Smoke Screen Page 17

  She waved him on again. "Adam, don't let me keep you." He laughed; then, as she watched, he leisurely crab-walked along the ledge until he reached the rocks that blocked the sight of the spring. Leaning casually against them to make a point, he smiled at her. "These are solid. Don't worry about any of them coming loose." Then, one hand securely wedged between boulders, Adam slid along the lowest rock until his right foot was in place. His right hand grabbed another rock, and his left foot followed his right. In a second he was out of sight.

  "That looks easy enough." Paige took a deep breath to ready herself for the same climb. Before she could move, a deep, terrifying rumble pushed all the air from her lungs in a rush. The ledge shook. "Adam?" she shouted. The rumble was unmistakably from the area just beyond the rocks. She took a cautious step toward them, then another. "Adam!"

  The rumbling ceased, and the air was suddenly deathly still. Paige edged along the ledge, her heart pounding frantically. "I'm coming!" she shouted.

  "Stay where you are."

  The voice was weak, but the words were definitely a command. Paige stopped in her tracks and leaned back against the cliff. "What happened? Are you all right?"

  There was no answer, just the whine of something scraping against rock and another low rumble. Paige edged closer to the protruding rocks, afraid to obey Adam, afraid not to. Trembling knees slowed her progress, and she wished that just once she had climbed Mont Blanc and learned how to deal with moments like this.

  She had edged close enough to grab a rock when fingertips appeared on the other side. As she watched, her heart in her throat, the fingertips became a hand, the hand an arm. Then she saw Adam's face. She stifled a cry. He was bruised and bleeding.

  Before she had thought about it, she had climbed up on the rocks to help him over. On the other side, where the ledge had apparently been, was a gaping hole and nothing else except the smooth, sheer face of a cliff. If there had once been a tree guarding the mouth of a cave, it was there no longer. Her head began to spin.

  "You're making this harder." Adam's fingers touched hers as if in salute. Then he pulled himself up on the rocks as she scurried backward to get out of his way. He rested momentarily, then shifted his weight until he was on the ledge beside her, leaning against the cliff. Together they inched along until the ledge widened and they could safely collapse.

  Adam leaned back and closed his eyes, and Paige knelt beside him, frantically examining his face. The bruises were worse than the cuts, but one jagged gash zigzagging across his cheekbone looked as if it might be deep enough to need stitches. Now it needed cleaning.

  Her mouth felt like cotton, and words were difficult to push through it. "Did you bring any first-aid supplies?"

  He leaned forward, eyes still shut, and slid his pack off his shoulders. Paige took it and rummaged through, bypassing the ginger cake he'd brought for morning tea in favor of a plastic bag. Inside she found moistened towelettes, antibiotic ointment and bandages. Her hands shook as she opened the towelettes, unfolding one to begin washing his face. She swallowed hard. "I'll try not to hurt you."

  "It'll remind me I'm alive."

  "Do you feel well enough to tell me what happened?"

  Adam admired Paige's restraint. How many other people would have waited this long before asking? He wished he could tell her more, but he knew little enough himself. One moment his feet had been on the ledge, the next they had been in midair. "The ledge fell away under my feet."

  "But you said it was safe!" Paige could have slapped herself. "I'm sorry, I guess you've already thought of that."

  "It was safe." Adam winced as she passed the towelette over a rapidly swelling lump on his forehead. "I've been over it dozens of times and never so much as a pebble has fallen."

  "You told me yourself that things change rapidly here." Gently she soothed the towelette along his hairline, then opened another to begin cleaning the jagged cut. She covered it with antibiotic ointment and a plastic bandage, trying to shut out the picture of Adam falling as she did.

  "Things can change rapidly, but only if there's some sort of action to make them change. I put one foot beside the other, and the ledge fell away."

  To Paige, that was even worse. Danger here was invisible and ever present. For the first time she questioned the idea that the thermals should remain "wild and free," as Henare Poutapu had demanded. Shouldn't an area with so many risks be constantly monitored? Shouldn't paths be built, the worst dangers cordoned off? As Hamish had said, if Pacific Outreach tamed the thermals, the company might be saving lives.

