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"I can sneak in under cover of darkness and warn my nona. We can trust her to protect our safety. She'll tell my father, then we can retreat back to our hiding place."
"While you worry about the safety of your family? Do you really think you'll be able to stay here while there's a battle raging on the other side of the island?"
Te' looked at me with a pained expression. I could tell she was torn between the loyalty to her family and her love for me. My stomach sank, realizing I was putting her in an impossible situation.
She paused for a long moment as she considered her predicament.
"There might be another way," she finally said. "If I sneak into the other tribe’s camp, maybe I can gather information about their plan. If there's still enough time, my father might be able to set up a meeting to defuse the tension. If the other tribe realizes that we know about their plan, hopefully they'll be less likely to attack."
"That sounds almost as dangerous as your first idea," I said, shaking my head in dismay. "What can I do to help?"
"I don't think you should go anywhere near either village. Your blonde hair and white skin will stick out like a sore thumb and be that much easier to detect. The best thing you can do is hide out here and wait for me to return. Now that you've learned the essential survival skills, you should be fine on your own for a couple of days."
"Screw that!" I said, fearing for Te's safety. "I'm not letting you go there alone. What if you get caught? At the very least, I can be a lookout and send for help if you get captured. You mean far too much to me. I'm not taking any chances that we'll get separated again."
Te' peered into my eyes and sighed in resignation.
"Okay. You can come with me—but only if you promise to stay further back while I scope out the situation. There's no point in both of us getting captured.
"Besides," she said, scanning my bare breasts, "there's no telling what they'd want to do with you if they got their hands on you."
"It's a deal."
"Come on then," she said, grabbing my hand. "There's no time to lose. We need to be there when the scouting team returns to their village so I can hear their plans."
Teuila picked up her adze and led me through the jungle, staying a few hundred yards away from shore to keep out of sight from the canoe team. Every now and then, a thin break in the brush revealed the wide expanse of blue surrounding the island, and she stopped to earmark the position of the passing boat.
"Do you know your way to their village?" I asked after she paused for another moment.
"Not as easily from this side of the island," she said. "But I've spied on them before on some of my longer hikes from my village. As long as we keep following the canoe, they should lead us directly there."
"Assuming they're heading to their village and not yours," I said, wondering if the angry tribesmen were already planning to attack.
"It's not a large enough team to overtake our village, even with the element of surprise. I'm ninety-nine percent sure this was just a scouting mission in preparation for the main invasion."
"It's that other one percent I'm worried about," I said, peering at Te's primitive hatchet. "If it came to an armed conflict, how would you defend yourself? Shouldn't we have brought the fire bow with us just in case?"
"That wouldn't do much good against an army of hundreds. It's too small to function as a weapon. Besides," she smiled, "that's one skill I still haven't taught you."
I shook my head at how quickly everything had begun spiraling out of control
"And here I thought the people of Anuta were such a peace-loving tribe."
"We normally are," Teuila said. "But some men's egos are easily offended. It appears that this next generation of chiefs still have a bone to pick."
"I just hope it won't be our bones they’re picking over in the end," I said, re-imagining scenes of cannibalism among the warring tribes.
17
Dusk was beginning to set in as we approached a flickering light near the edge of the forest. Teuila held up her hand and crouched low as she peered through the trees. The team of canoeists were pulling their vessel up onto a sandy beach framed by thatch-roofed huts similar to those in her own village. A gray-haired man wearing a grass skirt approached the boatmen, flanked by a group of other young tribesmen. They paused to confer briefly on the beach, then they walked up the path and sat around a large fire burning in the center of their square.
Te' turned around and handed me her stone adze and small filleting knife.
"You stay here," she said. "I’m going to try getting closer to see if I can make out what they're saying."
I looked at the basic implements, batting my eyes wondering how they could possibly serve me better than her.
"What do you expect me to do with these?"
