by Mary Deal
After waking from a nap and realizing her cell phone was down stairs, she was surprised to find another message from Huxley.
“You must be resting.” His smooth masculine voice flowed from the recording. “I just wanted to say how much I love and care about you. We have great things ahead with our lives. As long as we're committed, distance will only strengthen us.” He paused then continued quickly. “We'll be together soon. Talk to you later.”
That night, like a teenager, Sara listening again and again to Huxley's messages just to hear his voice and commitment.
The next morning, with Ka'imi in tow, she walked back to the Surinam cherry bushes and approached the homeowner about picking an ample supply since it looked like they would be left to die on the vine. Juicing them might prove their worth.
“Have at 'em.” The woman smiled and motioned toward the front of her yard. “They're not really ours. They just sprung up one day, probably from birds dropping seeds. The vines started draping over our fence.” She studied the thickened frontage along her property and smiled. “Dulls a lot of the traffic noise.”
Something about the tropical sun beating down and the fresh air of the trade winds made the morning special. The landscape was in blossom with flower and fruit. That surely gave credence why Kauai was known as The Garden Island.
Sara returned home with a canvas bag full of cherries. She left Ka'imi outside while she put the cherries into the refrigerator. Moments later, in the rear yard, she saw Ka'imi sniffing and making a commotion under the Thunbergia vines that clung to Maleko's rock wall. She pawed around as if finding something in the dirt.
“Ka'imi!” Sara raced out the lanai door. “What did you find?” She grabbed her harness, pulled her away and saw… fresh rat pellets!
Sara returned Ka'imi to Birdie and then intended to head directly to Maleko's house.
“I'm going with you.” Birdie was angry. “You never know what that loony's gonna to do.” But first, she wanted to see the pellets. “These are green. The one's Maleko used were blue.”
Maleko came to the door carrying an ukulele. His smirk and unfocused eyes were that of a person on a high. Could he be so out of it that he could reach states of natural euphoria? Then the oily herb smell of marijuana oozed out of the house behind him. Was that why he seemed so out of it all the time? Could he be a druggie?
“I found more rat pellets in my yard, Maleko.” Sara enunciated, making sure he understood. “I asked you not to throw those in my yard again.”
“Wha… I no throw pellet more.”
“Someone spread pellets under the bushes along the wall on my side.”
He waved his ukulele in the air. “I no throw.” He backed inside and moved to close the door.
“Maleko, wait!” Sara wished to question him further.
He slammed the door in her face.
As Sara and Birdie left Maleko's yard, down the street someone again ducked behind the Hibiscus hedges.
Chapter 26
No strenuous activity was what the doctor had ordered. Out of boredom, Sara asked to read Birdie's morning paper which lay in her driveway.
“Bring it back when you're done. I use them to clean my windows.”
Sara reclined on a rattan chaise on her lanai and unfolded to the front page. One large headline glared back. A young woman from Hanalei on the North Shore was reported missing. No trace of her whereabouts were known. No one reported her absence because she would frequently visit friends and stay a few days and not let anyone know where she had been till returning home. Not having a steady boyfriend, and working only a part-time job, she wasn't reported missing until her employer telephoned to ask the roommate why she hadn't shown up for work. She was last seen late the past Saturday afternoon when she told her roommate she would go to nearby Tunnels Beach and then for a couple of drinks with friends. It was now Thursday. The article went on to say the woman was last seen wearing tan knee shorts and a bright yellow halter top. She took along a woven lauhala bag to carry her wet bathing suit and turquoise Hawaii beach towel. Her picture was included.
Sara rented a small nondescript white SUV to get around the island. Not much of her prized hybrid could be salvaged. She signed over the radio, CD player and spare tire to the junk yard attendant who was thrilled to have them.
Over the next couple of days, she went for a manicure and a pedicure at Salon J on the main highway in Kapa'a, opting also for a deep massage to alleviate the headaches and other malaise caused by the concussion.
