Brandishing his brutal pin, he whipped about to help Mister Wilson, who was having a bad time with a large policeman until Captain Hoxworth brought down with all the force in his bare arms the rugged belaying pin across the man’s skull. The big islander fell instantly and Hoxworth instinctively kicked him in the face, then set off for the third officer, but this man, having witnessed Hoxworth’s savage attacks upon his mates, prudently abandoned the battle and leaped into the bay. With a well-directed throw, Hoxworth spun the belaying pin through the air and caught the man in the face, cutting open a huge gash across his forehead. At once the man sank below the waves, leaving a patch of purple where he had gone down, and one of Hoxworth’s sailors shouted, “He’s drowning.”
“Let the bastard drown!” Hoxworth shouted violently. “And let these swine join him.” Alone he picked up the first unconscious victim, strained as the man’s feet slowly cleared the railing, and then with a mighty heave tossed the policeman toward the general direction of the first, who had now dazedly regained the surface in time to help his battered and inert companion.
Now Hoxworth grabbed the feet of the third policeman and Mister Wilson the hands, and with a one-two-three prepared to toss him overboard, but one of the man’s hands was bloody, and on the three count, Mister Wilson lost his grip, so that when Hoxworth threw the legs mightily over the railing, the first mate failed to do so with the hands, and the policeman’s face struck the wood with great force, breaking his jaw and cheekbones before he pitched into the bay. There he floated for a moment, then dropped slowly to the bottom, from which he was recovered a day later.
“I’m afraid he’s drowned,” Mister Wilson said apprehensively.
“Let him drown,” Hoxworth growled, licking his damaged lip. Then, grabbing a horn, he shouted ashore, “Don’t anybody try to board this ship … now or ever.” Tossing the horn to his mate, he brushed off his sweating chest, stamped his bare feet to knock away the pain and growled at Mister Wilson, “I was disgusted with your performance.”
“I stood them off, one after the other,” the mate protested.
“You fought all right,” Hoxworth admitted grudgingly, “but you had stout shoes on, and when I had the bastards down you didn’t kick them in the face.”
“It didn’t occur to me …” Mister Wilson began apologetically.
Quickly, furiously, Captain Hoxworth grabbed his mate by the jacket. “When you fight a man aboard ship, and he knows he’s licked, always kick him in the face. Because forever after, when he looks in a mirror, he’ll have to remember. If you let him go without scarring him, sooner or later he begins to think: ‘Hoxworth wasn’t so dangerous. Next time I’ll thrash him.’ But if he constantly sees the memory of solid leather across his jawbone he can’t fool himself.” Seeing that his mate was shaken by this advice, he pushed him away and added coldly, “Keeping control of a ship is difficult duty, Mister Wilson, and until you nerve yourself to it, you’ll never be a captain.”
Abruptly, he swung himself down the after ladder, shouting, “This time I don’t want to be disturbed.” And he rejoined Pupali’s daughters.
Ashore there was consternation. On the one hand, Kelolo was appalled that Americans would dare to kill one of his policemen in sight of the entire community, and he hurried to Malama to ask her what ought to be done. She was suffering from major ills and lay back on the floor, wheezing in the day’s heat, but when she heard Kelolo’s ominous report she called her attendants and with real effort rose and dressed. Then, with her two ladies-in-waiting, she went into the town, and after assembling all available policemen, she proceeded to the pier.
On the other hand, the various ships’ captains who had been chafing futilely against the new laws saw in Hoxworth’s bold action a chance to re-establish their control over Lahaina and to restore the good old days. Accordingly, they too assembled at the pier and passed the word to their men: “If they try to arrest Captain Hoxworth, we’ll all fight.” And as the sailors gathered, they armed themselves with stones and where possible with substantial clubs.
Malama pointed to the Carthaginian and said quietly, “Kelolo, arrest that captain.”
Obediently, though with some apprehension, Kelolo adjusted his policeman’s cap, picked three unwilling helpers, tested his two muskets, and set out for the whaler, but he had gone less than half the distance when Captain Hoxworth, alerted by Mister Wilson, rushed on deck with a brace of pistols and began firing madly at the rowboat.
