On Friday evening Robinson fell asleep in a kitchen chair while reading a book on botany. His nose lay on Camellia sinsensis, but his thumb was fifty pages forward, on Flora mona-censis. He woke to a banging on the door. Thinking it was the army officer with news at last, he sprang from the chair and threw the door open. Foreman Shanagan stood panting on the doorstep.
-They’ve lit a signal fire, he stammered. Lester’s boy told me he heard it in town and I went’a see for myself and sure enough, it’s blazing. Something’s wrong if they’ve abandoned the kerosene lamps and gone for a fire. Let’s take the boat out now, Mr. Robinson. Navy be damned!
Robinson grabbed his hat and coat. He whistled for a stable hand to saddle up his favorite horse.
-We can’t take a boat, warned Robinson. They’ll shell us from the air.
-But…
Robinson shook his head and put out a hand to calm his ranch manager.
-Stay here. I’m going to the base.
The MP at the gate shone a flashlight first at his horse’s face and then at Robinson’s own. Back to the horse. Another mainland haole, thought Robinson, about to make a crack about cowboys and Indians. For the past two days, they had come in droves, stuffed into the cargo planes that arrived hourly. The planes were large-bellied beasts with huge wingspans that heaved and groaned on landing, as if defying gravity was, in the end, too tiring. Once the men were disgorged, their pale skin and unstreaked hair marking them as mainlanders, the machines squatted on the tarmac in long, dark rows, like crows waiting for carrion. Then they lifted off again, bound for the next load.
The MP didn’t make a crack, just waved him in. He recognized Mr. Robinson from his other futile trips to the base.
Just after midnight, on Niihau, six men did what their Old Lord could not. They pushed a boat into the water. Anyone nearby might have thought it was just the quiet antics of night animals—the snuffle of a swimming monk seal, the splash from a school of passing fish. The men knew how to be quiet, having hunted for years with only a knife and a nose faced into the breeze.
There was but one set of oars and Howard volunteered to go first. He rowed quickly for a few minutes, from the excitement and adrenaline and a real fear that perhaps they would be fired upon. The others watched Niihau slowly recede, a low-slung shadow on a light gray ocean. The bonfire was no longer lit, and the waning moon meant the stars were brilliant. Quickly the initial adrenaline it had taken to run to the beach, gather the oars and a jug of water, and drag the boat along the sand disappeared. The men turned to one another in bewilderment.
-We sure about this? Captain said. He would be the navigator to Kauai.
-My wife’s pregnant, another said. I shouldn’t leave.
Someone coughed.
-The Old Lord will be angry.
-Yes, agreed someone else. Better if we wait for Mr. Robinson to come to us.
Howard dropped the oars so that they slapped suddenly against the water.
-No choice, he hissed indignantly. No one’s coming to help, we’re on our own. What’s to fear, our kupuna have done this for centuries. Even our grandmothers helped to row. You talk like this, their spirits cry in shame!
-That was in an outrigger canoe. Not some haole contraption, mumbled Captain.
Someone laughed. Howard did then too. He slapped Captain’s knee.
-You guide us there safely, we take turns rowing. Easy as herding cattle. You’ll see.
Captain navigated by the stars. He used Akau in the Large Bear, and then as it rose, the Cat’s Cradle. Once a pod of whales swam by, exhaling loudly. Early on, when the men were still relatively fresh, Howard told stories, and invariably they were exaggerated, and he felt especially glad when one or more of the men scoffed and told him it wasn’t true. In the dark and the wind, a small argument would break out and they would forget their aches and their blisters and their fear. And he prayed. He prayed that they were doing the right thing, he prayed for safe passage, but mostly he prayed that the water would stop splashing over the gunnel, soaking them all. He was wet and cold. Cold! he thought. When was the last time a Niihauan complained of cold? Despite his growing misery, or perhaps because of it, his senses sharpened; the tilled-soil smell of Kekuhina’s sweat was distinct in the wind, he heard the tiny scratch of a misaligned oarlock. At one point while it was his turn to pull on the oars, he thought of horses, and then, for no reason, the thick taste of condensed milk. His hands burned from blisters. Now and then the air suddenly smelled of peppermint and he thought he saw a shark swimming just to one side, a broken, refracted shadow that slipped in and out of the dipping oars. All the men had long fallen silent, and only the occasional guttural windup of saliva aimed carefully overboard broke the wind’s moan and the rustle of the water.
Back on the beaches of Niihau, villagers pulled Kalima into a cave and untied his hands.
-They’re gathering enough ammunition to kill each one of us, gasped Kalima.
