Chapter 12 The Cave
The Cave
īlio holo i ka uaua: seal; literally, “dog that runs in rough water”
When Minnow woke in the morning, Woody was no longer on his cot. She found him on the far side of the fishpond, cleaning out
long leaves from a dense pandanus tree hanging above. It was only six fifteen and semi-dark. When he saw her he waved but
kept working. Minnow went in and started up the hot water and he loped in ten minutes later.
“Girl, you had me worried last night. Thought there was a catfight or something spooky going down,” he said.
The dream surfaced then. In it her foot had come off and she and Woody and her father were swimming around searching for it—looking
in holes, under towering blue coral heads, and in the sand. At the entrance to a giant cave, Minnow was about to swim in,
but Woody grabbed her arm and made the universal shark sign, holding up his hand and moving it like a shark fin. She pulled
free and swam in anyway, her father by her side. A moment later, a dense black shadow slammed into him and the water turned
red all around them.
“I’m prone to nightmares,” she said. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
“Small kine haunting. But no worries, I was already awake waiting for the earthquake. To me it’s proof that even though we’ve devolved, our animal instincts are still in us. I wake up every single time, a little before they hit. Did you feel it?”
That’s right, there had been a quake too, a low drumbeat coming from deep in the earth. At the edge of the ocean, Woody had
mumbled something that started with an O, then sighed and soon began to snore.
“I did. I was already awake too, and I heard you say something,” she said.
“ōla‘i. Hawaiian for ‘earthquake.’”
“Do you get them down here often?”
“Get ’um all ovah the island, plenty. Pele, she keeps us on our toes.”
The kettle whistled and Woody pulled out the can of instant coffee. “This stuff is nasty, but I love it. You want some?”
“No, thanks. I brought a French press.”
“Probably better that way. Anna calls my coffee ‘toilet water’ and says she’d rather drink out of the fishpond. I say it’s
what keeps me young. You two would get along just fine,” he said with a chuckle.
They slowly sipped their coffee on the wall, with the sun rising at their backs. It felt like perfection, and Minnow wished
she were here under different circumstances. Her foot was still swollen and an angry red, and she caught Woody eyeing it.
“I’ll make you a coconut poultice. Heal you up fast. But first I want to go out with you in the water. We got some business
to take care of.”
“Nalu should be here soon.”
Nalu arrived with glassy eyes and a hickey on his neck. The smell of weed that had been missing the last couple days once
again swarmed around him.
As they shook hands, Woody sniffed the air. “Brah, is this how you show your respect to this wahine who came all the way from California to help our sharks?”
Nalu’s face went red. “Uncle, I’m sorry. I had a shitty night’s sleep and there was a roach in the truck, so I smoked it.”
“We all had a rough night’s sleep. That’s what coffee is for.”
“My bad.”
“Don’t show up around here like this again or you won’t be welcome back. And I’ll drive the boat this morning. I don’t want
some half-cocked kid at the helm,” Woody said, nostrils widening.
Nalu shot a look at Minnow, who shrugged. She wouldn’t want to be on Woody’s bad side and for about a half second she felt
bad for the guy, but maybe he would learn something. There was more here to discover than sharks, and Woody possessed a kind
of old-world wisdom that Minnow recognized.
After filling a cooler, they swam out to the boat. Woody wore a pair of faded blue Birdwell shorts so thin that the seat was
almost worn through and a big straw hat, nothing else. Nor did Minnow see him put on any sunscreen. But his skin was even
darker than Nalu’s and as smooth as a monk seal. He barked orders at Nalu, who obeyed like a frightened dog. Maybe this was
partly a pecking order thing, a chest-pounding display of whose territory they were in. A common trait of males of most species.
The plan was to visit several places where Woody thought they might find Hank Johnson’s body, or at least signs of it. He
drove slowly, almost painfully so, and Minnow wasn’t sure if it was because of his straw hat, which was held on loosely by
two shoelaces tied under his chin, or because he was so busy talking. Both she and Nalu hung on his every word.
“This rock is where the manta rays hang out. The plankton get hung up where the currents converge. That inlet has one deep crack that funnels straight out to sea, bringing in colder water and bigger fish, niuhi included. See how the color of the water is different there? Plenty of freshwater springs running out from the land.”
Behind was a backdrop of massive volcanoes, long and sloping, topped in clouds.
As they putted along, in the breaks between talking Minnow thought about the earthquake, imagining the fish sensing it, just
as the humans had, only better. She had first learned about fish and earthquakes from a boat captain in Mexico, who told them
that there would be no more fishing for the next few days after a good-sized quake had rocked the area. When she thought about
the shark’s electromagnetic sensitivity, it made perfect sense. Looking into it, she’d discovered that fish pick up seismic
activity up to three Richter magnitudes lower than humans.
“What do you know about fishing and earthquakes?” she asked, curious about what Woody would say.
“Might as well call it a day if you’re out fishing. The fish go dark. They know. Sharks too. In ’75 I was in a cave grabbing
lobster when three whitetips come shooting past me like they were late for a party. I should have followed them. Next thing,
we were in a Shake ’n Bake box and I could hear the rocks grinding together. I thought the whole thing was gonna come down
on my head. Now I pay more attention.”
