“Yep. Oh, yeah.”
“We need them quiet,” Kanani said. “Never talk no more.”
Wendell glared at the revolver in Jock’s hands. His own hands clamped to his waist. “They in bad shape?” he said.
“You bet. Frankie might be done fer.”
“They deserve it,” Kanani added.
“No doubt. That’s the Golden Rule.”
Jock’s head cocked at Wendell and Kanani’s cocked at Jock. “Come again?” Jock said.
“And now you plan to finish them off,” Wendell said, his shoulders filling out. “That about right?”
“You look disappointed,” Jock said, his grin fading.
“I’m not. I just want to know—did you use that? That gun?”
“This? No,” Jock said. He looked to Kanani.
Kanani shook her head. She lowered the knives. “They did all this to each other.”
“We only helped them along,” Jock said. “Got them in the ring, see.”
“It was gonna happen sooner or later,” Kanani added.
“Lansdale?”
“Gone,” Kanani said.
“Though he could always come back with a crew,” Jock said.
“I see. Which is exactly why we need to keep moving,” Wendell said.
Kanani and Jock had crouched to the wall, looking up at him. Jock said, “But . . .”
“I don’t know how to thank you two.” Wendell paused to clear his throat. “But, no more blood. All right? Just leave those two in there.”
“Let them rot. Like they did to you. In their cell. Yeah,” Jock said.
The revolver went into his pocket. The heat had cooled in Kanani’s chest. Wendell reached down to her and touched her face, and she leaned her head into his hand, smiling.
Jock nodded at Wendell. “I bet you were one hell of a patrol leader. Okay, Lett. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Wendell said, “because we’re not out of this. Are we?”
“I know my way around the tunnel parts,” Jock said. “But after that?”
They looked to Kanani.
“Let’s go,” was all she said.
44.
Kanani, Jock, and Wendell moved down more corridors, through doors the keys unlocked.
They smelled the cigarette first. Then they heard the footsteps.
They huddled as one, pressed into the dark depression of a doorway at another fork in the tunnels. It was one guard, no, two. Then the two guards were talking, jawing on about making it with island girls, souping up a coupe, busting skulls.
The two passed right by, took a turn, and their drunken babble faded.
“They’re heading away from the break room,” Jock said. “Come on, let’s go.”
They moved on. Wendell didn’t want food yet, not until they were safer. He hobbled but kept up with help from their shoulders. A break every few minutes, more water from a canteen. It gave them time to listen to the tunnels. Wendell smiled at Kanani again. It calmed her deep and warm in her belly and she grinned back, wondering just what Wendell had experienced in that cell, all alone, in total darkness. She’d never seen a man more ready for what came next.
They were heading up mountain, reaching the part of the map from Selfer’s office that she’d memorized. She couldn’t help but think of all that treasure.
Jock said he knew of a locker room. It was vacated. Jock grabbed coveralls and rubber-soled jungle boots for Wendell, both the boots and suit too big but they would have to do. It kept the fabric from rubbing at his wounds, Wendell told them, thanking them again.
They moved on, passing through a larger sealed door that a jeep could drive through. Here the tunnel was rougher on the sides, like in a mineshaft, the lights few and far between. They’d reached lava rock.
Jock had slowed his pace, slower than Wendell. They waited for him. He tried but had to lean against the jagged wall. He touched it, then yanked his fingers away like it was hot and took a step back from, turning to them with his arms hanging, his face glowing pale green.
Kanani left Wendell to rest on a stray empty crate and walked back to Jock. His breathing was labored, a low pant.
“Those tunnels back there?” Jock said. “I could deal with those, they’re man-made, by Seabees most likely, and I was loaded for bear to rescue Wendell. But these caverns, these lava tubes you call them? We had these in the Pacific. Saipan. Some lead right to those cliffs.”
“Cliffs? No cliffs here.”
“No? Okay, okay. But . . . So they strung some light bulbs in here. So? They could shut them down anytime. So I don’t know. I don’t . . .”
