Down In The Valley

by James Strauss

  “I’m not a real general,” Arch replied, getting out of his side, knowing that the conversation was pointless, but continuing it anyway. “Even if I was a real general that wouldn’t mean I could park where it says police and fire only.”

  “Almost same,” Matisse replied, as expected, while putting on his backpack. He tossed the car keys to Arch after hitting the locking button, and making the Lincoln chirp and briefly blink its lights.

  “They’ll probably tow us,” Arch said, despondently, staring back at the car and punching the button once again just to be sure.

  “It’s a rental,” Matisse shot back over his shoulder, as if that explained everything.

  The hike in took almost an hour. The overgrown path was the easy part, except where it crossed the flowing stream. The rocks under the water were covered with some slippery slime or lichen. Matisse’s bare feet fared better than Arch’s Teva sandals. He only fell once on the hike to the bottom of the “small” hill that was the base of the first platform.

  “Little hill?” Arch said, staring up at the steep, flora-covered mess in front of him.

  “No problem,” Matisse answered with a laugh. He went right at the hill, until he was climbing upward on his hands and knees. “Mud good, it give us cover.”

  “Yes,” Arch responded derisively, “we cover flat black with shiny brown mud. That’ll work for us.” Arch dug in behind Matisse, following him slowly up the incline. By grasping the deep-rooted tea leaf plants at the base, and then using them as handholds, they could move rather quickly by pulling hard to slide up through the red mud.

  They reached the platform, after another hour of hard work. The concrete pad was covered with dried red mud. Arch rubbed some of the awful cloying stuff off on a nearby stanchion, realizing why the platform was so muddy. A lot of other people over the years had done the exact same thing. The base of the old trolley system was still there, but rusted away. The stairs coming up to, and then departing from, the platform were a surprise. They looked like regular basement stairs that might be found in a home, except they were fashioned from aluminum. Guardrails ran waist high on both sides of the stairs. Arch saw one immediate potential problem. The same slime and lichen that lined the rocks of the stream were all over the stairs. Both men dropped their packs. Matisse took out a bottle of water from his pack, and Arch grabbed his Leica binoculars. Arch studied the next platform, which was plainly visible by following the silver line of the stairs up to the next peak. Suddenly he saw rifle fire.

  “Down,” he yelled at Matisse, ducking behind a small concrete wall himself. There was no sound of a passing bullet, only the distant hollow boom of the rifle going off in the distance.

  Matisse still stood as before, looking over at Arch and then toward the other platform. “What was that?” he asked, squinting his eyes.

  Arch jumped up, swept across the few feet of mud coated concrete and pulled the big man to the deck.

  “That was a rifle shot, you idiot,” Arch breathed into Matisse’s left ear, shoving away at his side until they were both behind the protection provided by the low, but thick wall.

  “Somebody’s shooting at us?” Matisse exclaimed, trying to raise his head to see what was going on. “Why? Who? Did you bring a gun? I didn’t bring a gun.”

  “This isn’t some sort of shoot ‘em up mission. No, I didn’t bring a gun,” Arch replied angrily.

  “It is now,” Matisse answered, in a much softer tone. “What do we do? Do we climb back down and get outta here?”

  Arch thought for a moment. “No,” he said. “It’s those two idiots again. And what they’re doing tells us a lot. The other platform is about three hundred yards away. He could have hit me with any kind of decent rifle, but he didn’t. Somebody predicted we’d make this attempt, and they want to deny access. Also, the fact that it’s Kurt and Lorrie again tells us something. This whole thing’s so secret, they can’t have the Marines knowing anything. Because the Marines won’t shoot at American citizens on American territory without a damned good reason.”

  “So what do we do?” Matisse asked.

  Arch got to his feet, brushing away as much of the dry mud as he could, from his neat black outfit that was no longer neat or black. “We’re going to proceed up the steps as if those clowns don’t exist. They can shoot at us, but they can’t shoot us. Arch walked over to where the steps connecting the platforms began. Two more shots echoed through the canyon. But Arch merely laughed gently, taking Matisse by one hand to pull him up like he was a fallen child. “Come on, this was my business. I know these people. I know this game.”

