Dash in the Blue Pacific (30 page)

He smiled and could see a flash of white where
Tiki’s mouth was in shadow. He raised both arms, hands reaching
toward the source of the rain. She also raised her arms, as did the
guards. Beyond them, the field was crowded with glistening naked
bodies also lifting their hands to the heavens, heads tilted up
with parted lips.

“
Simon says,” he whispered, closing
his eyes.

“
Simon says,” Tiki
repeated.

The lightning returned close and bright,
finding the tops of nearby trees, but nobody left the field until
the last raindrop had fallen.

T
he mist continued its dance
as they climbed the volcano. Thicker in places, it trapped and
echoed their raspy breath and shuffling feet. Other spots were
black holes, crevasses that might contain creatures worse than any
spider. The sulfur stink had gotten inside Dash’s body, was in his
mouth, burned his tongue and soured his spit. It was in his tears
and dripping nose, and probably in his blood and heart. He breathed
it in and coughed stained yellow puffs.

He craned his neck to see the chiseled stones
rise in the constant flashes and glow from the orange dome.
Hundreds of steps to go, a staircase from base to summit of the
trembling mountain. It was the view from the front roller coaster
car that faced its first terrifying tower. What went up would go
down real fast, and he knew they’d be going faster than any mere
fun park ride. Their free fall would be the real deal.

Even the fishermen, accustomed to unstable
footing in rough seas, were struggling for balance. People held
hands, turned themselves into four-legged creatures as they
continued the precarious ascent. There was no easy way to stand on
the shaking ground, the steps changing height and the treacherous
loose gravel either slick or sharp underfoot. Tiki held his hand, a
set of guards in front and behind. Manu led every member of the
village, including the very old and the women about to give birth.
A few clutched dripping candles that weren’t necessary and wouldn’t
stay lit.

Another hundred steps and Dash’s lungs forced
him to stop. He guessed they were ten times higher than the tallest
tree, and was glad he could not see. He let go of Tiki’s hand to
grab his knees and wait for his breath to return. The air had gone
less foul, as though some of the poison cooked away as they got
closer. Falling ash was hotter, some pieces on fire, blinking
fireflies on the swirling wind. He pictured the final clash of fire
and water, when the volcano had consumed everything, had
incinerated the last morsel of fragile life to come face to face
with a battle that might not be winnable. Dash couldn’t choose a
side, not after drifting in the ocean’s empty expanse that had also
wanted him dead.

“
Come.” Tiki put her hand in his
again, urging him on. Her fingers were cold, but only his were
trembling as they climbed higher.

He counted steps—fifty since their last
break—as the mostly double-wide line of villagers spread thinner.
Now the birds were landing all around. The ones trying for flat
purchase on the steps were unceremoniously kicked away. Those
alighting on the steep rock face scrambled for hold in miniature
landslides. Still more than a hundred steps from the summit, he
could see the mass of birds on the ground above. They were agitated
and fighting, pecking at one another, sooty feathers set free to
dance on the increasing wind. The birds had been cornered; the
ocean was never safe at night, and fire now rained on the treetops.
The sky might be the least safe, electricity rushing among the
clouds.

He counted sixty steps, eyes focused above.
Heat from the rising magma set off mini-tornadoes that sucked in
and swallowed some of the smaller birds, made them
disappear.

She squeezed his hand. “Closer,” he heard her
say.

Closer to what? To sitting down and resting my
burning legs? Closer to death? He didn’t have the breath to
ask.

As Manu’s lead group reached the summit, a
severe jolt sent most to their knees. The stairs fractured directly
up the middle, the mountain pushing outward to open a vertical
crack a few inches wide. Some people fell backwards and were
caught, while others rolled and tumbled down the steep rocky face.
In a series of bright flashes, he saw another much larger fissure
open lower down, off to one side. Smoke or steam billowed from the
wound, and at least a dozen villagers slid or bounded into the
glowing space and were gone forever.

