by V. E. Ulett
They dragged the body to an enormous spill of boulders. He found an opening between rocks, and halted the horse. With much huffing and heaving, Aloka wedged the body into a crevice between earth and stone.
Straightening from the nasty work, sweating and blood smeared once more, the words of a Spanish toast came into his mind.
May no cross mark his remains,
May his burial ground remain unblessed,
And may he lack a loyal son to close his eyes in
Christian rest.
Aloka sagged against the nearest boulder. He was not religious, but he’d been raised and grown to manhood in a Christian country. He knew with certainty where his loyalties lay, and he turned away from the burial place of an evil man: A traitor to the human race. He would proceed to Hawaii with that good man, his father. He would not separate Emma from the comfort of her family. Not now.
He tethered the horse to a low branch, and picking up his knife Aloka jumped into the pool to wash one last time. A moment later he hauled himself out, glaring at the blood pooled in hollows of the stone, wondering what he must do about it. Then a great cracking boom like the report of a ship of the line’s broadside stunned him.
His horse screamed, a sound he’d never heard before, and tearing the lead rope free it galloped away. Aloka crouched for a moment, the earth unstable beneath his feet. A low loud rumbling sound persisted, and despite the still day the trees whipped violently back and forth as though in a strong gale. He took up his sword and sword belt with the knife he’d washed clean, and sprinted for the clearing where he’d left Emma.
She and her horse were huddled like children, their heads together, and they looked up at him with equally wild eyes.
“Earthquake. Big one.”
It was still going on. The trees continued their tossing motion. Emma and Aloka found it hard to keep their feet, the ground undulating beneath them more than the deck of a ship at sea. They clustered together, Emma pressed against Aloka’s chest, and both with a hand upon the horse. In the next moment they heard the whinnying call of Aloka’s horse, the beast charged over to them, and they were four frightened creatures together.
When it was over, no more movement nor cracking, rumbling sound like the vengeance of the gods, Aloka detached himself to put on clothes.
Both spoke at once. “I will take you—” Aloka began, and Emma broke in with, “I want Mama.”
Aloka and Emma mounted the poor shaken beasts and turned their heads to the Carrera’s hacienda. There would be no going on to Lord Cochrane, they would return to Valparaiso. Emma needed her mama, and if Aloka were honest, he did too.
They rode past the stone cottage. The place that had sheltered them was a pile of stones and sticks thrown upon the ground, as though a giant hand had slapped the little structure down.
The main house, the cook house, and outbuildings at the Carrera’s were in much the same tumbled down condition, though a barn was yet intact. Chimneys had fallen in and walls collapsed, and the toll should have been high in human life had the household still been abed. But they were all up about their business and Emma and Aloka found the Carrera women, Jose Antonio, and their servants clustered outside the ruin of their house.
Aloka immediately dismounted and, with the other men, began clearing the brick, tiles, wood and debris from the cook house entry. Three walls of the structure survived, though the roof had collapsed, but they removed the rubble and made it serviceable again. Then they all set about salvaging items from the main house; mattresses, cups, odd bits of furniture. Aftershocks shook the earth, and sent them scrambling away over the wreckage into the yard.
After one of these tremors Aloka took Jose Antonio and his mother aside.
“Don Pedro must be fully taken up with his own people. Emma and I shall return to Valparaiso on our own. She is most concerned for her Mama, and for our people there.”
No one noticed the change in Emma, the earthquake was enough to explain her shaken withdrawn behavior. She came forward and shook hands, and exchanged kisses and well wishes, but it was clear she was as restless as the horses.
“I thought you would never come away,” she said in an angry tone, once they’d departed.
Emma encouraged her animal into a gallop when they were out on the great plain, on a tract of level ground. Aloka had no choice but to spur up his horse and follow. The day previous there’d been peaceful herds of grazing sheep and cattle, today as they raced past they heard the constant lowing and bleating of the poor beasts.
“’Vast there, Emma!”
