Left Turn at Paradise
Page 17
Mackin eyed the Englishman as if sizing up an unbroken horse. “I simply intend to let him rest in peace, Mr. Hart. There is no need to add further calumny to his reputation. Like unwise love, the unnecessary delivery of cruel facts is best avoided.”
“If anything,” Pillow said, “it will show that he was a normal human being, subject to the usual frailties that beset even the greatest heroes.” She leaned forward to emphasize her point. “And with all due respect, Adrian is right. You are being selfish by keeping it to yourself.”
At this, her father’s face assumed a most unforgiving look. “Selfish, am I? I’ve spent years and the remains of my fortune to help young Maoris sickened by pakeha culture!”
“Come off it, you old fool,” Hart sneered. “If you’re so keen on instilling native traditions, why wear that ridiculous costume as if you’re the reincarnation of James Cook?”
Before Pillow could again apologize for her partner’s boorishness, the Ranginui shakily rose to his feet. “Who,” he said, the word slowly dripping from his lips, “is to say I am not?”
And that, as Galileo once remarked, certainly put a different spin on things.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“What are you saying, Father? Surely you don’t believe…”
Mackin’s eyes darted from Pillow to me and back to Pillow, showing all the symptoms of a man bursting to share his secrets.
“Actually,” he said, “I do believe it.”
He pulled a key out of his jacket pocket, brushing past Witako to reach the steel safe. His shaking hands caused him to fumble with the lock, but eventually the door opened and he removed a grotesque figure of a Maori tiki. It was three feet high and two feet wide. The wood had been carved to represent a head with shell eyes, a short neck, and a cylindrical torso without arms or legs. It looked identical to the image of the embryo on the greenstone pendant Esme had given me.
Returning to the table, he placed the object on the surface and fiddled with a latch on the back. Then, ignoring the Ariki who glared at him like a constipated undertaker, he told us a story within a story.
“After Captain Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay in February 1779, his body was dissected on a flat stone, according to custom. The priests parceled out pieces of flesh among themselves, but granted King Kalani’opu’u the skull and a femur. The king kept them in a wicker basket covered with red feathers. For years afterward these sacred relics were used to collect tributes throughout the Hawaiian Islands.
“Honored as the living avatar of Lono, the fertility god, Cook became even more revered in death. But when Hawaii came under the sway of the United States, Calvinist missionaries considered the natives’ adulation of him to be the worst sort of blasphemy.”
While Mackin spoke his daughter sat motionless, hands folded tensely in front of her on the table. A sort of expectant melancholy had settled on Pillow’s face. Witako stood in the corner of the room, shaking his head, silently seething. As for me, I studied the cuticle of my left thumb while wondering what the hell this history lesson had to do with the mysterious influx of Chinese in the area.
Hart, fidgeting with impatience, spoke through a yawn. “You’ve told us nothing that isn’t available in the official narratives and subsequent histories. But you are wrong concerning his skull. Lieutenants Gore and King were quite specific as to which of his body parts the priests returned to the ship: a thigh bone, a hand that had been damaged years earlier, and his skull.”
If Mackin was bothered by the interruption, he didn’t show it. His eyes gleamed with renewed energy.
“His left hand, yes. Because it was the one thing that could be identified as Cook’s. The extremely long thighbone was likely his as well. But the head that had been boiled clean was of a Marine who died by his side. Cook’s skull was too much of a prize for the king to relinquish.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I’ll get to that in a moment. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the missionaries. In the 1830s they convinced the Hawaiians that diseases and even the catastrophic eruption of two volcanoes were God’s revenge on those who clung to such pagan beliefs. As a result, the reverential treatment of Cook’s remains came to an abrupt end.
“The bones would have been tossed in the sea, but a grandson of King Kalani’opu’u secretly hid them in the high cliffs overlooking Kealakekua Bay. When the king died the same young man placed his grandfather’s bones there as well.”
