Wide as the Wind by Edward Stanton

Author:Edward Stanton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, young adult, literary fiction, fiction for all ages, tolkien, lord of the rings, ya adventure, ya, teenagers, maoi, maori, easter island, polynesia, sea voyage, ecological disaster, environmental imagination, environmentally conscious fiction, historical fiction, teenage love story
Publisher: Open Books Press via Indie Author Project
Published: 2016-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Ariki

Two scrawny boys helped them drag their ship onto the beach. It was a different craft from the sleek boat launched there so many months ago amidst chanting, shaking of shells and pounding of drums, with red and yellow streamers flying in the breeze. Now only a small crowd of people gathered around the battered canoe: hungry children, widows, aged men unfit for war.

Miru cut the cords that secured Te Roku-o-witi, and he pulled it free of the housing. Cradling it in both arms, he crawled over the gunnels, followed by his sister, who carried Mohani’s rongorongo tablet. When their feet touched ground, the two sailors slumped onto the sand. They leaned against each other as they rose. Groaning with sore muscles, Miru studied the ao in his arms. The paddle’s sides had been scored, chipped and dented, its polish dimmed by months of being awash in the sea. Tangaroa’s wondrous face, etched into the wood, had lost the whaletooth whites and the obsidian pupils of his eyes. Koro’s son raised the ao, wincing, and let the blade fall into the sand, where it teetered, barely sticking.

He stood on the left side of Te Roku-o-witi, his sister on the right. Their legs wobbled. Each extended one arm to the other’s shoulder for balance. Those mariners knelt slowly and pressed their foreheads to the soil.

Te Rahai stepped from the crowd. Clotted with dirt, his white hair and beard looked wild. He shuffled to Te Roku-o-witi and placed his hand on its weathered wood. He inspected the paddle, the boat, the two sailors.

“Miru and Renga Roiti,” he announced in a tremulous voice, “in your father’s absence I welcome you home. The gods and the ao have granted you a safe return.” As Te Rahai embraced his grandchildren, his frame shook. He was too wise to ask about Mohani.

The old man bent down to clench sand in his palms, his bones creaking like the hull of Mahina-i-te-pua. Achingly he lifted his body from the ground. As if to scratch the sky, he raised his hands. Te Rahai poured the grains of sand on his head while tears streamed from his eyes. “Your father has been killed,” he muttered, “like his two brothers before him.”

Renga Roiti sobbed. Miru’s knees buckled. No tears warmed his face: he held them back, intent on the purpose of his quest.

“Your mother has changed,” Te Rahai went on. “She won’t speak to us. She moans and weeps, falls to the floor, starts up and cries ‘Koro’ and ‘Renga Roiti’ and ‘Miru,’ then falls again.” The old seaman’s stomach growled. Renghi handed him the rongorongo.

Moving arm in arm to keep themselves from falling, Miru and his sister returned to the ship. They climbed below decks to recover Marama’s baskets. They took them to the spot where Te Rahai waited by the ao. Miru pulled Te Roku-o-witi from the sand; he slung it on his shoulder. He and Renga Roiti carried the baskets with their bundles of seeds and shoots.

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