The Preserve

by Steve Anderson

  Jock had his combat knife on his web belt. He patted the sheath. Then he lifted his pack, to show her. It was much smaller now. Three canteens hung off it. He pulled a small map from the front pocket. He unfolded it, turned it to her. It was a map to the underground tunnel system. Kanani’s eyes scanned it, and she recorded locations in her head, making sure to focus on the break room, and on Wendell’s cell, and especially on certain storage chambers farther out, these on the way to the exits beyond the perimeter and possibly to lava tubes at the base of the volcano. She couldn’t help that last part. She could not rule it out no matter what her faddah would have done or told her. She didn’t let her eyes stop long though in case Jock saw it.

  She heard jangling. Jock was holding up a ring of keys.

  “We gonna do this, let’s do it,” he said. “Keep this moving.”

  “Not yet. This might look like the front line to you, but this isn’t that kine war. This here is a knock-down bust-up in a back alley.”

  “Hey. War is war.”

  Kanani had to nod at that. “We still have to wait. We can’t be seen out there, just hanging around. Why don’t you sit? It won’t take long to get this cockfight up and running. Our two cocks, they have to want it and bad. And when they do? Ho ka, bruddah, dey all buckaloose.”

  42.

  Kanani and Jock moved along through the bushes, fern to palm to shrub, squatting and crossing the paths only at their darkest stretches. The rain had let up but still soaked them, trickling off their hats like a gutter leaking. Two guards approached. Kanani and Jock hunkered down behind a wall of impatiens. The guards passed and were staggering drunk.

  They pushed on. They saw a figure at the next tree line. They crouched behind a palm trunk. The silhouette moved from bungalow to bungalow for cover. Both recognized that stride with the slightest stoop, his left arm tending to dangle, left hand twisting slightly.

  “That rat bastard,” Jock grunted.

  It was Lansdale. They followed him as he kept moving along trails. He was heading for the rear gate where Kanani and Wendell first arrived in the disguised jalopy pickup. The gate was now fenced, barbwired, and guarded. A DeSoto convertible waited for Lansdale there, complete with driver. He was taking Selfer’s personal car. One of the gate lights illuminated him, revealing the briefcases and bags he was clutching tighter than his holstered gun.

  “He never left,” Kanani muttered. “That or he came back for more.”

  “Well, he’s leaving now. Unless I can help it.” Jock crept forward, drawing his combat knife with its jagged edge out.

  “No,” Kanani whispered. She crept after Jock, tugged at his web belt. “Don’t . . .”

  Jock halted. He pivoted slowly, and his eyes took her in whole as if he’d never seen another human being in all of his existence. She shuddered.

  “Please, Jock,” she said.

  He blew air out his nostrils and slumped, making his knife disappear.

  They watched Lansdale go. One bag hung low and he dragged it along. Kanani knew what was inside that one. With her heightened alertness, she thought she’d heard keys jangling on him and wondered if he’d paid one last visit to Wendell Lett. Maybe she should go take out Lansdale herself, jam her revolver right down his sneering mouth.

  Jock was eyeing her in a new way. “We need to let him go,” she said, reminding herself.

  Jock led from here, back onto trails. Flowery bushes and spiky shrubs began to thicken and swell among the wild palms and vine-tangled trees. They had reached the edge of the more tropical reaches of the forest—and that tight little gully where Kanani had first spotted Frankie here.

  They peered down into the gully. Kanani nodded at Jock. He was going to lead them into the tunnel system using the special entrance that normal staff didn’t know about—it was also Frankie’s and Selfer’s route inside. A narrow road ran down, bordered by a skinny side path cut out of the lava rock. They took the path, slippery from the rain, grasping at the rock wall as leaves and flowers and veins grazed their cheeks. Halfway down the growth thickened, giving good cover. They crawled up under a bush for shelter from the rain and surveyed the end of the gully, where all that remained was the black hole of a lava tube.

  Kanani shook the water off her hat. Jock pressed fingers into her arm with one hand, one finger to his lips with the other.

  Someone was approaching. They crouched lower.

  Frankie was striding down the road, wearing holster and knife, speed increasing. He disappeared inside the lava tube.

