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manner of sails and ropes, nor about the designing of different boats for
different uses; nor how to warp the bamboo float, the ama ,just
so, and bind the long spars, the iaka , so that the connection to the
hull would hold even in the worst storms. Uhila taught him, more importantly,
the understanding of wood, and of water, and of the ancient relationship
between them: half alliance, half war. At the end of Keawe’s apprenticeship,
gruff Uhila blessed him and gave him his own set of tools, which he had never
done before in the memory of even the oldest villagers.
    But he said also to the boy, “You do not
love the boats as I do, for their own sake, for the joy of the making. I could
tell that the first day you came to me. You are bound by a purpose—you
need a certain boat, and in order to achieve it you needed to achieve every
other boat. Tell me, have I spoken truly?”
    Then Keawe bowed his head and answered, “I
never meant to deceive you, wise Uhila. But my sister is far away, gone farther
than an ordinary sailing canoe could find her, and it was on me to build the
one boat that could bring her back. For that I needed all your knowledge, and
all your wisdom. Forgive me if I have done wrong.”
    But Uhila looked out at the lagoon, where
a new sailing canoe, more beautiful and splendid than any other in the harbor
danced like a butterfly at anchor, and he said, “It is too big for any one
person to paddle, too big to sail. What will you do for a crew?”
    “He will have a crew,” a calm voice
answered. Both men turned to see Mirali smiling at them. She said to Keawe,
“You will not want anyone else. You know that.”
    And Keawe did know, which was why he had
never considered setting out with a crew at all. So he said only, “There is a
comfortable seat near the bow for you, and you will be our lookout as you
paddle. But I must sit in the rear and take charge of the tiller and the
sails.”
    “For now,” replied Mirali gravely, and she
winked just a little at Uhila, who was deeply shocked by the notion of a woman
steering any boat at all, let alone winking at him.
    So Keawe and his mother went searching for
Kokinja, and thus—though neither of them spoke of it—for the Shark
God. They were, as they had been from Keawe’s birth, pleasant company for one
another: Keawe often sang the songs Mirali had taught him and his sister as
children, and she herself would in turn tell old tales from older times, when
all the gods were young, and all was possible. At other times, with a following
sea and the handsome yellow sail up, they gave the canoe its head and sat in
perfectly companionable silence, thinking thoughts that neither of them ever
asked about. When they were hungry, Keawe plunged into the sea and returned
swiftly with as much fish as they could eat; when it rained, although they had
brought more water than food with them, still they caught the rain in the sail,
since one can never have too much fresh water at sea. They slept by turns,
warmly, guiding themselves by the stars and the turning of the earth, in the
manner of birds, though their only real concern was to keep on straight toward
the sunset, as Kokinja had done.
    At times, watching his mother regard a
couple of flying fish barely missing the sail, or turn her head to laugh at the
dolphins accompanying the boat, with her still-black hair blowing across her
cheek, Keawe would think, god or no god, my father was a fool. But unlike
Kokinja, he thought it in pity more than anger. And if a shark should escort
them for a little, cruising lazily along with the boat, he would joke with it
in his mind— Are you my aunt? Are you my cousin? —for he had
always had more humor than his sister. Once, when a great blue mako traveled
with them for a full day, dawn to dark, now and then circling or sounding, but
always near, rolling one black eye back to study them, he whispered, “Father?
Is it you?” But it was only once, and the mako vanished at sunset