Hawaii - James Michener [358]
Grimly amused, Wild Whip tied his horses to a rock, for there were no trees, and got out to study his inheritance at closer quarters. When he kicked away the surface growth of lichen and dried scrub grass, he found that the soil was a rich reddish color that his Grandfather Whipple had once explained as the result of the gradual breaking down of volcanic rocks. "It's rich in iron," Whip mused. "Probably grow things like mad if it could get water."
He looked back at Pearl Harbor and saw the wide expanse of salt sea water, useless to a farmer. He looked up at the sky and saw no clouds, for few arrived here with rain, and then he happened to look toward the Koolau Range to his right, and above its peaks he saw many dark clouds, riding in upon the trade winds that bore down constantly from the northeast, and he could almost smell the water falling out of those clouds. It fell, of course, on the other side of the mountains and gushed furiously down steep valleys and back out to sea. His Grandfather Whipple had trapped a little in his ditches, but the bulk was as useless as the salt water of Pearl Harbor.
It was then that his great design came to him. "Why not build a tunnel right through the mountains and bring the water over here?" He visualized a system of ditches and dikes, all serving to bring the rich waters of the other side down to his parched lands. "I'll build that tunnel!" he swore. "I'll make this land so rich that by comparison Uncle Micah's boats will be worth nothing." He pointed his long right forefinger at the Koolau Range and announced to those impassive giants: "Some day I'm going to walk right through your bowels. Be ready."
Curiously, Whip's great fortune was built in quite a different manner. When he saw that he was not wanted in his family's business, and when he had finished inspecting his imperial and useless acres, he decided to leave Hawaii, and he did so in memorable fashion. He had never forgotten how relatively pleasant it had been sleeping surreptitiously with his responsive cousin, Nancy Janders, still banished to the mainland, and now as he was about to leave he began paying deadly court to her saucy younger sister Iliki. It was a whirlwind affair, interspersed with wild nights in Rat Alley with a little French girl, and it culminated in pretty Iliki's slipping into men's clothes as a passenger aboard a British freighter whose captain married her to Whip on the journey to San Francisco. When the joint families heard of the scandal, they prayed that young Iliki would find a happiness which they felt sure would escape her; but when, in America, Iliki's older sister Nancy heard of the marriage she cried, "Damn them, damn them! I hope they both live in hell."
Wild Whip didn't, because he found considerable joy in his lively cousin, but Iliki did, for she discovered to her consternation and embarrassment that her husband had no intention of being loyal to her or of giving up his customary visits to local brothels. In San Francisco he had dashing affairs with several women of otherwise good repute, and a running relationship with two popular Spanish courtesans from a waterfront institution of ill fame. In other ways he was a good husband, and when his son was born in 1880, he insisted that the boy be named Janders Hoxworth after his wife's father. He proved himself to be a doting husband and was obviously pleased to parade on Sunday after church with his wife on his arm and his son surrounded by lace in the perambulator which he proudly pushed.
But in late 1880 Iliki's sister visited them on her way back to Honolulu, and Nancy was now a striking New York beauty, and it was not long before Nancy's hatred of Wild Whip became once more the passionate love she had earlier known for this gallant gentleman. At