Feeling better afterward, she decided to do a little shopping at TLC Boutique down near the fire station which would be her last stop before a late lunch at either the Kauai Family Cafe or the Waipouli Restaurant, both heartily recommend by the local people.
The next sunny days were spent walking with Ka'imi as far as the Surinam cherries and back. Though Sara felt she could walk farther, the dizzy spells had not dissipated. Hawaii was at the height of the hurricane season lasting June through November. While hurricanes didn't hit Kauai with any frequency, the season sometimes brought with it storms of long duration and she didn't wish to be caught unprepared in any of them.
Sara had tested her strength and walked farther than usual and now felt tired. The trade winds blew in the smell of rain. It was time she and Ka'imi hurried home.
Too quickly, trees and bushes began rustling in the strong wind. Great dark clouds rolled in overhead, hinting of nature's power and creating a feeling of closeness all around. Then the clouds burst. She opened her umbrella only to have a strong gust of wind turn it inside out. She tried to pull it back into shape as she hurried along, but the frame was bent and the covering torn beyond usage.
Rain pelted in fat sloppy drops and quickly graduated to a heavy downpour. She had been caught in the rain before but this was no gentle sprinkle. She turned her face away from the strong frontal winds and headed toward home as fast as she could with Ka'imi prancing beside her.
Completely soaked, she finally rushed through Birdie's gate. “Birdie?” She tethered Ka'imi in the shelter of the rear lanai and grabbed a rag nearby and dried her a bit. “Birdie, you home?” Sara checked the patio door. It was unlocked. She stuck her head inside and called again. Still, she received no response. Birdie couldn't have gone far. Well aware of the house break-ins around the area, she never left her doors unlocked if she went out for long. Sara darted through the rain, heading home for a hot shower.
She stopped at the side door where she always left her sandals and shoes instead of at the front door. She heard a faint voice and paused under the eaves. The rain came harder. It pelted the roof with dull drumming sounds and bounced on the sidewalk. Sara wanted out of her drenched clothing and turned to enter.
The voice came again, now a frantic call for help. She shielded her eyes from the rain and hurried to the lanai.
“Somebody, please! Help!”
Birdie. It was Birdie's voice screeching for help. Where was she? Sara forgot about the rain and raced across her yard, looking over the fence into Birdie's rear yard and toward Birdie's cliff edge. She wasn't there. Then Sara heard the voice again and remembered that Birdie always used her cliff trail to go to the river for a dip. Sara ran to the back of her lot.
“Who's there? Birdie, is that you?”
“Sara, help. I've fallen.”
“I'm coming down.”
“No! You'll fall. It's muddy and slippery. Throw me a rope.”
Birdie apparently was not hurt from the fall if she could use a rope to get back to the top on her own.
The rain had let up a bit. “I don't have one. I'm coming down.”
“Don't you dare! In my garage. Go through the back door.”
Sara ran, totally oblivious of her own condition. Her friend could be hurt worse than she let on. She found Birdie's rope and rushed back to the cliff. Sara wasn't sure how she might go about pulling Birdie up the hillside with her left elbow still weak and sore. She yelled as she uncoiled the line. “You hurt?”
<
br /> “Just skinned up pretty bad. And mad as a hornet!”
“Good. It'll help get you back up here.”
Sara had to climb down the cliffside a few feet to find a stout shrub to secure the rope. Red mud oozed under foot. She grabbed hold of some shrubs to keep from slipping. “Where are you, Birdie? I'm ready to throw.”
“I hear you. Just throw it and I'll get to it.”
Just then, the rain let up. The clouds passed on their way to dumping their deluge over Hanama'ulu to the south. “Here it comes.” Sara threw the rope in the direction of Birdie's voice and watched it land on top of the shrubbery.
“Wait. You threw it in the wrong direction.”
“So where are you?”
“The trail zigzags. I'm about twenty feet to your left and I'm tangled up in heli-heli.”
Sara hadn't yet been down her trail. Looking down the cliffside, nothing but tangled shrubs and tall weeds bordered the rough hewn pathway on both sides. The rain having stopped now, she could see slippage of the flat lava rocks that had once served as stepping stones.