  “He took longer than we reckoned,” Jock whispered.

  “Good. That’ll make Selfer sweat all the more inside there.”

  “Let’s give it five minutes.”

  They waited it out. Kanani shifted her weight, wiggled her toes. Worst thing was to have a foot go asleep. Jock pivoted and peed on the spot, into the trunk of the bush for quiet.

  Soon Jock showed her his watch: five minutes gone by. He’d stopped blinking. He gazed as if watching all things at once, as if able to look through the lava rock with X-ray vision.

  He held up a hand. “Did you hear that?”

  She hadn’t. She shook her head.

  He nodded anyway, to himself. This made her start to worry. She touched him on the shoulder but he didn’t react. He felt as rigid as the rock before them, all around them, one with it.

  “You okay?” she said.

  “I’m okay. I just . . . I don’t always love tunnels.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t look okay. She knew locals who feared the lava tubes, and nothing a person could say would get them to think otherwise. So she hugged him instead, on pure instinct, and that seemed to scare the ghost. He grimaced at her, still from somewhere else, neither smile nor scowl but an otherworldly sort of wonder. It chilled her again. She only smiled back.

  “Zero hour,” he said.

  “Yep. Go for broke.”

  He grasped her hand. He led her into the lava tube. He didn’t need his flashlight. She trusted that. His breathing deepened and strained and it wasn’t from the exertion.

  About fifteen yards inside they reached a concrete wall, which held a gray metal door. Jock had the right key out, fisting the rest for silence, and inserted the key in one fluid motion and turned it. He pulled the door open, into near darkness, the only light coming from far down the slightly bending corridor.

  Down concrete corridors they moved. They reached a mess strewn about the main corridor floor—cigarette packs, pouches and bags, a towel, a watch, a phone receiver and cord as if ripped from a wall, a notebook, map, a bashed walkie-talkie; two drawers of silverware and kitchen utensils; a bloody knife; and a set of keys, dark with the blood. The blood was inky red and sticky along the keys and knife and floor. Kanani gasped under her breath, but seeing the fresh living blood seemed to bring a calmness to Jock, she saw, regulating his panting, and she felt the bloodlust coming off him like steam.

  Jock gazed up from the mess and locked his stare on the shut door just beyond, on which a sign read, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He nodded at the door. This was the break room.

  “Give me your revolver,” he whispered.

  She hadn’t told him about it, but of course he would know. She handed it to him. He grinned at how small it was in his fist.

  He fingered the keys inside his other fist until he found the right one. He turned the lock, and twisted the knob, and parted the door open.

  ***

  They heard heavy breathing, and a hissing whir.

  They heard a grunt. And a gurgle.

  Jock shouldered the door open, aiming the revolver into the room with both hands. Kanani peered inside the room from behind him.

  One light bulb was on, flickering from above. This had once been a nice break room, with a new icebox and cupboards, a Formica table, and a spartan but roomy sofa. A phone housing was mounted to the wall, the remains of a severed cord hanging from it—belonging to that handset out in the corridor.

  Charlie Selfer lay on the flo
or, his back slumped sideways against the sofa as if he’d been trying to heave himself up. One arm was stretched out, looking twice as long as the other, which had curled up in his lap, the hand clawed. His face was battered, misshapen, bloodied, one eye a clot of black and blue and syrupy blood. His other eye stared at them. A bubble of blood expanded at a nostril, rising and falling. The crotch of his khaki trousers was seeping with blood. His right leg was bent back, but in the wrong direction as if the knee had been broken.

  His Colt lay on the floor, just out of his reach.

  Frankie sat at a table with blood sprayed on him from head to toe. He was pale, his skin a mustard. Under his chair a pool of blood was widening out from a trickle that rolled off his left arm, down and off the chair. He held the left arm tight with his right hand, but blood was oozing out through his whitening fingers.

  Kanani tried to piece it together. Selfer must have been hiding and ambushed Frankie and got a shot off before Frankie lunged. Then . . .

