“Can you really be that far out of it?”
“Looks like it. Dad’s seen other people like that.”
I lifted my head as a breeze blew in off the water. It felt like a silk scarf flowing over my face. “So what did your dad do? I mean, about Louie?”
“Made a deal with him. If Louie went back home, Dad wouldn’t turn him in for trespassing.”
“And Louie just did it?”
Casey nodded. “Not only that, he was respectful about it, and that’s why Dad took a liking to him. He doesn’t see that very often. Dad went out of his way to get someone from social services to work with Louie’s parents, and he goes by once or twice a week, too. Takes them fresh fish when he can get it, fruit, stuff like that. But here’s the kicker…part of the deal was that Louie had to come to Scouts.”
“Jeese,” I spat. “Why?”
Casey lifted his shoulders. “I guess he thinks Scouts will help him.”
“Or ruin us.”
“Maybe.”
“No relatives?”
“Guess not.”
I shook my head. “Why Louie? Your dad must run into a hundred tough guys every week. Got to be more to it.”
Casey tossed a pebble into the ocean. “Most of those other guys go in and out of the police station five times a day. Dad said Louie was clean as a bar of soap.”
“Clean?”
“No police record…. Did you know he walks to the meetings?”
I squinted at Casey.
“You didn’t know?”
“Never thought about it. He just shows up…when he comes.”
“You saw how far away his house is.”
I nodded.
“Five miles,” Casey said. “That’s how far he walks for Scouts.”
“Not for Scouts, Case…for your dad. Louie couldn’t care less about Scouts.”
“That’s probably true.” Casey cocked his head and thought a moment. “You know, Dad could be the first guy in Louie’s life that ever gave a rip about him.”
“But what—”
“Shhh. Here they come.”
I looked over my shoulder. Louie and Mike were slouching toward us, shirtless. A pudge and a muscleman. The shark’s tooth hanging around Louie’s neck made me think of the shark Mr. Bellows had warned us about. The skull just gave me the creeps.
“You ready?” Mike said.
Casey stood and took off his T-shirt. “Ready yesterday.”
I couldn’t help looking at Louie. It was as if there was some kind of weird magnet between us. As hard as I tried, it just wasn’t possible to ignore him, or even pretend I could.
“Whatchoo looking at, haole?” he said. The muscles in his jaw rippled. His eyes were empty of anything good.
I turned away, shaking my head.
“You like go round with me, punk?” he said.
“No.”
“Good choice.”
The water was warm, calm, and so clear you could see the bottom as easily as looking through glass. Which was good, because there were a zillion wana down there, spiky black sea urchins that would stab poison into your foot if you stepped on them.
Inside I felt like a smoldering dump fire. Who needs sour looks and someone trying to push you around, ruining your life? I’d come here to get away from that.
“Out of my way,” Louie said, shoving past us.
He went in first and bobbed out awkwardly, then started churning up a lot of foam as he dog-paddled toward the island. Well, I’ll be, I thought. Mr. Bad Man can’t swim. That made me feel better.
Louie splashed across the water to where he could touch bottom, and made it up onto the island without stepping on any wana.
The rest of us glided around underwater like fish, me with my glasses clutched in my hand, the fishing-line cord curled around my wrist. I did my best to make the swim look effortless, as if I’d been born to the sea.
The island was just a pile of rocks with a little dirt and a handful of weeds. We climbed onto it and sat in the sun. I blew the water off my glasses and put them back on.
Wow…what a view!
Across the way, our camp in the coconut grove looked tiny under the massive cliff. The wall was a thousand feet high, a face of boulders that dwarfed everything below it. I scanned the ridgeline, remembering the night before. “Last night I saw two dogs up there. They were looking down on us.”
Casey shaded his eyes and gazed up at Pu’u Kapukapu. “Maybe they were those same ones we saw before.”
“That was my thought, too.”
After a pause, Louie said, “They following us.”
