A Walk Through the Fire

by Marcia Muller

  He frowned, considering. “Well, you can bet old lady Wellbright ain’t too happy about a film that’s supposed to be a memorial to her long-lost, but I can’t see Celia taking up a sniper’s trade, or even hiring it done. Nobody in that family’s pleased to see Pete spending money on the project, but with them money’s not really an issue.”

  “There was an argument at the party last night, and money sure sounded like an issue.”

  “Ah, hell, whatever they argue about is just camouflage for the fact that they don’t like each other very much.” He slid the chopper closer to shore, slowed it. “There—take a look. All of that belongs to the Well-brights. Pali House, Malihini House, La’i Cottage—that’s Pete’s—and Lani House—Stephanie and Ben’s.”

  I looked down, recognized the aquamarine tiles of Pali House and the lawn in front of Malihini. A smaller building was nestled in the trees to the west, and beyond that was a structure with many wings and a blue-tiled roof.

  “Does everybody here name their houses?” I asked.

  Russ laughed. “Only the rich folks. La’i means peace, and Lani means heavenly.”

  I was studying an area on the other side of Lani House—a wild tumble of trees and other vegetation that looked to be a deadfall. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing.

  “What’s left of Elson’s forest after Iniki got through with it. He was quite a horticulturist, took virgin forest and introduced other native plants. He’d sure as hell hate to see it now.”

  The deadfall looked hazardous as well as incongruous next to the well-maintained estate.

  “The point I’m tryin’ to make,” Russ added, “is that the Wellbrights’re too rich to worry about gettin’ their hands on Pete’s money. The only comparable properties on the north shore are those parcels right below us, between their land and the state park. Plus they own ranch land at Haena and cane lands on the southeast side.”

  I nodded, watching as we passed over the large parcels, then studying a crowded beach fringed with trees and protected by a rocky point and a reef. The road appeared to end in its parking lot.

  “Tell me about Elson Wellbright,” I said.

  Tanner’s face became thoughtful. “He was an odd duck, even for that family, but I liked and respected him. My people’re poor relations, we’ve got mixed blood—mostly Hawaiian, some Portuguese, some haole. For all they claim these islands’re a melting pot, it’s still a class society, and the Hawaiians’re considered the lowest of the low, so that made us undesirables to people like the Wellbrights. But for some reason Elson liked me. Loaned me books and taught me things about my culture that made me proud as any man. And twelve years ago when I wanted to start my own charter company, he gave me the money to buy this bird. I owe him big-time.” He paused. “Listen, I want you to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Close your eyes and don’t open them till I tell you.”

  I looked ahead at the miles of treacherous folded cliffs that dropped hundreds of feet to rough waters. “Tanner, what’re you going to do?”

  “Stop being a wuss and trust me.”

  “All right.” I closed my eyes, vowing serious revenge if he did anything scary.

  Flying with your eyes closed causes a curious lack of orientation. You may think you know whether the aircraft is straight or turning, ascending or descending, but more often than not when you open your eyes you’ll find it’s at an attitude and altitude you didn’t anticipate. Now, since I wasn’t all that familiar with helicopters, I lost my bearings completely.

  “Tanner?” I said after a minute or so.

  No reply.

  “Tanner!”

  “Okay, open ’em.”

  We were hovering off the cliffs, so low and close that I felt I could reach out and touch them. Red and brown and deeply furrowed, they rose from crescent-shaped beaches and crashing surf to an impossibly blue sky. The westerly sun cast golden light over their deep green crevasses and obsidian scarps, but it did nothing to mellow their severe countenance. Nothing could mellow that—not even the passage of thousands of years.

  My breath caught and I looked at Russ. He nodded, emotion tugging at the corners of his mouth. “The Na Pali Coast,” he said.

  “What a wonderful way to see it for the first time! Thank you. I mean, mahalo.”

  He nodded brusquely.

  I glanced into the backseat. Two of the businessmen had their heads together over a diagram, and the other was punching a calculator. My eyes met Tanner’s, and we howled with laughter.