  Three other chairs were upended about the room along with more debris—shards of plates and mugs, magazines, wrappers and greasy wax paper and meat and vegetable scraps—the contents of the garbage can. This nasty fight had either started or continued out in the hall, but it had ended here. The reek was bitter and sour and yet fresh, like a compost pile just stirred. And that overhead bulb kept flickering and buzzing like an electric ranch fence shorting out.

  Kanani blew air out of her mouth. She couldn’t look at Selfer, even though his dull one eye had set on her. Jock had eased a bit, his feet taking a wider stance. There wasn’t much work left for the bloodlust here, he must’ve realized.

  Frankie grunted something. He raised a foot and his boot slid right off, into the slimy muck of the debris.

  “We need all the keys,” Jock said to both men, keeping to the doorway to avoid slipping on the muck.

  Frankie shook his head. His toes felt around in the blood, hoping to find the boot.

  Selfer opened his mouth, but a gurgle sputtered and sank in his throat and he had to cough to bring it back up. “You . . . have them,” he rasped, his throat whistling.

  Jock shook his keys at Selfer. “All on here? Each one. How do I know?”

  “You have . . . to trust me.” His eyes found Kanani. “I trusted you.” He added a sick grin that must’ve hurt like hell, his head wobbling from it.

  Kanani’s face burned. Tears rolled down it, off her chin.

  “Help me,” Selfer said.

  “Too late,” Jock said. “Now you know what it’s like. Up on the line.”

  “What Wendell knew,” Kanani added.

  Selfer nodded, once. “Tell Lett . . .” His head slumped to the side.

  Frankie growled but it ended in a groan. Blood squirted out from the grip on his arm.

  Kanani instinctively moved to help him, an island bruddah. Jock blocked her. She turned away and stepped out the door. Jock backed out into the corridor.

  Frankie gasped and clucked but couldn’t get words out.

  Kanani kicked the door shut.

  Jock tried keys until finding one that fit. “Locks from the outside,” he said.

  He held the towel from the floor up to the nearest light bulb and smashed the bulb with the butt of the revolver, the sound muffled. He hugged the wall, aiming the gun.

  Kanani crouched behind him, both listening. They heard nothing. No one.

  “Should’ve put down that rat bastard Lansdale when I had the chance,” Jock whispered. “How’s that for your cure?”

  He waved them onward, farther down the corridor. As they trotted along, they heard a muted scream from that room behind them, but Kanani couldn’t tell if it was Selfer or Frankie. Not knowing comforted her oddly, pumping her legs with a fresh power, assuring her that it did not matter. Not now. Not anymore.

  43.

  Kanani led down the corridor but Jock steered her along, right behind her, watching their backs. Her tears had stopped coming, but they left her cheeks moist and she didn’t bother wiping them. They turned down the next corridor. She halted. They listened a moment, heard nothing, no one.

  “That was tidy work back there,” Jock whispered.

  “I only got them both there,” Kanani replied. “They did the rest to themselves.”

  They spoke like they moved, with a determined efficiency lacking snags of emotion.

  “How did you figure they’d do each other in like that?”

  “They’re just scared little boys,” Kanani said. “That’s what you all are.”

  “Amen to that. Didn’t hurt that it was a gal such as yourself telling them. With all your wiles. You played them off each other like—”

  “Wait,” Kanani said. They paused to listen again. If any guards came down here now, they’d be cornered. Yet only the caged light bulbs hummed above, and the screams from the break room had faded and ceased. Coast clear. They continued on, the corridors longer and colder than she imagined. The route turned, reached a fork. A right corridor had stairs at the end, leading up at a sharp grade. Jock pointed them left. The left corridor ended at a large door with a wheel-like handle, like on a ship. The wheel’s hub had a lock. Jock spread the keys out in his palm and tried a few in the lock while Kanani stood back as if Jock were defusing a bomb.

  The seventh key released the wheel. Jock spun it; the door popped open. Stale and sour air hissed out, warm on Kanani’s face, making her squint. The cell was dark inside. Jock drew his flashlight. He pointed the light in. The beam hit the scarred, stained concrete wall opposite, no more than ten feet away. A rusty drain in the middle of the floor. This was surely a cell. It smelled like an outhouse. In the near right corner stood a latrine bucket. A dull metal dog bowl sat empty. In the far left corner was a lump, under a dark blanket.

