Chapter 8
Peter Gets Named
Early on in my story I introduced you to young Peter Monroe and now I keep talking about Paniolo Pete. Well, they’re one in the same. Let me tell you the story of how Paniolo Pete got his name.
Many years ago, when Uluwehi Ranch was still a fairly small spread, there was a shortage of men available in Hawai‘i who were trained to work cattle. It had all started more than 100 years before in the days of King Kamehameha the Great. An English sea captain gifted the King a few head of cattle. He made the cattle kapu. In Hawai‘i, kapu means “forbidden” or “sacred.” The King turned the cattle loose on the Big Island and prohibited anyone from hunting or killing them. A few years later, the first horses were brought to Hawaii. The Hawaiians didn’t know much about ranching or working cattle or riding horses, and for many years the animals multiplied and roamed free on the Big Island. Eventually, Spanish-Mexican cowboys were imported to the Islands to teach the Hawaiians how to handle these great herds. The native islanders called them paniolos, from the Spanish word Español. The Hawaiians learned fast, and cattle towns like Kamuela and Makawao soon sprang up throughout the Islands.
But enough of the history lesson, let me get back to my story. Earlier on I mentioned my Hawaiian friend, Keala. His full name is Keala Keaweaheulu Kahiona. The day he and I rode down to Pete’s place so I could thank him for saving my life, those two took a special liking to one another. Pete and I were close friends for many years, but he and Keala had something deeper. Their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, but they were like brothers. Keala always referred to Pete as his hanai (adopted) brother, and I reckon Pete felt the same way about Keala.
It was the Kahiona family who really helped Pete expand his coffee business. It was also Keala’s family that helped Pete increase his herd. The whole Kahiona family would work on the Double ‘P’ Ranch from sun-up till after dark doing whatever needed to be done. Pete could never have accomplished as much as he did without their help. From that first day we rode down to Pete’s ranch, Keala never went back to work for Uluwehi Ranch.
My two friends had finally gotten me all patched up again. We had a hearty breakfast of fresh mango, sweetbread, and Portuguese sausage, and washed it all down with Pete’s great coffee. After we’d eaten, Pete gave us the grand tour of his place. It really wasn’t more than a corral, a house, a good size herd of cattle, and a few acres of coffee trees. But listening to Pete and how proud he was of it, I knew that one day it would be the greatest spread in all of Hawai‘i. Keala knew it too, and it was right then that he made up his mind to stay and help Pete build up his ranch.
“Bill, I no like leave Pete here with no more help,” he told me that day. “You tell the folks up at Uluwehi I say mahalo plenty for everything they done for me and my family, but I don’t like work for them anymore. I stay here and help Pete.”
“I really can’t pay you anything right now,” Pete told him. “But if you and your family want to come stay here and help me out, I’ll give you some land and a share of the profits. You just wait and see. We WILL make a profit!”
“Braddah, you no can give us land. We Hawaiian, and all this our aina. This all Hawaiian land. But me and my ohana (family) come stay and help you. We raise plenty pipi kāne (bulls; male beef) and kope (coffee beans), heh?”
True to his word, the next day Keala arrived with his four sons, two daughters, his beautiful wife, three goats, and a one-eyed dog they called Kolohe.
“Pete, this my ohana. This beautiful wahine is my wife Noelani. This my oldest son Kawika, my two middle sons Keone and Ikaika, and this small buggah is Pekelo. My oldest daughter here is Maile, and the little keiki hiding behind her mother is Pualani. We call her Pua.”
He then introduced all of them to Pete and explained to them that Pete was a paniolo and that from now on, he would be a part of their family. The children were a little shy around Pete at first, that is, all except Pua. She came out from hiding behind her mother and walked right up to Pete. As he bent down to say hello, little Pua surprised everyone (especially Pete!) by throwing her little arms around his neck and giving him a kiss on his rough cheek.
“Aloha Paniolo Pete, you going give me one horse to ride?” Pua asked him in her childlike innocence.
Pete was so flustered by this sincere display of affection, that for the first time since I’d met him, he was speechless. He looked down at that little girl’s face, regained his composure, and with a wink he replied, “Why of course Pua. I’ve got plenty of horses right over there and you can take your pick whenever you’re ready.”
“We go then.” She reached up for Pete’s big old calloused hand and the two of them walked off toward the horses. From that moment on, Peter Monroe became known as Paniolo Pete, and he always had a big soft spot in his heart for little Pua.
Now might be a good time to tell you the truth about the Double ‘P’ Ranch. Most folks think that the double ‘P’ stands for Paniolo Pete, but if you think back for a minute you’ll remember that the ranch was called the Double ‘P’ before he got the name Paniolo Pete. Here’s the story.
When Pete first arrived in Hawai‘i, he was pretty much worn out from spending the last several years aboard a ship with his Uncle Nickel. He’d just turned 18 years old, and after making peace with his family for stowing away when he was 12, he’d spent six hard and physically exhausting years travelling around the world on the open ocean. But the one thing that always stayed with him throughout his entire sailing career was that inner peace he’d felt sitting around the campfire with Nickel and Paco on his grandparent’s land in Portugal.
The day he arrived in Lahaina Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Maui, he decided it was time to stay put for awhile and see if he could recapture that same peace he’d felt so many years ago sitting around a campfire out in the open air. He’d had enough of the sea for awhile.
He told his uncle, “Nickel, I think I’ll be staying here for awhile. If you’d like to take a shot at raising cattle here in these beautiful islands, I’d be pleased to have you as a partner.”
“Son, I’m nothin’ but an old sea dog at heart. If I stay on dry land for too long, I reckon I’d grow tree branches. But if you want a ranch, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ve been savin’ up some money for my old age, and if you’ll have the likes of me, I’d be right proud to be your partner. You stay here and work the ranch, and when I get into my twilight years and the sea won’t have me anymore, I’ll retire here with you and see if I can be of some use.”
This conversation took place on the longboat as they were preparing to land in the whaling town of Lahaina. Pete was a fairly private man, and he never spoke much about his earlier years before I met him. I practically had to pry this story out of him. What I gathered is that in appreciation for his uncle’s trust and financial help, the name Pete chose for his ranch was a constant reminder. The P-P or Double ‘P’ as it was called, stands for Pete & Partner, so he would never forget that he had his uncle’s money invested.
As things turned out, Nickel never returned to Hawai‘i to settle down in his twilight years. He met a Maori woman during a stopover in New Zealand and fell head over heels in love. The last we heard, he was happily married and settled on dry land with a bunch of kids and a cluster of grandkids. No matter what you may have heard, that’s the real truth of how Paniolo Pete and the Double ‘P’ Ranch got their names.