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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
Hunter, hunted
>> Above Kahuku
Clive the Aussie flicked his long whip, wrapped the end around the gay boy's ankle and brought him down. Clive dismounted, pulling a long hunting knife from a sheath.
Shauny Nakamura and Imelda the Manilla street girl ran on until a shot rang out and Imelda panicked and darted behind an 'ohia tree. Seeing the Arab swooping in with his huge curved sword drawn, poised to hack at her, Imelda shrieked. Shauny was running to her when Victor Primitivo's rifle fired again. The blast startled him -- he hadn't pulled the trigger -- and he was even more startled when the Arab went down, bleeding from his right shoulder, and dropped the sword.
An air horn sounded -- one long blast, two short -- and that further rattled Primitivo. It meant he and other members of the hunt club had two minutes to finish the hunt and then flee. While he was distracted, Shauny grabbed the sword, amazed at how heavy it was.
Immediately following the air horn blasts, the Rockin' Pikake erupted in gunfire. In those two minutes, over a dozen people would be killed. They included Royce Kalia, the gay anti-war leader from UH, at the hands of the Aussie who gutted him like a wild pig.
And then in the cacophony it was Primitivo, one on one with Shauny. He'd wanted to take longer, draw out his pleasure, but now there was no choice. Riding tall in the saddle, he aimed the rifle at Shauny. And she responded by charging him with the sword over her head! God, what spirit!
Shauny was just 10 yards away, sprinting straight at the man who'd drugged and kidnapped her, starting to swing the big sword, when another shot rang out and just as Victor fired a red hole appeared in his chest. The rifle blast was deafening and Shauny thought she was dead, but the shot was wide. Victor slumped in the saddle, clutching at the wound that spurted red.
Shauny grabbed the rifle from his hand, tossed it aside and yanked Primitivo to the ground, and stood over him, the sword poised to strike. "I owe you, Victor!"
Imelda shrieked again, and Shauny glanced over and saw the Arab, propped up on one arm, aiming a pistol at her. And then a red spot appeared in his forehead and he was slumping and dropping the gun.
"Over here!" a male voice called.
Shauny saw a man 35 yards up the slope waving at her, a can of Bud in one hand, a large pistol in the other.
"What about him?!" she yelled back, motioning at Victor on the ground.
"I can finish him!" Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka raised the pistol.
"No thanks!" The curved sword fell and separated Victor Primitivo from his most prized possessions, not to mention his life.
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