by Dan Simmons
Will Bryant met him in the main lobby.
“How’s Dillon?” asked Trumbo.
“Some serious cuts, a broken collarbone, tooth marks on his forearm that go to the bone. Dr. Scamahorn says that he’s in shock.”
“Tooth marks?” Trumbo paused a minute by the elevator. “What kind of tooth marks?”
Will Bryant shook his head. “Dillon didn’t say and Scamahorn couldn’t tell. Something large.”
“Something large,” repeated Trumbo. “Great. Where’s Briggs?”
“It looks like something dragged him down the tunnel. Mr. Carter and I went down with two men, but we didn’t…”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. What tunnel?” They were in the elevator riding to the top floor.
“The one behind the wall in the astronomer’s office. You remember, you told Briggs and Dillon to check it out.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell them to get dragged away or end up being gnawed on.” They stepped out of the elevator and moved quickly down the hall toward the Presidential Suite. “So Dillon’s out of it, Briggs is missing in this fucking tunnel, and we’re stacking up sedated eyewitnesses to all this shit like cordwood in the infirmary.”
“Right,” said Will Bryant. “Dr. Hastings called again, but I told him that you were unavailable.”
“Amen to that,” said Trumbo. He nodded at Bobby Tanaka and the others in the living room of the suite and then went in his bedroom to change into slacks and a polo shirt.
“But Hastings said that the lava flow is moving laterally. He’s most concerned about outgassing…”
“The only outgassing I’m worried about,” said Trumbo, “is from Hastings. Do you have the amended contract ready?”
“Bobby and I were just going over it.”
“Good. We’re meeting with Hiroshe and that little asshole Inazo Ono at seven and I want to get down to the short strokes.”
“Ono’s a tough negotiator,” said Will.
Byron Trumbo showed all of his teeth.
At six-thirty, Trumbo stepped out of the shower in Maya’s Samoan Bungalow. The model squinted him from the sheets. “Are you kidding?”
“Never kid, kid,” said Trumbo. “Today’s a big day.”
“Why, what’s happening today?”
“Well, first off, you’re heading back to your modeling gig in Chicago.”
“My next job is in Toronto.”
“OK, you’re headed back to Toronto.”
“I rather think not.”
“I rathuh think yes.”
Maya stood with no hint of modesty and walked nude to the open screen doors of the east-facing veranda. Sunlight washed her perfect skin in gold light. “I’ll ask again, Byron. What is happening today?”
Trumbo kissed her on the neck. “Everything,” he said, and moved past her out the door.
He had no idea how accurate that statement would turn out to be.
June 17, 1866, Along the Kona Coast—
I did not scream when the hand grasped my ankle. Mr. Clemens had extracted his revolver and I could hear him curse softly and begin to move my way in the darkness, but I said, “No! Stay where you are.” I bent down in the moist grass, gently unclasped the hand from my ankle, and followed the smooth curve of forearm to shoulder with my fingers. “Reverend Haymark,” I said softly, “do you have a light?”
We had brought no candles, but I heard the rasp and then saw the sputter of flame as he ignited a Lucifer match and hurried toward me. The native lying at my feet was bleeding from a cut on the scalp and his eyelids fluttered with pain. He was little more than a boy…he was a boy. And quite naked.
“We must get him back to our hut,” I said softly. The torches of the ghostly procession were some hundred yards away, but we could not guess who might have remained behind. “How are the others?”
“Dead, I fear,” said Mr. Clemens. The correspondent had moved from body to body in the dim glow of Reverend Haymark’s second match, checking each pale corpse with a matter-of-factness which seemed to belie his dismissal of his past military service. He and the cleric came over to crouch next to the boy with me. “He’s been struck by a stone or dull weapon,” said Mr. Clemens, running his hand over the moaning child’s skull. To me, he said, “You are right. We should return him to the hut where we can inspect the wound by candlelight.” The correspondent then said to Reverend Haymark, “Can you carry him by yourself?”
The portly cleric handed me the few remaining matches and I struck one in time to see him easily lift the boy. I looked at Mr. Clemens. “Are you not returning with us?”
The correspondent’s eyes were bright. He nodded in the direction of the unearthly glow. “I will see that and return shortly.”
“Perhaps I should…” I began.