  “Skewed situations,” I said.

  “Right.” He manipulated the controls, and the chopper darted around a series of outcroppings, suddenly enough to make me grip the seat’s edge. “Now look down there.”

  We were hovering above a flat reddish brown area atop one of the cliffs. It was bottle-shaped, the bottom to the sea, the neck opening into a deeply forested valley. The tangle of vegetation went on for miles, flanked by craggy palis; a waterfall cascaded down one of the peaks and disappeared into the underbrush.

  Tanner said, “This is where Sweet Pea’s filming tomorrow. Took us a whole day to find the right location.”

  “Why here, in particular?”

  “Well, you see those stones?”

  I looked down where he pointed. “Uh-huh.” They were in the center of the bottle—large slabs of volcanic rock piled one upon the other.

  “What we call a heiau. Ancient altar. There’re a lot of them scattered along the coast.”

  “People worshiped here? How’d they get to it?”

  “The ancients were a hardy people. These valleys’re crisscrossed by their trails. Now look at that grove of trees by the cliff’s edge. Breadfruit. The combination of them and the heiau fits the legend Sweet Pea’s documenting—the leaping-off place.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He pulled on the stick, and the chopper began a sweeping ascent over the sea. “The legend concerns the desolate ghosts. Real losers, people who didn’t have zip in their lifetime. After they die they become the invisible homeless, wandering around the island and tryin’ to scam their way down into the underworld. The paths to the underworld—leina-a-ka-uhane—are always on cliffs, facing west and marked by breadfruit. The desolate ghosts take to hanging out under the trees, looking to hitch a ride below with a friendly spirit.”

  “Sort of a supernatural freeway on-ramp.”

  “You got it. Rides don’t come along very often, though, and after a while the ghosts crack up. They climb the trees and hurl themselves off the cliffs, hoping to find a way below through a sea cave. I don’t think too many of them make it.”

  Even though he was smiling, there was an intensity to his words that told me the legends and spirits lived for him as they had for his ancestors. There was a lot I could learn from a man like Russ—and a great deal I’d never understand.

  “About tomorrow,” I said. “Hy and his people will want to be first on location, and I’d like to come along, too.”

  “How many guards did he ask for?”

  “Three.”

  “Then I better pick them up at Malihini House at first light, come back right away for you and some of the equipment. It’ll take a few trips to get everybody and everything up there, and I’ve got a midmorning charter.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “It’s just the aloha spirit, pretty lady.” He put his hand on my knee and briefly squeezed it. “Besides, I like you.”

  The gesture, coming from someone I barely knew, surprised me, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable with it. Maybe I was getting into the aloha spirit myself. I said, “What about Elson and Celia? Was it always an unhappy marriage?”

  “As long as I knew them, but they must’ve really loved each other in the beginning. She was a beauty—still is. Daughter of a rich cattle rancher on the Big Island and his Balinese wife. Elson was a handsome intellectual, had a doctorate from some Ivy League college. But they both turned into heavy drinkers, and you�
��d hear about wild parties and affairs. Around 1990 when Drew got radically out of control, the marriage went to hell. Celia threw Elson out of Pali House, and he went to live at La’i Cottage. You seen it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s a great place. Primo examples of every Hawaiian art and craft. Tons of books on the culture. This was a man who cared about how the past had molded the present. And he believed in the sacred trust to care for and protect the ’aina—the earth. He was part of this island, and it was part of him.”

  He paused to listen to the radio. Another pilot’s voice said, “Hey, brah. Who’s your charter?”

  “Koreans lookin’ at real estate.”

  “Catch ya latah at the Shack?”

  “Be there by’m’by.” Tanner grinned at me. “We’ll stop by the local watering hole when we get back, have a couple a beers with that guy. He was a buddy of Drew Wellbright’s, might be able to tell you something about the family.”

  “Drew is the youngest son?”

  “Right.”

  “How’d he get out of control?”

  Tanner’s expression grew grim. “Drugs. Both usin’ and dealin’.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe my friend can tell you.”

