“Careful,” she called to Coco.
Coco stopped abruptly. “Does this one go all the way to the center of the earth?”
“It may.”
They all approached cautiously. Rockfalls were visible along the far crater wall and yellow banks of sulfur smoked in the distance. Lana loved the otherworldliness of it all.
Coco tossed in her berries and then proclaimed, “I want it to erupt.”
Marie nudged her in the side. “Don’t say that, stupid.”
Coco wanted to hear all about the eruption Lana had seen, asking her to describe where the fountains had been and how high, and whether they were accompanied by earthquakes. “You sound like a regular little volcanologist,” Lana told her.
“We learned about it in school.”
“The real thing is better—wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes!”
Lana felt lucky to be the one showing them something so rare and special, in the same way Jack had showed her. Being out here under a blistering sun, staring into the mouth of a volcano, and tossing berries to the wind—none of this could be experienced in a classroom.
The way back was uneventful until they were partway up the trail. Both girls’ cheeks were flushed red and Coco had stopped running ahead. They were wilting under the Hawaiian sun, even in the middle of winter. They stopped in a shady area, each sitting on a cool, mossy boulder. Lana fanned herself with a fern. She had just closed her eyes when she heard a voice.
“You wahine lost?” the woman said.
Lana opened her eyes. “Auntie?” she said, though of course it was. The old woman had not changed one speck, with gray hair thick as a horse’s tail and those haunted eyes that swallowed you up.
Auntie came closer and squinted. “Look at you, all grown up and back in town.”
“You remember me?”
“How could I not? The little hapa haole from Hilo with all that strong mana around you.”
Lana was blindsided. “You have a good memory.”
“We remember what we need to.”
There was an awkward moment of silence as Auntie looked her up and down, and what felt like under her skin, then turned her gaze on the girls.
“I’m happy to be back,” Lana blurted out.
Auntie glared. “You were in the wrong place. That never works out.”
How could Auntie know what she had been doing all these years? Lana must have looked confused, because Auntie went on. “People get knocked off their path all the time. Important thing is you know your ho¯ku¯pa‘a, your North Star, and you bring yourself back on course. The sooner the better.”
Lana thought about the last decade of her life. How completely off course she had been without even realizing it. “I’m working on it,” she said.
“If we don’t do it ourselves, life will start hurling lava bombs at us to wake us up.”
That had certainly been the case lately. Lava bomb after lava bomb, and yet she still felt lost. The old woman was carrying a cloth sack overflowing with leaves and lichen, and she set it down on a nearby boulder.
Auntie faced Coco and said gruffly, “You, did you offer Pele ‘o¯helo?”
Coco looked ready to bolt. “We did.”
“All these powerful wahine up here. Pele will be pleased,” Auntie said.
Lana asked, “What happens when Pele is pleased?”
The old woman grinned, showing off a couple of missing teeth. “We will see soon enough.”
THE DATE
Lana said she had to strategize with Major Bailey on how they were going to handle the horses once they brought them in. A water trough was already set up at the barn, but they’d need to supplement their food. But when she came out of the bathroom in a red sweater and lipstick to match, Marie mumbled something to Benji.
“Excuse me?” Lana said, flooded with self-consciousness.
Marie smirked. “Nothing.”
Coco came out of the kitchen, took one look at Lana and said, “You like Major Bailey, don’t you? Are you going to kiss him?”
Lana laughed. “I think he’s nice, but no, I’m not going to kiss him. We have business to talk about. You all behave while I’m out, and Coco, stay inside.”
She felt like a teenager again, and was out the door before anyone could ask more questions. The truck sputtered to life. Cold leather on the back of her thighs reminded her how quickly the temperature could drop once the sun went down. On the drive to their meeting point, butterflies and bats and crows started up in her stomach, to the point that several times she considered turning around. But the look on Grant’s face when she had said yes kept her going.
At two minutes past five, Lana pulled the truck off to the side under the big Sugi pine. Grant was not there yet, and she stepped out and began pacing. Was she overdressed? What if he asked too many questions? Did he plan on kissing her? Maybe her lipstick was too red; this was not Honolulu. At least the weather was cooperating. Birds were busy and skies clear.
The minute he pulled up, none of that mattered. Before she reached the door, Grant hopped out and sped around, holding it open. When they were both in and doors shut, he stared at her for a moment and said, “Your lips and your sweater match those pretty red flowers everywhere.”
Too much lipstick.
The words wanted to stick in her mouth, but she managed. “‘Ohi‘a lehua, they’re called.”
“That’s right. These Hawaiian words fall out of my head two minutes after I learn them,” he said.
“That’s normal. Give it time,” she said, wondering how long he would be stationed in Hawaii.
As they rode along, past the roadblock and into the park boundaries, every time she tried to speak, Grant did, too.
“How was—”
“We went on—”
“You know—”
“Have you heard—”
“Today they—”
Lana finally gave up and looked out the window. They had passed the Volcano House and now headed down Crater Rim Drive through the canopied rain forest. She was tempted to ask where they were going but figured she would see soon enough. A few minutes later Grant pulled over at Waldron Ledge. “Here we are,” he said.
