Where There's a Will (8 page)

“No farmer ever plowed a field by turning it over in his mind,” Hedwig said.

More happy laughter. Felix raised his glass. “To Uncle Magnus and Uncle Torkel, may they forever be riding their faithful old Palominos over pastures rich and green!”

“To Uncle Magnus! To Uncle Torkel!” they echoed, including Gideon, who was now on his second Scotch-and-soda.

Everyone turned expectantly to Auntie Dagmar, who lifted her glass of aquavit and, pink-cheeked, delivered a long toast in Swedish.

This pleased everybody, and they fell into fond stories about the two brothers. Even John had one: about how he was a few minutes late the very first day he reported to work at the ranch, and Magnus, who had ridden in on a sweating horse to meet him and then had to wait for him, had told him to go find another job, firing him on the spot and riding back off onto the range. It had been Torkel who had intervened and given him another chance.

“He was always the soft-headed one, Torkel,” Dagmar agreed. “The romantic in the family.”

“I think you mean soft- hearted, ” Felix said, shouting with laughter.

Dagmar’s icy gray eyes impaled him. “That is what I said.”

Malani made her entrance in the amused silence that followed this. “So what’s the latest on Magnus?” she asked into the vacuum.

“The good news is, he’s dead for sure!” said Keoni Nakoa, Inge’s husband. “That’s why everybody looks so cheerful. The inheritances are safe!”

This prompted snorts of umbrage and disgust, which didn’t seem to bother him. Keoni was clearly nobody’s favorite. A big, handsome Hawaiian, but now running to fat, he looked something like John-the same thick black hair, big frame, and flat, Asiatic cheek bones-but he was smoother, slicker, without John’s rough edges, and with something of the lounge lizard about him; a kind of Hawaiian Dean Martin. Dressed totally in black-T-shirt, jeans, boots-he carried himself with a somewhat heavily-laid-on air of insouciance, as if he couldn’t help but be amused by the shenanigans of this droll gang of Haoles he’d so improbably gotten himself entangled with.

His initial greeting to Gideon, delivered with a heavy, affected Hawaiian inflection, had been, “What’s happenin’, brudda? If you lookin’ for skeletons in da closet, you come to da right place.”

According to John, Keoni had been an accountant for the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea when he married into the Torkelssons. Now, no longer needing to work for a living, he managed the books for the dude ranch and ran occasional errands around the place, and he had too much time on his hands. There were rumors of affairs with female clients. His marriage to Inge was believed to be on shaky ground.

“I meant,” Malani said to the others, “are you going to have the remains brought back?”

“Yes, child,” Dagmar said. “It would be a sin to leave him out there like that, so far away.” She spoke without visible emotion, almost harshly. “Besides, bringing him home would be… it would. ..” She searched for the words she wanted. “It would end the story. Fini, ” she said, and made a little motion with her hands, the way an orchestra conductor might conclude a quiet chamber piece. “So.”

Gideon nodded to himself. It was something he had seen often in families with a long-missing, presumed-dead member. The deep, deep need to heal over the wound for good, to finally put the past behind. The need for closure.

“He should be laid to rest on the ranch,” Dagmar continued, “if you and Axel will let us use a site on the Little Hoaloha.”

“Of course,” Axel and Malani said together.

“Shouldn’t take up too much space,” Keoni observed.

“Just a few old bones.” Talk about a tin ear, Gideon thought.

Felix turned pointedly away from Keoni and spoke to Gideon: “This is your field. How much would be left after eight years?”

“Oh, please, let’s not get all grisly,” Hedwig said.

“No, I’m interested.”

“I am, too,” Inge said.

“If the plane has been in the lagoon for eight years,” Gideon said a little uncomfortably, “there won’t be anything like a skeleton left-an articulated skeleton. And with a window knocked out, the chances are there won’t be much in the way of bones at all. Only whatever the fish and crabs couldn’t haul away.” A skull was the most likely possibility, since few sea creatures could get their jaws or claws around a skull. But even that was doubtful after eight years. Marine environments were not kind to organic remains.

Dagmar looked at him with prim distaste. “Thank you for explaining that, young man.”

“What salvage company are you using?” Malani asked Felix.

