Late that morning three children rode up on horses. The two younger ones rode together—a round, wide-smiling girl and another more serious one on a handsome young piebald. The boy skidded up on a horse of his own. He was older, perhaps sixteen or so. At the sound of the arriving horses, each man perked up slightly. Howard stood and stubbed out his cigarette with haste, his shame returning momentarily so that he shoved the remainder in his pocket too roughly and waved at the smoke as if punching the air. Yoshio raised his head for only a moment before putting his hands together and lowering it again.
-Mr. Kaleohano! called the boy, one hand raised in greeting.
-Ah, my friend, Kahuna Pule. Little Preacher. Howard coughed, looked from side to side anxiously, and then shook the young man’s hand with vigor.
-My father wants to light the emergency signals on Mount Paniau, Little Preacher said, glancing at the pilot.
Howard paused, looking alarmed, and then his face broke out into his crooked-toothed smile. He waved one hand.
-Hanaiki worries too much. He’ll be like the old man Ben Kanahele if he doesn’t stop!
He kept smiling, but inside he thought how it was no good that the people were losing faith in Robinson, and that it was his job to stop that. He leaned toward Little Preacher and dropped his voice
-The Old Lord comes today, Little Preacher, he intoned. I assure you, by the rump of my chestnut horse, that he’ll pull up any minute now. I think I even see a speck out there. Look.
-You sure?
-Sure.
-And if no?
-If no, by early afternoon, then okay, go tell your father to light the lamps. But not until then. Mr. Robinson, he’ll come, not to worry. Stay for a while now, swim. Or just cool yourself in the warehouse. And tell the keiki to stop sneaking around out there.
With this last comment Howard jerked his head to the wall behind him.
There was a loud shuffle. A few seconds later the two girls appeared at the side of the door, looking solemn and sheepish.
The serious girl gave something to Howard and then approached Nishikaichi, avoiding his eyes, holding out a strange fruit, which he took and examined. It was heavy. It had thick, spiny skin. Leaves sprayed out from one end. He shook it. No sound. Holding on to one of its stiff leaves, he put his nose close and sniffed.
-Halakahiki, the girl said. Pineapple.
With two quick arcs of his knife, Howard cut his, the pieces falling away like petals. Yoshio watched the pilot stare at the flashing knife. Was he going to lunge for it? And if he did, what would Yoshio do?
Nishikaichi made his move then, but it was not what Yoshio expected. He voraciously jammed his teeth against the skin of the fruit in his hand. He bit hard and deep and Yoshio flinched from the sting he knew his gums would feel from the stiff, unforgiving rind. Yoshio watched as the young man tried to clamp his jaw shut and tear a bite away, but the fruit would not give. He heard a sound between a gasp and a giggle; the girls stared at the pilot with wide-eyed amazement.
-Skin isn’t for eating, said Yoshio gruffly.
The pilot shook his teeth free and then let the thing fall to the ground, where it thudded loudly and kicked up dust. Then he spat a few times and smiled sheepishly.
-No halakahiki in Japan, I see. Howard guffawed and continued to cut his fruit into pieces.
Little Preacher stood with his arms folded. His nickname came from his earnest pronouncement at a young age that he would be a minister, and he had grown into a serious young man, as anyone who had taken all the biblical stories of scourges and plagues too much to heart was bound to be. He didn’t find anything particularly funny in the stranger spitting out pineapple on the floor. In fact the stranger meant little to him at all. He had disliked the large, broken carcass of metal and rubber left in the Niihau field. Its charred smell and dark frame had reminded him of the devil himself, and it had spooked Little Preacher to stand guard next to it. Though he had originally been as intrigued as anyone else about the stranger who had fallen from the sky, now he couldn’t look at the stranded pilot without thinking of the archangel Gabriel tumbling through the clouds as he was banished from heaven. The sooner the man left the island the better, Little Preacher thought, turning from Howard to watch with the rest of them as the girls ran laughing into the water.
