The Hurricane by Charles Brown, Jr Read online

  The next instant, as though determined to

  low. He dropped the stones back into the

  search every house, Captain Barker walked

  bag, then turned his head to listen. Some

  into the yard and stopped at the foot of the one was treading heavily through the ladder.

  tinkling gravel of the village street. The

  Breathing heavily, Kalputa saw

  next moment Old Lu was down the ladder

  Captain Barker begin climbing the ladder.

  into the yard.

  She now knew that she was doomed—that

  When Kalputa crawled to the there was no way of escape. And, like an window beside the doorway and looked

  animal at bay, she was prepared to fight

  over the edge of it, she saw Captain Barker against going back to the trading station.

  standing in the center of the white street

  Suddenly she heard a fearful crash.

  with Old Lu the sorcerer. At the sight of

  She looked hurriedly and saw Captain

  Captain Barker she felt repulsion and fear, Barker’s heavy bulk spilling across the

  and wanted to turn away—to drag herself

  sand. The lower portion of the frail-ladder back into the corner and hide in the deep

  had given away with him.

  shadow. But she continued to watch him.

  Captain Barker did not attempt to

  Adventure

  6

  climb the ladder again, but hurried into the A purl of wind, black and ominous,

  street, swearing in the language of a salt-

  was hurling itself in from the wide expanse water captain. He surveyed the houses once

  of the open sea. It drove straight across the more, and noted leaning against each one a

  lagoon into the village. Other puffs of wind ladder as flimsy as the one which had just

  followed, each one being stronger than the

  broken with him.

  preceding. The sky turned lead-colored,

  Kalputa heard Old Lu the sorcerer

  then storm-black. The sea broke into a

  interrupt Captain Barker.

  sickening swell, its spiteful waves-

  “Kalputa hide in forest,” said Old

  snapping and biting at the lip of the beach.

  Lu.

  In the lagoon the three schooners

  “Old Lu show Cap’n Barker place

  took off their light sails and shortened

  Kalputa hide. First give Old Lu ten stick’

  down to storm canvas. Suddenly, with a

  tobac’o an’ flenty salt.”

  hiss like the “touch of death,” the rain

  Captain Barker regarded the came, blotting out the canefields and the sorcerer for a moment, and looked again at

  lagoon until they were a dark smear.

  the houses with their frail laddese. Then he

  “Squall!” cried Kalputa. She groped

  motioned Old Lu to follow him back to the

  under the house, listening to the crash of

  trading station.

  the rain on the roof. She heard it beat down Her brown bosom heaving with the big leaves of the palm-trees in front of relief, Kalputa watched them pass out of

  the houses and, with the wind continuing to the village and strike across the canefields.

  grow harder, fling the drinking-coconuts

  She kept her eyes on them until they angrily to the ground. “Squall all night disappeared. Then she climbed down the

  maybe!” Kalputa exclaimed, groping

  ladder and hid in the deep-shadow pool

  farther under the house.

  beneath the house.

  Within half an hour the squall was a

  When sundown came to the island,

  monstrous screaming thing. It was

  with the smoke of the pleasant supper fires impossible for Kalputa to hear the roar of

  curling thin and blue above the deep the menacing surf; but between the thatched roofs of the village, Kalputa was

  lightning sheets which illuminated the

  still hiding beneath the house, waiting for island she saw the tremendous insane

  night to come when all the island would be

  waves pounding upon the beach.

  scarcely visible. It was very warm beneath

  The wind frightened her most. She

  the lonely house, and the wound above

  never dreamed that it could blow so hard. It Kalputa’s armpit pained again.

  blew from all parts of the island at the same Her people had not yet returned to

  time, she thought. It shook and tore on the the house. Neither had Old Lu the sorcerer

  long-legged house of her people, appalling

  nor Captain Barker. As she looked across

  her until she threw her thin arms about one the lagoon at a trading schooner which

  of the house piles and clung in the dark,

  would sail early the next- morning, Kalputa shivering in every limb. It screamed

  told herself that Old Lu was either through the palm-tree heads and on across demanding more salt and tobacco or was

  the fields, beating the long stalks of sugar-leading Captain Barker cunningly about the

  cane to the ground. There was nothing she

  forest before bringing him back to the could compare this wind with.

  village.

  Suddenly she gave a low

  No longer was it a squall. It was a

  shocked cry.

  hurricane.

