Paul Levine - Riptide

The king’s greatest wish had been granted. He had died a warrior’s death and would join his ancestors for eternity.

Ho’oheno Li’a

To Cherish Li’a

“Auhea ‘oe e ka ipo pe’e poli,

Listen, lover with a hidden heart,

‘O ke anoano waili’ula.

Overpowering mirage.

A he lei mamo ‘oe no ke ahiahi

You are evening’s lei of saffron flowers

E ‘uhene ai me Li’a i ka uka

Exulting with Li’a, Goddess of desire, in the forest.

“Me ‘oe ka ‘ano ‘i pau ‘ole, v

“With you an unending desire,

A nei pu ‘uwai e ‘oni nei

Here in the beating heart

Mai ho ‘ohala i ka ‘ike lihi mai

Do not thrust away the glimpse

Pulupe ai maua i ka ua noe

Of our drenching in the misty rain.”

Jake Lassiter and Lila Summers spent the night — what was left of it — at Keaka’s campsite. Lila slipped out of her wet swimsuit, a one-piece yellow number, and dried off on a lauhala mat of woven leaves in the hale. Lassiter removed his trunks and put on one of Keaka’s loincloths.

Lila stifled a laugh. “You look good in that, Jake. It was Keaka’s favorite. He shot a wild goat for the skin.”

“If my partners could see me now, a deep-carpet lawyer in a goatskin jockstrap.”

They found some poi that Keaka had stored in gourds and mixed it with smoked fish. Lassiter started eating with his fingers. “Think you could make this stuff in Miami?” He knew what he was saying, sort of asking what she had planned for the rest of her life.

“Get me some taro, the Hawaiian staff of life,” she said, “and I’ll make poi till it’s coming out your ears.”

Jake Lassiter squatted on his haunches in the little hut and sliced several passion fruit, sucking at the tart jelly inside the skin. Lila studied him in the light of a kukui nut candle and said, “You’re starting to look like you belong here, Jake, like you fit in with the land and the sea.”

Now what did that mean, he wanted to ask but didn’t, that she was going to stay on Maui but that he could share her hale anytime? She had to know that now — after killing Keaka and with Mikala still around — she’d have to leave the island too. Lila slid back on the mat, making room for him, and then she patted a spot that must have had his name on it. She was sitting there in the flickering light, inviting him to partake of her after the poi but Jake Lassiter was strangely empty, devoid of desire. Lila cocked her head, studying him, her full mouth in its perpetual pout. She leaned back, bracing her arms on the ground, her breasts thrust forward. Her eyes glowed, and her cheeks were flushed.

“Maybe one of us should stay outside and keep watch,” he said, gesturing toward the door with the Uzi.

“Jake, we’re alone here, trust me.”

“What about Lee Hu?” he asked.

“It’ll take her till sunrise to get to Pukoo, if she can get out of the jungle at all. She’ll call Mikala, but he can’t get his helicopter in here so he’ll go after the boat he keeps at Maalaea Bay. By the time he gets there from his home upcountry, we’ll be long gone. When the sun comes up, we’ll take two of Keaka’s boards and get back to Maui. Until then…” Lila gestured again toward the mat, but Jake Lassiter shook his head. Still no fire in his loins, not on this night.

He crawled under the low door of the hale and walked to the fire, now just a cluster of hot coals. Strange that he wanted to be alone just then, strange that he was down. He had won, had survived. Sometimes after winning a trial, the battle over, depression would set in, too. Maybe that’s what life was all about, the conflicts full of fury yet joyful, the lulls a quiet despair.

It shouldn’t be that way, he decided, trying to will himself into better spirits. He had the girl. Why wasn’t he happy? What was wrong? Tubby’s dead, that’s one thing, he knew. He hadn’t thought about Tubby since he’d put the board in the water at Honokahua, had been too worried about his own hide. But it came back now.

Keaka was dead, too, hard to forget that, his twisted body pitched headfirst in the clearing only inches from the fire, the machete blade still jammed halfway through his skull, blood from his gut blackening the sand. Lila Summers had done the job, expertly and efficiently, with no wasted motion.

Or emotion.

Had done what he couldn’t do. Now she wanted to thrust and parry on the very mat where she and Keaka had made love to celebrate their triumphs over the haoles.

Lassiter’s mind was playing Ping-Pong with a moral dilemma. The body’s still warm and she’s got her replacement lined up. Not even a momentary pause for mourning her dead lover. The sight of the butchered carcass draining the old libido from me, maybe stirring hers up, Lassiter thought. He summoned a rationalization: She’s just different from me, nothing wrong with that. He ducked his head back into the hale. “I think I’ll sit outside for a while. Doubt I’ll be able to sleep after all this.”

“It’s okay, Jake. I understand. Tomorrow, though, IH demand your attention. And I want to tell you how wonderful you were out there, the way you threw Keaka off-balance, the way we worked together to defeat him.”

“Thanks, Lila, but you did it. You saved my life — twice today, by my calculations.”

“Someday you’ll return the favor.”

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be necessary, that we could get away from the violence, get away from here.”

“What about the bonds, Jake?”

The bonds.

The bonds and the blonde.

He had forgotten half the reason for being there. What was it Keaka had said about the bonds? He tried to remember. “Where’s Keaka’s favorite place?” Lassiter asked.

“What?”

“On the beach, before you showed up, Keaka said the coupons were in his favorite place. What’d he mean?”

She looked puzzled. “Is that all he said?”

“I was a little groggy, but he said the bonds weren’t on Molokai. They were in his favorite place and you’d know the spot, something like that.”

“Keaka’s favorite place,” she repeated. “I don’t know. On Maui there are so many beautiful places.”

“But some place had to be special.”

She wrinkled her forehead and closed her eyes. “Maybe… the crater, Haleakala.” She thought about it for a moment. “Keaka never wanted to stay in the park cabins, that was the haole way. We used to spend the night outside, camping near the Pu’uo Maui cone. We’d dig a hole in the ash at the base of the cone and store our food and sleeping bags there. Then we could sneak in past the rangers anytime we wanted and camp under the stars. The coupons could be there, buried at the foot of Pu’uo Maui.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But it’s a good guess, the best I can come up with.”

“We can go tomorrow.”

“Sure, Jake, but you can’t just carry a pick and shovel into the crater, the rangers would have a fit. We’ll hike in at the end of the day and camp out. We’ll dig after dark, take all night if we have to, and get out by sunrise.”

“Tomorrow night, then,” Lassiter said. “Now, shouldn’t we bury him?”

Her shrug was almost imperceptible. “If you want to,” she said evenly.

Together they dug a pit using an adz, a stone lashed to a timber they found inside the hale. Lila struggled to remove the machete from Keaka’s skull, placing one foot on the back of his neck for leverage. If she felt any sentiment, her face did not reveal it. Not a moment’s grief, not a second of reflection.

They tumbled the body into the pit, covering it with leaves and branches. No one offered a eulogy, but Lila looked down at the fresh grave, and said, “Keaka, wherever you are, I hope you’re as happy as I am.”