Clark Turner threw his surfboard on the sand and unwrapped the leash from the fins, giving it a sharp tug to straighten it. He rubbed a bar of surf wax over the bare spots on his board and the rails, gave the bar a quick sniff, inhaling the faint coconut scent along with the plumeria perfuming the trade winds, put the wax in the pocket in his board shorts, and gave the flap a firm pat. It would be a good day to surf, he thought, and perhaps he would find more than good waves.
After fastening the leash around his ankle, Clark threw the board on the water and began the long paddle to the reef. The sun lazed its way to an evening liaison with the horizon, transforming the ocean into a great bronze cauldron. The wind had died down and the sea was smooth as glass, punctuated by large ripples that turned into breaking waves as they collided with hidden reefs.
Fairy terns performed an aerial ballet, and a honu surfaced nearby. The huge green turtle gulped air and dove to feast on seaweed. If Clark were lucky, maybe he would see a spinner dolphin twirling in ecstasy or a Hawaiian monk seal. Something friendly. Anything but a shark.
One surfer reigned over the lineup like a true alpha male. He sat the farthest out, nearest to where the largest waves rolled in from the deep beyond, surged, and broke over the reef. As Clark paddled nearer, he spotted the niho manō tattoo on the alpha male, the shark-tooth design snaking up his pectorals and over his shoulder, as if he were a warrior in the army of King Kamehameha, his only weapon a surfboard on which to conquer the ocean. Ikaika, Clark thought. His name, which meant “strong,” suited such a man.
“Hey,” Clark said as he arrived at the lineup. Three surfers nodded, one muttering a reflexive “Howzit, brah?”
Ikaika, a dozen yards away, remained silent. Surreptitiously, Clark observed him. It had been a long journey to get here: not the long paddle out, not the twenty-five-hundred-mile flight from Los Angeles, and not his three years of research, but the century of doubt.
In the same way the Hawaiians passed down their lineage through their genealogical chants, the story of Clark’s ancestor Job had been bequeathed to generations of Turners. His father had told Job’s saga to Clark over and over, never dreaming that the same obsession that had driven Clark’s multiple-great-grandfather would seize Clark like an ‘ie‘ie vine strangling a koa tree.
In 1826, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, a Christian missionary organization, had invited Job Turner to join a company sailing to the Sandwich Islands. He eagerly accepted. Like the other missionaries who journeyed to what is now called Hawai‘i, Job soon turned from saving souls to harvesting the fertile fields of sugar cane. While others prospered, Job’s crops never did well, and he was chronically poor. He blamed the locals, insulting the Hawaiians by calling them “lazy kānakas,” and sought a way to return to Boston with his dignity—and finances—duly enriched.
“Incoming.” Clark’s thoughts returned to the present and he watched as the surfer who had called out paddled toward the set wave that feathered on the horizon. But it was Ikaika, closer to the wave, who turned and caught it, slashing across the face, turning and climbing, cutting back, and finally disappearing behind a curtain of water in a near-perfect tube ride. He emerged with a punctuating fist in the air to the hoots of the other surfers, every bit the “numbah one surf brah” that Clark had heard he was.
As Ikaika paddled back to the lineup, Clark scanned the pali, the monstrous cliff face that soared hundreds of feet skyward, clawed by the elements over multiple millennia into sharp spines. The cliffs curved around an inhospitable stretch of coastline before cutting inland sharply, revealing a deep valley fronted by a beach of black sand. Many searched such cliffs over the years, Clark knew, but no one had yet discovered the hidden treasure rumored to exist in the pali, nor the mana, the spiritual power, that it would convey upon the one who unveiled it.
A warning shout of “E brah, incoming” startled Clark out of his introspection. A spitting wave fearfully above his comfort zone feathered in front of him. Clark turned, stroked for the wave, and felt his board rise. He hopped to his feet a scant second before the nose of the board purled, so that he careened into the wave headfirst. He sputtered as he came to the surface, only to have the second wave in the set break on him and drive him deep, his bare knee scraping the coral.
After a third wave stormed through, Clark crawled onto his board and paddled back to the lineup, water streaming from his nose. He sat up and used his right hand to block the decaying sunlight, the better to see the next set coming through and avoid any uncomfortably big waves. His knee throbbed.