  “One more thing about Elson: if he cared so much for Kauai, why d’you think he ran off?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe there was a woman he cared about more than the ’aina. We’ll scoot over to that property now, set the customers down so they can check it out. And while they’re busy, you and I, we’ll have some fun!”

  The chiseled and striated walls of Waimea Canyon closed in on us as the chopper sped toward an immense rust-stained peak. Without the weight of the three Korean businessmen it seemed as light as a dragonfly. I clutched the edge of my seat as Tanner slid it sideways only yards from the cliff and we soared upward toward the sky.

  He looked at my face and laughed, a bark of sheer pleasure, throwing back his head so his straight black hair tossed exuberantly. “You know,” he said, “helicopters are basically unstable in any mode of flight.”

  “Thank you for sharing that.”

  “The true definition of one of these birds is ‘ten thousand movable parts, each trying to do you serious bodily harm.’”

  “Russ!”

  He laughed again. My anxiety evaporated and I joined him. We crested a peak, flying backwards, dropped down into another gorge, and ascended in a series of quick spirals.

  It was great!

  “Tanner,” I said, “you’re nuts.”

  “You wanna try your hand at it?”

  “No!”

  “You don’t watch, I’ll start calling you Wussy.”

  “I’m not yelling for you to stop, am I?”

  “Nope.”

  “I haven’t thrown up, have I?”

  “Thank God.”

  “Well?”

  “Well?” He put the chopper into a steep glide toward the canyon floor, then climbed and hovered next to a wide rocky ledge. “Tell you what: why don’t I leave you here for a while?”

  “Leave me?”

  “Yeah. I’ll put down on the ledge, let you get out and sit there while I pick up my customers. You want to experience this place, really feel it. This might be the only chance you’ll ever get.”

  The idea was appealing, but suddenly I was seized by an irrational fear that he would abandon me. Night would fall, the temperature would drop radically at this high altitude, and by morning I’d be fodder for vultures. Hy would scour the island for me, eventually come to suspect what had happened. If he could coerce Tanner into talking, all he’d find would be a few bare bones, not even enough to hold a funeral over. Of course, my family set no store by funerals anyway…

  I chuckled, remembering my grandfather’s ashes, which still resided in my father’s coat closet. None of us had ever gotten organized enough to scatter or bury them.

  Tanner frowned. “You’re not crackin’ up, are you?”

  “Just thinking of one of those things that nobody but me considers funny. Actually, I’d like to stay here awhile.”

  As he set the chopper down on the ledge, I remembered what he’d said in conversation with Hy the day before and repeated, “Without disturbing any of the dancing angels.”

  He flashed me a grin and said, “Get outta here. I’ll be back by’m’by.”

  I stepped down, ducked, and ran away from the wash of the rotors, then watched as he tipped the chopper forward and rolled smoothly into the air. He climbed and then was gone over the peaks. When the engine and rotor noise had faded, the canyon was as still as if this was the beginning of time.

  I went to the edge and looked down. Steep red-brown walls fell away to a deep green crevasse. Nothing moved down there but cloud shadow. I looked up, saw dark-bellied cumuli blowing in.

  The ground at my feet was pebbled. I picked up a medium-sized stone and threw it into the canyon. It disappeared without a sound. I thought of the leaping-off place where the desolate ghosts disappeared silently into the sea. I gathered more stones and hurled them at the opposite ledge, but they fell far short. Finally I sat down, my legs dangling into nothingness, and listened to the silence.

  There was a time when, as a lifetime city dweller, I found silence intimidating, too much a reminder of my own unimportance. Hy, who loved the silence of the mountains and the desert, had shown me its beauty. Now Tanner, by his absence, had allowed me to discover the silence of thousands upon thousands of years. And rather than reminding me of my own mortality, it was telling me I was a part of something that possibly had no end.

  Enjoy the moment, McCone. It may be the last peaceful one you’ll experience for quite some time.

  6:45 P.M.

