Chapter 31 The Reckoning
The Reckoning
Pono: goodness, uprightness, morality, true condition or nature, virtuous, fair
They left in darkness. Minnow had told Nalu to meet her at the harbor—it would be easier that way. Luke drove the boat and
they were hauling ass with Minnow holding on tight. After a while the sky lightened in the east, pale blue slowly spreading
until she could just make out the coastline not too far inside of them. All lava. Then two white sand beaches. Five minutes
later, they passed the airport as a jet airplane took off above them, steeply ascending and then banking off to the right.
Luke looked at his watch. “We should be there in fifteen minutes or so.” There was no chop on the water and they’d been flying
along without a hitch.
Minnow was ready for anything yet had no idea what to expect. She noticed breaths were becoming harder to draw in. She tried
to reassure herself that she was okay, that everything would be fine. A ways on, she had to sit down on the cooler to try
to catch a breath.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Luke asked, into the wind.
“Just nervous.”
So nervous that a pain in her stomach started up and she had to lean forward to try to ease the burning.
“I have a feeling these guys know what they’re doing,” he said.
“I sure hope so.”
Maybe she ought to ask him to turn around. This was too much for her to take. But that would mean giving in, and she couldn’t
do it.
A few minutes later. “Almost there now.”
Minnow forced herself to sit up.
“I’m ready,” she said, although she felt anything but.
Get it together.
The sun was still behind Hualālai, but they could see the lay of the land now, passing another long beach with a thatched
A-frame hut at the end of it. The harbor buoys came into sight, but there were no other boats in the water. Odd for such a
busy harbor. When Luke turned around the red buoy and headed into the boulder-lined harbor mouth, Minnow saw that a crowd
had gathered on the wall. Several flags hung flat in the still of the morning. Below the people, boats were lined up side
to side across the entire entrance.
“What the—” Luke said.
A surge of adrenaline ran through her. “Oh my God! They’re blocking the harbor.”
Luke put the boat in neutral, and they floated there, unsure what to do. Then someone from the wall whistled and waved his
arms and pointed at Minnow and Luke. He was trying to gain the attention of one of the boat drivers. That ratty coconut frond
hat was hard to miss.
“It’s Woody,” she said.
The boat in the middle backed up, and a guy standing in the bow of the boat next to it yelled, “Hooey. You. In here.” He motioned
for them to slip through the space between.
The shortness of breath and pain in her midsection faded. “Go. They’re letting us through,” she said.
Luke was already maneuvering them in. They squeaked into the harbor and up to an open spot where boats rinsed. Woody was standing on the edge and he offered Minnow a hand.
“Is this your doing?” she asked.
“Cliff.”
“Where is he?”
Woody nodded toward a row of trucks over by the boat ramp. This time she could see that the flags were Hawaiian but upside
down.
“He’s over there talking to the news. And the cops.”
The harbor was not a big one as far as harbors went, but with all the fishing tours in Kona, there were still a lot of charter
boats whose captains were probably pissed off right now.
“Are they letting anyone out into the ocean?”
“Just a couple of the regulars who go down south. Bruddahs we trust. Come.”
As they made their way to the trucks, Minnow couldn’t help but smile inside. This was exactly the thing they needed. Grassroots
all the way. A middle finger to Lum and his shitty decision-making.
Newspeople had crowded around the trucks and a chaos of boats on trailers had collected in a wide asphalt parking area. Every
now and then someone honked or yelled. But these trucks were big and so were the men who owned them. Some stood in their beds,
others were on the ground being interviewed or looking intimidating. Heat swelled in the morning air and Minnow felt lightheaded
amid it all. She counted five cop cars, but the cops didn’t seem to be doing much other than standing around talking. As though
this kind of thing was routine.
Up ahead Cliff was talking with Josh Brown and the cameraman. His silver-streaked hair flowed halfway down his back and he
wore a piece of fabric wrapped around him and tied on his shoulder. He held a big conch shell in his hand. When he saw Minnow,
he raised his chin slightly in acknowledgment. Josh had his back to her and he didn’t turn, so she and Woody stopped behind
him, eavesdropping.
Cliff spoke softly but with conviction. “. . . On this whole coastline, we only have a handful of beaches and hotels. If you do the math, there are so few people utilizing these waters that it makes no sense to go out there and start raping the ocean. This place belongs to the sharks, not the people.”
