by Bodie Thoene
“They aren’t content to take our land and destroy our constitution. They take pleasure in destroying lives. In tearing down the work of our hands. There are times it has made my faith falter. I pray and ask, ‘Where are You, Lord?’ ”
Hannah tossed a pebble into the pool. “The ripples of our faith, in spite of evil men who hate us, will touch eternity. We mustn’t give up, Kaiulani. We must continue to trust, no matter what. The devil really hates it that we, whose ancestors worshipped idols, are now Christians. The devil hates it that we cling to God, even though we are betrayed by the sons of missionaries.”
“It’s little comfort for me sometimes. I pray and wait for God to answer.”
“The answer is already written. Your prayers and faith in spite of cruel men will be God’s eternal answer to Thurston when he tries to enter heaven.”
“What good am I here?”
Hannah put her arm around Kaiulani. “This is the word of the Lord to you. I read it this morning: ‘Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance; he will come and save you.’ ” 27
Kaiulani shook her head in admiration. “You remember everything you read.” She tapped her heart. “You remember it here.”
“Only true things.”
Neither woman spoke for a long time. At last Kaiulani said, “What would my life have been like without you? You are the mirror of my soul.”
Hannah searched Kaiulani’s face. “Sometimes I can’t tell where your thoughts end and mine begin.”
“I’m coming to like it here. Maybe I don’t want to leave here, ever. You?”
Hannah hesitated for a long moment. “The truth?”
“Only the truth.”
“I’m homesick.”
“Home? This is home for now. Where’s a better place?”
Hannah turned her face skyward. “I’ve been dreaming of my mother lately. I recognize her from the photographs. But I think I’d know her anyway. ”
“Does she say anything?”
“Nothing. She just stands quietly smiling beside my bed. Gentle, kind eyes. Like she’s waiting for me. When I see her, I know I’m dreaming, and I don’t want to wake up. That’s what I mean when I say sometimes I just want to go home. Aloha me ka paumake. My love is with the one who is done with dying.”
Kaiulani replied, “Oh, but you can’t leave me, Hannah. I will not permit it! What would I do? How would I manage? I’d have no one to talk to.”
Hannah laughed. “Andrew comes once a week.”
“Not enough. Besides, he’s a man. Men are good for some things, but not all.”
“Well then, I promise I won’t go anywhere without your permission.”
* * * *
Fleecy clouds sailed past so close overhead they seemed touchable. Hannah and Kaiulani relaxed in wooden chairs on the lawn beside the king’s house, staring at the procession of vapors. As if the sky mimicked the sea, the clouds resembled a mass migration of whales. The illusion was palpable: Kaiulani felt she was swimming with the kohola of the clouds. Earth was no longer firm beneath her, but spun and twirled.
Dizzy, Kaiulani ducked her head. Though the day was pleasant, Hannah was bundled in sweater, cloak, and two blankets against a chill she could not seem to evade. A book, untouched, lay shut on her lap.
“Too cold here,” Kaiulani announced.
“Shall we go in?”
“No, I mean, here on the mountain. We need to get you back to a warmer part of the island.”
“Nonsense,” Hannah argued. “I’m much better. The air is so clean. I don’t want to leave.”
Hannah was improved since coming to Ulupalakua. She coughed less and slept better. But she simply was not regaining her strength fast enough.
Kaiulani studied the road leading down the mountain, then chided herself. Today was Andrew’s day to bring supplies. Her breath quickened at the thought. Ever since daybreak Kaiulani had watched for his arrival, though it would be at least noon before he came.
The certainty of that conclusion did not stop her from checking every few minutes to see if he was in sight.
Kaiulani scanned the hillside. Walls of coarse lava rock, built in bygone ages by unknown hands, snaked across the hillside to the west. They not only bordered fields but appeared to divide the mountain. Below were dry slopes covered in gorse and prickly pear thickets. Above were brilliant green grasslands, shading upward into gauzy mist.
Kaiulani couldn’t stop herself. Once again she studied the trail for Andrew. She felt her heart leap: two riders were silhouetted against the slope. With a certainty born of many rehearsed greetings, Kaiulani recognized Andrew by his straw hat and the way he sat the horse.
The other rider looked familiar too. “Hannah,” Kaiulani said with excitement. “Papa’s here. Papa came with Andrew!”
* * * *
Teakettle whistling on the stove, Papa Archie and Andrew gathered around the kitchen table with the two women. “I’m so glad to see you,” Kaiulani said to her father for the fifth time. “You’re not very good at letters, Papa,” she scolded.
When he did not react to her teasing, Kaiulani waited for the bad news she knew was coming.
“The U.S. has done it,” he said with a mournful shake of his head. “Annexation. President McKinley did what your friend Mister Cleveland prevented as long as he could. The Kingdom is no more. Even the so-called republic is gone. Hawaii is now American territory.”
There was stunned, grieving silence, broken at last by the scream of the teakettle. Hannah rose from her chair.
