The World Duology (World Odyssey / Fiji: A Novel) (22 page)

37

Navigator Islands, South Pacific, 1848

N
athan slowly drained a glass of whisky as he studied transcriptions of ships’ logs left to him by his father. The transcriptions recounted past trading ventures to the Pacific Islands by vessels in Johnson Traders’ fleet.

The young Americ
an, now twenty-six, was in a well appointed cabin aboard
Rainmaker
, a schooner that was traveling from San Francisco to Fiji, a three-month voyage allowing for stops at various island groups along the way. She’d not long berthed at Apia, in the Navigator Islands, an island group that would one day be renamed
Samoa
and one which Nathan had never visited previously.

Rainmaker
was only scheduled to stay in Apia for a couple of days – just long enough to unload supplies for English missionaries stationed there and to load goods for her next destination. She was heading for Fiji, another seven hundred miles to the west, where Nathan intended to trade muskets to the Fijians in return for their prized beche-de-mer, exotic sea slugs which he planned to ship to China where they would fetch exorbitantly high prices.

Since he’d inherited his
late father’s trading empire several years earlier, Nathan had experienced the good and bad side of business. Johnson Traders, under his leadership, had gone from strength to strength during his first year at the helm. In the light of what followed, his competitors and critics unkindly labeled that first year
beginner’s luck
.

Everything changed in the second year when a series of financial disasters – some related, others not – hit the company.

The first disaster was an unwise partnership Nathan struck up with a San Francisco entrepreneur who offered to represent Johnson Traders’ business interests on the west coast. A series of unwise moves ranging from bad property investments to doomed merges resulted in Nathan having to cash in personal investments and sell many of his east coast assets to try to cover the debts. The situation wasn’t helped by Nathan’s partner who helped himself to much of the company’s cash reserves and disappeared into the night.

All this coincided with a temporary downturn in west coast property values. As Nathan had invested heavily in west coast property – as had his father before him – the resulting downturn saw Johnson Traders’ net worth plummet. Although short-lived, the downturn proved catastrophic for the company and for Nathan personally. 

After two traumatic years trying to trade his way back into profit, Nathan had been forced to sell his company to a competitor for a fraction of its original worth. That had been a year earlier.

Since then, he’d ploughed every cent he had into a new trading venture. This venture had no company behind it; it didn’t even have a name. Nathan
had simply set himself up, quite unofficially, as a sole operator responsible only to himself. There were no senior managers, or middle managers or any employees of any kind; he didn’t even own a ship. Finances dictated that he charter vessels for his various ventures or, as he’d done on this occasion, simply secure a berth for himself and his cargo as a normal fare-paying passenger. This time, his cargo comprised several hundred brand new muskets plus shot and powder for the weapons.

Under this new modus operandi, the young man had struggled for the first six months.
Then he had yet another change of fortune – for the better this time.

Two major events saw Nathan’
s stocks rise.

The first was the United States’
annexing of Texas, which happened three years earlier, in 1845. The ranchers and other new settlers who flooded into Texas urgently needed supplies, and Nathan was happy to oblige. Using all his savings, he chartered a vessel to transport firearms, tools, furniture, non-perishable food and other supplies to the Texans. One profitable voyage followed another – and Nathan was back.

The second event was t
he bloody Mexican-American War, which had been raging for nearly two years now. It proved the catalyst Nathan needed to further improve his financial position. He used the same formula he’d used for the Texan settlers, chartering ships to transport supplies to the American soldiers engaged in the hostilities – the main difference being the supplies were almost exclusively firearms and other useful items for waging war.

The young Americ
an’s newfound success prompted him to relocate to San Francisco. He believed America’s west coast held more promise and, since relocating there six months earlier, he hadn’t looked back. Nathan now had sufficient resources to employ staff and purchase his own ships, but he’d resisted that temptation. If the past four years had taught him anything, it was that he operated best alone.

In hindsight, he believed his failure running the business he’d inherited from his father was the best thing that had ever happened to hi
m. It had taught him he was, by nature, a loner who worked best alone; more importantly, the collapse of Johnson Traders had materially and emotionally cut any final link that may have existed between him and his father. Now he could truly say he was a self-made man, and he was proud of that.

Nathan had kept no reminder
for himself of Johnson Senior. Much to the dismay of his sisters, he’d even refused to take the portrait painting of his father that had once hung on the wall of his study in the family home. They’d remained miffed to this day over their brother’s refusal to make his peace with Johnson Senior before his death. Reminders that their father had beaten him, not them, had fallen on deaf ears.

The siblings’ attitude to the portrait painting of their
beloved mother, however, was quite different. All three had wanted it. After much arguing, they agreed to let the toss of a coin decide who would inherit the painting. Nathan’s oldest sister Alice won the toss. To her credit, she commissioned a local artist to paint two copies of the original, and a month later presented these, encased in beautiful frames, to her grateful siblings. Nathan and Sissy agreed the copies were almost identical to the original.

Nathan ensur
ed the painting accompanied him on all his travels – as was the case on this particular voyage. It currently occupied pride of place on the wall facing Nathan’s bunk. Pretty Charlotte
Johnson’s smiling face was the last thing he saw before going to sleep and the first thing he saw when he woke up.