Nishikaichi said nothing until they were out of his sight. His face was flushed.
-I scared them, he said to Yoshio.
-Don’t worry, he responded. They don’t know any better.
Yoshio’s voice was nonchalant but inside his stomach had jumped. The sight of those children laughing, the way their hands flew up to their faces as shields and dismissive waves at once—it reminded him of days in California when children smirked at the sight of him, or backed away when he dared to smile. Once, in his first few days there, a small girl had asked him if he really ate the boys before the girls, and he had first thought it was a joke, but she had been solemn and unsmiling. He thought suddenly of Taeko, on the floor with shells under her tiny fingers, Irene nearby, her holoku swirling around her thin frame as she turned to look at him. What was the look? Accusatory? Pleading? He heard more laughter on the shoreline, and from the open door he could see the two girls slouched toward each other, arms akimbo, flailing with hilarity or mockery, he could not tell which.
Abruptly Yoshio turned to Howard. Be back, he said. He tried to keep his legs steady under him as he moved fast in the posture of someone heading to the bush to urinate, but it was all he could do to keep from falling to his knees. He stumbled into the bright sunlight. He turned left, to distance himself from the girls, needing to escape from their sound, needing to go far away, needing to have this whole thing be over, but knowing that it was up to him to make a decision, soon. At a clump of scrub beyond the wagon, he stopped and put his hands on his thighs to catch his breath. He wanted to vomit, and wondered if it would make him feel better. Instead, he walked unsteadily to the wagon and then lay in its stingy shade. He closed his eyes, hoping to block out California’s insistent, mocking roar.
People on Kauai had looked at him differently when he returned. He had lost weight and he spoke little and drank too much. They knew something had happened over there in California. Yoshio wanted to tell them that it was the endless march of small humiliations that cracked a man. But in his case, this was only partly true. There had been one final moment, as dark and narrow as an alley, as unforgettable as a kick in the ribs—yellow sissy—that had ultimately crushed him. Without this moment his sense of self would have been crimped and pockmarked by the ceaseless rain of stifled laughs, sideways looks, and spit, but even in pieces it would still be there. Instead, a whole part of him had fled. This was why he loved Niihau so much. She was eroded by constant winds, pounded by a merciless sun, trampled by cows and sheep. But she held up, always the same island every dawn, no matter how badly Mother Nature had treated her. Nonchalant, even scornful. Confident. But if the Japanese came? Perhaps it would be her own terrible moment, and he would see how she would endure.
He allowed himself a few more minutes under the wagon. Then he pulled himself up and leaned against its wooden sides. He would have to go back to the warehouse soon, he didn’t want to arouse suspicion. As he straightened and wiped the sweat from his brow, something caught his eye at the far end of the wagon. It was small and dark: the pilot’s flying cap.
It had stiffened in the sun, and one earflap had curled. Yoshio held it for a few moments; his fingers pressed the cracks of the leather, his eyes squinted at the decorative seams. He guessed the pelt that lined the inside was made of rabbit, but he couldn’t be sure. On its front he noticed a raised circle of leather, inside which was a small, five-pointed star. He ran a finger over it carefully, as if the sharp points might cut him. Then he dropped the flight hat on his fingertips and held it upward to get a better view, as it might look on a man’s head, allowing the earflaps to fall around his thumbs. Hung like this the cap seemed to exude power and certainty. It was the mantle of a man with a purpose. Yoshio glanced right and left, and then toward the warehouse. Well, no one would see him, and it wouldn’t hurt. He squatted behind one wheel and with a deft movement pulled the cap on his head.
He only let it rest there a little while. He wished he had a mirror, but wearing it was enough. When he reluctantly withdrew it from his head, his hands were no longer shaking. He left it where he had found it, and walked back to the warehouse, his step quicker and firmer than it had been, and something beginning to take hold in his heart.