“You went to Hawaii, didn’t you?” I said.
“Yes. Six years ago I stayed in a village above the bay, where I met—”
That was enough for the Ariki, who clearly had not foreseen this turn of events. He rushed to the table, nearly setting it over.
“Stop this talk! It’s tapu to mention these things to outsiders!”
Shaken by the outburst, Mackin appeared to reconsider his course. Just as the blabbing was getting interesting, too. But after gazing once more at Pillow, he said to Witako, “Please leave us, old friend. My daughter deserves to know the truth.”
“Kotahi loe ki reira!” the Ariki shouted, as he stormed from the room. It didn’t sound like an invitation to dance.
Mackin waited a few moments for everyone to catch their breath, then sat down.
“Shall I continue?” he asked mischievously, his eyes shining behind the spectacles.
“Bloody hell,” Hart growled. “Get on with it.”
“At Kealakekua I met an old man of pure Hawaiian blood. He noted my Maori features and proceeded to ask me many questions about my background. Then, perhaps in exchange for hearing my history, he related not only what I have told you so far, but something rather more surprising: It was his paternal forebear who had placed the bones there.
“After he had told me this secret, known only to direct descendants of the old king, I asked him why he shared it with me. His answer was that Kapena Kuke, meaning Captain Cook, had enjoyed relations with the king’s favorite daughter, Ka-maka-helei. Following the captain’s death, or perhaps even before, it was found that Ka-maka-helei was with child. Cook as Lono had usurped the king, the earthly embodiment of the war god Ku.”
Hart’s laugh was mocking.
“Double bloody bollocks! If that’s the case, I’m the queen of the fairies. Cattley Middleditch warned us you might claim something like this, and I thought he was nuts. You may have the journal, old boy, but this really is too much. Come on, quit your jabbering about a crazy old Hawaiian who thinks you’re the gods’ gift to mankind, and show us what Gibson had to say.”
Ivo Mackin fell silent during this harangue, gazing absentmindedly into the distance. I feared that whatever curse Witako had talked about was coming true. If the mind beasties came for the Ranginui again it would be days before we would learn more of the story, even if it was a bunch of hooey.
His focus soon returned, however, and this time he directed his words to Pillow.
“It began with the old man’s intuition as to who and what I was. Listening to him, I began to understand that a mystical power had brought me there. How else to explain it?”
If Dr. Oliver Sacks had been in the room, he might have suggested hallucinations derived from the onset of Parkinson’s disease. But I held my tongue.
“He led me to the top of the cliffs,” Mackin went on dreamily. “Using a rope ladder, we climbed down to a small cave that had been dug in the rock. Within it was the wicker basket.”
He placed his hands on the wooden statue of the grotesque tiki figure.
“And this. Do you know what it is?”
“A small casket,” Pillow said. “Used in the old days to contain the femur and lesser bones of a warrior.”
Mackin nodded, then opened the lid and began unwrapping something within a cloth.
We edged closer to the table.
I heard a muffled gasp. Whether it came from Pillow or Hart I can’t say. Christ, it might have come from me. What I do remember is feeling, after that first dreadful realization, that what we g
azed upon was real and that we had fallen down the rabbit hole for sure.
A thigh bone and clavicle, yellow with age, lay before us.
“But it’s impossible,” Hart protested.
“No more than this.” Mackin tenderly removed from the tiki a larger object that was bundled in a linen bag. He placed it next to the bones. With all the drama of a state fair conjurer, he untied the ribbon at the base. Pausing for a moment to offer Pillow a strange little smile, he lifted the cloth.
For a moment I couldn’t make out what it was. The light from the table lamp cast half of the thing in shadow. But once my brain accepted the inconceivable, the image became quite clear.
