Daughter of the Reef (10 page)

Let them call me a thief for that
, he thought defiantly as he knelt, lowering the taper so he could study the deep footprints that Tangled-net had just made. He needed no more help from this clan of thieves and liars. With the light he could backtrack along Tangled-net's trail.
 

It took him a short time to reach the collapsed shelter, and there he found a second set of tracks. As he studied them he remembered how small and delicate Tepua's feet were.
 

Now he noticed that the moon had risen over the heights and was almost full. Tossing aside the taper, he began to sprint down the wooded slope. Ahead he heard the distant crashing of surf against the reef.
 

He lost the trail and paused outside a thatched hut. “Have you seen a woman running?” he called. Light flickered through the doorway, but he heard no answer. “I think she came this way.”
 

A face appeared. A heavyset man. “You crazy fish stealer! Why are you bothering us?”

“Just tell me if you heard anything.”

“There was a pig snuffling around.”

“Oh, tell him so he'll go away,” said a female voice.

The man at the doorway turned and made an angry gesture at his wife inside. Then he pointed over his shoulder. “We heard footsteps going that way. Might have been a woman or a girl. Someone as foolish as you. Who else would be out on this night?”
 

Rimapoa did not wait to hear what else the man might say. He charged down the slope and toward the beach. Here moonlight shone brightly, gleaming on the wet shore. Catching no sight of Tepua along the beach, he stopped to search again for footprints.
 

In a few moments he found a fresh set of her tracks. He followed them, trying to read what he could from their appearance. In one place she had stumbled and fallen. Then she had gone inland a short way...
 

Suddenly he saw the twin furrows, one broader and deeper than the other, crossing the sand and leading into the water.
The marks of an outrigger canoe
! “Tepua!” he bellowed. Unwilling to believe that she was gone, he searched to see if her trail continued past him, but found nothing.
 

“Tepua!” With growing dismay, he scanned the phosphorescent surf. Then, as he gazed far down the beach, he noticed a lone swimmer struggling to reach shore. Could it be her so far out? He began to sprint across the sand.
 

As Rimapoa drew closer he saw a waterlogged canoe adrift, and then he caught a glimpse of Tepua's anguished face. What was she doing in the water? The fisherman splashed into the surf and dived under, stroking hard to reach her. When he paused to catch a breath and fling wet hair from his eyes, he realized that she was not out there alone.
 

When he saw the fins of the first shark, he felt a stab of fear. When he caught sight of the second, he froze, his heart striking the inside of his chest like an adze hollowing out a canoe.
 

Suddenly he began to roar in grief. Why had his guardian spirit permitted this calamity? Now the fisherman knew he must swim for shore. In a moment Tepua would be gone. And once the sharks scented her blood, they would go into a frenzy, attacking anyone in the water.
 

But something held him there, breasting the swells, watching. He had seen how sharks took prey. They arrowed straight for their victim, bumping the quarry with their snouts before striking. These behaved differently. The pair came alongside Tepua, nudged her, but did not bite.
 

Rimapoa heard a faint murmur and saw Tepua's hand move, as if she were welcoming them. He began to stroke again, his heart making the decision for him. Recklessly he swam toward her, splashing and shouting, hoping somehow to drive the creatures off. To his surprise, they retreated as he approached.
 

He got a good look at one and the image remained fixed in his mind. The long, slim, pointed snout. The dorsal fin set far back from the head. These were not ordinary sharks, but great blues, beloved of the gods. Usually they stayed at sea. Now they were here in the lagoon. What could that mean?
 

He seized Tepua's wrist, pulled her to him. She seemed dazed, and he thought she had almost given up her struggle to stay alive. He wrapped his arm around her neck and stroked for shore as hard as he could.
 

When he gained enough of a foothold on the gritty bottom to stand and lift the woman, he dared a glance back. Before he could stagger ashore with her, the two sharks suddenly sped toward him. Yet they did not touch him as they brushed past. They merely lingered a moment before turning and swimming away.
 

