She opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated. After seeing Rimapoa manage the craft so well, she was reluctant to doubt his steering. But she knew that he normally stayed within sight of a high island’s peaks. She had even heard Hoihoi disparage his knowledge of way-finding by the stars.
She tightened her hand on the steering oar. If she questioned Rimapoa’s course, he might be annoyed, but better that than being lost.
“I know where we are, tiare,” he said indulgently when she told him her concern. “You are right, we have gone a little south, but soon I will make my correction.”
The wind hissed against the sail, and phosphorescent waves rushed by the hull. Rimapoa kept casting anxious looks at the bowl of sky overhead. Did he really know where he was going? she asked herself. He had never before sailed these waters.
The night wore on as the canoe climbed the swells and slid down into the troughs. Tepua became stiff and cold, both with weariness and fear.
He has chosen the wrong star and I know the right one, she thought furiously. Why do I not insist? “Perhaps we should stop,” she suggested.
He laughed, but it sounded forced. “Once you are on the ocean, there is no stopping, tiare. Even if I cast out a sea anchor, we will drift, and then we will have no idea where we are. It is better to sail on.”
“By the wrong guide star?” She took a breath. “Rimapoa, we are lost and you will not admit it.”
He argued, first gently, then more heatedly. As patient a man as he was on land, at sea he obviously resented having his judgment questioned by a woman.
“You may have sailed between atolls on your father’s canoes,” he said angrily, “but that does not make you a master of the sea. I have spent my entire life on the ocean.”
“But not in these waters,” she retorted. “Throw away your seafarer’s pride—or it will get us drowned.”
He fell silent, and for a time she heard only the wind and the slap of waves against the canoe. Tepua felt the steering oar in her hand. One push would swing the bow over to her star. As if he could read her thoughts, he came to the stern and took the oar from her. She resisted briefly, then stopped when her struggling threatened to capsize the canoe.
Rimapoa’s voice was low and fierce in her ear. “You try that, woman, and I will tie you up with sennit and stow you with the coconuts!”
“I would rather jump out and swim to Fenua Ura. At least then I might get there.”
“Tell me why you are so certain.” His voice showed no softening, but his grip on her wrist eased.
She pointed to the cluster that was now heading down toward its pit beneath the horizon, and explained how she had sighted the same stars at dawn.
“I do not recognize that cluster of yours,” he said. After a few moments of study, he added, “And now I see why. There is a wanderer in with the other two.”
“Yet those stars move down like any others. And I know that wanderers follow the sun’s track.”
He hung his head and gave a deep sigh. “Ay,” he said in a low voice. “They do.” Then he moved the oar, her hand under his, so that it seemed as if he had made the choice.
By dawn they had spotted no sign of land. Dolefully Rimapoa stared out at the empty horizon. Tepua bit her lip. Perhaps her direction change had come too late. Perhaps she had even made things worse.
Rimapoa sighed. “It is never easy to find a low island that is far from others. That is one reason few people ever reach Fenua Ura.”
Tepua stared into the bilges of the canoe. She knew the terrors of being lost on the ocean. She gripped the outrigger’s splashboard tightly, painfully, as the memories returned. “Then we have to turn back, and sail toward the dawn,” she said mournfully.
She felt Rimapoa’s hand on her shoulder and looked up into his troubled face. “No, tiare,” he said. “If we are lost now, we have little hope of finding Maupiti on the way back. We may even miss Porapora.”
“It is better to try—”
“Yes. We must try something, but I am not giving up yet. If I fail now, there is nothing for me back in Tahiti. We must find our bird island, using every skill we have.” His voice took a humbler tone. “Your people are always sailing between atolls. If there is anything you learned from your canoe masters, I will listen.”
Tepua tried to remember. Once she had met a young navigator who was studying his father’s art. She had chatted with him a long time, always under Bone-needle’s watchful gaze. “I have heard that clouds over an atoll sometimes reflect the color of the lagoon,” Tepua said. “You may also see palm leaves and bits of bark adrift on the waves.”
