The Islands at the End of the World (10 page)

“But what if we …?”

“If there’s no time, we’ll leave it. But I bet our hosts will be able to spare two minutes for the extra food.”

I fish out my meds and zip them into my pocket before he closes the trunk.

Ahead of us along the curb, a man and his son are siphoning gas out of a pickup truck. Dad watches them and then darts off to a sidewalk planter.

He returns with a few `
a`a
lava rocks, opens the gas tank, and uses one rock to hammer another one into the shaft until it’s firmly jammed into place. He leaves the flap open as an obvious sign of uselessness to others.

We approach the marina. The sky is hazier than it was in the morning. It’s almost like an orange filter has been placed over the sun. “Is there a forest fire around here?” I ask.

Dad pauses, studies the sky. “Let’s hope so.” He picks up his pace.

The boats are moored all along the long rows of piers. Dozens of groups of people move along the docks busily.

“Lei, I’m making this up as we go. Feel free to offer suggestions.”

Okay
, I think. But I’ve got nothing.

We step onto the wharf. There could be as many as two hundred sailboats. “Should we split up?” I ask. “Each take an end?”

Dad agonizes, finally shakes his head. “No. We’re not separating. We’ll just have to move quickly.”

The first ten sailboats are far apart and vacant. Only one of them is small enough not to require a crew. “Maybe we should just take it.”

“Don’t tempt me. But I know enough about sailing to know that I don’t know enough.”

At the end of the next pier, someone emerges on a top deck just as we walk past. He steps to the edge of his boat and urinates into the water. Dad pauses, embarrassed.

The sailor doesn’t let him begin. “Not interested. Unless you come with a barrel of rum, and when I say barrel, I mean a goddam oil drum.”

The rest of that pier is empty.

We walk along the next pier. A family of three exits as we enter. I meet the eyes of the mother, who holds a baby, and then we quickly look away.

Dad gazes ahead, measuring our prospects. Only fifteen boats bob at their moorings. He pats me on the shoulder and marches forward. We start a conversation with two captains, but both of them tell us that they’re already full.

“Maybe they’ll take us if we show them all our food,” I whisper.

Dad stops. “You keep quiet about that food.”

On the next pier we speak with a guy looking for crew. “We’re sailing for Maui come morning. But I could use another deckhand. I’ll take you both if you’re worth your weight. Do you sail?”

“Yes,” Dad lies.

The man throws Dad a rope. “Tie me a sheet bend.”

Dad catches the rope and smiles awkwardly. “Does it have another name? I’m good with knots; I just don’t recognize the term.”

The guy shakes his head. “If you sail, you know that knot.”

Dad hangs his head for a second. I can’t look.

“I’m a quick learner,” Dad says. “We both are. We’ll carry our own wei—”

“So am I.” The yachter snatches back his rope. “The waters between these islands kill. This boat’s no toy. We don’t have room for errors or time for training. Sorry.” He strides up his boat ramp.

Dad mutters.

Three boats farther along the pier, a sailor says that he would be happy to have us on board, but he’s sailing for Kaua`i, the opposite direction from the Big Island. He tells us about Rocky, who’s heading for Puerto Vallarta tomorrow. “Maybe he’ll offer to drop you off on his way out to sea.”

“Fingers crossed, Lei,” Dad says. “We may have to find another marina out of town if this doesn’t work.”

We spot the boat from a short distance and jog over to it. An older haole man with curly white hair and bronze skin stands shirtless upon the prow. He’s tall and skinny, but his arm muscles are big. He wears glasses, and the left lens is masked by a fitted eye patch. An older man, just as tanned, sits quietly at the tiller.

“Are you Rocky?” Dad asks.

The man with the eye patch grins briefly. “Where you going, and what’s in it for me?”

“My daughter and I need to get back home to Hilo.”

“Hilo! Naw, I’m not going that way. Water on that side will eat you alive. Rogue wave’s always capsizing ships. No way.”

“We’ll take Kona side. Just … can you get us to the Big Island?”

“When we set sail, it’s for Mexico. I’m not going close to shore over there. Get another twenty people like you screaming for passage? Forget it.”

Rocky’s gaze has drifted from Dad over to me.

“Can you swim?” he asks me.

I nod. He looks me up and down. His good eye pauses on my chest. I fold my arms and look down.

