Hawaii - James Michener [49]
So Teroro sent Mato and Pa up the masts, and in complete darkness, while the canoe was already speeding forward into deep swells, the two young chiefs lashed fast the sturdy matting sails and with shouts of accomplishment slid down and began to play out the sails until they trapped the wind and whipped the canoe forward. Through the rest of the night and into the third disappointing dawn the canoe raced ahead on a course no man knew, for King Tamatoa realized that there came a time on any voyage when a man and his canoe had to trust the gods and to run forward, satisfied that the sails had been well set and the course adhered to whenever possible; but when all precautions failed to disclose known marks, it was obligatory to ride the storm.
At daylight, gnawed by uncertainty, the men went to sleep and old Teura came forth to gather omens. A white-bellied petrel wheeled in the sky but said nothing. Fishermen forward caught bonito, which helped conserve food but told nothing about position, and several fine squalls deposited calabashes full of sweet water trapped by the sails.
At noon when Teura advised the king that things were going well, he shrewdly asked, "Any omens of position?"
"None," she replied.
"How is the ocean running?"
"No signs of land, no islands ahead, the storm will blow for five more days." In such brief report she summed up two thousand years of study by her ancestors, and had she been required to explain why she knew that there was no land ahead, she would have been unable to do so. But there was none, and of this she was absolutely certain.
"Has the albatross returned?" the king asked anxiously.
"No omens," she repeated.
It was now seven days since the storm had risen on the night of Bora Bora's revenge against Havaiki, and three complete days that the canoe had been at sea, but true to Teura's prediction and to the amazement of all, the gale continued, and when the evening watch took over, Teura and the king wondered if the sails should not be lowered, for there were not going to be any stars that night, either. But in the consultation Teroro said, "I am convinced we are going forward," and since there was no one with superior knowledge to contradict him, Tamatoa asked, "You are willing to keep the sails aloft tonight?"
"We must," Teroro said. And through that starless night and into the starless dawn, he ran with the storm, insisting upon this because of his canoe's name. More than a century ago a wise man had named the predecessor of the predecessor of this canoe Wait-for-the-West-Wind because he had found that when Bora Borans went forth driven by the western hurricane, they went well. And until the stars had a chance to prove the contrary, Teroro was willing to abide by this ancient wisdom.
He was somewhat shaken however on the fifth night when Tupuna crept up to the prow and whispered, "I have never known a storm from the west to blow so long. We are entering the ninth night. It surely must have veered."
There was a long pause in the darkness and Teroro looked down at the slim body of his wife, curled against the mast. He wondered what she would say to this problem, but she was not like Marama; she had no ideas. So he wrestled with the alternatives alone and felt irritated when Tupuna pressed him: "Can you recall a constant wind of such duration?"
"No," Teroro snapped, and the two men parted.
But toward dawn of the fifth day, when it seemed probable that no stars would show, Tupuna became frightened: "We must drop the sails. We don't know where we are.
He insisted upon a conference with the king and Teura, which produced three voices against Teroro, for it was obvious that the canoe was lost and that to persevere blindly without some confirmation from the stars would be folly. But Teroro could not accept this reasoning.
"Of course we're lost," he confessed. "But Ta'aroa sent his bird to us in the storm, didn't he?"
"Yes," they had to