by Rob Swigart
She should have answered. Unless she was at the pool. Looking at the sky made that prospect unlikely. Cane trucks clogged the road, slow and lumbering, loaded with stalks brown as winter despair. They must be bringing in as much cane as possible before the storm hit, which meant, Chazz supposed, the growers were expecting storm damage. He honked impatiently and passed when he could, but the seconds crawled as if their backs were broken. At last he left the highway, taking the turn through the eucalyptus tunnel on two wheels. He took the Kapuna Road turnoff the same way.
There was tangled darkness in the roots of the ficus in the court, noticeable as the day grew dim; the leaves no longer stirred restlessly, their sibilance stilled. The tree seemed suspended or trapped in a gradually congealing amber.
The swimming pool was deserted. He ran around it to his apartment.
The back door was open.
He paused, took a deep breath and moved silently alongside the wall, listening intently. Sounds came to him, bird calls, the distant throb of a pump, wind in the leaves gusting from time to time. The light was strange, darker than noon should be, with a blue-gray tinge that smelled of storm. He reached the doorjamb and listened. Nothing out of the ordinary. The television was on, tuned to a soap opera.
He peered around the jamb into the kitchen. A cereal bowl sat on the table. The residue of Cheerios stuck to the insides, streaked with drying milk. The plastic bowl was an intense red.
The kitchen was empty. He pulled the door shut behind him and moved to the folding doors to the living area. One was open, the other closed. He peered around the edge again.
The television was louder here. Bill told Marie that he loved her, despite her condition, no, because of her condition; they had to seize what time they might have left. Swelling music introduced a commercial.
He moved into the living room feeling paranoid. Then he remembered the Subaru twisting down the slide.
Their bedroom was across the living room off a short hallway by the front door, facing the central court. Opposite, the bathroom door was wide open. He could see the mirror over the sink reflect the shower. Empty.
The bedroom was all that was left. The door was almost closed. Could he hear someone breathing behind it, waiting for him? The lights were off in there, the curtains drawn. The narrow space along the edge of the door was dark. The light switch was to the left.
He moved forward. The carpet in the corridor muffled the sound of his feet. The commercial, slightly louder than the program itself, covered any incidental noise he might make. He listened, but heard nothing over the jingle. He kicked as hard as he could, lunged through the door, and snapped on the overhead light with his left hand, spinning and stepping back at the same time. If anyone was behind the door, he was ready.
There was no one there. The room was as empty as the rest of the apartment. Abruptly, he felt foolish. No one was here, nothing had happened.
She’d gone out, that was all. He sat on the foot of the bed and watched the soap opera for a quarter-hour before he stirred himself enough to turn it off. When he did, it was awfully quiet, and in the quiet he realized that Patria never left the breakfast dishes out; and that her rented car was parked in front; that she had been waiting for him to arrive so she could tell him about her meeting with the kahuna; that she was gone; that waiting was all he could do now, as he thought about a silver Subaru turning onto the highway from this road earlier that day. He wondered how many of those trucks they had. He knew the phone would ring. He knew what the call would be about.
When it rang, he jumped anyway.
An unfamiliar voice gave him a series of very explicit instructions and reminded him that since his phone was tapped he’d better not make any calls on the way. If he wanted to see his wife again.
38
Billy the Kid was beside the pool when Chazz came outside. “Hi, Dr. Koenig,” he said, snapping a chair cushion together and tossing it onto a pile of others. “Gotta button down for the storm. Radio says it’ll be here this afternoon. ’Bout time, I say. We been getting ready for days now.”
Chazz said nothing and Billy paused to stare at him. “You okay?”
Chazz made a quick gesture. “Yeah. Have you seen my wife?”
“Not since when she left this morning.”
Chazz pushed his hands into his pockets and leaned back against a palm tree. “When she left?”
“Sure. Went off with two men. Looked like cops to me. Neat, you know what I mean?”
“Not really. What do you mean?”
“Clean shirts, pressed. One had a mustache. The short one. The other one looked like a weight lifter.”
“Either one an oriental or Hawaiian?”