When he caught up to her, Aloka made her get down from her horse.
“Come, Emma. We cannot use the horses so, it is a day’s riding in front of us, and we do not know what is ahead. How the land might have altered.”
Emma looked at him after this scolding and burst into tears. He tied the horses with long leads so they could graze and recover their wind. Then Aloka took her hand, plopped down, and brought her onto his lap.
He held her for a long space while she sobbed. He even rocked her a little, and it reminded him of when she was an infant and they had all held baby Emma on their laps. Their first kiss had been a long, long time ago. Aloka murmured to her in an effort to reassure, calling her tender names, and stroking her hair.
The first thing Emma said when she could speak was, “How can I be anyone’s little love after...after what I’ve done.”
She gave him an almost defiant look and Aloka immediately felt his danger. How was he to help her understand the complex emotions of battle, of taking another life, when he did not comprehend them himself.
“All men feel what you feel, Emma. All men with a heart and a conscious. I’ve seen officers suffer it, the hands, our father, in fact. We all think, can I call myself a gentleman, would they love me at home if they knew?”
“But you were under orders. Murder. I’ve done murder.”
“No. You killed a man who was murdering me, and he would have—”
“Please don’t...don’t say it. I shall never be able to un-hear his words, I shall never be able to un-see—”
“Men get up to great evil, that women should never be party to. But there is no use in pretending, and you must try to put the events of this morning away where they cannot hurt you.”
“Is that what you, and Papa, and other fighting men do?”
“We try, my love, we do not always succeed. You must not speak of it, of course, but this does not mean you’ve done wrong. You defended yourself, and me, and what you did is between you and your god.”
She was calmer then, and Aloka fancied he’d given her some comfort. Emma said she was ready to move on, and he made her swear she would not charge off again. Aloka was far from easy in his mind, Emma continued silent and haunted. He was ashamed to admit he was fearful lest she be afraid to be intimate with him again, that being what they’d been about when they were attacked. Those wretched things Kuanoa had said were enough to frighten a much more experienced woman. He thought of this on a level far below the surface, however. Outwardly he was taken up with the journey, and the changed countryside round them.
On a hill where the track hugged a sheer cliff face, they came round a blind switchback and found the way ahead blocked by a rock slide. The ledge was so narrow they could not turn the horses round, and were obliged to step them backwards until the path widened. It was a procedure the beasts did not care for, yet Aloka and Emma had reason to bless their sure-footedness, and their intelligent and tractable natures.
Once again at the base of the hill, they stopped to consider. Behind the precipitate path they’d backed down the land rose steeply, a great hill of boulders, loose rock and earth. They would find no good footing for horses by climbing higher, even for the nimble madrina mule it would have been an impossibility. On the other hand where the sea had broken violently at the base of the cliff the day before, there was now exposed beach.
“The sea has receded a prodigious way,” Aloka said.
At the foot of the cliffs was a wide, wet stretch of sand and shell. The sea was breaking farther off shore, exposing rocks whose existence was unknown yesterday. Aloka and Emma exchanged a glance.
“There is really nothing else for it,” he said, urging his horse downhill to shore, “though I don’t like it above half.”
They rode across that new beach, with its exposed sea life. Anemones, crustaceans, mollusks; the atmosphere was pungent for many of these creatures, and numerous small fish, were expiring.
Aloka gazed out to sea, it was most unnatural. “We need to step along lively, Emma. I want to get to higher ground.”
Emma urged her horse forward and closer to the cliffs, and allowed the animal to seek its own path upward. Gaining a high plateau, they halted to rest the horses. Aloka checked his pocket book notations.
He picked up the trail again, and they rode on. At the ford of the river Margamarga, Emma rode down the crumpled banks to the spot where they’d crossed with Don Pedro. Aloka urged his mount forward, in case she meant to plunge her horse into the swirling current. The water level had risen, and there was a great deal of debris carried along in it. Tree limbs and branches, turf and soil, raced by.