A reflected face in a m
irror hanging next to the painting distracted him. It took Nathan a second to register it was himself he was looking at. Studying his reflection, he didn’t like to admit it – not even to himself – that the resemblance between himself and his father was uncanny. His long, black hair framed a ruggedly handsome face that sported stubble which he cultivated to ensure it always appeared as though he’d last shaved the previous day.

But it was his startling blue eyes that
most reminded him, and others, of his father. They were mesmerizing and world-weary at the same time. This had proven a fatal combination for members of the opposite sex. Exactly why, Nathan wasn’t sure, but he’d never been short of female company and he was grateful for that. The world-weariness, he guessed, came from having filled his twenty-six years with enough living for two lifetimes, and having witnessed so much of what life had to offer – good and bad – in those years.

The similarities to Johnson Senior didn’t end there. Nathan wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself, but the years had hardened him. He now shared many of the same traits he’d
once despised in his father. Those traits had been molded during his violent childhood then solidified during the years of enforced living with the Makah and further solidified during his tumultuous years in business. The end result was Nathan was a self-centered individual who measured a man’s worth by his wealth and whose only ambition in life was to accumulate money and possessions, and to bed as many women as he could along the way.

One result of his self-centeredness was he now had no friends. Worse, he had no need for friends.
Make money, not friends.
That was his philosophy.

As for the native races of the world, he had no time for them – not
since his years with the Makah. Whether it was them or the Indians of South America, the Zulus of southern Africa, the Maoris of New Zealand or the islanders of the Pacific, it was his opinion they weren’t interested in embracing civilization and all it had to offer. Consequently, he believed, they’d forever remain stuck in the Stone-Age.
Where they belong
, he thought.

Nathan ha
d stopped sharing his opinions of the native races with others long ago. Family and associates branded him a racist whenever he’d share his views. He didn’t like the term
racist
– not because he wasn’t one, but because he didn’t want to be known as one – so had learned to keep his views to himself. As his job all too often involved trading with native peoples, he knew it wouldn’t be good for business to be known as a racist.

As the years ticked by, Nathan had made a conscious effort to forget his time with the Makah and to banish any hangovers left over from that life-changing experience. He no longer shunned red meat in favor of raw fish, and he’d given up sleeping on the floor long ago; he no longer even dreamed of his Makah experiences and, if recent bedmates were to be believed, he no longer spoke aloud i
n the Makah tongue in his sleep.

Truth be known, he’d occasionally think of Tatoosh, his blood brother and chief of the Makah,
and also the beautiful Tagaq, his former lover, but would force them from his mind just as quickly.
No profit in that
, he’d remind himself.

The sound of a bell ringing above deck announced the start of a new shift aboard
Rainmaker
for sailors on the night shift, and jolted Nathan back to the present. He debated whether to go topside, to view Apia by night, but decided it could wait until he went ashore in the morning.

Nathan thought he heard women’s voices. The feminine tones of a woman’s voice were rare on this voyage as the crewmembers were exclusively males and there were only two women amongst the passengers – both the wives of male passengers. To Nathan’s dismay, neither was remotely pleasing on the eye. One was in her late seventies and toothless while the other was so corpulent Nathan was sure
the schooner leaned to port whenever the woman left her cabin to walk to the dining room to satisfy her seemingly insatiable appetite – something she did all too frequently in his opinion.

Con
sequently, the young man looked forward to shore visits during which time he availed himself of local women on offer. That usually entailed paying for their services – something he wasn’t averse to doing.

The women’s voices grew louder. Nathan realized they were close by in the passageway outside his cabin.

There was a knock at the door. Nathan opened it to find Diamond, the ship’s black purser, standing there, a huge smile on his face.

“Hello Diamond,” Nathan said. It was only then he noticed the two women standin
g behind the purser. They were islanders and both very easy on the eye. Nathan assessed they were in their late teens or perhaps early twenties. He knew immediately what Diamond was up to. The purser had gotten to know what the well-heeled, young American liked in a woman and hadn’t been slow to exploit that during stopovers at various islands along the way. In return for his thoughtfulness and his knack for selecting attractive women, Nathan recompensed him handsomely.

“Hello, Mister Nathan,” Diamond beamed. He
stepped aside so Nathan could see the two Polynesian women he’d brought aboard. “I wasn’t sure which one you’d prefer, so I brought both.”

After a succession of late nights drinking and playing cards with the
hospitable captain and crew, Nathan had been looking forward to an early night. However, looking at the two women standing before him, he had to admit Diamond had provided a tempting alternative.

Giggling and chatting to each other in their native tongue, the women were fine specimens of island womanhood. Both strong-looking and athletic, they were at the same
time feminine in the seductive way the women of the islands are. Their skin gleamed golden in the flickering lamplight of the passageway, and their eyes flashed as they took in the handsome young white man in front of them.

Diamond looked hopefully at Nathan. “You like?” he asked.

Nathan knew the purser was thinking of his commission. He’d always tipped him generously for his
thoughtfulness
in the past. Nathan nodded reluctantly, indicating he was interested.

Diamond’s grin broadened further.

It was the taller of the two women Nathan liked the look of. She was statuesque and beguiling all at once. He smiled at her and she immediately sidled up to him, her thigh brushing his. “What’s your name?” he asked.

The Polynesian beauty
looked at him uncomprehendingly, unable to speak a word of English.

Nathan looked to Diamond for assistance.

“Sally,” Diamond said a little too quickly. “Her name’s Sally.”