“Nope. Both haoles.”
“Do you remember what kind of a car they had?”
“I don’t know. No, wait. I think it was one of those surfer trucks, you know what I mean? A silver one. Why?”
“Could I use your phone? Mine seems to be out of order.”
“Sure.” Billy tossed his hair in the direction of the manager’s apartment. “It’s open.” He went back to snapping the cushions.
Chazz tried Takamura’s office again, but he still wasn’t in. He left his name with the dispatcher.
He hurried through the courtyard, past the pool where Billy was staggering under a stack of yellow cushions toward the storage shed.
“What’s up?” he asked from behind the cushions.
Chazz did not answer. Absently he noted the first raindrop smack the surface of the pool, spreading ripples on its smooth surface.
By the time he climbed into the van, rain was spattering the pavement in quick, wet gusts. He clashed the gears on his way out.
He’d only gone a mile when he began to wish he’d taken Patria’s rental instead of the van. It was slow on hills, cumbersome in the gusting winds and treacherous on the rain-slick highway. He was almost out of gas, and would have to stop.
He filled up at the station in Puhi. In Kapa’a he turned as instructed onto the Ma’alo Road toward Wailua Falls. Just before the falls, a private road would bring him in the back way to the Keahua Arboretum, a park which extended up the volcano at Wai’ale’ale. The roads were already slick with runoff, and the van veered back and forth between banks on either side, thick with staghorn fern. Forest grew to the edge of the road that twisted along the ridge backs.
Finally the vegetation thinned to open parkland with scattered trees. The road wound downhill and stopped at the north fork of the Wailua River. Swollen water poured over the top of the bridge: a flash flood.
Chazz got out. Rain was falling harder now, thrown in sweeping horizontal sheets across the open space. There were no other cars in sight, no people visible. He was alone in a world of water and dense jungle. Somewhere ahead of him was a message. They were taking no chances.
The trailhead was upstream to his left. His message was in a wooden box containing maps of the trail.
He was to continue across the river past the reservoir. At Kapa’a he was to head north. There was a papaya stand near Moloa’a Bay. He was to say he was Mr. James.
Rich brown water poured across the cement of the bridge. Where the water caught up against the pilings, the currents were a foot deep or more, spouting up and across, and along the edge a lip of swift water had formed. Even on foot it would be impossible to cross. Apparently they hadn’t anticipated the storm. He would have to return the way he had come.
He was half an hour behind their schedule when he reached the papaya stand. The man handed him the envelope for Mr. James. “Just closing up,” he said laconically. “Storm comin’.”
In the van, Chazz opened it. The paper was wet from the rain, but the neatly typed instructions were clear. In Hanalei he would hire a Zodiac and go past the point of Kalalau Beach.
To his right the ocean was leaden, punctuated with whitecaps streaming spume, sullen with deep troughs between the breakers. He did not relish the idea of going out in a boat, especially an open one
. The kid in the office at Sailor’s Cove Zodiac Rentals was expecting him.
“Yessir, Mr. James, right? He said you’d be along.”
“He?”
“Sure. The developer. He said you’d be along. You’re late, actually, but don’t worry. We’ll get you out there.”
“Fine.”
The kid held out a hand. “Geoff Smith. My friends call me Smitty.” He had blond hair and a red sunburned face. Square jaw, square brow, square shoulders, lean swimmer’s body.
They walked down to the beach. The sea was calm inside the sheltered cove, but nothing stopped the rain. Smitty handed him a slicker and they climbed into the small rubber boat and headed out to sea. The waves were larger than they looked from the road, but Smitty was grinning through the drops, his yellow hair plastered to the fine bones of his skull. The boat leaped off the waves and crashed into the troughs.
Try blending with this, Chazz told himself as they smacked onto the cement-hard ocean surface. Somewhere up ahead was Patria. Somewhere. And the “developer.” Presumably Smitty thought he was looking over the real estate, although everything from here to the end of the island was public land.
39
Ulana sat watching for a long while. He thought now that perhaps he had made an error, many errors. Around the younger man was a dark aura, an aura of the ana’ana that drained away mana, that pulled toward itself something violent and despairing.
