Silversword

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “That seems strange.”

  He hesitated. “I suppose it always comes back to the same thing you’ve mentioned—that all of them, Joanna, Marla, Tom, feel that Noelle’s memories might be too awful for her to live with if she recovered fully.”

  “I’m tired of hearing that! I can’t believe that it’s better for her to stay the way she is.”

  The kindling I recognized stirred in him again. I suspected that he could be a passionate advocate when both his mind and his emotions were involved.

  “Good!” he approved. “I think you’ve changed since you went up the mountain, Caro.”

  “If I have, it happened when I saw the rainbow circle in the clouds—holding me in its center.”

  “I know—it shows. You’ve—come together somehow. I can feel it. If there’s any way I can help, Caro—”

  It was good to have him on my side. Especially since no one else seemed to be. “Thanks. I may need that. Did your wife think it was possible for my mother to be brought back?”

  “Kate didn’t know that. She managed to talk with Noelle a few times, and she wanted to try. I think she might have helped—she was brilliant in her profession. She could have made a name for herself on the mainland, but she wanted to work here because of the mingling of races. So many tensions have built up over the years. We never seem to learn how to trust one another. When Captain Cook sailed in, the world came with him.”

  “His murder must have set off chain reactions. Is it really known how it happened?”

  “Murder is the wrong word. A lesser chief stole a longboat from Cook, and when Cook came ashore to recover it, there was fighting and Cook was killed. But it was the kahuna, the priests, who killed him, not the common people to whom he’d earlier become a god.”

  “I’ve read some of this, but it’s never been clear to me. Cook accepted the role of a god, didn’t he?”

  “That was part of his arrogance. The islanders had been promised that their god, Lono, who had gone away, would return. Lono ruled thunder and storm, and brought needed rain for agriculture. So when Cook and his men appeared in the beginning with their firearms, all the omens foretold by the kahuna seemed right, and the people believed that Cook was the god returning to his islands as he’d promised. Cook took advantage, knowingly, of that little mistake.”

  “Part of his legacy was all the diseases the islands had never known, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, though he made some attempt at first to keep his men from mingling with the people—something that didn’t work. Anyway, the omens changed after a few years, and then the kahuna claimed he wasn’t the god Lono after all. Many Hawaiians were killed in the fight over the boat, as well as Cook. Later the English went ashore and burned and killed. They put two heads on posts and took them as trophies. So who was the savage? Of course I’m simplifying. It’s a complicated story, and has been written about pretty accurately.”

  The waitress came with our dinner, and as she served us I thought about David’s wife, wanting to know more, yet not quite daring to ask. There were times when he seemed to move into some remote place that allowed no one to step past his reserve. I suspected that the pain of his loss was still private, and he would share it with no one.

  “Tell me about your son,” I said.

  “Peter’s a good kid. You’ll meet him if you come to Hana. He makes friends instantly. Sometimes it seems as though it’s an advantage not to have a white skin here on Maui, but Peter has friends in every group. He’s a mixer, and maybe he’ll do some good when he grows up. He already cares about the islands, about Maui. But of course you can get island rivalries along with everything else. I wonder if humans can ever learn to get along with one another.”

  After that we talked about impersonal matters, and stayed away from either of our marriages. David told me a little about his photographic work and the series of books he was doing on the islands. Koma Olivero had agreed to do the text for the book on Maui. He was especially interested in the chapter on Kahoolawe—the bombed island—and David hoped they could set a few records straight.

  “Koma’s talented with music too, like his mother. She doesn’t sing professionally anymore, but they have a small group that does benefits for various causes, or private parties. They do the old song, not the Hollywood variety of Hawaiian music. He’s written one song himself that I especially like—‘Song of the Volcano.’”

  David asked about my work then—what did I want to do? The old question I could never answer.

  I shook my head. “I’ve never really found out. Right now my focus has to be my mother. After that, I don’t know.”

  “Things can open up,” David said. “Sometimes the path appears and all that’s doubtful falls into place.”

  “What if there was a way to take her up to the crater?” I wondered. “Not just to the rim, but down in among all those cinder cones, where it happened. I wonder if that would be dangerous for her.”

  “Kate used to say that with mental illness there’s never only one way. You may have something there.”

  I kindled to his eagerness. David had stayed involved. He was more alive than any other man I’d known. Except perhaps my father?

  “I know how it might be managed,” he went on. “But you’ll need to approach it slowly. In a few days, if you’ll drive with me to Hana, we could try a dress rehearsal before you attempt the real thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think I’d better not tell you right now. If you don’t know, you won’t let anything slip that might cause them to stop you. Give me a little time. I don’t want you to be disappointed if I can’t work it out.”

  I was willing to leave it at that. We had talked our way through nearly an hour and a half, and when we finished our coffee it was time to start back. I’d had a lovely, stirring experience, thanks to David, and I felt reluctant to return to all the tensions of Manaolana.

  On the main road cars were still coming down the mountain from the crater, so it was a slow trip. When we arrived, we found the grounds, as well as the house itself, ablaze with light. Several ranch hands were taking orders from Joanna, who stood on the lanai, obviously in command. She watched our approach and waved the men away—a sturdy, solidly placed figure.

