Island Fire Page 9

  Beosith sent Bea another picture. This time it was Shipwreck Beach, closest to Molokai. The view he sent her was of a washed-up Hobie catamaran without a mast, caught in a pile of debris. You should go to Molokai. You have family there. He projected a picture of Bea’s aunt, Hilary Hina Kanekoa, with her wide smile and cheeks dented by dimples. They have the ranch, and Uncle Buzz has his boat. Things would be better for you on Molokai.

  “Aunty Hilary is on Molokai,” Bea said aloud. Her aunt was the closest Bea would ever get to her mother, and visceral longing for Aunty Hilary’s strong arms filled her.

  “Yeah? Molokai’s nine rough channel miles away,” Jaden said. “Why are you bringing that up?”

  “It's a rough passage, but easier than the one to Maui.” Even as Bea said it, her throat closed with apprehension. Only the most experienced watermen and women, in the best canoes or boats, ever tried the nine-plus-mile Kalohi Channel between the small islands without an engine. Blasting sideways winds, surging currents, and unpredictable wave patterns made the passage dangerous even in a sturdy boat.

  And they didn’t have a sturdy boat, or any boat for that matter.

  “I was going to Maui to live with my grandparents when our plane crashed. I’d love to get there, but isn’t someone going to come looking for us? I mean, does anyone know what this thing was that happened?” Nick asked.

  “I heard people in town saying they thought it was something to do with the weird lights in the sky we saw the other night,” Jaden said. “Or some sort of electromagnetic pulse bomb. Nobody really knows, but it seems to have knocked out electronics everywhere. Got no idea how much of the islands, or the world even, has been affected.”

  Bea slapped a mosquito. “We should spend the time we’re stuck in here packing all we can and figuring out how we can carry it. But I’m not sure we should go back to town.”

  “What do you mean?” Jaden asked.

  “I think we might do better down at the beach. We can use our fishing and diving stuff, make a fire to cook with. I know where there’s an abandoned fishing shack, and we can shelter there. Town looked pretty crazy.”

  Jaden set his jaw. “I don’t care what you guys do. I’m going back to town to bring some supplies to my family and to get the police back out here. You’ll see. I’ll get these guys kicked out of your house.”

  “I want to go with you to town,” Nick said to Jaden. “I need to find out if anyone can help the other survivors down on the beach.”

  “Okay. Let’s all go together when we leave. We can see what your parents say, Jaden.” Bea walked over to the shelves. “Now, let’s figure out how to pack this so we can carry it.”

  Nick watched Bea as she took some supplies down from the shelves. She was tall for a girl, the same height as her friend Jaden at around five foot eight. She had interesting forest-green eyes with flecks of gold in them and curling black lashes. Thick brown hair hung in a braid to her waist, and she wore a dirty athletic tank shirt and worn jeans.

  Bea had a kind of wiry slenderness that looked like it came from working hard outside, not dieting and treadmills, like the girls he was used to in the Midwest. He wondered if she was part Hawaiian and that’s why her skin was so brown.

  “What you looking at?” Jaden hissed.

  Nick glanced away. “Nothing.”

  Nick felt Jaden’s resentment and jealousy and focused his attention outside, on the house. Going with these kids seemed like the best way to get help for the crash victims and to find a way to survive for however long it took for this disaster to get resolved. If he was going to be able to stay with these island kids, he was going to have to make friends with Jaden. The last thing he needed was to complicate his life because of a girl.

  “So what’s life like here, on Lanai?” he said. “When things are normal?”

  “Boring,” Jaden snapped.

  Bea looked up. “I’m sure you’d think it was pretty simple. We spend a lot of time working for food and getting by. What’s life like where you’re from?”

  “Well, its winter right now, so you can bet I was glad to be going to Hawaii,” Nick said, with his friendliest smile. “I’m from the Chicago area.”

  “Why were you coming to Hawaii?” Jaden asked.

  Nick shrugged, deciding some self-disclosure might help lower their guard. “My mom died a couple years ago and I was in foster. Finally, my grandparents said they’d take me. They live on Maui.”