“Not here, Emma, it can’t be done.”
Aloka pushed his horse between her mount and the river’s edge. Emma’s face was puckering in an effort to keep back tears. So close to Valparaiso, and her mother, to be turned back. On the other side of the Margamarga were the outskirts of the town itself. The pony she rode helped him, it willingly turned away up river. Aloka reached out his hand to her, but Emma kicked up her horse and trotted ahead of him. She kept her face turned to the river, constantly scanning for a place to cross.
They found an area where the river forked around a spit of land, and crossed in two stages. The water was very chill. They halted on the opposite bank, while Aloka pulled out his compass and checked the direction they must bear for Valparaiso. He hoped he could bring her there before full dark.
At dusk they began to encounter the camps of refugees from Valparaiso, in the hills surrounding the town. Aloka supposed they were too frightened to return to their houses. But as they rode through the Almendral they found there was hardly a house left standing. He gazed out to the Bay of Valparaiso, no British ships of war, no merchantmen lay at anchor, but far out the topmasts of what might be Chilean Navy ships.
“Emma, slow down,” he called.
She’d forced her horse into a trot and was charging for their cottage. His heart misgave him, thinking what they might find. Emma threw herself from her horse, running toward the rubble where the house had been, calling “Mama! Mama!” Only one wall was left standing; the chimney had collapsed inward; the two little bedchambers were completely destroyed.
Aloka jumped down and ran to her. “Emma, we—”
She shook him off. Emma looked at him with an almost hostile gaze, while his was imploring. He felt at that moment he would give anything for Mercedes’ safety, that she should be there in Valparaiso. Emma needed her so.
In the relative quiet, for the birds were not making their usual evening stir, Emma and Aloka heard a harsh voice. “Goddamn, hell, and death! It won’t be moved!”
They could have never guessed it would be such a relief to hear McMurtry’s complaining voice, and they ran toward it.
“Bless me, Black Savage the younger!” McMurtry was startled into crying out.
He was perched atop a pile of bricks and broken wood beams and clay mortar, along with a pint sized dog with a curling tail. Li‘liah and the other Hawaiians stood crying and wringing their hands at the base of the pile.
“Which it’s the old native admiral stuck beneath here, sir, and I can’t shift this last cross beam.”
Emma looked as though she would burst with anxiety, nearly as distraught as the Hawaiians.
“Come down at once, McMurtry,” Aloka called, restraining Emma from scrabbling up the pile.
“Is he still alive?” Aloka asked in a discreet tone of McMurtry, with the little dog beside him.
“Copped it, sir, I believe.”
Aloka shook his head, looking grieved, and threw a sidelong glance at the Hawaiians.
“The Missus?”
“The Missus is at the church, or in the church yard, because the church fell down with everything else, helping the padre with the wounded. She’s brave, Miss,” he said this to Emma. “Nor would she consent to stay put, until I promised to come out and help our native friends and her neighbors.”
Emma came and leaned on Aloka’s arm, her body sagging with relief.
“The Blonde and Albion?”
“Sailed in company yesterday, sir. Report of an English vessel, the Rose, in distress near Valdivia. Our Missus wanted to stay ashore, you and the young Miss being away like, so Captain left her here under care of the foreign medico.”
Aloka turned and gave Emma a quick embrace. “You see, she’s well.” He went to the Hawaiians, and greeted and condoled with them. “We have these two horses. Let us see what can be done.”
“Yes, do,” Emma called. “I’m going to Mama.”
Aloka opened his mouth to object, but Emma was already speeding away in the direction of the Iglesia Matriz. He exchanged a glance with McMurtry. He did not want Emma running about unescorted, particularly now, but if he followed her he was sure to receive a cold, angry rebuke. Then there was the matter of dear old Kapihe wedged beneath brick and rubble. He shook his head and motioned McMurtry to follow him to the horses.
“Orders aren’t for them, sir,” McMurtry said, repeating the great Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’s home truth.