Woody leaned over and whispered, “He can talk haole when he wants to.”
“What about the other boat ramps up the coast? Are you folks blocking them too?” Josh asked.
“Yep.”
“How long do you plan on being here?”
“As long as we need to be.”
Minnow wanted to run up and hug him. The metallic taste of blood in her mouth was fading and she felt stronger and more alert.
Boundless, almost.
“I assume you realize you are breaking the law. Are you willing to go to jail for this?” Josh asked.
“Our ?aumakua protect us, we protect them. So yes, if that’s what it comes to. You know, I don’t think the mayor thought this through.
Even with all the research stacked against a hunt, he goes ahead and calls one anyway. All just to cover his okole.” Cliff paused and looked up at the mountain, his profile backlit by the sun. “That is not pono—not right.”
Josh seemed to sense someone behind him and he turned around. When he saw Minnow, his eyebrows went up. “Speaking of research,
what do you think of all this, Dr. Gray?”
“I support the people who have lived here longest. They are the ones we need to listen to. More than research and more than
me or any other scientist. They have hundreds of years of experience in these waters. To be honest, these guys are my heroes.”
She smiled at Cliff and he winked; then she turned and walked away. This was no longer her story and she wanted no part of
the spotlight. It was bigger and older and deeper. The story of a people keeping watch over their own.
Woody came with her and she headed toward Luke, who was waiting by the Whaler. Along the way, they passed several people holding signs that said Shark Mana and Their Water, Not Ours.
“You must be proud of Cliff for orchestrating such a huge deal,” she said.
“One thing about my brother, he’s all or nothing. Neither of us slept a wink last night. I don’t know how long we can keep
this up, but I’m hoping those bruddahs in power are paying attention.”
“I’m sure they are.”
On the boat ride over, Minnow had been thinking about how to catch the chummers in the act. An idea had dropped into her head
in the middle of the night, waking her with a start. Now she told Woody.
“I’m there. I’ll tell Cliff and we’ll bring some friends,” he said with a nod.
Someone grabbed her shoulder from behind and she spun. “Nalu! You made it.”
The brightest smile spread across his face. “This is rad. I had no idea.”
“Neither did I.”
It was the best kind of surprise.
A wavy-haired man with wire-rim glasses stood next to him and held out a hand. “Dr. Gray, I’m Chip Young. I’m an admirer of
your work.”
Minnow had heard of him too. “I wish you could have come sooner, but I’m glad you made it.”
He nodded. “Nalu’s filled me in and it sounds like you’ve made a valiant effort. I applaud you on that. My whole department
does,” he said.
“There’s still plenty of work to be done, so I hope you’re ready for a long day—and an even longer night,” she said.
His mouth lifted on one side. “Absolutely.”
At four the following morning, three boats left from Hale Niuhi under the cover of darkness.
Minnow reasoned that whoever was doing the chumming must have been doing it at night.
And all those lights she’d seen in the early morning hours, maybe it had been them.
Luke, Nalu and Minnow rode in the Whaler, while Woody and two brothers from Hawi named Dean and Liloa took the Midnight Blue, a yellow fishing boat.
Cliff, Chip Young and an ex-cop named Kamaki were in a twenty-six-foot Zodiac with more horsepower
than a jet airliner.
They’d all duct-taped their running lights so they’d be invisible, and they headed north toward Pāpapa. Each of the boat drivers
wore different color glow sticks around their wrists—green, purple, pink—so they could keep track of one another. They also
knew the coordinates of their destination. Minnow and Chip both had cameras and Kamaki packed a pistol and his old badge.
No one needed to know he was retired. The plan was to float around in the dark just beyond the buoy and wait.
For most of the way out, Minnow imagined Luna swimming in the deep beneath them, listening for engine sounds and homing in.
Sharks had good hearing and sensed vibration from a long way off, and Luna and others had obviously been lured in and were
now programmed. She didn’t like that word in use with animals, but it was accurate for what was going on here.
Once they hit the coordinates, they drove slowly out to sea for a couple of minutes, then cut their motors. The outline of
land and mountains stood dark against the starry sky. There were sprinkles of lights here and there, but it was only four
thirty, so much of the world still slept. Minnow loved the silence and listened for anything large passing under them but
heard only the lap of water on fiberglass.