Robert Walker - Primal Instinct

The water cleaned his features enough to tell both Parry and Jessica that the suffering man on the rack did indeed resemble the photos they'd seen of Lopaka Kowona.

The aged chief, barely able to straighten his spine, stood before them now in full regalia and headdress and began a river of native words which Kaniola translated.

“ My son who is not my son was sought out by the Ohana and told that he would be given refuge on Kahoolawe if he came to us. The people guiding him were relatives he trusted.”

Ben Awai interrupted, saying, “I myself am the boy's paternal cousin. The chief is my uncle. Returning him to his homeland of Maui and finally to here was a simple matter. He believed me when I told him that his father, now very ill and weak of mind, would welcome him back.”

“ So I welcomed Lopaka home…” The powerful but croaking voice of the ancient man came out in English haltingly. He had patches of white hair and a broad, strong Hawaiian face below the headdress. Jessica imagined him to be in his late sixties or early seventies, but he was as rigid as wood, powerful in both size and dress. Not so spry as Kaniola's great-grand uncle, she thought. He knew enough English to get by, but apparently preferred the ancient tongue. There was a glassy stare and a tear in Chief Kowona's eye, and at his hip, as part of his ceremonial garb, was a powerful sword now caked with blood.

“ You can't let this go on a moment longer, Chief Kowona,” Jessica dared shout. “Lopaka is beaten. End his torment. Turn him over to us. We will see that he-”

“ Men talk this talk!” shouted the chief, his eyes now darting among Kaniola, Awai and Parry. “Now quiet, wahine\”She had obviously treaded on one of their many taboos, one she cared little for. Kaniola said, “Here, women do not speak directly to a chief.”

“ Jess,” cautioned Parry, “let me. How long's this torture gone on here, Kaniola? How long?”

“ 'Elua la noa,” replied the haughty old man.

“ Two days,” Kaniola translated.

“ Crippling your son is not just retribution for his crimes, Chief Kowona,” Parry contested.

“ He will soon be beyond any misery,” Kaniola countered.

Parry shouted, “He must be returned to Oahu to stand trial in the deaths of-”

Jessica felt faint at the wretched sight, unable to bear the spectacle of the dying man a moment longer, unable to close her hearing to the animal keening which welled up from deep within his frame, wracking his body to get out in a garbled plea for mercy, his eyes fixed and dilated. She suddenly dropped to one knee, and pretending her own plea for Lopaka, she slapped for the gun strapped to her ankle, brought it up and was about to end Lopaka Kowona's suffering here and now when Chief Kowona's regal hand flew into her line of fire, his huge sword leaping into his other hand as if it were alive, and in the fluid motion expected of a much younger man, he sliced off his son's head, sending shards of the wooden rack in all directions.

The head tumbled to the dogs, who at first, frightened by the old man's sudden action, crept back slowly to sniff curiously at Lopaka's decapitated and bloody head.

“ Suffers my son no more,” declared the old man, dropping his sword into the red earth before the malevolent son he had dispatched and going to his knees. The old man wailed, his own pain escaping openly before his followers, a punished king. At the same time Jessica and Parry were frozen in place by the display of swift, sure justice that had come with the stroke of the enormous blade, a guillotine of finality descended over them when tribal followers wrested the gun from Jessica's hand, one of them pushing her roughly to the ground. Parry, coming to her aid, fearful the gun would go off, decked her attacker with a single blow, but this was met with a heavy war club to his back and a second to his jaw, knocking him off his feet.

Jessica crawled to Parry, clutching him, certain now they, too, would be killed by the savage justice of this cruel place. “Jim, Jim, are you all right?” Tears came of their own accord.

“ Justice is served, Parry, Dr. Coran,” said Joe Kaniola.

“ Everything settled,” agreed Ben Awai while both men stood over them.

Kaniola seemed to be acting as a bishop of sorts here. “Take them to their quarters, Awai, and then return here. We have much to discuss.”

Jessica and Parry were led away to a guarded hut and told to remain peaceable and silent, and that any attempt at escape would cost them dearly.

The threat of Lopaka Kowona to the islands was at an end, but now Jessica and James Parry faced a new kind of threat. Surrounded, with no visible way out, no weapons to protect themselves with, they were witnesses to an execution-style murder here on Kahoolawe. It seemed unlikely that they would be allowed to leave with such knowledge.

At daybreak the old chief, Awai and Kaniola came into their prison. They'd obviously counseled with one another on the situation, but for now Kaniola, sitting on the old chief's right-hand side, began. “No white courts, no white law, no loopholes and no life terms, no appeals or paroles, nor endless denial of justice here, Parry.”

“ No hard to know tribal justice,” croaked a defeated chief.

“ You can both understand the pain and suffering all in this village, the shame and humiliation which these people have endured, not to mention Chief Kowona's personal loss and shame,” continued Kaniola. “Can't you?”

Parry exchanged a look with Jessica. “Of course we can,” he said matter-of-factly.

“ And you. Dr. Coran?” She firmly agreed with a slowly building nod, recalling that the chief liked his women silent.

“ Then there is an end to it, here… now,” said Kaniola. “No more pain… no more suffering, a clean end to it.”

“ We can live with that,” agreed Parry. “Can't we, Jessica?” He nudged her.

“ Well… yes…”

“ Good… good, then Ben will take you both back to Maui. Ben,” said Kaniola.

Ben Awai, looking stunned now, pleaded with Kaniola for an answer. “What? Whataya mean, take them back to Maui?”

“ Just do it, Ben.”

“ But they'll cause trouble for us all, Joe.”

“ You just do as I say, Ben.”

The argument obviously hadn't yet been settled, but it was now cut short by the chief, who bellowed his own orders. Kaniola translated. “Chief Kowona's talking now to Parry directly. 'Tell everyone outside of Kahoolawe that the Trade Winds Killer is dead, his body fed to the bay.'“

“ Chief,” countered Parry, “no one in my world will believe me when I speak of this.”

“ Chief you are? Among your people are you not?” he asked directly.

“ Yes, but my people do not always believe in the word of their chiefs.”

He nodded as if he understood this. “Sad it is when people do not trust. Married I once into your race, and result”-he indicated the outer encampment where the headless form on the rack had remained dangling all night-”is dat… monster.”

Kaniola stared at his old friend, the chief, who struggled now to his feet, the others following suit. Parry and Jessica were told to follow. Standing now in the encampment, Parry stretched and Jessica clung to him.

Jessica could hear the flies before she got up nerve to look in their direction. Already at work, they buzzed about and perched in Lopaka's dead eyes, laying their eggs against the soft tissues, there just ten feet from her. The man's red body was suspended like a grotesque doll on the rack. With the sun bathing the entire village in a crimson dawn, reflecting back the red soil, she recalled Lomelea's prediction that she would never completely take hold of the red shadow, Lopaka, but that she would find a place like this where the sun would appear to be a blood orange in the sky and where the paths were scarlet.