“Water
looks pretty deep,” he said.
“Yeah,
well as my Auntie Mana used to say, ‘You’re not sugar—you won’t melt’.”
“I
wasn’t worried about melting,” he said. “What worries me is if you lose your
footing on one of these boulders, I’ll probably have to go down and fish you
out of Kahului Bay.”
“Me?
I’m the one with the black belt, remember? I can balance on the head of a pin.”
“Great.
But let’s see how well you balance on a slippery round rock with a hundred
gallons of water rushing around it. You want to take my hand?”
“No,
I think we’ll both have a better chance going it on our own.”
“You
first, or me?”
“Are
you stalling, Kingston? ‘Cuz it sounds to me like you’re the one worried about
getting wet.”
With
that, he hopped onto the first rock—balanced for a few seconds—and then hopped
onto the next. I followed. At first I focused on the dirt embankment on the
other side of the swiftly-moving stream, but I soon figured out it was easier
to focus on the next rock—and then the one after that—in order to plan my next
move.
About
halfway across, I balanced on a steeply sloped boulder with an uneven top. I
tried to maintain my footing as I watched the flashing stream roar around me.
The din of the rushing water swept away all other sound. I felt suspended in an
alternate universe of enveloping white noise, a swiftly shifting landscape of
blue-black water, and bracing clear air.
I
heard someone yell above the roar and I looked to the opposite side. Ono had
already made it across. His face was pinched and frowning. He held out his hand
as if reaching to pull me forward. I could just barely hear what he was
shouting at me.
“You
okay? You need me to come back and get you?”
I
shook my head, and in doing so I lost my balance. I felt my foot sliding—almost
as if in slow-motion—off the boulder and then into the stream. In a split
second I was thigh-deep in the frigid water. I quickly grabbed onto the
misshapen rock and pulled myself up, but my pants and sneakers were soaked.
“I’ll
come—” Ono started to say, but I cut him off.
“No!
Stay there. I’m fine.”
I
hopped across the rest of the rocks and grabbed Ono’s outstretched hand to
hoist myself onto the bank.
“You
okay?” Ono said. “How about your phone? Is it still working?”
I
pulled my cell phone from my pocket. It wasn’t damaged, but it showed no
service in the area.
“My
phone’s fine. And I’m good. We’re both a little damp, but as my Auntie Mana
would say—”
“Yeah,
so I’ve heard. Why don’t you give me the phone and I’ll put it in my backpack.
That way it can’t fall out of your pocket.”
We
slipped through the bushes and small trees that grew thick along the bank. It
was slow going, since there was no trail, only dense foliage and
basketball-size rocks we had to maneuver around. The terrain was steep and I
couldn’t imagine Beni singing—even silently—as he made his way through this
dense thicket while trudging up the sharp incline.
I
checked my watch: four minutes to ten. If we were on the right track we
should come across the campsite at about twenty after ten. I wasn’t in any
hurry to see what waited for me there, but I was eager to get it over with.
Every
now and then the thick brush and trees would open up to a small area with flat
ground covered by thin clumps of grass. We’d move through the flat area quickly
and be back to hacking through foliage in less than a minute. The brilliant
green of the valley was almost hard on my eyes. I’d learned in school that ‘Iao
Valley is in a rain forest which gets nearly four hundred inches of rain per
year at the top of the Pu’u Kukui summit. Most of the rain drains into the ‘Iao
Stream, but a lot of it soaks into the ground making it possible for the
thousands of bushes and trees to grow tightly packed together.
We
didn’t talk much. Ono kept looking back to check if I was still in sight but
then he’d move on. It almost seemed as if he had a schedule to keep, but maybe
he felt like I did and just wanted to get this whole wretched ordeal over with.
My
soggy cropped pants stuck to my legs and my sneakers squished with every step
but the air temperature was warm. The exertion of the constant uphill climb
stoked my body heat. I kept checking my watch. At ten after ten I slowed down
and started checking out the landscape, looking for recently disturbed soil.