He sighed. The end was close, so close; perhaps this mess could still be saved. “Renfrew,” he said.
Renfrew lifted his head from his task. “Kalaipahoa?”
“You’ve studied well.” There was no irony in the words. Renfrew’s smile was sharp and fast. He wove grasses and feathers through bits of shell, his fingers still clumsy. The old man was powerful, but a fool. Automatically Renfrew suppressed the thought. He may be a fool, but he was sharp, cunning. He knew what you were thinking.
“You are the fool, Renfrew.”
The heiau was a sprawling pile of irregular volcanic stone laid out in a broad rectangular platform exposed to direct sunlight most of the day. The temple looked across a stretch of desert cut only occasionally by fence toward the ocean. Over the ocean now massed cloud as black as Renfrew’s solitary nights. Overhead the cloud moved swiftly, tearing around the tops of the radio masts, all that was visible of the PACMAN Naval Facility down below.
Paul Ulana stood, holding his knees. The pain was not too bad, but his time was short, though he couldn’t see clearly why. Death was close, though. “You won’t succeed,” he said.
Renfrew didn’t answer. A crude head began to take shape under his fingers, a head of shell, eyes of stone, a cowrie grin.
Renfrew spoke softly. “No, Kalaipahoa. I will succeed. I study, practice. I work.”
The sound the old man made was soft and contemptuous. He walked away to the edge of the heiau, looked out west to the massed cloud streaked now with occasional lightning.
“The god comes,” Kalaipahoa said. He lifted his hands to the carved wooden post set into the edge of the platform. He spoke in rapid syllables to Ku-waha-ilo, coming swiftly toward them now, his presence tangible, visible, potent with mana. Behind the old man, Renfrew worked on his doll.
“Ku with the maggot-dropping mouth,” the old man called, and was answered by a distant roll of thunder. Renfrew did look up then, saw the old man’s hair stirred by the breeze, a sudden gust lifting the tail of his shirt. “Ku big eyes! Ku strolling around in the rain!”
The mutter of thunder retreated, the rising breeze died away, and heavy stillness fell on them again. Kalaipahoa sighed again and sat beside Renfrew. He was holding a small leather sack, which he put down between them.
“The old ways are dying, Renfrew. The old ceremonies, the old power— all almost gone. Look at this place, we had to rebuild as best we could. We should have built a new heiau here, but there was no time, not enough people. We should take days for the ceremony; we should chant the prayers; we should build the koa prayer tower, dress it with white tapa, pray there. But there are not many of us left. You, I thought…”
“I have the power, Kalaipahoa.” He looked at the pigskin sack forgotten on the warm stones. “Don’t worry.”
“Yes,” the old man said, pressing his knees, not looking at him. “You have the power. You should beware, though. Arrogance kills two ways. You do not really believe. That is a danger.”
This time it was Renfrew’s sound that was contemptuous, but Kalaipahoa did not react. Renfrew reached out to the sack, put his hand on it. Instantly, and without looking, the other’s strong hand was on his. “Not yet, Renfrew,” he hissed. “I’m not gone yet.”
Renfrew pulled his hand away. “It’s hers, isn’t it? Koenig’s wife?” Renfrew’s smile remained this time, and it was the cowrie smile of his doll, empty and humorless.
Paul Ulana stood and walked away, taking the sack with him. Renfrew turned to follow with his eyes.
“Kalaipahoa,” he called after him. “Your god, your Ku maggot-mouth, he’s coming.”
Kalaipahoa turned. “No, Renfrew,” he said solemnly. “Kuwaha-ilo is not coming. He, the man-eater, he is already here. Soon, as he did when the body of Hakau was laid on the altar, he will come down in a pillar of dark cloud with thunder and lightning, and the tongue of the god will wag above the altar.”
“He’ll want a sacrifice, eh, Kalaipahoa? He will want a human to die?” Renfrew’s lips were smiling still at his private joke.
Now Paul Ulana knew he had made a mistake. Renfrew was agitated, dark violet shot through his aura; his mana swelled and swirled.
