Part 3 (1/2)
Chaul Roong almost laughed as he deftly knocked the bat out of Jeff's hands.
Enraged, Jeff charged with his head down, plowing into a side table. He moaned as Chaul Roong danced away. Jeff's face turned purple and he charged again. With a swift kick to Jeff's face, Chaul Roong sent him sprawling on the floor.
As Chaul Roong turned to help Lucille up from the floor, he felt energy bearing down on him from behind. With a smooth backward kick, he knocked Jeff down again. Jeff doubled over, clutching his belly. Chaul Roong stared down at him. ”Okay, now we go.”
Patrick's thick, black eyebrows lowered over his slate blue eyes as Jeff and Chaul Roong walked in the door. He stroked his jutting, lantern jaw. One look at Jeff's panicked face told Patrick everything he needed to know. ”You be knowing why you're here, I'm sure.”
Jeff s.h.i.+fted from foot to foot and his eyes darted around the room before landing on Patrick's desktop where the bloodied scarf found on Tomiko lay in a crumpled heap. Jeff's hand flew to his throat. But just as quickly, he moved his hand to his ear, as if to scratch it.
”I don't know why I'm here.” Jeff's mouth twitched and his hands shook.
Patrick held up the bloodied scarf. ”The little girl was holding onto this.”
Jeff stepped back. ”She's just a stinking j.a.p, no better than a n.i.g.g.e.r!”
Patrick narrowed his eyes. ”Sure and it's the likes of you who make me sick. But because I pity your poor little wife, I'll be giving you until dawn to pack up and leave. If not for her, I'd be kicking you out now myself.”
”You can't do that!” Jeff protested. ”You didn't hire me, you can't fire me. The Ritchies are my wife's cousins.”
”And what of them?” Patrick roared. ”They be living lives more bound by rules than the likes of you and me. They won't be taking kindly to what happened here. Especially since what you did could affect performance and production. We could have open rebellion on our hands.”
Jeff's fingers fumbled with the back of the chair as he leaned heavily against it. ”What am I to do?”
”Go away. Leave my island. Better yet, leave the islands and go back to where you came from. We don't need your kind.”
Jeff's face turned red. ”You can't drive me away.”
Patrick leaned over the desk, his knuckles down. ”And if it's not leaving you are, it's for sure they will kill you. Mark my words.”
Sweat beaded Jeff's upper lip and brow.
”If you think the men here will be forgetting, you be wrong. They'll wait. When the time seems good, they'll kill you just as surely as the sun goes down every evening.” The look of fear he got brought a dark smile to the Irishman's face. ”To my way of thinking, it wouldn't be any great loss.”
”Then why tell me?”
”Don't flatter yourself. If it were just you, I would say, do what you will with him. I'm helping you because of your sweet wife and unborn babe. But maybe they would be better off without the likes of you. Make your decision fast, before I change my mind. I be thinking I'm crazy to show you any mercy at all. If you be stubborn, I'll go to your cousins and the sheriff with this.” Patrick pointed to the bloodied scarf. ”Make up your mind now.”
Jeff was silent.
Patrick knew he was trying to figure out what to do. ”If you be thinking of leaving and telling tales of Kohala,” He paused to lean over and grab the bloodied scarf. ”I'll be holding on to this filthy keepsake. All of Kohala will testify who owns this.” Patrick shook the scarf. ”So you best leave now while I be the only one knowing the truth among the haoles. It's a dirty matter; I want none of it. But if you force my hand...”
Jeff shuddered. ”So, you've won.”
”I haven't won anything. But you have surely lost.”
Patrick rode the fields on his chestnut gelding, idly flicking the flies from his horse while he watched great black clouds of smoke swirl into the crisp sky. The men were burning cane and the smell made his horse skittish.
He needed a new head luna. The applicants were discouraging. There was a German whose grim visage matched his reputation as a hard taskmaster. Then there was a Scotsman who looked down his nose at him. The last applicant, an American, had a reputation with the ladies that made Patrick uneasy. Frankly, he was tired of head lunas whose main qualification was their color.
