Toward noon, having made herself some brunch (and devoured it; she was surprised at how hungry she was, given how little she'd done) she went back down to the beach, this time intending to take a walk along its entire length. Halfway along the path a brown hen suddenly darted in front of her, panicking to join her three chicks, who were waiting for her on the other side. Clucking to them, the mother led them away through the debris of dead palm fronds and rotting coconut husks.
This time the beach was completely deserted. The waves were smaller than they'd been the night before; too small to tempt even the most cautious surfer. She wandered down the beach as she'd planned-wishing after a few minutes she'd had the forethought to look for a wider-brimmed hat in the house; the sun was fierce-until she came to the place where the waters that cascaded from the crag emptied themselves into the sea. Red-brown with the freight of silt they had picked up on their way, they spread once they reached the beach, and though the waters didn't look treacherous, she didn't want to risk wading the fifty yards to get to the other side, so she turned back. On the return journey she kept her eyes on the horizon. Jimmy had said this was whale-spotting season; if she was lucky perhaps she'd see one of the humpbacks breaching. She was out of luck however; there were no whales to be seen. Just a couple of small fishing boats bobbing around not far from the shore, and much, much further off, a white sail. She paused to watch it for a minute or two as it flickered there at the limit of her gaze, bright against the sky one moment, gone the next. At last she tired of watching and headed back to the house, parched and a little sunburned.
There was a visitor waiting at the front door. A dark-skinned, broad-shouldered man of perhaps thirty-five, who introduced himself as Niolopua.
"I'm here to take care of some stuff around the house," he said.
"Like what?" Rachel said. She didn't remember Jimmy mentioning this man, and despite his open expression and his easy manner, she'd brought her New, York suspicion of strangers with her.
"The lawn," he said, nodding towards the back of the house. "The plants."
"Oh… you mean outside the house?"
"Yeah."
"No problem," she said, stepping aside to let him in.
"I'll go around the side," he said, looking at her more intensely now. "I just wanted to introduce myself."
"Well thank you," she said. There was something about the way he looked at her that made Rachel think maybe there was some subtext to this; but then his body language contradicted the suspicion. He stood a respectful distance from her, his hands behind his back, simply looking. She returned his gaze, fully expecting him to look away, but he didn't. He kept staring, with almost childlike frankness until she said:
"Is there anything else?"
"No," he said. "It's fine. Everything's fine." He spoke as though to reassure her.
"Good," she said. "Then I'll let you go." With that she turned from him and closed the door.
Later, she heard the drone of the lawnmower, and went to the living room window to glance out at him. He was shirtless now, his back the color of the silted river. If this were one of the trashy novels Margie so adored, Rachel thought, then all she'd have to do was invite him in for a glass of ice water and a minute later she'd be backed up against the door with his tongue down her throat. She smiled to herself, feeling wicked. Maybe she'd try it, in a couple of days; see how reality matched up to the fantasy.
A little later, as she was attempting to get the phono graph to work, she realized the sound of the mower had ceased, and glanced up to see that Niolopua had left off his labors and had wandered down to the bottom of the lawn. There he was standing, staring out to sea, one hand shading his eyes from the blaze of the sky.
There was no doubt as to what he was watching. The boat with the white sail had come closer to shore, close enough for her to see that it had not one sail, but at least two. She watched for a little time as the vessel rose and fell against the dark blue waters. It was mesmeric; like watching the hands of a clock, the motion so subtle it was impossible to catch. Yet there was no doubt that even as she watched the boat, it had come a little closer to the shore.
There was a sudden eruption of squawking in the palms off to the right of the house, which drew her gaze. Several house finches were involved in a bitter dispute among the fronds; feathers drifted down. By the time the argument had been settled, and she again looked toward the lawn, Niolopua had forsaken his watch and returned to his lawn-mower. The boat had meanwhile passed out of sight, the wind or the currents or both carrying it down the coast, and she felt mildly disappointed. She'd been looking forward to watching the boat's progress while she sipped her cocktail. No matter, she said to herself. There'd surely be plenty of other vessels plying their way between the islands in the next few days.
The wind rose in strength as the day progressed, shaking the palms around the house and whipping the ocean, which had looked so benign at daybreak, into a white-headed frenzy. It made her uneasy; it always had. Even as a child she'd become fractious when the wind blew; heard voices in it, sometimes, crying and sobbing. Lost souls, her grandmother had explained, which had of course done nothing to soothe her unease.
She decided not to stay in the house but to take the jeep and drive along the coast. It turned out to be a fine idea. After driving around for a while she found herself on a narrow spit of land, at the end of which sat a tiny white church, with thirty or so graves around it. The building itself was only partially intact: a victim, perhaps, of the hurricane Jimmy Hornbeck had mentioned. Its roof tiles had been entirely stripped away, as had many of the ceiling timbers. Only three of the four walls were still standing; the seaward wall was missing. So was the altar. All that remained inside were a few plain wooden chairs, which for some reason nobody had claimed.
She wandered among the graves, most of which were at least thirty or forty years old, and some, to judge by their eroded and sunken state, considerably older. A few of those buried here had names she could pronounce-a Robertson, a Montgomery, even a Schmutz-but several were beyond her. How was Kaohelaulii said aloud she wondered; or Hokunohoaupuni?
After spending maybe ten minutes examining the names she started to realize she'd come out underdressed for the elements. Though the sun still appeared now and then between the speeding clouds, the wind was chilling her to the bone. She was reluctant to get back into the jeep and drive home, however, so she took refuge in what remained of the church. The wooden walls creaked whenever a strong gust of wind came along. It would only take one more heavy storm, she thought, and the whole structure would come crashing down. In the meantime it provided her with exactly what she needed; protection from the worst of the bluster, while still offering her a clear view of both sky and sea.
She sat in one of the battered chairs and listened to the changing notes of the wind as it whistled between the boards. Perhaps her grandmother had been right after all.
It certainly wasn't hard to imagine, in such a place as this, that the departed were indeed voicing their grief in the wind. Perhaps the souls of men and women buried on this headland-Montgomerys and Kaohelauliis-came back off the sea to the spot where their bones lay. It was a melancholy thought; but it didn't unsettle her. Perhaps they'd see her sitting calmly here, unafraid of their voices, and when they returned to the wastes be comforted by the memory.
She felt a spatter of rain on her face. Getting up out of her chair she stepped back out onto the headland and saw that a great mass of dark cloud was moving toward the island, its gloomy offspring driven ahead to sprinkle a warning shower or two. It was time to go. She pulled up the collar of her blouse and started to pick her way through the graves back to the jeep. The rain was coming quickly; before she was halfway to the vehicle it was coming down hard, and getting harder. It was cold; cold enough to take her breath away.