Chapter 21 The Weather
The Weather
?ōpua: puffy clouds, as banked up near the horizon, often interpreted as omens
As soon as she got in, Minnow called Woody to ask if he knew anyone running shark dives. She figured he probably didn’t or
he would have said something, but she had to ask. And Nalu was probably right; someone would have seen them. But she also
wanted to know if he’d seen anything on the news. Being at Hale Niuhi with no television or easy access to a newspaper was
frustrating, while on the other hand it was a dream—being in this place she wished she could hole up in and never leave, living
on coconuts, seaweed and rainwater until her dying days.
Woody knew nothing about shark dives, nor did he have any news updates. Next she called Mayor Lum’s office to find out if
he’d made any decisions. She got his secretary, who told her to watch the five o’clock news—he’d be making an announcement
then. Minnow tried not to slam down the phone. So much for personally notifying the task force members.
The thunder of coconuts falling drew her outside. A whole bundle of brown ones had scattered at the base of the nearest tree.
“Watch for falling coconuts.”
Nalu was thirty feet up the trunk with a machete dangling from his belt loop. One slip and he’d be dead.
“I can’t even look at you up there,” she called.
“And watch out for rats too. I disturbed a nest.”
“Fabulous,” she mumbled.
He shimmied down using a strap, looking completely at ease. Once on the ground, he scanned his loot, then walked over to an
older coconut with a tiny shoot coming out of it, held it in his palm and hacked at it with the machete. “The other ones can
wait. I bet you’ve never had coconut sprout before.”
“You would be correct.”
With his hand miraculously intact, he opened the nut to reveal a white spongy inside that resembled a sea urchin.
“Geez, don’t cut off your hand on my account.”
He offered it to her with a smile. “Lolo it’s called. Best thing south of heaven.”
Minnow took the piece and tentatively licked it while she watched him devour his. It was both sweet and salty, foamy and slightly
crunchy.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She didn’t love it.
“It’s . . . interesting.”
He laughed. “Maybe it’s an acquired taste, but the Polynesians used to stock up on coconuts on their voyages. They’re like
the perfect boat food. Full of all the good kine stuff—electrolytes, natural sugar, vitamins, fat.”
“I do like regular coconut meat.”
“All g. I’ll eat yours.”
When he was done inhaling the lolo, they collected the other coconuts he’d felled and set them out in a line on the lanai table, and then he left her alone and went off to ask around at Honokohau Harbor if anyone had seen people chumming in the waters north of the Kiawe.
It was almost four in the afternoon, and Minnow had just enough time to shower and clean up before heading to the resort to catch the five o’clock news.
Dread knocked around inside her, causing a heaviness to her movements, as though maybe if she didn’t watch the news, a shark hunt would not happen.
The air was thick and slippery on her skin. While it had been hot before, now a new level of humidity pressed down on her.
The kind of tropical heat where the only possible place to be was in the ocean. Later, back at the house, she would swim,
no matter how dark the sky.
Almost every table was taken, so Minnow sat at the bar, which had the best view of the television anyway. She prayed she wouldn’t
see Luke, and then the next minute she skimmed the whole place, including the beach, looking for him. His boat was there,
which to her consternation pleased her. Beyond it, the sun had disappeared behind that same wall of clouds that had been there
this morning, and the whole ocean had turned silver.
No doubt Luke had his own kind of animal magic, built up from pheromones and charm and mystery. He was definitely someone
she could get lost in, but all she had to do was think about his answer last night and his allure faded away. It’s complicated. Bullshit. There was nothing complicated about it. Either you were for the sharks or you were against them.
George poured drinks behind the bar, and she watched with bated breath as the beads of perspiration on his forehead threatened
to fall into said drinks. Despite a fan, despite the open air, there seemed to be no escaping the heat.
He smiled when he saw her. “Be right with you, my dear.”
It was four forty-five. The Dallas Mavericks were playing the Orlando Magic, but the sound was off and she really couldn’t
care less, so she pulled out her notebook and jotted down notes from today.
“You here for the news?”
Minnow looked up. It was Sawyer, sweating profusely in a linen suit.
“Yes.”
“Mind if I join you? I got a call from the mayor’s secretary telling me to tune in,” he said, lowering onto the stool next
to her without waiting for an answer. “Drinks on me. What are you having?”
She needed something stiff for this. “Cadillac margarita?”
“You got it. George, bro, two Patrón margaritas, please.”
They sat there for a while in awkward silence, both looking up at the basketball game. Minnow had nothing against the man
personally but was in no mood to pretend to be interested in anything he had to say.
Eventually Sawyer broke. “So what’s it like staying down at Kaupiko’s?”
“I love it.”
He reached over the counter and produced a cup of chopped pineapple, popping a chunk into his mouth. “Given the choice, would
you rather stay there or here?”
No hesitation. “There, definitely.”
“Ouch.”
“Nothing against the Kiawe. It’s beautiful, but I enjoy my solitude. And Hale Niuhi just feels so . . .” Putting the feeling
she got there into words was harder than expected. “I guess it feels like it’s been there forever, like it’s just a part of
the island. It has roots. And I feel strangely at home when I’m there.”
“Before I built the Kiawe, I stayed there for a week with Woody. The place gets under your skin, for sure. Did you know he
helped me design this?” he asked, waving his hand around.