Outside, they walked to the rim. From this vantage point, though about a mile away from Volcano House, you could see the whole of the caldera, Pu‘u Pua‘i to the left and Mauna Loa to the right. A stone parapet guardrail protected them from stepping into the abyss. A considerable landslide at the base of where they stood had occurred in 1913, reminding everyone how precarious life was at the edge of a volcano.
“Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?” he said.
Lana looked out at the view. “Would you believe this is one of my favorite spots in all of Volcano?”
He pretended to look hurt. “And here I was thinking I was going to impress you by bringing you to a new place.”
“Here at Volcano, that’s unlikely.”
“Is that a challenge?” he asked.
She smiled. “Just a fact. But I will admit that with all the visitors gone, it has a different feel to it. Like we’re the only people on the whole mountain.”
“Boy, do I wish that were the case,” he said.
They stood there for several minutes, a light breeze coming up the cliff side. Out here in the wild, it was easy to forget what brought them here.
Grant touched her shoulder lightly, sending heat through her body. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
He returned with a used ration box, an army blanket and a grin. “Are you up for a short walk?”
Between the horseback riding yesterday and the hike this morning, she would have been blissfully happy just to sit and sketch all afternoon. “Why not?”
Grant stepped into the bushes, where a narrow pig trail took them along the cliff’s edge. “Stay
on the path,” he warned.
“You needn’t worry. I had that drilled into my head as a girl. If there is one place in the world where you follow this rule, it’s Volcano.”
Pūkiawe branches grabbed at her skirt as they moved along. Grant was as sure-footed as the horses, and she had to work to keep up with him. For such a newcomer, he seemed to know his way around. A few minutes later they came to a small grassy bluff.
He kneeled down and cleared away some sticks. “Before all this happened, I used to ride the crater rim trail a lot. There were always people at the best lookouts, so one day, I decided to find my own.”
“Did you ever hike around with my father?”
“No. He was too focused, but he did tell me some of his favorites.”
“We were lucky to get to know the Jaggars. Thomas was the head volcanologist when I was little. His wife, Isabel, knew every square inch of the park, and when Thomas and Jack were off tinkering with seismographs or thermometers to measure lava temperatures, she would take us kids out exploring, hunting for olivine or Pele’s hair, and sketching.”
“Sounds idyllic.”
“I didn’t realize it then so much, but now I do.”
“And to be up here with the Jaggars... No wonder you know so much about the place.”
“Thomas knows more about volcanoes than anyone alive.”
Once he had the blanket down, they sat. Lana made a point to remain a safe distance from him. From the box he pulled out two cans of Primo beer, a sardine tin and a packet of Saloon Pilot crackers.
“Contraband,” he said with a guilty smile. “And I hope you eat sardines. My options were almost nil.”
Lana would rather eat dirt, but she was touched that he had gone through the trouble of packing food for an outing with her. “I love them.”
He began smearing the oily and flaky fish onto the crackers. “Want to know the real reason I brought you here?” he asked.
“I guess you’re going to tell me?”
He spoke quietly, as though someone might be listening in. “The other day, you said you love birds, and it got me thinking about this place. You’re not going to believe this, but right below us in the cliff is a tropic-bird nest. Or at least there was one a few weeks ago, and they come in for a landing right at eye level. You really need to see it to believe it.”
Not only had he remembered she said she loved birds, he had planned this whole date around it. She wanted to kiss him. “Really?”
“Just you wait.”
She snuck a glance at his profile as he scanned the horizon for birds. Square jaw, faint dimple in the chin and burnt-olive skin. He was haole but tanned well, not like some of the folks from the mainland who turned cherry pink after five minutes out in the sun.
He turned and caught her watching him. “This place is a far cry from Wyoming, but parts of it remind me of home. The wide-open spaces and all the ruggedness. It’s not for the faint of heart.”
So true. “Not your typical Hawaii, that’s for certain. People with a tough independent streak seem to end up here. Jaggar, Uncle Theo, my father. Not to mention all the Japanese farmers.”
Grant took a swig. “These Japanese are a real quandary.”
Lana felt herself tense. “Why do you say that?”
“Because they outnumber us ten to one, and I don’t know who I can trust and who I can’t.”
“Have you been able to prove anyone at camp is a spy yet?” she asked.
“No comment.”
The back of her neck started heating up, and as much as she wanted to finish the conversation, she also wanted to see the tropic birds and have a nice time with Grant. “I’ll just say one thing—try to see them as individuals, not one big collective of enemies. The people I know are some of the kindest, most hardworking and honest ones around.”
Grant bit into a cracker, and oil dripped down his chin. He chewed. Contemplated. Swallowed. “That’s two things,” he finally said with a touch of a smile.
“And that goes for the German immigrants, too,” she said.
“That’s three.”
She couldn’t stop. “Tell me you will at least try. Talk to them. Hear what they have to say. For me.”
