“
That’s not funny.”
“
Maybe it’s exactly what the doctor
ordered.”
A little girl’s singing voice came from the
jungle path.
“
She sounds like a bird,” said
Willy.
“
The soldiers will take her
away.”
Willy put his hands on the armrest, looked
ready to leave, but settled back when Tiki walked through his
massive legs and plopped into the middle seat.
The former god snapped his fingers, then waved
a hand in front of her, but she didn’t flinch. “Just checking,” he
said.
“
The moon is so pretty down here.
The smoke in the village makes it fuzzy,” She said, tucking her
legs to sit sideways. She leaned into Dash across the armrest and
put a hand on his forearm. “Can you see it from your
house?”
“
Yes, sure.”
“
Does it look the same?”
“
I guess,” said Dash. “But you
should be sleeping.”
“
Do you think you can see it
wherever you go? Even big cities?”
“
Everyone can see it. Sometimes it’s
hard because of tall buildings, but it’s still there.”
“
Maybe it helps people from being
homesick.”
Dash couldn’t read minds, but knew she was
talking about her and not him. What if he convinced Manu to fight
back, to use two hundred village men armed with spears against a
few armed thugs? The soldiers wouldn’t expect a rebellion, not
after all this time. They’d have the element of
surprise.
“
They did try.” Willy’s voice was
soft, his bulb glowing dimly. “The second season the white men
came.”
“
What happened?” Dash asked, and
Tiki rubbed her fingers over a small lump on her arm.
“
A bitey bug, I guess. A dumb
mosquito.” She began pulling at Dash’s arm hair, plucking out
little blond strands. “There were swarms in the jungle. It’s better
here.”
Willy’s bulb moved side to side. “The white men
opened fire. One of them was hit by a spear in the meaty part of
his thigh. It bobbed up and down as he turned his gun where the
women and children were hiding in the huts. I suppose they thought
they were safe because they couldn’t be seen.”
“
How many dead?”
“
I don’t kill them. I swish them
like this,” said Tiki, demonstrating. “I don’t like to squish them
because they’re filled up with people’s blood.”
“
Manu was shot in the arm,” said
Willy. “The same arm that had speared the bastard. It was an
orange-haired man who limped across the compound where Manu was
lying in the dirt bleeding, trying to get up. The soldier stood
over him, pulled out the spear, and ordered Manu to summon his
wife. The chief looked him in the face and told him no, that he
would not. The soldier brandished the gun like he was going to
strike him with the stock, but then had an idea. He looked around
for a good target, saw a boy hiding next to the cistern, and pulled
the trigger like it meant nothing.”
“
I had no idea,” said
Dash.
“
The missioners said mosquitoes
bring sickness, but never to our people. Makes us itchy,” said
Tiki, scratching.
“
There were screams from the edge of
the jungle, and the man fired at the sounds,” said Willy. “Then he
stood waiting, tan pants turning dark from his wound. No other
words were spoken. No pleading, no more orders. It was as though
things happened as they were meant to, like a story that’s already
been told and can’t be changed. Manu’s wife stood from a pocket of
ferns, had to peel her daughter off like a scared little monkey.
Handed her to a woman huddled with two babies of her own. This is
the little monkey, by the way.” Willy used his thumb to point at
Tiki. “This is Manu’s daughter, who was even more of a runt back
when her mama walked out of the jungle, chin held high and proud.
She knew what the orange hair man wanted, knew she was walking
toward pure evil. She strode past the bastard and knelt down to her
injured husband. The soldier fired when Manu reached for her, and
the shape of her head changed in an awful way.”
Tiki’s voice was soft. “Are you
sleeping?”
“
Sorry, I was thinking.”
“
The soldiers torched the huts, some
filled with people. They shot most of the pigs. More than half of
the villagers were slaughtered by a few men with guns. When their
boat was gone, it took an entire day to carry all the bodies to the
sea. Even the gods mourned. The birds did not fly and the insects
did not speak. The Volcano didn’t exhale her smoke, and the wind
was still. The dead drifted away slowly, in silence.”
Willy rose from the airplane seat and walked
toward the spot where the moon had fallen into the dark ocean. The
little girl leaning on Dash’s arm began to snore.
T
iki arranged an armload of
tapered candles she’d brought from the village, squeezing the bases
into holes in Dash’s lava cave wall. He loved the idea of plugging
the hiding spots after witnessing a spider the size of his hand
crawl into one and not come out. He imagined all the cracks must be
filled with awful things, and when he’d taken a candle to
investigate with the flame held out for protection, he was certain
something hissed.
“
Does orange hair feel different? Is
it like the fever that made your face orange when you first came
here?”
“
It’s called red hair, not orange,”
said Dash. “And it’s just a different color that’s handed down from
parents and grandparents. Doesn’t mean anything more. Like mine is
brown and my fiancée’s is blonde, which is kind of like white. It’s
nothing but color, like a bird’s feathers.”
“
The missioners had black hair. Big
bushy eyebrows and hair in their noses. The soldiers all have hair
like yours, except one.”
He didn’t know what she remembered or had been
told about her mother’s death. He made a mental note to ask Willy
if the man who killed her mother was still among those returning
for more children.
“
My favorite actress has red hair,
or at least she did. It was a long time ago,” Dash said. He sat on
his sleeping mat watching her finish with the candles. She’d also
brought the makings for a broom—a length of bamboo and a vine cord
to fasten long stiff leaves that had gone brown.
“
Actress?”
“
It’s a woman in a show that’s like
your ceremonies. Only this actress was in a comedy, where they did
funny things.”
“
What was the show
about?”
