Sujata Massey - Shimura Trouble

“Time takes its toll,” I said, slowing to a stop, to allow him a chance to look. After a few moments, he responded. “That’s the mango tree Kaa-chan planted. Hey, still bearing mangoes, after all these years.”

“Well, we’ve seen it, now let’s head back. There’s a TV show at three I want to catch,” Braden said.

I ignored Braden and proceeded the last few yards to the house, where I put the car in park and set the waypoint, before turning off the ignition. “Come on, everyone. Let’s get out and take a good look. Courtney, bring that camcorder, OK?”

I pressed the button to roll back the side doors, and my father and Uncle Yosh disembarked.

“Don’t step on the porch, it looks like you could fall straight through,” I warned.

“Yes, yes,” my father soothed. “Don’t worry so much, Rei-chan. Come out and see for yourself.”

“I’m not going,” Braden said, after I got out of my side and walked around the car to his.

“Fine. That’s your choice.” I gave him one last pitying look, then walked toward where my family had gathered on the straggly weeds outside the front of the house. “See, here are the flowers my mother planted,” Yoshitsune said, pointing to a twisted little hibiscus plant that had somehow survived. Hibiscus: a lovely imported but hardy flower, like Harue herself.

“And if you continue round the house, you’ll see our old vegetable garden.” Uncle Yoshitsune was leading the tour, and we all followed him around to the back, paralleling rutted tire tracks that seemed to end at the back, and an opening where a door must once have been.

“Oh dear,” said my father. “It looks like the door was broken, and someone has made a terrible mess inside.”

We stood there gaping at piles of rock, in varying shades of gold and brown, and sizes ranging from plate-sized to doorstop. The piles were roughly grouped by color.

“The lava rock,” I said at the same time I heard the minivan’s engine. I bolted around the corner of the house, only to see Braden reversing the Odyssey, turning sharply, and driving off in a cloud of dust.

“Where’s he going?” Uncle Yosh yelled. “Who that boy think he is, driving alone? He only got a learner’s permit.”

Courtney followed the progress of her brother with the camera. “Wow. He’s going to get it, when Dad gets home!”

How were any of us going to get home? That was the question. All thoughts of spending a leisurely few hours on Yoshitsune’s old property were gone. It was hot, and we had two elderly people with health risks facing a trek of almost an hour to the gas station in the developed section of Barbers Point. If I were in better shape, and with the proper shoes, I could have run the distance to get help, but I imagined that I was as likely to wind up with heat exhaustion as anyone else in the group.

“Do you know the number for a taxi service around here?” I asked Uncle Yosh, relieved that at least my cell phone was with me, although the battery was low after my long conversation with Josiah Pierce the evening before.

“Nobody gonna find their way here,” Yosh said. “And even if they might, drivers know better than to come in to a place marked no trespass. They don’t have that same kind of map that Braden got with him in the minivan, yah?”

Now I thought of Albert Rivera, with the field glasses and surveillance cameras that Braden had mentioned. If he came upon us, we wouldn’t have the maps to explain anything. I doubted that Rivera would shoot a group of unarmed visitors, but he could be nasty enough to give my father high blood pressure, or worse.

I knew Michael would have wanted me to call him. But I also knew that at this moment he was having lunch with his JAG friend, and the last thing I wanted to do was alert the Navy’s legal division that Michael had given us maps of their land. And even if Michael tried to find us, he didn’t have the maps either, to follow our route, and his convertible could only take three passengers.

It was all such a mess, but I could see why Braden had taken off. Here was the thing that had gotten him in trouble, staring him straight in the face. He ran the risk of being caught red-handed, looking as if he was up to trouble again.

The sound of a loud engine drew near, breaking into my rambling, panicked thoughts. It could be Braden returning, or Alberto Rivera, maybe even with Mitsuo Kikuchi on board.

“Let’s go by the rocks. Nobody see us there,” Uncle Yosh said, as if reading my thoughts.

“Yes, you do that; take everyone over, and I’ll check who’s there, and if they look OK I’ll ask for help,” I said. I didn’t want to be too far away, if it turned out the driver was just a local passing through who might prove perfectly willing to help.

“No, Rei-chan, that’s not a good idea. You go with Courtney and your great-uncle,” my father said.

“But Otoosan, I know the man who manages this land, and the one who owns it, too. Regardless of who shows up, I can explain.”

I couldn’t convince my father to leave me, though, even as the sound of the motor grew louder, and Uncle Yosh and Courtney had gone toward the craggy rocks at the water’s edge. They’d just taken cover when, through a cloud of dust, a dirty white truck appeared. It followed the thick, rutted tire trail that wound around to the back of the house and, sensing the driver’s intent, I gestured for my father to follow me from the back of the house to the long side where the bedrooms must have been. The truck stopped, and I heard the sound of feet crunching on the ground, then the slam of the truck door. Then the person stepped up easily inside the house, moving into the old kitchen crammed with rocks. We couldn’t see him, but I peeked around the corner, trying to get a look at the man.

He was too far into the house; I couldn’t see him at all. But I did get a better view of the truck-a Toyota Tacoma, its two seats slip-covered in blue and white floral cotton, and its back window marked with a Kamehameha School decal. The last time I’d seen the back of this truck, it had been crammed with the surviving items from Aloha Morning. Now the payload was empty save for several folded white tarpaulins, which I imagined would be used to cover up the lava rock once Kainoa Stevens had loaded what he needed.

I KNEW ENOUGH not to show myself-too much was at risk. I remembered Braden’s words about dying if he snitched. And now I felt anger build in me, as I remembered what Kainoa had said, and how he’d effortlessly gathered intelligence on my family’s futile quest. Everything was starting to fall into place: Kainoa’s mention of a sideline construction operation, and the nervousness he had shown about Albert Rivera, who must have seen him on Pierce lands before and suspected something.

It took Kainoa almost half an hour to carry the rocks he needed out of the house, and the worst part about waiting was knowing that I could have been recording it all with the camcorder, if Courtney didn’t have that with her down by the shore. Don’t show yourselves, I prayed silently to her and Uncle Yosh, who surely must have been wondering what was happening, for such a long time.

Finally, Kainoa’s heavy breathing and grunting stopped, and I heard a tarpaulin being whisked over the payload. The truck drove off, slower than it had come, no doubt because of the weight. When the truck had disappeared, I ran out from the side of the house and gestured for Uncle Yosh and Courtney to join me.

“It was the rock man,” Uncle Yosh said. “The bastard who get Braden in trouble, and won’t tell nobody the truth about it! I peeped around the rock and caught a glimpse-very big guy. Hawaiian or Samoan, for real.”