-They’ve got Little Preacher? someone cried.
-Lord have mercy! Little Preacher’s mother began to sob.
The villagers spoke at once, until Kalima finally raised his hand and said, Enough!
Ella sat in the shadows to one side of the cave and listened to Kalima’s story with a growing horror. Her right leg was beginning to go numb. She closed her eyes to try to sleep but saw only the plane, rising like a wounded animal, with Mrs. Harada on its back.
-We can sneak back and steal the guns, said Kalima. Who’s with me? Ben?
Ben didn’t answer. He sat on his haunches at the cave opening. His arms were wrapped around his knees, his head was erect, and he stared outward to the sea.
-Ben? They have guns, but we know the island. We could steal the cart—
-Heard you, Ben interrupted.
Kalima was silent. He ran a finger along the dirt in quick, nervous movements.
-Who would think, Mr. Harada, Ben said quietly.
-No one was more surprised than me when he stuck out that gun.
-He’s being forced by the pilot.
-Believe me, he looked like he enjoyed it. Almost broke Little Preacher’s spine, the gun into his back like that. He kept saying beg, beg, and laughing a kind of crazy laugh.
Ben sighed.
-Okay, he said, pushing himself carefully to his feet. His hips hurt, his back was stiff. His head was light with hunger and thirst. We go.
Nishikaichi stared at the coils of ammunition on the floor of the cart. He picked one up and felt its weight. Once the guns had been successfully removed from the plane, they had let Little Preacher go. He would be of little use, and his frightened prayers had only agitated Yoshio even more.
-We’re going to have to nail this down somehow, he said jiggling the gun and frowning.
-You shoot that?
-Maybe.
Yoshio looked at its thin, dangerous snout, its splayed legs. The shotgun was ominous enough, the machine gun gave him the veritable shivers.
-None of the Niihauans are armed.
-So you say.
Yoshio laughed bitterly.
-If you knew Robinson, you’d believe me. You think he wants guns in the hands of children? Robinson views all the Niihauans as children.
The pilot shrugged.
-I am well aware of the ai that a superior feels for his inferiors. Funny, isn’t it, how much your island here is like Japan.
He looked at the machine gun.
-This will help us destroy the plane. For now, let’s find those papers.
Nishikaichi strode down the dirt road toward the church once more. Yoshio ran to catch up.
They both saw the light in the third house. Guns in hand, they entered, Yoshio calling loudly in warning to drop all shovels and knives, lest they be shot without remorse. There by the lamplight sat old Mrs. Huluwani, a woman Yoshio barely knew because she couldn’t walk and rarely left her home. She read the Bible by lamplight. She looked at them calmly when they entered.
-Are you going to shoot her? asked Yoshio in a strangled voice as the pilot raised the shotgun. He looked wildly from the gun barrel to the old woman.
-Ke Akua ke hiki ke pepehi, said Mrs. Huluwani evenly. Only God can kill. She looked back down at her Bible.
-What did she say? asked Nishikaichi.
-She said—she said nothing here, no papers. Yoshio licked his lips. Come on, we go.
Nishikaichi raised the gun and fired it into the ceiling. Mrs. Huluwani didn’t move her eyes from the page, nor did her hand jerk quickly to her throat. It was as if she had heard nothing, and Yoshio thought, after he rose a second later from the crouching position he had flung himself into, that she was deaf, or that there was something to her devout faith in her God that allowed her an implacability he would never understand.
Nishikaichi turned on his heel and left. Yoshio bent over and waited for his heart to stop pounding.
-I’m sorry, so sorry, sorry, he murmured to the old woman as he backed out of the house.
He could see the shadow of Nishikaichi beyond the porch. He stumbled down the stairs. He would say something. This craziness had to stop. But as he approached, Nishikaichi raised his gun to the stars.
-Should I shoot down another plane, Harada-san? And he fired.
Yoshio dropped to his knees again and waved his arms.
-We’ll check the Kanaheles’ house, he begged. Perhaps the papers are there. Then the Niaus’ house. We’ll check that too. Just stay calm, Nishikaichi-san. Please.
But they found nothing. By the fourth house Nishikaichi had sunk into an expressionless trance. He said they would return to destroy the plane.
But when they got to the cart, the ammunition was gone. The machine guns were useless now. Nishikaichi howled in frustration and let himself kick the dirt in a rare display of boyish temper. Then he put his head in his hands, breathed once or twice, and when he next raised his head his expression was still and unreadable, shadowed into a strange geometry by the lantern at his feet. Yoshio felt the small hairs rise on his neck.
-We burn it all, Nishikaichi said.