Paniolo Pete

by RJ Krause

Chapter 9

  Kolohe

  I visited Pete every chance I got and spent some of my happiest evenings sitting out on his lanai enjoying the only family I’ve ever known. Noelani and her daughters sure knew how to prepare the best food. Whether it was grown, raised, caught, or picked, they always did an excellent job with whatever they had. The four boys worked the cattle everyday with Keala and Pete. In between, they expanded their acres of coffee trees.

  It was Noelani who first convinced Pete to start selling his coffee in town. Kona was a busy seaport with ships coming and going daily, and Pete slowly started to build up his coffee business. It was strictly by word-of-mouth. People just loved his coffee. Within a few years, the Double ‘P’ Ranch was showing a nice profit and Pete wisely invested in more land.

  Being Hawaiian, Keala could never understand this buying and selling of land. “How can you buy the aina? It belong to all of us,” he would tell Pete. “These haole laws, they no count for Hawaiians. You now my ohana brah, so you no need buy land.”

  Paniolo Pete understood Keala’s logic, but things were changing in Hawai‘i. In the long run, it was a good move for Pete to buy more land. Later, when the Double ‘P’ really began to prosper, some jealous bankers from Hilo tried to take the land from Pete and the Kahiona family. That didn’t work out very well. If I remember correctly, old Pete ended up owning that bank and Keala’s oldest son, Kawika, became the bank president. Kawika had always shown a natural talent for business. Pete knew his newly acquired bank would do well with Keala’s oldest son at its helm.

  “You one big shot now Kawika,” his father told him. “I plenty proud you my son and no forget you one Kahiona and no forget you the first Hawaiian to run one bank!” To this day, that bank and its many branches is one of the most successful in the islands.

  Pete just had a generous nature I reckon. He was always giving away gifts and helping people. He couldn’t tolerate people who picked on others, and it especially aggravated him to see people abuse animals. Pete just had a nautral way about him that people and animals both loved.

  We liked to tease Pete about talking to the animals. I reckon all of us cowboys talk to our horses and yell at a stubborn cow from time to time, but Pete would talk to them differently. He would actually have conversations with the horses and cattle, and I’ll be darned if they didn’t listen to him. I’ve seen him tell an ornery steer he’d appreciate it if it didn’t wander off again. That old steer would just look at him as if he was ashamed of himself and did as he was told. Pete always had a special way with animals, and heaven help anyone he caught hurting an animal.

  I remember Pete once hired a couple of boys from the mainland to help during branding. As often is the case, the young men had gotten to Hawai‘i and then spent all their money living it up. In exchange for their work at the Double ‘P’, Pete would pay them enough so they could get back home.

  As I often did, I had ridden over to help Pete’s crew with the branding. It was late in the afternoon, and we had spent a pretty hard day weaning the calves from their mothers. We were all tired. One of the two boys Pete had hired kept missing his rope shots most of the day, and it was eating at his pride. Earlier, he’d been bragging to everyone how he’d grown up on a big ranch and thought he was better than all of us. I was standing by the holding pen gate when this young cowboy jumped off his horse and began to beat it with his rope.

  “I’ll teach you to keep moving every time I get ready to throw,” he yelled as he beat his horse. “If I had my gun I’d show y’all what we do back home to a no good, flea ridden city horse that don’t pull his own weight.”

  Pete was standing off to the side showing Keala’s youngest son, Pekelo, how to tie a honda (a honda knot is what all cowboys use to form their lasso or lariat). I started over toward that cowboy to put a stop to this horse beating, but I wasn’t near fast enough. Pete was over the fence, and that boy was flat on his back before any of us could blink an eye. Pete looked down at him.

  “I know you boys do things a little differently on the mainland, but here on my ranch, nobody beats my horses. If you feel you need to hit something, go ahead and hit me. Of course, I might not be as easy a target since I don’t have a harness for you to hold on to.”

  Now, I’ve mentioned before that Pete was not a particularly big man. I’m guessing he was around 5’10” and probably weighed around 170 lbs. But there was something about Pete that conveyed strength. As I watched him talk to that young man I knew he was mad as all get out, but he spoke softly and deliberately and never raised a hand.

  Keala, of course, was right there by Pete’s side and ready for a fight.

  “Paniolo, I like chance ‘em. This big haole been acting up all day, and I like bust him up.”

  Meanwhile, the 250 lb. mainland cowboy was back on his feet and taking off his shirt. With muscles rippling across his chest and arms, he sneered at Keala. It was pretty obvious to all of us that this was not a fair match, even for the big Hawaiian.

  “No, my friend,” Pete said to Keala, “this is my ranch and those are my rules. If anyone is going to put this boy through school, I’ll be the one to do it.”