There was a renewed sense of urgency to
continue, a brown tide surging from the gash and perilous steps
toward the level summit. Those who had already arrived were urging
climbers on with words and waving arms, were silhouetted against
the fire reflecting off low clouds. Dash saw them not as people,
but as demons welcoming them to hell. Tiki might have had a similar
impression, her upward motion hesitating at the image. Birds had
spread their black wings at the feet of demons, beaks open to
scream territorial claims.

“
I can’t,” she said.

He looked behind to where the frantic villagers
were closing the gap they’d somehow managed, then realized their
trailing guards were gone. He supposed the cocksure young men
hadn’t gone to their knees when the big jolt hit, had fallen down
the mountain because they refused to look cowardly. Dash was elated
by their misfortune, hoped they’d made it all the way to the new
hole while still alive and fully aware. It served them right for
their part in this, and too damn bad they were going to miss out on
the chance to give him his final shove. What a great honor to
bestow on young men normally in charge of cutting back jungle paths
or weaving fish nets. But then he was miserable that anyone was
dead. What grade would the boys have been in if they were all back
in Vermont? Juniors in high school? Sophomores? They would be
riding dirt bikes on their grandpa’s back forty, and begging for
the keys to the pickup to take girls parking at the closed
drive-in. Stolen beer and French kisses instead of gods erupting
with hate.

The crowd took the decision away from Dash and
Tiki. With only a few dozen remaining, it was climb or be pushed
off the steps.

“
Here!” It was Manu’s majestic
voice, still the chief and very much in charge. Dash found the old
man’s face flanked by the two remaining guards, all with
outstretched arms. He and Tiki were whisked up and onto flat earth
by the strong young men, Dash’s heart pounding, sweat pouring from
his emaciated body. Tiki fell to her side, landing on small birds
that complained but begrudged her the space. Dash tried going to
her, but the anxious voices and groping hands of people consumed by
fear and panic held him back.

They were led through the sea of birds toward
an oven of impossible heat, and Dash had his first look inside its
belly. The crater seemed perfectly round, maybe a hundred feet
across. A huge stone slab had been set at the very edge, the rock’s
color out of place. It was a thousand pound behemoth probably
hauled from the shoreline to serve as a ceremonial diving board.
Wood wouldn’t do up here with this heat, overlooking a pool of
bubbling lava. Not a single bird dared set foot on the sacred
launch pad; there were no droppings and no feathers. The rock was
barren, waiting to bear the weight of the next human
victim.

They were ushered by the survivors of the
climb, pushed and pulled out onto the rock’s hot surface, and Tiki
again clambered for his hand. Her fingers were tiny, almost
nothing, and perhaps her bones were as hollow as the protesting
birds. He could hear her misery, pulled her against his stomach and
put his free hand across her crinkly hair. Manu barked orders that
caused reaching fingers to pry them apart, maybe to be sure the
Volcano God knew they were two separate gifts. They stood touching
as best they could.

The volcano’s noise was vaguely familiar. Dash
had experienced the same rush of air, of something enormous and
unstoppable approaching when he took Sarah into New York City. He’d
watched locals step back from the subway platform when this same
noise began its approach from down the dark tunnel. And just as
he’d seen in the black subway tube, there was a glowing orb at the
bottom of the volcano’s pulsating throat. It was orange and yellow,
and blinked like the eye of a dragon.

The ground pitched again and the rim changed
shape to the right of where Dash held Tiki, shuffling for balance.
Dirt and rock broke free under the feet of people who’d managed to
find a better view of the ceremony. He caught a glimpse of two
women bounding head to feet, outstretched arms left behind, hands
reaching but empty. The women gained speed, hair whipping, naked
rag dolls that tumbled to a stop in the shadows. Had he known them?
Had they cooked his meals or made the candles that held off the
dark? One might have been the young woman he’d failed in the love
hut, who’d touched him so wonderfully, had volunteered or been
chosen to carry the baby meant to save them all.