  “Pilikia,” David said, and I remembered the Hawaiian word for trouble. That was also the name given the mare who had thrown Marla in the crater.

  Marla came running toward us, past her mother. “Noelle’s missing! We found out only an hour or so ago that she was gone. Tom’s out driving side roads looking for her. Of course you didn’t see her on the main road, did you?”

  “We stopped for dinner, so we could have missed her. Everything seemed to be all right here when I phoned.”

  “We hadn’t found out then. We don’t know how long she’s been gone. When Tom was somewhere else, Noelle went out to the stable, saddled Ginger, and simply rode off. We’ve been searching the areas nearby, but goodness knows what direction she may have taken.”

  “Has she ever done this before?” I asked.

  Joanna answered me. “Not for a long while. She’s been perfectly quiet and contented for months.” I could hear angry accusation rising in my grandmother’s voice.

  Marla put it into words. “You stirred her up today, Caroline. She hasn’t behaved so badly in years. You aren’t good for her!”

  I let that pass. “You’ve searched her room, I suppose?”

  “Of course.” Marla was impatient. “She’s not there.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Do you mind if I look?”

  Some apprehensive urge that I had to obey was prompting me, and I didn’t wait for consent. They came with me to the room that was furnished as if for a child, and I stood for a moment looking around.

  Several pretty watercolors—painted for the child who didn’t exist—lay on the table. Other sheets lay face down and the wooden carving of Pele, now without her cape, had been used as a paperweight. The surge of anxiety increased in me,
and I turned the three sheets face up. Marla gasped, while Joanna stood frozen in the doorway, and David put a supporting arm around her.

  All three were crayon drawings of the crater of Haleakala. Noelle, who had told me that she’d never been there and that it was a terrible place, had drawn her terror in wild colors from accurate memory. One was a view from the top, showing red cinder cones, with streakings of ocher and black and buff that swirled into a wind pattern down a slope. The second drawing was an impression from within the crater, with crude figures of riders falling from rearing horses. Both came very close to the truth that was hidden deep inside Noelle’s brain.

  “She’s doing her own therapy,” I said, and turned to the third sheet.

  This was imaginary—a depiction of sheer terror. Pele herself had returned to set the dead volcano on fire with streaks of crimson shooting skyward, sending rocks and lava into the air so that one could sense the explosive force that shook the mountain.

  All were rough, crudely drawn—but somehow powerful. “She’s gone to the top now, hasn’t she?” I said to Joanna.

  All the strength went out of my grandmother. She stumbled toward a chair and dropped into it. Marla, however, came to life.

  “We’ll go after her. If she’s on the Olinda Road—which she likes to ride—we can overtake her by car. If she’s cut up through pasture lands only riders can catch her.”

  “I’ll drive,” David said. “Come along!”

  “I’m going with you,” I told them, and moved toward the door.

  Joanna roused herself to spring from her chair and grasp my arm. “They don’t want you, Caroline. You only mean trouble for Noelle.”

  We faced each other, and I knew that for once I was stronger than my grandmother. I spoke gently as I moved from her grasp.

  “She’s my mother. I have to go. Don’t worry—we’ll find her.”

  She gave in and let me go.

  David had started the car, and Marla was already in the front seat when I reached them. I got in beside her, and as we drove off I looked back to see Joanna standing on the lanai, her short gray hair ruffled in the wind.

  She wouldn’t forgive me easily for this confrontation, but all I wanted now was to find Noelle.

  9

  Only occasional local traffic followed the Olinda Road. No one in the car spoke at first, but I could sense Marla’s seething anxiety—probably mixed with anger toward me and fear for her sister. She was forced to accept my presence in the car, but she did it in a silence that was almost vibrant.

  “Look!” David said. “There ahead!”

  Our headlights picked out the hindquarters of the climbing mare. Noelle had put on jeans and a sweater, and tied a scarf around her head against the wind. She sat the saddle with ease, the reins held comfortably in her left hand, the other hand resting on her right thigh. She didn’t look around as we passed her, but reined in when David drew to the side of the road just ahead.

  We all got out, and Marla ran back to take Ginger’s bridle, while David held up his arms. “We’ve come to take you home, Noelle.”

  She sat quite still, looking down at him. “I must go up to the crater, David. It’s Keith. He’s been hurt up there and he needs me.”

  “That’s all been taken care of,” David told her gently. “Let me help you down.”

  In the lights from a passing car I saw her eyes for a moment, wide and frightened. Then she swung her leg over and dropped into David’s arms.

  “I’ll take her now,” Marla said. “We’re going home, darling. There’s nothing to worry about. You know you want to go home. Can you ride Ginger back, David, and I’ll drive?”

  “Sure.” David swung himself into the saddle, while I followed Marla as she led Noelle to the car and helped her into the front seat. When I got in beside my mother, I could feel her trembling, and I put my arm about her. She leaned into it trustingly.

  “It will be all right,” I said. “We’ll be home soon.”

