The Gray God
By J. ALLAN DUNN
_Author of "The Cardinal's Curse,"
"Whirlwind Walsh," etc._
_Broke and almost "on the beach" in the
Fiji Islands, Bob Stanton hardly guessed
that just around the corner lay the maddest
adventure life could offer in the tropics._
_Novelette--Complete_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Argosy All-Story Weekly March 16 1929.]
CONTENTS
I. "TYPICAL TROPICAL TRAMP!"
II. CHEUNG'S PLAN.
III. THE RACE TO MOTUTABU.
IV. THE JUNGLE TRAIL.
V. THE SHADOW OF THE GOD.
CHAPTER I.
"TYPICAL TROPICAL TRAMP!"
Bob Stanton walked along the main street of Suva, painfully conscious
that people looked at him as if he was a beach comber. He was not quite
that--yet--though he was not many degrees removed from it, he told
himself. His ducks and his linen, if they were frayed, were clean;
he managed, with old blades and the horrible soap supplied by his
landlady, to keep shaved; the soles of his shoes were broken, but the
uppers were carefully pipe-clayed. He was still respectable, but his
hair needed cutting and his browned features were beginning to wear an
expression that made even the kilted native police look at him askance.
Not to mention the tourists. A steamer was in. Men and women were
strolling or driving, tropic clad, agog for entertainment, planning
luncheon. Some had _lei_ garlands about their necks placed there by
welcoming friends. Friends! There were certainly times when a fellow
needed one, Stanton reflected. There might be Americans in that
laughing crowd intent upon enjoyment. Perhaps if they knew the plight
he was in, from no fault of his own--
He shoved his hands deeper in his empty pockets, crossing over from the
row of stores with plate glass fronts, hotels and clubs, to the shore
side of the street. He walked in the checkered, changing shadow of the
palms and poincianas, which patterned the path with purple and gold.
Across the stretch of seagrass lawn the Goro Sea showed incredibly
blue, blue as laundry blueing. The sky was hardly less vivid. Cliffs of
pearly trade wind clouds lifted on the horizon. The breeze raised the
banners of bananas, rustled in the fronds of coconut and royal palms,
sent down a drift of scarlet poinciana blossoms like carnival confetti.
A glorious, gorgeous mockery of a day.
He had the makings of two cigarettes, perhaps three thin ones, and that
was all. No tobacco, no money to buy any. He was three weeks in debt
to his half-caste landlady, three weeks in board-arrears to Cheung Li.
Broke. Stony broke.
They hadn't said a thing about it yet, but they would not, could not
trust him forever.
There was the sting of it; they had trusted him. He had not lied to
them about coming remittances, but had frankly said he was flat, and
they had smiled and said he was an American and they knew he would pay
them when he could. That seemed a long way off right now.
A girl was coming toward him, from the steamer, unaccompanied. She was
simply dressed, she was slender, but walked with a certain agile vigor
that distinguished her. Stanton almost bumped into her on the narrow
path in his absorption. He got a glimpse of a pair of dark blue eyes,
large, clear, but not carefree; a short nose, red lips that drooped a
little, a hint of coppery hair under the close-fitting hat.
He raised his own, in apology, and the girl bowed. She did not smile,
but looked at him curiously, sympathetically. He did not analyze that
look for a few minutes. Then he realized that her face, like his own,
must have betrayed worriment, was not in accord with the gorgeous day.
She was in trouble of some sort, even as he was, and she had recognized
the latter fact.
* * * * *
About ten paces behind the girl a man was walking with a curious ease
of gait, pantherish, slightly furtive for all his swagger, for all
his linen tunic and pants, his silk shirt and cummerbund, the smart
puggaree on his hat of woven palm fiber, the short gold-tipped malacca
cane, the silken socks and shoes of buckskin and tan leather.
His skin was the color of saddle leather, splotched by darker blots,
like freckles. His eyes were jet-black, set aslant, the lids smooth and
unwrinkled, the mouth full-lipped, cruel. A cunning, sensual "breed,"
half Chinese and half native, swaggering along with a knife under his
cummerbund, and gambler's gold in his pockets, Stanton fancied.
