“Ho! Little brother!” Kekua called to me from the schooner’s bowsprit, upon which he had ventured out as far as he dared. “Have you ever seen such a thing?”
Indeed I had not. Rising and falling amid the swells to each side of the Fair American were the Pelekane and Kameha’s newest schooners. Scores of the newly launched peleleu war canoes trailed the haole ships, spread out in all directions. Unlike the schooners, whose bows bit into the sea, the double-hulled canoes rode high in the water, cresting the swells and then all but disappearing into the deep troughs between them, then reappearing atop the swells moments later. A few of the more adventurous peleleu crews thought to race our haole ships and trimmed their sails tightly against the strong reaching wind. But they were forced to fall off the wind when their canoes heeled over so far as to raise one of their twin hulls entirely out of the water, straining the crafts’ lashings and threatening to break them in two.
Kekuaokalani laughed at this spectacle. “Nāmākēha!” he shouted. “See how those warriors are lifted so high that their paddles strike nothing but air!”
I looked where my brother pointed and saw one double-hulled canoe tipped over so far that the warriors riding in the high hull to windward had stowed their paddles and were gripping the hull’s side to avoid being tumbled. The men riding on the deck had fallen to their hands and knees to keep from being spilled into the lower hull. Their alarmed cries carried to us over the sounds of the wind and the water slapping against the Fair American’s hull.
I turned back to Kekua again. The island of Maui, ever closer, seemed to rise and fall in front of him. My stomach churned and I returned my gaze to the more stable far horizon. At mid-deck, where Kamehameha was conferring with his chieftains, Liholiho clutched his stomach and vomited.
At Hana, the schooners anchored in the bay and the war canoes covered its beach from one end to the other, and the shore beyond its southern point to the cove at Hāmoa. Kamehameha lingered at Hana for several days, relaxing and feasting nightly with his chieftains. After this brief respite, the war fleet moved on to Lahaina, where it grew larger still, with additions from Maui and Lanai. We remained at Lahaina for several months while Kamehameha’s chieftains drilled their warriors in the use of muskets. The bay at Lahaina echoed with gunfire from dawn until dusk, periodically punctuated by the cannons’ roars. Kamehameha was unconcerned about the profligate expenditure of munitions. The haole merchants who had sailed to Lahaina in the wake of his fleet were happy to replenish his stores of powder, shot, and musket balls in exchange for food and water.
When he was not drilling with the other warriors, Kekuaokalani shadowed Kamehameha. As the fleet’s stay at Lahaina stretched on, he became ever more impatient to set sail for O‘ahu and the invasion of Kaua‘i. “Why are we staying so long on Maui, Uncle?” he asked Kamehameha one day. “We are only giving Kaumuali‘i’ and his people more time to prepare for our invasion.”
“Kaumuali‘i has been preparing for this since the day our fleet was wrecked between O‘ahu and Kaua‘i, nephew,” Kamehameha replied. “I want his people to hear of our preparations. I want them to fear our arrival. I want them to quake at the sight of our army and flee for their lives.”
My brother pondered this. “Then you hope not to give battle, Uncle?” he asked at last, his voice infused with disappointment.
“Kekua, I know you thirst for battle and glory,” Kamehameha said. “But I have seen enough battles and had enough glory. We will fight for Kaua‘i if we must, but I hope we will not have to. Men are always fighting. There will no doubt be other battles, and you will prove yourself as a warrior one day.”
Our uncle’s assurances did not mollify Kekuaokalani. He was impatient to prove himself. He would have to wait.
The plague that decimated Kamehameha’s people on O‘ahu, carrying away his oldest and most trusted advisers and nearly killing Kamehameha himself, put an end to his campaign to take Kaua‘i. Kameha was many days recovering from his illness.
One afternoon, loud cries outside his hale awakened Kamehameha from a fitful sleep. My father, who had been tending to him, was not at his side. Kamehameha was struggling to his feet when my father rushed into the hale, weeping.
“What has happened?” Kamehameha demanded.
“Kameha!” my father wailed, “Ke‘eaumoku has died!”
“No!” Kamehameha cried. “Not Ke‘eaumoku too!” His legs gave out from under him and he collapsed onto his sleeping mat. My father knelt beside him and the two men clasped each other tightly and wailed.
