”

“Well, then, water. Never say that Rip van Roosevelt wasn’t a good host when a white man came calling.”

Shanahan shook his head. “Do you have any juice? Even kava—strictly unfermented.”

Van Roosevelt found some juice and grudgingly filled a glass for Shanahan. The Dutchman downed his rum and refilled his glass.

Shanahan said, “You
look as if you’ve been out here a long time, van Roosevelt.”

“Fourteen years. They were getting ready for war in Europe and the recruiters were making eyes at me. I was a college lad, you wouldn’t believe that, would you? My father had gone off to war when he was a young man, and he came home with one leg, one hand, and one eye. Young Rip wasn’t going to the trenches, you can bet on that, Shanahan.
So I got a job out here, put in a couple of years, mailed in my
resignation and went into business for myself. I’ve been here ever since, and I like it here just fine.”

“Fourteen years,” Shanahan repeated. “I’ve only been out here four.” He took a sip of kava juice. It wasn’t very fresh. “Meinheer van Roosevelt, do you believe in the Red Robe Men?”

Van Roosevelt snorted. “Who’s been filling
your head with that nonsense?”

“You’ve heard of them, then.”

“Silly legends. Where did you get such stuff?”

“Fellow named Russell. I sold him a typewriter once. Lives up on Vanua Lava. I drop in on him whenever I pass that way. He talks about them but I can’t get a really straight story. Says he thinks they may have come this way, though, at one time.”

Van Roosevelt had emptied his glass again,
and refilled it once more. He took a healthy swallow and put the glass back on the dirty wooden surface of the table, hard. The kerosene lamp flickered but it didn’t go out. The smoke from the lamp was giving the air in the saloon a dark color and a nasty odor but van Roosevelt didn’t bother to acknowledge it, or maybe he was so accustomed to it that he didn’t notice.

“Lot of foolishness.”

“Even so. The Ni Vanuatu seem to believe in the Red Robe Men.”

“Sure they do. And they believe that the ghosts of their ancestors live all around them, too. They’re ignorant savages, Shanahan, don’t let ’em fool you. Just ignorant savages.”

Shanahan wasn’t getting anywhere and he was about ready to give up on the Dutchman and move on. He put his hands on the dirty table-top and started to get
up but van Roosevelt reached out and grabbed him by the wrist. There was a marked contrast between the Dutchman’s pale hand and his rumpled, stained linen jacket, and Shanahan’s muscular forearm, the skin darkened by sunlight and the muscles hardened by years of honest labor aboard the
Goby
.

“I might know a little,” van Roosevelt said. “But knowledge is valuable, that I have always believed.”
There was a greedy look on his face.

“If you have anything useful you’ll be paid.”

The haggling was difficult. Van Roosevelt wouldn’t tell Shanahan what he knew and Shanahan couldn’t make an offer without knowing what he was buying, but finally they reached a price.

Shanahan pulled some greenbacks from his faded jeans pocket and laid them on the table but when van Roosevelt reached for them
he
found a heavy fist resting on the bills. He sighed, tossed back some rum, and gave in. But before he let go of any information he insisted on learning what Russell had told Shanahan on Vanua Lava.

The Ni Vanuatu had an amazing variety of cultures and beliefs; each island had its own, and the larger islands of the group might have several. But they shared a common respect for their ancestors,
whose ghosts inhabited sacred sites on the islands. These included volcanoes, mountains, and caves. On feast days the Ni Vanuatu visited those sites, bringing fresh
meresinfrut
, cooked fish and roasted wild pig as offerings. If they failed to bring their offerings the ancestors would be angered, with dire, although uncertain, results.

Van Roosevelt knew all about the ghosts of ancestors. But
what about the Red Robe Men?

According to Russell, the Ni Vanuatu had come across the sea to the islands long, long ago. Western explorers had concluded that the Ni Vanuatu had been living in their islands for as long as three thousand years. But the Red Robe Men had come more recently, perhaps as recently as a few hundred years ago. The Ni Vanuatu had no calendars and a somewhat uncertain concept
of history.

The story that Russell had told Shanahan was one that Russell had got from Ni Vanuatu elders in Vanua Lava. They said that the Red Robe Men had come in great cities that floated on the water. They had houses and schools and farms on their floating cities, beautiful women who wore golden ornaments, horses and dogs. They had armies and fought wars. They anchored their floating cities
and invited the Ni Vanuatu to visit them. They traded beautiful implements and idols of metal and magical glass to the Ni Vanuatu.

Then they sailed away in their floating cities. They had come to Vanuatu from the east, traveled the length of the archipelago, and after a hundred days had sailed away again, to the west.

But during the hundred days that the Red Robe Men had tarried in Vanuatu,
a great typhoon had struck and one of the floating cities had been sickened by the storm. The Red Robe Men had tried to cure their sick floating city but it had died. Most of the Red Robe Men from the dying city had made their way to other floating cities, but some had found their way to land instead, and had remained with the Ni Vanuatu. They had brought some of their treasure with them, and it remained
in the islands to this day.

