Sister of the Sun (5 page)

Even on the lands of Varoa and Rongo Clans many people waved, and hailed her as their high chief. She wondered about the people who refused to accept her. What would they do?
 

 

 

 

THREE

 

At midmorning several days later, on the seaward side of the island, a stiff wind was blowing. It came from the northeast, flinging spray and fine sand that stung Paruru's lips. The chief warrior stood on high ground, gazing past the white line of breakers where the sea pounded the outermost reef. Closer in, scattered about the barren tidal zone, lay tumbled blocks of pink and gray-white coral.
 

The tall coconut palms that lookouts climbed stood just behind him. Paruru had been summoned because of a sighting. He waited now while his men got a better look.
 

Shortly he heard a voice calling from the closest tree. "Canoe afar!" He frowned, glancing seaward, though he did not expect to spot anything from the ground. Then he looked up at the small figure high above him, clinging just below the fronds. "Who else sees it?" he called back.
 

For a moment there was a no answer. Perhaps this was a mistake, but he dared not dismiss it. What would Tepua think if he could not warn her of incoming canoes?
 

When he had gone to bring her home, he had never suspected that she was to be made chief. Often during the journey he had gazed at her, hoping for a glance in return. His own wife's spirit had long since gone to the ancestors, yet he had not found a woman to take her place.
 

He remembered how Tepua's black hair glistened as it tumbled in waves around her smooth and supple shoulders. He recalled the rich brown of her eyes and the proud way she walked. Were she not chief, how eager he would be for her caresses!
 

Paruru's sister, Heka, had pointed out what a fine pair they would make. Heka understood nothing about men! It was bad enough that his sister was head of his own clan, which resided principally on a separate islet of the atoll. If Tepua took him as her consort, then a woman would rule his household, his clan,
and
his tribe.
 

He could not imagine such a life. Even so, he found himself constantly thinking about ways to please his new chief. If visitors were coming, he would make sure that she had plenty of warning.
 

"Canoe! I see it!" came a second lookout's voice.

"Traders?" Paruru called back eagerly, feeling a tingle of anticipation. Traders from other islands were always welcome, not only because of the goods they carried. They would bring new songs and tales from afar. Paruru would get his share of attention when he told the visitors about his recent long voyage to Tahiti.
 

He knew another possibility, far less pleasant. The raiders known as Pu-tahi had been sighted recently in nearby waters. They might be coming to his own atoll seeking spoils again—or human flesh for their ovens.
 

Scowling, Paruru shaded his eyes and peered once more at the horizon. He wished he could mount a force to stand against the Pu-tahi. His own men, brave as they were, had never proved a match for the ferocity of the raiders. Too many lives had been lost in fighting them.
 

If the man-eating enemies came again, he knew that he would have to withdraw. The clans would take to their canoes and hurry to distant islets of the lagoon. Perhaps the Pu-tahi would be content to plunder the abandoned houses. Or perhaps they would seek out stragglers, the weak and the old, taking them back as offerings to their gods....
 

"What kind of canoe?" he asked impatiently. When the men did not answer, Paruru decided to look for himself. He picked up a plaited climbing loop that someone had left on the ground. Choosing an unoccupied palm that leaned away from him, he stretched the band between his feet, grasped the tree with both hands and jumped onto its base, gripping with the callused arches of both feet. Bracing the loop against the ridged trunk for added support, he began to climb, pulling himself up in a series of bounds.
 

Paruru had once been the fastest tree climber among the island youths, but his spare frame had long since filled out. The extra flesh, as well as reduced practice, had hurt his agility. Today he felt even slower than usual. He hoped that the younger men did not notice.
 

When he reached the top, he saw the lookout in the next tree gesturing toward the horizon. Paruru squinted and followed the other's extended fingers. At first he could see nothing, but he did not wish to admit that the young man's eyesight was keener than his own. Then a white dot appeared, trembling against the blue sky.
 