I glanced at him.
He turned away, looked at the ocean.
Mike said, “Prob’ly hoping to snack on our food.”
Minutes passed in silence. I studied the desolate landscape, the southernmost point of the entire United States. It was beautiful…in a barren kind of way.
“Ho!” Mike said. “Look.”
Just offshore, weaving its way in and out of the shallow waters between where we sat and our camp, was a sleek gray fin.
Shark.
I felt my hair rise, watching it move. There was a round hole in its fin, a wound that had puckered and healed discolored. The shark was nosing through the reef, feeding, minding its own business.
But sharks are sharks. One scent of blood, sweat, or fear and they could go nuts. This one wasn’t that big, but it was big enough to make my gut twist into a knot.
“That’s going to make swimming back interesting,” Casey said.
“Wait it out,” Mike said. “It’ll go away.”
I put up my hand. “Don’t move. If it knows we’re here, it might wait around for us to get in the water.”
Louie laughed. “Right.”
“Well, maybe it will. What do you know?”
“Sharks don’t think.”
“It smells us,” Mike said. “Lunch.”
“Shuddup, Mike,” Casey said.
Louie stood, looking at the shark, steady and cool. “You ready fo’ swim back?”
Casey’s jaw dropped. “You crazy?”
“You scared of it?”
The shark was gliding right in front of us now. The hole in its fin looked like a battle scar.
Casey shaded his eyes and looked up at Louie. “Not scared, Louie…smart.”
I nodded, not looking at Louie.
Mike, too, seemed to agree. He stood when Louie did, but made no move to go near the water. “You joking, right?”
“I don’t believe this,” Louie said. “All of you are scared? The shark not even big as you, Mike…look.”
The turning fin swirled the surface like a spoon stirring water, snaking around. “Small sharks still have sharp teeth,” I said. “Maybe you don’t mind losing your foot, but I sure do.”
Louie looked long at me, then said, “Stupid four-eye no-guts haole.”
“Shuddup, Louie,” Casey said. “I don’t like that shark, either.”
“Two no-guts haoles.”
Casey shook his head.
Mike kept his mouth shut, but I could tell he was worried. Louie wasn’t stupid, but I didn’t doubt he’d go out and swim with that shark just to prove he was a big man and we weren’t.
“We go, Mike,” Louie said. “Your senior patrol loser said we buddies, right? We got to stick together.”
“Yeah, but…tst… how’s about this time instead of me sticking with you, you stick with me?”
Louie glared at him.
Mike sighed and started toward the water.
Louie waggled his eyebrows at me and Casey. “Watch how men do it.”
Louie waded in up to his waist, bending over to study the wana, stepping around them. The shark sensed him there and scooted off, then turned and circled back. Louie watched it as he slipped into the water, to his waist, his chest, his neck. He started paddling, slapping his way across to the beach. I cringed. Splashing like that was one of the worst things you could do—the shark would thi
nk you were a fish in trouble and attack.
Mike watched, open-mouthed, knee-deep.
The shark meandered toward Louie. Curious.
Louie turned and hit the water hard with his open hand. The shark darted away.
Then came back.
But by then Louie had made it to the beach. He slogged out and shouted back, “No sweat, brah.”
“Right,” Mike mumbled. “No sweat.”
“You don’t have to do it,” I said.
“Shuddup.”
Mike waited until the shark was as far away as it was going to get, then dove in and swam as if ten barracudas were nipping at his toes. Only then did I realize how strong a hold Louie had on Mike.
The shark nosed closer, more or less chasing him.
“Man, that’s stupid!” Casey said.
“That shark is really curious now.”
“All right!” Louie said, slapping hands with Mike as Mike scrambled up the beach.
“Easy!” Mike shouted to me and Casey, now thrilled to find himself alive. He and Louie whooped it up on the sand, rubbing their bravery in our faces.
“Look at those morons,” I said.
We sat.
