The Menehune and the Well

Wai‘anae, Hawai‘i

                It was the time when even the hardiest streams ran dry and the coconuts got big and fat, summer in Wai‘anae, Hawaii. Wai in Hawaiian means water, so how come there was no water in Wai‘anae? It was, in truth, a combination of a lot of things: drought, deforestation and the massacre of ilihai and koa trees, and sugar proprietors damming and diverting a lot of water over a hundred years ago. Sam stopped at a red light. He looked around. This place was a desert. In truth, it looked more like Nicaragua than Hawaii. This was the place that most of Oahu’s poorest people were pushed off to. The armpit of the island, some locals called it. The light turned green, and Sam drove west down Farrington Highway, along the stretch that ran along the ocean, a very picturesque drive but not a place most would like to live. There was homelessness, drugs, crime, and poverty. In the passenger seat was Sam’s partner, Rico, who was a short but bulky guy. Rico stood a towering five foot seven, but sadly he was a good three inches taller than the driver, Sam. At five foot four, Sam was shorter than just about everybody, and he obviously had issues with his height. As early as high school, Sam had been teased. Some of his classmates had jokingly referred to Sam as a Menehune. Sam had never forgotten. He didn’t want to be no damn Menehune. What he didn’t have in height, he made up for in bulk. Sam was a member of 24 Hour Fitness, and some people joked he was there twenty-four-seven. Still, they had stopped calling him a Menehune.

Menehune were sort of like the Hawaiian version of a leprechaun, except smaller. They didn’t give you wishes if you caught them, but they could perform magic, at least that was how Sam pictured them. And although Sam had Polynesian tattoos on his arms and shoulders and had lived in Hawaii his whole life, he didn’t believe that Menehune were real. They were make-believe like leprechauns, except Menehune were good at building rock walls and fishponds. The Menehune were said to have built the famous Kīkīaola on Kaua‘i; he didn’t think leprechauns were known for building any structures.

                Sam Scanlan wiped the sweat from his brow. The drive to Wai‘anae was always longer than he remembered. Why was Sam driving to Wai‘anae? He was hired to dig a well. That was really all he was told. As he pulled up, the place was past where the neighborhood petered out, and it really became the wild west. A sun-parched stretch of beach and brush. Ancient trees that curled and twisted into a dense underbrush that in places was impassable. The highway stretched for miles to a few more beaches and an army training center, but very few people lived in this area of Oahu. It had a certain isolation to it.

                As Sam and his partner, Rico, turned onto the property, they sloped down a steep rocky driveway passing a mossy rock wall.

“Shoots, I neva even know anybody live out hea, except drifters and druggies,” Sam commented to Rico. There were several homeless camps across the road on the beach, but it was one of those properties that stretched back for miles and was deceptively big. The car slowed down another slope under the shade of trees that looked as if they had been around back when Hawaii had still been an independent country in 1893. Back at the edge of the property, under a tangle of vines and rubble, were the remnants of ancient rock walls and what must have at one time been an ancient Hawaiian village.

                “I don’t know,” Sam joked to his friend Rico. “Yooh tink we should call a kahuna?” They should’ve called a kahuna, but by the time they realized this, it was already too late. They had heavy equipment, as Oahu is mostly lava rock: a rotary drill and a small bulldozer. They looked for a spot where there was a dried-up stream bed, as Wai‘anae has hundreds of streams that have dried up and died. In the 1800’s, sugar proprietors stole most of Wai‘anae’s water by diverting the streams to the North Shore of Oahu so they could grow tons of sugar. These same sugar proprietors later overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii and stole Hawaii’s sovereignty. In fact, in present day Hawaii, it is estimated that 90 percent of the streams are diverted. Sam knew of the history. He also knew sometimes the streams continued underground, sometimes through underground rivers or lava tubes or even, in the case of Hilo, an underground lake. Where the ground sloped lowest, he figured this to be good spot. They started ‘digging’ the pilot hole, which is the first step in digging a well, but didn’t realize there was a lava tube right below where they were digging. The lava tube was extinct for many millions of years but had once spewed lava into the ocean from one of the two mighty volcanoes that made up Oahu. Although there was no danger of lava, the underground tubes had also been used by ancient Hawaiians for burial chambers, so Sam and Rico were hesitant to go down there.

