Kamehameha: The Rise of a King by David Kāwika Eyre

Author:David Kāwika Eyre
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kamehameha Publishing
Published: 2013-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

The two fishermen watched him. Their eyes narrowed. Cautiously they made their way back to Kamehameha. One of them snickered with an upward thrust of his chin, “See the strange crab waving his claws from his rock hole! We will net this crab and split him open!”

With these words, he slipped the heavy net off his shoulder and cast it in a web over Kamehameha, whose flailing arms became entangled in the tough cordage.

The fisherman hunched forward, his paddle in his bony fist. His eyes burned. He clasped the paddle in both hands and swung it up. His chest was hard and squared like the adz stone from high on Mauna Kea. He held high the paddle a moment, then brought it down hard on Kamehameha’s head. The blade shattered as it cut into the skull. Kamehameha groaned, his shoulders slumping onto the lava.

The people of old told in their stories that blood crawled over the rock around Kamehameha. And they told how commoners had dared to strike down a chief, and for that they must die by stoning.

When the fisherman raised his paddle to strike again, he saw that the blade was split and splintered. He tossed the paddle aside.

The other fisherman looked down at Kamehameha. The eyes of the ali‘i were blank and white.

“Ua pau,” the fisherman said. “Let him be. The crab is cracked open. His eyes are clouded. He is going into the night, a night that is darker than dark. He will join the souls that wander the plains of Puna.”

“‘Ae,” said the other. “He will be a wandering soul, a hungry one who eats the moths and spiders of Puna.”

By this time, Kamehameha’s men had left the canoe to go inland. The two fishermen saw the dark figures rushing toward them across the black lava. They looked at each other and then down at Kamehameha. He was starting to move! His bloodied head was up and his eyes were blazing again. He was regaining his senses. His hand clutched for the splintered paddle that lay near him.

The two men stared at each other in disbelief and then started running. Kamehameha broke off a chunk of lava and hurled it at them. The rock missed its mark but slammed into a noni tree with such force that the trunk broke in half, the dark leaves scattering in a shiny flurry.

Kamehameha’s men found him surrounded by reddened rock and splinters of wood. The blood had begun to crust.

They cracked and broke away at the lava, easing Kamehameha’s leg back and forth, back and forth. But the lava held the leg like a jaw and they could not work it free. They pulled hard at the leg and the rock bit into the flesh. Only when they crumbled away more rock did the foot finally loosen and they could pull their ali‘i from the pit.

Kamehameha was carried back to the beach and eased beneath the seats to the floor of the canoe. He lay motionless, his head turned to the side, his body burning as the paddles dipped and pulled in and out of the smooth sea.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.