Rimapoa, in turn, told her to watch the flight of any birds that might pass; some might be heading for land. The height and direction of waves offered other clues, he said, but those were more difficult to follow.
Tepua searched the sky until her eyes ached from glare. She saw nothing of interest, except perhaps a patch of low cloud that seemed faintly tinged with aquamarine. When Rimapoa thought he also saw a patch of color, he brought the outrigger about. To rest her eyes, Tepua gazed down at the dark water.
Soon she noticed Rimapoa also staring down, leaning out of the canoe, studying ripples in the calm morning sea. She watched his eyes widen, his brows rise. He muttered something.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I think we may be downwind of land,” he said. “Look how the water is so calm here. An island we cannot see must be breaking the force of the waves.” He leaned so far over the canoe’s side that Tepua grabbed the back of his loincloth for fear he would tumble in. “Two sets of wave crests are crossing each other. I have only noticed that in the lee of an island.”
“So perhaps my steering saved us after all,” Tepua lifted her chin.
“We will know soon,” Rimapoa answered, his voice rising with hope. He took the steering oar again and asked her to handle the sail. Soon they were beating upwind into a light breeze. Tepua spotted a raft of debris in the water. It was a soggy tangle of rotting leaves and wood, but its presence meant that land might be near.
Then she caught sight of a distant line of breakers, plumes of white water shooting up as the sea crashed against a hidden reef. A flock of birds wheeled overhead. And finally she caught a glimpse of palm trees, crowns just visible on the horizon. A coral island!
She watched intently as another small motu came into view, land jutting darkly just above the sea. The brilliant blue of a lagoon shimmered through the opening between the two islands. She almost felt that she was coming home.
“Fenua Ura!” the fisherman shouted. “It has to be. It fits every description I’ve heard.” He put his arm around her. “Together, we found it.” She hugged him, her doubts almost forgotten. As they drew closer to shore she saw beneath the trees flashes of wings, many brightly colored.
Rimapoa would get plenty of feathers here, she thought. He could take as many as he wanted. Whether they would help him end his troubles with the high chief, she did not know.
14
AS the canoe rocked gently beneath him Rimapoa caught whiffs of heated air, heavy with smells of atoll vegetation. The low shore remained at a distance while he studied the obstacle ahead—the outer reef flat that sometimes broke the water’s surface, then slipped below when swells lifted the boat.
An old man Rimapoa had met while traveling with the tira had told him about Fenua Ura in trade for a fine fishhook. Now Rimapoa wondered who had gotten the best of that bargain. Unbroken reef surrounded most of the atoll, which contained four islets spaced around the lagoon. To reach the calm waters within he would have to negotiate a hazardous channel.
He watched huge breakers churning in the distance and imagined the sea boiling through a narrow opening in the reef, carrying the boat before it like a piece of chaff. Then he turned to Tepua and pointed past the end of the nearest islet. “The pass is over there, but too dangerous. Another reason people do not come here.”
“Then what will we do?”
“T
he water is calmer on this side,” he said. “In a small boat like mine, we may be able to cross the coral. That is our best hope.”
He had already trimmed the sail. Now he began to paddle, keeping a careful watch on what lay ahead. The reef fell off sharply along an irregular front. At one moment he could be floating safely in deep water, at another, smashed on the rock. Nearly close enough to touch he saw dangerous coral heads, pink and gray and mottled green. If a wave came before he was ready ...
“Look!” he shouted. Ahead he saw what appeared to be a shallow channel, barely awash. He paddled fiercely, positioning the boat, holding it ready until a swell could lift it. Then, in a rush, he was over, struggling to find his way across the treacherous shallows. Behind him Tepua probed the bottom with a pole, but he was moving too fast to get much help that way. Whenever the swells dropped, he braced himself for the sound of wood grating against stone. “My hull is thick and solid,” he cried out, trying to reassure her. Only once did the bottom scrape, and then, with his paddling and her poling, they worked the boat free.
