Night of the Howling Dogs (7 page)

I grabbed my T-shirt and left. Casey ran to catch up. Louie and Mike whooped behind us, having as much fun as rats in a trash pile.

“Dylan, wait up!”

The sun was merciless. In minutes the water on my back was nothing but salt crystals. I yanked my T-shirt on.

“Forget those idiots,” Casey said. “Let’s go swim in the crack.”

“Anywhere but here.”

We hiked up and stood on the rim, looking down the trail at the still, green water. I hesitated, thinking about Mr. Bellows. How mad would he get if he caught us split up like this?

I glanced back to see where Louie and Mike were.

Nowhere. Maybe in their tent.

“Who cares,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“We were supposed to stay together, remember?”

Casey looked back and shrugged.

“Forget it,” I said. If Casey wasn’t worried, why should I be? We headed into the crack.

The water sparkled in the sun. Algae grew like fuzz on submerged rocks, yellow in the sunlight. Deeper into the shadiest parts of the crack, the water was black and still.

I stepped in, ankle-deep. It was so cool and soothing that all thoughts of Louie, Mike, and the soggy palm frond vanished. “You got to go a long way to find something to beat this, Case.”

He stepped in. “That’s for dang sure. Those little punks are going to come straight up here after that hike…if they got any feet left, anyway. Dad’s kind of a slave driver.”

“He doesn’t feel pain.”

“That’s good, I guess…for a detective.”

“Fighting bad guys all day long, you need that.”

“He doesn’t fight. He uses his brain. The fighting is for the big guys, like Billy’s dad.”

“He’s a cop?”

“No, but he’s big.”

A rock zooped down into the water. We looked up. How’d they get here so fast?

“Whatchoo ladies doing down there?” Louie called. Mike stood next to him.

“Stop with the rocks,” I said. “Somebody could get hurt!”

Louie picked up another one and lobbed it into the water just close enough to make me nervous.

I ripped off my T-shirt, tossed it on the dry rocks, and set my glasses on top of it. “Case—swim back into the dark part where they can’t see us.”

Casey dropped his shirt near mine, and we swam deep into the crack. Looking back was like looking out of a cave. The water was half in shadow, half in the sun. Our shirts were bright spots on the rocks across the way. The trail beyond led up to a patch of blue sky. Without my glasses everything was fuzzy, but I could see shapes and colors and make things out well enough to identify them.

“Maybe they’ll go away,” Casey said.

“In your dreams.”

Mike and Louie appeared in the patch of sky at the top of the trail. They slouched down, joking and shoving and making a lot of noise.

“Our shadows,” Casey said.

“Our nightmares.”

Louie squatted at the edge of the water. He picked up my glasses and dangled them on the cord, then put them on. “Mike, Mike, where you stay?” He stuck out his hands as if he were blind.

“Over here.”

“Which one? I see four Mikes.”

“That’s because you got four eyes now.”

Louie snickered. “You funny, brah.” He took the glasses off and blinked. “I can see! I can see!”

“Put those back!” I shouted. “Unless you want to carry me home, because I can’t hike out of here without them.”

“Hoo, sissy-boy. I going join Girl Scouts before I carry you.”

“They wouldn’t let you in,” I said, and Casey laughed.

Louie tossed my glasses back onto my T-shirt. He picked up another rock and bounced it in his hand. Just before he threw it, Mike grabbed his arm and pointed his chin back up the trail.

A man was staring down at us from the mouth of the crack.

A man in a cowboy hat. On a horse. Four other horsemen and a packhorse rose into view behind him.

“Paniolos?” Casey whispered.

I gaped up the trail. “There aren’t any cows down here.”

The lead man dismounted and let the reins fall at his feet. His horse nudged the ground, ripping up a chunk of dry weeds. The other riders stayed in the saddle.

For a moment, none of us moved.

Finally, Louie dropped the rock and headed up the trail with Mike.

Casey and I swam back to the rocks. I picked up my glasses and T-shirt and put them on. We started up. Now the riders were in focus. The lead man looked about fifty. He wore jeans, a black T-shirt, and scarred brown cowboy boots. He pushed the brim of his sweat-stained straw hat back on his head with his thumb. The hat had a red-feathered band around it.

The paniolo’s skin was leather brown, and worn from a lifetime outdoors. A sparse patch of hair hung from his chin.

We nodded at each other.

“Name’s Masa,” he said, a smile in his eyes. I liked him instantly.

“Dylan,” I said, nodding. “And this is Casey.”

He dipped his head to Casey. “We came to fish. How’s about you folks?”

“Scout camp,” Mike said, then lifted his chin toward the other cowboys. “How…how’d you get here?”

“Trucked up to the trailhead and rode down. We from a ranch in Kau.”

I glanced back up at the cliff. “You came down that trail on
horseback
?”

“Just now…. You boys here by yourselfs?”

“No,” Casey said. “There’s more. We’re camped in the grove. My dad’s the scoutmaster. He went down the coast.”

Masa turned toward the ocean. “You mind if we set up in that grove?”

Casey shrugged. “Fine with me. My dad will like the company.”

Masa grinned. “You boys like to fish?”

“With a spinner,” Mike said.

Louie nodded. “My uncle has a boat.”

Masa turned to me and Casey. “How’s about you two?”

“Never done much fishing,” I said.

“What? Your daddy never take you?”

“He’s not home much.”

“My dad took me deep-sea fishing once,” Casey said. “I never been so sick in my life.”

Masa chuckled. “You get used to that. We going fish nighttime, with a light. Fish come right up, see what that light is all about. Like in the before time…
papio, taape, ulua.
The fish not scared of you here.”

“Taape?” Mike said.