Kanani didn’t know what to say. Maybe Jock had a pint of booze in his pack—maybe that would help. Or supposing it only made him more spooked?
“I don’t know, either,” they heard.
It was Wendell. He had heard them. He stood and walked over to Jock. “I don’t care for them much, either. Tunnels, I mean. Any kind of hole. Not where I’ve been. Come to think of it, I don’t care for jeeps much, or brass who never been on the front line, or truck beds, or these goddamn coverall fatigues. It’s all a damn prison cell. So let’s just get through this, me and you. Just like up on the line. So? What do you say?”
Kanani looked back to Jock and saw his face shining and his teeth sparkling, finding the dim light. He nodded at Wendell. “Fuck ’em all,” he said.
“That’s right. So buck up, gyrene.”
“All right, dogface,” Jock said. “We go.”
And on they went.
They came to a second lava tube tunnel, branching off theirs.
Now Kanani slowed. The map came rushing back to her, plastered onto her eyeballs like a View-Master. Her heart squeezed up, restricting the blood in her legs, and they felt so heavy.
Jock came over to her, letting Wendell rest with his canteen. “You know the way. What’s wrong? You can’t remember it?”
“No, I can.”
“So?”
“That new tunnel doesn’t go far. It’s one way. A storage cave.”
“For what?”
She shook her head.
“Listen. Whatever it is that’s eating at you, you have to face it.”
“He’s right,” Wendell added from over at his spot.
Kanani whipped around to him. “They go and replace your ears or what?” she snapped. “Give you supersonic hearing?”
“You have to see it,” Wendell said, “so you can choose.”
Kanani growled at him and grabbed Jock’s flashlight from his hand. She marched off into the connecting tunnel.
***
Wendell and Jock followed her, with Jock on his tiptoes now because of the near darkness—only Kanani’s narrow flashlight ahead and one dim bulb above offering any light. It wasn’t far. The tunnel was just a cave. They found her at the end, staring at a boarded-up narrow opening. She was shaking her head at it.
“I don’t want to see,” she muttered.
“Yes, you do,” Jock said.
“You have to,” Wendell added.
She glared at them, her hands on her hips. She handed the flashlight back to Jock. “You’re the big strong Marine guy. Pull one of those boards back.”
Jock nodded, and at Wendell. The opening was no taller than Jock. He stepped up to the boards, just thin slats hammered to a frame like a standing pallet, the wood still new. He reached up and pulled away a slat, bringing a creak of nails coming out. He straightened his shoulders, took a deep breath, and shined the light in. He stole a glance back at Kanani and pulled away a couple more slats, faster each time.
He shined the light in again. He leaned forward, his head inside, the light dancing around.
He whistled.
Kanani stepped his way but stopped herself from going any farther.
Jock turned sideways and squeezed through. They heard more creaking, whistling. He stepped back out with something behind his back. He clicked the flashlight off, which should have rattled him to no end.
She first felt a warmth down low, then in her chest, and it spread throughout her in waves, so that she had to shift her feet in place to keep the feeling moving around, it was so intense in one spot. Too intense.
Jock kept grinning, his teeth illuminating as if plated with the gold and then greased as if the gold lacquered his fangs. He seemed to have gained half a foot yet shrunk at the same time, such was his obsequious stance, like the proudest butler there ever was.
Wendell meanwhile seemed to be looking at nothing at all. His face had slackened, and his eyes went dim despite twinkling too, and he released a couple sighs from deep within him, like a man exhaling the finest cigar available on this earth to go with that award-winning aureate cognac he was now licking his lips wet with. Wendell whistled.
Wendell, too? Kanani glared at him. The warmth inside her had retreated to just her gut and to her head, where it burned itself out behind her eyes, leaving her legs and limbs so cold. This chill scared her. If her head went cold too, she was done for. What was happening to her? She felt such deep sadness, the kind that made locals leap to their deaths into canyons.
“We take what we can carry,” Jock said.