                On the third day of ‘digging’, they discovered the lava tube. As Sam was drilling into an aquifer, there was a cracking sound. Before Sam could pull up, there was a sharp CRACK and the ground partially collapsed, causing a minor landslide. Sam fell to his knees but was luckily not hit by any falling debris. Fortunately, the drill was undamaged, and no one was hurt. When the dust cleared, it had exposed an underground cavern that had been locked off from daylight for eternity.

                “Shoots, I bet it goes to da ocean,” Rico stated, looking down into the blackness.

                “I not goin down there,” Sam said. “Shit, now we really should call a kahuna.”

                He didn’t know the half of it.

“I don’t tink we gonna be able fo’ put da well hea,” Rico commented. He was right.

“Shit, we gonna have fo’ look for another spot,” Sam said.

Since it was around lunchtime, they decided to deal with this problem after lunch, and both proceeded to head to their trucks for grinds.

“I gotta go grab some hot sauce from da Makaha 7-Eleven,” Rico informed him. Sam grabbed his lunch box and decided not to wait for Rico.

Sam was eating lunch in the shade when he heard the strangest noise.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

What was that?

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

There it was again.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

He had never heard anything quite like it.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

 It seemed to be coming from underneath, from the bowels of the earth.

“KKKi…TTTTi…. KKKKi…. TTTTi.”

Sam’s skin turned cold. And then it hit him. He knew where the noise was coming from.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

It was coming from the lava tube.

                “KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

“I ain’t touching dat wit a twenty-foot pole,” Sam said to himself.

At first, he tried to ignore the noise.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

It didn’t sound like any animal that he knew of.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

Possibly some exotic bird. Although it seemed to be saying a word of some sort, it was difficult to make out what the word was. Key or Tea? Or both maybe?

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

Maybe it was a parrot?

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

The sound was certainly not coming from a human, but it had an echo that seemed to transcend time and space. Menehune magic? Sam put his lunch pail down.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

“I goin fo’ regret this,” he said to himself. He grabbed a flashlight and walked over to the lava tube. There was silence, except for the crunching of his boots on the ground.

He tip-toed over to the hole in the ground that he and his partner had made. It was dark and mysterious, and although you could see a few feet down into it, the blackness obscured most of what was down there. The sound had stopped, which caused him to question whether it was even coming from the hole in the first place.  

“Hello,” Sam called down into the hole.

There was no answer and Sam felt a little silly all of a sudden. Still, he felt a presence as if there were something down there, maybe an animal or a bat.

“Anybody down there?” Sam questioned. Still nothing. He thought he heard a rock fall inside the lava tube and a slight echo and reverberation. Sam was squatting over the hole, peering into the darkness, listening for a sound, when a horn went off and startled the shit out of him. Sam jumped out of his skin, almost falling into the lava tube, as Rico erupted with laughter.

After a few phone calls to the owner and a rather lengthy argument, the two decided to knock off for the day. They were invited to drink some beers at a beach park down the road and both men decided to oblige. When they arrived, two Hawaiians were sitting, drinking green bottles and eating poke (raw fish).

“We went Kaua‘i, I tink it was fo’ Pualei’s funeral,” an old man with half his teeth missing was saying when Rico and Sam walked up. His name was Peter.

 “Howzit, braddahs? Grab one cold one an some poke,” said Peter with his missing teeth. Sam and Rico both grabbed a beer and took a seat. There were about four guys in total, spread out randomly; one was sitting on the stump of a tree, two others on a picnic bench, and one guy was standing, smoking under a walking palm or lauhala tree. They were watching the surfers, laughing, and doing what is referred to as talk story.

Eventually, after a few beers, Sam spilled what had happened to him and Rico at the work site.

“Shoots,” Sam explained, “I feel funny saying it, but it reminded me of one Menehune.”

                An old Hawaiian woodcarver named Hanalei explained that he had dealt with Menehune mischief all his life.

“Wen I was small kine I saw one Menehune walking straight up a rock wall.” Hanalei was serious.

“And den a few years back…I swear…Dis one time, one Menehune stole my joint,” Hanalei explained.

