Hawaiian Crosswinds Page 15

  “I see.”

  She winced. She could read nothing in those two simple, quiet words, but they might have been daggers. The flame of humiliation burnt her cheeks, and she whirled round to confront him, defensive. “So there! You forced me to tell you. Are you satisfied? Now I suppose you’re ashamed of me,” she accused, and all at once her wall of defense crumbled. “And with good cause,” she said bursting into overwrought tears. “Yes, I lied! But I’ve already confessed to the Lord—”

  Rafe, in one swift unexpected movement, crossed the broken bridge between them. In two strides, he reached for her, but she slipped free. He caught hold of her and pulled her into his arms, holding her fast.

  “Darling, Eden. I don’t live under an illusion. If I fell in love with you because I thought you were without sin, then where would I be in the relationship? I’d be out in the rain. You couldn’t bear to put up with me.”

  She wet his handsome jacket with bronze buttons with her tears. “I’ve confessed to the Lord—”

  “Yes, I’m sure you have,” he soothed. “It took a sacrifice on your part to decide to tell me the truth. Do you think now that you’ve trusted me, I’m going to hold it against you?”

  Eden stood there hurting, yet knowing she must place all that was between them—with all of the questions, and the misunderstanding, and the hope of a future together—into the gentle hand of God. I love this man. And love hopes all things. Endures all things. … Under his gaze, her eyes misted.

  “Besides,” Rafe said, “I didn’t insist on the truth to catch you in some fault, but because I needed to know what happened. When we make that marriage vow, Eden, it’s for better or worse. And you might as well know that I still think I’m getting the finest girl in all Honolulu, and the most beautiful.”

  “Rafe.” She came to him with sudden relief, and he held her tightly. He buried his face in her hair. His lips brushed her temple, her throat, and then he was kissing her, passionately, and she found herself clinging to him, returning his kiss.

  “Nothing must ever come between us,” he said.

  “Nothing,” she whispered.

  He held her ring finger to his lips for a tender moment. “It stays put this time. There’ll be more struggles, but we’ll commit to working through those times.” His hand closed tightly over hers as he pressed her palm again his chest. “Until death do us part.”

  She clung to him. “No, darling, not even then, because I’ll love you forever.”

  “You’re going to Molokai to meet Rebecca so you can write her life’s story the way you’ve wanted to,” he said. “We’ve settled all that at Hanalei. And I’m going to San Francisco. In a year we’ll meet again, right here in Honolulu, and we’ll have Ambrose marry us. That’s a promise and nothing will interfere. Agreed?”

  She nodded, at first unable to talk. He gave her a light shake. “Say it.”

  “Yes! Yes!” She would marry him now, at this moment if he asked her. They could go to Ambrose, and no one would ever know until the ceremony was over. It was on her lips to speak it but he bent and was kissing her again.

  Somewhere in Eden’s fevered mind a door slammed. Or was it a dream? The voice of Keno whistled loudly from far, far away. He stomped his feet.

  “Oh, why, what a surprise! Hello everybody,” he said in a loud, innocent voice of feigned surprise. “I’m not interrupting anything … serious?”

  Rafe finally released her. Eden stepped back, holding to the back of a chair. Rafe dug into his pocket and handed a cloth to Eden. “Here. Handkerchief.”

  Eden’s fingers trembled as she wiped her eyes. Rafe turned toward Keno, who wore the look of smiling noble innocence. Rafe smirked. “It’s about time you showed up. We’ve a dead body in the garden with a knife to the heart … expertly inserted. I need to know if you recognize him. He’s Chinese. Around forty years old. Rather stout in the belly.”

  Keno froze as if trying to decide if Rafe were somehow jesting, but after hearing the physical description, he drew in a deep breath. He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “I’m afraid it sounds like Sen Fong.”

  “Then you know him?” Rafe asked with alert interest.

  “If it’s Sen, the answer’s yes. He was waiting in the old field bungalow at five this morning,” he said of the hut used for Rafe’s office. “He looked fairly done in. Said he wanted to talk. The luna came up just then to get his orders for the day and I didn’t have time for Sen. I told him I’d meet him here at the house at lunch, to come inside and wait, that it would be safe.”