She shook her head.
“You earned it,” Jock said, “here, just touch it.”
She stepped back to avoid him. She pushed at his chest.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jock said.
She shook Wendell, who blinked and blinked until his eyes were his own once more.
“We don’t got all day,” Jock was saying, “there must be fifty boxes to choose from, there must be other caves of them, ooh, sure, I can just taste it—”
“No,” Kanani snapped. “We can’t move them. Not one.”
“What?” Jock said.
“They’re tainted—they could be marked, I mean,” she tried, “and who’s gonna move goods that are marked?”
“Goods? This ain’t just goods. Well, if you don’t then I sure will.”
“No!”
Kanani hadn’t yelled it this time. It was Wendell again.
“She’s right,” he told Jock. “In a manner of speaking. She touches that, takes it, then she’s marked, too. Cursed. We’re all cursed.”
Jock sighed. He stared at the ingot of gold, a compact brick. It had Japanese symbols on it, maybe Chinese, Kanani wasn’t sure from here. He lowered the gold bar, his teeth recovering from their sham gilding. He lowered his flashlight, stepped backward, and without looking tossed the gold bar behind him, back through the opening where it landed with a tumbling thud, like a tree falling in a forest that no one ever hears.
45.
Wendell Lett had been returned to the world and felt it. He felt every ache, breeze, smell, pain, light, but his stamina and energy surprised him. As a GI, he’d slogged, starved, and battered for days, and it was apparently like riding a bicycle. He, Kanani, and Jock marched along a lava tube tunnel. They passed the last dim light bulb, and full darkness loomed ahead.
Jock already had his flashlight on. He aimed it with both hands like a gun, sweeping the beam back and forth before them. Lett and Kanani walked along either side of him, patting his shoulders for encouragement.
The lava tube was sloping upward, toward the surface.
Lett assumed Kanani would grow worried and angry after what she’d just turned her back on, but she was smiling now, lighter on her toes. “Morning’s coming soon,” she told them.
The lave tube widened into a cave. Kanani reminded them that their location was up mountain and well outside the underground complex. Selfer might’ve been the only one who knew about it apart from a few others, none of whom appeared to be at The Preserve anymore—not alive, anyway. Lansdale remained the only wild card. “The fugging Joker,” Jock called him. They grew quiet and eased their steps, careful not to turn any rocks with their soles.
Darkness hit them. Jock’s flashlight had gone out. He gasped, froze. He kept clicking and clicking the switch. He started hyperventilating, lowering down, crouching. Lett’s lungs tightened, too, and he squatted with Jock, taking deep breaths, one arm around his back. Jock banged the flashlight with his hand. He moaned and patted his pockets.
Light came. A flame flickered. Kanani stood before them holding up her lighter, all of it gold, etched with Chinese characters and that angry dragon spitting fire.
Jock sighed with relief. He slapped Lett on the shoulder.
The cave ended at a concrete wall, with a rolling metal door big enough to fit a light truck. Next to that was a standard door. It had a peephole, covered with a metal disc. Kanani held up her flame. Jock swung the disc with a finger and put an eye to the peephole. He jerked back.
“What?”
“Nothing. That’s the problem. It’s all dark. Just like this damn cave.”
“It’s not daylight yet, that’s all,” Kanani said. “The opening must be yards away.”
“Oh. All right.” Jock tried the door handle but it didn’t budge so he brought out his keys and tried them finding one that worked. “You two stay here,” he said. He handed the dead flashlight to Lett. He set down his pack. Crouching, he turned the handle and cracked the door open, looked out. Then he went, careful to pull the door shut behind him.
Lett banged on the flashlight, but nothing happened. Kanani stood at the door on tiptoes so she could look out the peephole. Soon she opened the door. Jock was already back, with beads of sweat on his forehead.
“The opening checks out,” he reported. “There’s no one. Nothing. Barely a bush,” he added to Kanani, who nodded gravely.