Trembling violently, he carried her up onto the beach. Great blue sharks, he knew, were sometimes inhabited by the gods. Indeed, at royal investment ceremonies, high chief's waded into the water and encouraged the huge fish to approach them. If the sharks came peacefully, everyone knew that the gods had approved the candidate.
 

Now Rimapoa recalled how his sister had sneered at Tepua's ancestry. Did this not prove her high birth? Why else would the sharks have swum so close—acting as if they had come to protect rather than devour her?
 

Unable to answer, he placed Tepua gently on the beach. As he brushed aside her streaming locks of hair, relief and tenderness rushed to the fore. But anger came also—anger with himself. What was this woman, this skinny, pretentious atoll
vahine
doing to him?
 

“Tepua,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Are you hurt? Tell me what happened?” He put his ear to her lips, listening for thickness or gurgling in her breathing, and heard none.
 

She was wearing only a soggy cloth about her waist. Running his fingers quickly over her body, Rimapoa found no cuts or bruises. “Tepua! You must answer!” he insisted. When she replied with only a moan, he softened his voice, but still to no avail. She stirred, but said nothing.
 

Seeing the drops of salt water still clinging to her cheek, he could not resist touching the dampness with his lips. He found the taste far richer than that of seawater alone. A strange notion seized him. He imagined himself licking the salt, first from her chin, then her neck, then...
 

He snorted at the idea, though it made his manhood begin to stir. Instead, he slipped his wiry arms beneath Tepua, grunted, and lifted her. Just ahead lay a path that would lead him to his hut.
 

Suddenly he heard a whisper. “Tangled-net,” she said softly.

“What did he do to you?”

“His canoe—”

“Tangled-net's?”

“Maybe someone's—old hulk. We filled it—with coconuts. Bottom—split open.”

“And that is why you sank! But why did you try to go off on your own?”

Tepua did not answer, and the fisherman was almost out of breath from carrying her. In the glimmer of moonlight that came through the branches, he saw her eyes fall shut again and her face go slack. She was exhausted, he realized. He would have to let her rest before he could learn the full story. For a moment he set her down.
 

This was not a good night for roaming, he recalled suddenly as he grew aware of the shadows around him. Hoihoi had warned him earlier, but he had refused to listen. Thinking of ghosts now, he lifted Tepua again, took his bearings through the trees, and began to stride at his fastest pace.
 

A distant cry made him start. Perhaps it was only a bird, or a night-walking priest. Rimapoa hurried onward, bypassing a thicket, splashing through a shallow stream and then another. He thought of stopping to rinse the salt and sand from Tepua's skin, but dared not linger now.
 

Ahead lay his thatched hut, light filtering out between the gaps in the wall. Hoihoi stood at the doorway with arms crossed and a frown of disapproval on her fleshy face.
 

“So you found her.”

“Say nothing more, sister. Just get something dry to wrap her in.” He placed Tepua gently on the sleeping mat she had used earlier.
 

“Ah yes, brother. I see you are beyond help now.” With a toss of her head she reached for the smallest of the few bundles of cloth that hung from his rafters. “I thought we were rid of her, and now you carry her back. What calamities you bring on yourself.”
 

“And why is that, my farseeing sister?”

“I know what will happen if she stays here long. She will break some
tapu
because she knows no better. Then you will be blamed. Is it not enough that you catch fish like a thief? You are already in danger, brother, and this woman will only make it worse.”
 

“I know what you are thinking,” said Rimapoa. “But I am safe from the priests. I have my arrangements.”

“Arrangements! Will a gift of a few fish change anyone's mind? When the time comes for a man to be sacrificed, we both know what will happen. They always look for a troublemaker. Neither headman nor priest will hesitate to choose you for the offering.”
 

“Then my head is at risk, not yours, my sister. Do not fret about me.” Rimapoa was trying to peel off the last of Tepua's wrap. When the final bit of cloth came free, he gazed for a moment at the nest of curly hair between her legs. It looked so soft that he wanted to touch and stroke her there. But his pleasure was spoiled at once by the sight of fresh blood trickling onto the mat.
 

