Chapter 9 The Kiawe
The Kiawe
Honu: turtle
In her mouth, she tastes blood. A tooth has come loose, she realizes, and she coughs it up into her hand. More come after
the first, tall triangles, serrated and sharp, and she can’t get them out fast enough. The inside of her cheek is torn. There
is no surprise these are shark teeth—it seems perfectly normal, except they begin to pile up in her mouth and she is choking
and gasping for air.
“Hello? Minnow?”
A loud knocking woke her up, and it took a moment to orient herself. Saggy mattress. Salty breeze. Rustle of coconut fronds.
“In here,” she said, wiping the drool from her chin as she sat up, slightly disoriented. Weird, there actually was blood on the back of her hand.
“Are you okay?” Nalu called.
“Yeah, I fell asleep.”
“Sounded like you were croaking.”
“Nope. I’m still alive. Just having a weird dream. Sorry to freak you out.” The inside of her cheek burns. She must have bit
it.
“I just need to grab the keys to the truck and I’ll be on my way,” he said.
“They’re where you left them.”
“Unless you need me to drive you to the hospital?”
By the time Nalu came through the screen door dripping wet and letting it slam behind him, she was alert. It would be nice
not to be so tied to him and to have her own car and her own boat, but maybe this was what it felt like to have a younger
brother tagging along.
“Not today. Stonewalled again.”
When she returned to the house earlier that afternoon, she’d called again. This time another tight-lipped nurse told her that
the patient in room 206 was not ready for visitors, even scientists on official business.
“I’ll take you up there tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe we can work our way in.”
He was right, but there was a part of her that was also relieved at not having to come face-to-face with the reality of how
fragile humans were in the mouth of a shark. She thought of her dream again and could almost feel how easily those teeth would
pierce the skin.
A few chunks of bleached white coral marked the road that branched off from the driveway and headed to the Kiawe. Minnow wanted
to walk over and see if the resort owner was around, maybe pick his brain. Joe hadn’t told her much about him, just that he
was distressed about the deaths so close to the resort—and he’d been all in for a shark hunt.
For most of the way the lava road hugged the coast, and the breeze off the ocean cooled her skin.
When one short section curved away from the water, the temperature rose a good ten degrees, and Minnow felt like she was walking in a field of sauna rocks.
The lava crunched underfoot, and she was glad to be wearing shoes, not slippers.
Walking here midday would be brutal, she decided, and was glad she had waited for the sun to drop.
Twenty minutes later, the road ended at a crushed coral circle, where a person could park a car if careful not to drive into
the ocean while turning around. Several big logs blocked vehicle access to the Kiawe, and she sensed Woody probably didn’t
want anyone driving down to his house, not the other way around.
Coming in from the road, you would never guess you were headed to an über-fancy resort. A one-lane road, a small burnished
wood sign that read Kiawe nailed to a tree. A sandy path ran alongside the road, and she followed it until she got to a guard shack.
A man in a tight polo shirt popped his head out. “Aloha. Can I help you?”
“I’m headed to the Reef House for dinner.”
He looked up the road as if expecting someone else. “Just you?”
“Yes.”
“You walk here from Kona?”
She laughed. “No, I’m staying at the Kaupikos’.”
“Ah. Have you been to the Reef House before?”
“No.”
“Follow the road to the fork and turn right. You’ll see the signs. And watch for falling coconuts,” he said with a wink.
The foliage thickened, and the temperature cooled considerably among all the breathing trees. Small huts appeared here and
there, set back from the road, with steep-pitched, thatched roofs. It felt like a ghost town but in a good way. Another burnished
sign led her to a vast lawn with a much larger version of the huts right in the middle, lights strung up all around. The ocean
lay just beyond a crop of lava rocks and coconut trees, none of which had any coconuts on them.
Minnow sat at the bar, since that would be her best shot at picking up any intel, and a small man named Chris greeted her
in a singsong accent. “A special cocktail for the lady?”
She smiled. “Water is fine, thank you.”
“No one comes to my bar and just orders water, love. I’ll surprise you,” he said, flashing a set of teeth so white and straight, they could only be fake.
A drink might do her good. “All right, just not too strong, please.”
Several twisty, heart-shaped trees flanked the restaurant, adding much-needed shade and carrying with them a sweet woodsy
scent. She took her time glancing around at the other patrons, most of them couples or groups of couples. A whole lot of linen,
several straw hats, and most people in white.