  The Hurricane

  7

  Kalputa now knew that Captain wind went down for several minutes. Then Barker had refused to give the salt and

  she clasped the trunk of the tree with her

  tobacco to Old Lu the sorcerer and that Old hands, pressed the soles of her feet against Lu in his anger had let loose the “touch of the bark and, being a Melanesian woman,

  death.” She also knew that the “touch of

  perilously began to walk up the tree. At the death” had called to the hurricane god.

  top she tied herself securely among the

  Kalputa tried hard to think what to

  windage.

  do, but the wind nearly maddened her.

  When the wind again hit her tree,

  Suddenly the house gave a wild the tree did not sway or bend backward and lurch. The next moment the roof went forward, but stood almost stationary, crashing through the wet air. Kalputa vibrating like a piece of wire. The vibration sprang to her feet and ran staggering into

  made Kalputa dizzy, then sick. She

  the street.

  expected the tree to snap at any moment. A

  The village was illuminated with

  tree across the street had just gone that

  lightning and the villagers were tumbling

  way, throwing its occupants, two men and

  fearfully out of their houses. The wind a woman, to the ground like ripe coconuts.

  caught some of them and whirled them

  Few trees could stand the strain of that

  away like tufts of cane-grass. Those who

  hurricane very long.

  were quick enough climbed into the palm-

  Late that night, the wind was

  trees. They tied themselves securely among

  unbelievable. It was a screaming fury.

  the big leaves with long pieces of rope.

  Kalputa’s tree was loosening at the roots.

  Many of the villagers were on the

  There was no telling how much longer it

  ground, holding to the bases of the trees

  could stand the strain.

  and panting for breath. On either side of the When the rain again struck the

  street several houses had been torn from

  village, Kalputa thought that the wind had

&
nbsp; their foundations and whirled away.

  dipped up all the water in the lagoon and

  Kalputa could snatch only one look

  hurled it across the canefields. The rain hit with her wide-open frightened eyes. The

  her back and shoulders like leaden pellets.

  next instant some one crashed into her,

  The tree swayed perilously as one

  knocking her down. With great effort she

  of the roots tore loose. Kalputa doubled her buried her hands deeply in the coral gravel body at the waist and clung tighter to the

  and clung with her face close to the ground, beaten-down leaves, sobbing. Again she

  fighting to hold her own.

  wished something terrible would happen to

  Her eyes smarted and the wind the “touch of death” and Old Lu the almost strangled her. Her ears drummed so

  sorcerer. For she was weakening like the

  that she did not hear the crash of the trees tree. Her strength was running from her

  and the wails of human despair about her.

  faster than she had ever imagined it could.

  Suddenly she lost her hold. When

  It was the wind that was exhausting

  she again tried to bury her hands in the

  her. She could not endure its unceasing

  gravel, she felt a native writhing and impact much longer.

  squirming beside her. In one of his hands

  And the rain ... It would be a night-

  were several pieces of rope.

  long tumbling, wall of water. It would sink Kalputa snatched the ropes and to the very roots of the tree and tear them to sprawled, across the street toward the base pieces. Surely her tree would fall in a few of a coconut-tree. She clung there until the minutes.

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  8

  But the tree did not fall. By and miserable. There was but little midnight the hurricane lay with its wreckage of the houses. The fingers of the backbone broken. Only a stiff breeze was

  wind had hurled practically all of it in to blowing. The water wall lay crumbled in

  the canefields or down upon the beach

  the village and the canefields. Except for

  where it was sucked into the lagoon by the

  the harsh animal-like groans of the undertow. But one palm-tree out of every villagers and the low crying of the sea, all ten was spared. Two of these were wrecks,

  was quiet.

  their windages shorn and their long trunks

  Kalputa stirred uneasily among the

  split half-way down.

  leaves. She was weak, and weary. Both

  body and brain ached. She began to cry,

  THE sun was not yet up over the island

  then stopped suddenly to see if she was

  when Kalputa found herself on the edge of

  hurt. Her arm and shoulder were swollen

  a flooded field, looking for a way down to

  considerably from the wound above the

  the jetty. The field was draining slowly. It armpit. As she listened to the sounds of

  would be several hours, maybe evening,

  grief about her, she felt very lonely. Once before the field would be passable.

  she thought of Captain Barker, wondering

  She remembered suddenly that

  what the hurricane had done to him and the

  there was another way. There was one big

  trading station and the village in the rear of obstacle in it, however; it would take her

  it. She quickly dismissed him from her

  too close to the trading station.

  mind.

