The Preserve

by Steve Anderson

  She drew her gold Chinese lighter from her robe pocket and turned it in her hand like a talisman.

  Then she took his hands in hers, the lighter between their fingers. Their knees were touching.

  She sighed, and she growled, “We shoulda made love when we had the chance.”

  “I imagine you are probably right. I thought about it, you know, what it would be like.”

  “Me too, Wendell. Me too.”

  Lett stood.

  “Go for broke,” he said.

  “Go for broke.”

  Kanani grinned at him. Lett made himself grin back. His shoulders felt heavy. He shrugged them to lose some of the ballast.

  She let him go and find his way out. He entered the nearest tree line. He didn’t take a trail. He moved through the underbrush crouching low, using tree trunks for cover. He was on night patrol in the Hürtgen again. He was sneaking over the German border into Belgium and again across the American lines after that senseless mission that had finally wrecked him.

  As he moved through the trees, he peered back over his shoulder and thought he saw a figure sticking to a corner of the boogie house, watching him go. He told himself it was just another illusion. He kept moving, kept his eyes open. Stop, and he was cornered.

  29.

  After Wendell Lett snuck away, Kanani, keeping the lights off, changed into her dark denim overalls and sneakers. Charlie Selfer was still in the bar, and the camp was emptier by the day. It was high time to try looking at night again. She could only keep notes about Selfer’s mimeographed map so long, let alone keep it memorized, especially since Selfer had moved the map from its hiding place under the leather blotter on his desktop. She folded up her faint penciled notes into a pointy wad, slid that deep in her long front thigh pocket, slipped out the back and moved through the forest like a crab on the lookout for feral beach cats.

  She first needed to get inside her boogie house bungalow. There was a baby revolver in there, from before the first World War most likely, but a gat was a gat. It came with the footlocker they’d provided for any eventuality, tucked in next to that opium pipe.

  On the lanai, a sharp chill hit her, and she hoped she wasn’t getting a fever. She unlocked the door and moved through the main room in the dark.

  The light clicked on, she screamed.

  “Try stay calm, yeah?”

  Frankie. He was lying on the chaise with the gold legs, his own legs hanging off one side and end like logs, his thick head and neck upright on the raised part. He wore those Army coveralls, still clean, and holster and knife on a web belt.

  Her blood was pumping, sweat running down inside her overalls already. Stay calm, she told herself, stay calm. “You went scare me,” she said.

  “No make ass, wahine,” Frankie said and smiled. The lamplight on his face reminded her how long and fair his eyelashes were compared to his kinky black hair, which he parted down the middle.

  She tried a smile. It felt okay. “Ho, you making that chaise look like one baby bed,” she said. “You always big for one Philippine boy.”

  “I’m Hawaiian. Just like you.”

  “What you doing here?” She found the armchair, lowered herself into it.

  Frankie didn’t answer. His slim purplish lips pressed together. He rose and moved around her, the floorboards creaking. When he was behind her he said, “Got one light?”

  She shook her head.

  “What in your pocket den?”

  “Oh, right . . .” She pulled out the gold lighter, held it out.

  “Who give you dat?”

  She turned to him, scowling. “Miss Mae. Remember her? Den she went scram and I never see her no more. Dat no-good bitch owe me money.”

  Frankie shrugged.

  “You see her around?” she said.

  “Nope.” He took her lighter, eyed it and weighed it in his hand, fired it up and lit a fat rolled cigarette.

  Kanani smelled pakalolo, what haoles liked to call reefer, muggles, pot, anything but its actual name. Locals had always chuckled at that. From the plantations to the towns, no one had minded a little paka—until the Military Government decided otherwise.

  “Who the lolo that stole my pakalolo?” she joked. It was a favorite local saying.

  Frankie laughed. He still had that strange chuckle, high-pitched and strangled as if he’d stuffed a little funny man down inside his throat.

  “How you went get in here?” she said.

  “I could say the same.”

  “My house, I mean. All locked up.”

