The End of the Dream by Ann Rule Read Free Book Online Page B

between Kevin and
    Scott. They were both so full of energy. They were intrepid and
    unassuming, “ Marge said. “That could describe them both’intrepid and
    unassuming.” The two men always signalled to each other with hawk cries,
    and beyond their Light foot and Thunderbolt nicknames, Scott called Kevin
    “Bubba.” Kevin called Scott a half dozen names, “Willy, “
    “Willie boss, “
    “Tarzan, “ and “Wilbur.” Scott liked “Willie boss” the best. He liked to be in charge. Kevin and Scott were dedicated, tireless hikers, and they explored Hawaii’s most isolated spots, stumbling across secret places.   They hiked from Lahaina to the Halekala Crater to the Seven Sacred Pools. They walked along pig paths, through jungles, and along the sea.   They could be tormenting almost sadistic about it, especially when they offered to lead friends on hikes. For them, the steep climbs and the tortuous crawls through overgrown pig paths full of thorns and sharp branches were easy. Their charges begged for mercy before the hikes were over and lived to rue the day they signed up, returning covered with scrapes, cuts, scratches, and bruises.
    The buddies swam and snorkeled and body surfed. They found a cliff at Koko Head where the ocean churned violently seventy-five feet below.
    Only the very reckless would leap from there, but Scott and Kevin cannonballed into the white surf below over and over again. From then on, they demanded an “initiation jump” from any visitor who came to stay at The Shire Plantation. On the way from the airport, they stopped beside the roaring ocean and refused to budge until their hapless visitors jumped. Only Scott’s parents were allowed to decline.
    And Marge. “We got almost everyone else to agree to jump, “ Kevin smiled, remembering. “But they didn’t realize that was only part of it, once they were airborne, they had to figure out how to get out of the surf below and then find a way to make it back up the hill.”
    “They could never make me jump, “ Marge remembered. “I told them that I was there to take pictures, and I couldn’t get the camera wet.” More menacing even than the precipitous drop were the sea caves in Shark’s Cove below.
    Kevin and Scott found an underwater tunnel that they called “The Dragon’s Mouth.”
    “You could barely see light at the end of the tunnel, and, if you held your breath and swam through, “ Marge said, “you were on the ocean side of the cove when you came to the surface.
    “ When molten lava had hit the water long before, it had curled The Dragon’s Mouth into myriad stone fingers. Some of the tunnels even went far back into the cliff itself. Holding their breath, the two men trusted that they would pop up out in the ocean before they ran out of oxygen. Marge went with them once and almost drowned before she could find an outlet to the path she had chosen to take. Marge remembered one of the things Scott had told her on the first night she met him.
    When they spoke of the things they wanted to accomplish, he had told her the one goal he truly wanted to realize was to save a life. And he did.   “It was a doctor.. . from the mainland who was on vacation, “ she said.
    “The man had gone out too far and couldn’t get back .. . I never met the person, but Scott did see the doctor again. He took Scott out to dinner and Scott took him cliff jumping.” The three of them got along great in a platonic way that spring of 1976.
    Marge kept house and added a woman’s touch to The Shire. While they planted flowers outside, she brought them into the house.
    Often Kevin and Scott had work to do in Honolulu for Hawaii Plant Life and they came home only on weekends. They were glad to find that Marge had taken care of everything in their absence. If Kevin knew that she had romantic feelings for him, he avoided any discussion about it.
    Things were perfect the way they were. On one of their hikes, Scott and Kevin came across a field of