Red Sky Over Hawaii

by Sara Ackerman

  His whole face wrinkled up. “My condolences. I had no idea.”

  “It was a surprise.”

  “The best way to go—at least that way you live fully until the end. In fact when he was up here a few weeks back, he was raring to go and making plans to start a small horse ranch, taking tours and that kind of thing, at least until the invasion—which he swore was coming—after which his horses would be a means of evading the enemy,” he said, pulling her over with gnarled hands to a table.

  “My dad wanted to do horse tours?”

  In her experience Jack had always been spooked by horses.

  He nodded. “The horse tours are, or were, I should say, one of our main attractions. If you can believe it, we had nearly thirty thousand visitors last month alone.”

  She whistled. “That sounds like half the population of the island.”

  He stared off toward the crater. “You know, a lot of people laughed Jack off as being paranoid, but not anymore.”

  “He had a tendency to get a little obsessed,” Lana said.

  He threw his head back and guffawed. “Don’t we all. I’m guessing you didn’t come here for a social visit with this bloody war going on. What can I do for you, Miss Lana?”

  She wanted to know more about the horses and where they’d come from, but that could wait. “I need beds, and Mrs. Kano suggested I check here.”

  “How many?”

  “At least two, three if you can spare them.”

  He leaned close. “I’ll tell you a secret. There’s a whole new troop of soldiers on their way up here, and Major Bailey asked if we could put some up, so you take what you need, but take it now before they arrive. You at your father’s hideaway?”

  “I am.”

  “We may need your help around here in days to come. Rangers, wives, residents, you name it, all chipping in.”

  “I’m happy to,” she said.

  “Not just you alone, I take it?”

  “I have my girls with me.” She could explain more later, if pressed.

  Voices echoed in the lobby behind them, and Uncle Theo held his hand to his head in salute. Lana turned to see Major Bailey walking toward them with a bouncy young blonde by his side. Lana waved lamely.

  “Look who it is. We were just talking about you,” Uncle Theo said, standing and bowing in his usual dramatic form.

  “All good, I hope?” Grant said, as though he really wanted to know.

  “Lana, may I introduce Major Grant Bailey and my lovely secretary, Cora.”

  To her surprise, Lana was envious of this red-lipped Cora woman, who was quite a dish. Lana stood. “Actually, Major Bailey and I have met,” she said, afraid to touch his hand again after the last episode, so she reached out and shook Cora’s instead. “A pleasure.”

  Grant gave her a look. “Lana? Your name is Lana?”

  “Did I not mention that yesterday?”

  “You introduced yourself as Mrs. Hitchcock. Wait, you’re not Jack Spalding’s daughter, are you?” he said, with a touch of wonder.

  “I am... I mean I was... I mean my father died several days ago.”

  Grant’s face went white as a tropic-bird feather. She had expected the reaction from Uncle Theo, but Major Bailey?

  “Jack and I became close over the past year. I can’t believe this. How?”

  Lana explained again. With each retelling, she was reminded of how Jack had a way of endearing himself to people from all walks of life. And how, in his last year alive, all these strangers got to be close with him while she was on O‘ahu being stubborn.

  “He spoke about you often.”

  She wondered what all these people knew about their estrangement. What a wicked and heartless daughter she was, leaving her old man to forge on in the world without her. And forge on he had.

  “I hope good things?” It was more wishful thinking than anything.

  “Always.”

  There he went, staring at her again. Or rather it felt more like he was staring into her and taking a leisurely look around, reading her thoughts and worries and, God forbid, half-formed desires.

  “How were the two of you acquainted?” she asked.

  “We met on the golf course, of all places. But it wasn’t until he found out I knew my way around horses that we really hit it off. He begged me to teach him everything I knew, on account of him not being a real horse expert, as he put it,” he said, and for the first time she noticed a slight twang. Horse came out like hoss.

  Picturing Grant Bailey as a cowboy gave her a shiver. He was appealing enough in a very rugged way. Warning bells clanged in her head. And yet she had so many questions and wanted to know every detail of his time with her father.

  “Have you been to the house?” she said, as casually as possible, though her heart was pounding. The last thing she needed was any unexpected visits from an army man, especially one who was in charge of interrogating suspected sympathizers. Now she just prayed that Uncle Theo would not mention her wanting three beds.

  “Helped him design the barn and paddock. I was down there a lot.”

  “How generous of you.”

  Uncle Theo cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but I’m meeting with Wingate in ten minutes. Lana, take what you need from the rooms at the end of the hallway. Bailey, what can I do for you, sir?”

  “I wanted to warn you we’ll be doing some work on the roads and the airstrip. Precautionary measures,” he said.

  “Fine by me.”

  “Also, we need to talk about bunking arrangements.”

  “Come back at four o’clock,” Uncle Theo said, standing up and kissing Lana’s hand. “Come back tomorrow, lunchtime, Miss Lana.”

  Cora trailed behind him, leaving a cloud of perfume in her wake. Lana stood and straightened out her skirt, antsy to be far away from Grant. “Well, I guess I’d better be going.”