  Frankie shook his belt and it jangled. He had a pouch holding a ring of keys, as well. “Miss Mae tell you about dis place?”

  “Among others.” She looked around, as if someone else were in the room. “Dem army guys,” she whispered. “Hotel Street.”

  “Okay.” Frankie turned on the radio, found a station playing haoleized Hawaiian melodies, probably KIPA out of Hilo Side.

  “I was looking for you,” he said, losing his Pidgin suddenly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Frankie said. “You want some?” He offered her his pakalolo. She took it and smoked. Coughed.

  “What’s in your other pocket?” he said.

  “Huh?” She glared downward as if discovering her pants down. “Oh, dat . . .”

  She pulled out the pointy wad of pink paper, stood it on the little lamp table, and straightened out the spikey parts.

  Frankie cocked his head. “An elephant?”

  “Not! Dat one nēnē bird. Come on.”

  “I guess I can see it. You Japanese always were lolo about paper.”

  “Origami, da name. And I Hawaiian, just like you. Hey, why you no talk like one island boy no more?”

  “You know why,” he said. “Same as you.” His face hardened now.

  “All right, fine,” she said, dropping her Pidgin.

  He sat back down, facing her, and blocked all light in the half of the room beyond. It made her want to stand up, but that wouldn’t look too good. She had to give him something or he wouldn’t leave.

  “I came here looking for it,” she added.

  “We are talking about gold, yeah? Yamashita kine. Golden Lily, all that.”

  “Yep. Just like you. Why else would you be here?”

  “Huh,” was all he said. But her confession seemed fine to him, especially with Miss Mae out of the picture. He didn’t say anything else for a while, though, and that started to worry her. He hummed a song but it wasn’t the one on the radio.

  “I won’t lie,” she added. “I thought maybe I could get my little fill, and I’m on my way.”

  “Where? The mainland? You? Don’t make me laugh.” Frankie added his strange chuckle.

  She laughed back. “Stick out like one Molokai leper. You’re no better.”

  “How you think you gonna get any booty out of here anyways? You need a truck. You need manpower. That takes arranging.”

  “I know. You don’t think I know that?”

  Frankie sucked on the paka and handed it back to her.

  “Where you think you’re going?” she said. “Somewhere they don’t own you? Pshaw.” She waved at smoke.

  Frankie leaned forward. “They don’t own me.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “I have things they need. I always have. You just have things that they use.”

  “Such as?”

  “One washout by the name of Charlie Selfer.”

  She flinched but kept it inside. Frankie was just trying to spook her. That was his game, how he found out things—start a fire and see who and what came running out.

  “Maybe I’m only hunting,” she said. “Maybe I’m the one doing the using.”

  “Maybe.”

  They eyed each other.

  Frankie lay back on the chaise again. He folded his arms behind his head, his elbows knocking against the wall. “By the way,” he said, “it’s ‘Francisco’ now.”

  She pretended to fight a chuckle.


  “Laugh all you want. But listen up too and good.” His arm was so long, he reached over and touched her chin from there. “It’s not for the taking,” he said.

  “What’s not?”

  “What we just talked about. What’s being stored here.” He pointed downward, underground. “Not any of it.”

  She sat up. “You mean, you’re here to protect it? Not to take it?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  She wanted to spit at him, but she swallowed it back down.

  “Yep, that Selfer’s a loser of a haole,” he said. “Mister Lansdale, now he’s the future.”

  All she could do was growl. She snatched up the origami and lighter off the little table and shoved them into her pockets.

  “And stay clear of that Wendell Lett,” Frankie added. “That one’s on thinner ice. His days are numbered. Maybe he gonna get dirty lickens.”

  Lickens was a beating. Dirty was worse. Her stomach tightened up, that sharp chill bit her again. She could only shake her head. “Numbered?”

  “Tita, you better stick with me,” he told her. “I gonna give you this one chance. You’re smart. I see that. You show me that.”

  She eyed him, sideways, adding the slightest roll of her eyes.

