Moving through camp, Kanani noticed that something was fishier than spoiled poke. The personnel in The Preserve had been steadily dwindling, but today almost no one was left. Before she knew it, this would be a haunted place, a prospect that made her take deep breaths as she strode across the grounds. She didn’t want to be a ghost, and surely not the last phantom out to close the door. Adding to the spookiness was the sky entombed by low clouds, sheets of battered lead pushing in from the sea and going ever higher up mountain, dragging over. The palms shuddered from it, and the eerie quiet gave her a chill. She wished she had a rain poncho, a tarp, anything.

She entered the command office. No one was on duty, but she spotted a chalkboard on a back wall that listed the day’s sentry assignments—she didn’t see Jock’s name there.

Next stop was the training ground where Jock had trained Wendell and others on various weapons. That, too, was empty, as was the laundry hut, and even the bar. She fast-walked it over to Jock’s bungalow. She knocked, no one answered. His screen door was shut but wasn’t locked. She went inside, calling his name, got no response. His small bungalow was sparse and spic-and-span like a barracks, bedcover taut, all stowed away. He even had a stand-up locker. No padlock, so she pulled it open. His fatigues hung neatly there. She checked his bathroom, saw his toiletries arranged just so. Same for the kitchenette, the washed dishes drying on the counter.

On the way out she noticed a small photo on his nightstand. It was a girl no more than twenty-five, modestly pretty, dishwater blonde hair, angular jaw and nose and something feisty in the eyes.

Jock was still here, she assured herself.

She roamed the compound using secondary trails. Inside the woods it turned darker than dusk with the low clouds still pressing down, and the wind picked up, making the palms slap around. She saw the mess hall and realized she hadn’t checked it.

The place was dead, the tables unoccupied. A young busboy in cook whites was clearing a table. On the other side of the room, in a corner, sat Jock Quinn. He wore civilian clothes—a cheap rayon aloha shirt of muted coconuts and palms, brown cotton trousers, and those strange green USMC jungle boots with canvas uppers and rubber toes and soles, like high-top basketball sneakers. Even in haole civvies he resembled a Marine in camo. She watched him from the side. He sat over a plate of rice stacked with Spam and brown gravy. A coffee mug stood at his one hand out on the table. Dim light from the window illuminated the top of his wispy crew cut.