  “How did you know where I was going?” Noelle’s voice shook, but her words were sensible.

  I answered her quickly, before Marla could put her off. “We saw the crayon drawings you did of the crater. So we knew you had that in mind. You were remembering, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. I was remembering.”

  Marla had turned the car around. “Well, don’t try to remember! Don’t think about the crater at all.” She spoke roughly.

  “But I can’t help thinking about it,” Noelle protested. “Sometimes it just comes into my head and won’t go away. Today when that happened, I tried to put the pictures in my head onto paper.”

  “That was a good idea,” I told her, forestalling Marla again. “Though I didn’t understand the one where Haleakala seemed to be erupting. It’s been dormant for a long time, hasn’t it? I don’t think there’s any activity up there.”

  “It was like an eruption when everything happened that day.” She spoke fearfully. “It was like my whole life erupting.”

  “Can you tell me about it?” I asked.

  Marla made an angry sound of objection, but Noelle went on.

  “I don’t remember exactly. Sometimes pictures come into my head, but they slip away so easily. Look—there’s David on the road. Be careful, Marla.”

  Marla drove past horse and rider with a beep of the horn, and then snapped at me. “Can’t you leave her alone, Caroline?”

  But I couldn’t do that—not when my mother had begun to open up a little.

  “This morning at Ahinahina,” I reminded her, “you told me you knew that Keith was dead—a long time ago.”

  “That’s enough!” Marla cried. “Don’t try to remember, darling. You know it makes your head hurt.”

  Noelle began to cry softly like a bewildered child, and all I could offer was the pressure of my arm about her. There was nothing further to say now, but there would be a time when I could get her away from Marla. I had the strong feeling that my mother was almost ready to open the past and face all the things she had shut away.

  There was one more question I could ask her now, however, before she slipped away altogether.

  “Noelle,” I said, “do you have any idea how the tapa beater got from your mother’s office up to the crater? You remember the beater, don’t you?”

  Apparently this was a dangerous question. Marla lost her temper and told me to shut up. Noelle seemed to crumple against me and grow even more fragile. When she spoke I knew she’d retreated from reality.

  “Where are we? Why isn’t Linny with us?”

  By the time we reached the house, Noelle was clinging to her sister, who knew the right words of reassurance. False reassurance, I was beginning to feel.

  Joanna rushed out to meet us, and as soon as I was out of the front seat she reached for Noelle. I watched unhappily as she held and soothed her daughter, who still needed her. She and Marla both helped their charge into the house, and I suspected there would now be more tranquilizers, more shutting away of the past that seemed to frighten them all.

  I stayed outside in the cool evening. Sounds drifted toward me from the stable of horses stamping, making their own snorting noises before settling down for the night. Since I hadn’t been out to the stables, I decided to explore. There was moonlight and outdoor light besides. I walked around the house, following the direction of the sounds. David would bring Ginger back here, and I wanted to thank him for dinner and the whole afternoon. In spite of what had happened to Noelle, I had the feeling that I would never be quite the same again.

  The stables weren’t as large as they’d been when I was a little girl, and only the nearest building was in use. A few ranch hands and stable boys were employed now, and Tom supervised the operation.

  I found Tom outside, rubbing down his own horse. “Did you find her?” he asked as I came up beside him.

  “Yes. She was riding toward the crater.”

  “Crazy,” he said. “She really is crazy.” He sounded both angry and sad, and I knew he mus
t be remembering Noelle as she used to be—before she’d married my father.

  “I don’t think she’s crazy,” I told him. “She’s confused and she’s shutting out something she’s afraid to remember. But sometimes she comes very close to facing whatever it is she’s hiding from. Don’t you think it might be better if she faced it?”

  He patted the flank of the chestnut gelding and led the horse into the stable. I followed as Tom put the animal into its stall and watched as he hung up the tack and went outside, never answering me.

  “Do you mind if I wait here until David brings Ginger back?” I asked.

  “Suit yourself.”

  I sat down on a bench outdoors. The stable smells were laced with the scent of night-blooming jasmine—a familiar mix that reminded me of when I was a little girl and had loved to visit my grandmother’s stables.

  Tom stood a little way off, lighting his pipe. “You wouldn’t talk all that wishful stuff about her not being crazy if you’d heard her yesterday when she came out here to see me. She was off on one of her hunting-for-Linny spells, and she brought along that ugly wooden idol you used to play with when you were small. She was talking to it as though she expected it to tell her where you were.”

  “Maybe she was asking Pele to help,” I said. “What happened then?”

  “The usual thing. She forgot what she was doing and went off somewhere, leaving the carving behind.”

  “Oh?” I said, pricking to attention. “Where is it now?”

  “I meant to take it back to the house, but I must have left it somewhere.”

  So he was the one. I didn’t feel much surprise. “I found it this afternoon, Tom—out behind the big camphor tree. You must have dropped it there when you ran through the bushes last night. Did you hear anything especially interesting from David and me?”

  He came straight to me, his pipe clenched between his teeth, and for just a moment I thought he was going to shake me. But though he put his hands on my shoulders, he only held them firmly.