The grief of my father and uncle for their old friend and ally was eclipsed only by the sorrow of Ke‘eaumoku’s wife, daughter, and son—Nāmāhana, Ka‘ahumanu, and Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku. They were still aboard the Fair American when he died and were overcome when word of his death reached the ship. Ignoring the danger of contagion, Nāmāhana insisted on going ashore where she could grieve properly. Her children begged her not to go.
“Stay with us, Mother,” Ka‘ahumanu pleaded. “It is too late to go to Father’s side, and he would not want you to risk your life only to mourn his death.”
Kalanimoku refused Nāmāhana’s request to leave the ship. “Kamehameha set me over all the women and children here,” he said. “And you shall not go.”
“And you shall not stop me, nephew,” Nāmāhana rejoined. Then, before either Kalanimoku, her son, or daughter could intercept her, she tore off her short skirt, ran to the ship’s railing, climbed over, and dropped into the water below.
“Mother!” Ka‘ahumanu and Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku cried. “Come back!”
Already stroking toward the beach, Nāmāhana ignored her children’s cries. Ashore, she grieved for her husband, took ill, and died within ten days.
Profoundly shaken by the loss of Ke‘eaumoku and so many of his other old friends and advisers, Kamehameha emerged from his convalescence convinced that divine will had thwarted his ambition to subdue Kaua‘i. “Kūkā‘ilimoku has forsaken me,” he said. “First he sent a storm to scatter my ships and canoes and then he sent a plague to destroy my army. He protects Kaumuali‘i now. My priests should have foreseen this. Holo‘ae would have. I will stay here on O‘ahu and rebuild my army until the god favors me once more.”
Kamehameha remained on O‘ahu for another six years.
Waikiki, 1810
The plague forced Kamehameha to rebuild his government. He instinctively turned to the sons of his late comrades-in-arms to replace their fathers. Thus he appointed to his innermost council Ke‘eaumoku’s son, Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku; Koahou, son of Kamanawa; Ulumaheihei Hoapili, son of Kame‘iamoku; and Haiha Naihe, the son of Keaweaheulu. Kamehameha set Ke‘eaumoku’s nephew, Kalanimoku, above them all as leader of the council and, in effect, as his prime minister. With the exception of Keaweaheulu’s son, Naihe, and of course my own brother, Kekuaokalani, Kamehameha was almost entirely surrounded by Ka‘ahumanu’s relatives.
In an unprecedented move, Kamehameha also invited Ka‘ahumanu to join his council. No chiefess had ever before sat as an equal among men in a mō‘ī’s innermost circle. My brother and I were surprised by this news, but ‘Olohana, then at O‘ahu to confer with our uncle, was not. “Don’t you see?” he said to us. “Your uncle binds all those young chiefs and their families more firmly to him through their blood ties to Ka‘ahumanu and her marriage to him. He could not have subdued all the other islands without their fathers’ support and he cannot hold them without the support of their sons. Your uncle ensures their support by keeping Ka‘ahumanu close by him.”
Kamehameha and Kalanimoku devoted the years after the pestilential decimation to rebuilding the fighting forces and acquiring more muskets, cannons, and munitions. By the middle of 1809, Kamehameha had further increased his arsenal of intimidating haole arms, and gathered and trained hundreds more warriors to bear them. He had also employed haole ship-wrights to build more schooners on which he mounted many cannons. Kameha was determined that no storm would scuttle his fleet when
next he assaulted Kaua‘i. Haole ships were more reliable in heavy seas than traditional war canoes. As much as he was counting on Kūkā‘ilimoku to bless this endeavor, he would not rely on his god for protection from the weather.
With our uncle once more bent on war, Kekuaokalani’s spirits lifted. Because so many of Kamehameha’s contemporaries had been carried away by the pestilence, Kekuaokalani counted on being one of his senior commanders when the time came. “I will be in the battle’s forefront, brother,” he said. “I will make our father and Uncle Kameha proud of me.” Toward this end, Kekuaokalani trained harder than ever in all the arts of combat, Hawaiian and haole.
Our cousin, Liholiho, meanwhile, held himself aloof from such pursuits. He claimed he saw no purpose in joining other youths in their mock battles. “If war comes, my place will be at my father’s side,” he said to us. “And my father will not lead the fight this time.”