“I don’t know yet, honey. I’ll ask around when I get back home. There are several of them in Honolulu.”

“That’s hardly necessary. There’s a marine salvage company right here on the island, in Kona-Ocean Quest,” Malani told him. “They’re clients of mine.” For the last few years, John had told Gideon earlier, she had been running a website-design consulting business from home.

“Thanks, Malani, but I think we want something just a little more professional than one of your Kona-coast outfits with two kids and a dinghy,” Felix said with a tolerant smile. “Now, then-”

“Oh, now, Felix, they’re hardly two kids and a dinghy,” Malani warbled at him in full grade-school-teacher mode. “Ocean Quest has eight divers, they have their very own Cessna 310, and they have two salvage tugs under contract. Their specialty is rapid-response deployment. In the last fiscal year alone they did contract work for the State of Hawaii, for Blue Star Shipping, for the government of the Tuamotos, and for the Army Corps of Engineers. They handle all regional small towing and salvage work for two different marine insurance companies-”

“What is the woman doing, reading or something?” Felix said, laughing. He threw up his hands. “Okay, okay, you win. I don’t know what I was thinking of to doubt you. Madame, we leave it in your ever-capable hands.”

“I’ll call them now,” Malani said, rising.

“At seven o’clock at night?” Hedwig asked.

“These are not the most formal people in the world. They won’t mind.”

“The salad’s on the table,” Inge said as Malani left. “We might as well start before the flies find it.”

Over a simple but wonderfully fresh lettuce-and-tomato salad, the conversation turned to everyday topics.

“Axel,” Inge said, “one of your calves got onto my property again this morning. You’re going to have to do something about that fencing.”

“Sorry about that, Inge. Did it scare any of your Indonesians?”

“Worse than that,” Inge told him. This was a young bull that had somehow found its way to the dude ranch petting farm, had managed to get in, and had tried to mount one of the female calves, traumatizing not only the calf but a school group from Hilo who witnessed the whole thing.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Hedwig said, “it’s as good a way as any for them to learn about sex.”

“This wasn’t sex, it was rape.”

“Inge,” Axel said in the midst of general laughter, “he isn’t capable of rape. He’s been castrated.”

“Well, he sure didn’t seem to know it. Maybe you should tell them when you castrate them.”

“Do you suppose we might change the subject?” Dagmar interjected with a shake of her head. “I’m trying to eat my dinner. Felix, when exactly can we expect to see your land turned into Happy Harbor Estates?”

“Now, Auntie, you know they haven’t decided on what the name’s going to be,” Felix said patiently. “And I promise you, it’ll be very nice when it’s finished. They’re preserving the landscape as much as possible. They have a great deal of respect for the land.”

“Tell us another one,” Dagmar said.

“It’s not a joke, you’ll see. And as to when, they’re hoping to start in the fall, but the Environmental Quality Control Board is still haggling over the impact statement.”

“Hey,” Keoni said. “How many Haoles does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

“I have no idea,” Felix said with an air of stolid resignation. “How many Haoles does it take to screw in a light bulb?”

“Six. One to call the electrician, and five to write the environmental impact report.”

John laughed, Gideon smiled, and the Torkelssons glowered.

“You like that?” Keoni said. “Okay, how does a Haole show his racial tolerance?”

Before anyone could reply, Malani came in, taking the seat that had been kept for her next to Axel, across from Gideon and John. “All right, it’s tentatively arranged. They gave me a price, and if I get back to them within the hour, they can do it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” Felix exclaimed. “I see what you mean about rapid response.”

“Yes, well, you see, since the plane is only in a few feet of water, and since all we want are the remains, and not the plane itself, they say it won’t take a great deal of work or much in the way of equipment. And if they leave first thing in the morning, they ought to finish up and be back by the end of the day.”

“Wait a minute, now,” said Axel. “How in the heck are they going to land a Cessna 310 on Maravovo, let alone take off again? Is there a nice, big, two-thousand-foot landing strip on this deserted atoll? That’s what it would take. Fifteen hundred feet at the absolute minimum.” As the only person with flying experience in the room, Axel’s word carried weight. He had learned to fly fifteen years or so ago, briefly serving as the ranch pilot before discovering that, as much as he enjoyed the navigational calculations, he didn’t much like flying itself. “I think maybe Felix is right, sweetheart; we’d better find an outfit in Honolulu.”