  “Wendell?” Jock said.

  Kanani rushed into the doorway, then stopped.

  No answer.

  Jock went inside on the balls of his feet, careful not to step on anything. The dark lump had legs and toes sticking out. Jock tore off the blanket.

  It was Wendell Lett. He was facing the wall. He wore a torn and soiled white T-shirt, Army-green boxer shorts. He lay curled up as if to shield himself. His hands were pressed flat to his ears so that he couldn’t hear whatever was invading his dark cell.

  Kanani had frozen just inside the doorway with a hand outstretched, as if begging.

  “Lett. Wendell,” Jock said. He tugged at Wendell’s elbows and barked, “Lett, Lett,” but Wendell only recoiled. Jock hooked his fingers around Wendell’s and pried half a hand off an ear. “Wendell, it’s me, Jock,” he repeated. “The Marine.”

  Wendell loosened. He looked up at Jock.

  It was the blankest look Kanani ever saw on a face that wasn’t dead.

  They pulled Wendell out into the corridor, and the gamy reek of the cell came with him. They stood him up, but he stumbled as if his legs were asleep, and his head wobbled. He looked to each of them, squinting, blinking. They sat him on the floor, his back against the wall. He was covered in purple-and-blue bruises, scrapes and crimson marks, the stains of excrement. Jock checked him out like a medic would, feeling here and tugging there. Wendell let him, his arms out like a baby boy hoping for a piggyback ride. Meanwhile Kanani peeled a smashed cockroach off his ribs. She stroked his upper arm, kissed his head, his greasy hair.

  Jock nodded at her that Wendell was fit enough to move.

  “I’ll live,” Lett grunted.

  “We came for you,” Kanani said, “we gonna get you out.”

  “We’re a team,” Jock said, “me and her and you. Can’t just go and leave you here.”

  Wendell raised a hand to shield his eyes and they widened, bloodshot but aware, adjusting to the caged light bulbs above. A smile spread across his face. Kanani grinned, gasped. Jock laughed. And Wendell laughed, his voice cracking.

  ***

  Kanani and Jock carried Wendell between them on their shoulders and hurtled him down the corridor, his feet dragg
ing but doing their best to help push himself along. They turned back, passed the stairs leading up, and slowed as they neared the first corridor.

  Kanani propped Wendell against the wall. Jock pulled out the small revolver and peered around the corner. The corridor was empty and the debris still there, the door to the room closed.

  Kanani saw Jock’s lungs heaving, pumping. She knew what he was feeling. A heat kept surging through her chest and up her neck. It was the bloodlust, and it was transforming her, too. Now it became a revenge lust, that marauder of the aftermath. A plunderer. Dark thoughts filled her mind. They were going to finish off those two vile fuckers in that room, make damn sure they were goners. She and Jock were gonna carve them up for what they did to Wendell and plenty, too, just like a kālua pig for roasting in a pit but without the care and good cheer. “You better believe it,” Jock muttered as if reading her thoughts, a sick smile spreading on his face. Let it happen, a snarling sweet voice told her. Let it feel powerful. The Marine was nineteen again, and she one tough tita.

  They reached the break room door, Jock’s shoulder gliding along the wall, the revolver an extension of his fist. He waved Kanani over to him. She brought Wendell, who stared at the blood-splattered debris, his hands balled at his chest as if he’d done all this himself and it was only now coming back to him.

  Kanani grinned at Jock grinning at her, and she nodded, yes, yes. He nodded at the blood mess of silverware and she picked up a steak knife, and a butter knife, one in each hand. For Wendell. Dinner time! They were gonna finish this thing like nothing had ever been finished. You want gung-ho, you want go for broke? We bust ’em up forever.

  Wendell saw the door. “Selfer in there?” he said to them.

  Jock nodded. “And Frankie,” he said. “Two birds, Wendell.”

  And Kanani nodded along. They were going to separate the two limb from limb until you couldn’t tell who was who. They might as well be Captain Cook. Maybe they’d even bake their remains. Aloha! Close your eyes, boys, because here we come . . .

  But Wendell wasn’t smiling. “Both of them are in there?” he said.