  “Total off-the-plane haole,” Jaden sneered. Nick frowned. He didn’t know what the other boy was saying, but it didn’t sound good.

  “Jaden! He can’t help what happened to him!” Bea said. “That’s sad, what you said. And now you can’t even get to your grandparents. We’re kind of in the same boat—me and Sam’s mom died, too, and our dad has disappeared now that the explosion happened. I’m starting to think I’d like to get to Molokai, to our aunt and uncle over there.”

  “How close is Molokai to Maui?” Nick asked, aware Jaden’s jealousy was not abating with Bea’s defense of him.

  “Same distance there from here. Molokai wouldn’t help you get to your grandparents,” Bea said.

  “Well, I’d like to go with you to town,” Nick said, making his appeal to Jaden. “I need to get help for the crash victims, if I can.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Jaden said. “And you can get back with your friends.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dark seemed to creep across the straggling back lawn with agonizing slowness. Sam had been awake for some hours now, and his stomach was bulging. They’d eaten the rest of the bread, leftover fish, and other perishables and drank a good deal of water. They weren’t going to be able to bring the rest of the perishable food.

  The close confines of the cave had begun to feel claustrophobic, but every time Sam went to the opening and heard the mutter of voices, the harsh bad words, the mean laughter—he moved farther back into the cave.

  “I think they have a lookout.” Bea seemed to know more about the movements of the LCBoyz than she should, but they had nothing else to go on.

  “Seems like they found your dad’s stash of liquor.” Jaden had the cone to his ear. “They’ll be passing out anytime now.”

  So that was why the volume had risen, snatches of song and laughter reaching them. “Maybe they’ll all get drunk and we can walk right past,” Nick said.

  “Still got a lookout, and he’s not drinking.” Bea put finishing touches on one of their packs. She and Jaden had fashioned makeshift backpacks for each of them out of lengths of rope and cut-up pieces of tarpaulin. Bea had paid special attention to her own pack as she constructed and packed it.

  Sam looked inside Bea’s. It held rope, another uncut tarpaulin, the roadside kit from Dad’s truck, the first aid kit, fishing tackle, and a can of tightly packed seeds, along with all the food she could fit in and her sleeping bag. Bea fastened the pruners and rifle through loops on the outside as a finishing touch.

  Sam’s pack was more modest—a pouch holding his sleeping bag, slingshot, Dad’s Leatherman knife, plus all the granola bars and beef jerky from the shelves. They each had a gallon jug of water to carry.

  Jaden’s and Nick’s packs were the biggest and heaviest, and Bea had given them all the food that had to be cooked—beans, rice, and canned goods. They’d managed to fit most of what was on the shelves into the packs.

  “We’re going to Jaden’s house first, to figure out what to do next from there,” Bea told Sam. “Maybe we’ll look for Dad.”

  “Dad didn’t come back for us,” Sam said. She’d told him that Dad was gone from the truck, tried to make it sound like he must have had to go somewhere else. But Sam knew they were just too much trouble and he’d taken his chance to leave them, after the disaster. “We don’t have to listen to him anymore.”

  “He might need us.” Bea’s green eyes were dark with worry. He could tell she was feeling weird about Dad. Sam did, too, but his face was finally feeling better, and even with everythi
ng that was going on, he didn’t miss Dad. He wished he felt guilty about it, but he didn’t.

  “You guys can bicker over that later,” Jaden said. He’d turned his back to them, hoisting up his full pack. “I think it’s dark enough. Let’s go.”

  Nick got behind Jaden, his pack already on. He was taller than Jaden by several inches, and wider in the shoulders, too. Sam noticed how hard Nick was trying to get Jaden to like him. He wasn’t sure about the older boy, but he did feel sorry for him.

  He and Bea pulled on their packs and picked up the gallon jugs of water. Jaden moved the lumber in the opening carefully aside. They could hear laughing and drunken bits of singing. Outside the cave it was full dark, with the moon playing peek-a-boo behind scudding clouds.

  Sam moved up close to Nick with his sister behind. He kept his eyes on the ground as they crept forward out of the cave, tiptoeing across the gap between the cave mouth and the first tree. He sighed with relief under the darkness of the trees, but there were new worries here—rustling leaves, brittle snapping branches like the one he’d stepped on that last night.

