The slender man at the caisson must possess some superhuman strength, because he’s almost reached the wreckage. In seconds, I hurtle to his side and grab the yoke and together we haul that tank the last fifty yards. The fellow drops the yoke and thanks me, reaches for the hose and tells me to man the pump, and by God I nearly lose my mind.

“You! I thought—I thought—”

“You’re an idiot, Miss Everett,” yells Mrs. Lindquist as she drags the hose from its spool. “Now pump!”

As it turns out, the pilot’s not dead at all. He has a broken ankle and a great many cuts and bruises, and Olle suspects a collapsed lung caused by a possibly broken rib. His name is Kaiko, and he’s apparently Olle’s brother-in-law. Olle was married before, it turns out, to a Hawaiian woman who died some time ago, and Kaiko is her brother. Everybody’s related to each other in Hanalei, Olle explains.

I’m in Lindquist’s yellow truck with Olle, driving back into town, because Lindquist is flying Kaiko to the hospital in Honolulu in her own private airplane. Olle doesn’t trust the tiny hospital here on Kauai. Some fellow from the junkyard on the other side of the island is coming later to pick up the remains of the machine itself, which seems precipitate to me. I ask, Don’t they want to find out what caused the accident? and Olle looks at me like I’m crazy.

“What caused the accident is that Kaiko is a terrible pilot,” he says. “He came in to land too slowly and stalled. Now he’s learned his lesson. Thank God he had no passengers.”

“Does he usually? Have passengers?”

“Sometimes. When we’re short of pilots.”

“Oh, that’s just terrific. And people wonder why I won’t get on an airplane.”

“You don’t fly?”

The wind billows in drafts through the open windows, smelling of brine, whipping my hair around my head. I make some attempt to tuck it behind my ears. “Never ever,” I tell him. “By land or by sea, that’s my motto. It takes longer, but you see more, and you generally stay in one piece.”

Olle starts to laugh. I have the feeling he’s just relieved Kaiko isn’t dead, and sometimes relief finds expression in hysterical laughter. I saw a lot of that kind of thing in Europe, believe me.

“What’s so funny?” I ask.

“You. Fixated on my wife, and you don’t even fly.”

“I’m not fixated on your wife. I’m fixated on Samuel Mallory. He was the better pilot, after all.”

That sobers up Olle. “He was better at some things, maybe. But which pilot is still alive?”