He tried remembering a storyline from one of
the
Gilligan’s Island
episodes, but they blurred together,
some black and white, some color. He’d grown up with only three
lousy channels on their ancient television, his father too stingy
for cable or a satellite dish. Dash had been teased for not knowing
the important things other kids knew from Nickelodeon and the
Cartoon Channel. He knew Mary Ann and Ginger, though, alternating
crushes on women from thirty-year-old sitcom reruns. He’d once
asked his mom to make a coconut cream pie like the ones they made
on the show.
“
There was a bad storm that caused a
boat full of people to run aground on an island,” he said. “They
were supposed to be taking a short ride, but I guess the Storm God
lost its temper. The boat ended up with a big hole in it on a
beach.”
“
That doesn’t sound
funny.”
“
Well, the people did silly things,”
he said, but couldn’t recall a single example.
“
Were there people my
color?”
“
No, no brown people. There was the
boat crew, a teacher, a farm girl, and a rich old couple. All my
color.”
“
And the actress you
liked.”
“
Her name was Ginger, and she played
a beautiful movie star. A movie is like a show, but much bigger.
She always wore fancy long dresses.”
“
Did Ginger have a kitten at her
house? Who would feed it if she got lost on an island?”
“
I think she had a roommate back in
Hollywood, but she never mentioned a kitten.”
“
Is that close to
Vermont?”
“
It’s all the way across the
country. Most people ride in an airplane if they want to
visit.”
“
Did Ginger make a baby on the
island?”
“
Nobody made babies.”
“
If you make a Baby Jesus I won’t be
able to leave the island,” she said, reaching for the broom parts
he’d been playing around with but not assembling. “And I’ll never
get a kitten.”
“
A Baby Jesus? I don’t understand.
That’s something you know from the missioners?”
She shrugged. “From the books that were mostly
burned. There are pictures of the baby that Manu says will make the
soldiers stop taking the beautiful girls. The missioners talked
about Baby Jesus, said he was the Son of God.”
“
Everyone loves you here. They’re
your family. Why do you want to leave so badly?”
“
I want a kitten more than anything.
And I want to see new places.” She looked around the cave while
looping the vine over the leaves. She tied a knot, tightening it
with her front teeth, then handed him the broom. “The spiders won’t
build nests if you fill the cracks with sand. Everybody knows
that.”
“
Nests?” He held the new broom in
front of his chest, ready for a fight.
“
A mama spider can have a hundred
babies. Maybe more. They aren’t like people. Manu says they’re good
because they eat bugs that bite.”
“
Manu is right, but they still scare
me.”
“
Was Ginger scared of spiders, or
was she a warrior?”
The question hurt a little, but he went outside
to scoop a handful of sand. She was dragging out his sleeping mat
when he came back.
“
The sun kills eggs,” she said as
they passed.
He began filling in cracks, then used the broom
to usher a trio of baby geckos across the ceiling, toward the mouth
of the cave.
“
One more moon until your big date,
right? How’s the plumbing?” Willy was sitting crammed in the spot
where Dash had first regained consciousness. His mass made the
chamber even smaller.
“
My plumbing is
unchanged.”
“
I can’t get comfortable in here.”
Willy flexed his jaw, twitching his fleshy light, which was drawing
tiny moth-like insects.
“
You’ve seen all the rats and snakes
outside? There are bats that look like they could carry a dog
away.”
“
Don’t bats live in
caves?”
“
You came to give me a hard time?”
Dash asked.
“
I was just saying.”
“
And you’re welcome to read my mind
instead of asking about my broken plumbing.”
“
You’re too worried about the girl,”
said Willy, who burped a fine puff of white moth wings. “Too much
pressure isn’t going to help. Or is it that the natives aren’t your
style?”
“
I don’t have a style. And I don’t
want to think about Sarah or ten-year-old sex slaves.”
Willy lifted a hand, rubbed under his jaw. “You
won’t be able to live with yourself if she’s taken.”
“
Maybe they really are trained to be
house girls, put to work cleaning. What the hell do we
know?”
“
Right, friend, pre-teen girls with
perfect skin and lustrous hair for wealthy couples wanting to skip
the dirty diaper phase. That’s a good one. Maybe the buyers are the
Howells on your pretend island. Thurston and Lovey collecting
pretty young things to circulate cheese trays and deliver vodka
martinis and Rob Roys.”
“
Stop.”
“
We’ll buy three, Lovey.” Willy’s
voice turned into Thurston Howell’s, exactly as Dash remembered.
“Or what say we make it four? Those splendid little darlings do
divine work. Simply divine.”
“
Knock it off.”
“
They found easy pickings on islands
out here, then figured out the most valuable specimens to grab. How
much do you think one of these young beauty queens is worth to a
rich pimp? No low-ball figures here. Think of all the years of
service girls this age offer.”
Dash felt like throwing up.
“
Kid thinks she’s getting a kitten,”
said Willy. “Ain’t that the sweetest thing? She’s right about the
fancy clothes. They’ll want her dolled up for the things she’ll be
forced to do.”
“
We have to do something.” Dash
dropped the broom, sat hard on the floor. “We have to convince Manu
to try again. Anything’s better than letting them take the girls.
Anything.”
“
You have a better chance getting
your plumbing working,” Willy said, then faded away when Tiki came
back with two handfuls of sand.
She was singing a made-up song about a kitten
named Ginger.
“
G
o get ’em,
tiger. Win one for the Gipper!”
Dash dropped the skipping stones he was
collecting by the water and turned toward Willy’s voice, but it was
Tiki waving from next to the tide pool.