Death by Facebook (34 page)

At
that moment, he felt the paraglider lurch up at least ten feet,
released of some significant weight.

“
Whoo
hoo!” he yelled, knowing they could now clear the downhill
side of the tree line. Above his own shouts he could hear the dogs
barking. It was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“
Larry!”
Shirley was shouting. “We're climbing!”

And,
the dogs were still barking! Larry looked down and there they were,
still nestled tightly in Shirley's arms.

Larry
was incredulous. How could that happen?

“
What
did you drop?”

Shirley
twisted around, a little sadness embedded into the happiness that
they were now clearing the tree tops.

“
My
backpack!”

Larry
nodded. Whatever that was, he thought, it must have weighed at least
twenty or thirty pounds.

“
What
was in it?”

Shirley
was quiet a moment, but when he asked again, she had to say it.

“
All
the Bordeaux. And the 1945 Haut Bailly.”

It
was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

~~~

Even
as Star was urging Janet to climb higher, she herself was about as
high in her own tree as she could go. The last nailed in board
stopped just shy of the first fronds. From that height she looked
back to the cinder cone for a moment. It was vomiting lava straight
up into the air uncaring as to where it splattered, uncaring of the
vast mess it was making of her little slice of heaven. Her smaller
and smaller slice of heaven.

Janet
was obviously injured. Her shoulders looked to be bleeding but the
lighting was sporadic, depending on outbursts from the cinder cone.
The little moon there was could only tell Star that Janet was now
half way up the tree. Her moans as she pulled herself higher told
everything the light could not.

Another
wave, a bit larger, was sweeping under them now, splashing on Janet
but safely below her. Despite what comfort that might have given
anyone, Janet was terrified. Terrified of heights.

“
Star!”

“
Jimmie!
Are you OK?” Star had to repeat herself over the noise of the
water rushing furiously below them. She watched as large parts of
what must be her cabin roof swirled around the area just below them.
The second wave was now retreating back to the sea.

“
Star!
How much higher?” Janet begged, hoping not another inch.
Even as the sight below her was horrific, it was far below and her
dizziness was overtaking her.

“
All
the way! Up to the branches Jimmie!” Star was finding her
voice getting hoarser. “All the way up!”

“
Oh,
my god,” Janet murmured, trying desperately not to look below
her. Her ears were painting a scary enough picture. Rushing water
below her, strange booming sounds out in the bay followed by
cascading crashes of water and the deep rumble of the cinder cone
behind it all.

The
fact that it was dark helped Janet make her way up into the fronds
themselves where she wiggled her way into a spot she could sit. Her
legs were bruised and her feet were aching, bleeding from a thousand
little cuts. Her hips were sore, to the very bones it seemed, from
whatever she had bumped into while being swept around in the first
wave.

As
a third, even larger wave moved beneath them, some eight feet deep,
they both felt the trees shaking in the turbulence.

“
Are
they falling, Star?” Janet screamed from her perch at the top.
With the wind and the shaking from below she clutched the crown with
a baby's grip on a parent's hair.

“
No
way!” Star guessed. She was thinking what she would do if
they did indeed fall. The roots needed something to hold on to.
More waves would surely sweep all the sand away, from all the trees
of the connected grove.

“
If
it does Jimmie, stay with the tree, don't let it go!”

She
looked out to sea for the first time, trying to see the fishermen in
their boats, safely in the deep water. Once or twice it seemed she
saw a dim red light, or two.

She
could hear Janet crying now, sobbing in the tree next to her, hidden
in the top. For some reason, she realized, she had not herself
collapsed. With the loss of her cabin, and her car it seemed all the
things that had supported her in this sanctuary had abandoned her.

Except
the trees.

“
Please,
hold on,” she whispered to her tree, hugging it tightly.
“Please stay with me. Please stay here.”

As
the most recent wave seemed to continue rushing in for over three
minutes now Star thought she heard a new sound, in the direction of
the cinder cone. Was it a bubbling sound, or after listening to it a
bit longer, was it more like a sizzling sound?

The
waft of steam that reached her confirmed it was a boiling sound. The
last tsunami wave had cleared all of the remaining brush and low
bushes from behind where her cabin used to be. Star could now see an
advancing line of glowing rock replacing that which the ocean had
attempted to stop.

“
What's
that smell?” Janet managed to ask, a shivering in her voice.

Star
shook her head in amazement. The ocean, as destructive as it might
be, was trying to hold back the volcano, the lava, by assaulting it
head on. Memories of her favorite Japanese creature films came to
mind, something like Godzilla versus the Sea Monster. The movie
trailer played out in her mind: In the dark tropical night, two
desperate women hide from a marauding sea on one side watching lava
approach from the other, the tops of coconut trees their only hope.

“
Star!”
Janet yelled weakly. “What is it? What is that smell?”

As
shock finally settled into Star's mind, she retreated into the
comfortable fantasy of her memories. She wasn't sure which monster
would save them, Godzilla or the Sea Monster. The first light of
dawn, some hours away, would tell. Hopefully, she wished, it would
be the winner.

“
Jimmie,
it's the smell of battle.”