  Matisse slowly got to his feet, his hands visibly shaking. “What if they miss?” he asked, peering with unaided vision at the other platform.

  “What do you mean? They are missing,” Arch said, ignoring the other platform and getting his pack readjusted to his back.

  “I mean, they are missing on purpose, but what if they miss a miss?”

  As Matisse kept talking he too began getting ready for their next leg of the climb.

  “We may need a gun though, so I hope those two are around when we get up there,” Arch said, steering Matisse toward the first step.

  “Why would we want that?” Matisse answered, taking both railings in his big meaty hands. .

  “Because they’re idiots. We’ll take their guns.”

  Matisse stood with his hands on the rails, unmoving. “I’m not sure about all this. They’re shooting at us, these steps don’t look safe, and I don’t know what’s up there.”

  “Stop worrying. Most of the things you worry about in life never happen. And the things that do, happen in ways you could never have figured out ahead of time,” Arch said, pushing gently against Matisse’s broad back.

  “Okay, but I don’t know,” Matisse answered. He then stepped forward, plunging ten feet down into a huge vat of red mud. The collapse of the aluminum stair, his downward slide, and even the impact of his body landing, was all nearly soundless. Only a rifle shot in the distance, playing over the top of the ceaseless trade winds, put an audible exclamation point on the event.

  “Boss?” Matisse yelled up from the vat of mud, still stuck.

  “Assholes,” Arch murmured, looking over to the other platform.

  “It’s just another warning Matisse. I’m coming down to get you out.”

  Arch climbed down, but by the time he reached him, Matisse was already out of the hole. “We just have to continue,” he told the Hawaiian, “and put up with their juvenile pranks.”

  “Yeah, okay boss. But you go first. And we need a gun just to feel better. Then we can miss on purpose too. Or not.”

  There were no more shots or weakened sections of stairs. It took another hour to reach the third platform. It was abandoned. Cigarette butts were scattered about, and Lorrie hadn’t policed his brass. Arch found a brass cartridge casing with .243 stamped into its base. Arch remembered something that had slightly bothered him when he saw the rifle go off near where they’d been standing. It looked vaguely familiar. Now he was certain. The rifle was a Mannlicher-Schoenauer in .243. It was either the same rifle, or an exact replica, of the one he’d presented to Virginia on her fiftieth birthday. He knew, deep down in his heart, that he’d just been shot at by the same rifle he’d given the love of his life, less than a year earlier. He went numb.

  “Where you go?” Matisse yelled in his ear, shaking him by one shoulder.

  “What?” Arch answered, his voice flat and dead.

  “Man, you were gone boss. You took a moment off there. Senior moment they call it. Maybe a stroke. You don’t look so good. I don’t think calling 911 will do much good. I don’t think they’ll come up here.”

  “I’m fine. Fucking “A” fine. What do you want?”

  “Boss, you fine, but somebody going to die. I hope it’s not me. It’s her again, isn’t it? Even all the way up here. Where do we go now?”

  “The next platform,” Arch murmured. “It’s going to be dark before
we get all the way to the top. It’s good we brought the NVGs.”

  “And the spam. Chow’s musubi is almost as good as his pork hash. But I don’t like this night stuff. It’s creepy and we got some bad buys who don’t like us at all.”

  “I didn’t know,” Arch said, his voice sounded vague and far away, even to him.

  “About the night? About our enemies?” Matisse inquired, rubbing his head and looking down at the already darkening valley below.

  “About the pork hash,” Arch answered. “I love pork hash but you can’t find any good stuff anymore. Patty’s Kitchen closed. Now there’s a place in Minoa, but that’s it. I love pork hash, and the night. It’s going to be a good night.”

  “Boss, you’re scaring me. What happened? Something happened? What we going to do?”

  “Make camp,” Arch said. “Start a small fire. I like my spam and rice warm. We’ll climb at first light.”

  “A fire?” Matisse repeated, his voice rising. “Everyone will see us. We’ll be sitting ducks, boss. Everyone will think we’re fools.”