A lot of tall tangled heli-heli had been knocked down and lay across the steps. The wooden stakes seemed to have loosened in the rain and leaned over haphazardly. Some had completely fallen over. She drew up the rope and then tossed it again.
A few seconds later, Birdie yelled again. “So where is it?”
Sara shook the rope in an attempt to get it to drop through the bushes and to the ground, hoping it would extend father down the hillside. That didn't work. “Your rope's too short.” Sara looked for a tree farther down the steep slope. “I'm going to ease down a bit. Tell me when you see it.”
“Stop, Sara! Don't come down. Every rock is loose. Someone's pried them out of the ground, even the stakes.”
Chapter 27
Surely Birdie was mistaken. The rain must have made the rocks and stakes come loose. How would Birdie know if someone pried them up? Sara looked about. There was no tree nearby, only scrub brush and more overgrown heli-heli that she wouldn't wish on her worst neighbor. That was it! Sara yelled down the cliffside. “I'm going to get Maleko to help.” She climbed the few feet to the top as Birdie's frantic warning about their crazy neighbor carried away on the wind.
Sara ran to Maleko's house. She dreaded asking him for a favor. He didn't answer the door but his rusted old pickup was in the driveway. Then she remembered that he had a sound-proofed studio behind the house. He could be in there.
Sara picked her way past heaps of garbage and into Maleko's sloping back yard. Underneath the sheltered patio area provided by the upper floor add-on, Maleko had built a crude narrow room the width of the house. It had one window that was covered on the inside with what looked to be beach towels. Against the wall of the open-air space underneath the house were piled bulging plastic tubs that looked ready to burst. It seemed Maleko had eventually abandoned the use of tubs and simply thrown things haphazard in heaps. A large old rusting chest-type freezer sat on the far side. A wooden picnic table and benches painted in dark Hanalei green sat in the middle of the shaded area.
The cramped space reeked of the perspiration of dirty clothing and motor parts. Who could enjoy eating at that table with all the rotting and smelly belongings littering the space? It was a shame this part of his property sat so low and confined, otherwise the trade winds might clear out the stench, hopefully not blowing it to her yard though.
A makeshift barbeque pit, five feet in diameter, surrounded by small lava rocks, lay out in the yard. When many people had portable barbeques that used propane for power, Maleko had rigged something connected to a power generator, the same kind she bought and stored at her garage in case of disaster and power outages. Maleko's crude mechanism looked to be made to rotate a spit over an open fire. Surely he must barbeque huge pieces of meat to need such a large gizmo, and crudely fashioned at that.
Reaching the other side of the house, she found the doorway to the studio and knocked. Maleko swung the door open wide, surely not expecting to see her. His smile turned to a deep frown and then anger. “Why you stay my place?” His impudence bordered on hate.
Sara stood dripping wet and muddy on the sidewalk. “We need your help.”
A quick glance behind him showed the long room with an old couch and loveseat against the wall. The room served as a music studio at the far end, with a painting studio near the doorway. Two paintings leaned against the wall; one a beautiful sunrise, the other, an oval circle of light around two hands and forearms wielding a drippy bloody claw hammer, raised as if having struck something.
“Ainokea!” He slammed the door closed.
Sara was stunned and for a second could only stand and gasp. “Maleko!”
He unexpectedly opened the door again and was suddenly outside, leaning up close to her face. His eyes bulged. “No stay my property. You got dog?” Rage raised the veins in his neck. He hurried out into his back yard, looked around and under the house. “Where dog? No stay my house!” He came at her and pushed her toward the front yard. “Where you got dog?”
He had no right to lay a hand on her. She swatted his hand off her shoulder and turned abruptly to face him. “Birdie fell down the cliff.” She pointed toward the canyon. “We need your help.”
He made motions like he intended to shove her. He loomed over her. She kept backing up but ready to ward him off if he touched her again. She backed against the front fence. He shoved her aside, ripped open the gate, and all but pushed her out. “No stay my property!”
