Pueo 'Aumakua

Donna reached into her bag and grabbed the binoculars. Can I even call them that? She thought to herself. They were the perfect birthday gift from her brother who was a Captain in the Army and deployed to Afghanistan. She felt her throat thicken as she pulled the $13,000 Armasight PVS-31 carefully out of the pouch. She remembered being a little girl and Lexington making it a priority to point out beauty to his little sister wherever he saw it. 

“Donna, life is very short. If you don’t appreciate little moments like the silhouette of that bird on the wire up there, you’ll quickly lose sight of what’s important.” She could still hear his husky voice, larger-than-life, echoing in her mind.

It was dusk, and the Palis (cliffs) were rapidly shrinking from view as the sun dipped below the ocean.

“No cell service.” Her husband said flatly, bringing her sharply back to reality. 

“Really? Nice!” Donna replied, bringing the binoculars up to her eyes.

“Babe, what did Lex call these things?” Donna asked her husband. 

“NVG’s. Night Vision Goggles. I’m not even sure him giving them to you was legal. Those are government-issue. I’m not saying anything though. As long as it doesn’t somehow magically leak to the press and derail these last 18 months we’ll be just fine.” Donna could hear the smile in her husband’s voice.

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to end your campaign early, that would be AWFUL.” She teased. 

The darker it got the better she could see. Her eyes skirted across the distant tropical forest tree line and she marveled at how vivid everything looked. What in actuality was several miles from her felt only a few car-lengths away. 

“Sweetheart, you should try these. The view is breathtaking.” Anytime Donna felt joy she immediately wanted to share the moment with her husband. He wasn’t just a companion, a politician, a veteran, a father, a businessman and lover. He was her best friend in the entire world. And by God they’d done the work to somehow keep it that way after 31 years of marriage. 

“Go ahead Love. I’m going to go take a leak.” He said plainly, walking off into the ferns behind them. 

Donna sighed. There went the romantic moment. There was something inexplicably intimate about interactions like that, she reflected. Maybe it was that he felt safe to be himself around her? Or was it the familiarity of his fearless communication style and penchant for speaking the truth without hedging? As her admiring gaze moved from tree to stones to dirt, she wondered if she would get the chance to see any night life. Hawaii had its own world that emerged in the darkness, but most of it was small and unlikely for her to catch a glimpse of regardless how long she stood there. 

C’mon, at least let me see an owl– her thoughts were again interrupted this time by the loud stream of her husband relieving himself. 

“REALLY KEALA?” As she yelled, the NVGs bounced, making her vision blurry. 

“I didn’t want to go too far. Seeing anything?” Keala was unperturbed. 

Donna didn’t answer. She wasn’t going to engage while he was doing…that. 

Something went off in her mind. A tree was moving in a manner that seemed entirely unnatural. At the top of the Pali face across the way she saw in the rapidly fading light, a small tree bend towards her. She froze and watched that location. From behind the thick brush along the edge of what seemed from her vantage point to be a steep drop-off, emerged a dark figure of a large man. He grabbed onto the low-hanging branch of a small tree nearby and pulled a second person from the brush who was bound and gagged. She could see they were wearing shorts, a t-shirt that was covered in something – mud, dirt or blood – and was partially ripped off their body. It was a man. She could see he was thinner, and looked to be unconscious. 

“Keala, get over here!” Donna whispered. Even as she spoke, she wondered why she was being quiet. There’s no way the two men several miles away could hear her. 

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?” Keala asked calmly. 

“I can see someone on the other Pali over there, he’s dragging a guy right up to the edge.” Her voice trembled, uncontrollably. 

Her husband’s hand was steady on her shoulder. “Don’t look away. You might not be able to find them again. I’m going to get my phone camera set up and I need you to stay locked on them, no matter what. Understood? Mālie, Ku’uipo (Stay calm, Love).” 

Donna began to feel the muscles in her body tighten as her heart raced and her breathing became more shallow. Don’t lose them. Don’t lose them. What is HAPPENING?

She watched as the first large figure propped up the second against a boulder at the very edge of a drop that was easily several hundred feet. He reached behind and took what she could now make out was a backpack from behind him and set it on the ground. Oh God. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. What are you DOING TO HIM? Her mind raced at a million miles an hour. Is that a baseball bat? No! Oh God no! Oh, it’s a water bottle. She sighed audibly. He’s waking him up, that’s all. Donna felt strange reassuring herself, but barely registered she was self-examining. This is like a bad dream. Can we not do anything? 