Hoihoi also saw this, for she pushed him aside and bent to inspect the injury. “Well, brother,” she said with an air of satisfaction. “At least we will hear no more from her about highborn ways. Tangled-net has taken from her what she should have lost long ago.”
 

Rimapoa slapped his own face hard enough to make tears come. He did not know whether to weep or laugh. He fell down and pressed his forehead against Tepua's cool thigh.
 

So this was the truth behind Tangled-net's story. Rimapoa imaged the younger fisherman's leering face as he forced himself on the woman. Rimapoa's breath hissed angrily between his teeth. “I will kill him,” he whispered, knotting his fist. “But not with a knife. It must be done slowly, over many months, so that Tepua can enjoy his suffering.”
 

“He has done you a favor,” said Hoihoi coldly. “Now she will open her legs to you—or to anyone else who asks.”

“To me only!” Rimapoa cried. He caught himself. Never in his life had he come so close to striking a blow at his sister. “And no more taunts from you,” he threatened, “or I send you outside. Then you can match words with the long-toothed ghosts and see how you fare.”
 

Hoihoi shook her head. She muttered under her breath, but then bent to caring for Tepua. Rimapoa immediately turned to a task of his own. The god he worshiped had been good to him this night. Tepua had been saved, from Tangled-net and from the sea. And now he had hopes of persuading her not to go home after all.
 

Rimapoa knelt before the small wooden image that stood on a pedestal in a corner of the room. He placed a breadfruit and a green plantain before the idol and whispered a prayer. “Forgive my angry words tonight,” he pleaded. “Accept my offering for saving this woman's life.”
 

 

When Tepua woke, she found herself alone with Hoihoi. She looked up once at the familiar disapproving frown, then closed her eyes. The past night's events seemed now no more than terrifying dreams—the sharks in the lagoon, Rimapoa bringing her back here. But Tangled-net's attack had surely been no dream. She stirred, feeling soreness inside.
 

“Come with me and wash yourself,” said Hoihoi gruffly.

“What does it matter?”

“You are young,” said the fisherman's sister. “In a day or two you will stop hurting.”

“Between my legs, perhaps,” Tepua answered bitterly. “But what of my heart? Tangled-net crushed every hope.”

“You have yet to learn about the heart, girl,” Hoihoi snorted. “When I was your age, I had three lovers, sometimes all on the same night.”
 

“Lovers!” Tepua spat. “That is all you think about in Tahiti. Do you understand that my virginity served a purpose? At important ceremonies, I was maiden of the gods!” She could not go home now. That knowledge hurt more than the pain from Tangled-net's thrusting. Once the priests discovered her defilement, they would send for a warrior with a heavy club. For her offense there was but one punishment—death.
 

“Do you know what I was to become?” Tepua continued in a tone of despair. “The wife of a high chief. And my son was to be his heir. Now it is lost to me. Everything.”
 

“You have lost very little, I think,” answered Hoihoi. “What does it mean to rule a pile of coral? Who wants to live without breadfruit and yams and bananas?” Hoihoi tapped her fingers against her throat, as Tepua had seen Tahitians do when speaking of food. “You will learn that good eating gives you more pleasure than reciting your ancestry. And I am going to start fattening you now, while the season of plenty is still with us. Otherwise, the women here will give you no peace. They will call you a stick woman behind your back. And Rimapoa, a collector of sticks.”
 

Tepua shook her head. “I do not know why he came after me last night.”

“Nor do I. But you are here, a guest in his house again, and now I think you will stay awhile. Are you coming with me to the stream?”
 

“So your friends can gawk at me?”

Hoihoi tossed her head. “They have seen you once. You are no longer a novelty. And they will not dare say anything unkind while I am there. Have you ever seen me wrestle? No woman in the district can beat me.” She flexed her stout arms.