A few minutes later, Chris set down a pale orange drink in a martini glass with a hunk of pineapple on the side. He stood
waiting, so Minnow took a sip. Tart passion fruit, vodka, bubbles, and very strong.
“You like?” he asked.
Her mouth puckered, but she had to admit it was good. She nodded. “How long have you worked here, Chris?”
“Long time. Twenty years now.”
“You must have a lot of stories.”
He laughed. “Oh, I just make the drinks and keep my ears and mouth shut.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
“What about you? What’s your story?” he asked, scooping ice into glasses lightning fast and on autopilot.
“I’m a scientist.”
“What do you study?”
She figured she may as well be honest this time. Word would get out anyway.
“Sharks. White sharks, in particular.”
“Careful about saying the s word too loud around here. Mr. Sawyer won’t be keen to hear it,” he said, nodding toward a mustached man in white linen pants
and button-up speaking to someone at a table.
Mr. Sawyer owned the joint, she knew from Joe. The sun, which now sat perched on a hill of clouds on the horizon, reflected in Sawyer’s mirrored shades. He looked like he’d stepped off a boat from Central America.
“He’s worried, I imagine,” she said.
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I’d feel bad about what happened, but sharks will be sharks.”
Whether Mr. Sawyer heard her, she couldn’t be sure. But he glanced her way, said something to the guy at the table, then made
his way over.
He took off his shades and gave her a once-over. “Have we met? I’m Don Sawyer.”
She shifted uncomfortably on the barstool. “I don’t believe so. I’m Dr. Minnow Gray.”
“Ah, you didn’t seem like my usual guests, and now I know why. I hear you’re a shark whisperer. That true?”
She hated that term. “I’m a shark researcher. I study them, which requires that sometimes I get in the water with them.”
“A brave woman.”
In his late fifties or early sixties, he looked fit and his bronze skin was still flawless.
“We all have our fears, Mr. Sawyer.”
“Have you learned anything yet? Like what kind of fucking monster is out there?” he asked, his bluntness catching her off
guard.
“I just got here, so no. I’m hoping to find Stuart’s surfboard and get a look at Angela’s wounds, but so far I’ve had no luck
getting in to see her.”
“No satellite tags show anything?”
“Nope. They only ping when the shark comes to the surface.”
“Well, this shark has been at the surface more than once.”
He was right about that, but she knew there were way more untagged than tagged sharks swimming around out there. And there
were also the conventional tags, with just an ID number and contact info of the scientists who tagged the animal. If this
shark had one of those, it could provide valuable data on the animal’s migration patterns.
“We don’t know if the same shark was responsible. And if it was, there’s still not a whole lot we can do about it unless we find something that’s drawing it in, which is what I’m banking on.”
“Regardless, pulling out a few of these big boys would go far to alleviate fears and probably save some lives.”
Her throat constricted. “Pulling out?”
“Hooking, shooting, what have you.”
The words gutted her, and she felt the hook go through her own cheek. “Trust me, that’s not the answer,” she said.
“Easy for you to say—you don’t have blood on your hands. But if we don’t do something, you probably will after the Kiawe Roughwater
Swim.”
She was beginning to feel like it was Minnow against the rest of the world. An all-too-familiar feeling when it came to defending
sharks, and sometimes she wished she studied sea otters or dolphins.
“Something you could do to help would be to get me in to see Angela. Do you think you might be able to swing that?” she asked, changing course.
“How will I reach you if I do?”
She gave him Woody’s number.
Then he leaned over to Chris and said, “Open a tab for her, and put it on the house. As long as she’s in town.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Minnow said.
“I need your help, Miss Gray, as much as you need mine. So let’s work together on this, shall we?” he said, then turned on
his heel and left.
Miss Gray.
There were no prices on the menu, and she ordered the macadamia pesto pasta and roasted carrot salad, thankful that her bill was on the house.
Chris mostly left her alone because the house filled up for sunset.
After dinner she crossed the lawn to a pair of empty Adirondack chairs and sat back to watch the blood-stained sky.
At least that’s what it looked like to her.
Pressure was mounting for her to do something to stop the hunt, and yet she’d learned little and found nothing.
She’d only been there a few days, but she was starting to feel pretty useless.
Suddenly she noticed the silhouette of a man leaning against the coconut tree in front of her. He threw a rock and it skipped