“This is not just a storm, Renfrew. The man-eater is here!” He turned and stood at the edge of the heiau again. “I know what you’re making, Renfrew. I know whose doll that is.” Kalaipahoa looked out to sea where the clouds were.
“Yes, of course,” Renfrew said behind him. “It’s yours.”
He chopped at the back of the old man’s neck with the edge of his hand. Ulana went down easily, all the strings cut. His body tumbled down the slope away from the heiau, slack as death. Renfrew opened the sack. The scrap of skin looked like a bit of dried apricot stuck to gauze.
Renfrew watched for a time when the body came to rest. Many minutes passed before it moved, and one hand reached painfully for the ohia tree nearby. Finally the old man pulled himself to his feet, looked up the slope into the cloud and black stone, where Renfrew was a shimmering pool of darkness against the sky that turned and evaporated.
Renfrew had not stopped smiling as he slipped the doll inside his pocket, picked up his bow and, holding the pigskin pouch, ran down the trail toward the west.
40
The Zodiac slapped water with a jar. Spray flew; the inflated rubber sides glistened. Despite the intermittent rain, Chazz tasted salt continuously. His shirt was soaked, his pants were soaked, the boat couldn’t move fast enough. They wouldn’t harm Patria, he thought. They wanted him.
He tried talking to Smitty. The jarring and lift of the boat made conversation difficult, but he learned the man had shown up that morning to inquire about Zodiacs. He wanted Dr. Koenig to meet him beyond the end of Kalalau Beach to look at the next valley. Smitty said there was one narrow but very deep valley after another around the northwest corner of the island, all desert. Besides that was all state park out there: Milolo’i and Nu’alolo Kai Parks: a series of steep cliffs where the Pacific currents and prevailing weather had cut into the volcanic rock, undermining it until it collapsed into the sea.
The seas were heavy and growing worse. Cliff tops faded into the dense fringed gray of the clouds, and sheets and veils of rain swept into the face of the cliffs, furrowed and twisted by erosion. Runoff made silver trails down the sides to meet the foam where waves crashed into the black volcanic rock. Chazz hung on to the ropes looped around the sides of the flexible boat and shouted at Smitty.
“It’s getting worse!”
The surfer nodded but said nothing. His mouth was tig
ht. The wind was picking up, the seas were rougher by the minute, rain blew into their faces. This was the leading edge of the cold front; the temperature was dropping steadily as they plunged on. Because the shore dropped off steeply here, the waves broke close to the cliffs, and Smitty tried to hug the coastline.
They passed a cave thrashed by surf, the spray from broken waves reaching to its top twenty feet above sea level. Through a gap in the rain, Chazz could see that the surface was relatively calm inside, and had he not been pressed, he might have argued for trying to ride out the storm in there.
After an hour of this punishment, they came around a point. A beach extended out of sight into the gray mist and rain. Palms thrashed violently in the wind that curled over the next ridge; rain beat against the sand, pounding it flat. Waves broke a lot farther out from the deserted beach than they had by the cliffs, and Smitty had to steer out to sea to avoid the whitecaps.
“Wind’s shifting to the northwest,” Smitty shouted over the roar of the surf. “Means the cold front is passing. The weather’s gonna get worse.”
“Worse than this?” Chazz shouted.
Smitty nodded without saying anything. He pointed at the next point as he headed away from shore to pass around it. Spray was flying horizontally.
The Zodiac tipped violently in a sudden cross-surge, and Chazz had to grab at the rope again. The point sheltered a shallow cove where the waves broke a little less viciously, and Smitty gunned the motor, heading toward the small beach. Just before they reached the sand, he pulled up the motor and the Zodiac rode a breaker in and ground to a halt. In the sudden silence, Chazz could hear nothing but rain hissing on the sand, and the wave they had ridden in hissing back into the sea.
There was no one around. Chazz climbed painfully out of the boat, wondering suddenly where the hell Cobb Takamura was at this moment. It was a question whose answer seemed very remote. He shivered in the sudden chill, startling after the oppressive heat of the past few days.
