Dash in the Blue Pacific

by Cole Alpaugh

  “Go 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.

  She cupped her hands to her mouth to be heard over the crashing surf. “Manu wants you to come right now.”

  The blowhole sent a ten-foot geyser that was caught by the wind and turned into rain.

  Dash tiptoed across lava, leaving behind a bounty of polished flat stones that would make great hoppers. They were everywhere now that he had other business. He was up to nine skips over the chop, his right throwing arm stronger every day. The pursuit took him to a peaceful place where his useless body parts didn’t matter. Now that he’d gotten the angle and timing near perfection, he was being summoned to an impossible task that would lead to his death.

  He glanced at the volcano and whispered. “I hope you choke on me.”

  The wind lifted the girl’s hair, teased it in all directions, the last of the sun tinting her skin a rich copper as she stood waiting. She would become a beautiful woman, which was probably why her mother had been chosen as the chief’s wife. Dash conjured a picture to save his life. He imagined her mother’s long bare legs and high full breasts, hands held lightly over angular hips. Her lips parted in a smile to greet the expert rock skipper back from a new record toss. He paused next to the blowhole, waited for any sign of an impending erection. But the image changed as another burst of water erupted, showering his back and shoulders, plugging his left ear. The ghost’s face became something else, graceful jaw line rearranging into a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, a hole littered with broken teeth and splintered bone, flesh singed from the soldier’s bullet. Dash also saw in that instant that her pride had not weakened—her life was taken without her showing fear.

  “God bless us all,” the good captain had said.

  Tiki was alone again, hopping foot to foot as the sun touched the sea, another nearly endless day relinquishing its heat and light. “Hurry. It’s getting late.”

  He put one hand on her bare shoulder as she led them into the noisy tunnel behind a single tiny flame. The mosquitoes fell on them, Dash swatting at his shoulders and head, digging at his ears and spitting.

  “Careful you don’t blow on the candle,” she said, holding it out in front. “The jungle is different tonight. It’s not good to be in the dark when it is so upset.”

  Night came quickly on the island. It wasn’t a place to be caught hiking a jungle path or up the coast without a candle or the torches he’d seen villagers use. Sunsets lasted a few minutes, no hour-long dusk where the sun slipped behind New England mountains. Night was a cellar door closing on rusty hinges. It had twice left him groping with an armload of firewood after becoming preoccupied by washed up junk.

  He slapped at his face, stumbled into her.

  “Wave, don’t squish,” she reminded, using two hands to steady the flame as they came to the end of the path. “Blood makes more come.”

  The hazy dome was higher, less smothering, and the new cool air changed his spirits. He was a castaway on an exotic island, complete with an active volcano, surrounded by strange gods and people from the pages of a colorful travel magazine. The sweat dripping off him was filled with drowned mosquitoes, but that suddenly didn’t matter. And neither did beautiful stoic ghosts or his defunct libido. He raised a mosquito-ravaged chin and headed for the circle of men passing the diesel-flavored booze.

  The drinking circle had moved to the mats where communal meals were served, as it had for the pageant of beauty ceremony. Dash was instantly aware of a different mood among the men.

  “Come, Cracker, this is a special night.” Manu made room, patted the ground. From the tame voices, Dash guessed the cup hadn’t been passed for long. When he dropped to his butt, the circle changed shape. Those with backs to the stage turned and became the first row of the audience, dusting their hands and getting comfortable behind a row of flickering shell candles. A full cup was pressed into his hand.

  “Cheers,” said Manu, his face in a smile so wide his eyes disappeared.

  “Eat,” said the man on his other side, offering a bowl of blackened wings and legs.

  Dash passed the bowl on, then took a sip to prime his body. His second drink was longer, two gulps of the hellish liquid before spitting into the cup and holding out to the chief. “Smooth like silk,” he said, gasping.

  Manu drank and then clapped his hands, barking orders that brought the rest of the villagers from their huts or whatever tasks they’d been doing to complete the day. Drummers rolled out their instruments and made a few thumps. Sound checks, Dash thought, then checked to see how far the cup had traveled. He searched for Tiki’s face in the crowd gathered at each end of the mat but didn’t find her in the dim light. He saw no children.