A mile or so down the coast, he slowed. There was no beach or trees or anything that might mark where they were. “See that
skylight there? The hole in the lava? That’s where we going,” he told them.
Minnow followed his line of sight and saw a big round hole at the top of a tall dome of lava. It was a good thirty yards inland
from the water’s edge.
“What’s in there?” Nalu asked.
“This cave collects things. I call it the blue room.”
Woody grabbed the anchor and jumped in the water, sinking like a stone.
No mask, no fins. When he came up, they all gathered their gear and jumped back in.
Woody had a three-prong spear, Minnow her underwater camera.
The sea here was so alive, when she closed her eyes and listened, she could hear the triggerfish crunching on coral, the rattle of wana spines, the screeching of an angry eel.
Woody was watching her when she opened her eyes. “If you swim down a couple feet, you can see the light at the end of the
hole. Faint, but it’s there. I’ve found things in the blue room after big swells. A cooler, a shoe, a boogie board. Even a
glass fishing ball with the rope still on.”
“The big one at the house?” Minnow asked.
“Yup.”
Miracle it hadn’t shattered against the rock.
Nalu, who had grown quiet, finally said, “How long do you have to hold your breath?”
“Long enough so you don’t crack your head coming up.”
Not a comforting answer.
“I’d guess twenty seconds,” Minnow said.
“There’s an air pocket halfway through,” Woody added, “if you freak out or the surge pushes you out.”
Minnow did a slow three-sixty to check the surroundings. Big slabs of smooth rock and boulders lined the bottom, with small
colonies of yellow lobe coral popping up here and there. Visibility was good and she could see eighty feet out. Woody kicked
toward the wall of lava they would be diving under, and she and Nalu followed. They all took turns dipping down and looking
for the light.
“Just follow the light, and stay down on the bottom. You good to go?” Woody asked.
“Yes,” Minnow said.
Nalu did not answer.
“Brah, you okay?” Woody asked.
Nalu nodded, but Minnow knew something was off. “You don’t have to do this if you’re uncomfortable, you know. It’s a long
breath hold.”
He remained stone-faced. “Nah, I got it.”
“You sure?”
Woody looked at Nalu. “Stay right on my heels, I’ll keep an eye on you. We go first. Then you, next big surge,” he said to
Minnow.
A moment later, the two men were gone, disappearing into the dark tunnel. She hovered, watching the sunlit bubbles coming
off the rocks. She counted to twenty slowly. It seemed like nothing when you were relaxed and floating but entirely different
when you were holding your breath under cold, hard rock. Suddenly a big dark torpedo came at her from the cave opening, so
fast there was nothing to do. It went right past her, only inches away. But it wasn’t a shark, it was a seal. She could see
the whiskers as it passed. The men must have spooked it.
Back at the entrance, Minnow watched for an incoming swell, small as they were, took a deep breath and dove under. The light
appeared distant and small, but she kept her eye on it, swam just over the sand and came up on the count of twenty-one into
a shallow, sandy-bottomed cavern with a small rocky shelf on one end, covered in smooth pink seaweed.
“Hooey. Always a rush, isn’t it?” Woody said, voice echoing off the walls. “Did you see our friend?”
“Hard to miss, and the last thing I was expecting was a seal.”
“Bet you was happy it wasn’t something else, though. Buggah was big.”
“Very.”
Minnow glanced around, taking in the bubble of lava they were inside of, realizing that the hole in the top was from a chunk
of lava collapsing down into the cave. The whole roof was about six inches thick. Unsettling, to say the least.
“Any sign of our missing swimmer?” she asked.
Nalu was at the far end, near the pink shelf. “Hey, guys, look at this,” he called.
Minnow and Woody swam over and he held up half a swim fin. “Do we know if our man Hank was wearing fins when he went missing?” he asked.
“Good question. Joe never mentioned it and I just assumed he wasn’t. Since he was training.”
They brought the fin back to where the sunlight poured in. The bottom of it was missing and the cut was jagged.
“Hard to tell for sure, but I would say this is a bite,” Minnow said.
Woody inspected it closely. “Damn straight that’s a bite. What else would it be?”
He had a good point. There were no barnacles or hardening or signs of disintegration, so the fin had not been in the ocean
for too long. And a fin might slip off a person in the shore break or maybe slip off a boat or something, but there would
be no real reason for a fin to get hacked.
“I don’t know, but it’s a body surfing fin,” Nalu said.
“Are there any more people unaccounted for recently?” Minnow asked.
Nalu and Woody both shook their heads.
“Let’s take this and we can find out about Hank,” she said.
They combed the rest of the cave but found nothing but driftwood and a couple of barnacle-covered plastic bottles. On the
way out Nalu stayed close to Minnow, and again she wondered about his odd behavior. For such a seemingly accomplished waterman,
his obvious apprehension surprised her, but she didn’t want to bring it up in front of Woody. The fragile egos of men were
something she had learned all about during her time on the Farallones and their many expeditions to Guadalupe.