Rico and Sam looked at each other. Was he serious? They were waiting for the punchline.

“I was working Hawaii island on dis heiau and we wen smoke afta work,” Hanalei was explaining. “It was around dusk, an we just lit da joint. I got handed da joint an took one hit an den there was a flash of light, an POOF an da joint was gone.”

Sam waited for the punchline.

Rico sipped his green bottle.

It appeared he was dead serious.

Peter said, “Are yooh sure it was one Menehune an not just da pakalolo?” Pakalolo meaning marijuana. Everyone laughed.

After his fifth beer, Sam finally admitted, “I heard da Menehune. It spoke to me.”

“What it say?” Hanalei asked.

“Key or Tea, at least dat what it sounded like,” Sam said honestly.

“Key or Tea what?” Hanalei questioned.

“I not sure,” Sam admitted.

“What else yooh know about Menehune?” Sam asked.

“You always hear educated people say manahune in Tahitian means lowly people, so da Menehune could have just been earlier settlers to Hawaii, but dat’s a bunch of lapuwale. Like I said, as a boy I witness one walk up a wall. An dey small kine buggahs,” Hanalei explained. Lapuwale meaning nonsense.

Sam sipped his beer, unsure what to say.

“Oh, an dey like rock walls,” Hanalei added.

The next day when Sam and Rico pulled up slightly hungover, even in their dazed state, it was obvious that some of the rocks had been moved around in the night. And these were big rocks. What was even more shocking was that a big boulder which was the size of an office desk had been moved close to forty yards. A few feet from where Sam and Rico had been drilling the day before.

“What da fuck? Someone gotta be messing wit us,” Sam said, looking around.

“Maybe keeds playing a prank?” Rico questioned.

Sam was studying the boulder. He thought it not likely that the rock was moved by teenagers but didn’t say so. He walked over to the hole in the ground, the place he had heard the strange sounds yesterday. He peered down into the lava tube, but it was hard to make anything out in the darkness. However, Sam had come prepared; he had with him one of those spotlights. He took the spotlight out of its bag and flipped the switch on. He held it carefully over the hole they had drilled. The underground chamber was suddenly illuminated. It was a tunnel that went into the middle of the earth.

“Yooh sure we should go down there?” Rico asked cautiously.

“Mr. Felicio paying us big money. I just gonna explore a little bit, check if it’s possible to still dig da well,” Sam said seriously.

The ground beneath them was broken and cracked and looked as if it might give way at any moment.

“We most likely gonna have to choose another spot,” Sam said. “So I try to see where the lava tube leads.”

“Makes sense,” said Rico. “Still maybe we should git a kahuna first.”

“Nonsense,” said Sam, though he knew better.

Sam put the spotlight on a stand, and Rico lowered him into the underground cavern. As Sam’s feet dropped into the lower chamber, he heard an echo and felt as if something had changed, but he couldn’t say what. Down there in the dark, blocked off from all sunlight, shadows of everything were different. Sam slowly felt his way along the cool stone. At first the lava tube was wide, but as Sam slowly walked along the cave floor, the chamber began to get smaller and smaller until he was forced to crawl. The space got so small that eventually, Sam was completely blocking the spotlight from above, and he could see nothing but darkness in front of him. He thought he saw movement in the shadows and heard a small rock slip further into the earth.

“I can’t see anyting,” Sam called up to Rico. “Lower the spotlight down slowly.” Rico tied the spotlight to a rope and slowly lowered it down into the lava tube. Sam took the spotlight still attached to the rope and disappeared down the tunnel, leaving Rico holding the end of the rope.

Rico sat alone in silence. This part of the shadow of the mountain was, in truth, a little spooky. He’d be glad when Sam returned. In the distance Rico heard a weird birdcall, “KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

And felt a little scared.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.” There it was again.

Rico was ashamed, but he was nonetheless frightened. Rico tied the end of the rope to the sunken machinery and went to his car. He was nervously fidgeting with his phone when Sam reappeared from the lava tube. Rico could tell by the way Sam moved and his facial expressions that he was excited. What had he found?

Sam’s mouth seemed frozen. “Try…come,” was all he would reply.

