There's a part-Hawaiian in town who lives two lives. As Kiks Hugo, he is captain of the pilot boat in Honolulu Harbor. As Wai Kiki, his ghost name, he performs miracle rescues to save people from drowning, auto accidents, fires and other calamities.

He says an inner voice tells him, "Someone is in trouble at such and such a place. Go and help."

Once the voice told him, while he was trying to sleep in Honolulu, that he should go to Kualoa Regional Park. He said he tried for more than an hour to shut out the voice but finally cranked up his Harley-Davidson and drove to the park.

Ambulances and police cruisers had already arrived. He was too late. Children on a Sunday school picnic had been caught in the current while wading out to Mokoli'i, the islet commonly known as Chinaman's Hat. From then on, he listened to the voice.

Now Hugo is putting his rescues on paper. The first series is recorded in a self-published book called "Something Told Me." He said his second book will explain what happened on board Hokule'a on the voyage that took the life of surfer Eddie Aikau. Hugo was a member of the crew.

The first volume has a chapter about a wild semi-trailer truck ride down the Pali Highway when his brakes failed in the 1970s.

According to the story, the truck went around the hairpin turn at 55 mph and was going 85 mph by the time it reached Castle Junction. He said he didn't turn onto the runaway truck ramp because it would have killed him. The speed topped out at 120 mph at the bottom of the hill. Hugo said he got the truck under control as the Pali Highway went uphill.

His first experience with saving people happened while he was attending a family picnic at Ala Moana Beach Park when he was 8.

Hugo swam out, then realized he was beyond his limit. He dived to escape the current and saw the body of a boy at the bottom. Terrified, he swam for shore but the voice told him to go back. So he pulled the boy to shore. The boy survived after his lungs were pumped out at the old Kaiser Hospital.

As a tour-bus driver, he accepted a late assignment to pick up hotel guests. While waiting in the zoo parking lot, he spotted the gleam of a ring in the bushes. He found the body of a woman who had been badly beaten. Hugo flagged down a police cruiser. The woman survived. Hugo believes someone's prayer led him there.

He described saving the member of a canoe team in huge waves during a Moloka'i-to-O'ahu canoe race, and saving a child from being hit by a car.

His book is on sale at Native Books.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.