  Sunlight poured in the window, lighting him up from all angles. “Can I help you? It sounds like you came to get something?”

  She flinched. “Oh, no. Thank you. You’ve already been a big help with the bike and all. You didn’t have to clean it up like that.”

  His hands went into his pockets. “You got the bike. Did you see my note?”

  The note was still there, a warm spot on her cool thigh. She pulled it out and held it up. “I did but I was in a hurry, so I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”

  He acted unaffected. “By the way, how’s the head? Looks like you got a small shiner.”

  “I think I’ll live.”

  Now that she was waving the note between them, she felt obligated to read it. Grant wrote in mechanical block print, like her father.

  Mrs. Hitchcock,

  I hope you don’t mind my taking the liberty to give your bicycle an overhaul and a shine. Also, the darndest thing has happened. My hand has been itching incessantly since yesterday—the one I pulled you up with. I’m trying to make sense of it. Could you have been wearing some kind of funny lotion? Anyway, please don’t hesitate to call on me for any help you might need during these tough times. I can be reached at 885-6930.

  Yours truly, Grant

  Lana felt a plum pit in her throat and a blush spread across her cheekbones. She should have read the note sooner.

  “It must have been your imagination,” she said.

  When she looked back up at him, he smiled sheepishly and flashed his palm. Red and welted. “Not my imagination.”

  The electricity that had passed through them came to mind. Perhaps there had been lightning that no one had noticed, or a volcanic charge from the rocks he had stood upon. Or an as-yet-undiscovered chemical reaction.

  “It must be from cleaning the bicycle. Maybe a reaction to a substance you used?” she suggested.

  He looked unconvinced. “Just some good old-fashioned grease and soap and
water. Never had a reaction like that.”

  “My hands were clean,” she said.

  “A mystery, then.”

  Words came out that she didn’t expect. “Some things are beyond explanation.”

  A flicker of a smile. “You got that right.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, turning to leave and bumping into a chair instead, stubbing her toe and cussing under her breath.

  “Hang on a minute. You planning on staying up here a while? At Volcano?” he asked.

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  The way he looked at her made her feel as though the world hung on her answer. Choose your words carefully, Lana. “For one, the war.”

  He cocked his head. “What else?”

  On how long you folks decide to keep the Wagners, or detain innocent men on account of their skin color. “It’s personal.”

  “What about the horses? I’d love to keep working with ’em,” he said.

  “The horses are running wild right now, which is probably how they like it. So for now I think I’ll let them be,” she said.

  “Fine. You change your mind, you let me know,” he said, and she thought she was off the hook, but then he added, “I know it’s none of my business, but are you alone up here?”

  “I’m not alone.”

  After a moment of awkward silence, he said, “You said your husband was on O‘ahu. You have kids?”

  Under normal circumstances, Lana would have welcomed the conversation. His strong presence, resonant voice and eyes a person could drown in made her want to talk, and yet there were too many complications to even consider getting friendly with the man. Still, she found it impossible to walk away.

  “I have two girls, a dog and two nene geese with me, so we’ve been keeping each other warm at night. Unbeknownst to me, my father hadn’t finished the last wall, and it’s been colder inside than out,” she said.

  As soon as she’d spoken the words, she regretted it.

  “Dang, I could send some boys down to get that taken care of,” he said.

  “Thank you, but we’ve got it almost finished.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “A woman and two girls?”

  She felt defensive, holding up her arm and showing her bicep, well formed from tennis and swimming. “You think we aren’t capable? My father taught me well, and Uncle Theo is lending us more blankets. Which reminds me, I better grab them and get home.”

  “It’s my nature to want to help, I guess. Especially now that I know you’re Jack’s daughter.”

  “You two were that close, huh?”

  Age never mattered to her father. You could be fifteen or one hundred—if he liked you, you were a part of his circle. When you get on with someone right off the bat, chances are you have a history with them in a past life, he used to say.

  Grant nodded enthusiastically. “He pulled you in. Even with all his absentmindedness and harebrained schemes, you wanted to be around him. I reckon he was that way with a lot of folks?” he said.

  “Always.”

  “How long had it been since you last saw each other?”

  She glanced out over the caldera, her eyes following a white-tailed tropic bird riding the thermals. “Too long” was all she could muster. “Take care, sir. I need to go.”

  She pulled the truck around as close to the exit at the end of the hall as she could get, went into the room and sat on the bed until she heard Grant’s jeep start up. At the window she cracked the curtain and watched him drive off.

  In the future she’d do her best to avoid all contact with him.

  THE HORSE

  The sharp blue of the sky seemed in direct contrast with life below. At least the sunshine would bring warmth to the house and help Mochi thaw out. Lana worried about him as she drove home across the last stretches of lava. Maybe Mrs. Kano would have suggestions on who could help him. Behind her, the mattresses and bed frames she had dragged into the back of the truck flopped around, the ones on top ready to bounce right out. Once in front of the house, she honked.

  Sailor, who had been perched on the porch like a sphinx, stood up and bounded down the steps, barking as though Lana were a dangerous stranger come to steal all the dog food in the house. The three kids rushed down to get a better look at the cargo.