The shark swam, in, out, in, out.
“Let’s go together,” Casey said. “Make it look like we might be too much to mess with.”
“I don’t like the word might.”
“Yeah.”
“Or we could just wait until it goes away.”
“That would be the smart thing.”
Minutes passed. The sun blasted down, and the water on my back evaporated to crystals of salt. The shark seemed to have all the time in the world, cruising, waiting.
“But we’re not very smart, are we,” I said.
“No.”
We got up.
The shark seemed to know what we were thinking, never straying from the path between us and the beach. Small whirlpools erupted around its fin whenever it turned. I could even see its eye, looking. I wiped my palms on my damp shorts.
Casey tossed a rock at it. The shark jolted. Casey threw another one and it shot out to sea.
Gone.
Tired of this game.
We jumped in and swam like spooked sardines. Near shore, something rough in the water rubbed up against me, like sandpaper…. Shark skin!
I yelped, beating at it with my fists.
Casey hit the sand and stumbled up the beach, looking back, shouting, “Run, Dylan! Run!”
The thing grabbed my legs. “Get it off! Get it off!”
It fell away as I staggered ashore, my heart slamming in my chest. I looked back.
At an old submerged palm frond.
Louie and Mike laughed so hard they fell on the sand and cried.
I grabbed my T-shirt and left. Casey ran to catch up. Louie and Mike whooped behind us, having as much fun as rats in a trash pile.
“Dylan, wait up!”
The sun was merciless. In minutes the water on my back was nothing but salt crystals. I yanked my T-shirt on.
“Forget those idiots,” Casey said. “Let’s go swim in the crack.”
“Anywhere but here.”
We hiked up and stood on the rim, looking down the trail at the still, green water. I hesitated, thinking about Mr. Bellows. How mad would he get if he caught us split up like this?
I glanced back to see where Louie and Mike were.
Nowhere. Maybe in their tent.
“Who cares,” I mumbled.
“What?”
“We were supposed to stay together, remember?”
Casey looked back and shrugged.
“Forget it,” I said. If Casey wasn’t worried, why should I be? We headed into the crack.
The water sparkled in the sun. Algae grew like fuzz on submerged rocks, yellow in the sunlight. Deeper into the shadiest parts of the crack, the water was black and still.
I stepped in, ankle-deep. It was so cool and soothing that all thoughts of Louie, Mike, and the soggy palm frond vanished. “You got to go a long way to find something to beat this, Case.”
He stepped in. “That’s for dang sure. Those little punks are going to come straight up here after that hike…if they got any feet left, anyway. Dad’s kind of a slave driver.”
“He doesn’t feel pain.”
“That’s good, I guess…for a detective.”
“Fighting bad guys all day long, you need that.”
“He doesn’t fight. He uses his brain. The fighting is for the big guys, like Billy’s dad.”
“He’s a cop?”
“No, but he’s big.”
A rock zooped down into the water. We looked up. How’d they get here so fast?
“Whatchoo ladies doing down there?” Louie called. Mike stood next to him.
“Stop with the rocks,” I said. “Somebody could get hurt!”
Louie picked up another one and lobbed it into the water just close enough to make me nervous.
I ripped off my T-shirt, tossed it on the dry rocks, and set my glasses on top of it. “Case—swim back into the dark part where they can’t see us.”
Casey dropped his shirt near mine, and we swam deep into the crack. Looking back was like looking out of a cave. The water was half in shadow, half in the sun. Our shirts were bright spots on the rocks across the way. The trail beyond led up to a patch of blue sky. Without my glasses everything was fuzzy, but I could see shapes and colors and make things out well enough to identify them.
“Maybe they’ll go away,” Casey said.
“In your dreams.”
Mike and Louie appeared in the patch of sky at the top of the trail. They slouched down, joking and shoving and making a lot of noise.
“Our shadows,” Casey said.
“Our nightmares.”