Ono turned to look back, saw I’d fallen behind and stopped. He didn’t look too
pleased with my dallying, but I didn’t care. If we overshot our destination
we’d end up hopelessly lost.
At
a quarter after ten, the terrain flattened out. We’d entered a small meadow
about the size of the lot my house sits on in Hali’imaile. Trees framed the
sides of the meadow, but in the center the ground was level, with soft red soil
covered by a thin layer of grass.
Ono
reached into his daypack and pulled out my cell phone. He used it to take a few
pictures of the meadow, then turned and snapped one of me. He didn’t need to
tell me to smile because I already was. Thanks to Beni’s silly drinking song
we’d safely arrived at the perfect place to dig a grave.
CHAPTER 26
Except
there was no grave. Nor was there a single shred of evidence that a former
campsite had been anywhere near there. We scoured the area like two people
searching for a lost contact lens but we came up short on all counts.
“Did
we make a wrong turn?” I said.
“How
could we make a wrong turn?” said Ono. “There was only one way to go.”
“Except
we crossed the stream at the low point in the park and then headed up the
valley from there.”
“Yeah,
so?” said Ono. He looked like he was waiting for me to smack my forehead and
admit I’d just remembered Beni hadn’t said
‘Iao
Valley, but rather
Waihe’e
Valley, which is miles away on the north shore.
“Well,
the ‘Iao Stream splits down by the park,” I said. “Maybe Beni was talking about
a different fork of the stream—like down by the footbridge. If he went up into
the valley from there, he would’ve ended up in a totally different place.”
Ono
stared up at the sky for half a minute before answering. “Remember when I told
you I needed a couple hours to check out an idea?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,
I’ve got a buddy who owes me a favor. I think it’s time to call it due.”
We
made our way back down to the park in no time. It always seems that way; it
takes forever to go someplace and then you can get back in a flash. We crossed
the stream at the same place we had earlier and this time I didn’t dally, and I
didn’t fall in.
“You
want to go up that way—into the other side of the valley?” I said, pointing at
the other branch of the stream as we crossed over the footbridge.
“Nah.
Let’s just go on down to my car. I need to make a call.”
We
walked down the road and he stopped next to an ancient VW van. It was two-tone,
red on the bottom and dirty white on the top. It looked like it’d been up on
blocks for at least a couple of decades—lots of rust damage and a sun-bleached
paint job that made it look pink in spots.
“Wow,
dude,” I said. “I’m glad to see there’s someone on this island with a
sadder-looking ride than mine.”
“Hey,”
he said, “these wheels are classic. Nineteen sixty-four VW bus, nearly
one-hundred percent stock—inside and out. Even the color’s stock: sealing wax
red and beige grey. It’s hard to come by one of these babies that’s still
running.”
“Well,
I gotta admit, I’ve got a girlfriend up in Pa’ia who’d go absolutely
pupule
over your little hippie bus. Where’d you get it?”
“Bought
it off an old
auntie
up in Makawao. She said her husband hung on to it
after their son got killed in the war.”
“Iraq
or Afghanistan?” I asked.
“Nah,
way back in Vietnam. Seems the son bought it new and his father couldn’t bear
to part with it. But now the old guy’s dead too . I rebuilt the engine. It runs
great, but I’m not so good with body work. It’s quite the conversation piece
wherever I go. I had a guy come up to me at Costco a few weeks ago and offer to
trick it up like a ‘hippie love wagon’—you know, throw on some peace signs and
doves and stuff. I told him the faded paint and rust holes were hippie enough
for me.”
“My
folks were hippies,” I said. “Real hard core. In the ‘70’s they lived up in the
trees at Taylor’s Camp on Kauai. I wonder what they’d have thought of the stuff
we have now—you know, cell phones and Internet dating.”
“Your
folks are no longer around?”
“No.