Manu’s voice made Dash turn his back to the
awful blinking eye. Tiki still moaned, eyes shut, rubbing her face
against his arm, catlike. Dash supposed this was what shock did to
a child. If only his mind could shut down, take him away from this
place. He tried summoning the icy brook behind his parents house
where he fished alone as a kid. In the shade of trees that gave
sweet syrup and home to peaceful birds, he figured out how to
thread the worm onto a hook without a father’s help. But Dash was
too weak for the safe images to make any real difference. The heat
on his shoulders might have been less intense, the sea of strutting
birds reduced to a blur of smudged beaks. But Dash knew where he
was, had a clear vision of the agony to come.

Manu stood with a sentry at each scrawny
shoulder. The old chief’s eyes betrayed an ocean of fear he had for
his people.

“
It is the way,” Manu said, his tone
nearly apologetic for the first time, as if he meant to say he was
sorry, but had no choice.

“
Let her live,” Dash said, but had
no energy to beg. “Let your daughter go.”

Manu reached up to touch her face. “Listen to
me, girl. Can you hear?”

Dash felt her head nod against his
stomach.

“
There is nothing to fear. You will
see your mama very soon. Her loving arms will catch you.” The
chief’s voice was meant to be soothing, perhaps even fatherly. “I
have a message for you to deliver, and I need your promise. Do you
understand?”

Again she nodded.

“
Tell her that I love her, and that
I did my best. Tell her I will come soon, once our people are safe.
Do you hear me, girl? Do you understand my words? ”

“
Yes, Papa.”

Manu stepped back, motioned the sentries up
onto the rock, and then faced the mass of crowding people. He
raised his leathery chin to the clouds and began reciting words in
rapid bursts of his own language. A prayer. An appeal for mercy?
Dash searched his mind to see if any prayer-like words might be
hidden among the mounds of clutter and trash. There were
none.

Tiki’s hand was wrenched from his grasp, and
they were turned to face the ledge. Both were shoved to the very
edge of the precipice, Tiki waving her arms to keep from falling.
Dash thought he heard gasps from behind. The heat wanted to lift
his hair, and he imagined the greatest balloon ever rising up and
carrying them away, along with the entire island.

Tiki found his hand again and he squeezed, but
not too hard. He looked down at dirty toes curled over the front of
the giant stone. He was hanging ten in what would have to be a
surfer’s absolute worst nightmare. “Cowabunga, dude,” he said, then
took a deep breath and laughed.

Manu shouted his final order.

Tiki looked up at Dash, who must have still had
the amused look on his face because her beautiful smile was the
last thing he saw before they were pushed.

D
ash didn’t die. His body
never reached the burning cauldron, or even the scorched rocks.
Something with superhuman strength snatched his shaggy hair,
snapping his head back so hard that every joint in his body popped.
The air was knocked from his lungs, and he reached for his throat,
expecting an Old West noose, trapdoor sprung from under dangling
feet after a two-foot plunge. Did those horse thieves and
stagecoach bandits catch a glimpse of the ground before their necks
were broken from the short fall? Dash thought it perfectly
reasonable for a condemned outlaw to retain a final hopeful thought
of hitting the ground boots first, spurs spinning, ready to hop
into the saddle of the surprised sheriff’s trusty mare for a gallop
into the sunset. He’d be slapping reins to giddy the hell up before
the posse reeled him back in, somewhere in the microsecond before
the rope tightened.

“
Giddy up,” Dash tried saying,
twisting at the waist but getting nowhere.

The sexy television preacher had devoted an
entire episode to death, to a person’s walk toward the guiding
beacon of the Kingdom of Heaven. But she’d uttered the drinking
game prompt too early and too often that night, rendered the entire
party shit-faced before Dash had learned anything useful. The
sermon’s early parts made no mention of a celestial beam roasting
your toes like marshmallows; there was nothing about a beacon
singeing the hair from your legs, or a light staring up from the
bottom of a pit like the eye of a hungry monster.