My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
>> Around Oahu Not a good day
In the hills above Kahuku, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka was not having a good day. It hadn't been much of a night either. Having saved Sam from being killed by Isaac Kunia's old gang, Sam showed his appreciation by trying to kill the senator, chasing him through the dark woods, firing a .357. But the senator outran him and at last fell asleep on a bed of ironwood needles.
He awoke early with the chirruping of birds. Other than being stiff, sore, thirsty and hungry, he was in great shape. That, plus he didn't have any idea what to do next. The senator was a wanted man -- by the police, by Isaac's gang, by Sam. He didn't have a dime on him. All he had was a Glock 9mm that had 10 bullets left. He wore old surf shorts, an "Eh!" T-shirt and sandals with Velcro straps, all borrowed from Isaac's gang after they'd pulled him from the overturned HPD van en route to OCCC and cut off his cuffs.
He sat in the shade of this copse of ironwoods, frozen with fear and uncertainty, except for the certainty that if he was recognized it was straight to OCCC. Still, he hoped that some cowboy or somebody would come along and ... And what? What other kind of life could there be for him?
Now it was late afternoon and the senator had gone nearly 24 hours without food or water. Not so much from conscious thought as animal need, the senator left the ironwoods and headed across open pasture. Lots of streams ran down these hills into the sea, and he was going to find one. He moved diagonally uphill, seeking even a trickle of water. An hour later he slid between strands of a barbed-wire fence and onto the Rockin' Pikake Ranch. His bad day was about to get worse.
At Waimea Bay, from the way Lono Oka'aina stammered, Jake Peepers, P.I., and his client Meg Choy Primitivo knew Jake had just asked the right question. They just didn't know why.
"Must be something more than wild pig and Erckel's francolin you got up at that Rockin' Pikake for a club to rent the whole ranch," Peepers said. "How long they got it?"
"Two weeks." The contract he'd signed with the club included a secrecy in perpetuity clause. He'd already said too much. "Actually, we got some of the only chukar and quail on Oahu."
Two weeks of hunting chukar and quail? It didn't ring right to Peepers. But he was distracted when an air horn pierced the air and the public address announcer said that the next heat of The Eddie was now underway. "And there goes Chookie Boy Kulolo, the first one up and riding!"
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com