It was the mummified face of a middle-aged man with an aquiline nose, a low brow, and a jutting jaw. The remaining strands of brown-gray hair were tied in a bow at the back of its skull. The skin color was nut brown, perhaps from some tannic solution used to preserve it, but it didn’t hide the resemblance to the portrait I’d seen on Admiral Herndon’s wall long ago in Newport.
I was staring into the empty eye sockets of James Cook.
Chapter Thirty
You must admit, Ivo sure knew how to cap off a monologue.
After a stunned silence, the ever-practical Adrian Hart said in a choked voice, “Now can we read what Sergeant Gibson had to say about the matter? Promise not to tell.”
Ivo’s smile matched the grin on the skull. He again reached into the tiki coffin. This time, he withdrew the three journals. He handed the first to me and, avoiding Hart’s outstretched hand, gave the second one to Pillow. Then he opened the third journal to a page marked by a feather and began to read aloud:
“26 November 1778. There has been much happiness now we have returned to warm waters and to a mountainous isle the Indians call Mowee….”
We listened to the words of Sergeant Gibson describing how the crews of the Resolution and Discovery were besieged by friendly natives climbing aboard to trade fruits, fish, and, in the case of some women, themselves for iron. Interesting stuff if you’re sitting in a leather chair by a cozy fire with no football games to watch, but damn frustrating if you’re grinding your teeth waiting for the man to get to the juicy bits.
The wait wasn’t long.
“30 November 1778. Fearsome surf has kept us from going Ashore, but we were visited today by a chief named Kalani’opu’u. He is portly, covered with the Pox, and smells like a Cod three days dead. With him are two priests, five warriors, a wife, and a fetching girl he called his Daughter. His child she might well be, but the disgusting way the old letch pawed her—this in front of us all!—did not seem filial.
“He and the Captain talked well into the afternoon. When at last the king was hoisted like a lumbering walrus from the Ship onto a canoe it was close to sundown and the Wife and Girl were still aboard. The crew not on duty retired belowdecks to sup and rest for the next day departure to the next island. The natives on Mowee called it Owyhee and said it was bigger than all others with peaks so great that snow covered them…
“And now it is two hours since penning the above. What I now report I do so with a heavy heart, but it must be told.
“The last canoe had yet to depart by eight bells. Lieutenant Clerke told me to summon the Captain as he had yet to issue ship’s orders for the next day. Not since June of ’70 after running aground on the New Holland reef had he missed this nightly meeting with his officers. He had not been well for many weeks and I was sore afraid for him. I tapped upon the hatch and getting no response, opened it a crack to make sure all was well. Would I have never opened it! Would I have never had eyes to see or ears to hear!
“The room was in darkness but for a single candle. I opened the door wider and heard moaning followed by a low grunting sound. I stifled the urge to rush in, to stop the madness. The Captain lay naked upon the Maiden who gasped in pain, his pale white bum pounding up and down while the heathen mother of the maid urged him on with muted fervor.
“This, three days after issuing the order that any who tried to bring Women on board, let alone lie with them, would have 24 lickings from the cat.
“I backed away unseen and retired to my hammock, sickened by our Captain’s Hypocrisy, and left it for Clerke to find him….”
Our attention remained riveted as we heard how, after the ships dropped anchor in Kealakekua Bay, Cook was worshipped as the fertility god Lono; how the ships departed at just the right time in the worship cycle; and how a broken mast in a storm forced the ships to return, leading to misunderstandings and death. All this is in the history books, of course. But hearing it from this primary source made it seem as if the events had occurred the previous week. Having the ghastly skull of the captain looking on might have had something to do with it as well.
Aside from the shocking revelation of the captain’s lust, the most interesting details were during the first two weeks of February, when things really began to disintegrate. But the last entry of Gibson’s journal that Mackin read is what really rang the bell for the three of us. It was dated 22 February 1779, eight days after Cook’s death.