Her brow pinched together. “Woody did?”
“Yeah. I had it in my mind to do something like Rockefeller did at Mauna Kea. A five- or six-story building. He told me no
way, that the only way to make something work down here was to do it like the Hawaiians, only better. And so I did.”
“Thank God you listened to him,” Minnow said, unable to imagine a big boxy structure here.
George slid two margaritas in front of them, and Sawyer held his up. “To no more shark attacks.”
At least she could drink to that. She clinked his glass and took a sip, then gagged.
He smiled. “George knows how I like my drinks—just like my women. Strong.”
Minnow had no response to that kind of weirdness, so she took another sip. This one went down easier and she savored the icy
coolness, then pressed the glass to her forehead. Let’s get on with this. Sawyer went on about his hotel, and she nodded along, all the while feeling the tequila spreading out into her limbs, loosening
the cords of tension that had been twisting all afternoon.
Then he said something that chilled her. “I know it may look like we’re raking in the dough, but you’d be surprised. A lot
in this business is smoke and mirrors. A few sparse months could put us under.”
She was about to ask him to elaborate, but the news came on and George turned up the volume. The first story was about a tornado
in Florida that left at least forty-two dead. Tornadoes were much more dangerous than sharks, that was for certain. The local
anchorman Stan Jones wore a toupee and had at least an inch of pancake makeup on. He stared solemnly into the camera and said,
“And now, we have an announcement from Mayor Lum on the recent deadly shark attacks on the Big Island that have made national
headlines, and what the state is doing about them. Linda, over to you.”
It was getting harder and harder to take a breath.
Linda Moore was standing out front of a green wooden house with Mayor Lum flanked by two men in aloha shirts. “Stan, the mayor
is just about to go live, and as you can see, we have a lot of interest here.”
The camera panned to an army of reporters jockeying for position. Mayor Lum tapped the mic. “Aloha. I want to thank you all for being here, and also thank the task force who met to determine the best course of action in the wake of these tragic incidents.”
She sat up straighter. “At least he said incident rather than attack. He gets a point for that,” Minnow said with a burst of hope. Maybe he had heard her after all.
Sawyer did not take his eyes from the TV. “What’s the difference?”
There was no time to answer, as Lum got right to the point. “We heard from all parties with a stake in this—Ocean Safety,
Hawai?i Fire Department, DLWA, the Hawaiian community, business owners, family members of the victims, a white shark expert
from the mainland—and we looked at this thing from all sides. In the end, the team decided it is in our best interest to go
ahead with a controlled shark hunt, to begin this Saturday morning.”
The team decided? His words pierced, stung, sliced through her.
“And so it is,” Sawyer said.
“Fuck,” was all she could think to say.
Minnow slid off her stool and made a run for the beach. She knew her behavior was not very professional, but that’s what happened
when your passion became your profession. The lines blurred and you cared more than you should. It made her think of Luke’s
cryptic comment. I care too, probably too much. She walked to the far end of the beach and sank down into the sand, feeling broken. She had failed at the one thing she came
here to accomplish.
She never expected the journey here to be smooth, and all along a hunt had been a real possibility, but this news felt like
an execution, a slaying. Maybe she was irrational, or more probably, insane. What kind of person chooses sharks over people?
That was the question that often reared up at times like this. Even as a young girl, she had been more interested in what
was underwater than above it. She was flawed and weird and unfixable. A freak of nature with an indelible connection to these
ancient animals. If she thought the hunt would do any good, it would be another story.
She lay back and spread her arms out wide, looking up at orange feathers streaking across the sky.
The beauty did nothing for her. Coming here had been a waste of time, she now realized.
Sidetracking her own work, putting off therapy and running off here with grand notions of enlightening the world about sharks.
All for nothing. She’d call Joe in the morning and let him know she was leaving.
It was the only thing to do that made sense.
Because the truth of the matter was, staying for the hunt would ruin her.
An eye for an eye.
The sand cradled her head and she grabbed handfuls of it, letting it pour through her fingers. She lay there panting in the
heat, haunted by the memory of the dead shark at Catalina. As the sky darkened, she settled to the wingbeats of herons, crabs
digging holes all around her and a mongoose slithering in and out of the bush nearby. The world and its creatures were good
at carrying on even when it felt like she couldn’t. Maybe there was a lesson in there.
On down the beach a ways, footsteps vibrated through the ground. She turned her head to see. Luke. Of course it was. He seemed
to be everywhere. In the half dark, she watched him wade out into the water, pull off his shirt, step out of his shorts and
stuff them in a dry bag. Only in a Speedo, he somehow looked leaner. And hotter. He didn’t look her way, and she was glad
for it. In this vulnerable state, who knew what might happen.
Swimming out, he lay on his back and kicked, holding the bag on his stomach like a sea otter. It was a short swim, but the
water was black and eerie. Something about this weather raised the hair on her arms. Storm weather. She hoped Luke knew what
he was doing. By the time he made it to the boat, she could just make out his silhouette. The anchor chain clanked against
the boat and she heard the anchor fall heavy on the fiberglass. Then the motor sputtered to life, running lights went on,
and instead of heading out, he came straight for shore. Straight for her.