“No,” said Mr. Clemens. He turned around and disappeared into the darkness and rain.
The horses were nervous but still tethered in their place when we returned to the dilapidated hut. There was no bed, table, or even pallet of straw in the shack, but Reverend Haymark set the boy gently in the driest corner while I lit two candles and hunted in my saddle-bag for clean linen that would serve as a bandage. Taking the cleric’s place next to the boy, I cleaned the wound as best I could with rainwater, staunched the bleeding, and bound a torn strip of cotton petticoat around the child’s head. I looked up to find Reverend Haymark removing his coat.
“What is it, sir?” I asked.
“If his nakedness offends you…” said the blushing cleric, holding his coat out like an offering.
I waved it away. “Nonsense. He is a child of God. Innocence can never offend.”
Pulling his coat back on, Reverend Haymark looked out at the night. The rain had stopped but the wind still lashed the palms. “I am not sure that these events hold much innocence.”
The boy revived then. At first he moaned and spoke in his own tongue, but when his eyes focused on us he managed a passable English. His name was Halemanu and he had been baptized into the Ora loa ia Jesu or “endless life by Jesus” at the Reverend Titus Coan’s Kona Mission when he was six years old…seven years earlier by the somewhat confused account I could elicit from the boy. Halemanu lived in the village of Ainepo north of here toward Kealakekua Bay where Captain Cook was slaughtered.
By this time we had brought the boy some water to drink and mango to eat and he sat up, his bare back against the grass wall of the hut, and babbled at us in his pidgin English. His eyes were bright, perhaps due to the concussion he had suffered or the great fright he had survived.
Halemanu had traveled south with his uncle and several warriors from the village because of a warning from their kahuna, or medicine man, that great evil was stirring along the Kona Coast near Honaunau, the City of Refuge. For Halemanu it had been his first adventure as a man.
The day before, yesterday, the party of men had reached the unnamed village where the Reverend Whister had built his church. The church was empty. The village was empty. Halemanu’s uncle recognized the signs that evil beings had been loose upon the land. The group had come further south, thinking to visit a village in Kau where Halemanu’s uncle knew dwelled the Pele kahuna, women who assuaged the goddess and who would understand such things as demons loosed upon the land. Night had fallen and the storm had found the party of five men and a boy far from shelter, but rather than stay in such an evil place, Halemanu’s uncle and the others had chosen to press on to Kau through the night.
The Marchers of the Night had found them here, a mile from the Pele kahuna’s village, near the ancient heiau which stood just outside our hut.
“Nonsense, boy,” said Reverend Haymark. “You are a Christian. Certainly you no longer believe in such childish superstition.”
Halemanu looked at the cleric as if the man had dribbled nonsense syllables. “There were two Ka huaka’i o ka Po,” continued the boy. “Two groups, two Marchers of the Night. We try hide, but they come on us before we can go away into the a’a. First come the aumakua,
the old ali’i, chiefs and warriors who all died long time ago. The dead chiefs, they led by an alo kapu, a dead chief whose face had been sacred so that no one—not man, not animal, not bird—could pass before him without being killed. We hear the aumakua shouting ‘Kapu o moe!’ to warn the living relatives, but we no can run. My uncle, he tell us to take off all clothes and lie on back and close eyes. We do this. Aumakuas come pass, I hear flute, hear drum, hear the manele, the litters carrying chiefs not alo kapu or akua kapu…those be chiefs not kill us to walk before or walk behind. I hear ghosts cry Shame! at our nakedness. We all have our eyes closed, but I hear dead chiefs say They shame us by lying uncovered. Do not touch them! Then Marchers of the Night, they march on. But then come along another Ka huakia’i o ka Po. This time there no music and no aumakua shouting ‘Kapu o moe!’ I open my eyes just enough to look and see torches—these much brighter than others, these torches red and carried five in front, five in middle, and five in back because five is perfect, complete number—the ku a lima. I know even before my uncle whisper for us to stay in grass that this Ka huakia’i o ka Po is a March of the Gods. The gods come walk six across, three male gods, three female gods—and my uncle, he whisper that he think that Hi’iaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele, Pele’s youngest sister, is in the first row. Then Uncle warn us to shut eyes and lie as if dead.”