Ahead lay the exposed edge of dark, weathered coral that formed the shore. He saw no place to land there. Painstakingly he made his way toward the more sheltered end of the islet, coming at last to a beach of smoothed coral stones. A thicket of flowering bushes, glistening in white and green, grew almost to the water’s edge.
Birds screeched as he stepped out into the knee-deep current, the submerged rocks slippery under his feet. Tepua scrambled up onto the narrow beach, and Rimapoa began handing her their supplies. These included bamboo poles, hardwood-tipped arrows, and an archery bow that Tepua had made on an earlier island. In small baskets they also carried leaf-wrapped packets of food and a dark lump of breadfruit sap.
Something else lay in one food basket, a dried piece of root that Tepua knew nothing about. For a moment, as he carried it ashore, that root seemed to cry out for attention, rattling itself against the stiff leaves of its container. Rimapoa splashed loudly to cover the sound, then laughed at himself for his foolishness.
When all had been unloaded, Tepua helped him drag the canoe through an opening in the bushes, up onto higher ground. Then they decided to take a quick look around.
“So much like my home!” she called excitedly. Continuing along the seaward shore, they reached the end of the islet and turned inward toward the lagoon. The calm water was turquoise, its color richer than the sky’s. Tepua’s face shone with excitement as she pointed to a crescent of dazzling white beach.
She is lovelier than anything here, Rimapoa thought, wanting to hold her against him and feel the warmth of her skin. But there was no time for hanihani now. He turned inland to the stands of atoll trees—hibiscus, green-berried tafanu, and fuzzy-leaved beach heliotrope. Here he glimpsed splashes of brilliant color among the broad leaves and low-hanging branches. Birds of a dozen varieties called to each other or flitted past on iridescent wings.
A whistling sound made him glance up as a pair of purple parakeets with creamy white breasts swooped from tree to tree. A larger parakeet, with variegated plumage in all colors of the rainbow, preened its feathers on a low bough, then stopped and stared at him with hard shiny eyes.
“That is Tu-tave,” said Rimapoa softly, extending his arm toward the parakeet.
“I know that bird from legends,” Tepua answered.
Then you know also that birds are the shadows of the gods, carrying their sacredness to earth. Rimapoa said nothing aloud, but admitted to himself that this bird could keep its feathers. It was the shadow of Tu, a god revered by motu people. For Tepua’s sake, he would not harm a Tu-tave.
They went several more steps, then halted as a chorus of squawks and screeches came from overhead. Other birds appeared in such a brilliant array of colors that it almost hurt the eyes to look at them.
“I know that one, too,” said Tepua, indicating another parakeet whose feathers shone in scarlet and emerald green. “The Arioi legends mention him. He is A’a-taevaeo, the shadow of Oro-of-the-red-girdle.”
“We have truly found it,” said Rimapoa, his growing sense of awe making him surprisingly uncomfortable. “The island of feathers!” Despite his words, his feeling of jubilation had almost vanished. There was more mana in this place than he had thought possible.
“I never expected the island to be so splendid. It has a sacred feel about it, Rimapoa. I know these birds of the high gods must not be disturbed. How can we—”
“Do not worry, tiare,” he said, giving the answers he thought about for so long. “We will find plenty of feathers on the ground. If we must pluck some from the birds, we will choose only those that are shadows of lesser gods.”
Then, as his gaze followed a black-tailed man-of-war bird swooping down to the edge of the water, he noticed the thing that he had expected—and did not wish to see. His brow began to sweat, far more heavily than when he had been steering the canoe across the reef.
Close to shore, on a prominent rise, stood a carved wooden post, held upright by blocks of coral. The faces cut into the weathered wood seemed to be glaring at him, warning him away. He blinked, wishing the unwanted thing would somehow vanish. Tepua spotted it at the same moment, her fingers trembling as she pointed.
“Yes, tiare, I see it,” he replied, trying to contain his frustration. “Some chief has placed a tapu on this shore. No one may gather feathers here.”
“Then what—”
“I knew we would find such a post, but it only applies to this one stretch of coastline. If we are out of sight of a tapu marker, then we may do as we please.”