  The Shack was strictly a gathering place for locals, a small frame bar and grill on one of Waipuna’s meandering side streets, with tables on wooden decks that were staggered down a rise above the beach. No tourist decor here—no decor to speak of, except for candles in hurricane lamps and latticework overhung with flowering vines. Tanner’s regular seat was the third stool from the end at the outdoor bar, and when he and I came in, a dark, wiry man on the fourth stool raised his hand in greeting.

  “This is the fella you heard on the radio,” Russ said. “Joey Chang, meet Sharon McCone. I been givin’ her the island tour, and she’s one hell of a passenger. I hear she’s one hell of a pilot, too.”

  Chang grinned and shook my hand. “Choppers?”

  “No.”

  Tanner said, “She will be. Took her on the canyon run, and she really got into it.”

  “Good for you,” Chang told me as we settled onto stools and two mugs of beer materialized immediately. “He gives you his old free-lesson come-on, you should take him up on it. Man’s the best, no kiddin’.”

  “Come-on, huh?” I narrowed my eyes at Tanner, who feigned innocence.

  “Uses it all the time to drum up business. ’Course, lady like you, he’ll give a cut rate.”

  Tanner said, “Hey, don’t be giving’ away my secrets, eh?” After a pause to drink he added, “You useta hang with Drew Wellbright, didn’t you?”

  “Drew? Sure. We was tight till seven, eight years ago, when he got so fucked up.”

  “Drugs, right?”

  “Oh, he did a little a this, a little a that. But he sold more than he used. No, what it was, the guy was crazy. All that money his family’s got, and he wouldn’t sleep in the house. Started campin’ all over the island. Last I saw him, he was stayin’ down on those cane lands, Barking Sands side. Was squattin’ in his family’s old sugar mill. Then he left Kauai.”

  “For where?”

  “Who knows? Why you askin’?”

  “Somebody mentioned him today, is all.”

  “You know, somebody mentioned him to me not so far back.” Chang thought for a moment. “Who was that? Damn!”

  “Somebody here on the island?”

  “Nah. It was… yeah! Guy I know works at H
onolulu Shipyards said he saw Drew down on Sand Island Access Road.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Don’t know. Guy just said he saw him.” Joey looked at his watch. “Hey, gotta hele on. Promised the wife I’d pick up a video for tonight. Stop by some night. You too, Sharon. We’ll knock back a few, hangar-fly.”

  When Chang was out of earshot, Tanner said, “Sounds like things’ve gone downhill for Drew. Sand Island Access Road’s near the docks in Honolulu—area’s mostly industrial, though some people live there. Tough neighborhood. He’s gone a long way from Pali House.”

  He signaled for another round, and we sat in silence while the barman brought it. The day was edging into dusk, the sun sinking behind the peaks. In spite of the fading light, it was still warm and a breeze moved the flowers on the overhead latticework, sending forth their perfume. Tonight the scent brought to mind parties in dimly lighted apartments near U.C. Berkeley, where the night promised any adventure you were bold enough to try.

  “You know,” Tanner said, “what Joey told us about Drew made me think about what you asked before—who would want to stop this film from being made. There’s a small supermilitant native Hawaiian faction here on Kauai that might see disrupting the movie as a good way to promote their cause.”

  “And that is?”

  “Hell, I don’t know where this particular bunch is comin’ from. I can’t disagree with a pro-native stance; I’m mostly Hawaiian myself. My ancestors were flat-out robbed by the haoles and taken advantage of by damn near every other ethnic group. Like I said before, the natives’re still last in line. It’s a situation that’s gotta change.”

  “How?”

  “If I could tell you that, I’d be on my way to Sweden to pick up my Nobel Prize. There’re no easy answers, because discrimination’s been built into our society since the day the missionaries landed. Some people think they can cure it by legislation, others think they can cure it with guns. There’s the Hawaiian sovereignty movement—Kanaka Maoli. Some activists want to enter into a process of decolonialization under supervision of the United Nations. Others want to secede from the Union immediately, return Hawaii to the twelve percent that’s Hawaiian. I heard one leader of that faction say that if the others don’t want to live our way, they can leave.”