Kamehameha shrugged when his son’s words reached him. “Liholiho is ill-fitted to be a warrior,” he told my father. “But that is no matter, for there will be no more fighting after we defeat Kaumuali‘i.”
Early in 1809, Kamehameha dispatched messengers to his chieftains on Maui, Moloka‘i, and the Big Island with orders to muster their warriors and bring them to O‘ahu. As Kamehameha’s army grew and training continued, the younger, untested warriors’ impatience for battle became more palpable with every passing day. And as the nervous tension among Kamehameha’s warriors escalated, their mock battles grew in ferocity and a number were seriously injured. This continued until several warriors suffered mortal wounds from thrown spears in a single afternoon.
Recalling the senseless death of his own kahu, Kekūhaupi‘o, in mock fighting years earlier, Kamehameha ordered a halt to these contests. He told his commanders to conduct light musket practice and close-combat drills only. “But do not allow them to relax overmuch,” he cautioned. “They must be ready for battle.”
The warriors continued to drill—and wait.
Kekuaokalani became so frustrated that he dared confront Kamehameha directly. “Uncle,” he blurted out one evening, “my people want to fight. The entire army longs to fight. Why do we still delay here?”
My father sharply reproved my brother. “Kamehameha may be your uncle, but he is also your lord, and you must show him more respect,” he snapped.
Yet Kameha took no offense. “Brother,” he said, “do not rebuke Kekuaokalani for his eagerness to fight.” Still, Kamehameha could not let my brother’s outburst pass entirely. Turning to Kekuaokalani, he said, “I delay because the time is not yet right to attack.” At this, my brother made as if to protest again. Kamehameha silenced him with a brusque wave of his hand. “I have my reasons,” he said, “and they do not concern you, Kekuaokalani. You should return to your own men now. Your proper place is with them.” Kameha gestured next at me and said, “You go with him, Nāmākēha. And in the future, boys, leave such matters to your elders and me.”
Thus chastened, we left Kamehameha’s hale.
“Pay your elder son’s poor manners no mind, Keli‘i,” Kamehameha told my father later. “Our army is now full of young men who have yet to blood their spears. But if all of Kekuaokalani’s contemporaries are of like mind when the battle begins, they will fall upon the enemy with no hesitation and no thoughts for themselves. They are more than ready for combat now, and I will order them into battle soon, while they still seethe with impatience. This has always been my intention.”
Kamehameha’s order to invade Kaua‘i never came. Fate intervened. My father died. Keli‘imaika‘i’s death was sudden. Kekuaokalani and I were sitting with our father in the courtyard of his hale at Waikiki. One minute he was talking with us, and in the next he gasped, clutched at his chest, and collapsed as if struck by a spear. He still breathed but he did not respond to our cries. His eyes were open, but he did not appear to see us as we hovered over him. His gaze was fixed on the sky, which was filled now with fluffy white clouds blowing in from the sea and piling up against the mountains behind us. Keli‘imaika‘i blinked as if in surprise and spoke at last. “Kāne calls,” he said. “Lono must be served.” Then he sighed, his eyelids fluttered closed, and his chest ceased to move.
Our anguished cries soon drew scores of people—men, women, and some frightened children—who encircled us at a respectful distance and joined in our wailing. Some moments later, the crowd parted like waters before a canoe prow as Kamehameha came upon us. Without a word, he fell to his knees, enfolded Kekuaokalani and me in his long arms, and cried with us.
Exhausted from crying at long last, we lapsed into silence. Now I heard sobbing nearby and looking up I saw that Kalanimoku, Ka‘ahumanu, Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku, and Liholiho had arrived. They were standing to one side. Ka’ahumanu’s and Kalanimoku’s eyes glistened with tears and Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku was downcast. But Liholiho’s eyes were clear and he regarded this tableau with only mild interest. When Liholiho saw me looking at him, he lowered his own gaze and twisted his mouth into a frown, but he did not cry for his own uncle, my father.
Grief-stricken, Kamehameha suspended all martial drilling for the duration of the funeral rituals for Keli‘imaika‘i. Thus all military activity at the Waikiki encampment of some eight to ten thousand men was halted for a fortnight—for the ten days during which the hot stones of the imu slowly seared our father’s flesh from his long bones, and for several more days while the priests prayed over my father’s cleansed bones for his departed spirit.