  “Shoot, old man, back home my sister could wup an old sodbuster like you. I’d rather fight this big, fat hombre over here than some skinny old man. You ain’t hardly worth workin’ up a sweat over. If this fat Hawaiian wants to ‘bust me up’ then let him try.”

  Keala glared at the smart-mouthed kid and it was beginning to look as if, regardless of what Pete said, these two were gonna have at it. Then Pete walked over to Keala, and although I couldn’t hear what he said, Keala looked into his eyes for a few moments, nodded his head, and walked off to stand with his family, who had all gathered to watch the scene.

  Pete approached the kid and said calmly, “Since you seem so high on your horse, I reckon I’ll have to stomp you before you can get to that fat sissy over there.”

  I’m not exactly sure what happened next because it happened so fast. One minute that big horse-beater was charging at Pete, swinging his fist, and the next he was sailing right over Pete’s head and landed pretty hard on the dirt.

  Pete walked over to the stunned boy and said, “Sir, it might be better all around if you just pick yourself up and call it quits. I’ll still pay you for a full day’s work, and you boys can just go on home. I suppose it’s a lot safer in a land where you sisters know how to fight so well.”

  That was enough to agitate the kid all the more. “You dog, I’ll teach you! I’ve been fightin’ since I was knee high to a pony, and if I hadn’t tripped, we’d be havin’ a real fight.” He rushed at Paniolo Pete again, and I’ll be darned if he didn’t just sail right over Pete’s head again and land with a thump.

  “Keala, I think we’ve wasted enough time in school. What do you say we finish weaning these calves and call it a day? Why don’t you and Bill go on ahead and I’ll catch up as soon as I finish showing Pekelo how to tie his knot.”

  Pete turned his back and started to walk over toward the youngest Kahiona boy. But that cocky kid was still livid with rage, and he wasn’t about to let Pete get away with making him look like fool. He stood and pulled a big knife out of his belt and went after Pete from behind. Well, it seemed as if Pete had eyes in the back of his head! Just as the knife came down, Pete stepped to the side and that blade stabbed nothing but thin air.

  “Son, up until now it’s been kind of fun, and nothing has been hurt but a little pride. You just put that knife away, and I’ll give you your wages, and this will be the end of it. We’ve got work to do before sundown, and I don’t have much patience left. You go saddle up now and ride on out, and we’ll call it even.” Although Pete said this in his usual calm voice, there was a hard edge to his tone.

  I won’t repeat what the kid said, but I can tell you that he was so angry and riled up he wasn’t about to just ride off and call it even. He started swinging his knife again. Pete turned to face him. As the kid lunged at him, Pete grabbed hi
s arm. The kid dropped the knife and looked like he was doing some fancy jerk dance as each of Pete’s blows found its mark. In a matter of seconds, that nasty horse-beater was bloody and flattened out cold on the ground. I’d never seen anything like it. That boy never knew what hit him. Pete turned around and walked over to Pekelo to help him finish his knot.

  I watched the second white boy walk over toward Pete and worried there might be more trouble. But as it turned out, he just asked if he could stay on and work at the Double ‘P’. He explained to Pete that he barely even knew the other boy. They had just met on the ship, and he hadn’t much cared for his braggart ways. Pete hired him, and Johnny turned out to be one of the best ranch hands we ever found and became a good friend and neighbor. After a few years he married a local girl and now has a family of his own.

  But here I go getting ahead of myself again. Back at the Double ‘P’ later that night, after all the calves were weaned and we were waiting for one of Noelani’s delicious meals, we got Paniolo Pete to tell us the rest of what had really happened earlier that day at the corral.

  The story goes back to Pete’s years at sea. While he was sailing around the world with his uncle Nickel, the ship’s Japanese cook, a man named Hiroki, took a special liking to young Peter and let him help out in the kitchen. Hiroki was very popular on board the ship not only because he was he a splendid cook, he also had a quite charming personality. The story amongst the crew was that he had left Japan a few steps ahead of a very angry, rich, and jealous husband! While the ship was anchored in Kobe, he swam out to it, climbed aboard and was there to stay. Although he didn’t speak a word of English, he immediately took over the galley. Yes indeed, there were quite a few harsh exchanges between Hiroki and the kitchen crew, but in the end that kitchen became Hiroki’s domain. The previous cook willingly turned it over to the wild and bald Asian man. Bald? Yessir, that’s what I said. Seems that Hiroki had been a Buddhist monk and in his journey to enlightenment, had been willing to give up all of his vices and worldly pleasures, except one—women. So here he was, a former monk on an American ship with a bunch of scrappy sailors and one fresh-faced teenager. Peter had never seen an Asian person before, and he took to hanging around the kitchen just to watch him. They soon became friends, and while Pete taught English to Hiroki, Hiroki taught him various forms of martial arts and also gave him lessons in the Japanese language.