Here Halemanu paused to drink some water and I looked at Reverend Haymark in the dim candlelight. The minister was frowning and he shook his head at me as if to say that we should credit little or none of the injured boy’s story. I glanced toward the open doorway. Water dripped from the sagging veranda of our shack, but the rain had stopped. There was no sign of Mr. Clemens.
“When the gods marched past, there was no music,” repeated Halemanu, “only the lightning that was their torches and the thunder that was the chanting of their names and great deeds.
“They pass us on same path as dead chiefs go on, but the gods do not shout Shame!, they shout Kill them! And the ghost warriors who walk with the gods as protectors step out of line as they came to each man in our party, and a god would cry Strike!, and the man would leap up from the grass, but the ghost warrior would strike him down dead with his ghost club. Until finally, only ones alive were my uncle and me, and my uncle, he whisper, ‘Halemanu, do not run when they call strike.’ Then the god call Strike! when the guard come to my uncle, and my uncle do not run, but ghost warrior took club and struck his skull in anyway. Then ghost warrior come to me and god call Strike! and…”
“How did you know they were ghosts and gods?” interrupted Reverend Haymark.
Halemanu blinked in the candlelight. “The gods very tall,” said the boy. “Their heads almost touch coconut palms. The ghosts much shorter, but also tall…maybe seven feet. And their feet do not touch ground.”
Reverend Haymark made a noise.
“Go on, Halemanu,” I said, still mopping blood from his brow with a wet cloth. “What happened when the god called ‘Strike’?”
“Ghost warrior raise club to hit me. Even though Uncle die when he not run, I do what he say and do not run. Then one of gods—a female—she cry, No! He is mine! Ghost warrior not stop club all way, but pull aside so it just strike me little bit. God, she call again, No! He is mine! And guard go away with gods. I try to wake Uncle, but see that rain fall in his eyes and he not blink. All other men dead too. Then I do not remember until I see lightning flash and nani wahine god standing above me in nui muumuu. I touch your leg to thank you. But you are not god who spared me, are you?”
“No, Halemanu, I am not a god,” I said. “And you must rest.”
The boy’s fingers tugged at my sleeve. “No, we must not stay here! The gods and dead chiefs are here because of Pana-ewa and mokos come up from Milu. Pele’s sister, Hi’iaka, and other gods and kahuna here to build new heiau to fight Pana-ewa. They will fight terrible battle. Pana-ewa have many bodies. He eat soul of wahine. If you stay here, you all die before sun come up.”
At that instant there was a crash behind us and Reverend Haymark and I whirled to see a form explode through the doorway and crash to the floor, tumbling one of the candles into extinction in his fall. It was Mr. Clemens, his usually wild hair in even wilder disarray, his eyes wide, and his clothes muddied.
“Miss Stewart!” he began, voice actually shaking. “Miss Stewart!” he said again.
“Are you hurt, sir?” I asked, kneeling next to him as I had knelt next to the boy minutes before.
“No, I am not hurt, Miss Stewart. But I have seen…” He broke off with a strange laugh.
“What have you seen, Mr. Clemens?”
Then he grasped me by my upper shoulders and pulled me closer. I confess that I felt a surge of alarm as well as a strange exhilaration at the unexpected contact.
“I have seen wondrous things, Miss Stewart. Wondrous things!”
Despite the late night and the bottle of Sheep Dip consumed, Eleanor awoke at seven-thirty with only a hint of headache. Scotch, she knew, was good for minimal hangovers.
Instead of going to the breakfast lanai or the beachside coffee shop, Eleanor used the small coffeemaker provided in the hale to set the coffee on while she dressed for jogging. She thought that it was a nice touch that the resort provided each hale with packages of fresh Kona coffee beans and a grinder. She drank one cup while standing on the small porch. Birds screeched and fluttered amidst the palms; peacocks strutted on the path below; the surf was audible through the thin screen of foliage to the west; to the east, the sky was blue above the thick a’a fields beginning mere yards beyond her raised hale. Eleanor could see a line of haze to the south, but the sky above the southwest ridge of Mauna Loa was clear.