  “Safe?” Rafe repeated. Eden too, looked at Keno quickly.

  “Did he say he wasn’t safe?” Rafe asked.

  Keno glanced toward Eden. “I’ll explain. Better show me where he is first.”

  “Rafe, that was the name I was trying to remember. Sen Fong. Dr. Jerome spoke it in a friendly way last night at Kalihi. ‘Oh, hello, Sen Fong, what are you doing here?’ or something of that nature.” She looked quickly at Keno. “Now I recall Ambrose having mentioned that name, too.”

  “Ambrose?” Rafe turned to look at her. “If he has anything to do with this Sen Fong business, we’ve been working with the wrong assumption.”

  “If you mistook Sen Fong for anything but a new convert to Christ, then you’ve been barking up a wrong bush,” Keno said.

  Rafe stood, one hand on hip, scowling to himself. “This changes everything.”

  Eden sank into a chair. “Yes.”

  Keno looked from one to the other, curious. “Trouble?”

  Rafe nodded to him, then gestured to the back garden. “First, we’d better make sure he’s the man you’re telling us about.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Unraveling

  The wind played aggressively through the ferns and palm fronds, tumbling white blossoms along the garden path as long, silvery clouds swept overhead.

  Rafe felt the wind surge as he stood beside Keno looking down on the body.

  “Yes, that’s Sen Fong.” Keno stooped beside the body and lifted the white jacket. “Mighty sharp knife.”

  “Expertly used. Looks like the assassin had plenty of practice.” Rafe took the small rug he’d grabbed from the back porch on the way out of the lanai and spread it over the deceased. Now that he knew Sen was a brother in Christ, he felt differently about the remains.

  “His worries are over now,” he said. “What do you know about him, Keno?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to talk before Miss Green Eyes. It’s not a pretty story. Ambrose knows all the details.”

  If the man was a new Christian, then Ambrose was likely to have had something to do with it, Rafe decided, then thought of Sen Fong going to Kalihi to bring Dr. Jerome to meet the possible kingpin. Perhaps Dr. Jerome had something to do with Sen’s conversion as well?

  “Then we need to talk with Ambrose. You’d better go for the marshal. The longer we keep a murdered man in the garden the more questions we’re in for.”

  Keno shot him a glance. “Have you forgotten how anxious he was to arrest me last night? Oliver’s lies have me in a poi pot. Now I’m supposed to show up reporting a murder victim who’s been knifed in the heart? Oh no, pal.”

  “You’re out of the pot. I spoke with Thaddeus Hunnewell earlier. He intends to drop the inquiry into last night. He doesn’t want any bad publicity over Oliver any more than Ainsworth wants the newspapers digging into the facts around Townsend. But I’ll send one of the boys for the marshal.”

  “Hunnewell dropped the inquiry? Whew! Thanks for taking it on. I thought I might be cleaning commodes out at the Oahu prison for the next decade.”

  Rafe sent one of the younger Hawaiian servant boys downtown for the marshal, writing out the message and sealing it so the boy couldn’t spread the news to his friends along the way that “Makua Rafe got dead man in his garden—with knife in heart.”

  Rafe asked Eden to remain at the house to meet Marshal Harper and show him out to the garden. However, the real reas
on for asking her to remain was on account of Keno’s earlier comment that Eden should not be burdened with the details surrounding Sen Fong.

  Ambrose was the man to talk to, all right. He had an empathy with the Chinese sugar workers on Kea Lani and Hawaiiana because of the small Bible meetings that were being established. Rafe had been involved in the groundwork when he’d lived here on the pineapple plantation, but now that he needed to spend time at Hanalei or downtown Honolulu, the classes here were led by Keno under the administration of Ambrose.

  Twenty minutes later, Rafe and Keno arrived at the mission church to find Ambrose at his pastoral work in the church office. The door was usually left unlocked for anyone who cared to enter to sit in the pews, read their Bible, and pray in a quiet, undisturbed environment, or just to slip away to be alone. Rafe came here often. He liked the silence. There were no interruptions except for the lonely breezes in the rustling palm trees. Something about the sound of the wind in the trees moved him spiritually, though he couldn’t explain why.