“Tell me what’s down there,” Rico insisted, but Sam would only beckon him to follow. They lowered themselves into the lava tube. It was dark and Rico immediately felt claustrophobic. The lava tube got smaller and smaller until they were down on their knees crawling through the darkness.

The tube seemed to go on forever, but that was probably because they were hobbling along very slowly through the darkness. Rico obediently followed, although he was apprehensive.

“Where we goin?” Rico called ahead.

“It won’t be long now,” Sam tried to reassure him, “only a few more feet.

The lava tube had dwindled down to what amounted to a hobbit-hole, and Rico was having trouble squeezing through the space. As he moved, Rico scraped his arm pretty badly. “Shit.”

Rico stopped. He thought about turning around, but even that seemed difficult in this enclosed space. Just as Rico thought Sam might be leading them to certain doom, he smashed his thumb, and it was numb, and he thought about turning back again. Rico was about to speak up, when the darkness seemed to fall away, and they came to a skyward opening.

The Menehune Grotto

“Check it out,” Sam said, astonished.

“Whoa, what is this place?” Rico asked.

They had come through the wardrobe, and Rico could hardly believe what he was seeing. Was it real? The walls seemed to rise a few hundred feet, and Sam judged there was a real potential for dangerous rockslides. He was careful not to get too close to the walls. Hanging from the walls and overhanging ceiling were hundreds of strange, green, circular plants that looked a little like seaweed.

“I not sure,” replied Sam. It had an ancient feeling to it, as if it might have predated Western

contact. In layman’s terms, it might be what one might call a grotto, complete with dozens of unfurling ferns and these strange, blue, claw-like flowers hanging from the walls. The blue flowers made the place seem almost enchanted. There were also ten enormous rocks stacked in a sort of symmetry inside the grotto.

                The whole area was less than a hundred square feet. The place felt sacred, and the rocks almost seemed like guardians watching over the place.

                “Yooh tink this is a heiau?” Rico asked, afraid to touch any of the rocks. A heiau was an ancient Hawaiian temple to one of the old gods, Kāne, Lono, Kanaloa or Ku.

                “It may be,” said Sam, inspecting the formation of rocks. Two of the enormous rocks seemed to be a kāne rock and a wahine rock. Sam understood these represented man and woman. The kāne rock somewhat resembling a phallus, and the wahine rock resembling female genitalia.

                “Is it an altar?” Rico asked, afraid to touch the wahine rock.

                Sam touched the cleft in the enormous boulder of the wahine rock. As he did, the sun seemed to mysteriously go behind a big fluffy cloud. Rico shivered in the morning shade.

                “Can we go?” Rico insisted. “Shoots, I told you we should’ve called a kahuna.”

                “Not yet,” Sam said, inspecting the blue, claw-like flowers.

                “Yooh ever see these before?” he asked Rico. “I tink dey called nuku ‘i‘iwi and dey associated wit Menehune magic.”

                “Shut the fuck up,” Rico said, covering his mouth after he swore.

                “I’m serious,” said Sam.

                “Yooh eva hea da story about da one Menehune?” Sam asked.

                “Which one?” Rico asked.

                “I can’t remember but da Menehune wen use da nuku ‘i‘iwi to disappear. Like POOF!!!” Sam explained. He went over to the claw-like blue flowers, trying to pluck one from its cluster. He was not having much luck.

                “They put the flower behind their ear.” Sam was still trying to break off one of the blue flowers.

                “Yooh sure yooh should be touching dat?” Rico asked.

                From somewhere high above came that strange bird call. It sent a chill down Sam’s spine.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

Sam looked around.

“I tink we should go.” Rico was clearly alarmed.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

Rico was about to scuttle back through the tunnel when he froze. He thought he saw movement among the claw-like flowers, but when he turned his head there was nothing there. Rico could feel his skin rise with goosebumps, what local Hawaiians refer to as chicken skin.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

Behind the flowers was a little indent along the wall, and there were several little figures that Sam thought might be Menehune sculptures. They were only about three to four inches in height.

“Check these out,” Sam called to Rico, who was already trying to wriggle back into the tunnel. Sam picked up one of the sculptures. It had wild hair and, in truth, looked a little like one of those troll dolls that people used to put on pencils and on their desks.