  “Me, I’m gonna make the right kine moves,” Frankie said. “Uku plenty.”

  “How so?”

  “One day, they’re gonna leave this place. They’ll give it back to us. And that leaves me in charge.”

  He was holding the last of that pakalolo reefer pinched between thumb and forefinger. He handed it over.

  Kanani’s throat filled with the paka smoke and this time she didn’t cough. She let it burn. “Bruddah,” she said, “I got one story for you. They never give back what they take. Not ever.”

  30.

  Lett had expected immediate retribution from the likes of Lansdale. But none came, which worried him even more. The next morning, he got a visit from Jock Quinn, Jock’s face long from frowning. Jock wouldn’t take coffee, not even cold. He told Lett to report to the training ground in one hour but wouldn’t tell Lett why. Lett wolfed down an early lunch of cold Spam and rice and colder coffee. He had no choice but to report. When he’d left the Main House last night, he’d made it to the perimeter and saw no chance of bolting anywhere. The compound still had sentries, and just beyond them stood a high fence expertly camouflaged, topped with barbed wire, and probably electrified. As he suspected. He didn’t even want to fathom mines or other silent, Asian-style traps he could not anticipate. So he had trudged back to his bungalow along the usual trails and tried to get some sleep for what was to come. It was just as well. He couldn’t bear leaving Kanani here.

  On the training ground, Jock had a new exercise for Lett. He would have Lett fire his carbine with scope from a rise of about one story, a situation they would approximate by having Lett shoot from atop the weapons shed—Jock had instructed two men to build a compact platform up there. Lett was to fire standing and lying. Out on the range, a jeep would tow another jeep, slowly. In the rear seat of the towed trailing jeep sat what looked like a tailor’s dummy, a bald, cream-colored figure with fatigues pulled over it.

  Jock handed Lett his carbine with scope. Lett checked the safety lever. He slung the rifle on his shoulder. Jock walked Lett over to the ladder standing behind the shed, explaining that a head shot was the goal but not to worry about missing. They had plenty more dummies. Lett didn’t answer, which only made Jock look more nervous. He tried to joke, “They’re dummies, they won’t know what hit ’em,” but his voice strained.

  Lett cut off Jock right there. “You told me this was for security.”

  Jock shrugged. “I said what I said.”

  “Surveillance, you said.”

  Jock held out his hands. “I tell you what I’m told.”

  “Ordered.”

  “Yes. Damn right. What do you think this is?”

  Lett unslung his rifle. He held it out for Jock.

  Jock stared at it. “What?”

  “It’s all yours.”

  “I don’t follow,” Jock said, his voice lowering.

  “Oh, yes you do.”

  Lett was still holding out the weapon for Jock. Jock wouldn’t look at it. He kept his stare on Lett. Something flickered in his eyes a moment.

  Lett stood the rifle against the shed. “I’m done,” he said, and he walked off.

  “Done for, more like,” he heard Jock grumble.

  But then Jock shuffled after him. “Don’t do it,” he whispered.

  “Stay out of it. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

  They were marching along with Jock pressing into his shoulder, and it looked routine enough from afar, the instructor giving trainee the earful.

  “It ain’t about me. They are going to crush you. This ain’t some front line gone all snafu. You can’t just grab a truck back to your unit once you done your bender, changed your mind. Oh, I know how you doggies did that in the ETO. Well, we didn’t have the luxury stuck on some rock, some beach hotter than fugging embers.”

  “Listen to me: I’m not changing my mind.”

  “Goddamn, Lett, don’t make me have to save you from this.”

  Lett halted, Jock with him.

  “Do not do that,” Lett snapped. “Don’t.”

  Both were hissing now, all whispers. Each took a step back, looking around, making sure it didn’t look too personal.

  “Do not do that,” Lett repeated. “Not for me. I’m not your crew. We were never in the grinder together.”

  “No? Then what the hell you think this here is, huh?”

  “I want you to make it out of here. Please do that,” Lett said, and he marched off.