  The cup returned, and he drank and spit. “Like silk,” he repeated, then hiccupped. Manu clapped him hard and took the cup.

  The drums banged for real when six fully naked women slipped out through the frond curtain onto the dusty stage. They formed a row behind the candles, oiled and glistening, brown skin a landscape of dangerous places Dash couldn’t help but explore with wide eyes. The women swayed in unison, hips tilting, sweeping hands reaching to tell a story. All but one appeared to be in some stage of pregnancy.

  Manu jabbed a bony elbow. “Better than America.” He pointed a crooked finger, clucked his tongue.

  Each was lovely in her own way. Two were tall and thin, while the women on the ends were short and thick, with large breasts jutting into the night. All twelve nipples had been stained bright red, perhaps to honor the volcano.

  The cup returned, and the drumming went fast and then slowed, dancers matching the pace. Their arms were snakes, sometimes lifting high to represent the sun or moon, he guessed. He compared their areolas, picking the roundest pair that held the tiniest bulls-eye bumps. He wondered how the red nubs would feel between his thumb and index finger, and if the oil coating the silky mounds would taste like coconut or some tangy fruit.

  The women turned their backs, a dozen cheeks jiggling in a frantic drum solo. Maybe it was the clap-clap, but Dash saw the lovely rumps blur together, become a single wave of flesh, and was reminded of the chocolate fountain Sarah had picked out for their wedding reception for an extra three hundred bucks. The salesman switched it on and handed them each a pineapple slice they dipped into the cascading chocolate. Sarah grabbed his wrist before he could take a bite, looked into his eyes, hers big and bluish green, and brought his hand to her mouth. She licked the pineapple and then sucked each of his fingers clean while the salesman stood there making asthmatic breathing sounds.

  The drumming slowed and hips became butter churns, the women still displaying their rear ends. The hula-style dance morphed into something completely different when the women covered their shining butt cheeks with both hands and bent at the waist to display all sorts of new dark niches. Dash thought of the spiders’ hiding spots in his lava cave and shivered.

  Manu elbowed him again as the women lifted back up and turned to face the audience. The drumming halted and the dancers huddled close, suddenly shy, crossing their legs to hide their lower parts. The villagers at each end of the mats clapped. The tall dancer with the small nipples Dash had admired left the group, stepping between the candles and up to where he sat, trying not to look at her triangle of sparkling pubic hair. Sarah had always waxed everything away, only once missing a single hair that had managed to grow more than an inch. During an especially intimate moment, he had unfurled it from its home above and to the right of where he was supposed to be paying attention. He’d felt bad for the hair, knew it was doomed, was even tempted to pluck it out of its misery and let it revel in the brief pain its removal would cause its harsh owner.

  “What are you doing?” Sarah had asked.

  He had let the hair live one more day. “Sorry,” he’d whispered, ever the coward.

  “Come.”


  Dash was startled, for an instant believing the mass of looming pubic hair had spoken. He accepted the young woman’s slick hand and stood, woozy from alcohol and the heady smell of coconut oil. He followed her away from men speaking in low, conspiratorial voices and women giggling, down a strip of bare earth covered in white flower petals. The woman’s undulating rear end led the way, its surface picking up the light of the candles, abandoned cooking fires, and maybe even a few rays from the newly risen moon.

  She herded him up three stone steps and into a grass hut and made him lie face down onto a thick sleeping mat in the center of the room. Small candles were already lit, and more petals competed with her floral-scented flesh. He lifted his hips when she leaned down to tug away his underpants. She lowered herself onto his naked butt, pinning him, her flesh warm and slick. He felt her reaching, and then a liquid trickle between his shoulder blades that ran down the middle of his back. He could also feel the crinkle of her pubic hair, and he had the urge to roll over, but her strong thighs were clamped tight, had him trapped. His face still tingled from the clap-clap as he tried to relax. Her fingers began kneading muscles, made designs over his skin. Her hands pushed up from his lower back, then out and down his arms, squeezing and twisting his fingers before repeating the heavenly maneuvers.

