A Glibertarians Exclusive: License to Kill, Part V

Oahu, June 1946

Paul squeezed the trigger.

The 152-grain M2 ball bullet slammed into the Thompson’s drum magazine, wrecking it and sending the big sub-machine gun flying.  The meathead who had been holding let out a screech of agony; his right had had been holding the gun’s pistol grip with his finger inside the trigger guard, and now he held up the mutilated hand, with three fingers broken and his trigger finger degloved by the Thompson’s trigger guard.

“Go!” Paul shouted.

A volley of rifle fire from Henry Houlihan, Dugan Jefferson and Sam Kendall slammed into the trees over the Iowan’s heads.

The meathead who had been wielding the Thompson was on his knees, clutching his ruined hand and screeching in agony.  Danny Greene ran to him, took one look at his hand, and grimaced.  The other big farm boy crashed through the brush to Danny’s side, looked at his friend’s hand and went pale.

“Come on,” Danny said.  “Leave him here.  They’re running – can’t you hear them?”

“Yeah, I hear them.”

They pushed through the jungle to the bottom of the ridge they had just crested. “There – up that valley.”

Paul was stumping towards the valley mouth, leaning on his cane with one hand and the Springfield in the other.  “Go on,” he called to the others.  “Head up to that spot.”  Don’t give anything away, he reminded himself.  Don’t name anyone or anything in the clear.  He looked up – he was in the mouth of the small valley.  I sure hope Apikala’s uncle knows what he was talking about.  Ahead, dimly, in the dark forest, he could see the old man dogtrotting along, gesturing, calling out in flowing Hawaiian.

Then Paul’s wooden leg tangled in a vine, and he went down, hard.  He dropped the Springfield and landed in a pool of stinking, stagnant water.

Danny Greene heard the splash.  He looked at the remaining farm boy.  Gesturing with the .38 he held in his right hand, Danny ordered him, “Go on – get after the others.”  Then, drawing his own revolver, he pushed into a thick patch of undergrowth.

He found Paul O’Doull struggling to regain his footing.  “Oh, no you don’t,” Danny told him.  He saw the rifle laying in the brush nearby, picked it up, tossed it away.  He pointed his .38 at Paul’s head.  “Where are the others going?  How many of them are there?  Where’s Aunt Maggie?”

“Kiss my ass,” Paul told him.

“Not likely.”  Danny aimed the .38.

A wailing sound came from farther up the valley. For the briefest moment, Danny Greene dismissed it as the wind, until he heard a startled squawk from the big farm boy he had sent after the others.  There was a great crashing in the brush and the farm boy emerged.

“RUN!” he shouted and proceeded to do just that.

“What the hell?” Danny lowered the .38 a tad, looked up at the valley.  The wailing grew louder.

Paul reached carefully down to his wooden leg.  Just above the hem of his baggy boondocker shorts, there was a small wooden panel on the prosthetic’s thigh; Paul slid the panel open and produced a Colt Pocket Model, a little .32 automatic.  He aimed at Danny Greene’s arm.

The wailing was coming closer.  Danny squinted.  There was something, some things, racing through the jungle, coming straight at him.  He raised the .38 and fired.

Paul pulled the trigger on the .32.  Danny gasped as the bullet tore through his bicep.  His .38 crashed into the weeds.

The wailing things were on them then.  They seemed to ignore Paul, but they didn’t ignore Danny Greene.  Wailing, insubstantial things, they swirled around the Iowan gangster, wailing, howling, gibbering.  Danny screamed in terror and fled, clutching his arm, with the wailing… things still swirling around him.

Paul struggled to his feet as the wailing and gibbering subsided slowly in the distance.  He put the .32 back in the hideout compartment in his leg, then retrieved the .38 and dropped it in his pocket.  The Springfield lay a few steps away; he was just picking that up when Henry Houlihan and the others reappeared.

“Where did they go?” Henry asked.

“Ran like scalded cats,” Paul told them.  “What the hell were those things?  What the hell just happened?”

Sam Pualani walked up.  “As I told you,” he said.  “They are the ʻuhane nahele.  I called them to protect the jungle and its people.  As my father taught me.  I called and they came.”

“And they scared the living shit out of those mobsters,” Paul agreed.  “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“Sure as hell,” Henry Houlihan agreed.

Paul nodded.  From somewhere out in the jungle, the wailing of the ʻuhane nahele was still audible, as were the cries of the gangsters they pursued.

“Come on – let’s get back to Sam’s, make sure the girls are all right.”

***

Waterloo, Iowa, August 1946

“You said it was what?”  Micah Gilliard looked up from behind his desk at his nephew, who had just arrived from the airport.

“Swear to God, Uncle Micah.  Goddamn ghosts.  Spirits.  Something, I don’t know what.  They came howling down that valley, scared the shit out of us.  Never seen anything like it.”  Without invitation, Danny Greene went to the sideboard and poured himself a good dose of Micah’s fine whiskey.  “All I know is, I ain’t going back there.  It’s not just the spooks.  That old Marine Aunt Maggie’s hooked up with, he’s got a bunch of buddies.  And they all have guns.”

“You’re nuts.”

“I’m not.  Ask the boys, they’ll back me up.”  He took a slug of whiskey.

Micah looked at his nephew with disgust.  “Get out,” he snapped.  “Let me think about this.”

“I ain’t going back there,” Danny repeated before he walked out, his whiskey glass in his hand.

Micah Gilliard looked up.  Across the office from his desk was a large mirror.  Micah didn’t normally pay it much mind; it had been there since before old John Gilliard had dies.  Now, Micah looked at his reflection, he saw a man that had managed to rebuild a lot of what old John had lost.

A lot of what he lost was because of Maggie’s running off with that peg-legged wonder, he thought.  But we’re into the diminishing returns, now.  I need to look ahead.  I have to keep rebuilding. The family needs to look ahead, not back.

***

Honolulu, September 1946

Paul and Maggie were enjoying a quiet afternoon when the knock on the door came.  Paul pushed himself to his feet.  “At least I got that toilet in Unit 4 fixed.  Wonder what it will be now.”

He opened the door to find not one of their tenants but a Western Union delivery boy.  “Telegram for you, sir,” the boy said.  “Sign here please?”

Maggie walked up behind him as Paul signed, tipped the kid a quarter, and closed the door.  He scanned the telegram printout.

“Well,” he grinned at Maggie.  “What do you know about that?”

Maggie took the message form and read:

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. STAY IN HAWAII AND WE WILL CALL IT QUITS.  – MICAH GILLIARD

Maggie grabbed Paul and kissed him.  “Well,” she said.  “What do you know about that?”

“I know we have a lot of carefree, happy years ahead,” Paul said. “I think that things are going our way at last. And I think that’s worth another kiss.”

Maggie demonstrated her agreement with enthusiasm.

***

Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool,

And when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled.

Oh, man is opposed to fair play,

He wants it all and he wants it his way.

 

Now, there’s a woman on my block,

She just sit there as the night grows still,

She say who gonna take away his license to kill?