Two wild horses emerged from the forest and drank from the stream, their hooves kneading at the mossy rocks. Lett loved how shiny their brown coats were in the wild. Kanani smiled at them.

“You’re not going back, are you?” he said.

“No. I had orders to join a new intelligence office of theirs, in Honolulu. Never again. I learned that from you.”

***

As Lett sat on his lanai one evening, watching the stars, Kanani appeared on the other side of the stream. She crossed the water and took her chair on the lanai, and they looked out. For minutes they sat, saying nothing. When he’d arrived in Kona Town, he could’ve never sat like this. So damn patient.

“At first, the others left me alone down here, too,” she said. “They left me to think about what I had done and want to do.”

“Place of Refuge,” Lett said.

“Pu’uhonua, yes. That’s exactly right.”

High in the black sky, the lights of an airplane passed, a comet in slow motion.

“We’re gonna get you back home,” Kanani said.

“To Heloise? To my boy?”

“Yes. We’re gonna find a way. When you’re ready.”

“Thank you. Wait—you said we.”

“Yes. We.”

***

One afternoon in the Valley of the Kings, Kanani burst out of the forest and marched across the stream and found Lett up on the lanai. Her hair was down and wet in her face. She pushed it away. She looked as white as he. Her eyes were red. Tears.

“I was up above, in a store.” She handed him a rolled-up Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

On the bottom of the front page was a headline: MURDER BURSTS KONA RACKET. According to the brief story, former US Army Lieutenant Colonel and reputed AWOL Charles Selfer had survived a violent encounter with known Honolulu gangster Francisco “Frankie” Baptiste. Lieutenant Colonel Selfer was allegedly running a smuggling ring for high-priced valuables plundered from Asia during the war, with Baptiste as his partner. They had a dispute. Selfer killed Baptiste in the fight and was in serious condition. Local police had handed Selfer over to US military authorities, who transferred Selfer to a high-security prison on the mainland.

Lett saw no mention of Jock Quinn, of course. He could assume Jock had already returned to his beloved Marines on Oahu. The Corps had surely taken him back, another troubled wayward son, and hopefully given him a nice promotion. And Jock, for his part, wouldn’t want to risk any further exposure—to himself or to Lett.