Death by Facebook (35 page)

“
Check,
check.” Wally asked, testing his headset.

“
Got
you five by five,” his son answered.

“
Good,
look, you stay offshore about two hundred yards. Keep an eye out for
any wave activity, any more damn tsunami signs. OK?”

The
young fisherman wanted to be on the front line helping, but if he had
to be lookout he would, for his dad.

“
Sure,
got it.”

“
Thanks,
I'm going up to the beach. If you see anything, I mean anything that
could be a person, hit your air horn.”

“
Got
it.”

Wally
was closing in fast when he had to quickly slow down for rubbish in
the water. Floating logs, plywood, plastic and a big propane tank
bobbed in the otherwise pristine water.

“
I'm
going to blast my horn son. Three times. Anything after that means
I need your help.” Wally moved cautiously through the debris
field, avoiding anything that might damage his boat, looking at every
piece that floated. He also knew that if the worst had occurred, he
would also find Star this way.

~~~

Exhaustion
is a very effective agent of compromise. How else might the top of a
thirty foot coconut palm seem actually comfortable?

Star
was stirring with the increasing light of dawn. She had followed
Janet's lead by climbing all the way up into her own tree where she
might rest without having to hold onto anything. She could hear her
injured friend switch between snoring and moaning in pain.

Somehow
she had managed to move into a position between the rising fronds
that kept her safely inside a little nest. From here she could still
see the cinder cone inexhaustibly continuing to pour lava in a steady
march toward the bay. She could also see that the lava had
surrounded her little enclave now with slow moving fingers
approaching the beach to the south. To the north she looked for the
vacation rentals but couldn't find them. The tree tops were
obscuring the view in that direction.

Below,
the sand was swept clean, shimmering in the pink light flowing in
from the east. No coconuts on the ground, no leaves, no sticks, no
home and no car. Nothing, nothing but sand.

Wondering
if it was wise to climb down she tried to remember if there had been
any earthquakes during the night, after they had climbed up into the
trees. Nothing she could remember, she thought. Yet, it might be
safest to remain in the trees for a little while.

The
tsunamis from the night had swept through around 10 P.M. and it was
now somewhere around 6 A.M. Surely it was over by now. Still she
remained in her tree, wondering what to do next.

The
three loud blasts of an air horn, coming from the sea, answered that
question. Turning to look she saw one of the fishermen's boats
motoring in slowly. Rescue!

“
Jimmie!
Wake up! We've got us a ride!” Star was yelling as she
gingerly tried to make it down to the top step. The tree top had not
seemed so high up in the air, with its protective shield of fronds,
but the top of the trunk, where her feet were now, seemed precarious.

Her
legs were sore and her arms had a few cuts she had not noticed until
she hugged the tree on her way down the next several steps. Looking
up to Janet's tree she saw nothing of her.

“
Jimmie!
Come on! You wanna stay up there all day?”

No
response.

“
There's
a boat coming for us! Let's go, girl!”

Some
rustling in the tree told her Janet was at least alive.

“
I
can't move, Star,” she said too softly to be heard. “My
legs are not moving...”

Star
looked up at Janet's tree, just as high as hers was and then down to
the approaching boat. It was Wally!

“
Wally!
Wally!” she yelled, waving at her boyfriend, looking all the
white knight on a horse.

She
saw his head tilt up to find her in the trees, having been scanning
far lower for something. He hit the air horn again, as he waved
wildly now.

In
a moment he had beached his Boston Whaler on the clean sand, jumped
out with his bow line and an anchor, and then run to Star's tree.

“
Babe!
What? Are you OK?”

“
Am
I glad to see you!” Star exclaimed, still gingerly moving her
stiff legs down the last few steps of the coconut tree.

“
Hey!”
Wally said into his headset to his son. “I've got Star! She
was up in the trees!”

Reaching
up to guide her down, he marveled at how smooth her skin felt, how
