The jalopy pickup neared a side road, gears grinding. An arched gate like the entrance to a ranch stood over the road. A sign read: KRIEGER LAND PRESERVE.

Lett and Kanani traded glances, neither speaking.

They passed through the gate. The elevation kept rising above South Kona and the denser growth persisted, branches entwining, massive shiny fronds mixing with reddish leaves. Kanani eyed the jarring terrain, their distance from the sea growing ever higher, and she bounded from one side of the truck bed to the other like a dog unsure. The rise of a volcano showed above treetops.

“Mauna Loa?” Lett said.

Kanani nodded. “At some point, all this green is gonna stop and it turns into lava fields, and plenty of it too, just open and barren country.”

“I don’t think we’re going that far.”

“Other side of Mauna Loa is Kilauea Military Camp. They held Japanese after Pearl Harbor. My mother got the lock-up there.”

“How long?”

“Few months. Then she got Oahu, Sand Island Camp. Fences, barbwire everywhere. Haole guards with bayonets, even in the bathroom. No dignity. Faddah got her out, sure he did. But life was never the same after.” Kanani scowled at Lett. She spat into the road.

“You’ll show them,” he told her. “You’ll show all of them.”

“And you, too. You gotta make this work for you, Wendell.”

The road evened out, the truck puttering and gurgling. The greenery was still dense but the trees lining the road were drier, with knotty and gnarled trunks—like the knuckles of the shrunken dead, Lett couldn’t help thinking. They slowed. Lett and Kanani faced forward to look around the cab. Up ahead, a barricade stood across the dark, lava-dirt road. It was just an unpainted log. An unarmed sentry in khaki with no insignia appeared from the trees and lifted the primitive gate.

Kanani grinned at Lett. Lett had to make himself grin back.

“Go for broke!” Kanani said.

“Go for broke.”

***

The newly built hut was a single-room job, like a barracks office. No one was there. A metal desk stood in the middle, matte green. Three metal armchairs and a small table occupied another corner, but Lett and Kanani had opted for the two metal chairs at the desk. The hut occupied a tidy square of a clearing carved out of the high forest growth like a shaved patch on a head of matted hair. The patrol vehicle disguised as a local jalopy pickup had dropped them off, and the driver told them to go wait inside. And there they sat. It was so quiet they could still hear insects buzzing outside.

They saw no signs, not even warnings. Lett had never seen a camp without official notices. Sweat rolled down his sides and dampened his waistband. Kanani reached over and wiped the sweat on his jaw.

“What the hell is this?” she whispered.

“Must be some kind of holding area.”