Steep vast slopes rose to the left and right, dwarfing all. To their hard left, which was northwest, stood Hualalai, the island’s third largest volcano. On the horizon loomed the two mighty volcanoes, just as Kanani promised—to the right Mauna Loa and ahead on the left Mauna Kea, their gradual high peaks masked by dense cloud banks in the otherwise clear sky. Linking the two mauna farther ahead was a lava-laden funnel of a basin, only a few miles wide at its lowest stretch. Kanani called this the Saddle.

The Saddle was their passage through to the other side.

Eight o’clock. Full daylight. “Sun’s up—heads covered,” Jock barked, and Kanani pulled her khaki bucket hat on. She handed Lett one from Jock’s pack. Almost no trees or bushes remained. The wind carried some warmth but still it ripped at them. They trudged on, their feet pounding at the hard earth that was turning so creviced and jagged that they couldn’t take their eyes off it. A half hour for every mile had seemed conservative. Now it was looking optimistic.

Jock waved them down into a shallow gully. They lay on flat lava and looked out, catching their breath, the grass poking and itching. Behind them, the tropical forest holding The Preserve was only a green line along the blue horizon. Jock got binoculars out.

“It’s too quiet back there,” Kanani groaned.

She didn’t need to say it. They had to expect a mighty wrath.

Jock rolled around and peered ahead at the looming basin between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Somewhere along the Saddle, a narrow and dipping and choppy road had been blasted out of the lava. Saddle Road locals called it—the only vehicular route through the middle of the island. “They could take Saddle Road,” Jock commented, and no one disputed him.

They took bites from a tropical bar, sipped water, pushed on. By noon they’d gone twenty miles. It was only about sixty degrees out, but they could feel their rubber soles growing warmer.

Kanani slowed. She kept looking back over her shoulder. She stopped. She grabbed and pulled at them and they crouched down. “Look, back there. What is that thing?”

***

A giant beast rose into the sky, far behind them but ever higher. They scrambled into a trench for better cover, lying in a row. Lett and Jock tore at grass and laid it over Kanani and then covered each other as best as they could. Kanani muttered something in Hawaiian.

“Helicopter,” Lett and Jock blurted at the same time.

The small helicopter rose fast, its nose down as it roared up. It hovered over The Preserve, then over the open plain just beyond the tropical forest, passing back and forth. Jock clamped the binoculars onto his eyes, focused.

“Markings?” Lett said.

“Don’t make out any, but it’s Army green. Shit.”

“What?”