Rico pointed at him and yelled, “KAPU, no touch dat!!!” Kapu meaning forbidden. Sam was entranced with the sculpture; it wasn’t very detailed, but there was just something about it. Once he picked it up, he did not want to put it back down.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

“Come on, let’s go,” Rico was practically begging.

Sam waited for Rico to enter the tunnel, and then he put the Menehune sculpture into his pocket.

“KKKi…TTTi…. KKKi…. TTTi.”

Sam and Rico left the Menehune grotto, not particularly sure what they were hearing or seeing. They would be even more confused the next time they tried to find it.

Menehune Pranks

It was early the next morning. Sam and Rico had come back with the owner of the property. Mr. Felicio was not happy about being dragged all the way out to the bush in Wai‘anae, on the west side of the island where they tried not to send tourists. The morning mist blanketed the ground, giving the property a ghost-like feel. As they pulled down the embankment, it was hard to tell, but Sam thought the rocks were rearranged again, and we’re talking big boulders, not small-sized rocks. He did not bother to ask Rico if he thought the rocks had moved again.

They got out of their vehicles; the owner was looking around; he did not look pleased. He was a thin man, perhaps in his mid-fifties, wearing sunglasses and a business suit. He certainly did not fit the Wai‘anae décor of homeless encampment and tent shelters. He looked uncomfortable and out of place. He was inspecting the collapsed drill. His cell phone rang.

He held up a finger signaling “one moment” and turned to answer the call.

“Si, Si,” Mr. Felicio was saying into the phone; then he hung up and rejoined Sam and Rico inspecting the lava tube.

“What seems to be the problem?” Mr. Felicio asked, but it was obvious the ground had collapsed under the drill.

“Da ground collapsed,” Rico started to say but Sam quieted him. Sam was the brains of the business, so he was best served to do the talking.

“There’s a lava tube that runs under the property. The well needs to be in a different spot,” Sam explained without any signs of his Hawaiian pidgin accent, “but there’s something else we need to show you.”

The owner refused to go down into the lava tube, but Sam and Rico convinced his assistant, Mano, to follow. Mano means shark in Hawaiian, and the assistant was a short muscular Hawaiian/Filipino covered in tattoos. He had a tattoo of a tiger shark or great white shark on his forearm. The three lowered themselves into the lava tube, ready to squeeze through the small passage that led to the grotto Sam and Rico had discovered yesterday. They brought flashlights this time and obviously a phone so they could take pictures of the grotto. They set off down the lava tube, but Sam could tell something was immediately different. The tunnel had sloped off to the right before, now it seemed to burrow on, continuing straight ahead. Surely it was some trick of lighting; yesterday they had had the spotlight.

Sam turned back toward Rico. “Someting is wrong.”

“What?” Rico questioned. He had followed Sam, and did not seem to notice the subtle shift in the tunnel.

“Nevamind,” Sam said, turning back. He followed the tunnel, except this time it clearly didn’t narrow, it just stayed the same size, as the three men easily walked upright through into an underground cavern that was rather spacious. The cavern had a rather high ceiling and an enormous lake at one end, and stretched away into the darkness in every direction.

“We musta taken a wrong turn,” Rico insisted, clearly a little freaked out.

He looked back and forth, but where they had taken a wrong turn seemed to escape him.

Sam was baffled. “I don’t see how that’s possible,” he said honestly.

The owner’s assistant, Mano, was enthralled with the cave. “Is dis what yooh wanted fo’ show Mr. Felicio? Wow, unreal.”

Sam was flustered. “Dis…I mean…it isn’t what we wanted fo’ show you. Dis. Dis. Dis wasn’t hea yestaday.” He couldn’t help but think it had something to do with the Menehune sculpture that was sitting on his end table. The one he had taken from the grotto.

Mano thought they were joking.

“It look like da shark man’s habitat,” Mano laughed. He walked over to the dark lake, peering into the black water. “Definitely spooky. I bet it leads to da ocean.”

“No, seriously,” Sam explained, “Dis wasn’t hea…yestaday da tunnel led somewhere different…It led to a grotto wit ferns an nuku ‘i‘iwi.”

“Eh?” Mano was confused.

“It’s da Menehune flower,” Sam stated.