  “Fools?” Arch said, more to himself than Matisse. “Yes, they will. I’ve been a terrible fool. Tonight we’ll have hot spam and rice with a bit of Aloha soya, and tomorrow morning early hell is coming to breakfast.”

  XVII

  They climbed the steps to an area just below the third platform. The climb wasn’t a challenge for either of them, but looking beyond that platform they could see that the final stretch would be more difficult. They climbed down to a small glade, covered with pine trees overhanging the distant valley below. Matisse gathered plenty of dry branches, old needles, and cones from the protected areas under the big pines. They huddled together and had a fire going in seconds.

  “So tell me boss. What happened?” Matisse asked, and then waited.

  A full minute went by, but Arch didn’t respond.

  “I’m here,” Matisse complained softly. “I came with you. I’m out here. I got shot at too.”

  “The rifle,” Arch started out, but then stopped for a few seconds. “The rifle Lorrie used to shoot at us was the same one I gave Virginia for her birthday last year.” He finished and stared glumly into the fire.

  “You gave the Haole bitch a rifle for her birthday?” Matisse asked.

  Arch nodded, not looking up. “Don’t call her that,” he followed, his voice barely audible. “It’s racist.”

  “Racist?” Matisse countered, in surprise, “because, I called her a Haole or a bitch?”

  “Haole means white and it means white in a very negative way. We both know it, and I don’t like it. Never have.”

  “So I can’t call you a Haole anymore?” Matisse asked. “You use it like Marines use swearwords for their friends. It’s a term of endearment, so I don’t care.”

  “Okay, brah, then I won’t call her that. I’ll just call her Virginia the bitch.”

  Arch looked over at his friend, munching away on another block of musubi, and silently let out his breath in resignation.

  “You gave the bitch rifle. We got shot at by same rifle.” Matisse started to laugh.

  “What?” Arch finally said, more to shut Matisse up than wanting an answer.

  “It’s funny,” Matisse got out between quieting laughs.

  “What’s so funny?” Arch said. “Virginia loves guns,”

  “You give gun to woman, and we get shot at by same gun. Logical in a, Haole way. No offense. Not good. What we going to do?” Matisse asked before going back to eating and poking the small fire with a stick.

  “They know we’re here. Hell, everyone knows we’re here. Those rifle shots echoed around the entire windward side of the island. Almost nobody shoots anybody in Hawaii, unlike what’s on television shows. The islands have the lowest level of violence in the whole country. Maybe two people shoot anyone on this side of the island in a year, and it’s not with a high-powered rifle. So, the police will eventually be coming, but it doesn’t matter. We’re climbing tonight, once we’re rested and fed.”

  “We’re climbing at night?” Matisse said, his voice little more than a weak whisper. He stopped taking bites from the musubi, and stared across the fire at Arch.

  “Night vision,” Arch said, taking a few of the musubi from his own pack. “We can’t climb up to the third platform because they’ll stay waiting. We’ve got to climb around it. They won’t expect us to try that at night. We’ll leave everything here, including the food and water. When dawn breaks, we’ll go up with only the binoculars, my Leica camera and some rope, to see what we can see beyond the platform breaks. This whole thing is coming down to what’s hidden in one valley on this island. Everything else is directed toward that, or about that. I looked at all the Koolau peaks with the binoculars, and there’s nothing up there except some old radio antennas. It’s got to be the big valley just on the other side of the Koolau range. Nobody goes into that valley, because it’s a protected part of the watershed drinking supply for Honolulu.”

  Arch rummaged through his pack for the NVGs, then used the firelight to located the on/off switch. He turned the set on, and brought the rig up to his eyes, without pulling the elastic straps around his head. He looked out across the valley. The valley appeared as if it was an overcast afternoon, rather than the near total darkness it was in. There was no color but at least the image was in black and white, not the green glow given off by earlier generations of the devices. He pushed one of the buttons on the left side of the rig. A changing number instantly appeared on the lower left side of the tiny screens he was looking at. Arch moved his head from side to side and the numbers changed. He realized that the glasses were giving him the range to some points across the valley. He pulled his head back and stared at the set. There was no laser light coming from it, which meant it was emitting infrared laser light to calculate the range. Which also meant it was very dangerous to handle. If either he or Matisse were to look directly into the invisible beam, it could easily cause blindness. He put the rig back on and pushed the side of the remaining ‘rocker’ button. The other side of the valley zoomed toward him. Magnification. Arch smiled to himself.

