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He looked in the direction of the volcano and thought:You cannot have this.
He heard someone behind him making his way through the foliage. Mac turned and saw Lono, this boy who just seemed to keep growing—Mac joked sometimes that he could almosthearLono growing—carrying two surfboards under his arm.
“I thought you had forgotten me,” Lono said, putting out his hand for a fist bump.
“It would be like forgetting one of my sons,” Mac said.
“Here, I brought you a board, just in case,” Lono said.
They sat down on the boards and looked out at the water, neither one of them speaking, as if they were in church.
And maybe in a way they were.
“It’s gonna be bad, isn’t it?” Lono said finally.
“Worse than bad,” Mac said.
“You think my mom and me should be looking to get off the island?” Lono asked.
He felt the boy’s eyes hard on him. Mac turned and met his eyes.
“I can’t explain this to you in any detail, because I gave my word,” Mac said. “But you have to trust me when I tell you that even if you could find a boat or a plane, it’s too late.”
Lono hesitated, then said, “I do trust you, Mac. With my life.”
So did Jenny and Rick.
“The volcano isn’t the only ticking bomb, is it, Mac man? This is about something inside the White Mountain, isn’t it?”
It was what the natives called Mauna Kea.
“Where did you hear something like that?” Mac asked him.
Lono shrugged. “Some woman, ahaole,was at Civil Defense trying to see Mr. Takayama again. She told Dennis’s mom that the army was keeping secrets that could end up wiping out the whole town and that if Mr. Takayama wasn’t going to tell people, she was going to. Something about how she wouldn’t let Mr. Takayama do something to her again.”
Lono looked at Mac. “Thehaolewoman knows things, doesn’t she?”
Mac said, “She only knows what she doesn’t know.”
Lono sighed. It came out of him as sad as a blues note from a horn.
“Heard about Jenny,” Lono said. “And Rick. They were good dudes.”
“Not just good. The best.”
“You okay?”
“Someday, maybe. Just not today, kid.”
Another sigh came out of the boy. Then he said, “I gotta tell you, Mac, it wasmegot the word out about what was happening at the burial sites.” He paused and then quickly added, “I didn’t mean for there to be trouble.”
Mac smiled. “You sure about that?”
“I maybe wasn’t sad to cause a little bit ofpilikia.”
“No matter. General Rivers stopped them in their tracks.”
“I heard.” Now Lono smiled. “That’s a bad, bad man, the general. But in a good way, no matter how much he pisses off people around here.”
