Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii

by Stephen Shender

  When at last Kameha had rammed the powder, ball, and paper wad down the musket’s barrel, returned the ramrod to its place, and raised the weapon to his shoulder, Ka‘iana instructed, “Now, Lord, take aim at the breadfruit and pull the trigger.”

  Narrowing his eyes and pointing the musket at the breadfruit, Kamehameha slowly pulled back the trigger. He was not yet ready when the hammer flew forward, and he flinched from the musket’s recoil as it erupted. As the smoke cleared away, Kamehameha and his chieftains saw that the breadfruit was unscathed. Kameha scowled.

  “It takes much practice, Lord,” soothed Ka‘iana. “Try again.”

  “No!” Kamehameha snapped. “I will be mō‘ī of Hawai‘i. It is not necessary for me to learn to use this mūk‘e.” He thrust the weapon at Ka‘iana. “It is for these others to learn this haole way of fighting,” Kameha said. “You teach them, and teach them well, Ka‘iana.”

  “Oh yes, Lord, I will,” Ka‘iana said. He spoke to Kamehameha’s back, for the pretender to the Big Island’s throne was already stalking from the courtyard.

  Kamehameha’s abrupt departure precipitated an awkward silence, broken only by a woman’s soft laughter. Ka‘ahumanu, standing outside the courtyard and unnoticed by Kameha and his chieftains, had witnessed her husband’s humiliation.

  After four years of marriage to Kamehameha, Ka‘ahumanu was growing restive. Despite a vigorous physical relationship, she and Kameha as yet had no children together, and she had begun to chafe under his kapu forbidding other men to court her. Kamehameha’s first wife, Pele‘uli, was under no such restriction, and was free to enjoy congress with whomever she chose. This distinction between them incensed Ka‘ahumanu, whose sexual appetites were as wide-ranging as any other Hawaiian woman’s, and she had vigorously remonstrated about this with her husband.

  “Why do you forbid other men to pay suit to me?” she had demanded one day, after they had been married for not quite two years. “Why is Pele‘uli free to lie with other men and I am not?”

  “Because it pleases me to so rule,” was all Kamehameha would offer in way of explanation.

  “That is an insufficient reason,” Ka‘ahumanu rejoined.

  “As your mō‘ī, that is the only reason I need give you,” Kameha replied, and he turned away from her.

  Kamehameha had not forbidden Ka‘ahumanu from flirting with other men, but as all men of Kona, Kohala, and the rest of the Big Island knew, it was kapu to approach her with any but the most innocent of intentions. Thus, her occasional flirtations were for naught. Ka‘ahumanu was immediately drawn to Ka‘iana, who was so handsome, so easy-going, and closer to her in age than her stern husband. Moreover, his confident treatment of Kamehameha as an equal gave Ka‘ahumanu reason to hope that Ka‘iana might not respect the kapu.

  “Despite my brother’s stern admonition, it was not in Ka‘ahumanu’s nature to be intimate with only one kāne, no more than it was in the nature of any of our women, including our own mother,” my father observed. Nor was it in Ka‘iana’s nature to concern himself much with a kapu that he considered unreasonable.

  Kealakekua, 1790

  The haole seaman was in grave condition when Kame‘iamoku delivered him to Kamehameha. He was the sole survivor of the five-man crew of the Fair American, a small schooner that Kame‘iamoku and his people had boarded and captured off Ka‘ūpūlehu, in North Kona. Kame‘iamoku had attacked the Fair American to avenge an indignity earlier visited upon him by the captain of another haole vessel.

  This ship, the Eleanora, had stopped at Ka‘ūpūlehu on her way to Maui. Its captain was Simon Metcalfe. As was their custom, the Hawai‘ians paddled out to the ship in their canoes to trade. “Kame‘iamoku began to board the ship to greet these haoles, which was his duty and right as the area’s high chief,” my father explained. “But Kāpena Mekawe beat him with a heavy rope and tumbled him into the sea. After that, Kame‘iamoku resolved to attack the next haole ship to pass by.”

  Kame‘iamoku’s assault on the Fair American was brief and bloody. The small ship was beating up the Kona Coast, making toward Maui against an unfavorable wind. Kame‘iamoku and his people went out to the schooner in two outrigger canoes. Thinking that these Hawai‘ians had come to trade, the Fair American’s crew made no effort to bar them from boarding. As soon as they gained the ship’s deck, the Hawai‘ians attacked the haoles with clubs and daggers, slaying all but one man and throwing the bodies overboard.