The American suddenly wondered, with a hunch that flashed into his
mind, whether the man was following the girl. For a moment Stanton
halted, rolling his cigarette, looking back. The girl had crossed the
street, the half-breed kept straight on. He might be following her, but
he did not seem inclined to annoy her. Too careful of his own skin,
Stanton decided. He would behave himself in the open, but he was no
more to be trusted in the shadows than a roving shark in a lagoon.
Stanton knew him by name--Loo Fong--and by his reputation, or lack of
it, along the waterfront where Stanton had his cheap but clean room
with Panakaloa, the stout half-white widow of a trading skipper.
Loo Fong, petty pirate, smuggler, gambler, half Malay, half Manchu,
and treacherous as a snake, was just back from one of his occasional
disappearances. He had given Stanton a look, tinged with a sneer of
derision on his twisting mouth, that made the American's fists double
automatically.
He crossed the street himself, caught sight of his reflection in a
store window as he checked to let a jovial group pass out of the car
that had brought them from the ship and enter the Victoria Hotel.
A woman glanced at him and said something in a whisper to her escort.
The man was less tactful of tone in his answer.
"T.T.T.," he replied. "Eh, what? Typical Tropical Tramp! Beach bum!
Never has worked, can't get work, and doesn't want to." The woman
looked at him again and shrank a little. It was then the plate glass
revealed to Stanton his mask of a face, grim, almost haggard, the long
hair covering the collar of his coat, the set jaws and smoldering eyes.
"Got to snap out of that," he told himself. "You're nursing a grouch.
It won't get you a thing, not a damn' thing, Bob Stanton! It's the grin
that wins."
He was not so sure of that. He had been grinning a long time, but
the grin had frayed, like the bottoms of his pants and the cuffs of
his coat and shirts. There was no job in Suva, in all the Fijis, for
a "Yank." It was fair enough, perhaps. Jobs seemed to be scarce and
anything that a self-respecting white man would do was held out for a
Britisher.
He had come out to join a man he had known in the States. They had been
comrades in the Argonne, as a matter of fact. It was after an Armistice
Day dinner that Raymond had told him of his plan to log and ship the
valuable hardwoods of the Fijis to American cabinet-makers. The islands
off the north and west of Viti Levu were crammed with such trees, it
appeared. Stanton had put in his share for preliminaries and had left
for Fiji after the jubilant letter saying that the lease was secured
and the prospects rosy. It had taken almost all he had by the time he
reached Suva and, while he was _en route_, the bubble had been pricked.
The British commissioner had received word from the colonial secretary
that no leases or concessions were to be granted on Fijian products
to other than _bona-fide_ British concerns. The bill had passed "as
of" a date before that of Raymond's concessions. It was a washout.
The commissioner was polite, bored, and his expressed sorrow was
tinged with a suggestion that Americans had better stick to their own
possessions.
There were hardwoods, the commissioner believed, in the Philippines.
Whether or not he knew the Washington policies that protected the
countrymen of Aguinaldo to the exclusion of all outside capital, they
did not learn.
Raymond cursed heartily and ingeniously, outside the commissioner's
stately residence. He offered Stanton his fare back, but Stanton knew
his friend had little enough left for himself. The lure of the tropics
had gripped Stanton, and he had no doubt but that he could get along.
He had, for twelve weeks of enforced loafing, on fifty dollars.
* * * * *
It looked like the bush or the beach for him, living on fruit and fish,
a down-and-outer. It was getting hard to be philosophical, to believe
in such platitudes as "It is always darkest before the dawn," and
"Every cloud has a silver lining."
Nevertheless, after that self-revealing glance at the grim mask that
was his face, Bob Stanton mentally girded up his loins and marched on,
resolved to borrow a pair of scissors from Panakaloa to trim the frayed
edges of his garments and essay a haircut. He was getting morbid. He
whistled as he marched along and looked a sergeant of police squarely
in the eyes. Lately he had been bothering a bit about deportation, or a
request to move on.
Confound that fellow with his T.T.T. What did he know about them?