She came up to him, her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed with doubt. “If we are forbidden to be here, then let us go to another place,” she said. “It is not worth the risk.”
“I have told you that we will break no tapu,” he answered, trying to keep the nervous edge from his voice. After all, the old man had warned him of the difficulty, and had hinted at a way around it. “You must trust me, tiare.” They turned from shore and began to walk toward the lagoon.
Soon Tepua saw a type of palm tree that she had known all her life, but had seldom seen in Tahiti. “Fara!” she cried, and ran to the pandanus, reaching up to embrace the thin trunk while her feet straddled its cluster of aerial roots.
While Rimapoa went ahead she twisted a lumpy fruit cluster from the tree. She used a piece of shell to pry off one of its cone-shaped sections, then began to suck on the juice at its base. She closed her eyes. With the familiar flavor filling her mouth and the sound of wind hissing through the leaves, she could almost imagine that she stood beside her father’s house.
The spell was broken when Rimapoa returned for her. “You don’t have to eat that,” he said. “We still have provisions and we can fish in the lagoon.”
“But I like this!” she protested.
“You get so little out of it. In Tahiti we eat fara only when there is nothing else.”
She shook her head and sighed. How could she explain to a high islander what fara meant to her people, giving both shelter and food? For a moment she recalled how, at home, men thatched roofs with the tough leaves, and women sat together, scraping starch from the cooked fruit to make a pudding called kapenu. If she built a fire here, she could make her own kapenu.
“I have found fresh water,” said Rimapoa. “That is more important. You will see other fara trees.” He led Tepua inland, over ground covered by long creeping vines, to a pit that had weathered out of the coral. Or perhaps someone had carved the hole. The thought that other people came here gave her goose bumps. She gazed down at the cistern, like so many she had seen on coral islands. Though the water would allow them to stay longer, she was not overjoyed. Despite Rimapoa’s assurances, the tapu post worried her. This was a lovely motu, as fine as any in her own atoll, but she did not want to remain here long.
Nonetheless, she could not refuse when Rimapoa urged her to explore with him. Turning toward the inner shore, they reached the blinding white sand at the edge of the
lagoon. Here she could see to the bottom of the clear water, where anemones waved lazily and brilliant fish flitted among the coral heads. The heat rising from the sand made her dizzy.
“We will spear fish here at night, by torchlight,” said Rimapoa. “That is the easiest way to catch them.” She gazed across the water, seeing only a few stretches of high ground about the lagoon. Most of the surrounding reef was submerged and barely visible. The motu they were standing on appeared to be the largest in the atoll.
This islet’s riches, she learned quickly, had already been claimed by others. Wherever she went with Rimapoa, they came across tapu signs warning them away. “Let us make a shelter,” the fisherman said in a tense voice. “Tomorrow we can explore the rest.”
When she woke the next morning, she found herself alone. Now she remembered how quiet and distant Rimapoa had seemed when they curled up for sleep the past night. For the first time since starting their journey, he had not wanted to make love. They had pressed against each other for warmth, but that was all.
Rimapoa was afraid of the island, though he would not admit it. How could she convince him to leave it after coming so far? She shook her head, crawled out from under the lean-to of branches, and began searching for a fara tree. Maybe, after she refreshed herself, she would think of something... But then she heard footsteps. “Come, tiare,” he called excitedly from behind her. “I have found a place where we can hunt feathers.”
They carried some of their supplies as he led the way back to the lagoon, then continued along its sandy shore. “There is no tapu mark here,” he said, sweeping his hand across a stretch of beach. Tepua did not like the nervous way he spoke, but agreed that she could not see one.
They moved into the shade, pressed the sticky gum they had brought onto the ends of several bamboo poles, then stood the poles upright in the ground. Any bird taking a perch would be trapped by the gum. Then Tepua strung the bow she had made days earlier. She checked to be sure that the wood was still springy and limber, and that no damage had been done by sun or sea. But she had no desire to shoot at birds. In Tahiti, as on her home island, archery was a sport, and arrows were never aimed at living things.
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