“So, what yooh tink, one Menehune is fucking wit yooh?” Mano questioned.

“There has to be a second tunnel,” Rico said holding his flashlight against the cave wall and looking for openings. But the walls were solid; it was unexplainable.

“I don’t see one,” said Sam when he had walked the length of the tunnel, feeling his hand along the wall.

“So how do yooh explain what we saw yestaday?” Rico said his voice sounding stressed.

“Menehune magic,” Mano exclaimed. “Dey known fo’ play pranks.”

“I saw what I saw…It’s not possible,” Rico concluded.

They came back above, unsure what to tell Mr. Felicio. Rico looked as if he were about to cry. The owner seemed unshaken by any stories about Hawaiian magic or Menehune.

“Yesterday was a grotto, today is a cavern…I could give a fuck,” Mr. Felicio stated.

“You build the well more toward that side,” Mr. Felicio said pointing to the other side of the property, and he got in his car and left. Mano gave them a shaka as he rode away in the front seat. Sam and Rico were unsure of how to proceed. They gathered up the drilling equipment and started to move it over to the other side of the property. Sam found a spot where the ground sloped downward and figured, “We’ll try an drill hea.”

They started re-digging the pilot hole and Sam saw no reason things weren’t going to work out. Mr. Felicio had offered him a lot of money to dig the well. Sam thought they could finish by week’s end. He was, of course, completely wrong. The hot Kona sun was already beating down and the ground was harder than stone, which slowed their progress considerably. They had to take water breaks every thirty minutes or so to avoid dehydration. By the end of the day, they were almost done with the pilot hole and Sam was confident they could finish within a week or two.

When the drill snapped on the second day, Sam thought nothing of it. Sometimes drills break. He still thought nothing of it when the bulldozer failed to start on the third day. Probably just faulty wiring. It was not until the fourth day when they hit a coral bed that Sam thought of the sculpture and thought some supernatural force might be working against him. Menehune magic? He thought about telling Rico about the sculpture, but he knew Rico would most likely freak out.

It was at this point that Sam did what he should have done from the beginning; he went to see a kahuna. He was out of options. Sam got the address from his Hawaiian friend Williama. The kahuna was a short man who mumbled more than he spoke, but he was supposedly the real deal. His name was Kalama. He was in his mid-forties with long black hair. Sam had met him before, but the kahuna didn’t seem to recognize him. The kahuna sat in a dark room, smoking and staring into the light as it cracked and streaked through the shutters.

“Williama sent me,” Sam explained. He was carrying a small handbag.

The kahuna did not reply, just kept smoking his cigarette, watching the smoke twist and turn like a snake through the light.

“I was hired fo’ dig a well in Wai‘anae an I’ve been having Menehune problems,” Sam explained.

Kalama took a drag from his cigarette. “How so?”

Sam told the kahuna the story all the way up until he took the sculpture, but it appeared the Menehune were not done fucking with Sam Scanlan.

“I don’t know why, but wen I picked up da Menehune sculpture, I just had fo’ take it,” Sam confessed. He motioned down to the handbag he had been carrying.

“Yooh want fo’ see?” Sam asked.

The kahuna did not answer, so Sam assumed he should show him the Menehune statue.

Sam opened the small handbag in which he had placed the Menehune sculpture. He was shocked to see that in the handbag, there was only a lava rock about the same size as the Menehune sculpture. Sam ripped open the bag frantically. “I swear a couple of hours ago this rock was a sculpture.”

The kahuna looked at him. “You should put the lava rock back.”

“I know,” Sam admitted.

Sam explained to the kahuna about the sculpture and why he had taken it.

The kahuna’s cigarette had an unusually long ash on the tip of it. His eyes had turned white. Sam was a little startled and he almost stood up to flee, but before he could the kahuna said, “Mai ho‘opā aku. No touch da Menehune tings,” in a voice that was not his own.

“Yes, sir…and sorry,” Sam said before grabbing the lava rock and leaving.

The next day, Sam returned the lava rock to the lava tube. Despite their malfunctioning equipment, they continued the dig. He thought everything might be okay. He had done as the kahuna had advised, and there was no more mention of Menehune. Still, it was slow going, but on the third afternoon they picked up a new drill and were confident they could complete the project within a few days. Sam could imagine cashing that fat paycheck, but it was not to be. It was on Friday right before quitting time that Sam had the second accident at the job site.

