Hawaii - James Michener [200]
"Shall we bring the whiskey ashore?" one of the captains shouted.
"Of course!” Hoxworth snapped. "There are no laws."
"We'll meet at Murphy's!" the captains yelled.
"Where is your house?" Hoxworth asked.
"There," said Abner, pointing past the taro patch.
For a moment Captain Hoxworth stared aghast, and in his incredulity Abner perceived for the first time the really miserable hovel in which he and Jerusha lived. "Does Jerusha live there?" Hoxworth gasped, staring at the low grass roof, the rain-tattered walls and the Dutch doorway.
"Yes," Abner replied.
"Jesus Christ Almighty, man!" Hoxworth ejaculated. "What's the matter with you?" With huge strides the barefooted, bare-chested captain strode up the dusty road, kicked open the wooden gate in the high wall, and brushed into the grass house. Standing on the earthen floor he adjusted his eyes to the darkness, and finally saw, in the doorway that separated the children's quarters from Abner's study, the girl he had wanted to marry. He looked a long time, at the tired face, the hair not quite tended, the red hands. He saw the cast-off dress that did not fit, and the coarse shoes also secondhand, a size too large and scuffed from long years in the dust. Possibly because of the darkness, possibly because he did not wish to recognize such things, he did not see the persuasive radiance that shone from Jerusha's tired eyes nor did he sense the peace that encompassed her.
"My God, Jerusha! What has he done to you?" The harsh voice caused one of the children to whimper, and Jerusha left the doorway for a moment, but she soon returned and said, "Sit down, Captain Hoxworth."
"Where, for Christ's sake?" Hoxworth stormed, beside himself with anger and bitterness. "On a box? At a table like this?" With extreme violence he smashed at Abner's rickety table, sending the Bible translations into the wind. "Where could I sit down if I wanted to? Jerusha, do you call this a home?"
"No," the self-possessed woman replied, "I call this my temple."
The answer was so final, and implied so much, that Hoxworth set adrift his first fleet of compassionate thoughts and established in their place an overpowering desire to hurt Jerusha and her husband. Kicking at the fallen table he laughed, "So this is the senate from which the laws are handed down?"
"No," Abner said cautiously, recovering the fallen Bible, "this Book is."
"So you're going to rule Lahaina by the Ten Commandments?" Hoxworth asked with a hysterical laugh.
"As we rule ourselves," Abner replied.
Again Hoxworth kicked at the table, bruising his foot as he did so. "Does the Bible direct you to live like hogs? Does it say you have to work your wife like a slave?" Impulsively, he grabbed Jerusha's hand and held it aloft, as if he were selling her, but patiently she withdrew it and straightened her dress.
Her action infuriated Hoxworth and he backed away from the missionaries, lashing them horribly with insulting words, towering oaths and threats which he had the capacity to enforce. "All right, you goddamned sniveling little worms. You can pass the laws, but you can't make the fleet keep them. Reverend Hale, there's going to be women aboard those whalers by noon."
"The women will not be allowed to go," Abner said stubbornly.
"My men have been at sea for nine months," Hoxworth said. "And when they reach shore they're going to have women. All the goddamned black-assed Hawaiian women they want. Me. I always have two. One fat one and one skinny one."
"Will you go to the church, Jerusha?" Abner asked.
"She'll stay here!" Hoxworth shouted, grabbing her once more by the hand. "Let her hear how a real man lives." He had a consuming desire to abuse her mind with ugly pictures, to humiliate her. "Now when I get hold of a fat one and a skinny one, ma'am, I like to lock