Chapter 26 The Call
The Call
Na?auao: learning, knowledge, wisdom, science; literally, “daylight mind”
Minnow waited until they were back at the house to tell them. Brooding skies made it appear to be almost nighttime, when in
reality it was only a little before three o’clock. She would pass on all the evidence in her possession to Nalu, who could
then share with whoever took over for Joe. Likely one of the scientists who had just returned from the conference in Australia.
It was a lonely and sad thought, and she tried to brush it away.
But before she could gather the courage to break the news, the phone rang. “Hello, Kaupikos,” she answered.
Cliff was out front sharpening a machete and Woody was picking up downed coconut fronds.
“Dr. Gray? Minnow?” a woman asked.
She recognized the voice right away. “Angela?”
“Call me Angie, please.”
“I’ve been meaning to come by. How are you doing?” Minnow asked.
“A little better each day, I think. Less pain meds, so the walls have stopped breathing, so that’s good.”
Minnow had to laugh. “A good sign, for sure.”
“Listen, I heard they called on a shark hunt, and I saw you on the news pleading against that. Is there anything I can do
to help? Talk to the press, go see Lum, anything?”
“I’m sure the press would be all over that, and the world would love to hear from you and hear that you’re doing well. But
to be honest, I don’t know that you’d be able to stop the hunt.”
Angela sighed. “I’m sure that leg doesn’t help.”
“The leg?”
“Did you not hear?”
A sick feeling bubbled up. “No, I was out on the water most of the day. What happened?”
“Some divers found a human leg wedged in a crack in the rocks and called the fire department. They went and recovered it somewhere
not too far north of the Kiawe, and they’re speculating that it belongs to Hank, the missing swimmer. I watch TV all day,
so I just saw it on the news.”
Minnow sat there, unable to form any words. It was entirely possible the leg had been severed after he drowned, but that would
require a medical examiner to determine. Until then, the hype would just keep building.
“Thank you for telling me. If it is his leg and he was bit before he died, that does not bode well for the hunt. It’ll just
give them more fuel.”
“Which is why I want to do something. Please. It would make me feel useful and I love a good fight.”
A strange contradiction often occurred with shark bite survivors. Many of them could not wait to get back in the water, did
not hold anything against the shark and even went on to become advocates for the animals. The exact opposite of the hysteria
everyone else was experiencing.
“I think the best thing you can do is to call the press and tell them what you told me the other day, and just be honest with them. Remind them—”
“Will you come up here and join me on it? That would be more powerful. ‘Two girls who give a shit,’ we’ll call ourselves.”
Minnow fumbled for an answer, then came out with the truth. “I would love to, but I’m leaving tonight.”
“Why?” Angela sounded baffled and even a little hurt.
“My work here is done. The rest of the Hawai‘i shark team arrives today, back from a conference, and they can take over.”
“When is your flight?”
“Tonight.”
Some rustling of crisp bedsheets, then, “Stay at least until tomorrow. I’ll pay for your change fees and any extra expenses.”
She wished she could say yes. A braver person would. “I can’t.”
“What is this really about? You know your work here isn’t done. Far from it. This goes deeper, doesn’t it?”
Minnow looked out to sea as two frigate birds hovered high above the boat, their distinctive shapes dark against the already
dark clouds.
Cliff burst in. “Hō?ailona,” he said, nodding toward the birds.
She held her hand over the phone. “What does that mean?”
“A sign.”
Then he blew out as fast as he came in, binoculars in hand and leaving a trail of smoke in his wake.
“Minnow?” Angie said.
“I’m here.”
“I know you hardly know me, but I feel like we can help each other. We both know the kind of devastation that can ruin a person,
but you’ve been running from it your whole life. You can’t keep running, love. Stay at least until tomorrow. Please?”
Her words were tender but fierce, and they brought up a memory of the morning Minnow’s father died.
She is standing on the shore screaming and flailing as her mother tries to pull her away.
The squeeze of Layla’s fingers burn as they dig into her bony arms. A waterfall of tears blocks her from seeing anything, but Minnow keeps breaking free and running toward the icy water.
Layla keeps dragging her back until Minnow collapses into a tiny heap on the beach.
There isn’t enough air to breathe and her mother shakes her hard, rocking her back and forth.
“What did you do?” she screams.
But it’s the look in Layla’s eyes that scares Minnow more than anything. A cold hard fear that is animal in its nature. Primal
and raw and wild.
Unforgiving.
