y big brother and I visited our hapa haole grandmother every summer. Gramma lived on a Moloka'i ranch called "Hale Kia," Hawaiian for "Home of the Deer." Her property began at the shore and stretched north over the flatlands; it claimed the pastures and moved up the mountain to the skyline. Hale Kia was true to the Old Hawaiian boundaries of water, earth, and air. The only right of way was a public road cutting between the foothills and pastures. When my brother Ben entered his teens, he began to worry about trespassers. He became the self-appointed game warden of Hale Kia and scoured the highlands with a pair of field binoculars issued by the U.S. Army. Gramma thought Ben was obsessed until he spotted the remains of two does in the foothills. After that, she encouraged him to keep an eye on things. Ben's concern for the land coincided with Gramma's stories about the Duvas, a local clan with a smattering of French blood. They were the biggest family on Moloka'i and, if you fought one Duva, you had to fight them all. As a boy, Billy Duva got drunk and trespassed after midnight. Gramma lived alone and Billy got as far as her bed. The moment his hand touched her bare leg, she pulled out a rifle from beneath the sheets and jammed the barrel against his chest. He made a grab for the gun, she fired, and Billy flew off the bed. When he started screaming and rolling around in agony on her bedroom floor, she told him to leave before she called the cops. Billy stumbled home through the dark-he had a hole the size of a dime blown through his shoulder. That had been twenty years ago. I think part of the reason Gramma liked having us visit was because having company would discourage Billy from paying a second visit. I was carrying buckets of barley out to the horses when I saw Ben watching the mountain from just inside the makai fenceline. He was an early riser and had already finished his chores of raking the front lawn, opening the storm windows, and watering the horses. He was wearing a camouflage outfit that included shirt, pants, and even a cap. I always wore t-shirts and trunks because Moloka'i was hot and humid in the summer.

"Jeff!" he called out.

I put down the buckets and joined him in the pasture We saw a deer jumped the mauka fenceline, sniff the ground, and approach the mares. The mares neighed and galloped in circles as the deer made its way over to the trough. They quit running when the deer began to drink. Ben studied the deer through his binoculars.

"Can I have a look?" I asked Ben.

"Promise not to drop 'em?"

"Promise."

He handed them over. The binoculars had been used by my father when he was a Combat Observer for the Army during World War II. I looked through the lenses and everything was blurry. I adjusted the focus until the pasture was crystal clear. I followed a row of breadfruit trees over to a trough that had once been Gramma's bathtub. The deer stood beside the tub-it put its head in and drank. Its hide was rust brown and there were white spots on its flanks and back.

"He's starting to grow horns," Ben told me.

"It's not a doe?"

"Don't they teach you anything at Punahou?" he asked.

"That's a spike."

The deer raised its head and the ears twitched. Sure enough, there were two fuzzy tufts on top of his head. He nibbled the pili grass growing along the side of the trough. Then he turned and gazed at the mountain. A white truck pulled over on the road behind him. A man with a buzz cut stood in the truck's bed; he wore a muscle shirt and his big arms rested over the cab.

Ben grabbed the binoculars and studied the truck. He smelled like Irish Spring soap because that was the only soap Gramma used. I knew Ben was worried because the corners of his mouth turned down. We were only a year apart but he was five inches taller. Ben had our mother's blond hair and green eyes. His features were refined like hers and I envied him for his good looks. Girls always smiled at him at the Moloka'i Airport and they almost never noticed me. I had the rugged features and dark complexion of our hapa haole father.

"They've got guns," Ben said as he readjusted the focus.

"Who?" I asked.

"Who'd ya think?"

"The Duvas."

"Yeah."

"Who's that guy in the orange shirt?" I asked.

"Billy," Ben said.

A Jeep pulled up and parked beside the white truck. I could hear the driver of the Jeep talking to Billy but I couldn't make out the words. The spike continued to chew on grass. I was tempted to go get the buckets and spill some barley beside the trough. A door slammed and a woman from the Jeep joined the men in the truck. The Jeep sped off. The driver of the truck tooted the horn. He kept tooting until the horses circled the pasture again.

"Shut up," Ben said, "shut the hell up!"

"They won't shut up for you," I said.

"They would if I had a gun."

The tooting continued. Billy Duva hurled a bottle in the pasture-it shattered against a stone. The spike made a break for the mountain and the white truck crept along the fenceline to intercept it. A blue Plymouth heading in the opposite direction honked at the truck. The spike froze. Billy shook his fist at the car as it passed. The spike turned and ran toward Ben and me. He zipped past us and jumped the fence on the makai side of the pasture.

"Come on!" Ben said.