T.T.T.'s were the salt of the earth, often prosperous, always
efficient, cursed or blessed with the roving heel. The chap had said
Stanton didn't want to work, whereas he had been hunting it high and
low until he could feel the grit working through his shoes at every
step. He whistled the swinging march song:
_Pack all your troubles in your old kit-bag,_
_And smile, smile, smile._
Lots of craft in the harbor, freight steamers, sailing ships, the
big passenger boat, native craft, launches shuttling back and forth.
Usually they made him restless, emphasized his marooned condition. Now
he grinned at them. Much magic in a grin, after all. But he didn't get
his haircut.
He reached the wharf and swung south to where Panakaloa's little house
was set among scrubs and papaia trees on the limits of white residency.
A topsail schooner was moored to bollards, her cargo of copra and
turtle shell being discharged.
A black man lay on a bale, shivering in the sun. He was almost a dwarf,
a Melanesian, not a Fijian. His frizzy hair was dull red from lime
bleaching, his dark skin showed tribal weals and other scars. His only
clothing was a scanty loin-cloth. The lobes of his ears were stretched
to flaps of torn leather, a short clap pipe thrust through one of
the convenient holes. A South Sea savage, sick and shuddering, ugly,
ill-shaped, dirty. His ribs showed like those of a starved dog. His
eyes were closed and his limbs were huddled about his emaciated body.
Any blackbirder would have despised him. Stanton wondered how he had
come to Suva, derelict and unhappy as a mangy cur.
A man in a peaked cap, dressed in dungarees and a grimy pyjama top
was directing the last of the unloading, chewing and spitting tobacco
between curses in beach-English. As the file-closer of the Kanakas
he had been bossing disappeared into the warehouse shed, the man,
apparently mate of the schooner, turned and saw the wretched figure
on the bale. He had a rope's end tucked in his belt, a length of coil
ending in a turkshead knot, symbol of authority over his Solomon Island
crew.
He swung it aloft and brought it down on the cowering creature who woke
to his shouted oaths. It curled with a vicious hiss and sounded like a
drum-stroke as it raised a blistering mark.
"You walk along damn' quick out of this, you blasted stowaway monkey,
before I flay you," he cried and swung up his arm again as the man
leaped from the bale and crouched, long apelike arms wrapped about his
head, jabbering something inarticulate. The rope's end writhed around
his ribs with the same hideous strum. The third blow did not fall. The
mate's arm remained aloft as he gazed in astonishment at the sudden
appearance of Stanton between him and his victim.
"Git out of here, you lousy beach bum!" the mate yelled. He started to
say more, but Stanton's fist muzzled him.
* * * * *
Indignation at the wanton cruelty had caused Stanton to interfere, but
all the resentment he had swallowed in the sneer of Loo Fong and the
words of the woman's escort outside the hotel, went into that wallop
when the mate called him a bum. He had been hard up, but, thanks to
Cheung and Panakaloa, he had not starved or lacked decent quarters. He
was husky and he knew how to use his fists. The mate didn't. He was a
bucko, a good brawler, and he was tough, inside and out, but he made a
serious first mistake in underestimating his adversary, and rushing him.
Stanton ducked neatly and smote him hard over the liver as the mate's
haymaker swung overhead and the mate swung with it, off balance,
staggering sidewise with a clip on the side of the jaw. He went to one
knee and hand, and Stanton let him up, which was chivalrous but wasted.
"Get up, you coward, and take a licking from a 'bum!'" Stanton snapped,
while the mate spat blood and tobacco from his battered lips, uttered a
roar and rushed again. The seaman got a straight left to his face which
checked him, but he closed in, bellowing and bludgeoning. The Kanakas
had come out of the warehouse and were looking on, eyes rolling,
grinning. The cook came out of the schooner's galley and stood with
folded arms, another spectator who seemed not opposed to the prospects
of the mate's getting trimmed.
They clinched and Stanton appreciated what a bucko might do at close
quarters. The mate got his arms about his ribs and nearly cracked them
as he forged on with the advantage of his weight, using his knee,
trying to trip, cursing constantly, threatening, putting out his full
strength. Stanton beat a tattoo on his kidneys and he didn't like it.