  She tried to calm her growing panic. "At least we're not so high up that you would have died if you had fallen."

  Adam's eyes opened, searching her face. She was trying to treat this lightly to quiet her fears, but in her brief seconds on the rocks she hadn't seen what was directly below the waterfall. He dropped his gaze immediately, hoping she would never suspect.

  "Adam?" Paige slid her fingers under his chin and lifted it. "You would have been all right, wouldn't you?"

  His face hurt too much to smile. He tried to make his voice reassuring. "We didn't have to find out, did we? I grabbed a root and found a toehold until I could swing myself over to the rocks."

  "But how did your face get so beaten up?"

  "There was a rockslide from above me. When the ledge gave way, it set off vibrations, I suppose."

  She imagined the rocks falling toward him as he clung to an exposed root. One root between him and... She clamped her lips shut, afraid she was going to say something she shouldn't.

  Adam saw the grim set of her mouth, and suddenly he didn't care about anything except feeling it soften under his. His head was light with more than the aftermath of his accident. He was dizzy with gratitude that he was still alive and that she was here beside him.

  Paige was startled when he kissed her; then her arms were around him and she was kissing him, too, with no thoughts of his injuries. "Don't scare me like that again," she pleaded, breaking away to kiss his nose, his uninjured cheek, the lobe of one ear. "Adam, promise me you won't let anything happen to you!"

  He laughed, a boyish, uninhibited laugh that echoed against the cliff wall. "How can I make a promise like that?" He kissed her again.

  "Promise!"

  "I do. And if I break it, I guess I won't be around to listen to your complaints."

  She shivered, burying her head against his shoulder. "We need to get you out of here. One of those cuts looks as if it ought to be stitched."

  "Granny will treat it."

  "How can she? She can't even see..." Paige thought about her words, then shrugged. "Granny will treat it."

  Adam slid up the cliff wall until he was standing. Pleased that he was no longer dizzy, he held out his hand to her. "Let's get out of here."

  She couldn't help herself. "Is it safe?"

  The same question had crossed his mind. In the seconds when he had hung suspended in the air, rocks jarring his head and shoulders, he had wondered if anything was safe. Until that moment, the ledge that had crumbled under his feet had seemed as secure as any piece of solid ground.

  "I'll go first." He took her hand, but Paige didn't allow him to pull her up. She stood without his help, pushing herself against the rock behind her.

  "Please be careful," she begged. "I need you."

  Somehow everything seemed different. All his feelings seemed to lie along his nerve endings, with nothing to protect them except a thin layer of skin. She needed him, and he was beginning to see just how much he needed her. He needed her as much as he needed air to breathe and food to eat. He needed to be safely on the ground with her in his arms and the sun healing his battered face. "Let's go."

  The climb down was uneventful. Once they were safe, Paige clung to Adam, reluctant to let him go. They found a spot in the sunlight, and she sat with her back against a rock and Adam's head in her lap. Since she was too shaken, too vulnerable, to say more about her feelings, she talked about the mauri.

&n
bsp; "If the mauri is there, you'll never find it now, will you?"

  "If I organized an expedition and did some fancy rock-climbing, perhaps."

  She had been smoothing his hair, but now her hand stilled. "You won't do that, will you? It's too dangerous."

  "It would take too much time, and time is something I don't have much more of. There are still other places to look."

  She was relieved, but also aware that his time was short because of her own restrictions. It was just one of the things between them. "Will you show me the other possibilities?"

  "Are you sure you want to take the chance?"

  She was sure, because she knew he would continue exploring whether she was with him or not. Her words were for her own reassurance. "This was just a freak accident. Nothing like this has ever happened to you before." She paused, then spoiled her own display of courage. "Has it?"

  "I'll keep you safe, kaihana." He turned her palm to his mouth and kissed it.