strong her legs must be and how lucky she was.

“
Tsunami.
I guess you saw it all, Star.”

“
Not
good, Wally. Not good. Jimmie nearly got swept away.”

Wally
looked around. “Jimmie?”

He
forgot the question for a moment as Star hugged the breath right out
of him.

“
Thank
you so much! Thank you for coming to look for me!”

Wally
laughed a little shaking his head.

“
You're
one crazy wahine, Starshine Aloha! Surrounded by lava on one side
and tsunami on the other. But, I love you no matter.” He
kissed her hard and squeezed a little too hard.

“
Ouch,”
she moaned, still kissing him back. “I'm kinda sore. The beds
here at Hotel Coconut are a little hard.”

Wally
pulled back a few inches and looked at her smiling. “Yeah, but
they sure are convenient when you need them.” He and his
fishermen crew had installed the steps years ago, never thinking they
would ever get used.

“
Help,
please.” A weak voice from the trees pleaded.

Wally
looked up confused. “Hey, who is that?”

“
My
friend, Jimmie, she got swept away in the first wave, but made it to
the tree when it started sweeping back to sea.”

Wally
looked at Star for a moment, incredulous that anyone could manage
such a feat.

“
I
think she's injured Wally.”

“
No
doubt!” Wally got on his headset and called his son into shore
to help while moving up to the tree to climb it.

“
Hold
on there...” he turned to Star from the second step. “What's
the name again?”

“
Jimmie.”

Wally
looked up in the tree and then back to Star. “Our Jimmie? The
girl you picked up hitchhiking?”

Star
nodded as she watched Wally move higher into up the tree. She could
see Jimmie's face, bruised and dirty staring down like a scared
monkey.

“
Hold
on, Jimmie, I'm on my way up.”

Star
noticed Wally's son rapidly approaching the beach in his boat. The
ocean was a deep azure in the low morning light, smoothly textured in
the light trade winds. She watched as he beached his Whaler close to
Wally's on the beautifully swept sand, as beautiful as she had ever
remembered seeing it. If you didn't look behind, toward the cinder
cone and it's lava progeny, if you looked only to the brilliant
tropical sun filtering through the pristine skies into the equally
magnificent waters you might think you were in the lap of heaven.
You could wander into the compelling shade of the coconut palm grove,
climb into a hammock and easily be persuaded that this was indeed one
of the planet's little known gems.

Perhaps
it was an appreciation common to those who have had near death
experiences, an appreciation enhanced by surviving. Star looked
around for the few moments it took for Wally's son to run up to her
and saw a special place worth saving. She just wasn't quite sure how
she might do that.

He
gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“
Auntie,
I'm so glad you're OK.”

“
Thank
you. Me, too!”

“
Dad!”
his son announced. “What do you need me to do?”

Wally
was just reaching Janet up in the top of the coconut palm. His brief
three years in the Army had exposed him to injuries of all types, and
methods for dealing with them in the field, away from professional
medical help. Here he saw a classic blunt force trauma with
complimentary lacerations where the skin had given way to pressure.

“
She
can't climb down, get me all the rope you have, and something we can
sit her in.” Wally looked out to sea for a moment. “And
get one of the guys on tsunami watch OK?”

“
I'm
on it!” the young man got on his CB radio while rounding up
nylon rope and some seat cushions.

“
How
you feeling Jimmie?” Wally asked, knowing she must be in some
considerable pain. Bruises covered her entire torso, from her
shoulders, down her back, and onto her legs. It looked like her
stomach was purple as well.

Janet
was shaking again, in fear. She could not get the events of the
previous night out of her mind, thinking that the sea might come back
for her any moment.

“
I'm
scared,” she whispered. “Why are you up here?”

“
I'm
here to help you...”

“
Is
there another wave coming?” She yelled, then quickly began
moaning in terror, the static flooding her overwhelmed mind.

Star
and Wally's son both looked up into the tree at that. Star quickly
turned to look at the beach and the young man scanned the southern
points of land.

“
Dad?”