"Sails!" Paruru said. An insect crawled across his bare foot. It made an annoying tickle, but he forced himself to concentrate on the distant horizon. Had the canoe vanished, heading in some other direction? No, there it was again on the crest of a blue-gray mound of ocean.
 

"I see just one boat," said the lookout. "A lost fisherman or a lone visitor."

Paruru hoped that the young man was right. "Do not be too quick to decide," he cautioned. "It may be the lead craft of a war fleet."
 

The dot on the horizon grew steadily larger and its appearance more puzzling. The boat seemed to wallow excessively on a sea that had only moderate swells.
 

The lookout apparently had made the same observation. "It cannot be Pu-tahi," he said. "Pu-tahi would not be thrown around so. And the sail is very strange."
 

"Remember how tricky Pu-tahi can be," said Paruru. "I heard they once pretended to be dismasted and adrift. After they reached shore, they did not even bother with the usual ceremonies. They treated the captured men like clams—cut up their flesh and hung it to dry in the sun."
 

"
Aue
!'' said the lookout in dismay as Paruru continued to study the approaching vessel. He had seen many kinds of craft during his lifetime and had become expert at identifying them from afar. It was part of a warrior's training.
 

Each atoll had its own variation on the double-hulled
pahi
and the single-hulled outrigger canoe—the
vaka
. He had seen these from all angles, in all possible conditions, from the fresh timber and clean lines of a new vessel to the weathered and battered hull of a derelict. He grew frustrated and then alarmed as he realized that the oncoming vessel looked totally unfamiliar.
 

Then he heard the lookout gasp. "This cannot be possible,
kaito-nui
! The canoe has a single hull, but no outrigger."
 

Paruru strained his eyes to see the shape of the vessel beneath the billowing sail. At first he thought that the outrigger float had broken away. But how could a canoe stay balanced without one, especially with such a large expanse of sail? He remembered watching a
vaka
that lost its outrigger when worn lashings suddenly parted. The wind's force had laid the craft right over.
 

"Only the gods could hold such a
vaka
upright." Paruru glanced to the adjacent tree and saw that the lookout's lips were trembling.
 

"We must run," said the youth, "and summon the high priest. The
marae
must be cleansed, the offerings chosen.
Aue! Aue
! The gods are coming!"
 

Paruru ordered the young man to be silent, but his own thoughts were in turmoil. Could this indeed be a vessel bringing divine ones to the atoll? Was this the event that the
ringoringo
had foretold?
 

Paruru knew how fickle the gods could be, benevolent and savage by turns. He recalled a tale about Oro that he had recently heard in Tahiti. When the god first visited that high island, he came in a rage, wasting the land and forcing its people into hiding.
 

But another thought kept returning to the warrior's mind as he watched the ungainly craft. Would gods disgrace themselves by sailing so poorly?
 

He could not answer this question and he certainly could not remain up this tree, like a bewildered coconut picker, while the unknown canoe approached his island.
 

He descended so hurriedly that his warrior's girdle, a narrow, plaited belt around his waist, snagged and tore on the rough trunk. This insult to his badge of office was a bad omen, and blackened his mood as he strode out to find his warriors.
 

The men emerged from shade when he called them, hurriedly laying their spears into the bottoms of outrigger canoes that were kept on the seaward shore. A gap in the breakers here allowed canoes to be launched directly into the sea.
 

With shouts and the scraping of wood against stone, the canoes were hoisted up and run into the pounding surf. Spray glistening on their sun-blackened bodies, the men scrambled into the slender hulls and paddled frantically to get out. Paruru joined the melee, leaping into the bow of the largest
vaka
. He felt his canoe leap forward as the paddlers bent to their strokes.
 

To either side he saw the prows of the other canoes following in a tight formation behind his. Bucking on the rollers, his flotilla arrowed swiftly toward the invader. Now he could see how truly strange the craft was.
 