We ran to the makai fenceline and slipped through the wire. I knocked over one of the buckets and the barley went flying. Ben took the lead and chased the spike into a lauhala grove. I followed them down a narrow path between the trees. The spike's hide blended in with the leaves of the lauhala-he veered off the path and scampered under a tree. Ben cornered him against the mangrove-like roots of the lauhala but he dodged Ben, avoided my outstretched hand, and headed for the ocean. We followed him to the beach, where he ran west toward the point of the bay. A green boat was anchored off the point. The green was so dark that it looked black. It was the boat the Duvas used for laying net in the shallow water. It's hull was covered with barnacles. During kai make tides, the boat was marooned on the sand. "That damn boat's watalogged," Gramma had said. Ben had wanted to shoot and sink it the day he found out about Gramma's history with Billy. She talked him out of it by saying the Duvas would retaliate by offering her horses barley laced with arsenic. To ease his frustrations, Ben took pot shots at Billy's pit bulls whenever he spotted them in the foothills.

Ben and I ran the shoreline until we reached a stone wall in front of Gramma's bungalow. Her place overlooked the ocean. The lanai was protected by a brick retaining wall and a half-dozen storm windows. It was one of the few homes on the east end that wasn't destroyed by the April Fool's Day tsunami of 1946. The windows were made of wood and they could be swung open and suspended on hooks attached to the ceiling. Three windows were open and I could see Gramma sitting on the lanai. She was wearing bifocals and a lauhala hat with a wide brim. She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hui," she said, "ya kids get up hea!" She spoke a type of creole common on Moloka'i, a Southern-like dialect interspersed with Hawaiian words.

Ben and I left the beach and jogged up a sandy trail to the house. Gramma was drinking coffee from a blue mug. She had on a palaka shirt and a pair of Levis. She was a small woman with deep wrinkles. "I got lines ta show whea I've been," she'd said. She wasn't fat but she wasn't thin either. Her skin had a yellow pallor that reminded me of the pages in an old paperback. Her fingers were bent by arthritis-they pointed in different directions and it wasn't easy for her to cook and do the wash. One of her favorite expressions was "I'm weak as a bloody cat." She always asked me to open cans and to unscrew the lids off mayonnaise and pickle jars.

"Get inside," Gramma told us.

"I'm fine out here," Ben said.

"Ya heard me, Mista Ben."

Ben swung his long leg over the brick retaining wall and through an open window. When it was my turn, I banged my foot on the wooden frame between two windows.

"Owie!" I said.

"Ya kids have gawky legs," Gramma said.

"Do not," I replied.

Ben sat at the far window and stared through his binoculars. I sat between Gramma and Ben. Two poi dogs huddled on the cement floor beside Gramma's chair. Billy had kicked them when they wandered onto Duva property so they kept their distance whenever they smelled him. The lanai was decorated with paintings of coastlines and fishponds. Gramma had painted them before her arthritis. Glass balls, the size and shape of melons, hung from cord nets. Green glass sparkled through the cord. Some of the glass was painted-a green sea turtle swam toward a school of pink fish and there was a mermaid with ehu hair. A koa table in the far corner of the lanai was stacked with conch shells, driftwood, and stone pounders used for pounding taro root. On the wall, a buck's head was mounted on a heart-shaped plaque. Concrete steps led up to a screen door and, behind that, was the livingroom. A pair of Tikis stood on either side of the top step.

"That damn Billy Duva," Gramma said.

I heard the rumble of an engine and looked toward the point. A white truck was moving through the kiawe forest that skirted Hale Kia. It was the same truck from the road. When it got to the beach, its tires sank in the wet sand and the rear tires began to spin. The men got out with their guns.

"Carbines," Ben said.

The passenger door opened-three pit bulls leapt out and went for the spike. The spike charged into the water. Billy whistled and the pit bulls stopped. I heard a crack from a rifle. The spike kicked off the bay's sandy bottom and headed for the reef; he bounded through the shallows like a rabbit through a meadow.

Gramma removed her bifocals, folded them up, and stuck them in her shirt pocket. "Lemmee see those glasses," she told Ben. Ben passed the binoculars to me and I handed them to Gramma. She propped her elbows on the window sill, wrapped her gnarled fingers around the binoculars, and stared through the lenses. I heard more cracks. Two men had rifles and they kept firing and missing. Billy pulled a machete out of the truck and he swung the blade at a kiawe tree. A branch sheered off and he swung at another. The spike kept going. When he was over a hundred yards offshore, the shooting stopped.

"Headin' fo' Pailolo Channel," Gramma said. She gave me the

binoculars and I handed them over to Ben.

"He'll never make it," Ben responded.

"How do deer know how to swim?" I asked.

Gramma reached into her pocket and put on her bifocals. "They just do."

We watched the spike make the blue water before the reef. It was too deep for him to spring off the bottom so he began to paddle like a dog. Only his head was visible. Surf crashed over the reef, sending waves against him. He'd close in on the reef but then a series of waves would push him back. The waves were getting bigger because the tide was changing. The island of Maui was due south. I could see the green rectangles of its pineapple fields, patches of red earth, and the purple dome of Mount Haleakala.