  They moved as slowly and quietly as they could through the trees beside the house. Sam breathed easier as they moved toward the front of the house.

  A bellowing bark, way too close, made Sam jump back so that he crashed into Bea. The barking got louder, and he could tell it was one of the wide-chested pit bulls the LCBoyz kept, usually on a big, thick chain. He’d petted those dogs on his rare trips to town and had always thought they were just so the LCBoyz could look meaner.

  This pit bull wasn’t on a chain. It was barking with a deep snarling sound that made the hair all over his body stand up, and it was getting closer.

  Sam turned away and ran.

  And he didn’t care if he stepped on any branches.

  Bea reached out to grab Sam as he broke, fleeing in terror into the darkness, crashing through the leaves—but she missed, and her brother kept going. She slid behind a tree, and the terrible barking didn’t get any closer—the dog must have hit the end of its chain.

  But now the Boyz were roused, and she heard the stomping of their feet on the porch, yelling and cursing, and the detonating boom of a gunshot.

  That’s when Bea turned and ran after her brother. She heard Nick, crashing like a rhino through the darkness beside her. The grove, so familiar and sheltering in the daytime, was a black maze. Bea smacked into trees twice, stumbled and went down once before she reached the end of the grove, barking her shin, scraping her hands.

  Fleeing ahead of her across the arid moonlit landscape, Sam lurched on, a dark shape. Nick had caught up with him already by the time she cleared the trees. Bea caught up with them and finally glanced back—no one was following.

  Maybe they’d just fired the gun into the air. Maybe they were just trying to scare them away.

  But where was Jaden?

  “Let’s get to Rainbow,” Sam gasped. He was limping but not slowing down. Bea glanced back again—Jaden still wasn’t following.

  Bea stopped. Her heart hadn’t slowed, because a new fear had taken hold of her.

  Jaden shot. Jaden bleeding in the shadows under the trees. Jaden mauled by the pit bull, with its tiny eyes, wide, square head, and heavy jaws. Jaden hauled away by the LCBoyz, trailing blood. Jaden hurt, or dead.

  “I have to go back, see where Jaden went,” Bea said. “Go ahead. Check on Rainbow and give her water. I’ll be right there.”

  It was a testament to how scared Sam was that he didn’t argue, just kept going with that skipping run he used when his leg was bothering him.

  Nick dropped his pack and joined her. “I’ll come with you.”

  Bea turned back, calling for the dragon with her mind. Beosith! I need you!

  The dragon rippled up the slope from the ocean—Bea could see him in her mind’s eye. Lanai’s geography was simple, open stretches of sun-and-wind-battered red earth scored by dry creek beds from the rare winter floods. Trees were few and far between except on the crown of the island. Beosith came up one of those dry gulches, a faint trail of sparks and the scent of sulfur and fish marking his path.

  Find out what’s happened to Jaden. Please.

  The dragon flowed swiftly past her, the light of his eyes dimmed in stealth mode. She glanced at Nick, to see if he saw the mo’o dragon, but the Mainland boy’s eyes were on the uneven ground.

  Bea slung her pack off and unhooked the .22, leaving the heavy pack on the ground beside Nick’s. She cocked the Henry rifle and broke into a jog back the way they’d come, Nick at her side. She could hear the dog from a long way off, and it was still barking.

  “What’s the plan?” the older boy asked. His voice was calm. He didn’t seem as scared as she felt. She could feel heat from his body from their recent exertions.

  “Let’s just see if we can get back close enough to find out what happened to him,” Bea said.

  Her mind filled with a picture of Jaden, huddled in the lee of one of the trees near the house. He was holding his ankle, the heavy pack on the ground beside him.

  He’s all right. But it will be hard to get that close again without them knowing. I will provide a distraction.

  What kind of distraction?

  Don’t worry—I won’t show myself. They can’t handle the truth!

  If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Bea might have smiled at Beosith’s quote from A Few Good Men, one of her father’s favorite movies. They’d watched it a half-dozen times on the old VCR. Beosith must have watched it, too.