“I could swing close enough for you jump off. You could take your chances on reaching shore.”

“That’s fine,” Dad answers. “I’m sure we could make that work.”

“Wha’ do I get for it? For the trouble?” He studies me. He turns briefly toward his friend at the tiller, and then his eye is right back on me.

There’s a long pause.

Dad says, “I can write you a check. I can promise to send you—”

“No,” Rocky says, eye on me. I take a step closer to Dad. “No checks. I’m not interested in Monopoly money.”

I think of Mom and Kai, and my gut turns. We can’t afford to let this opportunity fall apart. I squeeze Dad’s upper
arm and say, “I … I have a really nice laptop computer.” My voice betrays my nerves. “We also have … top-notch climbing gear. You can keep our bags, too. They’re good backpacking bags.”

“You have climbing gear,” Rocky says to me. “You want to give me your computer. That’s somethin’, innit, Nelson?”

The other guy nods. He’s whittling a stick with a large knife. He watches me, too, but looks away each time I meet his gaze.

“Does the gear come with lessons? Gonna strap me in?” He puts one foot forward and performs an awkward little grind, and his eye drifts from my chest … lower.

Gross
. My skin is crawling. My grip around Dad’s arm tightens, and I shrink back.

Dad steps in front of me. He stares at the ground, and then he raises his chin, looking directly at Rocky. “Forget it. We’ll keep looking.”

“Hey, no. We’re just teasing,” laughs Rocky. “We’re gonna be swinging by there anyway, right? Soon as Don shows up with stuffs, we can go. Leave in the morning.”

“Dad,” I say.

He squeezes my shoulder and I know he wants me to stay quiet.

“No, thanks, Rocky.” We turn and walk away.

“Then stay here an’ rot!” he calls over to us. “No one else is gonna help you without a price. We ain’t askin’ much!”

He didn’t just say that. Kill me now
.

Dad and I pick up our pace. We arrive at the promenade at the entrance to the marina, and Dad sits down on a bench.
He wipes sweat off his brow and his untamed new beard with the base of his T-shirt.

“What a nightmare,” he mutters. “I don’t … I don’t know what to do.” His voice rises.

I can’t stand to see him so helpless. “This almost worked,” I say. “It was a good idea. Come on; we can find other places to check.”

He offers me a forced smile.

“Hey! HEY! NO!” A stocky man with a potbelly and a tight polo shirt thunders down the promenade from the street. He waves a pistol as he shouts. Dad instinctively shields me as the man runs past us. “Stop. STOP THAT! RIGHT NOW!”

A man and a woman jump out of the way as the runner barrels past them, turning onto a narrow dock. At the end of the dock, a young man in a tank top pushes an eighteen-foot sailboat out into the water and leaps on board. Another man yanks frantically at the rip cord of the boat’s outboard motor. The boat turns slowly away from the dock.

The man with the gun reaches the end of the dock. “GET OFF MY BOAT! NOW!”

The thieves duck low, the motor roars to life, and the boat lurches forward. The man fires his gun four times. The skull of one thief pops on one side, spraying a shower of blood against the boat’s mainsail. The body crumples forward. The boat veers at full throttle and plows into another sailboat.

The gunman lowers his arm and stands still as a statue. The second thief dives into the water and splashes away.
Meanwhile, the outboard motor is still on, groaning with effort as it wedges the boat between the neighboring sailboat and dock.

Large clumps of blood-soaked brain matter slide down the white canvas of the sail. I let out a whimper.

“Lei, come on.” Dad tugs on my sleeve.

My whimper slowly rises. My heart is pounding in my chest. I feel short of breath. Dad says something, but the words don’t make any sense. I feel like I’m underwater. It rushes at me this time.

It is a good thing. At last, I am ready. I may begin
.

The bright sunlight flickers. “Oh, no. Dad …,” I moan. And then I’m

May the light of the gods dawn on me like the rising sun.… Come to me like the creeping of lava, and may this sacred ceremony of the
ali`i
bring me meditation and release.

“Lie down, honey. You’re fine. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Dad’s left hand is wrapped in a white hotel hand towel that has grown red with bloo

This is right. I am here. It is time. And this one spits fire. It oozes the heat. This one has not warmed before. I will linger, then, as I have done on other shores, and we both shall have our fill
.

feeling? Better? Keep resting, Lei.” Dad wipes the sweat off my brow. His left hand is still wrapped in a towel. White. I turn and grope for the sheets. The sun is shining in through a crack in the long drapes. The room feels as stuffy as a sauna, but I’m so cold. So col

I can feel it slipping. This is my privilege. This is my purpose
.