  “Man, they’ve come a long way since the earlier days with these,” he said to Matisse. He held out the rig and showed Matisse how to work the buttons.

  “Can I sell these when we’re done? If we don’t get killed, I mean?”

  Matisse said, playing with the features and holding up the goggles to his face.

  “Let’s get ready. Neither one of us is in the greatest shape for this and there’s not much room on the steep slopes of that peak. The terrain is the real enemy, since Virginia has apparently instructed those two clowns not to shoot us,” Arch said, unloading his pack by the fire. “We’ll leave the fire burning. The hot embers will draw the attention of whatever they’ve got to spy on us with.”

  Matisse put the NVG’s down and leaned forward. His large upper body slowly canted back and forth, gently.

  “What are you doing?” Arch asked. “Get ready, it’ll be full dark soon and the glasses work best when there’s little light.”

  “Ho’oponopono chant, Hawaiian prayer,” Matisse replied after almost a full minute. “It’s to clear my thoughts, my soul, and to say I’m sorry.” “Are you ready now?” Arch asked.

  “For everything. I’m ready now.” Matisse grabbed his own pack, and pulled a fifty-foot climbing rope out, along with his own glasses.

  As both men worked to get ready for the climb, the wind blew steadily over their heads, and up toward the summit of the mountains above them.

  “What’s the vegetation like up ahead?” Arch asked.

  “The red blossoms all around are from Ohia trees,” Matisse responded, stopping to point with one hand up toward the blackening darkness of the ever-rising range of mountains. They grow low, and have all kinds of branches. We have to go around them because they’re so thick. The bigger trees are Koa, but not many of them left. Further up, if we get there, are the Loulu palms. Shaped like fans
, but bigger. The Ohia branches are small enough to hold on to.”

  When they were ready to climb, Arch checked his Brequet. “We should make it around the platform in a couple of hours. We’ll circle back and hit the stairs. From there it should be a clear shot straight to the top. Probably more than a thousand steps, but even at night it shouldn’t be a problem if we have enough time.”

  The going got difficult as soon as they were a few yards reaching it required penetrated the six inches or so to the hard lava rock below. Matisse’s bare feet worked better than Arch’s with his Teva sandals constantly being sucked from the bottom of his feet. The branches of the Ohia trees were not nearly as helpful as the roots of the many ferns, and other vegetation that was buried deep into the mud, and sometimes tied right into the rock surface below. They had to climb sideways to move around the conical peak. The third platform was on the top of the peak. Reaching it, however, required more grasping and sliding than climbing. They didn’t stop for two hours, until Arch found a small, basically level clearing about the size of a king size mattress. Both men lay gasping for air, and much needed rest.

  “My hand is killing me,” Arch said, pulling his goggles off and setting them aside. His hand was too close to be seen with the goggles on, since they couldn’t focus on anything less than five feet away. Matisse leaned forward with his Bic lighter

  “They’ll see us,” Arch hissed, “put that thing out.”

  “What they going to do, brah, shoot and miss us some more?” Matisse laughed, extinguishing the flame.

  “Thanks though,” Arch squeezed out, trying to massage the mess that was his hand. The bandages had been indistinguishable from the mud covering them. Only the red of his blood seeping through had indicated anything about the wound. “I can’t climb anymore. We’ve got to go up and get on the stairs. We’ve got to take our chances that we’re far enough past the platform.”

  It took only a few minutes for both men to recover, and begin the climb. The going was steep, as they went straight up the mud and plant covered hill, digging in their feet and thrusting upward with their thighs. It was slow going. And, Arch could only feel his way along, rather than attempt to grasp branches, or plant roots for support. Matisse, clunking his head against metal, alerted them when they reached the stairs. The aluminum was intact, as only aluminum could have been over the years of lying unattended in such moisture rich conditions. Nobody seemed to take any notice of them as they climbed the last few feet and mounted the stairs.