~~~

The
Pacific Ocean a half mile away from the fountaining cinder cone was
just as should be, pacific. Light winds and small swells gently
rocked the flotilla of five boats anchored in the deep water as the
darkness slowly moved west.

Wally
was scanning the coastline with his binoculars, a few minutes
evidently before there was enough light to do so. He turned to the
east to see if clouds were obscuring the sunrise. None were, just
the earth.

“
Come
on!” he said to himself, knowing the sun would never listen.

His
son, in the next boat anchored near his, was pulling in another aku
on a hand line. Wally watched his strong young body flex and bend
and win the battle. The teenager reminded him of himself, on a good
day.

It
was a proud moment in a pool of doubt, doubt about not insisting his
girlfriend Starshine come with him. It was something he had been
used to for many years, the conflict between his local practicality
and her hippie wishfulness. Those contradictions are probably what
complimented their one similarity.

“
Ready
Dad?” The young man was looking to the coast as well.

Wally
was shaking his head, then looked back into the binoculars.

“
Why
she gotta be so damned stubborn?”

Both
of them, on their respective boats watched the cinder cone near their
cove, their home, continue belching fumes high into the air. Wally
scanned the coastline looking for something familiar, Star's cabin,
or her car. He couldn't even find the vacation rentals on the
opposite side of the cove.

His
son had his binoculars out now and quickly saw a debris field uphill
from where the two story rentals had been.

“
Dad,
the vacation houses!” He lowered his binoculars a moment to
confirm with his own eyes, then brought them back up again. “They're
gone!”

Wally
looked at him, then back again.

“
What
the hell?” He stared for a moment, whistling.

“
I
don't see any lava there, so, they never burned down or anything?”
His son was pulling out his cell phone to call his Auntie Star.

“
Another
tsunami?” Wally whispered. Turning to his son he said it
quite a bit louder, worried. “Another tsunami? Must have been
one during the night!”

Both
of them searched for signs of Star on the beach or near the cove.
They searched in a silence that spoke loudly of their common fear,
that Star had been swept away during the night.

“
Her
cabin is gone too, but I don't see her car.” Wally noted.
“Maybe she left before it came?”

“
Dad,
check Champagne pool, the car is there, upside down.”

Wally
swung right to look at the pools, where he and Star had spent many a
magical evening. There, impaled on some underwater ledge, tires up
in the air like a dead cockroach, was Star's Tercel. Wally tossed
his binoculars onto the seat cushion.

“
Come
on, son! She might be holding onto some flotsam.” He fired up
his twin 250hp Yamahas to idle and pulled up his anchor.

His
son was drawing up his anchor as well, retrieved his fishing lines
and started his engines.

“
Headsets,
Dad?”

“
Yeah!”

“
Guys,”
Wally said to the other three boats on the CB radio. “Tsunami
looks to have swept our area clean. Go south a mile or so, with the
current. Star might be hanging onto something. Might be more
people, too.”

All
five boats got moving immediately. Both father and son were soon
full throttle toward the beach, drawing beautiful white arches behind
them in the blue water.