  Ambrose had heard them enter and so came to the door of his office. He stood with the light behind him emphasizing his solid Easton frame.

  “Well, lads,” he said with some surprise, “come in.” He walked toward them and the pews, for the office was too small to receive the three of them comfortably. He searched their faces, and they must have announced trouble, for he gestured to sit in the front pews.

  “What brings you here, Rafe? Isn’t there a meeting with the queen this afternoon?”

  “Tomorrow,” Rafe said. “Soon after Nora brings Dr. Jerome and Eden to Iolani to get the clinic approved.” His voice told nothing of his inner feelings on the matter of the clinic’s certain approval, but Ambrose already knew that he wasn’t pleased, even though he’d yielded to Eden’s desires on the matter.

  “Ah, yes. Jerome was here asking for prayer about the clinic. Looks as if Queen Liliuokalani is near to approving it. If it does gain her nod, he’s planning to leave for Molokai within a fortnight.”

  Ambrose’s gaze showed Rafe no sympathy. He knew him too well for that. From childhood Rafe had never wanted sentiment from his father’s elder brother.

  “We need to trust the Lord on this” was all Ambrose said. He went on casually, “First, Jerome’s trying to raise needed cash for medical and food supplies. They’ll need wood too, for the building that will go up. I told him the congregation would be pleased to do what they could. Unfortunately it’s not going to be nearly enough. Herald has nothing to spend, so I’m told, and Eden’s wages from Kalihi and the allowance Ainsworth gives her will hardly fit the bill for the three of them.”

  Rafe never ceased to be amazed at how little Ainsworth’s younger son received in allowance from the family wealth stashed in Spreckels’ bank. If a reason were required to spy for the monarchy, Jerome’s need for money to build the clinic and support the research supplied the motive.

  But Rafe no longer believed this to be a credible explanation for why Dr. Jerome was there that night. As Rafe had admitted to Eden, her father’s obsession over his clinic could be questioned, but his sincerity and Christian faith could not. Dr. Jerome wasn’t in the best of health, as Rafe had easily noticed the last time he’d seen him, and yet he pushed ahead doggedly in his work at Kalihi, and was assisting Ambrose with the teaching of Scripture on the plantations.

  “There’s also the financial need for a printing press,” Ambrose was saying.

  Rafe realized some time ago that Eden wanted to ask him for a loan to buy the press and help build the clinic but couldn’t find the courage. He could easily alleviate her dilemma of asking him outright, but that would have spoiled the game. He found it ironic that he may be the one to sponsor Dr. Jerome’s clinic on Molokai.

  “When was Dr. Jerome here?” Rafe asked.

  “Less than an hour ago.”

  Keno shot Rafe a look.

  “Why?” Ambrose asked, as if he smelled trouble brewing. “Were you wanting to speak with him about something?”

  “Not exactly … do you know Sen Fong?”

  Ambrose’s countenance changed, but not for the better. Rafe noticed the lines of worry. Ambrose removed a pair of small spectacles from his front jacket pocket and cleaned them with a white cloth. He was thoughtful, taking longer than necessary to polish the lenses. He slid them on, then ended up ignoring the reason he put them on by looking at Rafe over the edge of the rims.

  So, his uncle was debating whether to tell him what he knew. Rafe waited with a disarming smile. He almost always got around his uncle.

  “Well, yes,” Ambrose admitted at last. “I know Sen. And I know his background.”

  Rafe looked at Keno and gave a brief nod.

  “He’s been murdered,” Keno announced. “His body is over at Hawaiiana, in the garden. Knifed.”

  Ambrose remained silent for a long moment, followed by a weary sigh.

  “Very well, then. Let’s talk. Why don’t you close those windows, Keno. Then come over here and sit down, both of you. Though Keno knows most of this already.”

  “That bad, is it?” Rafe asked, as Keno went around shutting windows against any possible eavesdropper.

  “Well, not entirely bad where the plantation workers are concerned. With the leadership of Dr. Jerome some headway’s been made in working with the sick. We’ve slowed down the gambling and the opium sales among the Chinese on Kea Lani and Hawaiiana. Sen Fong was a top distributor in the Islands. Better have a seat. This will take a little time to explain.”

