I nodded. “We wanted them off our tail.”
“Jesus.”
“Forget about them.”
Donna stared at the patrol boat and the motorsailer, blue-clad Coasties swarming over the smaller craft, the tableau slowly vanishing in the distance. Then she looked at me.
“Safety inspection?”
I nodded.
“Just like that?”
I smiled. “What did you want me to do, shoot them?”
She shook her head. “I do not want any violence.”
“Me, either.”
“Grapefruit juice?”
“Charles, show her where the cold locker is, will you?”
He got up and climbed down the ladder to the lounge. As he passed me he said, “I know now why you wanted me to come along.”
“Always need a gopher, kid.”
“Thanks.”
“But the thing is, you’re such a good gopher.”
He nodded, and disappeared, and I couldn’t help but see the smile on his face before he was lost from sight.
23
The remainder of the voyage was nothing to write home about, unless you counted the spectacular views of Haleakala from twenty miles off Maui’s western shore and the magnificent views of a cardinal red, volcano-adorned sunset. With no visitors, no lurkers, nobody following us, we had a peaceful and comfortable journey.
Skimming by the islands of Lanai and Maui, watching the tip of Molokai in the near distance, I always wondered at the abilities of the old Hawaiians who sailed these waters in open canoes. While this gentle day was an example of how pacific the sea could be, these waters could be as rough and as unpredictable as any in the world. And yet they did it, living out their lives in isolation. Until Cook came and changed the place forever.
I felt lucky to be here. On trips like this I always thanked whatever gods may have dropped me here, a convenient port to escape the power of a hurricane. I had been literally blown to Hawaii by the Pacific devil winds. I liked what I saw and decided to stay. I’ve remained here ever since. This trip I had more than one reason to be grateful, but I wondered if it would be the last I would undertake of my own volition.
Arriving off the Kona Coast of Hawaii, we dropped our sails and motored among gentle swells, the massive bulk of first Moana Kea and then her big sister Moana Loa soaring up into the heavens off our port side. South from the lush green hills of the northern tip of the island, the Kona Coast seemed a wasteland of ancient volcanic upheavals. The black lava landscape was utterly devoid of vegetation.
Aside from two sturdy resorts clinging to the coast, only the Queen Kaahumanu Highway snaked across the shore, a ribbon of smooth black asphalt between the rough field of boulders. Nothing else existed. Between the jagged edge of the lava coastline and the green jungles of Moana Loa far inland, the sharp a’a lava boulders owned this side of the island.
And above the jungles, midway up the western flank of Moana Loa, a small but steady stream of white steam slowly meandered into the sky. Some of it hung in a horizontal line, a solitary cloud shading the coastline.
“That would be Hualalai?” I asked Donna, who was guiding me toward her secret diving location. She had planted neither floating buoys nor electronic signals to mark the spot, relying instead on recorded GPS coordinates and monuments, probably a good idea, given the curiosity factor of any given stray diver.
“The white smoke is good news,” she said. “It’s active, but not nasty. When it turns gray, we’d better get out of here.”
“Good to know,” I said, watching the young volcano.
“Pele was always Kamehameha’s guardian. But he seemed to resist her up to the last.”
“I’ve had some relationships like that,” I said.
“She has come to life to guard him once again.”
“You think?”
“It is what the ancients would have said.”
“Maybe they would be right.”
I steered Olympia far enough offshore to keep me happy, and to keep her bottom intact. There were coral reefs and submerged volcanic rock piles left over from the last eruption, and we drew a lot of water to the bottom of our keel. Donna seemed content keeping our pace slow and steady. It gave her the opportunity to watch for those who would watch for us.
“Over there,” she said quietly, pointing to a spot on the surface where the water boiled in the current, indication of a coral head not far below.
“Not there.”
“That’s the reef, the entrance to the lava tube. It’s a wall, going about sixty feet straight down to a sandy bottom. Anchor just to the makai of it.”
“Charles!”
He came aft, his face a question mark.
“Grab Felix and the anchors and get ready to toss the iron on my command.”
“Yo.”
“We’re going to put two anchors aft and one forward,” I said to Donna, “so we don’t swing if the weather turns nasty.”
She nodded her understanding.
I turned Olympia into the wind to give us a little more drag with our freeboard. It made the engine work a little harder and we slowed even more. I came about so we were motoring through the deep water along the reef’s outer edge. When we approached the place where the water boiled over the submerged rock I pointed to get her attention.
“This close enough for a diving platform?”
“It’s perfect. I think we were just about here before.”
“Then this is where we anchor. Okay … now!”
I ran the engine in reverse while Felix and Charles tossed the anchors far out from Olympia’s stern and then ran to the bow, ready to throw the bow anchor when I signaled. I eased the boat forward after we caught the drag. One of the boys would dive to firmly set the anchors among the rocks, but for now we were secure. When I was sure we had our footing I cut the engine and listened to the gentle breeze rushing across the surface of the sea and the lazy surf as it broke against the distant rocks.