Emma was aware she was considered burdensome baggage in certain quarters, though Aloka had never made her feel that way. Were he to cease to think her special after all that’d happened, or even worse tiresome and needy, she was not sure what she would do. There was little reason left in her, it was emotion that drove Emma toward the arms of security, comfort, reassurance, and love.
Outside the crowded churchyard she stopped, scanning the anxious faces, many blood stained and dirt soiled. Emma searched out her mother’s more refined English dress, her dear, dear face. She moved around the periphery of the yard, and at last there she was, standing in conversation with a man holding a mule harnessed to a large wagon. Doctor Sparrman was on the ground nearby, sitting up, with a bandaged foot stretched before him. Emma’s knees trembled, she caught her breath and clasped her hands together over her breast.
Her mother looked smaller somehow, older. Mercedes’ hair was not done in the usual way, she wore a single hasty braid at the back of her head. Her face was careworn, tired, worried. Then she looked up and met Emma’s eyes. That dearest most beloved of faces was suddenly shining with joy.
Mercedes was deeply relieved Emma was back, but she wondered why Emma clung to her so. She appeared well and whole in her person, and she did not cry. Instead she buried her face against Mercedes’ neck and shoulder the way she’d done when she was frightened as a child, though now she had to stoop to do it. Mercedes’ heart began to thud with fear, and she held Emma away from her.
“Where is Aloka?”
“He’s fine, Mama. He’s with McMurtry.” She gulped back a sob. “Poor old Kapihe is buried under their house. They are going to use our horses to try to shift the beams and retrieve his body.”
Emma sucked in a shuddering breath. “I am so happy you are safe, Mama. So happy.” She seemed to recollect herself, and went over and gave Doctor Sparrman her hand. “How do you do, Doctor?”
“As you see, Miss Emma, most pitifully. It is an ignoble injury, I twisted my ankle running from the house, crying ‘Earthquake! Earthquake!”
“You were not more frightened than any of us, I’m sure, sir. It was most dreadful.”
“Indeed, but your mother assists me in attending these poor people. They must come to the doctor rather than the doctor going to them. She has hired this peon and his mule to carry wounded Spanish prisoners.
They must be borne by their countrymen all the way to Santiago.”
Emma turned to her with a questioning look.
“The Spanish prisoners from Lord Cochrane’s last action are here in a dreadful state, and Admiral Ávala is the senior naval officer among them. I could not live with myself if I did not try to do something for my mother’s old friend.”
Captain Blackwell had been baffled, angered, and frustrated at every turn. At sea aboard Albion, the earthquake had felt as though the ship was suddenly and violently got under way, and then been dragged across a series of submerged rocks. When Albion answered her helm once more, Captain Blackwell had immediately gone alongside the Blonde and spoke her. He’d shouted across to Captain Verson he would make all sail and run into Valparaiso. He feared what he might find on land, the violence of the event being what it had at sea.
The Blonde sailed with the English vessel Rose in tow, and must make her way to port at a slower pace. Yet when Albion neared Valparaiso Bay Captain Blackwell found he couldn’t take her into port. The sea had so far receded that he feared there was not sufficient depth for his ship’s draught, and furthermore there were many exposed rocks. He had one of the cutters manned and provisioned, and advised Captain Bowles to keep Albion well out in the offing. Captain Blackwell was rowed into Valparaiso.
As he made his way through the Almendral, the nearly deserted Almendral, with the houses all thrown down, one of Lord Cochrane’s officers, an Englishman in the Chilean service, ran up to him.
“Captain Blackwell, sir, Albion was seen standing in. Lord Cochrane sends to ask if you will take some of the refugees aboard? They are crowded onto our ships, sir, with many more outside the city in tents. Even the supreme director, Mr. Bernardo O’Higgins sleeps out of doors.”
“I am grieved to hear it, Mr. Miller,” Captain Blackwell said. “I have only just come ashore, and unless and until I know the disposition of my own wife and family, I cannot speak to the accommodation of refugees.”