“Blueline snapper. Good fish.”

Behind Masa the other cowboys leaned toward us, their forearms crossed over their pommels.

“Watch out by that island,” I said. “There’s a shark.”

Masa raised an eyebrow. “Had a hole in the fin?”

“How’d you know?”

Masa grinned. “That’s Fred.”

“What?”

“He’s been around Halape long time. Some say two hundred years.”

Louie snorted.

Masa glanced at him. “Maybe more. Fred protects the bay, and you, too, if you get into trouble.”

“Sharks don’t protect people,” Louie said. “They eat um.” He grinned and looked at Mike.

Masa studied Louie. “You sure about that, boy?”

Louie didn’t answer.

“How come it has a hole in its fin?” I said.

Masa looked at Louie a moment longer, then turned toward me. “Some fool shot it.” Masa smiled. “That wasn’t too smart.”

“Why?”

He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from the inside band with a finger. His short hair was black, peppered with gray, and his scalp was eerily white from wearing the hat all the time. He put the hat back on. “One time two guys came down here. Mainland guys. One of them had a pistol, for protection.”

“From what?”

“Good question. Anyway, they wanted to go swimming, and like you, they saw Fred. Fred was just curious, you know? He likes company. So Fred came in close to check out his visitors. The one guy got his gun and shot him in the fin. You seen the hole. Fred took off and they went swimming. But he came back.”

“And attacked them?”

“No, no…he came back later, at night while they sleeping…lying on the sand in their sleeping bags.”

We waited for more. Masa took his time.

“Well, what happened?” Mike said.

Masa looked sideways, as if checking to make sure no one would hear. “About two o’clock in the morning,” he whispered, “the guy with the gun wen’ fly up!
Boom!
”

We all jumped.

Masa went on. “The guy scramble out of that bag and reach for his gun.”

“Ho,” Mike said. “What was it?”

“Something bumped him.” Masa held up two fingers. “Two things happened. One, his gun was gone. Two, the guy’s finger was frozen stiff. Trigger finger.”

“Yai,” Mike whispered.

“You just made that up, right?” I said.

“No, boy. True story. But here’s the end of it—the guy’s finger stayed stiff all the way until the second they hiked across the national park line. Then—
pop!
—the finger wen’ unstiff.”

Louie burst into a laugh.

Mike and Casey grinned.

Masa raised his eyebrows. “Obviously, you boys never heard of the ghost shark of Halape.”

“Pssh,” Louie spat.

Masa seemed so sincere I didn’t know what to think. The other cowboys looked amused.

“Of course, Fred is just the name we gave him,” Masa went on. “He’s got a Hawaiian name, but none of us were around two hundred years ago to find out what it was. But don’t be fooled, Fred is for real. An old Hawaiian spirit lives inside that shark. You can swim right up to him and he won’t bother you. He likes people, actually. It gets lonely around here. If he could, he would talk your ear off, I bet.”

“Come on,” Louie scoffed.

“I tell you what, boy…. What’s your name?”

“Louie.”

“Louie, listen…we going down by the trees, get set up. Then you come with us and we go swim. I show you Fred is Fred and not a shark like you think of a shark. How’s about that?”

“Naah,” Louie said. “No need.”

Masa smiled and nodded. “Well, you change your mind, you come get me, ah?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Masa clicked his tongue and his horse stepped closer to him. He picked up the reins and remounted. He tipped his hat and turned the horse toward the sea, the other paniolos following. And us, right behind them.

They unsaddled and brushed the horses down and carried the gear from the packhorse into the shade of the small cabin near the grove.

“You going to sleep in the cabin?” I asked.

“Black widows in there. We going sleep under the stars. When you boys came? Just today, or what?”

“Yesterday.”

“Then you saw the stars. Hard to believe, ah?”

“Saw some dogs, too,” I said.

“Dogs?”

“Wild ones…up there.” I turned and pointed to the cliff. “I saw them at the trailhead, too…back when we started.”

Masa’s face turned serious. “What they looked like?”

“Well, one was big and black. The other was a small white one. Kind of skinny, too, and scraggy. I thought it was pretty strange to see dogs in this rocky place.”

Masa glanced at the other paniolos. One was studying the ridgeline.

“What?” I said.

“We first spotted those dogs about two years ago,” Masa said. “I think they been around here long time, too. Like Fred. But that small one…”

Masa hesitated. When he went on, his tone was quietly respectful. “What I think, is that white one is Pele.”

I stepped back. Get serious! Pele was a ghost, a Hawaiian myth, a legend, not someone who was actually alive, and surely not a small white dog.

“Pele?” Casey echoed.

“Unreal,” Louie said, throwing up his hands. “You no can see he’s joking?” He elbowed Mike. “We go make a campfire. You cooking tonight, remember?”

“Yeah, but…”

Louie had to pull Mike away, Mike glancing back as they headed toward the fire pit.

“Of all you boys,” Masa said, “that one should believe. Look like he got Hawaiian blood.”

I studied the ridge. “Something woke me last night. I just had this…this
feeling.
Everything was quiet, everyone was sleeping. Still, I had that feeling, so I went out to look around…and there they were, looking down on us. Same dogs we saw up on top, I’m sure of it.”

“It was a warning,” Masa whispered.

“A
warning
?”

Masa nodded, looking grim. A two-hundred-year-old shark didn’t spook him one little bit. But that small white dog sure did.

For the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking about that, even after Mr. Bellows returned from the hike. Who was this guy Masa? Was he fooling with us, like Louie said? Or trying to scare us away so they could have Halape to themselves? No, that didn’t feel right.

Now I was starting to get spooked.

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Bad thoughts can take you down a deep, dark hole if you’re not careful.