  He nearly fell asleep twice, jerking back awake, and she tugged under his right armpit when she finally wanted him to roll onto his back. He kept his eyes shut, breathing in the heavenly smells, hardly caring there was no door on this or any of the huts. He might even have heard voices, more giggles, but oil was dripped in the sign of the cross and firm fingers made tantalizing shapes around his own hard nipples. He heard the distant drumbeat over low whispers as if he were a champion golfer lining up a putt on the eighteenth green.

  The hips over his waist shifted and the crinkly hair found a different spot. There was wetness in a new place and the sensation was beyond glorious. He took a deep, even breath, as any golfer would when the trophy was on the line. Even the crowd went perfectly silent, drummers paused in mid-beat, everyone waiting to explode at the sound of the ball dropping into the cup, to see the victor raise a pumping fist.

  “What’s the matter with you, Cracker?”

  The silence was broken, his concentration lost mid-golf stroke. He opened his eyes to the sight of the exotic young woman straddling him, her eyebrows furrowed, her lips pursed. Her perfect nipples cast sideways shadows across chocolate breasts. From a million miles away he could feel pressure on his penis, prodding fingers that were surely warm, wonderful, and full of knowledge.

  “Your battle knife feels like dead lizard,” said the woman, and he could hear the words repeated by the nearby gallery.

  He closed his eyes again, imagined falling backward from the edge of the hungry volcano, failed putter in one hand, a single curling pubic hair from his cheating fiancée pinched between two fingers of the other.

  Chapter 15

  Tiki knelt over Dash’s bedroll, gently tapping a finger on his pounding forehead, while a single flame did a slow dance at the bottom of a coconut shell. He could still taste the vomit, and nearly retched again. His body was oily and coated in a dusty film and bits of grass. He smelled like suntan lotion after a long day at the beach.

  He reached a greasy hand and touched her elbow. “I didn’t do so good.”

  “I don’t want you to die,” she said in a whisper.

  He couldn’t see her face in the shadows, but felt the tears on his chest. “Manu might change his mind,” he said.

  “It’s not Manu’s choice. The Volcano will drown our village with her blood if we do not please her.” Tiki’s head shook side to side, hair brushing across his face. “He’s afraid for our people. Only your god can change her mind.”

  “I don’t have a god,” he said. “Not anymore. I gave up when my dad died, but never really believed. It wasn’t part of my life.”

  “Then you have to come right now.” She tugged at his arm, but her hands slid free in the gritty leftover oil, and she fell back on her rump. Now he could see she was crying. “I heard them talk. It will happen in the next balance, when the moon’s face is half black and half bright. Your god has to come convince the Volcano.”

  * * *

  There was no path where Tiki ducked into the thick vegetation, only a vertical black slit she crawled through like a reverse birth. It was Alice’s plunge down the rabbit hole, only one filled with snakes and spiders that attacked birds, and giant prehistoric lizards with foot-long tongues. The most dangerous animal he’d encountered in Vermont was a black bear struck dead by a propane delivery truck. He’d been sent by his editor to get a quote from the driver and game warden. Are there more bears than years past? Can residents expect a rash of such unfortunate accidents? Is this the first bear you’ve crashed into?

  “Don’t grab the vines,” Tiki warned, and must have seen the puzzled look on his face. “They might be something that bites.”

  “I won’t touch anything.”

  They maneuvered through a maze of deadfall for the first hundred yards. The sound level rose with each step—birds angry at the intrusion, and darting tree creatures that whooped and howled, some stopping to hurl broken twigs.

  “It’s not too much farther,” she said, allowing him to catch his breath. Even she was coated in sweat, little dead bugs dotting her body like black pepper. She squatted with elbows on her knees, while he swatted the air.