They had almost completed the entire well, but Sam’s idea to look for more than one aquifer, so the well would be abundant with water, backfired. Sam was using the drill, trying to go deep down to a second aquifer. There are lots of pockets of water trapped between the lava rock. Sam was drilling when the ground underneath him began to tremble and shake. Sam heard a ripping sound, like a giant was opening a birthday present. The whole event felt surreal to him. Then Sam was falling. At first it was only a few feet, but then there was a second crack and Sam plummeted down. Down into the bowels of the earth.

Sam rubbed his eyes; he was pretty sure he was dreaming or unconscious. Had there been a landslide? Had he fallen almost twenty feet down onto a precipice of jagged lava rock? He couldn’t tell. The light was only filtering in from somewhere above, but it was hard to see in the shadows. He looked around, trying to turn his body. His back was badly scratched up and the drill was totaled.

“Fuck,” Sam said, thinking they hadn’t even had the drill a full week.

Sam tried to get up, but his leg was badly hurt, and it made it difficult for him to stand. Then he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. Something tiny in the shadows. Sam rubbed his eyes again; now he was really sure he was dreaming or unconscious. At first it seemed as if the creature was afraid to show itself, but as Sam stared it down, it eventually stepped from the shadows. Sam was amazed at how small the creature was. It was not the size of a midget or a leprechaun, it was downright tiny, maybe the size of an apple or a smurf. It looked like the sculpture. Was that it? Had the sculpture come to life, or was he dreaming?

Sam struggled to get up, but again found he could not. Sam looked up for help, but there was none. Where was Rico? He tried not to look. He covered his eyes, but when he uncovered them, the creature was still standing there.

“What are you?” Sam asked the creature, not wanting to believe what he was seeing.

“I think you know,” said the creature in what was a high-pitched voice that sounded more like a bird than a human.

Although the creature looked sort of like a tiny man, it was clear he was not, he was something entirely different. The creature had a little goatee and was wearing a tiny loincloth. Sam covered his eyes, hoping the creature would go away, but when he uncovered them, the tiny thing was still standing there.

“What do you want?” Sam asked the creature.

“I have a message for you,” said the Menehune. “We are the protectors of the forest and its resources. You cannot have this underground aquifer. It is the property of the forest.”

“Ola I ka wai,” the Menehune said, which means water is life in Hawaiian.

“So…You…Are…Why?” Sam pleaded, hoping this nightmare would end.

“It is none of your concern,” explained the creature. “People talk about foreigners stealing the land, but what is not commonly known is that companies and corporations are still stealing Hawaii’s water to this day,” the Menehune explained.

“What if I just start to dig in a different spot?” Sam asked.

“You can dig, but it will never go well,” said the Menehune without a hint of irony.

“But I was paid a lot of money to build that well,” Sam complained.

“Money will never be worth what water is to the creatures of this planet…I’m sorry, I’m afraid this water is not for you. We need it. One day we will start our own corporation…We got a name picked out and everything…Menehune Water Company has a nice ring to it. What do you think?” Sam could not tell if the Menehune was joking or not. There was already a corporation called Menehune Water Company; Sam didn’t figure it was run by Menehune. He was in too much pain to care. Shortly after that, Sam passed out. The fire department had to be called in so they could hoist the injured Sam out of the hole he had fallen into. It was a whole debacle. Months later, Sam refused to go back to the job; he told Mr. Felicio that the land was cursed, and he didn’t want any part of it. Mr. Felicio hired two more contractors but neither of them was able to finish the well either. Both ran into oddities or difficulties on the job site.

“I told you that land is cursed,” Sam said, drinking a green bottle, not wanting to mention the Menehune or his recent string of nightmares.

Sam would still say he doesn’t believe in Menehune, but that would be a lie. Sam joined a pro-Hawaiian group and tried to be more sensitive about land and water issues facing the ‘aina and the Hawaiian people. Sam even did a little charity work to try and ease the soul. Still, sometimes Sam wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks he sees the creature walking around on his mattress, but then he reminds himself that when he fell, it was only a dream and Menehune aren’t real.