Its hull, painted dull red, was as wide as a man is tall and five times longer. The vessel bore no outrigger float, nor any trace of ever having had one. The huge sails flying from the single mast were not made of the stiff plaited mats used by all islanders. They appeared smooth and flexible, billowing out in the wind like enormous pieces of Tahitian bark-cloth. Yet no type of bark-cloth that Paruru knew could hold up to gusts and water without shredding.
 

Sails hung where he had never seen them—great three-sided sheets fastened to a pole that stuck forward from the prow. The wind made these sails bulge like a pregnant woman's belly.
 

He heard a cry of disbelief from Two-eels, the warrior behind him. Two-eels was a sturdy young man, a fierce fighter and an able leader of his own kaito group. "An outriggerless
vaka
that does not capsize! Cloth sails that do not tear! What kind of vessel is this?" he asked Paruru.
 

The
kaito-nui
stared ahead, his eyes narrowing. Such signs spoke of magic. Yet, as he watched, the boat lurched and wallowed in the swell, losing the wind. Gruffly he answered, "Gods may have made that vessel, but it is not a god who sails it."
 

Two-eels agreed, and then Paruru remembered something he had heard while traveling among the northern atolls. Now and again, strange moving islands had been sighted, islands fitted with huge billowing wings. Canoe-masters thought that these might be great
pahi
from afar. The moving islands were said to be as high as the tallest coconut palms, yet able to remain upright in the water.
 

Such miraculous things seemed scarcely to belong within the world of man, yet Paruru had heard that they were surprisingly flawed. Sometimes these winged visions met with accidents at sea. They fell prey to underwater coral banks, hazards that every seafarer knew to avoid.
 

Recalling the tales, Paruru scrutinized the oncoming vessel. Though far smaller, it fit descriptions he had heard, and it, too, shared the flaw. It was not heading for the pass, as he had assumed earlier, but on a collision course with the reef!
 

Paruru shouted at his men to paddle faster, then cupped his hands to his mouth and called a warning to whatever fool might be steering the strange boat. For answer he heard only the washing of the sea and the cries of gulls. The craft held its course.
 

Spray soaked Paruru's back, and a gust of wind chilled him. Behind him, Two-eels muttered about ghosts. Paruru stiffened as he considered grim possibilities. If the canoe carried corpses, then their angry spirits might still be close by, ready to attack anyone who approached. He would be better letting the reef have such a vessel....
 

"
Aue
!" came Two-eels's cry.
 

Paruru, too, had seen it—something moving beneath the other boat's sail. A crouching figure. A head, shoulders, arms, hands. He heard the paddlers arguing among themselves.
 

"What is that?"

"Shaped like a man ..."

"A man with blue arms?"

"The blue part is clothing," said one of the older paddlers. The others laughed in scorn.

Paruru sided with the scoffers. What were all those wrinkles, wattles, strips, and flaps hanging off the body? The figure looked more like a kelp-plastered sea creature than a man.
 

The face had two eyes and a mouth, but the nose stuck out like a bird's bill. The skin was darkened unevenly. The eyes stared wildly from within deep hollows. Hair the color of sun-bleached grass stood up in spikes and tangles about the head.
 

The figure's motions did not seem human. It lurched, stumbled, groped. When the mouth opened, only a croaking groan came forth.

A figure out of nightmares, thought Paruru, and raised his arm to give the signal to veer away. At that moment the apparition leaned over the boat's hull, extending both blue arms in a beseeching gesture. A hand went to an open mouth, jabbing a finger frantically inward in a sign of desperate thirst.
 

Paruru sat frozen, his arm still raised. Gods and demons might suffer on their journeys, but never were they reduced to such begging wrecks as this. Despite the odd coverings, this creature before him had to be a man!
 

Even as the stranger made his appeal, his craft was taking him toward the frothing waters that pounded the reef. Paruru watched fear spread across the strange sailor's face as he finally realized his danger. Weakness made him clumsy as he struggled with the shaft of his steering oar. Paruru caught a glimpse of other men sprawled beneath the thwarts, but none rose to help.