Idiot of her dreams

Still seriously chickenskinning from her encounter with the pueo -- a Hawaiian owl, an aumakua, a god -- Pua Makua, Ph.D., hiked up the pahoehoe lava flow at the edge of the verdant kipuka, created when lava veered and left an island of life in the ocean of black rock. Ê Ê

What was it about this place, Pua wondered as she walked, that made Pele stop the lava here and flow around it? Why was it sacred to her? What meaning did it have? What future did she see for it?

Pua heard a loud racket overhead and another question formed on her lips: "What the hell is that schmutz doing?!"

Barely a foot below her boots, similar sentiments were being expressed.

A helicopter swooped in from upslope and behind her, hovered as the pilot searched for a flat place to land, and dropped in barely 30 yards away. Pua turned away, shielding her face and eyes from swirling lava particles kicked up by the rotors -- from powdery sand to jagged pebbles.

When the blades slowed and the whirlwind ceased, Pua wiped Pele's grit from her sunscreen-sweat-sticky face and neck, and whirled to confront the idiots in the chopper, never suspecting for a moment that the man of her dreams and destiny happened to be one of those very idiots.

He was the first one out, a big, brown man who, at first glance, spent fairly equal time lifting weights and drinking beer. He was 30ish and bounded out of the chopper and jogged toward her flapping his arms and his lips. She couldn't hear him above the chopper engine, which continued to idle, but he didn't look happy to see her. Then she saw the words on his baseball cap: Portagee Protective. A frickin' security guard.

"Aloha," she called, smiling broadly. And then when he was closer and pausing for breath added "I'm Pua Makua."

Randy Makapu'u was about to bark at her some more and ask what she was doing on his land -- or land that was about to become his --Ê when her lips started moving, and he wasn't aware of another thing in the world.

In fact, Pua had full brown lips so luscious, men had been known to become aroused when she merely introduced herself. Pua Makua. The way the sounds rolled off her lips and tongue, it was pucker up and ooh ooh ooh.

Tokelani Green of the Pono Commission, following Randy and trying to calm him down, was as hetero as they came, but Pua's lips were, well ... she flashed on Britney and Madonna. Whew!

She flashed back to reality before Randy did and introduced herself.

"Tokelani? Is that a name from the pre-missionary Hawaiian?" Pua said.

"No, from the Bob Marley Hawaiian."

"Pua?" Randy asked in a tone usually reserved for matters like, Will you marry me? "You want to help explore my land?"

"Ask the pueo," she said. "Oh, he's gone."