  She and Nick stole back into the trees. Even from the far edge of the trees, the dog’s barking had a chilling intimidation to it.

  “I know this grove. Put your hand on my shoulder and stay close,” Bea whispered. Nick did. His hand felt like a clamp on her shoulder, and she shrugged to get him to loosen his grip. They moved as silently as they could through the trees, drawing nearer to the house.

  Bea could hear the Boyz yelling and arguing among themselves on the porch. Apparently, some of them wanted to go out and find whoever had been in the grove, while others in the gang thought they should stay guarding the house. They didn’t mention Jaden, so Bea knew they hadn’t found him yet.

  “Shut up!” someone yelled at the dog, which had renewed its barking as they approached. The pit bull sounded like Cerberus—the three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to hell—but that was probably just the dark and her overactive imagination. They finally reached a tree close to the house, and the lights of candles and lantern illuminated the Boyz on the porch and the dog chained to the corner of the house.

  Suddenly, the barking turned to panicked yelping—and Bea spotted the dog running away, its intimidating bellow changed to cries of terror as it fled into the dark, chain flapping.

  “Catch the dog!” she heard someone shout. Several of the Boyz boiled off the porch, lurching after the animal in pursuit, while others called directions, waving their guns. Bea wished she could find it funny—but the guns prevented that.

  You’re welcome, Beosith said. I think I broke a tooth on that chain.

  “Bea!” She’d almost stepped on Jaden. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

  “I couldn’t leave you here—what happened?”

  “Twisted my ankle. I can’t run, especially with the pack.”

  In answer, Nick had already pulled the other boy to his feet and looped an arm under his shoulder. With Jaden hopping, they disappeared into the darkness under the trees.

  Bea heaved Jaden’s pack on. It was really heavy, and the rope straps dug into her shoulders. The grove seemed to go on forever, the yelling and drama at the house fading behind them. Once out of the grove, they were able to move a little faster. When they got to the backpacks, Nick stopped.

  “I can carry a pack. We shouldn’t leave anything.” Jaden lifted Bea’s pack and put it on. Nick put his back on, too, and lifted Jaden again. The boys semi-hopped and hurried as best they could over the uneven ground.

  Bea h
ad a stitch in her side by then, breath tearing through her lungs. She used the rifle as a walking stick, eyes on the moonlit ground interspersed with tussocks of dry grass, trying to keep from tripping.

  She almost walked right into Rainbow. The mare pushed Bea in the chest with her nose in greeting. Bea hugged the mare around the neck, the warmth of the horse’s scent instantly soothing her.

  “I thought we could put the packs on her or something,” Sam said. “You okay, Jaden?” He’d led the horse by her halter and put the riding blanket back on.

  “Twisted ankle,” Jaden said. “Your sister saved me.” His thankful words infused her with warmth.

  “Nick was the one to get you out of there,” Bea couldn’t help pointing out. “Good thinking bringing Rainbow here, Sam.” Bea rubbed the mare’s forehead in greeting. “Let’s put Jaden up on her with the packs.”

  “Sweet,” Jaden said. “Now you’re talking.”

  Bea directed Nick to make a stirrup with his hands. Jaden put his good foot in it, grasping the horse’s mane. He swung his hurt leg over Rainbow’s back with a stifled moan. Once he was settled, Bea handed up the heaviest packs and Jaden stacked them in front of him. Nick donned Bea’s lighter one.

  “Let’s get moving. Some of the Boyz wanted to come looking for whoever was out in the trees,” Bea said. “Catching that dog won’t take them forever.”

  Jaden, Sam, and Nick didn’t need any more urging to get moving. Bea wished she could tell the boys about Beosith’s bold move in scaring the dog, but the words stuck in her throat. How would they ever believe her?

  Bea sensed the dragon out on the broad plain, chasing the terrorized dog back toward the Whitelys’ house and enjoying every minute of it.

  Don’t have too much fun, Bea thought. Meet us at the Apucans.

  The mare broke into a trot, and the three of them hurried across the barren field, headed uphill toward Lanai City.