  The one haole they did not kill was the ship’s mate, whom they likewise threw into the sea, thinking that Kanaloa would take him. But unlike so many of the haole sailors, this man was a strong swimmer. He stroked to the nearest Hawai‘ian canoe and tried to climb aboard, but the Hawai‘ians beat him off with their paddles and clubs. Dazed and weakened, but still afloat, he swam to the other canoe. The men in that canoe were about to treat him just as roughly when he called out to them. “Aloha! Aloha! Maika‘i, maika‘i!”—Mercy, mercy! Good, good!—he pleaded in his limited Hawaiian. One of the paddlers in this second canoe took pity on the haole, who was now near to drowning. “Aloha,” he said, as he hauled the struggling man out of the water.

  “I do not know why that canoe paddler chose to spare the haole sailor,” my father said. “But it was well that he did.”

  With their own canoes in tow, Kame‘iamoku and his men steered the Fair American to shore. “Though this boat was larger than our canoes, Kame‘iamoku’s people had no difficulty sailing it, for wind and sail are the same everywhere,” my father said. Sailing a vessel of unfamiliar design and larger than our people’s canoes was one thing; bringing it close to shore safely was quite another. Accustomed to landing their shallow-draft canoes on beaches, Kame‘iamoku’s men damaged the Fair American’s hull when they ran the ship aground in the shallows at Ka‘ūpūlehu.

  The Fair American boasted a limited armory, with a half-dozen muskets, several pistols, and sufficient powder and musket balls to repel lightly armed attackers. Had the haoles been less trusting, Kame‘iamoku’s attack would have ended differently. The schooner also carried a bronze cannon, several smaller swivel guns, slow-match cords and powder to fire them, cannon balls, and a small store of canister shot.

  Ashore, the Hawai‘ians unloaded the Fair American’s muskets, powder, and ammunition, and they stripped the schooner of its swivel guns and cannon. Leaving the ship to be dismantled for its iron, they loaded the weaponry and the wounded sailor into their canoes and set off down the coast to bring their trophies to Kamehameha at Kealakekua. Among the bodies left floating in the small bay that day was the corpse of the Fair American’s nineteen-year-old captain, Thomas Metcalfe—Simon Metcalfe’s son. Kame‘iamoku had unknowingly found his revenge.

  Upon reaching Ka‘awaloa, where Kamehameha was staying, Kame‘iamoku had taken the grievously injured haole sailor straight away to a kahuna lā‘au lapa‘au. Now, with my father accompanying them, he led Kamehameha to the healer’s hale, where the foreigner lay on a sedge mat. The kahuna lā‘au lapa‘au had applied poultices to his wounds and bound them with strips of kapa cloth. The man lay with his eyes closed and did not at first see the three Hawaiians as they entered the darkened interior of the hale through its single doorway.

  “Ask him what his name is,” Kameha said to my father.

  My father had learned enough English from Burney during Cook’s visit to put this simple question to the man. “Yu‘u…yu‘u nā‘ime?” he said, struggling to pronounce the foreign words. The haole’s eyes fluttered open and he regarded my father with surprise. “Waka yu‘u nā‘ime?” my father asked again.

  “My name is Isaac…Isaac,” the man groaned. He smiled wanly through his pain, relieved that someone in this strange place might understand him.

  “His name is ‘Aikake,” my father told Kameha.

  “‘Aikake,” Kamehameha repeated. Smiling down at the captive haole from his great height, he said, “E como mai oe iō Hawai‘i nei.” Welcome to beloved Hawai’i. The haole did not understand
Kameha’s words, but from his demeanor, he understood his meaning. The haole’s full Christian name was Isaac Davis, but for the rest of his life among our people he would be known by the name my father gave him: ‘Aikake.

  Kamehameha was angry when he first learned that Kame‘iamoku had attacked a haole ship and slain most of its crew. “What were you thinking?” he thundered, ignoring for the moment the captured haole weapons and munitions. “You know how angry Kāpena Kuke became when Palea took Kuke’s small boat. If any haoles discover what you have done, they will be even more furious than Kuke and his people and they will retaliate more fiercely.” Kame‘iamoku bowed his head in embarrassment. Kamehameha softened. “What is done is done,” he said. “You did well to bring the mūk‘e and the kano‘ono to me.”

