Westervelt tells us that in the indefinite long ago, Kakei was the mōʻī of ʻOʻahu. He was an enterprising chief whose men saw days of being poor in one instance and rich the next.
In contests, they gave and received blows, won, and lost in sham battles and foot races, but managed to take everything in stride for that was the way of life. One day Kakei told his men to send out word that every man capable of traveling a long distance should prepare themselves for war. Excitedly, the entire population of ʻOʻahu readied every canoe available and made the necessary repairs to older ones that had not been in use for a while. After a time, the vast fleet met in the waters off of Māmala and headed north to Kauai. There, Kakei and his fleet invaded Waimea and killed every man in the unprepared village. The women and children Kakei kidnapped and brought back to Oahu. A grand celebration was had within the dried and dormant crater of Pūowaina. However, the ʻaumakua of those Kauai people who were unfairly routed shook the crater with a mighty earthquake and split the ground in two. Steam burst forth from the earth, and rivers of lava poured out. Those who did not die quickly died while running from the molten earth's explosions as chunks of large rocks crushed them under its weight. It was not until Kakeiʻs Kahuna appealed to the ʻaumakua of the Kauaʻi people did the disaster abate itself. Henceforth, there appears to be a lesson left for us to learn, and that is that Kauai cannot be invaded without consequence.~
TODAY
For all the expensive clothing, cars, and money that Henry Parades possessed, he was nothing but a thief. An educated one, a smart one, but a thief nonetheless. He sat patiently in his 95 Impala SS, waiting for the arrival of his package. Pūowaina drive was not an illegal place to park in the evening. As long as one did not look suspicious, the residents didnʻt bother calling the police.
"Just got out of baggage claim," the text came.
"I told you not to text me until you were leaving the airport," Henry texted back.
He let out an irritated sigh before he leaned back and relaxed. Papakolea was quite the beautiful sight in the evening with itʻs intermittent fireworks displays shooting up from Kalawahine homestead. The second they pinpointed the origin of the fireworks, the blue lights arrived. Then, fireworks burst into the dark atmosphere above Auwaiolimu. Another group of squad cars converged on that location. Then, more fireworks shot up from the top of Kaʻululaʻau street. Henry couldnʻt help but chuckle to himself, "Eō e Papakolea,"
A pair of headlights came up the road. The rental car drove up to the locked gate leading into the crater and made a U-turn. It pulled up behind Henry. He waited until the vehicle shut down until he got out of his car. He opened his trunk and motioned to the driver, who still sat in the Mustang.
"Letʻs go for shit's sake!"
Nervously the driver lumbered out of the car and pulled out the carry on suitcase from the back seat. "Here it is," the driver began. "Iʻm surprised I didnʻt have any problems."
"Did you take care of that other thing, Walter?" Henry asked.
"Yeah, but I donʻt understand why we had to do it, Henry? He was just an old man."
"Why we had to do what?" Henry turned to Walter, more irritable than before.
"Why we had to kill him?"
"Who said we had to kill him?" Henry hissed.
"You did, you said if the old man didn't go for it, then I was supposed to take care of him," Walter recounted Henry's instructions with a child-like tone.
"Which meant giving him money, not killing him! That's why I gave you the twelve thousand dollars to take care of him in case he started to change his mind!"
"Ooooh, that's why I had all that money? Now, I know." The light came on slowly for Walter.
"Nobody saw you, right? You did it quick and clean? No evidence that you were there?" Henry tossed his keys back and forth from one hand to the other.
"I'm so stupid, Henry, I'm sorry," Walter lamented.
"No one saw you, Walter, right?"
"No, nobody."
"Alright, alright, then, that's good." Henry grabbed the carry on and placed it in his trunk. He zipped it open quickly and pulled back the cover. It was a fish tackle box wrapped packing tape. "Cut it open," Henry instructed Walter. Once that was done, Henry opened the lid and pulled back the first tray filled with Tsuji, fish hooks, lures, and led weights. There was no second tray on the bottom; instead, there was something sizeable wrapped in a large red mechanics cloth. Henry looked at Walter and nodded to the object. "Take it out and unwrap it, I wanna see it."
Walter removed the object and peeled away the sizeable red cloth. It revealed a large thick piece of a spearhead with three barbs on either side facing down. The last two barbs on the bottom faced up. The wood was a deep dark brown color, and the wear on it was apparent. It had drunk the blood of many an enemy in its time. There was a strange vibration coming from it, Walter and Henry could feel the energy pulsating through them. "Henry, what is this? I mean, I know what it is, but what..?"
"This spearhead was stuck in the side of the old man you killed in Wainiha," Henry replied.
"Who would do that to someone?"
"Nightmarchers," Henry confirmed. "When he was a young man, he was sleeping on a path leading to the beach at Lumaha'i. The night marchers trampled on him, and one of them stuck the old man with its spear and broke it off in him, the one you're holding now."
"Henry," Walter was now very much afraid. "I don't want to hold this thing anymore! I'm scared!
"The old man had it surgically removed, and then he kept it as a souvenir. He'd been on the run from the night marchers ever since because he had something that was theirs, I guess he got tired of running after all those years. That spearhead has garnered a lot of offers, million of dollars. Can you imagine?" Henry smiled.
"Please, Henry, I don't want to hold it anymore! It's giving me a bad feeling!" Walter pleaded.
"Sorry, Walter, I don't want to hold it either," Henry closed the trunk of his car and backed away. Walter kept walking toward him, pleading with him to take the spearhead. Like a blurry image from an old black and white TV show, the ghost of the murdered old man from Wainiha manifested in between them. Walter's face opened wide with panic, trying to scream in horror but not because he was mortified, but because the old man's ghost took the spear from Walter and sank it into his sternum again and again. The barbs on the spearhead tore away chunks of flesh and began to go flying everywhere. Henry ran to the passenger's side door of his car and slid behind the wheel and peeled off, leaving Walter to his fate.
~
Henry managed to sequester himself in the Chinatown area of Los Angeles. It has the highest rate of crime, and it's hardly possible that any ghosts from Hawaii would be able to find him. It's his kind of crowd; he just had to figure out where he fits in. No more items from Kauai, it seems that anything Kauai oriented that gets messed with comes back to bite you on the ass. Literally.
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