He turned. “For you, I would do just about anything.”
The words set her heart into a blustery storm. What kind of man said these things? None she had ever been with. Though to be fair, there had been only two. Alika and Buck. Alika was before, Buck was after. That was how she measured life.
“That’s an awfully nice thing to say,” she said, suddenly becoming very interested in the hem of her skirt.
“Don’t move,” he said.
“What?”
“A bird, flying our way.”
Lana slowly raised her head. A koa‘e‘kea bobbed on an air current not twenty feet in front of them, white with black streaks painted on its wings and long white tail streamers. If only she could reach out and feel the softness of those feathers. A tangerine sky backlit the picture.
The whole world narrowed to this one and only speck in time. When it was over, and the bird dove down beyond their line of sight, Lana thought of Mochi and how he had said life was nothing but a spool of strung-together minutes, none more important than the next. She still had a ways to go to master that concept, because right now felt pretty important.
Out of politeness, Lana took a bite of a cracker with sardines, washing it down with beer. She had to work not to choke. “Did you know they’re considered seabirds?” she said.
“These guys?”
She nodded. “They can fly forever, and they’re expert fishers with webbed feet and waterproof plumage.”
“You know so much, when this war blows over, you ought to consider giving nature tours. You can carry on what your father was trying to start,” he said.
“Who knows when that will be. Maybe years, maybe never. And if the Axis wins, then what?”
“I take it as a good sign we haven’t been attacked again. With the whole US military on alert, they’d be hard-pressed to pull off another stunt like Pearl Harbor. They won’t win.”
His confidence was reassuring.
“I’ve been praying like crazy,” she said.
“You and me both,” Grant said, leaning close enough so that his shoulder was an inch away.
They sat like that for a while, listening to tropic-bird screeches and the fullness of warm wind from the crater floor moving through the trees. Grant asked Lana more about her childhood, and she was happy to oblige him. Hilo with its bayfront and all those waterfalls, fishing tales and hula, her father, bursting with outlandish ideas.
She finally worked up the nerve to ask. “Did my father tell you about what happened with us?”
He picked up a rock and tossed it over the edge. “He did.”
“Everything?”
“Enough. He said he knew he had made the biggest mistake of his life in sending you away, but he was so scared of losing you the same way he lost your mother that he couldn’t see straight. And then he lost you anyway.”
Jack had as much as told her the same thing, but Lana had been in no mind to listen. She had been too flattened by betrayal and an all-consuming grief. Forgiveness was a word that had come up over the years, but she felt sick any time someone mentioned it. Lose an unborn child and then talk to me about forgiveness, she would say.
“Do you think I’m a horrible person?” she asked.
“Would I be here if I thought you were a horrible person?”
“I guess not. I just wish I could have made it back before he died, to tell him that I loved him. As much as he hurt me and I was too stubborn to forgive him, I would have come around. I wanted to, I just didn’t know how.”
He reached out and held her wrist. “He knows.”
Lana turned to look up at him. “What ma
kes you say that?”
“Jack was nothing if not perceptive. He was giving you space because he knew it was just a matter of time. The kind of bond you two had? It was unseverable.”
“The thing that haunts me now is that, all this time, I blamed him, but I was the one who went and got myself knocked up. When you look at it like that, he was just reacting, and the whole thing was my fault,” she said.
Grant rubbed his thumb along her forearm. “You could spend all day debating who was to blame, but in the end, it was just life. No one has an instruction manual for how to handle the rough patches, we’re all just doing our best.”
“You sound like you know from experience,” she said.
“I’ve had my share of troubles. My old man left when I was six, and I spent my whole childhood pissed as hell about it. My mama raised me and my brother, Lou, out in the sticks on popcorn and fried squirrel. She existed on air and vodka, so we learned early to fend for ourselves,” he said with a shrug.
She felt awful. “I am so rude! So absorbed with my own problems that I haven’t even taken the time to find out more about your past. I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t tell you so that you could feel sorry for me. Just pointing out that no one is immune,” he said.
They chewed on that for a while.
“What about women in your life? Have you ever been married?” she dared to ask. She had to know.
“Close but no. I was engaged several years back, until I found out she’d been lying to me all along, seeing another cowboy on the side. I wiped my hands and never looked back. So I’m a little gun-shy in that area.” He shrugged.
Lana wanted to die. As if her own lies weren’t bad enough, he had already been primed by some woman who obviously did not know how to identify a good man when she had one. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly.
He shrugged. “It was for the best.”
From the east, a low bank of clouds crept in. Grant raised himself from the blanket. “Fog up here is sneaky. We ought to get going before it rolls in again.”
He reached his hand out. Lana grabbed, and he pulled her up as though she weighed no more than a bird. The momentum threw her into him, her forehead knocking into his collarbone. Before she could detach herself, he held both her shoulders. They froze, staring into each other’s eyes. Grant bent down and kissed her. Her initial reaction was to tighten up. They broke away and his eyes searched hers. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he moved in again.
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