  The jungle continued moving when you stood still. Every inch of plant and rock surface had an ant or beetle-like insect performing choreographed labor. The more dangerous creatures, the brightly colored spiders with hinged legs perhaps designed for jumping, lurked higher up, building sticky webs at a white man’s eye level. The ground was carpeted with spotted leaves and ancient ferns, all hosting colonies of smaller life forms. Exploring bamboo shoots were alien fingers pointing the way home.

  “Come.”

  She led them deeper into the interior, slashing with bare feet and tiny hands. She climbed over the sturdy vines and plowed through the weak. The ground tilted upward as they neared the base of the volcano’s cone, glimpses of sun on its brown face appearing through breaks in the canopy.

  They came to a spot that had once been cleared, trees chopped to stumps, broken lava stacked knee high in a perimeter wall. He brushed bugs from a log and risked sitting, breathing air so thick it was practically warm liquid. The flying swarms were scarcer here, and he assumed it was due to the pungent flowering bushes left to flourish within the black wall.

  “This is what you wanted me to see?” He tried to make sense of the manmade landscape. In front of them was a raised area topped with a flat rock the shape and size of a twin mattress. It was a stage of sorts, probably something to do with religion and gods. Dash had a vision of a more hands-on brand of human sacrifice, and the savages who chanted for the blood to hurry up and flow.

  “It’s where the missioners explained how there is only one god. They named it God’s House. There was a path to the village.” She pointed to a solid wall of greenery, then began rooting through an old pile of cut bamboo shafts at her feet. She chose a pair of fat, foot-long sections and held one out. “The Volcano covered the path with rocks to block the way. Manu said it was a warning for our people not to come here. The missioners were angry.”

  He took the bamboo, held it like a knife. “It’s pretty spooky, but so are the churches back home.” He looked through the treetops to where the volcano continued spewing a line of smoke.

  “Our gods like it here. You can feel them close by, especially during the black face moon. And sometimes you hear a voice which sounds like all the people from a hundred villages speaking at once. I was scared the first time. Help me dig.” She knelt below the stone altar and jabbed the bamboo into the soft earth, as he came beside her. “It’s not deep, but the roots will try to hold on.”

  He dug in, easily pulling away the rich dirt for the first few inches, but then struck t
he network of subterranean bamboo runners. “What are we looking for?”

  “A box.” She maneuvered her stick as a crowbar against the stubborn roots. “It’s right here.”

  He tugged tendrils that came free like buried rope. She dropped her tool to scoop the dirt from the top of a metal container the size of a cigar box, lifting it from the shallow hole. She wiped her hands on the sides of her underpants and worked the latch, forcing hinges that made a sound like one of the jungle birds. Inside was a lump of clear plastic she began carefully unraveling. Protected from moisture was a small leather-bound book, maybe four inches tall and about half as thick. She brushed bits of dirt and her own sweat from the cover that read Holy Bible.

  Dash was deflated. He sat back, realizing he’d been hoping for some sort of magic weapon. A glowing lightsaber, perhaps, or a Harry Potter wand. The hole had been too small for a time machine, but if only Gollum’s precious ring had been buried here to protect one heathen from a miserable, fiery end. He looked up at the canopy, a torn green tent fed by death and decay. Birds zipped from side to side, and giant white moths flew in slow meandering paths.

  “It’s only a Bible,” he finally said.

  She held the small book out with both dirty hands. “The missioners said it saved people. It can save you, let your god know where you are, and that you need help.”

  “It’s only paper and ink. It has a fancy cover with nothing but words inside.”

  “They used it to baptize our people. They talked to your god, prayed to him every day. They said being saved meant you were delivered from sin and death.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If it keeps you safe from the devil, then it will protect you from the Volcano.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not a magic book. And they needed water to baptize people. Lots of water. Maybe even a river. There’s no water here, Tiki. There’s just sweat and blood. Were missioners on the island when the soldiers took girls?”

  “Sometimes, but the missioners never interfered. They came here to be with their god until the soldiers left. They said the soldiers were punishment for our sins.” She paused to get her words right. “God didn’t cause Mama to be killed, sinning did. And not being saved. I think having one god makes things more complicated.”