I sit up and rub my eyes. It’s dark. Our hotel room. The curtains are pushed aside and the door to the balcony is wide open. A gentle breeze whispers across the hairs of my arms. I can hear sirens, ubiquitous like coqui frogs, strangely reminding
me of home. Distant shouts. Pops that I now recognize as gunfire. Dad sits on the lanai and faces the ocean. The moon is nearly full and the sky glows a dark blue with tendrils of green behind almost-white clouds. I see a shooting star race beyond the horizon. There are only half a dozen boats in the bay.

I approach silently. I’m almost outside when Dad notices me. He springs to his feet. “Hi,” he says gently. “You sleep like a teenager.”

“Hi.” I look down.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

“I feel okay. But I’m
starving
. What time is it?”

“Late. Sunday.”

Another long one. I’m used to being out for twelve hours or so. But a day and a half?

“You’ve had two seizures since the marina. Do you remember the marina?”

The image of that man’s head spraying open, and the blood-smeared sail, will never leave my mind. “Yes. But nothing since then.” Tears well up in my eyes. I brush them aside but they keep coming. I let them.

Dad embraces me. “You’re okay, Lei. It’s all over. You’re fine.”

“How’d we get back here?”

“I carried you. Someone at the marina helped us to the car. I got you up here myself. It was a quarter to noon, so the key card still worked. Haven’t left since.”

“What happened to your hand?” He’s only hugging me with his right arm. I remember seeing blood.

He hesitates to answer. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. It’s nothing.”

“Did I bite you?” Panic wells up.
Did I bite his fingers when he was trying to keep me from choking?

“It’s nothing. Please.”

“HOW BAD IS IT? What’d I do?”

He quickly unwraps the towel around his hand to show me. “Relax, honey! It’s not a big deal, see? See?”

I examine his hand. The first two fingers are cut near the second knuckles. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop it, Lei. I’m okay. Please, relax. Go back to bed. We’re getting out of here in the morning. Keep resting up.”

I step out onto the lanai and take a deep breath. No sound of generators. But there are sirens everywhere. Shouting. Car alarms. I look right, toward downtown, and see at least three separate fires billowing black smoke into the night. “What happened?”

“It’s started. The looting. Everything. Lei, please. Get some more sleep. We leave here tomorrow.”

“Okay.” As I turn to enter the room, I notice silent lightning bolts infrequently flashing across the petals of the Emerald Orchid.

“Dad, are you seeing this?”

He pats my shoulder. “The atmosphere is putting on a hell of a show.”

“Why?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”
I’m stoking his anxiety
, I realize, and I silently step back inside.

“Eat something real quick,” he suggests. “Take your meds.”

I can’t look at him. I can’t bear to see his kindness and patience.

The bathroom light won’t turn on, so I use my cell phone to see what I’m doing.
At least it’s good for that much
. I shake a pill into my hand and attempt to turn on the faucet. Nothing.

“Water doesn’t run anymore. Try the minibar,” Dad suggests from the door. “Grab a candy bar while you’re at it. It’s on the house.”

Our backpacks and other bags are arranged neatly in one corner of the room. Heaped beside them in a pile are my computer, our snorkeling gear, my schoolwork, and Dad’s thick folders of graded exams among the now-useless junk. Dad’s been busy while I was out. I wonder how many times he idly rifled through the bags, endlessly organizing and reorganizing our food and gear while he waited for me to wake up.

“Did you pack my Hawaiiana book?”

“It’s in your bag. Don’t worry.”

I wonder what it must have been like for him to haul me off the pier and get me safely back to the hotel in the first place.

“Thank you, Dad.”

“For what?”

“For everything.”

He smiles. “Eat up, hon. You’re wasting away. Then back to bed. Okay?”

I take a few moments to eat a Snickers and a bag of corn chips. I wash down my evening pill with a can of warm cola, and then I drift back to sleep.

A piercing buzz rockets through my ears. White, flashing lights batter my eyelids.
Oh, no, again? Already?
“Leilani, wake up! Come on.” I can barely hear words over the buzz.