“Don’t you come a foot nearer!” he shouted, reloading and blazing away again. This time the bullets struck perilously close to the boat, and Kelolo did not have to order his men to cease rowing. They did so automatically, stared at the infuriated captain, then quickly retreated. To the surprise of all the watchers, and to the cheers of the sailors, Captain Hoxworth unexpectedly, perhaps even to himself, now swung barefooted over the side of the Carthaginian, one revolver in his left hand, one jammed into the belt of his trousers, and started rowing furiously ashore. The other sea captains formed a reception committee both to welcome and protect him. Before he had touched shore he was shouting, “Captain Henderson! Is that a cannon I see on the Bay Tree?”
“It is. I’m headin’ for China.”
“Got any balls?”
“I have.”
Content, Hoxworth leaped ashore and strode up to Kelolo. Then seeing Malama in the background, he thrust the police chief aside and stormed over to the Alii Nui. “Ma’am!” he growled. “There’s not goin’ to be any more interference with the whalers in this port.”
“The new laws have been announced,” Malama said stoutly.
“The new laws be goddamned,” Hoxworth stormed. The sailors cheered, so he left Malama abruptly and advised them, “Do any goddamned thing you like!”
The whaling captains applauded and one cried, “Can we bring whiskey ashore?”
“Whiskey, girls, any damned thing you want,” Hoxworth roared. Then, seeing Kelolo’s two assistants who carried the muskets, he rushed over, ripped the arms from them and fired twice into the air.
At this moment the crowd separated and onto the pier stepped Abner Hale, dressed formally in claw-hammer and top hat but still limping slightly from his old wound received at the hands of the blusterer who now threatened Lahaina’s peace. Kelolo drew back, as did the bewildered policemen whose arms had been taken from them. “Good morning, Captain Hoxworth,” Abner said.
The violent whaler stepped back, looked at the little missionary and laughed. “I threw this miserable little bastard to the sharks once. I’ll do it again,” he roared, and the captains, all of whom despised Abner as the author of the sumptuary laws, shouted encouragement.
“You will send the girl Iliki back to school,” Abner said forcefully. The two men stared at each other for a long moment, and then almost unconsciously Captain Hoxworth’s real intention in coming to Lahaina manifested itself. He wanted to see Jerusha Bromley. Desperately, driven by powerful memories and dreams of revenge, he wanted to see this brown-haired girl. He lowered his pistols, jammed them back into his pants, and said, “We can talk better at your house.”
“Shall we bring the whiskey ashore?” one of the captains shouted.
“Of course!” Hoxworth snapped. “There are no laws.”
“We’ll meet at Murphy’s!” the captains yelled.
“Where is your house?” Hoxworth asked.
“There,” said Abner, pointing past the taro patch.
For a moment Captain Hoxworth stared aghast, and in his incredulity Abner perceived for the first time the really miserable hovel in which he and Jerusha lived. “Does Jerusha live there?” Hoxworth gasoed, staring at the low grass roof, the rain-tattered walls and the Dutch doorway.
“Yes,” Abner replied.
“Jesus Christ Almighty, man!” Hoxworth ejaculated. “What’s the matter with you?” With huge strides the barefooted, bare-chested captain strode up the dusty road, kicked open the wooden gate in the high wall, and brushed into th
e grass house. Standing on the earthen floor he adjusted his eyes to the darkness, and finally saw, in the doorway that separated the children’s quarters from Abner’s study, the girl he had wanted to marry. He looked a long time, at the tired face, the hair not quite tended, the red hands. He saw the cast-off dress that did not fit, and the coarse shoes also second-hand, a size too large and scuffed from long years in the dust. Possibly because of the darkness, possibly because he did not wish to recognize such things, he did not see the persuasive radiance that shone from Jerusha’s tired eyes nor did he sense the peace that encompassed her.
“My God, Jerusha! What has he done to you?” The harsh voice caused one of the children to whimper, and Jerusha left the doorway for a moment, but she soon returned and said, “Sit down, Captain Hoxworth.”