Louie squatted at the edge of the water. He picked up my glasses and dangled them on the cord, then put them on. “Mike, Mike, where you stay?” He stuck out his hands as if he were blind.
“Over here.”
“Which one? I see four Mikes.”
“That’s because you got four eyes now.”
Louie snickered. “You funny, brah.” He took the glasses off and blinked. “I can see! I can see!”
“Put those back!” I shouted. “Unless you want to carry me home, because I can’t hike out of here without them.”
“Hoo, sissy-boy. I going join Girl Scouts before I carry you.”
“They wouldn’t let you in,” I said, and Casey laughed.
Louie tossed my glasses back onto my T-shirt. He picked up another rock and bounced it in his hand. Just before he threw it, Mike grabbed his arm and pointed his chin back up the trail.
A man was staring down at us from the mouth of the crack.
A man in a cowboy hat. On a horse. Four other horsemen and a packhorse rose into view behind him.
“Paniolos?” Casey whispered.
I gaped up the trail. “There aren’t any cows down here.”
The lead man dismounted and let the reins fall at his feet. His horse nudged the ground, ripping up a chunk of dry weeds. The other riders stayed in the saddle.
For a moment, none of us moved.
Finally, Louie dropped the rock and headed up the trail with Mike.
Casey and I swam back to the rocks. I picked up my glasses and T-shirt and put them on. We started up. Now the riders were in focus. The lead man looked about fifty. He wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and scarred brown cowboy boots. He pushed the brim of his sweat-stained straw hat back on his head with his thumb. The hat had a red-feathered band around it.
The paniolo’s skin was leather brown, and worn from a lifetime outdoors. A sparse patch of hair hung from his chin.
We nodded at each other.
“Name’s Masa,” he said, a smile in his eyes. I liked him instantly.
“Dylan,” I said, nodding. “And this is Casey.”
He dipped his head to Casey. “We came to fish. How’s about you folks?”
“Scout
camp,” Mike said, then lifted his chin toward the other cowboys. “How…how’d you get here?”
“Trucked up to the trailhead and rode down. We from a ranch in Kau.”
I glanced back up at the cliff. “You came down that trail on horseback?”
“Just now…. You boys here by yourselfs?”
“No,” Casey said. “There’s more. We’re camped in the grove. My dad’s the scoutmaster. He went down the coast.”
Masa turned toward the ocean. “You mind if we set up in that grove?”
Casey shrugged. “Fine with me. My dad will like the company.”
Masa grinned. “You boys like to fish?”
“With a spinner,” Mike said.
Louie nodded. “My uncle has a boat.”
Masa turned to me and Casey. “How’s about you two?”
“Never done much fishing,” I said.
“What? Your daddy never take you?”
“He’s not home much.”
“My dad took me deep-sea fishing once,” Casey said. “I never been so sick in my life.”
Masa chuckled. “You get used to that. We going fish nighttime, with a light. Fish come right up, see what that light is all about. Like in the before time…papio, taape, ulua. The fish not scared of you here.”
“Taape?” Mike said.
“Blueline snapper. Good fish.”
Behind Masa the other cowboys leaned toward us, their forearms crossed over their pommels.
“Watch out by that island,” I said. “There’s a shark.”
Masa raised an eyebrow. “Had a hole in the fin?”
“How’d you know?”
Masa grinned. “That’s Fred.”
“What?”
“He’s been around Halape long time. Some say two hundred years.”
Louie snorted.
Masa glanced at him. “Maybe more. Fred protects the bay, and you, too, if you get into trouble.”
“Sharks don’t protect people,” Louie said. “They eat um.” He grinned and looked at Mike.
Masa studied Louie. “You sure about that, boy?”
Louie didn’t answer.
“How come it has a hole in its fin?” I said.
Masa looked at Louie a moment longer, then turned toward me. “Some fool shot it.” Masa smiled. “That wasn’t too smart.”
Night of the Howling Dogs Page 6