“Maleko, you won't help?”
“Ainokea!” He slammed the gate closed after her that made a ominous sound of finality.
Sara ran from Maleko's yard intending to knock on neighbors' doors until she found someone with a very long rope. There was no way to judge how far down the trail led or where Birdie might be. With not much activity taking place in their quiet cul-de-sac, it was difficult to tell if anyone was home.
Then the elderly neighbor across the way who liked peeping from behind his hedges appeared wearing shorts and a tee shirt and carrying a bucket of tools. She ran to him, again noticing his garage crammed full of Chinese statues, gigantic vases, bulging cardboard boxes, and maybe even a couple of sewing machine tables with covered machines. It was no wonder he parked on his lawn.
As she approached, the old man looked grim and backed away as he held the hedge clippers out in front of himself. He was tall for an Asian man of Chinese descent, more rugged than she expected. Birdie had said he and his wife were elderly. With Sara's idea of elderly, she was surprised to see a man with graying hair who was tall and fit. He kept inching backward away from her with the hedge clippers open and pointing toward her. Sara realized she might look like a homeless wanderer with stringy hair, rain soaked clothes and sneakers and legs caked with red mud.
“Please, I live there.” Sara pointed to her house. “I'm Sara Mason.” She pointed to Birdie's house. “Birdie Crew lives there. Birdie fell down the cliff.”
All the neighbors at least knew of Birdie, the self-appointed neighborhood watchdog.
“Someone push over cliff?” The man's eyes flared. He remained protective of himself. He turned halfway around, looking off in the distance. “Where dis cliff?”
“No, not pushed.” Sara wondered if he might not understand English. “She fell.” Sara pointed. “There, behind my house. She fell.”
The man's actions seemed curious as he looked away in the distance, nonchalant. After he realized what Sara had said, the tenseness in his face softened. He threw the hedge clippers back into the bucket and rushed into his garage, having to move some items before reappearing with a long length of coiled rope over his shoulder. As they hurried across the street, he thrust out a hand. “My name Bao Chang.” For a moment, his gaze penetrated into her eyes. Fear showed in his. Why would helping cause him to look so fearful?
Bao displayed an expertise at tying knots. He was stronger and able to pitch the rope farther down the cliffside toward Birdie'
s voice. He seemed nimble and well able to manage his footing on the steep slippery cliffside. Nothing weak about this elderly guy, as Birdie had described him. As Birdie made her way up, slipping and sliding in the mud, Sara and Bao took up the slack.
Suddenly, Birdie called up to them. “Wait, the rope's stuck on a bush.” She tried to jiggle it from her end. “Crap! I'm slipping again!”
Chapter 28
Without thought of her weakened arm, Sara began to ease down the cliff while Bao held the rope. She hoped he could be strong enough to haul both her and Birdie back up the slippery hillside. Bao held tight and braced himself in a backward leaning stance in the loose soil and small rocks.
Sara slipped in wet weeds and mud, landing on her rear end. She managed to get close enough to free the rope from the shrubs. “Pull now, Bao!”
Following the rope, she groped her way back to the top, slipping and sliding, herself now layered with red mud. Back on the cliff edge and helping to pull, Birdie's head finally showed on the trail below as she made her way carefully up the loosened stepping stones. She scampered up the last few feet on all fours resembling a mountain goat who had taken a red mud bath.
Birdie was thrilled and thanked them profusely, especially Bao. She would have hugged him but he backed off at the sight of her.
Once in the yard, Birdie turned on the water spigot and used Sara's garden hose to wash off the red dirt. Like the fluid from the banana tree, once red dirt stained clothes, you threw them away, or washed them as clean as possible and only wore them during gardening or other dirty jobs. Birdie continued to hose herself down, hair, tee shirt, shorts and all. She checked herself for cuts and scrapes but found nothing more serious then badly skinned knees and elbows and a plethora of stinging scratches from heli-heli.