  As we sat there listening to Pete tell the story, we all felt a little lost. Not one of us knew anything about kung-fu and judo and tai-chi or any of that stuff.

  “It’s a little hard to describe, but I guess all those years practicing with Hiroki must have paid off. I really didn’t want to hurt that boy, but he shouldn’t have pulled a knife. It’s one thing to fight on the up and up like a man. Win or lose nobody usually gets hurt that bad. But a knife can kill mighty quickly, and I just can’t tolerate that.”

  About that time Noelani and the girls started bringing out the evening meal. As usual, it was quite a spread—fresh fruit, squid lu‘au, lomilomi salmon, shoyu chicken and plenty of rice. Even though Pete had collected some very fine china in his world travels, the Kahiona women insisted on serving food the traditional Hawaiian way, on ti leaves and wooden bowls. Thinking back on those years at the Double ‘P’, it was indeed Paniolo Pete’s domain, but when it came to the kitchen, it was Noelani who ruled! Even Keala was smart enough to leave anything to do with running the kitchen (or the whole household, for that matter) to his wife. I asked Pete about this arrangement once and he said with a wink, “A man’s got to know his limitations and when to get out of the way where he’s not needed.”

  While Noelani ruled inside the house, Pete and Keala presided over the ranch, that is until coffee harvest time. During coffee harvest everyone at Double ‘P’, including Noelani and her entire domestic crew, swarmed into the coffee fields and worked day and night until the harvest was over and the coffee beans had been picked. I reckon if it weren’t for Noelani and her business sense, Pete, Keala, and I would all be broke. Pete could have cared less about money, Keala was just way too generous, and I’m just not smart enough. I guess you could say in a lot of ways, Pete owed much of his success to Noelani Kahiona.

  Oops, here I go gettin’ sidetracked again away from my story about Pete’s love and respect for animals. Remember little Pua, Keala’s youngest daughter who gave Paniolo Pete his name? When the Kahiona family moved to the Double ‘P’ Pua arrived with a little, black, one-eyed dog named Kolohe who was forever causing trouble around the ranch. That little mut would tear through the house with muddy feet, chase and bark at the nēnē (Hawaiian goose), and run around spooking the horses and cattle.

  One time I saw Noelani so mad at that dog she came running out of the house with a big butcher knife in one hand. Kolohe charged past her from behind and she yelled at her daughter, “I going kill that dog! Pua, you go catch that bugger and bring him here. Tonight we having dog adobo for dinner!”

  Now, I don’t really think for one minute that Noelani would have cooked Kolohe for dinner, but I do know for certain that there are some people that consider black dog a culinary delicacy. Little Pua was in tears, but she had enough sense not to argue with her mother. Instead, she ran to Paniolo Pete.

  “Mama going make adobo out of Kolohe! Please, no let her,” she cried. “Try help Kolohe this one time, and I promise he make no more trouble!”

  Paniolo Pete looked down at the desperate little girl and without saying a word, he walked over to his horse and grabbed his rope. Then he went over to the house and waited around the back. Pretty soon, here came Kolohe charging around the corner and Pete poked his shot. Then he reached down and scooped the little dog into his arms, swung into his saddle and rode off.

  Now Noelani was watching all this through the kitchen window and she yelled at Pete to bring that dog back! But Pete just kept going. That was the first and only time I ever saw anyone disobey Noelani. We didn’t see Pete for the rest of that day or the next. Early in the morning on the following day, we heard rim ride back into the yard just as we were getting ready to eat breakfast. As soon as we heard him, we all jumped up and ran to the door. There was Pete, unsaddling his horse with Kolohe standing next to him wagging his tail.

  “Where’d you go Pete?” I asked him. “We’ve all been downright worried.”

  Pete said that he and Kolohe had gone off for a few days and ‘had a little talk,’ as he put it. That’s all he ever said about the incident. Now I don’t know what he talked to that dog about. But I can tell you that from then on, there was never a more faithful or hard-working ranch dog than Kolohe. Of course the little dog still loved Pua, but he was devoted to Paniolo Pete. Those two were never far apart. It was pure music to watch Pete and Kolohe work cattle together. It was as if they knew each other’s thoughts. Pete would chase one of the cows in the paddock that needed roping. Every time the cow would try to turn away before Pete could poke his rope shot, Kolohe was right there barking and nipping at its hooves to turn the cow around. I reckon if the two of them ever competed in a rodeo, none of the other cowboys would have much of a chance. Be it calf roping, bull dogging, or bronco riding, Pete was the best. I’m not saying he never lost. He did, but it sure was rare.

  Anyway, I guess you can see for yourself the curious effect that Pete had on animals. As long as the dog had been in the Kahiona family, he’d been a real pain in the backside. But after his little excursion with Paniolo Pete, he became one of the best and hardest working ranch dogs I’ve ever seen. That was just another one of the mysteries about Pete.