The Kona sun already started to bear down. You could really feel the Tropic of Cancer. The breeze would not be enough to keep us from broiling in the tropical sun. Felix leaned against the railing, looking down into the clear cool water. “Can you and Charles rig the awning?”
“Charles is checking the anchors, but I’ll help him as soon as he’s back.”
“He’s diving alone?”
“David’s going now. They couldn’t wait to get wet.”
“Can’t blame them.” When I was their age I spent most of my time in, on, and under the water.
“They’re bringing spearguns.”
“Then we’ll have some fresh fish for dinner. Can you cook?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“What the instructions say. These fish come with microwave instructions?”
“I’ll barbecue.”
Donna’s sisters emerged from the cabin wearing wetsuits and carrying diving gear. They moved in a businesslike manner with an economy of motion, assembling gear and pulling cables.
I watched them and found myself wishing I could go with them.
“Going to get crowded down there.”
“They’re going to set temporary lines to the cave. They’ll find the entrance and then mark it for us.” Donna smiled as David jumped in, falling backwards into the clear water, one hand over his mask, waving at her with the other, a big sloppy smile below the silicone.
“He seems smitten,” I said.
“He’s a nice young man,” she said.
“But … ?”
“But? There was no but. I said he’s a nice young man.”
“But what?”
She sighed. “There is more to it,” she said curtly. “Much more.”
“Such as things a young man cannot know?”
She looked at me, her head slightly tilted, her eyes squinting in the bright summer sun. “Are you fishing, Mr. Caine?”
“Yeah. I’m fishing. You’ve got a lot on your mind a
nd you can’t turn it off. This whole thing has you all in knots. You’ve had death threats. You’re about to lose your discovery to some dumb son of a bitch who stole your research. You could reveal the location of the tomb to prove him wrong, but you won’t because you have some kind of code of ethics that won’t allow you to reveal it. So you’re in trouble with your peers, and you’re in trouble with the Hawaiian rights activists, who also want to know where it is, and you’re in trouble with the guy who stole your stuff in the first place. So what does a Berkeley physics major, a guy who thinks about fuzzy whatzits, know about life? Is that where you’re going with this?”
“That’s part of it. But not all.”
“What is the rest? Can you tell me?”
She shook her head.
“Okay. So think about it. If you ever think I can help you, just holler. I’ll do what I can.”
“Like with those guys on the motorsailer?”
“Yeah. Like that.”
“I don’t have those kinds of problems now, Mr. Caine. My needs are more complicated. You’re a good man for direct action—I’d heard about it and now I’ve seen it for myself—but I doubt that you’d have the capacity for nuance necessary to face what it is I am facing.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I mean you no disrespect, Mr. Caine, and I am extremely grateful for your time and the use of your boat. For what you do I’m sure you have no parallel. But this is more complex and convoluted than you are probably used to dealing with.”
And with that she disappeared below to change. Well, it wasn’t the first time I had been shown the door by an intelligent woman, but this was a first from one about half my age. And what was that she said about a capacity for nuance? I couldn’t quite grasp that concept so I supposed she was probably right. I obviously lacked it if I didn’t know what it was.
Charles popped up beside the stern, holding a spear with a fat mahi mahi wriggling on it. The fish was almost as long as his speargun.
“Hold on there, pardner,” I said, stretching down to grab the fish and the speargun. “Looks like dinner.”
“There was a whole school of them under the boat. I dived down and found myself right in the middle of them.”
“Did you set the anchors?”
“Not yet.”
“Get to it. Those rocks look pretty sharp.”
He rolled gracefully into a vertical dive and disappeared below the surface like a humpback whale. The last thing I saw of him were his black fins descending vertically.
I envied him. This place looked lovely. And he would get to see the royal tomb. He would have one heck of a story to tell his grandchildren, of the time when he swam down into the depths and witnessed something that nobody would ever see again.
And nobody ever would, if Madams Wong and Pele had their way.
I looked up the mountain and watched the white steam as it drifted across the face of Moana Loa. Maybe the old ones were right.
Maybe we had no business doing what we were doing.
Maybe we should just leave well enough alone and let Madam Pele do what she would do. It would happen anyway. There was nothing we could do to stop her.
And maybe Donna Wong was right. Maybe I did indeed lack a capacity for nuance. Whatever that meant.
It didn’t matter. I had something to do that even I could understand. Something that needed direct action, for which I had been told I have ample talents.
I had something I knew how to handle.
I had a fish to clean.
24
Three days of focused work passed aboard Olympia. Donna and her sisters went into a frenzy of hard labor at the tomb site, photographing and cataloging the contents, making dive after dive into the dark, narrow lava tube. Charles and David did what they could, acting mainly as mules, lifting, dragging, and moving heavy equipment, refilling air tanks, hosing down the gear, patching hoses—doing all the tedious maintenance chores required by any seagoing operation. Felix acted as divemaster, watching the girls’ bottom time, making sure that they didn’t exceed the collective maximum time at depth and get into trouble.