Leaving the rest of the coffee on the warmer as an incentive, Eleanor left the hale behind and began jogging slowly south along the path, past the artificial lagoons and the smaller pool and the fourteenth hole to the petroglyph fields. Another quarter of a mile and she was beyond the artificial oasis of trees and shrubs, winding through head-high a’a boulders and catching occasional glimpses of painted figures and piko holes as she passed. Eventually the paved trail moved closer to the cliffs, and Eleanor felt the refreshing touch from the tall streamers of spray that lifted thirty feet from the rocks below. Rainbows danced in the air around her. Another quarter of a mile and the path ended at a sign warning guests that this was the property limit of the Mauna Pele Resort and that further travel on the lava fields would be dangerous. Eleanor paused at the asphalt turnaround for a moment, noticed a rough cinder path winding away through the boulders toward the cliffs, and continued on, jogging slowly through the rough rocks.
Ten minutes later and she came out on a peninsula looking north toward the Mauna Pele. The cliffs were higher here, at least forty feet above the water, and with no bay or lagoon to break the force of the wind and tide, the Pacific Ocean smashed itself against the rocks with a tangible fury. Eleanor stood, running in place, and admired the view.
To the north, the Mauna Pele was a verdant cluster of palms and bright foliage spreading back from the picture-perfect bay, the Big Hale set against the foothills of Mauna Loa with the Mauna Kea volcano rising above it farther to the north, its summit glittering whitely. The distant foothills and rising ridges showed a combination of rough rock and tough, brownish shrubs—not at all a tourist’s vision of Hawaii. Eleanor thought it breathtaking.
To the south, increasingly rugged cliffs curved away to the east. The great southwest ridge of Mauna Loa blocked the sky, and now Eleanor could clearly see the plumes of smoke and ash that streamed south from the lava flows there. Another gray pillar of smoke caught her eye—this one more substantial than the ash plume and rising like a stratocumulus from the coast to an altitude of forty or fifty thousand feet. Eleanor realized that she was looking at one or more steam clouds from where the lava met the ocean just around the bend of the coast, perhaps ten miles away. The sight gave her goose bumps as she thought of the wild energies of creation that were being unleashed
there.
Eleanor continued south along the coast trail, jogging easily now, thinking about things.
In the light of day, she was surprised to her core that she had loaned Aunt Kidder’s journal to Cordie Stumpf. While she recognized the unlikely friendship with the strange woman from Illinois—she liked Cordie—it still remained totally atypical for her to let anyone read the diary. Since Aunt Beanie had entrusted the journal to her more than three decades earlier, Eleanor had shared it with no one. She wondered at her motivations for doing so now.
Perhaps I need an ally. Eleanor grunted at the thought and wiped sweat from her eyes.
The obvious ally in whatever was to come should be Paul Kukali: Hawaiian, well educated in the myth and history of the islands, well acquainted with the people and groups Eleanor would have to make contact with sooner or later…not to mention handsome and charming and sexy in his smooth way.
Eleanor grunted again and shook her hands to loosen circulation further. She had known many men like Paul Kukali, and while they were invariably interesting and charming, none could understand why his charm had not worked on the lonely, now middle-aged teacher named Eleanor Perry. Meanwhile, she needed Paul’s contacts, and the feeling came perilously close to that of using the art curator.
Nonsense, thought Eleanor, it’s to his benefit even more than mine that we solve this old mystery.
The rough trail had narrowed to the point where it was less a trail than a series of false trails through the rocks. Eleanor decided it was time to turn back. She had stopped to catch her breath and was leaning forward with her hands on her knees when she heard the noise.
It was a strange sound, as explosive as the surf but not synchronized with the crash of waves on rocks to her right. First would come the surf crash and then, ten or fifteen seconds later, this second burst of sound, as of a giant exhaling. Eleanor turned to her right and picked her way through the a’a to the source of the noise.
It was only a hundred feet or so from the cliff edge. Eleanor saw the spume of spray first, like a whale spouting. She moved across the wide slab of wet stone and crouched next to the blow-hole. The sequence was always the same: first the crash of surf to her right, then a wailing as of tormented souls crying out or like a hundred flutes and oboes being blown by non-musicians, and then the spout of spray so fine that it was almost atomized. The water burst from the blowhole with the force of a high-pressure hose and Eleanor moved back quickly the first few times it blew, suddenly aware that to be caught in that explosion of spray would mean being lifted and thrown bodily through the air for dozens if not hundreds of feet. But when she had the timing down, knowing that there would be a minute and more between bursts, she crouched next to the hole and peered into it.