  And she might have believed him if she hadn't asked to see the waterfall and the mouth of the cave from the ground before they went back home. Adam was strangely silent as he guided her along the stream, climbing over rocks and through a small gully that led to the waterfall.

  He stood beside her as she gazed at the seething pool at the waterfall's base, its mineral-rich waters muddied with the aftereffects of the avalanche.

  Above the pool, the steaming falls poured spurts of boiling water onto the shattered rocks where he had almost fallen.

  Chapter 12

  During her years at boarding school, Paige had been the house guest of British royalty. Since then her companions had included Wall Street tycoons, Greek shipping magnates and influential politicians. She had learned exactly what speed to travel the fast lane, and when to stand back and view the race from a distance.

  But never, in any of her forays into society, had she been this nervous.

  Paige smoothed her black skirt with hands that couldn't seem to stop fluttering. A moment before they had been in her hair, a moment before that at the scarf around her neck. Now she forced them to her side, knowing that they would rebel again.

  The group of people clustered at the marae gate had grown noticeably. When she had arrived, there had only been half a dozen, a nuclear family complete with mama wiping noses, and Papa trying to ignore the squabbling twins who played an aggressive game of tag at his feet. Their games had been interrupted by the arrival of a bus filled to overflowing with people of all ages, shapes and sizes. The bus had disgorged its cargo with the speed of a huge yellow whale ridding itself of not-so-tasty minnows, and three dozen more hui invitees had joined Paige and the family at the gate. Five minutes later another bus had arrived.

  If protocol had been left up to Paige, she would have strolled leisurely across the vast expanse of flower-bordered lawn to the porch of the meeting house where a row of solemn old people sat. Rather than wait in the deepening shadows of late afternoon, she would have introduced herself, offered her hand, and asked where she could find Mihi and Adam.

  Adam had saved her from that disastrous faux pas when he had come to visit her last night. Only an ignorant person, or one of very high standing, entered a marae alone during a hui. Adam had told her to wait at the gate until she was with a group. They would be welcomed together.

  A smile touched her lips as she thought about Adam's visit. Adam had come to explain hui protocol, but he had stayed longer than his explanation required. Close to midnight, both he and Paige had found that whatever self-restraint they had been able to impose was fast coming to an end.

  Her not-unpleasant thoughts were interrupted by the loud wail of a woman's voice. Paige looked up to see where it was coming from. She knew little about what was supposed to happen except that she was to stay with the group at the gate and do what they did.

  No one else seemed surprised. The people she was standing with were paying rapt attention; some nodded in response to the half-song, half-chant of the woman's voice. Paige saw Hira standing on the front porch of the meeting house and realized the song was hers.

  As she watched, Hira stopped abruptly. The man who was the leader of the group from the buses stepped forward and approached the gateway. From the side of the meeting house a young man dressed only in shorts and a kilt made of New Zealand flax danced across the marae swinging what appeared to be a wooden sword that was almost as large as he was. He executed a complicated drill that left Paige holding her breath until he reached the gateway. Kneeling, the young man took a carved stick from his waistband and placed it crosswise in the gateway at the visitors' feet. A man who had been standing behind Paige walked through the crowd and bent to pick up the stick. Then the young man in the kilt turned, holding his sword high above his head, and started across the marae. Paige felt the people around her moving with him, and she followed.

  The singsong chant began again, this time from another woman. It was answered by a woman walking beside Paige, and the chants echoed back and forth between visitors and hosts. Paige felt a shiver run the length of her spine. The sound was eerily beautiful, the pageantry impressive. She was surrounded by the tradition of a people she was only coming to know, and she felt the beauty of that tradition flowing inside her.

  As she listened and moved slowly across the marae, the sound changed to a wail. Surprised, she saw tears streaming down the faces of some of the women on the porch, and she saw that women around her were crying, too. The young woman who walked beside her turned, and seeing Paige's confusion, whispered, "We cry for our dead."

  Paige nodded in thanks.

