Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

Maui's volcanic valleys and conical peaks were barren on one side, a lunar landscape of treacherous ridges and pitted earth where no life survived. In stark contrast, the rich and lush life of the valleys on the lee side of the island was thick with the foliage of ginger, kamani, ti, hau, coconut and breadfruit trees. Behind each valley they discovered a slender ribbon of silver in fluid motion, waterfalls everywhere, many so isolated they could only be seen from the air.

They moved on, the helicopter like a voracious bird of prey, anxious to slide away from the face of the cascading waters. Soon they were passing an occasional pastureland with roaming livestock, open-range-fed cattle and horses, and the occasional barn or ranch house. They next passed over a tiny church in the middle of nowhere, tucked among the rain forest, a small graveyard alongside it.

Jim pointed at the graveyard and said, “That's Kipahulu Congregational Church, where Charles Lindbergh had himself buried facing the Pacific.”

“ Lindbergh? The first solo flight across the Atlantic?”

“ One and the same… Lucky Lindy, yes.”

“ The pride of St. Louis, way out here?”

“ He was a resident of Hana, which is coming in view now. Was buried here in 1974. Downright murder to get to his burial site even with four-wheel drive, and it's an even bet he wanted it that way.”

They swept by a series of cascading pools bounded by huge, strewn boulders. The pools and rocks had people in brightly colored clothes and bathing suits all around them.

“ Tourists up from Kahului, almost sixty miles off. The place is called the Wailua Falls on the maps but the travel agencies call it the Seven Sacred Pools to lure people here,” explained Jim. “Most of those fools'll be sorry if they don't get back across the Hana Highway before nightfall.”

“ The Hana Highway. I've heard of it.”

“ Hana Tarmac's a better name for it. See how narrowly the road hugs the coastline cliffs, darts and twists around blind corners, disappears and reappears?”

“ So that's the infamous Highway to Hana I heard so much about while I was on the island earlier. In the shops they sport T-shirts that say, 'I survived the Hana Highway.'”

“ Believe me, not everyone does. Every year or so someone goes off the edge, usually a tourist couple trying to find their way in the dark. Hell, it takes the locals two and a half hours at top speeds, which amounts to thirty-five to forty, to traverse the fifty miles between Hana and Kahului, thanks to the sheer number of hairpin and blind curves.”

Each mountain valley from up here appeared to be feeding the ocean with fresh water. Here on the far windward side of the island, the great Mt. Haleakala meant for an early sunset, and nestled among the valley floor and along the quickly descending cliffs below, a small village of modem construction emerged, some homes fantastic in both size and architecture as well as location. A steeple rose from the center of the small settlement, but church and grocery stores and all other structures were dwarfed by a spectacular resort hotel.

Jim leaned into her, nudged her and pointed, saying over the noise of the chopper, through the headphone set, “Hana Town and that's the Hana-Maui, one of the world's most unique hotels.”

“ By virtue of its location alone,” she imagined aloud.

“ Have their own stable of horses for their guests, two outdoor heated pools, each room with its own sunken bath that looks out on a private garden.”

“ Imagine that. You've stayed there?”

“ On my paycheck? Hell, no.”

From above they could also see what passed for an airport here, a single strip for take off and landing, not large enough to accept any but the smallest of jets, and the pilots would have to be either crazy or extremely adept.

“ Aloha Airlines has only recently gotten the okay to fly in here, Lear jets only, four and six passengers at a time, but they're restricted to one flight every three days in and out. The tower is that Quonset hut on the field.”

The pilot cut into their conversation, a little static and a buzz alerting them to the fact. “Been to Hasegawa's lately, Mr. Parry?”

Parry laughed. “Not lately, no.”

“ Hasegawa's?” asked a curious Jessica. “Something of a famous general store down there,” he said, continuing to point.

“ What's so famous about it? They got VCRs, videos, Playboy Magazine? L.L. Bean wear, what?”

“ No, nothing like that. No TV reception this side of the island, thanks to Mt. Haleakala.”

“ What's with the grocery store then?”

“ It's just that it's sorta become the standard by which all other island general stores must measure up, and when the original bumed up in 1990, there was some suspicion that it was torched by rivals.”

“ I see… I think.”

“ It's just a big, quaint old, wooden small-town grocery store that sells items you wouldn't expect to find here.”

“ Like condoms?”

“ Yeah, along with wooden airplanes, Yoo-Hoo pop, crackseeds, Jack Daniel's, Harlequin romances, and B.C. headache powders… you name it.”

Jessica spied a simple harbor with boats. From the air she could see that each valley path, once the trek of lava flows, now supported green carpets of life which stretched fingerlike to the ocean. The shoreline had been carved out in many places by the lava flows of an ancient time, creating jagged, fantastic images.

Jim leaned over, tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to a series of monstrous driblets of the jagged rock jutting through the waves and looking like a school of dragons from an old legend. “Pahoehoe, the natives call it,” he announced through the headphones.

Then Lee, the helicopter pilot, began to circle inland over the sleepy, staid, yet famous settlement known as Hana Town on the maps. They caught glimpses of the gray ribbon on Highway 36, the Hana Highway, which snaked crazily, hugging the coastline, twisting and turning along the virgin coastline where black beaches stared up at them like enormous, crescent-shaped cats' eyes.

“ My first black-beach spotting,” she confessed to Jim.

“ Beautiful, isn't it?”

“ Incredible.”

“ So like Hawaii to paint its beaches black. Look, would you like to go down to one of them?”

“ Really?” She saw down the coast another was coming into sight, a strip of black pebbles abutted on each side by lava cliffs. Beyond the beach lay a valley grown thick with hau and coconut trees. The ocean foam was stirred up wildly here in this desolate and isolated place of black sand.

“ It's created by a layer of volcanic rock washed and polished by the ocean for untold centuries,” he told her.

“ Can we really get to it?”

“ There's a trail-not a very good one-may be overgrown; leads down from the air strip.”

Now she saw the small strip built here for commercial use of helicopters.

'Trail may be grown over, but I brought a cane knife,” he continued.

The mention of the cane cutter reined her emotions in, reminding her of the horrors they'd so effectively and completely left behind in the powerful wake of the chopper, Honolulu now a distant memory.

The pilot pointed out a place he called the spout, another “blow hole” like the one at Koko Head on Oahu, and the sight of the shoreline geyser, sending up its powerful spray at hundreds of miles per hour, made Jessica's eyes turn to study Jim's, and there she found him out.

“ You wanted me to see this, didn't you?”

“ You're the one said he'd make for some place where he felt comfortable. There aren't too many of these spouts, and maybe it's about time we learn what happened to those missing Maui girls.”

“ Damnit, Jim, why didn't you tell me from the start?”