Night of the Howling Dogs (15 page)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Wave heights from the Nov. 29 tsunami ranged from as low as four feet off Waiakea Peninsula in Hilo to 20 feet at points in Ka’u…. There were at least five waves in the series produced by the strong offshore quake, the most intense in Hawaii in more than a century.

—Honolulu Advertiser,
Friday, December 12, 1975

Night of the Howling Dogs
is a work of fiction based on the true events of November 29, 1975. Six Boy Scouts and four adult leaders from Troop 77 of Hilo, Hawaii, had set up a weekend camp at Halape, a remote beach campground on the southern flank of Kilauea volcano. In the black predawn the Scouts suddenly found themselves caught up in an unimaginable fight for their lives. My cousin Tim Twigg-Smith was one of them.

Though the characters and personal situations in
Night of the Howling Dogs
are my own inventions, the geological events of that weekend happened as they happen in this book…and like Dylan, Tim in real life let go of his glasses just when he thought his end had come.

The magnitude 7.2 earthquake, the largest in Hawaii since the 7.9 quake of 1868, caused the south coast of the Big Island to drop nearly twelve feet into the ocean. The sudden sinking generated a tsunami that rushed inland over the campers an astonishing three hundred feet and rose fifty feet above sea level.

Though slashed, battered, and nearly drowned, Tim and his fellow Scouts survived. But one of their adult leaders, Dr. James Mitchel, was lost in the quake-generated rockslide from the cliff above. A fisherman, Michael Cruz, who’d ridden down to Halape on horseback from Keeau, was swept out to sea and never found.

Five years after that nightmare, I asked Tim if he would consider hiking back down to Halape to show me around and spend the night. I was fascinated by his story and wanted to see the place for myself, especially the coconut trees rising out of the ocean from where the old campground now sat—underwater.

Amazingly, Tim agreed.

A few months later, with Tim and his brother, Michael, I hiked down to Halape along the rugged eight-mile trail from the Hilina Pali trailhead.

Like Dylan in
Night of the Howling Dogs,
I was captured by the peace and pristine beauty of Halape. I swam in the crack, dodged stinging ants and flying roaches, sat on the rocks, and soaked in the cool blue ocean. I boiled and drank stinky catchment water and explored the rocky coast. I was truly amazed, and silently thanked Tim for having the courage to return again to camp under the looming cliff of Pu’u Kapukapu.

That night we unrolled our sleeping bags on the sand and slept under the stars, the ocean whispering not far away. The air was warm, and the Milky Way raced across the universe, as clear and bright as you could ever hope to see it.

But sleep didn’t come easily.

I couldn’t help thinking: What if…

An hour before sunrise the next morning we packed our gear, savaged down a can of peaches, saving one more for later, and began the long hike out to Chain of Craters Road, eleven sizzling miles down the desolate coast.

Two hours later the sun was trying to kill us. My feet were blistered and swelling in my boots. I stank of sweat. There was absolutely no shade. We stopped and sat in silence, too hot to talk.

Michael dropped his backpack and searched for something to eat. Tim squeezed into an eighteen-inch fissure, trying to escape the heat.

We got up and moved on.

Tim took the lead, setting a gruesome pace.

At one point Michael and I stopped to split a Snickers bar. That’s when I learned about the wasps, and how wild they could get over something sweet. We ran for our lives, swatting them away with our hats.

Tim was now a blip in the hazy distance. Michael and I had to hustle to catch up.

Eventually, mercifully, we made it to the road. But our prearranged ride wasn’t there. The road was deserted—no cars, no shade, no spigot of clear, cool water, no green grass to lie down on.

Rock and blacktop. That was it.

We sat; sooner or later someone would come.

Michael took out the last can of peaches and pried it open with his pocketknife. We divided it up.

Nothing.

Ever.

Tasted.

So.

Good.

Thank God for peaches.

For a second I thought about thanking Tim, too, for having the guts to return to Halape. But I decided to do that later. Right then all he cared about was water, shade, and maybe a cool breeze.

We were never near death that day as we sat dehydrating in the sun, but we were close enough that I could imagine it. Truly, that moment helped me appreciate what I am: a miraculous living being, part of all life around me. Everything fit together like a tight puzzle, and we had to take care of each other.

Just as our last drop of water ran out, our ride showed up.

The Scouts and leaders who camped at Halape in 1975 (left to right): Fal Allen, David White, Don White (David’s father), Dr. James Mitchel, Jimmy Kawakami (a Honolulu policeman), Leaf Thompson, Claude Moore, Michael Sterns, Tim Twigg-Smith, Noel Loo.

GRAHAM SALISBURY’S
family has lived in the Hawaiian Islands since the early 1800s. He grew up on Oahu and Hawaii and graduated from California State University. He received an MFA from Vermont College of Norwich University, where he was a member of the founding faculty of the MFA program in writing for children. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon.

Graham Salisbury’s books have garnered many prizes.
Blue Skin of the Sea
won the Bank Street Child Study Association Award and the Oregon Book Award;
Under the Blood-Red Sun
won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, the Oregon Book Award, Hawaii’s Nene Award, and the California Young Reader Medal;
Shark Bait
won the Oregon Book Award and a
Parents’ Choice
Silver Honor;
Lord of the Deep
won the
Boston Globe–Horn Book
Award for fiction.
Jungle Dogs
was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults;
Island Boyz: Stories
was a
Booklist
Editors’ Choice; and
Eyes of the Emperor
was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a
Kirkus Reviews
Best Book of the Year and won the Oregon Book Award. Graham Salisbury’s most recent book is
House of the Red Fish.

Graham Salisbury has been a recipient of the John Unterecker Award for Fiction and the PEN/Norma Klein Award. You can visit him at his Web site,
www.grahamsalisbury.com
.

ALSO BY GRAHAM SALISBURY

House of the Red Fish

Eyes of the Emperor

Blue Skin of the Sea

Under the Blood-Red Sun

Shark Bait

Jungle Dogs

Lord of the Deep

Island Boyz

Published by Wendy Lamb Books an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2007 by Graham Salisbury

All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Salisbury, Graham.

Night of the howling dogs: a novel / Graham Salisbury.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: In 1975, eleven Boy Scouts, their leaders, and some new friends camping at Halape, Hawaii, find their survival skills put to the test when a massive earthquake strikes, followed by a tsunami.

[1. Earthquakes—Hawaii—Fiction. 2. Tsunamis—Fiction. 3. Survival—Fiction. 4. Boys Scouts of America— Fiction. 5. Camping—Fiction. 6. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.7. Hawaii—History—20th Century—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.S15225Nig 2007

[Fic]—dc22 2007007054

eISBN: 978-0-375-89087-1

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