  “A successful mission! I got nails and beds,” Lana said, happily.

  Coco was holding her stuffed owl. “What about our parents?”

  Every time Coco asked about Fred and Ingrid, Lana could feel the pain oozing from that little heart of hers. Mentioning Mr. London would only cause them more apprehension, so she left that part out. “There was no answer, which for now just means they aren’t home. I wish I had better news.”

  “Can we try tonight? With curfew, they would have to be home, wouldn’t they?” Marie asked.

  “True, but we’re stuck out here at night, so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”

  Coco put her head down, shoulders shuddering. Lana made a move toward her. Just before her hand touched her shoulder, Coco spun and took off in a sprint down the path toward the horse paddocks. She wasn’t wearing shoes. A moment later Sailor followed.

  “Coco, come back here!” Lana yelled.

  “She does this,” Marie said. “At our place, when she’s upset, she goes into the field behind our house and either sits in the tall grass or climbs the old lychee tree. Sometimes she stays out there for hours.”

  Lana thought back to her own childhood. Without a mother, when her father wasn’t quite enough, she had found solace with the crabs and the shorebirds. Or searching for shiny cowrie shells and blue eels in the tide pools along the bay front. All her cares and worries soaked up by the sea. On sunny days she would lie down under a coconut tree and watch the clouds change form. Whales, dragons, waves. This sometimes went on for hours, and when she was done, the world seemed back on its axis again.

  “I just don’t want her venturing off too far and getting lost,” Lana said.

  “She’ll probably find a comfortable spot and hole up. Let her be for a bit,” Marie said.

  Good thing one of them knew what to do. Inside, Mochi was reading by the fireplace with a steaming mug in his hands. Somehow life had been breathed back into his thin body. Lana got busy fixing lunch, determined to put some weight back on his rack of bones. Thick slices of bacon sizzled in the skillet, while she fried rice with bell pepper, chopped green onion and eggs. Hopefully Mrs. Kano or Iris would know where to get a couple of hens, since she had only six eggs left.

  When they were done eating, Marie offered to help Benji finish the wall. The boy seemed to go mute in her presence, though she hardly seemed to notice. Lana gave them the nails, then set out with a peanut butter sandwich and a tangerine in search of Coco.

  The kikuyu grass had dried out and she marched down the pathway, enjoying the burn of sun on her shoulders. Little red blurs sped past every so often, wings whirring. If things had turned out differently, Lana would have wanted to be an ornithologist and a volcanologist. Wings and lava were two of her favorite things, and fortunately, both were plentiful here. The creaks and groans of trees and the scent of fresh foliage helped her forget the outside world and all its troubles, if only for a moment.

  At the barn, if you could call it that—it was really more of a giant shed—there was no sign of Coco. Under the roof, though, she noticed fresh manure and the recent smell of horse. Her mind immediately went to Major Bailey. In his buttoned-up uniform, he was intimidatingly appealing, but in jeans and on a horse, well, that would be another matter altogether. She walked on, lost in a daydream, past the paddock and into the pasture.

  Once she rounded a small bend, she spotted Sailor sprawled out under a towering Sugi pine, while Coco sat on a fence post stroking a black horse. Lana stepped back against a tree trunk and watched for a while. C
oco’s lips were moving and her head bobbed along in conversation. The horse stood completely still, ears and tail twitching every so often. Lana wanted to bring Coco her lunch, but she hesitated to interrupt. Several times Coco leaned over and wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck. The horse stood there and let her.

  Rather than announce her arrival, Lana walked toward the center of the pasture where she would be easily seen, making a point to step on twigs and dried leaves. The horse heard her first and spun her head around. Coco’s followed.

  Lana waved. “Hello, there! I brought you a peanut butter sandwich.”

  Sailor sat up, looking dazed, and the horse raised its head and trotted off into the forest with a pronounced limp. Even from a distance, the swelling in its knee was noticeable. The animal was small enough to be an adolescent, and so shiny it looked to be oiled.

  “Sorry to scare away your friend,” she said.

  “Her name is ‘Ohelo.”

  “That’s a cute name. Did you pick it?”

  Coco stayed on the fence with her back to Lana and didn’t respond. From the back, she looked as though she could have been a feral child—curls smashed up and sticking out in twenty directions, no shoes, and overalls that were four inches too short.

  Lana tried another tactic. “Do you think ‘Ohelo would like some apples?”

  A small nod.

  “I know where we might be able to find some.” Lana leaned against the fence several posts away. “Tomorrow we’ll go look, how’s that?”

  “Her knee hurts,” Coco said.

  Lana hadn’t been able to tell the sex, but she trusted that Coco knew the difference.

  “I noticed that, poor sweet girl.”

  This time Coco looked right at Lana with pleading eyes. “We have to help her. I promised I would.”

  There was absolutely nothing they could do to help this horse, but Lana found herself nodding anyway. “A promise is a promise. I guess that means we have to try.”

  “Promises have to happen, don’t they?”

  “Promises can be tricky things. Sometimes the maker of the promise has every intention of following through, but the world gets in the way and complicates things.”