“Where, for Christ’s sake?” Hoxworth stormed, beside himself with anger and bitterness. “On a box? At a table like this?” With extreme violence he smashed at Abner’s rickety table, sending the Bible translations into the wind. “Where could I sit down if I wanted to? Jerusha, do you call this a home?”
“No,” the self-possessed woman replied, “I call this my temple.”
The answer was so final, and implied so much, that Hoxworth set adrift his first fleet of compassionate thoughts and established in their place an overpowering desire to hurt Jerusha and her husband. Kicking at the fallen table he laughed, “So this is the senate from which the laws are handed down?”
“No,” Abner said cautiously, recovering the fallen Bible, “this Book is.”
“So you’re going to rule Lahaina by the Ten Commandments?” Hoxworth asked with a hysterical laugh.
“As we rule ourselves,” Abner replied.
Again Hoxworth kicked at the table, bruising his foot as he did so. “Does the Bible direct you to live like hogs? Does it say you have to work your wife like a slave?” Impulsively, he grabbed Jerusha’s hand and held it aloft, as if he were selling her, but patiently she withdrew it and straightened her dress.
Her action infuriated Hoxworth and he backed away from the missionaries, lashing them horribly with insulting words, towering oaths and threats which he had the capacity to enforce. “All right, you goddamned sniveling little worms. You can pass the laws, but you can’t make the fleet keep them. Reverend Hale, there’s going to be women aboard those whalers by noon.”
“The women will not be allowed to go,” Abner said stubbornly.
“My men have been at sea for nine months,” Hoxworth said. “And when they reach shore they’re going to have women. All the goddamned black-assed Hawaiian women they want. Me. I always have two. One fat one and one skinny one.”
“Will you go to the church, Jerusha?” Abner asked.
“She’ll stay here!” Hoxworth shouted, grabbing her once more by the hand. “Let her hear how a real man lives.” He had a consuming desire to abuse her mind with ugly pictures, to humiliate her. “Now when I get hold of a fat one and a skinny one, ma’am, I like to lock the door for about two days and I undress completely—that’s why you find me only in pants; I was interrupted and had to kill a man—and when I’m undressed I like to throw myself back on the bed and say to the girls, ‘All right, the first one of you who can …’ ” His explanation was halted by a stinging blow from Abner’s open palm against his bruised lip.
He stopped in astonishment, then thrust out his big right arm and caught Abner by the wrist. Turning it until the missionary had to kneel in the dust of his own home, Hoxworth retained his hold on Jerusha and finished. “I tell the two girls that the first one who can make me get hard can climb aboard, and when she does the other one has to blow on me.”
Jerusha kneeled in the dust beside her husband, and Rafer Hoxworth looked down with contempt at the two miserable creatures. “What’re you doing, Jerusha?” he tormented. “Tending your little man?”
“I am praying for you,” Jerusha said, in the dust. Impetuously, Hoxworth threw them both across the room and then stood over them, threateningly.
“There’s a cannon aboard the Bay Tree, and by the guts of God, if there is any interference with the whaling fleet, I’ll blow this house to pieces.” He started for the open door but felt compelled to turn and laugh at the fallen missionaries. “You’ll be interested to know that of all Pupali’s daughters the young one, Iliki, is the best. Iliki … the Pelting Spray of the Sea! I started with Pupali’s wife and worked my way right through his girls, but Iliki is my choice. And do you know why? Because you taught her such nice manners. Here at the mission. When she climbs on top of me she says, ‘Please.’ ”
When he left, the two missionaries remained on their knees for some minutes, praying, and then Jerusha helped her husband rebuild the rickety table and collect his manuscript. Realizing that Captain Hoxworth meant his threats about the cannon, she took her two children over to Amanda Whipple’s, but did not divulge the scenes that had taken place at the mission. Then she returned to Abner, desiring to be with him if further trouble developed.
It did. The general whaling fleet saw in Hoxworth’s bold defiance a chance to abolish forever the restrictive laws, and they coursed through Lahaina tearing, raping and destroying. They drove policemen into hiding and then congregated at the new fort, where Kelolo and a last group of trusted subordinates were determined to make a stand.
“Rip down the fort!” sailors who had been jailed there shouted.