“Will you?” Angela asked, breaking the spell.
And in that moment she knew. “Yes, I’ll stay.”
There was no other choice. Running away with her tail between her legs would never allow her to face the unthinkable and maybe
move beyond it. That little piece of memory she had been mining for her whole life.
“Attagirl. You are stronger than you think. Remember that. And I’ll be here for you, whatever you need. Can you come up to
the hospital in the morning?”
“Just tell me when.”
“Let’s do it early, say eight? That’ll give them enough time to run the interview on the mainland. I’ll have my agent reach
out to Josh Brown and anyone else who’s here on the island.”
“I’ll be there.”
Minnow hung up and let out a long breath.
Nalu hadn’t been in his room when she called, so she went outside to see what Cliff was doing with the binoculars. She spotted
him on the south end of the bay, sitting on a rock out on the point. She put on her rubber slippers and walked out there,
careful not to twist an ankle on the rough and crumbly lava. In the still air, the briny smell of the brackish ponds filled
her head. Every so often he would pick up the binoculars and scan the waters, then scan the sky.
When she got close, she said, “Can I help you?”
He didn’t turn. “No.”
She stood there for a few moments, debating whether to turn around and leave, but she was curious about what he was doing.
And what he’d meant by hō?ailona.
“Get ovah here,” he finally said.
Minnow noticed a line of smooth rocks and hopped from one to the next, then had to stretch her legs as far as she could to
reach the high rock he was on, surrounded by water. To fall in would mean landing in a bed of black spiny wana.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
He patted a spot next to him. “Come, sit.”
She sat on a flat and worn place.
“Those ?iwa birds that flew by are now way up the coast in the same spot we found the buoy. Can you see?”
She held a hand up over her eyes to lessen the glare but still couldn’t see anything. “No.”
Cliff grunted, then handed her the binocs. She swept across the sky a few times, then saw two black shapes circling, wings
wide.
“Do you think they could be out there now, chumming?” she asked.
“The ‘iwa birds always come in close with the storms, but you can bet they’re checking out that buoy and maybe something left ovah
floating in the area. Something we missed. Their eyesight is outta this world.”
A ridge of lava on the north side of the bay blocked the ocean from view.
“What did you mean by hō‘ailona?” she asked.
“That we gotta pay attention.”
From the side, his features looked stronger, like a fierce warrior. Thick eyebrows, jaw jutting out. He kept his gaze on the
water.
“To the birds?”
He nodded. “They warn of something to come. Something hauna—stinking. Something we must not back down from.”
Minnow felt her throat constrict. She had come so close to leaving, and now she worried about living through a shark hunt. Seeing one shark killed had wrecked her. Boatloads of them might push her over the edge. Hooks and hollow eyes, creatures never meant to leave the sea.
Cliff slowly turned to her. “You feel it too, huh?”
His words threw her, but she knew exactly what he meant. “I do.”
“The bond passed on to me from my grandfather. Woody and our pops didn’t get it, even though they are caretakers. You got
it, too, somehow.”
Being here on this rock with someone who understood her was comforting, hard as it was. Silver-blue water lapped around them.
“It’s both a burden and a blessing, I think. It tears at my heart but also makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world,”
she said.
“My mother always said those who swam in the abyss were the only ones who could also soar with ‘io, the hawk,” he said.
“I love your way of thinking.”
He shrugged. “Old wisdom.”
They sat shoulder to shoulder, looking out at a wall of rain on the horizon edging closer, and after a while she told him
about the leg.
“I already knew he was bit. Woody told me about the fin you found and I could just feel it. The shark that’s out there has been here before. I seen her six years back or so and a couple years before that. She
usually minds her own business.”
“Maybe it’s a different one?” Minnow suggested.
“Not this big. I only saw her at a distance both times. A long shadow on the periphery, checking me out, cruising like one
nuclear submarine. Brah, my heart was going off the Richter. You see something like that, you nevah forget it.”
Something about the cadence of his words, and his pidgin, gave everything he said an exclamation point after it.
“Oh, I know.”
“So what we goin’ do about it? That is the question.”
“Tomorrow I’m going up to the hospital to support Angela as she makes a statement,” Minnow said.
“That’s her deal. But you and me and Woody, we gotta make a stand,” he said, unfolding his legs and standing. He held a hand and pulled her up. “We’ll hui tonight at the Kiawe. Make a plan, roll some heads.”
Whatever that meant, she was in.