  Upon learning that the Fair American was beached at Ka‘ūpūlehu, damaged but still intact, Kamehameha ordered Kame‘iamoku to return there and safeguard the vessel. “No one is allowed to break it up for its ailon‘e. That is kapu,” he said. “We must see to the repair of this great canoe. It must be returned to its owners, and in the meantime, it may prove useful to us.”

  When the Eleanora arrived at Kealakekua from Maui two days later, Kamehameha decreed a kapu on the bay. “These haoles must not learn that we are holding ‘Aikake or that we have taken his great canoe,” he said. “No one may approach their great canoe, either by canoe or by swimming to it. Moreover, no one may approach the haoles if they should come ashore.”

  After several days of isolation in the middle of Kealakekua Bay, and with the Eleanora running low on fresh produce, and his crew eager for trade—and, of course, women—Captain Metcalfe sent his boatswain ashore at Ka‘awaloa to discover why the Hawai‘ians were shunning his ship. Not immediately finding anyone to interrogate, this haole, whose name was John Young, shouldered his musket and went in search of fowl for the ship’s larder. During his explorations, he passed several hales, but saw no one. “Many people saw him,” my father told me, “but none allowed themselves to be seen.” When Young returned to the beach, he discovered that his boat was missing. All at once, he was confronted by several young ali‘i warriors, one of whom seized his musket. After disarming Young, they conducted him to Kamehameha.

  Kameha was reclining on a mat in the courtyard of his hale when the newcomer was brought to him. Kamehameha looked up at him impassively and said nothing. Young looked down uneasily at the lounging ruler of Kona and Kohala, biting his lower lip and clasping his hands in front of him. Then he noticed that the warriors who had brought him to Kamehameha had all seated themselves on the ground, cross-legged. He sat down as well.

  “Good,” Kameha said to my father, who sat immediately to his right. “He shows me respect. Ask him his name.”

  Again, my father struggled with the English words, yet made himself understood. Young tapped his own chest and said, “My name, John Young.”

  Turning to Kamehameha, my father said in Hawaiian, “His name is Ī‘ona Ī‘ona.” My father could not say “John,” nor could his ears distinguish the subtle difference between “John” and “Young.”

  “Now tell him my name,” Kameha said.

  My father gestured at Kamehameha and said to Young, “He nā‘ime Kamehameha.”

  “Tamaahamaah,” repeated Young, who could not pronounce Kamehameha’s name any better than my father could Young’s name. Young would eventually learn to say Kamehameha, but he would never be known as “John Young” by the Hawai‘ians, who called him Ī‘ona for some time thereafter—or simply referred to him as “Kamehameha’s haole.”

  Young would acquire a new Hawaiian name when Kamehameha charged him with teaching his warriors to sail the haoles’ great canoes. Seeking to instill a sense of urgency in the Hawai‘ian sailors while drilling them for battle, Young would shout, “All hands on deck!” Though the Hawai‘ians did not understand his words, they grasped their import well enough through Young’s tone and gestures, and soon began to call him ‘Olohana, for the way they heard the shouted order. But this would not be until later, after he’d earned Kamehameha’s trust.

  Now Kameha rose from his mat, looked down upon Young from his full height, and motioned him to stand. Young regained his feet and tilted his neck to meet Kamehameha’s steady gaze. “Come with me,” Kameha said, gesturing at the doorway to his hale. Young followed him, with my father trailing, to where Isaac Davis lay. Kameha had several days ago ordered the haole seaman moved from the kahuna’s dwelling to his own house, to better see after his care.

  “‘Aikake was already somewhat improved and alert,” my father said. “He and ‘Olohana began conversing very rapidly in their own language. They seemed to know each other.”

  Young turned to Kamehameha, gestured first at Davis and then at himself, pointed in the direction of the bay, and pantomimed a paddling motion with his hands. “Ship, ship,” he said. “Tamaahamaah, please, ship.”

  My father recognized the foreign word. “I think the haole is begging you to allow him and this ‘Aikake to return to the haole great canoe,” he said to Kameha.

  “No doubt,” Kamehameha replied. “Tell him they may return to their comrades tomorrow, but for tonight he and ‘Aikake must rest here.”