  Back by the forest a path ran around

  Presently she began to think of to the other side of the island. She could some one else. It was not about the “touch

  follow this until she was almost directly

  of death” or Old Lu the sorcerer. She was

  behind the trading station. Then by walking thinking of her thin little brown baby all

  along the dry edges of the field which lay, alone in the grove of paw-paw trees in the

  perpendicular to the path she would reach

  rear of the station. She wished she could go the jetty.

  to him. Again she started to cry.

  Her chances of getting there were

  Soon the breeze went down. one out of a hundred. If Captain Barker or Everything became dead calm. The stars

  even any of the natives were to see her it

  came out. They looked like big pearls would be absurd for her to think of pinned to a piece of blue cloth. Somewhere

  reaching the mission house at Suva. After a down the street a dog splashed in the water, short hesitation, she decided to take the

  howling mournfully. Kalputa dropped her

  risk.

  head to her arms until the first shimmer of It was while she was running along

  dawn crept up over the island.

  the dank, weedy path that she suddenly

  When she climbed down from the

  screamed and jumped into the low

  tree, she looked about her bewildered. The

  shrubbery of the forest. As her fear was

  rain-filled street was cluttered with corpses.

  dispelled, she parted the rain-wet leaves

  Some of the bodies lay half in the water

  and looked at the native lying in the path.

  and half out, battered and broken. Not a

  His ugly brown body was battered

  house was standing. Even the house of Old

  into formless flesh, and his face was laid

  Lu, with all of its sorcery, was gone.

  open to the bone.

  Some of the house piles remained

  For the first time since running

  upright, with natives clinging to them, wet away from Captain Barker Kalputa,

  The Hurricane

  9

  laughed. She laughed because the dead of his left arm. The blood was running native, after digging and clawing with his

  from a gash on the side of his thick neck.

  raw bleeding hands to keep from being

  His puffed slits of eyes were closed and his whirled away, had lost in his struggle lips were partly open. He was breathing against the “touch of death” and the with the greatest difficulty.

  hurricane, Then she fled with swallow-

  Kalputa studied him uneasily, then

  swiftness, laughing at Old Lu the sorcerer

  shifted her eyes to the little grave. When

  lying in the path behind her.

  she again looked at him, his eyes were

  Presently she stopped laughing. She

  wide open, staring up at her piteously. He

  began wondering what had happened to

  could not speak.

  Captain Barker. Did he, like Old Lu, also

  Kalputa looked at the lagoon,

  lie on the edge of the wind-torn forest? She scanning it hurriedly. Out where the cream-desired to know definitely. Why she white spray was leaping on the circling run wanted to know she could not have of coral four masts of a submerged explained if she had tried.

  schooner projected above the water. She

  When she left the path, stepping

  saw nothing of the other vessels.

  warily along the dry edges of the field, the The next instant she did something

  sun was climbing up over the leaves of the

  which she did not wholly understand. She

  paw-paw trees, shooting green and gold

  leaned over her husband and, with tears on

  lights through them. She looked toward the

  her face, tenderly laid his broken arm

  grove and saw that the hurricane had across his chest. With a strip of her wind-demolished the trading station.

  torn skirt she bandaged his neck. Then she

  A
ll that remained of it was a section

  lowered her face until it was on his and

  of a wall and apportion of the veranda.

  kissed him. A moment later she gave a high

  Almost nothing, was left of the village metallic scream and fled down to the which had stood in the rear of the station, beach.

  and only a few natives were alive. Most of

  At the coral stone jetty she found a

  the paw-paw trees had been blown away.

  tiny outrigger canoe flung high up on the

  As Kalputa was turning to go, she saw

  sand. She dragged it into the water, its

  Captain Barker’s huge body lying in the

  outrigger keeping it upright. Then she

  grove.

  looked about her for a paddle. She finally

  Intuitively she knew that Captain

  found one, a makeshift paddle, half buried

  Barker had been injured. How badly hurt

  in the sand; A few minutes later she began

  he was; she had no idea, but immediately

  paddling toward the wide expanse of the

  wanted to know. If he was injured badly

  open sea.

  she need have no more fear of not

  Crossing the lagoon was difficult.

  succeeding in running away from Flenga

  The water persisted in flinging the

  Island that day, she assured herself. It was wreckage and corpses against the outrigger

  because of her desire to know definitely the of the canoe. With the makeshift paddle she extent of his injuries that she stood several pushed away the wreckage. The blood

  minutes later looking at him.

  sharks frightened her. They tore and

  Captain Barker lay on an devoured the corpses, causing her to improvised mat of palm leaves close to the

  breathe long prayers to her shark god. The

  grave of their little man-child, with a handle of the paddle became loose several shattered bone protruding above the elbow