But this Cessna, Malani triumphantly explained, didn’t require any landing strip at all. It had been converted to a float plane. It could land in the lagoon.

“Really? I didn’t know there was anybody on the Big Island who could do that kind of work.”

“They did it themselves,” Malani explained. “They also serve as their own pilots, which saves considerably on the cost.”

“Oh, brudda,” Keoni said, “I’m just glad nobody’s asking me to fly in it.”

Undeterred, Malani went on, meticulously referring to the neat, columnar notes-she wrote in tiny uppercase letters-that she had made on a note pad. “The Cessna’s cruising speed is about two hundred miles an hour, so to be on the safe side they’re allowing a total of five hours for the eight-hundred-mile round trip, plus an hour for landings and takeoffs, and five hours for the work itself. Eleven hours altogether.”

At this point, the grilled steaks, brought in by a perspiring, aproned cook, drew everyone’s attention. There were no inquiries as to rare, medium, or well-done; the perfectly charred, two-inch-thick tenderloins were simply plopped onto the plates (all except Hedwig’s) with a simple accompaniment of spinach and baked potato that was served in bowls, family style. No steak sauce, ketchup, or mustard; the only condiments on the table were salt and pepper. Gideon was surprised to see that the steaks were all medium-well-done, a barely pink-tinged brown at the center, and said as much to Axel.

“Oh, yeah,” Axel said. “You won’t find too many ranchers who like their steaks rare.” He wrinkled his nose. “Smells too much like cow.”

“You don’t suppose,” said Hedwig, digging into the plate of couscous, kohlrabi, and gingered squash that the cook had plopped in front of her with undisguised contempt, “that might be because it is cow? And am I the only one able to see that the very fact that you try to hide it from yourselves proves my point? You prefer to avoid dealing with your own innate self-knowledge of the ethical consequences, to say nothing of the karmic consequences, of eating our brothers and cousins; things with faces, things with mothers. I know I’ve probably said it before-”

“ ‘Probably’?” Dagmar said loudly. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“-but it’s impossible to reach any kind of higher consciousness-”

“Oh, put a cork in it, Hedwig,” Felix shouted amiably, his jaws grinding audibly away on flesh and fat.

“Cannibals,” sighed Hedwig. “Surrounded on all sides by ravening carnivores.”

“You can thank ravening carnivores for everything you have,” Dagmar said, chewing.

“Actually, I’d have thought Marti would get along pretty well with Hedwig,” Gideon whispered to John.

“Actually, she does.”

Over coffee and a dessert of baked apples and cream, Malani gave them the rest of the details: Ocean Quest’s plane was loaded with equipment and ready to go, but it was currently hangared at the Honolulu airport, where it had just gotten a new paint job. In the morning they would put two of their salvage divers, who would double as the Cessna pilot and co-pilot, on the first Aloha inter-island flight from Kona to Honolulu, where they would pick up the Cessna and take off for Maravovo, hoping to touch down in the lagoon by nine or ten A.M. They would expect to finish up by two in the afternoon at the latest and be back in Honolulu with the remains in time for one of the commercial evening flights to Kona. The estimated fee would be $16,000. “They think that’s a maximum. It’ll probably be less.”

Keoni pretended to choke on a chunk of baked apple. “Sixteen thousand dollars for one day’s work? And I thought Felix was the expert on screwing his clients.”

“Damn it, Keoni,” Felix said, “if that’s supposed to be humorous-”

“The largest single cost is the plane,” Malani cut in. “Nine hundred dollars an hour flight time and three hundred dollars an hour wait time. Add that to the divers’ hourly rate of five hundred dollars, the air fare to and from Honolulu-”

“Still-” Keoni said.

“I don’t want to argue about it,” Dagmar said. “I’m sure they’re not overcharging us. You go ahead and tell them to do it, my dear.”

“Don’t forget about getting permission from the Kiribati government,” John said.

“They say they’ll take care of all that,” Malani said. “They’ve dealt with the Kiribatis before.”

“They’ll need to file a flight plan,” Axel said. “They’ll have to-”