  Rafe and Keno sat in the church-house pew across from their uncle with the sunlight pouring in through the side windows. Rafe listened in speculative silence while Ambrose gave details of what had been transpiring while Rafe was away, taken up with Hanalei and life in the Legislature.

  “The opium cartel out of Shanghai has infiltrated every plantation in the Islands, and the abuse among some of the cane workers and their families has increased,” Ambrose told Rafe. “As you well know, King Kalakaua opened the door wide for a particular opium lord to be given the sovereign right to supply the sugarcane workers, the gambling dens, and prostitution houses.”

  Rafe was not naive about the vices of the Islands. Even when a boy he’d come across cane workers on Kea Lani smoking opium, and the culture had not changed.

  “Naturally, the Hawaiian king and his government received money in return for the right. One kingpin outbid the others and paid a great bundle of money for the sole right to supply this addictive deception,” Ambrose went on.

  “As you’re aware, the opium run isn’t new,” Ambrose said. “What is new is how they’ve infiltrated. They’ve managed to place themselves right in with the contracted cane workers and their families. Keno has seen this. And now they’ve established strongholds right on the plantations. The leaders’ huts are used as depositories for the opium until it can be dispensed and sold, not only in the fields, but Honolulu and mainland San Francisco.”

  Ambrose shook his head and stood with righteous anger. “Is this what Hawaii wants? Thousands of her people preyed upon by the greedy and powerful, smoking the drug and lying about the beaches, streets, and gutters, in a deceptive stupor with wasted lives and destitute families? God cannot bless such corruption!”

  Ambrose was right, of course. The opium and gambling cartels were growing more powerful, and like Goliath, they rumbled intimidating threats to the cowering.

  “Little by little, step by step, they are gaining strongholds. We can stand against this form of deception in the one way we have been enabled—by not being ashamed of the true Light of the Gospel of Christ,” Ambrose said passionately. “And so this brings me to Sen Fong.”

  As Ambrose looked down at them, Rafe’s mind leaped backward in time to when he and Keno were boys being taught by Uncle Ambrose to love truth and stand firm against youthful temptations. Ambrose would pick up his old worn Bible, wave it under their noses like an Old Testament wave offering, and say with calm, precise passion: “This Book is th
e foundation of life for now and always. If you think otherwise you’re in deep trouble, boys. Every book,” and he’d tap the Bible, “yes, even the sacrifices in Leviticus, is the Word of God and is profitable for our learning.”

  Rafe was aware of Keno shifting in the pew with a sober expression. He was still pricked by having clobbered Oliver last night, and having the marshal show up at Ambrose’s bungalow.

  “Sen Fong was one of the kingpins in Oahu,” Ambrose said. “He was distributing to Kea Lani, to Hawaiiana, and to Hunnewell’s plantation—”

  Rafe, quick on the uptake, interrupted—“Hunnewell’s?”

  “Yes, Hunnewell’s, Collier’s, Palmer’s, Dutton’s, all of them.”

  Hunnewell’s. Rafe thought of the Chinese man in silk who’d waited near the tall iron gates of the beach house, which apparently had become a familiar territory.

  “Jerome and I have been holding campaigns in Oahu, working with the willing plantation owners to bring the message of Christ to the workers. The results have been encouraging. Chinese have come to Christ on every plantation where we’ve preached. And Jerome’s been treating the sick among the workers, while he informs of the evils of opium and gambling addiction, and they’re listening.”

  “And Sen Fong came to Christ through one of these campaigns?” Rafe suggested.

  Ambrose smiled for the first time. “That’s what I’m saying, Rafe—a victory, despite the murderous outcome. As you’d expect, our actions haven’t gone over well with the cartel. The light of truth is a direct threat to their racket.”

  Rafe took in the news with calm consideration. It was as he expected.

  “Sen Fong came to a recent meeting to spy out the dangers we presented to the cartel. I was speaking in the fields of Hawaiiana for several days, and Jerome was teaching the medical dangers of opium. Well, after a few days the Word penetrated his soul. The Spirit worked, and one night, quite late, Keno brought Sen to the bungalow door. Tell him what happened, Keno.”