They headed out into the cave entrance and continued outside, crouching at first, peering around like small desert animals. They soon saw they had no reason to fear, not out here, not yet. Facing east, Kanani stood tall and eyed the vast open plain with hands on her hips like a prospector. “Boys, you two take a good look at that no-man’s-land. ’Cause with any luck, that’s what’s gonna save our lives.”
***
Five o’clock. They fled across the barren landscape, the wind cool and whipping at them. Lett finally let himself eat. Jock opened him a can of C-ration, what Jock called “C-rat,” but to Lett the lukewarm beef and vegetable stew was Thanksgiving dinner and dessert, too. He ate as they marched and hummed as he chewed, even though his knees and ankles ached and his thighs burned and his lungs wheezed. At least they had boots for him. And he couldn’t help smiling, grinning. They had fled only a few miles inland, yet he could see every star in the sky, it seemed, more stars than he’d seen in any desert or forest he’d ever known. Theirs was a new world—the Big Island’s high outland interior. And Kanani and Jock were there for him, believing in him. Whenever he stumbled or stopped to pant, leaning on his creaking knees, they would stop and huddle with him, their hands on his shoulders. Along with those C-rats, Jock’s pack had D-ration tropical bars and the three canteens of water hanging off it. Lett had only emptied one canteen. They would ration the rest, obeying a cardinal rule of outdoors survival, as Jock reminded them—hydrate in the cool of the evening or morning to regulate sweat, thereby saving water.
They took a break. Jock insisted that Lett eat a tropical bar from his pack.
“If you do me one favor,” Lett said.
“Name it.”
“You’ll have to lose the revolver. You’ll have to lose it for good.”
Jock stared, his elbows bent. He turned to Kanani. She stared.
“Don’t you two look at me like that,” Lett said. “Hear me out. We can maneuver smarter without it. We won’t make our moves based on firing back. We’ll base them on avoidance. Less the lumbering bear, more the wily fox.”
Jock said to Kanani, “I think maybe they did something to his noodle.”
Kanani’s face screwed up as i
f she’d sucked on lemon.
“Supposing the local authorities happen to find us?” Lett said. “It’s far better we’re not packing a loaded revolver. And if someone starts pointing fingers? It wasn’t us, we’re not the guilty party. We’re not even armed.”
Jock rubbed at his temples. Like Lett, he knew this was about smarts, but also about faith in the others’ ability in the field—as whispered by Jock and his fellow Marines in dark island huts riddled with bullet holes, as chanted by Lett and his dogface buddies in French farmhouses scarred with shrapnel. They would honor one another’s madness so that they might reach what came after.
“Maybe it makes sense,” Kanani said finally. “We no have gold bars, and we no have guns, either. We’re pure like a newborn babe.”
Jock snorted. But he already had the revolver out. Jagged lava rock piles and ragged crannies waited on either side of them. He stepped around and over them, looking for a good spot. He stood over a dark crevice. He dropped the revolver, and the abyss proved so deep they didn’t hear the gun hit bottom. He pulled his tunnel map from his pocket, crumpled it, and tossed that down, too.
“Well done,” Lett said. “I know that wasn’t easy.”
“Your turn,” Jock said and broke up the tropical bar for Lett. The chunks tasted like a cross between potato and stale chocolate and Lett choked them down.
Jock marched them onward, pushing the pace, his pack bobbing between his shoulders as if empty. They had a long way to go. They were crossing the island over its unforgiving volcanic center, a gritty and grim gauntlet of lava rock fields. Heading northeasterly, it was roughly fifty miles in a straight line to the opposite coast, about a day’s journey if they could cover a mile every half hour or so.
As they marched on, the sun rose and bloomed pink and orange. Then it emerged golden round and white in its heart, and their black moonscape turned mustard and olive from the dry grass that covered the rolling outback as far as the eye could see. The terrain looked like a vast cracking tarmac carpeted with khaki. But it was no carpet. Up close the grass was thin and sparse, its soil just another variant of the black lava rock.
The Preserve Page 30