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. Slowly, very slowly, I need you to move your right eye over to the left lens. I’m going to help hold the NVGs steady. You’ll need to close your left eye so you can see as much as you can with your right eye. Got it?” Donna felt her heart leap. This was something she could do. She felt her husband’s large hand cover hers on the night vision goggles. Inadvertently she felt tears well up in her eyes. NO! You have to keep watching! Stop it! Her mind screamed at her. 

“Shhhh, ‘onipa’a (stand firm).” Keala always used his grandmother’s native Hawaiian language in times of crisis and it never failed to give her heart a unique strength.

Donna blinked the tears from her eyes and stared intently at the two men that were now interacting with each other. The one standing over the other was using large hand movements, the one on the ground was tossing his head and frame back and forth as they had what seemed to be an intense argument. 

“Good. Perfect. Can you see, Ku’uipo?” Keala asked quietly, his head next to hers. She hadn’t realized until now that her husband had wrapped his whole body around her and with his right hand was holding the goggles, and with his left was holding the phone camera lens to the lens of the NVGs. 

“Yes, yes I can see.” Her voice shook. It was dark now. Somehow as the minutes had passed by she had ceased to hear or see anything other than the traumatizing scene that was unfolding before her now one eye, and her husband’s voice. 

The first figure stood up, put on his backpack and turned to face the man seated against the boulder with his hands and legs tied. 

“OH GOD NO!” Donna felt herself scream. The man was pointing a pistol at the other’s head. The victim, defiant, refused to turn away or lower his head, instead choosing to lean forward as far as his neck would allow. 

“Ka mana o Ke Akua e ho’opakele mai ia ‘oukou…” As Keala chanted the prayer of protection, his deep, clear tones floated out across the vast dark space in front of them. 

Time seemed to stop. 

Donna felt herself inhale sharply, heard the ringing in her ears, and noticed the trade winds tossing her hair lightly at her neck.

The man across the valley lifted his arm, pointed the pistol straight up into the air, pulled the trigger and a flash of white/green light shot from the barrel as the flare rocketed into the sky above them. They saw a flash and moments later heard a small pop. No one moved.

Seconds flew by and Donna slowly exhaled, doing her best to not make a sound. As her lungs finished emptying, a helicopter rose from behind the two men and slowly made it’s way to where the two of them were waiting, a bright flood light dancing across the terrain. The sound of it’s two overhead rotors echoed in Donna’s ears before she realized she could actually hear it. 

“Ku’uipo! Oh, thank God! Mahalo Ke Akua! That’s a Chinook!” Keala’s voice was drenched in relief, wavering ever so slightly. Donna was confused. None of his emotions or words made any sense to her. 

“What?!” She could barely form the words as her body rippled with shock. Was this actually over?! What am I missing? 

She felt her body begin to shake, slowly at first, then with more and more intensity as the adrenaline wore off. 

“NO!” She screamed as her husband put down the NVGs. Her hands flailed ineffectively as he let them fall to the ground and embraced her. 

“Donna! Donna. Stay with me Donna. Look. Look!” He was pointing out across the expanse. She saw the bright flood light casting a massive lit circle on the ground and a figure rappel from it’s open door on the side down to the ground where the two men were standing. 

“It’s a military exercise. Training, Ku’uipo. Training! It was fake. Oh God, it was fake. No one was hurt.” Keala released her and sat down on the ground, pulling his knees up and watching the action unfold in front of him off in the distance. 

Donna snatched up the NVGs and put them to her face. As she watched, a uniformed soldier pulled the figure on the ground into a standing position, cut the ropes, and gave the man she once believed to be a victim a huge embrace. The skinny man with the torn shirt turned to his captor and reached out, shaking the man’s hand. Then he looked up at the helicopter, nodded, and they tossed down a second rope with a harness attached. Donna’s vision blurred as tears filled her eyes, unchecked. 

A few minutes later, all three men had vanished into the sky, and Donna was left scanning the horizon, unable to peel away from the goggles. Her chest heaved as she sobbed, her husband’s hand gently stroking her calf in comfort as he allowed her emotions to flood from her exhausted heart and body. She couldn’t stop the thoughts that ravaged her mind, it was all so much to take in. 

Just before she was finally able to lower the NVGs for the final time that evening, she saw a Pueo (Hawaiian short-eared owl and 'Aumakua, Hawaiian spirit animal of wisdom and guidance in battle) lurch into the night sky and slowly make its way out across the Palis.