“I’ll go,” Andrew insisted, jumping to his feet. “You always make it too strong.”
Kaiulani’s eyes darted about the room. This day, this moment so long dreaded, had actually, finally arrived. Now visiting marines would be right to take a picture of the ex-princess. “How…how is the queen taking it?”
Archie’s face twisted into a grimace. “Still feisty as ever, I’ll say. The PG is trying to steal Crown property before the territorial commission makes final its decision about land. The queen has gone to Washington to fight them.”
“Good for her!” Kaiulani said staunchly. “As soon as Hannah’s better, I’ll go help her, if she wants me. After all, I’m in no danger now. I’m merely a private citizen. An American citizen,” she added with an expression of distaste.
To Kaiulani’s surprise, her papa shook his head.
Andrew, returning with the tea tray, took up the explanation. “There was an armed rebellion. Hawaiians, and haoles too—those opposed to the high-handed treatment of the queen—gathered near Diamond Head. They had weapons and anger, but no plan.”
“They were defeated?”
Archie nodded somberly. “Some killed. The rest rounded up and imprisoned. They may be hanged.”
“No! Oh, no, Papa!” Then Kaiulani said, “But I don’t understand. I wasn’t there, and I’m no longer the heir apparent. What threat can I be to Thurston now?”
Andrew said forcefully, “Remember the crowd who would have charged bare-handed into bayonets for your sake? Well, they still feel that way, Kaiulani, and Thurston knows it. With the queen away, you are, or could be, the main rallying cry for rebellion. Arrest would be the least you could expect if you returned to Ainahau now. You must stay here longer.”
Kaiulani peered with pleading eyes into her father’s face.
This time he did not melt to her wishes. “Andrew’s right,” he said. “Here where it’s safe.”
* * * *
The four played bridge, but without enthusiasm. It was a way to pass the time, to avoid speaking about annexation. That was all. It grew late. Papa and Hannah went to bed. Andrew went to check on the horses.
In her long white nightgown, feet bare, Kaiulani wandered among the trees dotting the Ulupalakua estate. Many had been brought by visitors to be planted here as gifts to the king—living mementos of other places, other worlds. Kai
ulani sheltered herself from the breeze churning up from the sea in the lee of a cherry tree donated by the Mikado, the emperor of Japan. A few paces farther she rested her hand on the rough bark of a plane tree, twin to many she had seen in London. The sapling was given to Kalakaua by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Her thoughts churned like the wind. Who was she, now that the monarchy was no more? She could not live here and be a recluse, of no use to herself nor anyone else. Moonlight revealed an antler-like clump of ferns growing in a crook of the plane tree’s branches. The tree, very English. The fern, very Hawaiian. They lived together amicably, it seemed, but one did not become part of the other. They still had recognizable, separate lives.
Was that how Kaiulani would always exist? Would she never be able to reconcile the Scots and the Hawaiian portions of her soul? One bit of her cried out for an ordinary, peaceful life. The other clung to a powerful sense of duty.
She turned at a footfall behind her.
Andrew stood beside the tall pine. “Saw you moving out here.” He stepped close. Close enough for Kaiulani to sense his nearness, his maleness. “You look like an angel. You are an angel.” He draped a shawl around her shoulders, adjusting it close around her neck. His hand caressed her face. “Kaiulani.”
She laid her index finger across his lips. “When can I go home? What is my life if I am only here? A moon shadow with no substance?”
When Andrew pulled her into his embrace, she did not resist. “It may be…a long time,” he admitted. “Until it’s safe.”
“But how can it ever be safe, unless I’m already dead? Buried here on the mountain, or truly buried in Mauna ala, next to Mama—what’s the difference?”
It was Andrew’s turn to hush her, which he did with a kiss. “There are things we don’t know yet. But what’s important in my life, in our lives, I’m now completely certain of.”
The moon sailed, untroubled, across the sky. Shadows of tree and fern blended into one.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Kaiulani could not endure waiting around the ranch house any longer. It had been almost a week since Andrew’s last visit. During all those days, it had rained. There had not even been a chance to go outside except to dash to the barn to feed the horses.
Andrew’s next arrival still lay another day ahead. Every facet of life, of duty and of probable futures, had been discussed with Hannah. Both women were weary of discussions that never had conclusions.
“We are in God’s hands,” Hannah urged. “We must be content in that.”
“I’m going riding,” Kaiulani declared. “Not far. I won’t be gone long. But I have to get out and clear my head.”
Hannah cast an anxious look at the sky. The incessant rain had stopped, finally, at dawn. Swollen dark clouds obscured the sky in every direction. “This is just a break in the storm,” she said. “Don’t go.”
Kaiulani frowned and ducked her chin. Taking her friend’s hands in hers, she said again, “I won’t go far. Please don’t worry. But I must get out or go crazy.”
“Then I’ll come too.”