“That’s an old story.” Van Roosevelt nodded. “Nothing new there.
Russell told you that,
Meinheer?
You give me nothing I do not already have.”

“All right, but what do you make of it, van Roosevelt? You’ve been in these islands a lot longer than I have, you know the Ni Vanuatu. Are the Red Robe Men just a fairy tale?”

“I don’t think so.” Van Roosevelt shook his head.

“Then what is it? Who were the Red Robe Men? What were their floating cities?”

Van Roosevelt chuckled. He stood up, picked up the bottle that had stood on the table, and walked toward the door.

Shanahan followed.

Van Roosevelt stood in the sunlight, blinking at the bottle and shaking his head sadly. “All gone,” he muttered. “All gone.
Ach
, well, I can trade the empty bottle to the natives for
a good roast chicken. Have you had their chicken, Shanahan? Or their roast pig? I’ll give these natives that much, they can cook a good meal.”

Shanahan reminded van Roosevelt of his question.

“You’ve noticed that a lot of the Ni Vanuatu don’t look like your typical Polynesians,
ja?
”

“What of it?”

“Their skin is a little lighter and their eyes have that—what do you call it in English, eh, Shanahan?”
Van Roosevelt put his forefingers to the outer edge of his eyes and tugged at them.

“I think it’s called an epicanthic fold.”

“
Ja, ja
, that’s it, Shanahan. An epicanthic fold. Like Chinee or Japs, hey? And the skin color, eh? And a few of their words, even. I don’t mean in Bislama, the pidgin that they speak to white men. Listen to them talking among themselves, there are a few words in their
language that sound like Chinee to me.”

They were walking along the beach, now, sparkling ultramarine water on their right and swaying green jungle on their left.

“I think the Red Robe Men were real, Shanahan.” Van Roosevelt stumbled. His footing was unsteady on the sand. Once he’d left his establishment, van Roosevelt was out of his element.

Shanahan was in his.

Van Roosevelt grasped Shanahan’s
elbow to steady himself. “The Ni Vanuatu priests wear red
tapa mal-mals
when they carry their offerings to the ghosts. And what’s it all about, Shanahan? The old Chinee, they built caravels, you know. They were great scientists and
great sailors, Shanahan, when your ancestors and mine were barbarians. I think the floating cities were Chinee caravels, and the Red Robe Men were Chinee traders. The
sick floating city must have been a great caravel, destroyed in a storm.”

Van Roosevelt stopped and turned back toward the town. They were within a few hundred yards of Valeva Cave. “That’s what I think, Shanahan. Maybe some stranded Chinee sailors, they married native girls. Maybe they had trade goods. Maybe even lost treasure, eh? You think so? These islands,
ach
, if every story of lost treasure
was true, Shanahan, if every story was true we would be every one rolling in pearls and gold.” He laughed and shook his head. “But now I got to get back to my store.”

Shanahan accompanied the Dutchman along the beach to Sivin. The sun was sinking behind Mount Paponakas. The canoes had returned safely with the day’s catch, the village was coming back to life with the return of the fishermen and
women. Cooking fires were being readied for the evening meal.

Splash Shanahan was the object of odd looks, but not as odd, he was certain, as he would have received if the natives weren’t accustomed to seeing Rip van Roosevelt every day. Shanahan had been here before and had never given the natives reason to fear or distrust him, but he was still the outsider to their tight-knit society. The
Ni Vanuatu were friendly, and Shanahan was able to converse with them in Bislama. He traded a package of metal fish hooks for a hearty meal. The Ni Vanuatu retired to their huts, leaving their cooking fires banked for the night, glowing red and giving off a fragrant smoke that blended with the odor of the ocean.

Shanahan didn’t try to make close friends. He didn’t want close friends. He didn’t
want much.

He wanted to sail, to feel the sea beneath the hull of a sturdy craft, the sun on his face, and to cast a sea-anchor and sleep at night. That was always the hardest part. Sleeping at night. Every day that passed without his killing himself was a good day. Every night that passed without his going mad was a good night.

Sometimes he thought of other things. Sometimes he thought about
exploring exotic caverns, discovering lost valleys, wandering into a land where survivors of some grand ancient race survived into the modern world, wearing silken robes and worshiping pagan gods. There were stories. The South Seas were criss-crossed with whispers of gold
and jewels and forgotten secrets. There was even a story of a treasure somewhere in Efaté. He wouldn’t say that he was here
to look for it. Not exactly. But it might be here, and if he found it—but that was just a pipe dream.

Just a pipe dream.

The
Goby
had beached herself. Shanahan checked her condition, ascertaining that all was well with the little sloop. He stretched out on the sand, his face to the sky. There must be ten million stars shining on Efaté, and a moon that looked more like a miniature orange sun
than the cold, white disk that he’d grown up watching in the sky above Providence. He closed his eyes and listened to the waves advancing and receding from the beach. He thought he heard voices in them, the voices of the men who had died with the
Cichlid
, especially the voice of Frenchy le Fleur.