“You watch da waves, brah, or you no belong here,” said a large Hawaiian with a shaved head. He pointed to Clark’s knee, which was oozing blood. “You bring bruddah shark, mo bettah you leave.”
Clark drew a deep breath and steadied himself. He wasn’t leaving yet; he was on a mission, one far different from the call Job Turner had answered. Clark had quit his well-paying engineering position in Los Angeles three years ago and taken a job as a waiter in Hawai‘i. He’d learned Hawaiian, spent endless hours hunting through Hawai‘i state archives, scoured the Hawaiian Historical Society Library and Bishop Museum records, and tracked down old stories and manuscripts. Once he’d identified Ikaika, a surf bum, as his prey, Clark had hunted for him wherever and whenever the surf broke well. He’d learned from other surfers that Ikaika could almost always be found here, despite better surf breaks closer to where he lived.
Ikaika narrowed his eyes when Clark approached and claimed a spot a few yards away. They sat on their boards, bobbing up and down as swells passed underneath. Occasionally Ikaika paddled a few strokes to realign as the waves pushed him out of position. Clark followed.
Clark scanned the horizon, thinking of the old tales he had read about the kingdom of Hawai‘i. One in particular held significance, and he had memorized it from a tattered book of Hawaiian lore: “As he lay dying, King Kamehameha called together all his chiefs to choose who among them would bury his bones. When they were gathered, he noticed that all were wearing feather capes, lei niho palaoa—carved whale-tooth pendants—and other ornaments. All except Ulumāheihei. ‘None of you shall bury me,’ Kamehameha said, ‘because you boldly flaunt the possessions of chiefs of the past that you have stolen from their bodies. Only Ulumāheihei, my friend, is worthy, and he shall bury my bones.’”
Clark had spoken Kamehameha’s words aloud.
Ikaika responded in a deep baritone. “Dat nice story. One I heard as keiki long ago.”
“A lot of folk tales have some truth in them,” Clark said.
Ikaika turned away from him, and Clark barely caught his reply. “Pela paha,” he said. Perhaps.
Two surfers caught a wave that had broken and re-formed closer to shore, its remnants dragging across the reef. They hooted and hollered and high-fived each other when their boards were close enough. Clark realized how far the light had faded as he watched the surfers paddle to shore. Surfing in Laguna Beach, Clark had often stayed out past sunset to catch one last killer wave, once surfing by the light of a full moon. There, he had never been fearful of what might come out at night, but here… A cold dread enveloped Clark’s neck and shoulders. He forced himself to turn and speak to Ikaika’s back.
“I know this tale is true. You see, my ancestor Job Turner didn’t read it in a book of Hawaiian stories. He heard it from the son of Ulumāheihei more than a century ago.”
Ikaika said nothing.
The sun continued its languorous slump to the sea, and the clouds darkened above. When a head-high wave approached, Ikaika turned to look at Clark and gave a small nod: the wave was Clark’s to take.
Determined not to wipe out again, Clark paddled vigorously, checking the wave over his shoulder and giving a last dig at the water before the wave picked him up. He pushed his arms up, arched his back, and popped to his feet, drawing a line toward the cliffs, his body dwarfed by their massiveness. A startled honu flapped a flipper at him before diving. Only after he kicked out of the wave did Clark become aware that his knee still throbbed. He slowly paddled out to where Ikaika sat.
“Maika‘i. Nice wave. Mo bettah den last.”
“Not as good as your wave, Ikaika.”
Ikaika gave him a long look. “You talk story. You know my name. What you want?”
Clark looked away for a moment, collecting his thoughts. He was about to speak when a dorsal fin broke the surface, then another. Panic gripped him, then quickly evaporated as he heard a dolphin exhale, then another, and then all of them in a symphony of breathing.
Ikaika laughed. “Naia, not manō. Surfah should know dolphin from bruddah shark. Now, what you want?”
“To tell you the rest of the story about Kamehameha.”
“What can haole boy tell me about da great king?”
“I may not be a native, but I can tell you about our ancestors—yours, Ulumāheihei Hoapili, and mine, Job Turner—and the bones of Kamehameha.”
Ikaika remained silent, but he didn’t turn away.