Kaiulani shook her head. Both women knew Hannah was too weak to ride. “Stay here and get the stew cooking,” she urged. “I’m sure to be cold and famished when I’m done with my foolishness. Then you can say ‘I told you so’ over a hot meal.”
The strawberry roan Kaiulani selected for the day was a stocky gelding named Lono. He was sure-footed over the rocky ledges and eagerly attentive to his rider. His ears pricked up at her approach, as if agreeing with the need to stretch and move.
The trail Kaiulani selected was a curving path circling Haleakula. It was not even a trail, much less a road. Lono picked his way carefully, but stones loosened by the torrents clattered beneath his hooves.
Kaiulani’s destination was a cinder cone, a volcanic outcropping that stood out against the mist-shrouded horizon like a black fang. According to legend, the rocky tooth marked the beginning of a trail leading over Haleakula’s summit. Centuries before, it had been the means of escape from attacking foes.
“Get up, Lono,” Kaiulani urged. “Escape. That’s what we want.”
No more than halfway to the cinder cone the skies opened, and the rain began again, heavier than before. The downpour was like a solid gray wall of water. The trail disappeared from sight no more than three paces before and behind.
Kaiulani pulled the slicker around her shoulders and retied the cord securing her hat. Horse and rider bent their heads into the storm.
No jumping of rock walls today, Kaiulani reminded herself. This was no canter in the English countryside.
Lono walked delicately over rock ledges. Places where the trail descended, he placed his feet carefully and slowed his pace without Kaiulani’s urging.
Once he refused to move forward. Kaiulani peered into the sheets of rain. “Nothing there,” she said, studying a grassy mound. “What’s got you scared? Let’s get home.”
She tucked her heels into his flanks. Lono moved sideways but would not advance. “Get on with you,” Kaiulani said, kicking him in the ribs. “Get!”
The horse, trembling, took three strides forward.
And then the thin dome of weedy soil over the collapsed lava tube gave way, dropping horse and rider into a muddy pit.
Lono kicked as he floundered. Kaiulani leapt from the saddle to get away from the flailing hooves.
As she slipped and sprawled in the mire, Lono got to his feet first. Scrambling out of the pit, he took off down the trail toward home…alone.
* * * *
The rain hammered on the tin roof of the ranch house. Hannah’s view of the world beyond the lanai was like peering through a waterfall. The deluge fell without ceasing for half an hour, then got heavier and more violent.
“I know she turned around as soon as the rain started,” Hannah said to herself. “She’ll be back soon.”
The waiting stretched into an hour. The princess had been gone far too long already.
Hannah sniffed the air. In the inattention of her anxiety she had let the stew burn.
While she was salvaging supper, she heard a horse whinny that was answered by a chorus of neighs from the stable. “Good,” she remarked aloud. Heaving a great sigh, she threw a cloak over her head and went to the door.
Outside, pawing nervously at the lawn, was Lono…riderless. His flanks and belly were covered with dark red streaks. Hannah felt her head swim. She put a hand to the railing to steady herself, then called into the torrent, “Kaiulani! Are you there? Kaiulani, answer me!”
Pausing only to slide her feet into boots, Hannah dashed out to seize Lono’s trailing reins. Touching the animal’s flank, Hannah’s palm came away red. “Mud,” she muttered to herself. “It’s just lava mud.”
Heedless of the rain that poured down the collar of her cloak, drenching her to the skin, Hannah mounted Lono and cantered out of the yard. “Show me,” she urged the horse. “Take me to her.”
The double set of fresh hoofprints were overflowing puddles of rainwater. There was no doubt about the right trail. But how far had Kaiulani gone? Was she injured? Was she knocked unconscious?
Every few yards Hannah cried, “Kaiulani! Where are you?” All too soon her voice was reduced to a quavering croak. “Oh, please, God. Help me find her!”
Heaps of lava rock took the form of goblins looming up in the downpour. The arms of a clump of prickly pear cactus ordered her to halt.
Shivering uncontrollably, Hannah pressed on up the mountain. Her clothing clung to her body, offering no further protection against wind or water.
Another ghostly shape appeared out of a solid wall of water. It gestured at Hannah with red-streaked arms and shook its mud-curdled hair. “Hannah,” she heard Kaiulani call, “I’m here. Here.”
Hannah could not speak. With lips tightly clamped against a pain that seemed to be crushing her chest, she agreed to stay in the saddle and let Kaiulani lead the horse toward home.
* * * *
How could An
drew get up the mountain? Hannah needed a doctor soon!
Rain pelted the roof of the house. Hannah, eyes glassy and clenched teeth chattering, stared into the roaring blaze of the fireplace.
Kaiulani tossed another log on the fire. The room was stifling, yet Hannah could not get warm. She laid yet another quilt over Hannah. “Better?”
Hannah shook her head. “I—am—freezing—to—death.” She convulsed with coughing.
Kaiulani knelt beside her. “Oh! Oh my sweet girl. My darling girl.” She put her cheek against Hannah’s. It was clammy, cold like death. “Please, Jesus! Jesus!”