We all kept a weather eye on the volcano. Pele cooperated, showing no sign of life other than the pale wisps of smoke and steam that drifted across the flank of the great mountain. I watched the smoke, willing it to remain white as long as we anchored downstream of a potential lava flow.
The weather could not have been more ideal. Kona boasts of 357 days of guaranteed sunshine every year and we got our share. The ocean remained glassy, the Pacific living up to its name, resembling a huge placid pond.
My injured tissues continued to heal. The stitches in my stomach itched like crazy, the lips of the surgical wound beginning to grow together. My old stomach had turned soft from lack of exercise, and now it sported both a bulge and a zipper. Oddly enough, the entry wound had completely closed, leaving only a bright shiny pink button in the small of my back, my souvenir of San Francisco.
“Why don’t we head over to Kailua this weekend?” I asked Donna while we dined on our third evening at the site. The sun was beginning to set in the western sea, a ruby red sky gracing the curve of the horizon. We ate casually after a long day’s labors, balancing paper plates on our laps while we lounged topside on cushions. It was too hot to eat inside, even this far offshore. Even at night. Half of the crew slept on deck.
“We’ve got a week’s work and then we’re finished. Why don’t we do what we have to do here and then celebrate?”
“No interim celebrations?”
“We are so close. We’ve almost catalogued every item on top of the pile, and we’re working on the next layer. But they’re big items, and we can move through them pretty fast.”
“A few more days?”
“There is something beyond. Some sort of chamber. To get there we’ll have to remove our tanks. The entrance is tight.”
“Another chamber?”
“It looks natural. But we don’t know.”
“Seven days?”
“Five to seven? Depends.”
“Look!” Felix pointed toward the black mass of the mountain above us. High up the slope, the mountain glowed a dull red, a pulsating pinpoint of fire about the size of a star in the night sky. It grew while we watched.
“It’s starting.”
“What’s starting?” The glowing point of light shrank, then grew again. The mountain rumbled a low moan with a vibration that could be felt through the deck of Olympia.
“I don’t like this.”
“Hualalai. It’s erupting.” Donna put down her plate, went below and came back with the big night glasses.
“Should we leave?”
She shook her head, watching the mountain. “No. But we have to watch it. It’s about ten or twelve miles from the coast. That’s not much, but the lava won’t flow fast. Not here.”
“You hope? Or you know?”
“It’s not that kind of volcano.”
“You hope.”
“We should post a watch. All night.”
“Pour me another cup of coffee. I’ll stay up until midnight.”
“We’ll all stay up until midnight tonight. Can’t miss this show. A new Hawaiian volcano? Are you kidding?”
“You may not have your week, Donna,” I said.
“We should dive tonight.”
“Can you do that?”
She looked at me as if I were hopelessly dense. “It’s dark in the cave.”
“Oh. Yes. Right.”
“I think we should make another dive tonight.” She looked to her sisters and they nodded agreement. All three women looked exhausted, but their eyes shone with the excitement of the challenge.
“Charles, David. You guys up for this?”
Both young men nodded. The mountain rumbled again and the tiny red glow brightened. A thin ribbon of light separated itself from the glow, slowly spilling down the mountain’s flank, a lava flow trickling from the caldera.
“It’s major,” Donn
a said to herself.
“How long do we have?”
“A day or two. Maybe a week. Who knows? It could stop. They do that.”
“But not tonight?”
“No. We’ll be okay tonight.”
“You hope.”
“Stop saying that! Of course I hope! I’m an archaeologist, not a volcanologist. I am hoping because I want to complete my work. God knows there hasn’t been anything but obstacles in my way. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to finish it if it’s the last thing I do.”
I glanced up at the mountain again. The lava trickle had widened to a river. Fires burned along the edges of the flow as the foliage caught fire.
“Might be, if you get caught in the tomb.”
“You won’t let that happen, will you?”
“No.”
She handed me the night glasses. “Keep a sharp eye on that thing, Mr. Caine.” And she went below.
The fire slowly crept down the mountain. It sure didn’t look like it was in a hurry. I’d always thought of volcanoes as dangerous, explosive things, like Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo, but I was learning that there were different types. Some were even gentle. And of course those would be the Hawaiian kind.
But even the gentle ones could kill you. So Donna and her sisters, and David and Charles went back into the water to get as much information as they could before the tomb disappeared forever. Maybe Donna was right. Maybe it was Madam Pele who wished for the tomb of the great king to disappear beneath molten rock, so that when Donna was done with her work the tomb would be ultimately sealed by Kamehameha’s eternal ally. And maybe I’d had too many grapefruit juices.
I watched the little party disappear beneath the surface, and followed their lights through crystal clear water to the edge of the coral reef. Once again, I envied them.
A sound separated itself from the background noise and I realized that I had been hearing it for some time without identifying it for what it was. I scanned the horizon for the boat and saw it, a large motor launch, lights blazing, looking somehow official and important. It traveled on a course that would take it straight to our anchorage. Watching it, I had a premonition that the world had finally caught up with me.
“Felix?”
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