His mind began picking out individuals in the field. Maruyama. Takahas.h.i.+. Dela Cruz. Han. He knew only a few of them by their surnames as their names were difficult to remember.
What about Han? G.o.d bless the Virgin Mary, why not? The man's timetables were always neat, precise, and accurate. There were no complaints about him; he was a fair and loyal worker. Better yet, he spoke j.a.panese, Korean, a little Filipino and Chinese.
Patrick wondered if he could arrange it so the owners in Honolulu wouldn't know. Or care. Hoffman, the German engineer who ran the mills, had defied the rules by marrying a j.a.panese girl so he wouldn't go around telling stories Ryan, his a.s.sistant manager, was a loyal Irishman he had picked off the s.h.i.+ps and promoted rapidly. Miles, the unmarried bookkeeper in his forties kept to himself. If discovered, he could point out he was paying Han less than a white man which profited the Ritchies. Patrick made up his mind and called out, ”Han.”
Han walked over to him, eyes squinting in the sun. ”You call, Boss Man?”
Patrick nodded. ”I need a new boss luna. You interested? I'll give you one month. You do good job, you be boss luna all the time.” Patrick spoke as one with Han.
”Me? Boss luna? No Yobo boss luna. Boss luna all the time haoles. Sometime Portugee.” Han rubbed his chin. ”You make me boss luna, no joke?”
Patrick laughed. ”What's the matter, Han? Don't you think you can be number one luna?”
”If me be boss luna, me be numbah one best boss luna. Han promise.”
”I don't doubt that Han.” Patrick kicked his horse and trotted away, pleased at the way he handled his problem.
Chapter Four.
The night air cooled the embers left from the burning cane earlier in the day. Chaul Roong heard the rustling of the palm leaves as the trade winds whispered through them, gentle and soft like a child's kiss. The moon slung low in the velvet blue-black sky with gray, gossamer clouds drifting through its silver crescent shape.
”Yobo.” Tae Ja's whisper could barely be heard. If she hadn't touched him lightly at the same time, he might not have been aware of her presence.
Turning, he answered, calling her by name, ”Tae Ja,” and offered his hands palms up. She took them in hers and knelt beside him, kissing his fingers. He felt warm tears sliding down her cheeks. ”What's the matter, Tae Ja?” he asked.
Tae Ja lowered her eyes and Han traced the delicate lines of her face with his forefinger. It was hard to believe almost three years had gone by since the first day he saw her standing in the waiting room of the pier. His desire for her had grown through the years. Tae Ja was his connection to the universe. He found his balance, his peace, his harmony, and his inner calmness with her.
”Yobo,” Tae Ja raised eyes glittering with tears, ”I'm going to have a baby.”
His heart raced. A child by Tae Ja would be everything he hoped for. Then his heart constricted at the thought the child might not be his.
”The child is yours.” She lowered her eyes to her hands.
Chaul Roong caressed her cheek before stepping back. Clasping his hands behind him, he gazed at the stars. In loving her, he had given up everything he believed in. He had sacrificed honor, trust, friends.h.i.+p and loyalty-four of the tenets of the Hwarang warrior-in order to attain happiness. Yet he knew he would sacrifice it all again just to feel the joy he felt when he was with her. He looked back at Tae Ja. There was so much he wanted to say, but he found himself unable to speak.
She took his hand in her trembling one and smiled. ”Now I will always have a part of you with me, this child of love. It doesn't matter if there is no tomorrow for you and me. I will always have our child.”
Chaul Roong gathered her in his arms. Stroking her hair, he murmured, ”I love you. Life is cruel, but I have been blessed above all men because you love me.”
Tae Ja gave birth to a son. Bok Nam named him Chong Bong Sik. But the birth certificate received a year later read ”Charles Bong Sik Chong.”
Tae Ja insisted, ”He is Korean, but he is American too. His name must reflect both.” She insisted his surname Chong should go last, American-style. Bok Nam went along, unaware the decision had been jointly made between Tae Ja and Chaul Roong.
Although the child was somewhat frail, Chaul Roong hoped he would grow stronger. Children were not always a miniature reflection of the adults they would eventually become.