  Jock didn’t follow. Lett felt the man’s eyes on his back. They might as well have been a sniper sight. But from whose side?

  On his way Lett passed the two men waiting at the jeeps with the dummy, young goon types with greased hair, smoking out of the side of their mouths. One cackled and said, “Get a load of him.” “Whatsa matter, bub?” the other shouted to Lett. “You prefer the real McCoy?”

  Lett kept going.

  He thought about heading over to the Main House again and appealing to Selfer somehow. He considered walking straight to the front gate and seeing if he could just walk out. Maybe that would send a message to Lansdale, Frankie, whoever would deal with him. He strode back toward his bungalow instead. Down the midway he felt all the eyes on him. A couple people might have stopped and watched him, or so he imagined. He kept his head down, made no eye contact. He thought he heard a walkie-talkie rasping somewhere, the voices muffled but urgent. The sweat rolled down his face. He let it.

  He strode right up into his bungalow, nearly hyperventilating now. He lay on his bed. He closed his eyes. He might have slept. Something made his eyes pop open, a creak maybe, but he didn’t know if it was in his dreams or the reality of this room that had never been his, a reality that wanted to boil his very marrow with shock. The sweat beaded on him again.

  He closed his eyes.

  He felt a prick, in his neck. He slapped it. Hoping it was a mosquito or even a shit-craving horse fly. The prick became a sting and it spread fast, expanding like a brush fire, so he kept slapping at it. By the time his arm came back down, he couldn’t feel his arm anymore. He moved to get up but nothing moved except inside his brain—his body refused to listen to his brain. He hoped this was a nightmare. Of course it wasn’t. He couldn’t feel the bed under him. He floated, but not in a comforting way. It was as if he were being held over a deep and gaping crevice. He wanted to scream but his mouth wouldn’t move. Then his thoughts were fading, as if far away, as if he were hearing them from some faraway walkie-talkie himself, all tinny, and thinner, and then his thoughts were miles away like storm clouds on the horizon and he wondered if this was what dying was like. But there was no light. He didn’t see himself outside his body.

  All just went still, and dark, like a switch had been flipped
. Into nothingness. And then even the oblivion was no more.

  31.

  The darkness returned, from beyond oblivion. It had a coarse texture, and it itched, and it carried the odor of saliva. A burlap hood was roped around Lett’s neck. Through the black fabric Lett felt a chill he knew from foxholes and trench huts and bunkers. This absence of warmth was uniform, lacking any breeze, as if he were now underground. His eyes sensed a pale light beaming from above. His cramped butt confirmed that he was sitting on a concrete floor with his back against a wall, leaning on one shoulder so as not to squash his arms, which were in handcuffs behind him. He knew this place. All the concrete was painted gray, he recalled. But the air here was now stale, from sweat and blood and a sour reek like urine.

  He was in a cell, probably in the same corridor where they first brought him when he arrived. No windows. Ventilation was controlled through a square grate up high. Doors were like submarine hatches with a wheel handle on the outside. Before, the other rooms in his corridor were empty. Now Lett doubted that very much. That smell came not only from him.

  So be it. He expected nothing less from them.

  A sharp spasm of fear and guilt seized his brain, pressing at his eyeballs like thumbs. He realized, yet again, that he was putting people at risk with his defiance. Kanani. Jock. Possibly even Selfer, and that made him sadder than it should have.

  The air thickened under the hood. Lett bit at the coarse fabric and tugged on it, to adjust the airflow.

  He heard something scraping. Scratching. From no more than twenty feet away. A cockroach? He would crush it. But a cockroach made more of a soft clatter. This was fingernails maybe. Toenails?

  “Who’s there?” Lett wheezed.

  He heard nothing.

  A rat? He pulled in his legs and bent over, ramming his head between his legs to help protect his genitals. Listening.

  The scraping was repeating a pattern—four dots together and two spaced out, like Morse code. Lett kept listening, nodding along, recalling his code alphabet. Four dots together, two spaced out . . . Was it the start of a Hello?