When the priests were done, they gave my brother two bags of kapa cloth bound with twine, one containing our father’s charred flesh and the other his long bones. As Keli‘imaika‘i’s oldest son, it was Kekuaokalani’s sad task to offer our father’s flesh to Kanaloa and to hide his bones. Joined by our Uncle Kameha, my brother and I wailed over our father’s remains late into the night. Early the next morning, as Kāne’s light was just breaking over Le‘ahi, Kamehameha and I helped Kekuaokalani carry an outrigger canoe to the water and step its mast. My brother and I hugged each other tightly and wailed one more time. Then Kamehameha grasped Kekuaokalani by his shoulders, drew him close, and said, “Your father was sacred to me, Kekua. Hide his bones well.”
Kekuaokalani set off in the direction of Le‘ahi. Kamehameha left me to consult with his advisers and priests. I remained alone on the shore at Waikiki, watching my brother’s canoe until it slipped from sight behind Kupikiki‘o point, just below Le‘ahi. Kekuaokalani was gone for a night and two days. To this day, I do not know where he hid Keli‘imaika‘i’s long bones.
During this time, Kamehameha asked his priests to divine the import of our father’s last words: Lono must be served. Led by the reigning kahuna nui, Hewahewa, the priests of Kāne and Lono agreed that Kāne, speaking through Keli‘imaika‘i, was calling upon our people to foreswear war and the ways of the fearsome god Kūkā‘ilimoku in favor of peaceful pursuits blessed by the god Lono.
“A long Makahiki time is coming, when the god Lono will be ascendant and the war god Kū will be retired,” they said. But they could not, or would not, say whether this time was to come immediately or only after Kaua‘i was subdued by force.
In council with Kamehameha and his chieftains, Kalanimoku contended that our father’s last words could only be interpreted to mean that the time of war in our islands was already at an end.
“Lord,” he said, “you have gathered and equipped the most powerful army our people have ever seen, all in plain sight of Kaumuali‘i and his people. You have spoken of your hope to subdue Kaua‘i by presence of arms in place of actual force of arms. The god, speaking through Keli‘imaika‘i, has now affirmed your purpose. You can achieve your ends without resort to more bloodshed.”
Kalanimoku proposed that Kamehameha send an embassy to Kaumuali‘i with an offer: His envoys were to tell Kaumuali‘i that though Kamehameha was fully prepared to subjugate Kaua‘i by force if necessary, he wished to spare Kaumuali‘i and his people the suffering he had visited upon O‘ahu
fourteen years earlier—suffering well known on Kaua‘i. Therefore, if Kaumuali‘i would recognize Kamehameha as his lord and swear obedience to him, Kamehameha and his people would not invade his island. And of course, Kamehameha would leave the continued governance of Kaua‘i to Kaumuali‘i as Kamehameha’s royal representative there.
But others argued that Keli‘imaika‘i’s last words could only be interpreted as a call for one last conquest. Among these were two young chieftains named Kauiwa and Holo‘ialena, comrades of my brother who had fought at his side many times in war games. They spoke for a faction of untested younger chiefs still eager to blood their spears.
“Lord, what else could the god who spoke with your brother’s voice have meant,” Kauiwa asked Kamehameha, “other than to say that you must conquer Kaua’i to put an end to war among your people?”
“What of the god Kūkā‘ilimoku ?” asked Holo‘ialena. “What has the war god said?”
Seated between my brother and Liholiho, Kamehameha listened thoughtfully as the debate raged around him. Liholiho appeared bored. He yawned, scratched his chest, and occasionally fidgeted with his malo. Kekuaokalani, however, sat ramrod straight, his eyes fixed on each speaker in turn. He said nothing. I knew of course that my brother sympathized with the council’s war faction, and his peers assumed they were speaking for him as well.
At this meeting, Kahekili Ke‘eaumoku spoke in the council for the first time. “Lord,” he said, “I want to see all of our islands united under your own rule as much as anyone else here, but if there is hope that we can gain the same ends without any more of our brave men dying, should we not try?”
Once There Was Fire: A Novel of Old Hawaii Page 44