The tradewinds carried Billy's voice to us and I heard him giving orders. One man waded out to the boat and lifted the anchor. Billy and the others took turns lifting themselves over the sides and the boat rocked back and forth. Billy jerked the starter cord. The outboard sputtered and died. He jerked a second time and it died again. On the fifth try, the engine caught and they headed out. When the boat was halfway to the reef, Billy turned the engine over to another man.

"Duvas'll eat anythin' with hair on it," Gramma said.

The boat churned through the shallows. The men on board cradled their guns in their arms. Occasionally, Billy stood up to check their progress and to give orders. I felt helpless as the boat closed in on the spike.

"Gramma," Ben said, "get your rifle."

"What fo'?" she asked.

"Shoot over Billy's head."

"An' have that puhi'u fire back?"

Ben put his binoculars down. "I can't just sit here."

"Not a damn thing we can do," Gramma said.

It had been different when Ben spotted poachers hiking the mountain the summer before. "Shoot ova 'em," Gramma had instructed and Ben fired his .22 rifle as fast as he could pull the trigger. He could rain fifteen shots in ten seconds and Gramma shot her .219 from the Great War. I was in charge of Ben's ammo box-while he blasted, I counted out his next fifteen rounds. Bullets flew across the public road and we kept shooting and loading until the poachers vanished. It had been great fun. You could get away with crazy things like that with Gramma. Later, Ben told me he'd shot to kill and that he aimed only a little higher to make up for the distance.

But the ocean was different. Gramma's property began and ended at the shore. Out in the water, the Duvas made the rules. They could drop nets or ulua lines in the shallows in front of Gramma's house. We watched the boat close to within fifty feet of the spike. Billy stood at the bow but the boat hit a wave and he was forced to sit.

"Does the spike have a chance?" I asked.

"They'll put him in the imu," Ben said.

"If he can just make the reef," Gramma said. "Billy can't follow 'im ova the reef."

Gramma was right. It was too shallow for a boat to pass safely over the coral ledge. The propeller would tear into the ledge and the hull would scrape. If Billy wanted to continue, they'd be forced to turn around and use the harbor. By that time, the spike would be out in the open ocean. The channel was choppy and the swells created valleys of water that would make him hard to spot. I knew the spike had the stamina to swim the seven miles to Maui because Gramma had seen herds of deer make the crossing.

"Go, li'l fulla," Gramma said, "go."

"Go!" I pleaded.

The man at the outboard accelerated through the blue water and wedged the boat between the spike and the reef. The spike lost his momentum and his head disappeared underwater. The boat pulled alongside. I heard hooves kick the boat and it seemed as if the Duvas were trying to make a rescue. Waves broke over the bow, showering the men. Billy aimed his rifle down and I heard a crack. Then came a second crack. "Disgustin'," Gramma said, shaking her head.

"Can't believe it," Ben said as watched through the binoculars. "What?" I asked.

"Billy missed," he answered, "at point blank!"

The spike changed directions and swam for shore. The pit bulls ran up and down the beach barking. Billy put the gun down and shouted something to the driver. The boat spun around. This time, they went straight for the spike and the bow slammed into him. His front legs came high out of the water and kicked-it was as though he was trying to run through the sky. "Why don't they just end it," Gramma said.

"He's still got a chance," I said.

Ben smirked. "You're a fool, Jeff."

Billy got on his knees. He was holding the machete. He held the blade low and dragged it across the spike's neck. The deer cried the way a baby cries. He kicked his hooves against the boat and pushed away. The driver floated the boat closer. Billy leaned over again with the machete and the spike reared up off the bottom and struck Billy in the head with his hoof. "Yes!" Ben said.

Billy put a hand to his forehead to check for blood. Then he reached down and grabbed the spike by one of his horns. He lifted the spike's head out of the water and used the machete with the other. The spike squirmed and kicked frantically but Billy wouldn't let go.

"I don't know 'bout ya kids," Gramma said, "but I've seen enough." She got up slowly with her empty mug. She made her way to the steps, opened the screen door, and let it close behind her. She switched on the TV-the theme song for "All My Children" played. "That spike's pau," Ben said.

One man held the spike by the legs and a second helped him drag the body into the boat. Billy dipped his machete in the water and wiped off the blade with his hand. The boat headed back. Laughter and shouting came from the point. Children were playing on the beach. A teenage boy sat in the white truck with his hands on the wheel. A woman in a muumuu waved at the boat. Billy waved back from the bow; his orange shirt flapped in the breeze like a flag. Ben stood and offered me the binoculars.

"No," I said.

He nodded and placed them on the sill. He climbed the steps and joined Gramma in the livingroom.

I studied the water. The trade winds howled and whitecaps danced the surface. Maui seemed a long way off. There was so much ocean out there that it made me feel empty and lost, as if part of me was sinking beneath the waves.

© Kirby Wright