I was ‘little orphan Pali’ at a pretty young age.”
“That’s
too bad. But if they were anything like my folks I can give you a hint how
they’d be now. Back in the day, my folks were hard-core hippies too. Free love,
organic everything, a couple of ‘special plants’ under grow lights in the
basement. Now they live on an Arizona golf course, take country-western dance
lessons, and typically eat dinner around four o’clock in the afternoon.”
He
pulled out a huge wad of keys and unlocked the passenger door. I crawled up
onto the cracked leatherette seat. The van even smelled hippie—like a gunny
sack full of mangoes that’d been left outside on a hot day.
He
got in on his side and pulled a cell phone from under the driver’s seat. He
flipped it open and hit a speed-dial number. “Gordon? Yeah, it’s me again. I’m
afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to fire it up.” There was a pause and then he
said, “
Mahalo
. We’ll be down in a flash.”
He
snapped the phone shut and turned to me. “You think you can handle going out to
the airport? I hear your name’s been added to the no-fly list, so if you
wanna skip it, just say the word.” He laughed. I didn’t.
The
VW van seemed to have a maximum speed of about forty. Cars zipped around us as
we headed down out of Wailuku into Kahului and then out onto the airport road.
Ono was conscientious and chugged along in the right lane, even pulling onto
the shoulder if people tried to pass when there was oncoming traffic.
“Are
you going to fill me in on why we’re going to the airport?” I said.
“We’re
gonna do some reconnaissance. ‘Recon’ that will probably save us time and
sweat.” He turned right at Old Haleakala Highway.
“I
thought we were going to the airport,” I said. “You turned too soon.”
“No,
we’re going to the other side of the runway.”
I
didn’t question him. I’d been to that side of the airport earlier in the year.
It’s where the private planes land.
“We’re
going to the private terminal?”
“Close.
We’re going to the heliport, where the choppers are based.”
I
perked up. I’d flown countless hours in commercial jets as a federal air
marshal but I’d never been up in a helicopter. “Are we going for a ride?”
“Yep.
I’ve got a friend who’s offered us a flyover of ‘Iao Valley. I want to see if
we can spot anything from the air.”
“I
suppose under the circumstances it’s kind of tacky to say ‘yippee’.”
“Regardless
of the circumstances, I think ‘yippee,’ is in order,” he said. “I can never
decide which I love more: sailing Tomika’s cat or flying in one of Gordon’s
birds.”
“You
ever wish you could own something like that yourself—you know, a catamaran or
maybe a little private plane?”
“You
know, I’ve thought about it, but it never pencils out. The maintenance, the
insurance premiums, the fuel cost. At this point in my life I’m content being
the sidekick—the friend with benefits.”
We
got to the heliport and parked. There were three helicopters waiting on the
tarmac. A guy in a dark blue jumpsuit waved us over to the far left helicopter
and when we got there, he and Ono gave each other a ‘man hug’—one of those
shoulder-to-shoulder things followed by a couple of slaps on the back.
“Hey,
my man, you didn’t mention you were bringing a co-pilot,” said the jumpsuit
guy.
“Pali
Moon, this is my friend Gordon Walker. Pali’s a local. She’s acquainted with
the girl we’re looking for up at ‘Iao.”
I
couldn’t help but notice that Ono played down Crystal’s dire circumstances for
his friend.
“Good
to meet you, Pali,” said Gordon. “You been hanging around this salty dog for
long?”
“No,”
I said. “We just met a couple of weeks ago. I booked the
Maui Happy Returns
for
some mainland clients of mine
.
”
“Then
she helped me sail the cat over to O’ahu for Tomika,” Ono said. “She’s a solid
co-captain. And, she’s flown for the feds—mostly Homeland Security stuff.”
I
wasn’t sure why Ono was glitzing up my resumé, but I went along.
“Good.
You ever fly choppers?” Gordon said.
I
waited for Ono to answer, then realized Gordon was talking to me.