“This noon, having reached a sort of peace with the Natives, enough to obtain a few more provisions and more brackish water without incident, and getting the confounded repaired mast up and fully rigged, we left this unhappy isle. Before departing and with due ceremony, hindered only by the uncontrolled coughing of Lt. Clerke, the small box that contained the few pitiful remains of our Captain was dropped into the bay. Afterward, I retired to a private corner and read the last written words of Captain Cook that I had found hidden beneath his bedding.”
Mackin pulled a folded loose sheet of rough paper from the journal and handed it across the table to his daughter.
Pillow studied it for a few seconds.
“My God,” she gasped. “It’s true.”
“Well, go ahead,” Hart urged. “Read it aloud.”
Pillow shook her head and slipped the paper to me. I looked at the script—it was written in a far more legible hand than Gibson’s—and began to read.
“The king’s daughter will bear my child. Of that I am now certain.—Whether for good or ill is not for me to say. They think I am a god, but my lust has merely made me a Puppet to Fate. I am now part of their world as foretold long ago by their sages. I pray that whatever results from this will be for the good of these innocent People to whom we have introduced the Pox and our insidious English ways. May God have mercy on my Soul.”
Thus endeth James Cook’s final sermon.
Perhaps one day I’ll encounter an evening as startling as that one—the Kansas City Royals may win the World Series, for instance—but I doubt I’ll ever again experience the way I felt after reading that great man’s mea culpa.
As disenchanting as it was to learn the saintly discoverer had succumbed to the cardinal sin of lust, I couldn’t help but calculate how much that single paragraph would bring on the open market.
We three were pirates at heart. And while it didn’t surprise me to see Hart practically frothing from the mouth with the gimmies, Pillow, too, had the wolfish look of the plunderer. Neither intended to share the prize with a guy from Kansas City.
My suspicions seemed confirmed when my gaze shifted back to the captain. I could have sworn one of the empty eyes in that wretched skull winked.
* * *
The history lesson over, Ivo Mackin grew agitated. Twitching and gabbling about the “beasties,” he slumped into the chair. A thread of saliva appeared at the corner of his mouth. When the drool slipped onto his chin, he did nothing to remove it.
“They’re coming for me,” he cried out. “Get Witako!”
But the Ariki had already returned, accompanied by Ngati and another youth armed with taiahas. Rushing to the chair, he poured a green concoction down Mackin’s throat that sent him straight to la-la land.
While the young men carried their Ranginui to a cot, Witako turned to us. His face was filled with contempt, but his voice was cool, commanding.
“We’ll be the ones to decide that,” Hart blustered. “Mackin chose to tell us of his own free will.”
Witako’s response was all the more disturbing for its quiet certitude.
“That’s debatable, given his illness. At any rate, he most certainly did not authorize you to share the information. As I recall, you prompted him by promising not to repeat what he said. Respect his wishes until such time as he is able to decide.”
Pillow looked at me, then to Hart.
“Fair enough,” she said, but only I nodded in agreement.
There was nothing more to discuss. As we walked out, I looked over my shoulder. Witako was returning the grisly relics and the journal with Cook’s piece of paper to the tiki coffin.
* * *
The three of us said little on the way back to our respective huts, each of us wondering how to proceed should Ivo be incapacitated before it was time for us to leave. Hart was uncharacteristically quiet. I knew it wouldn’t be long before he’d make a move to try to steal the journal.
* * *
Having finally met with her father, Pillow was now free to roam the compound. For the next two days, she and I searched for Tane Craddock throughout the valley. People in the marae acted as if he had never been there. Medusa simply shrugged when asked.
We got to know a few more of the young people working and playing in the fields. They weren’t a particularly talkative group. Few were older than twenty-one; all had been associated with gangs. None of them acknowledged having known or even seen Craddock. When they weren’t practicing their craft skills, they bonded in groups of three or four to smoke the potent hashish and opium cocktails that were in abundance everywhere.
In the late afternoon we eavesdropped on three girls romping in a sylvan pool like naiads from a Greek myth.