  Through some words, but mostly through gestures, my father gave Young to understand that he and Davis were not free to go—yet. To Kamehameha he said, “But brother, if you release them, they will surely tell the haoles what Kame‘iamoku has done.”

  “Doubtless they would, if I released them,” Kameha replied. “But that will not happen.”

  The next morning, Young again asked Kamehameha for permission to return to his ship. “Tamaahamaah, me, him,” he said, pointing first to Kamehameha, and then to himself and Davis, “go ship now?” Young gestured toward the bay, where the Eleanora’s crew was commencing another day of kapu-imposed isolation. He made paddling motions again. My father was not there to interpret, but Kamehameha understood his meaning.

  “Yu‘u…ko?” Kameha replied. Then he shook his head and waggled his finger at Young. “Yu‘u…” He shook his head again.

  Young understood him. He looked dejectedly at Kamehameha. “Why we no can go?” he asked in English.

  Kameha rose and left the hale in search of my father, abruptly ending his first attempt to speak the haole language. My father was at the shore with Ka‘iana, regarding the Eleanora. Ka‘iana had arrived just that morning from Kailua, where he had been drilling a number of Kamehameha’s chieftains and warriors in the use of muskets. When he learned that Kame‘iamoku had captured more haole weapons, including a cannon, he came straight away to Kealakekua. “Keli‘imaika‘i, Ka‘iana, come with me,” Kamehameha said, “now.”

  My father and Ka‘iana followed Kamehameha to his hale. Entering his residence, Kameha said, “You can speak the haole talk, Ka‘iana.” Pointing at Young and then at Davis, Kameha said, “That one is called Ī‘ona. The other one, the sick one, is called ‘Aikake. They wish to return to the haole wa‘a nui.” Kamehameha explained to Ka‘iana that he had no intention of allowing the two men to go back to the haoles’ great canoe and reveal the fate of the Fair American to their comrades. But for the time being, and until the ships departed, he said, he wanted to put them at their ease.

  “Please tell this Ī‘ona that ‘Aikake is not well enough to return to the great canoe yet. Tell him they must stay here for another day or two,” he said. “Tell him that we will send word to their people that they are well and being cared for.”

  Ka‘iana turned to Young and spoke to him in English. Young listened politely but still protested. “He says that ‘Aikake has recovered enough to go with him to the great canoe,” Ka‘iana told Kamehameha.

  “Tell Ī‘ona that we are concerned for ‘Aikake, nevertheless.” Kameha said. “Tell him that we are very sorry for the harm our people have done to ‘Aikake and that we desire Ī‘ona and ‘Aikake to stay with us for just another day or two as our honored guests. Tell him again that we will send word to the grea
t canoe.”

  Ka‘iana spoke to Young again. The haole seaman looked quizzically at Kamehameha and reluctantly nodded his assent. “‘Olohana suspected all along that Kamehameha had no intention of allowing him and ‘Aikake to leave,” my father said. “He told me so many years later.”

  The next morning, Young looked expectantly at Kamehameha and again asked, “Tamaahamaah, we go ship?”

  Kamehameha frowned and called for Ka‘iana again. “Please tell Ī‘ona that I cannot permit him to return to his great canoe. Tell him how Kāpena Kuke once killed many of our people because one of us stole a small canoe from him. Tell him I fear that if his chief learns that some of our people have taken a great canoe and slain all the haoles on it but ‘Aikake, he will do the same, and that is why I cannot allow him to return to his great canoe. But I will allow him and ‘Aikake to leave on the next haole great canoe that comes here. Tell him that.”

  Ka‘iana told Young what Kameha had said. “‘Olohana appeared very dejected,” my father said. Young left the hale without a word and walked down to the shore. No one tried to stop him. He stood at the water’s edge for a long time, watching his shipmates bustling about the Eleanora’s decks and climbing in the rigging. They were unfurling the ship’s sails. Young sat down in the sand and remained there for a long time after the Eleanora stood out to sea.

  Kame‘iamoku was pleased when he learned that the Fair American’s slain captain was the son of the Eleanora’s Simon Metcalfe—the same haole sea captain who had earlier assaulted him. Metcalfe departed Hawai‘i unaware that Hawai‘ians had taken the Fair American and slain his son.