Clark rubbed the oozing blood from his knee. “My ancestor Job heard the story of Ulumāheihei,” he said. “It was said that the bones of Kamehameha—much less the feather cape, the lei niho palaoa, and his other possessions—would bring mana—spiritual power—to whoever could find them. But Job was poor and only interested in the money he’d get by selling the artifacts. So he shadowed Kekoa, the son of Ulumāheihei. Job watched Kekoa as a Hawaiian hawk watches the field for rats.”
“Den what?”
“Job followed Kekoa to the cliffs where the bones of King Kamehameha were hidden.” Suddenly, Clark saw the truth. “These cliffs. He followed Kekoa to these cliffs.” That’s why Ikaika came here all the time, Clark realized. ‘Ae, ua akamai au. Yes, I am clever; I knew talking to Ikaika would help me find the bones.
“He mo‘olelo ‘olu‘olu—nice story. Are many places where da bones of ali‘i are said to be: Moku‘ula and da Iao Valley on Maui, Kona on Hawai‘i, and Ka‘a‘awa on O‘ahu. Many have looked for da bones of Kamehameha. Many places, much time. A‘ohe mea—dey find nothing,” Ikaika said, spitting out the last words in anger.
“The history of my ancestor Job has been handed down to me. Just as Ulumāheihei’s tale has been passed down to you. These match the cliffs that Job wrote about in his notes. Here is where Kekoa came on the anniversary of Kamehameha’s death and here, on this beach, is where Job died. His widow, Emily, returned to Boston, bringing with her Job’s diary.”
“My ‘ohana, we also speak of dis, from my kupuna down to my father. Job—Ioba, we call him—he nevah let up on my ancestor Kekoa. Ioba stuck to Kekoa like ‘opihi stick to rock. Ioba, he follow Kekoa—”
“Kekoa killed him to protect the secret.”
“No, Ioba, he take canoe to da cliffs, he try to climb but fell into sea. A manō—a shark, an ‘aumakua—made sure Ioba did not live.”
“You blame a shark for the death of Job?”
“Not shark—‘aumakua, da spirit of our ancestors. ‘Aumakua can take da form of a shark, owl, octopus. ‘Aumakua protect us kanaka from dos who harm them.”
Clark looked around and shivered. The sun was about to drop below the horizon and the moon was a sliver: too small to provide light to surf by. Only he and Ikaika remained in the water. It was long past time to leave.
Clark studied the waves, waiting for one to take him in. Ikaika was doing the same. Clark’s mind was awhirl. He knew the bones were here, somewhere in the lava cliffs. A small cave perhaps, or… Clark recalled snorkeling on the Nāpali coastline of Kaua‘i, inaccessible except by hiking or canoe. He had slipped beneath the water and headed toward the cliffs where he found himself in a cavern with water the color of exquisite turquoise.
“A lava tube,” Clark said, amazed he hadn’t thought of it before, suddenly certain he knew where to find the bones. “A local told me that this area has many lava tubes. It’s so shallow near the cliffs that one could easily place bones in a lava tube and block the entrance with rocks.” He smiled at Ikaika. “I think I’ll come back here tomorrow and do some snorkeling, maybe find a bit of treasure.”
There was too little light to read Ikaika’s features, but Clark could feel strong emotions roiling from him, like the spray of a giant wave, booming on the reef.
“Kamehameha bones kapu, sacred. Da ancestors nevah let you take dem.” Ikaika swung his surfboard toward shore and caught a wave Clark had not seen in the darkness.
Suddenly Clark’s board lurched as something hit it from below. He grabbed the rails to steady his board, but there was no steadying his heart. As he turned in desperation to catch the next wave, the last light of the sun glinted on a sharp triangle scything across its face.
“Shark!” he screamed. “Help me!”
He heard Ikaika’s fading voice in the distance.
“No can, brah. Dis manō da ‘aumakua of Kamehameha.”
Maddi Davidson is the pen name for two sisters: Mary Ann Davidson, who lives at the foot of the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, and Diane Davidson, who resides a stone’s throw from the Tysons Corner shopping mall in Virginia. Together they have published three novels in the Miss Information Technology Mystery series, a nonfiction book on women in soccer (Kicking Grass, Taking Games), and numerous short stories in magazines and anthologies. Their stories range from the murder of a deranged scientist resurrecting the dodo to a spurned wife hacking the pacemaker of an ex-husband who richly deserved it. https://maddidavidson.com/