  In front of the meeting house, the hui hosts were forming ranks, as proud and grave as soldiers. They began to sing songs much like the ones Paige had seen at the hangi she had attended with Hamish, but this time the women gracefully waved greenery as they sang. Some of the men stepped forward and shouted challenges, their faces and demeanor fierce and frightening. Paige searched for Adam and saw him near the front. When he participated in one of the shouted chants, she was enthralled. He was an ancient Maori warrior, and she was captivated as surely as if she had faced him in battle.

  Finally the singing and chants died away. Paige followed her group to a point halfway across the grounds, stopping when they did to bow her head in silence. Then she sat with the others on a woven reed mat, facing the meeting house. What followed was a fascinating display of Maori oratory, not one word of which she understood. Her new friend explained occasionally in a whisper, and Paige learned enough to know that the speeches made by both hosts and guests were of welcome and acceptance at being welcomed. Each speech began with a warning shout followed by a chanted introduction. The speech itself sought to establish links between the two groups, common ancestors, common interests, and ended with a song-poem.

  Just as she was beginning to wonder if this would be the sole activity of the hui, everyone stood and moved toward the front of the meeting house, where a reception line of hosts had been formed. Paige passed down the line, shaking hands and pressing noses with people she had never seen. By the time she reached Adam she was dazed. "Almost done," he said, kissing her after their hongi. "Are you holding up all right?"

  "I'm impressed." She was reluctant to pass on to the next person in line. "What comes next?"

  "We'll eat, kaihana. You'll sit with Granny and Jeremy and me.

  "Adam, will people mind me being here?"

  He brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. "A fine time to ask, but no, no one will mind." He couldn't add that there were people here today purely because Paige had come. She had so many people who loved her already, and she didn't even know it.

  "Everyone's been lovely so far," she murmured.

  He laughed. "Well, we're just a lovely people," he mimicked. "Now go on and finish paying your respects to your hosts. Then come find me."

  At the end of the line Paige extracted herself from the arms of an old woman with tears in her eyes. The woman murmured a steady stream of Maori sentences, and Pai
ge nodded uncertainly in response. She felt a hand at the small of her back, and, turning, she saw Mihi. Mihi spoke to the other woman, who smiled, kissed Paige's cheek and wiped her eyes, all at the same time.

  "She says she's very happy to see you here," Mihi translated. "This is Materoa Poutapu."

  "Henare Poutapu's wife?" Paige asked, wondering how this gushing old woman could be married to the stern Henare.

  "Henare's keeper," Mihi joked. "Materoa leads him around by the ear. I should know. Henare is my brother."

  Paige tried to imagine anyone telling Henare what to do. "Would you tell her I have great respect for her?"

  Mihi laughed, turning back to Materoa, who guffawed in response to Mihi's words. Then Mihi took Paige's hand and led her away. "Come inside. We're just about to serve the feast at the dining hall, and I know Adam wants to show you the inside of the meeting house before we do."

  Paige followed Mihi, who unerringly wove her way through the crowd as if her vision were perfect.

  "What do you think?" Adam asked, coming up to stand behind Paige when she was gazing with awe at the elaborate room.

  In its own way and on a different scale, the lushly ornamented meeting house was as impressive as the architectural jewels of Europe. "It's exquisite," she said, moving up to examine it at closer range.

  "We save our best carving for our meeting houses."

  "It's all right if I examine it this way? It's not tapu?" Paige wandered along one wall, admiring the ornate carvings with paua shell eyes, the intricately woven reed mats that rested between them, the painted spirals of black, red and white that decorated the rafters.

  "It depends on what you mean. The whole marae is tapu in relation to the rest of the world. The meeting house is tapu in relation to the dining hall, and within these walls, this side of the meeting house is tapu," he pointed to the area behind her, "and the side we're standing on is noa. People performing certain tasks here today are either tapu or noa, depending on who they are and what they're doing. In fact, you are tapu because you've never been welcomed here before. The welcoming ceremony modifies that tapu so we can be comfortable together."