"The beach we're going to can be reached along the foot of the cliffs," Niolopua told her. "It's maybe a mile from where the road stops."
"How did you find out about the wreck?"
"I was there during the storm. I don't know why I went. I just knew I had to be there." He glanced over at her. "I guess maybe he was calling for me."
Rachel put her hand up to her face; tears suddenly threatened. The thought of Galilee out in the dark water-
"Do you still hear him?" she said softly.
Niolopua shook his head, and his own tears ran freely. "But that doesn't mean anything," he said without much real conviction. "He knows the sea. Nobody knows it better. After all these years…"
"But if the boat sank-"
"Then we have to hope the tide brought him in."
Rachel remembered suddenly the tales of the shark lord, who sometimes guided shipwrecked sailors back to land, and sometimes, for his own unfathomable reasons, devoured them, and how Galilee had thrown their dinner into the water that night, as an offering, which she'd thought sweetly absurd at the time. Now she was grateful he'd done so. The world she'd been raised in had no room for shark gods, nor the efficacy of food thrown on water; but of late she'd come to understand how narrow that vision was. There were forces out there, beyond the limits of her wits or education, which could not be contained by simple commandments. Things that lived their own, wild life, unwitnessed, unbounded. Galilee knew them because he was in some measure of them.
That was both her present fear and her present hope. If he felt he belonged to that other life too much, might he not have decided to give himself over to it? To lose himself in that boundless place? If so, she would never find him again. He was gone where she could never go. If, on the other hand, his professions of love had been real-if he'd meant what he said when he talked of all that wasted time, when he should have been looking for her-perhaps the very powers that would claim him if he chose were presently her allies, and the offering he'd made, and the shark god for whom it was intended, had been part of the story that would return him to her.
The signs of storm damage got worse once they were the other side of Poi'pu; the road was nearly impassable in several places, where the force of the rainwater had washed down large rocks. And once they got onto the beach road, which hugged the base of the cliffs, matters became worse still. The road was little more than a winding, rutted track, which was now largely reduced to red mud. Even driving cautiously, Niolopua several times lost momentary control of the vehicle, as its slickened wheels lost their grip.
Out to the left of the track, on the other side of a ragged band of black rocks, was the shore: and here, more than any other place along their route, was the most eloquent evidence of the storm's power. The sand was strewn with debris from the margin of the rocks to the water's edge, and the waves themselves dyed with the run-off mud. It was like a scene from a dream-the sky cerulean, the sea scarlet, the bright sand littered with dark, sodden timbers. In other circumstances she might have thought it beautiful. But all she saw now was debris and blood-red water: it enchanted her not at all.
"Here's where the climbing starts," Niolopua announced.
She took her eyes from the shore and looked ahead. The muddy track ended a few yards from them, where the cliff face jutted out into the sea; a spit of rock against which the ruddied waves rushed and broke.
"The beach we're headed for is on the other side."
"I'm ready," Rachel said, and got out of the car.
The air, for all the din and motion of the sea, was curiously still close to the cliff. Almost clammy, in fact. After just a minute or so she was sweating, and once they began to clamber over the rocks her head started to throb. Niolopua had left his sandals at the car, and was climbing barefoot, making little concession to the fact that Rachel was a neophyte at this. Only when the route became particularly dangerous did he glance back at her, and once or twice offered a hand up when the rock became steep or slick. In order to avoid having to climb over boulders that were virtually unscalable he led them out onto the spit of rock.
Once away from the cliff the air became fresher and every now and then an ambitious wave reached higher and farther than its fellows and broke close to them, throwing showers of icy water against their faces. She was soon soaked to the skin, her breasts so cold that her nipples hurt, her fingers numb. But they had sight of their destination now-a beach that would have looked paradisiacal if it had not been so littered: a long, wide curve of sand bounded on its landward side not by rocks but by a verdant valley scooped from the cliff. The storm had taken its toll here too: many of the trees had been practically stripped by the wind, and the fronds were cast everywhere. But the vegetation was too lush and too impenetrable for the storm to have done more than superficial damage; behind the stripped palms were banks of glistening green, speckled with bright blossom.
There was nobody on the beach, which stretched perhaps half a mile from the spit of rock before it was bounded by another spit, far larger than the one they'd clambered over. At this distance the second spit looked to be impassable: this beach was as far as anyone could go on foot.
Niolopua was already down on the sand, and pointing out to sea. Rachel followed his gaze. No more than a few hundred yards from the shore a whale was breaching, thrusting its almighty bulk skyward, then toppling like a vast black pillar, throwing fans of creamy water up around it. She watched for the creature to rise again, but it was apparently done with its game. She saw only a glistening back, a dorsal fin; then nothing. She looked back at the beach, suddenly heavy with sorrow. He wasn't here; it was obvious he wasn't here. If the wreckage Niolopua had seen was indeed that of The Samarkand then its captain was out there in the deep waters of the bay, where only the whales could find him.
She crouched down on the rock for a moment and told herself in no uncertain terms to stop feeling sorry for herself, and finish what she'd come here to do. It was no use avoiding the truth, however painful it was. If there was wreckage here she should see for herself. Then she'd know, wouldn't she? Once and for all, she'd know.
She took a deep breath, and stood up. Then she clambered down over the rocks and onto the sand.
Mitchell knew where the Kaua'i house was; Garrison and he had talked about it many times over the years. But talking about the place and being there were two very different things. He hadn't expected to feel so much the trespasser. As soon as he got out of the taxi his heart quickened and his palms became clammy. He waited outside the gate for a few moments until he had government of his feelings, and only then did he venture to the step, slide the wooden bolt aside, and push the gate open.
There was nothing here that could do him any harm, he reminded himself. Just a woman who needed to be saved from her own stupidity.
He called her name as he walked up the path to the front door. A couple of startled doves rose from their perches on the roof, but otherwise there was no sign of life. Once he got to the door he called again, but she either hadn't heard him or she was trying to make her escape. He opened the door and stepped into the house. It smelled of old bed linen and stale food; not a bright place, as he'd expected, but murky, its colors muted, all tending toward brown. So much for the feminine touch. Several generations of Geary wives had occupied this house on and off over a period of sixty or seventy years, but the place felt grimy and charmless.