They struck the stringpiece and went down together, rolling over and
over, rebounding as the side of the schooner saved them from the water.
As they rolled the mate made another mistake. Every time Stanton was on
top he slogged at the bucko's head and jaws, and hurt him badly enough
to make the mate try the same tactics. The bucko got home more than
once, but it gave Stanton the chance to get up and away. He intended
to keep away. The mate was as hard as an automobile tire, strong as
a gorilla; he had the weight and superior strength. Stanton had the
science and the better wind. The other was blowing as he got to his
feet and, before he got set, Stanton got in a jolt to the belly and a
second smash over the mouth.
The combination settled it, together with the quid the mate had
neglected to eject. The force of the blow sent it into his windpipe,
choking and half strangling him. Upset muscular control juggled it into
his gullet and Stanton's third and final blow in that rally drove it
deep. His disturbed stomach received and ejected it. His tanned face
turned a sickly green. He heaved violently and was distressingly and
unpleasantly sick, teetering up the gangway, using the scupperway,
weaving down the companionway to his cabin.
Stanton straightened his clothes, felt gingerly a fiery ear and a
bruised cheek, looking for the cause of his interference.
"You did 'm in proper, mister. You 'andled your dukes pretty. It served
the bloody blighter right," said the cook. "I'm quittin' 'ere. 'E ain't
got no idea of decency, 'e ain't. Called my grub 'stinkin' 'ash.' I
'ope the beggar 'eaves up his spotted soul."
The miserable black was clasping Stanton's knees, jabbering at him, his
eyes moist with gratitude. It embarrassed the American. The Kanakas
were gathered in an uncertain knot, but the cook shouted at them and
they went aboard.
"Looks like you 'ad 'im on your 'ands, mister," the cook said to
Stanton. "All syme stray dorg. You'll 'ave a 'ard time gittin' rid of
'im."
"Where did he come from? What's the matter with him?"
"We figger 'e must 'ave swum off and 'id aboard, the time we watered
at Tuimoto. Probably was in wrong with 'is wizard. Thought the ship
'u'd be better than the ovens. I'll bet 'e's changed 'is mind more'n
once. We was glad enough to git clear without trouble. Tuimoto is no
picnic-ground. The skipper was sick--island fever--an' mate run things.
'E kicked the daylights out of that boy. Come night throwin' 'im
overboard to the sharks. 'E ain't 'ad too much to eat. Don't like white
man's _kaikai_ an' the Kanakas wouldn't share theirs with 'im. That's
part of what's the matter with 'im. And 'e's got yaws. You better tyke
my tip and 'and 'im over to the police, mister. 'E belongs in the
'orsepittle, 'e does. Croak on your 'ands if you don't. 'Is nyme's Tiki
and I bet 'e's full of 'em."
A muffled roar came from below and the cook winked at Stanton.
"That's the mate," he said. "Wants a nurse. I'll nurse 'im!" He
sauntered aft.
The miserable devil who seemed to have been wished on Stanton,
ill-treated and frightened by his surroundings, groveled at his feet.
He shivered like a frightened dog when Stanton put a hand on his skinny
shoulder. He didn't quite know what to do with the wretch--he'd die in
the hospital from sheer loneliness. Turn his face to the wall and let
his soul leach out of him.
Stanton could put a meal into him, let him know he had a friend. His
own plight was pleasant compared to that of this spiritless remnant of
humanity. Perhaps Panakaloa would let him stay, give him something he
could assimilate.
"You come with me," he said. "We get _kaikai_."
Tiki understood the meaning and followed him like a black dog, his eyes
shining. Panakaloa was a bit difficult. She wanted no black fellows,
she declared, but at last Stanton persuaded her to let Tiki--who stood
on one bow leg, scratching with the toes of the other at his yaws
while they discussed him--stay in a shed in the little garden on some
old matting. He lay down, curled up, sacking over him and presently
Panakaloa set down beside him a bowl of native _poi_ and some dried
fish. His eyes glittered. His spirit revived. He was in the house of
friends and he ate avidly. Stanton went off to his own meal.