“Don’t come any closer!” Kelolo warned. But before he took action, he climbed down from the frail ramparts and asked Malama what she thought he ought to do.
“What do you think is wisest?” Malama, breathing heavily, countered.
“I think we must defy them,” Kelolo said gravely. “We have started good laws, and we must not surrender them now.”
“I agree,” Malama said, “but I do not want you to get hurt, my dear husband.”
Kelolo smiled warmly at her use of this unexpected term, for he knew that she had been forbidden by the missionaries to use it in respect to him. “Do you feel better now?” he asked solicitously, as if he were a courtier and not a husband.
“I feel very ill, Kelolo. Do you think they will fire the cannon? I should not like to hear the noise of such a great gun.”
“I think they will fire,” Kelolo said. “And then they will be ashamed of themselves. And after a while they will stop.”
“Do you think they will kill anyone?” Malama asked fearfully.
“Yes.”
“Kelolo, I hope above all else that they do not kill you. There could be no finer husband than you have been to me.” The enormous woman tried to find an easy position and then asked, “Did they harm the missionaries?”
“I don’t know,” Kelolo said.
“Isn’t it strange?” Malama asked. “The little man spends so much time telling us how the Hawaiians ought to behave, but it is always his people who do the wrong things.”
There was fighting at the gate and Kelolo was called away to make decisions. He told his men not to fire their few guns, lest a hopeless riot be initiated, but he did encourage them to use poles to push away the ribald attackers, so that from the Bay Tree Captain Hoxworth could see through his glass some of his own men from the Carthaginian being knocked off the walls, at which he grew agitated beyond control, and personally wheeled the cannon into position, ordering a charge to be fired. The forty-pound ball whistled high through the palm trees near the fort and he shouted, “Down twenty feet!”
The next ball crashed into the fort and threw bits of rock high into the air. The third ball struck the gate area and demolished it, so that hundreds of sailors were free to storm inside, where they elbowed Kelolo aside and threatened Malama.
“See that missionary house?” Hoxworth shouted, elated at his success with the cannon. “Up there to the left. Smash it.”
Again the first ball was high, and Hoxworth danced barefooted with excitement as he directed the sights lowered. The fifth shot of the day tore completely through the mission ho
use, as did the sixth and seventh. “By God,” the captain screamed, “that’ll end the laws!”
And then, as if he had been struck by some terrible unseen hand, he clasped his breast, cursed at the gunners and knocked them about like stones in a child’s game. “Goddamn you!” he screamed. “What are you doing?” And leaping into the bay, he swam furiously ashore. Dripping wet he rushed past the breached fort, where sailors were abusing the chief of police and the fat woman, and onto the mission grounds, where the splintered wood from the shattered grass house appalled him. Bursting into the room he had visited only shortly before, he cried in anguish, “Jerusha! Are you hurt?”
He did not find her and started looking under the fallen beams—frail bits of wood hauled patiently from the mountains—and then from the inner room he heard sounds, and he smashed open the niggardly woven door and saw Jerusha and her husband praying in the dust of their destroyed home. “Oh, thank God!” he yelled with joy, grabbing Jerusha to his bare and salty body. She did not resist, but passively looked at him with horror which was heightened when she saw that her husband was approaching him with a broken knife.
“No!” she found strength to scream. “God will do it, Abner!” And with relief such as she had never known before in her life, not even when Abner alone and sweating had delivered her first baby, she saw her husband drop his arm. Quickly, Captain Hoxworth wheeled about, saw the knife, and smashed his fist into Abner’s pale face. The little man doubled up and flew backwards against the grass wall and through its weakened portion. From inside the room he could hear his wife struggling with the sea captain. Before he could regain his feet he heard her screams and then the captain’s cry of rage as she bit into the great salty hand. By the time he could get back into the room, brandishing a club, he saw Hoxworth standing at the front door, what was left of it, sucking his fiercely bitten hand. And then, as if nothing had happened, the huge sea captain said sorrowfully, “It is a dreadful place that your husband has brought you to, Jerusha. When did you last have a new dress?” He started to go, then added almost in tears, “Why is it that we always meet when you are pregnant … by this goddamned fool?”
Hawaii Page 45
