The defectors and the Concerned Relatives, strangers thrust together, were sprawled together on mattresses and bare floors in two rooms decorated simply with a mobile and print fabrics. In the dark, some peered out at us expectantly, others pretended to sleep.
As we talked in the kitchen, some locals entered with a pounding of feet that put everyone on alert. One carried a shotgun, one a machete. The woman loaned them a couple of knives, including an eighteen-incher probably used to whack off coconut husks. It was the kind of arsenal a worried homeowner would keep to ward off an occasional burglar, not what you would want to battle a small army. If it came down to fighting, our only hope was that the sound of gunfire and our shelter—flimsy though it was—would buy us time to scatter into the jungle.
Once Javers, Krause and I had got some of the fretting out of our systems, we took our notebooks and with help from the defectors compiled a list of the casualties, missing and uninjured. As things stood, one out of every six people in the party was dead. One out of three was wounded. A half-dozen people were missing somewhere in the bush, condition unknown.
Jim Cobb and several of the defecting children were among them. Of Cobb, Bob Flick had said, “If anyone will make it, he will.” Sixteen-year-old Tommy Bogue was also missing, wounded in the leg it turned out. His father was not worried: “He knows the bush. He’ll lead out those other kids who ran with him.” I was not so sure that terrified children or adults, possibly wounded, could withstand much exposure and keep their wits about them in the dark jungle, but I said nothing to deflate anyone’s optimism.73
When the list was done, we reporters made a pact—no one would interview anyone for the time being. Keeping quiet was important, and none of us was in the mood to debrief the fearful, tired and grieving bodies in the adjoining rooms. Our own exhaustion was warded off by coffee which the lady of the house, Elaine, made Guyana-style-strong with a generous pour of milk. She also served us Pepsi and ice water from a long freezer used as a cooler.
This petite hospitable woman with a wispy, dark-eyed daughter who hid shyly behind her apron expressed sympathy for our plight. Apparently Amerindian or East Indian, she maintained an aura of peace and quiet determination. She survived the night gracefully, unfazed by the American strangers packed in her bedrooms and lounging around her kitchen, smoking, drinking and talking.
Again I was moved by the generosity of these rural people, who had exposed themselves to possible revenge for strangers. We did not have to ask them for the things we obviously needed, and they responded with ungrudging willingness when we asked for less apparent things. On the table before us was a large bottle of aspirin, the sum of our medical stash. Wounds caused Javers and me some discomfort, and we were not sure how seriously hurt we were or whether infection had set in.
“Is there a doctor in the town?” someone asked.
“There’s a dispensary,” Elaine said apologetically. “The woman there is afraid to come.”
Dale Parks, short hair and long sideburns aging him a few years, leaned around the room partition, then came in. Explaining that he had worked as a medical therapist at University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, and as an assistant to Larry Schacht in Jonestown, Parks inquired about our wounds.
Setting to work, he bandaged Javers’s shoulder, which was pierced by a single bullet wound—a small clean hole with no sign of an exit. The bullet would have to come out eventually. Parks turned to Elaine. “Do you have any merthiolate, iodine, alcohol?”
“No,” she said.
“There’s rum,” someone said.
“How ‘bout vodka?” Parks said. “It’s almost straight alcohol.”
Elaine shook her head. “We have gin.”
“That’ll have to do.”
After bandaging Javers, Parks cut and pulled the crude wrappings from my arm. It was a strange feeling—one Temple member treating wounds inflicted by another. There was no more gauze, so he asked for sheets, cloth, anything. Elaine went into the next room and brought back filmy white curtains that she no doubt prized. When my arm was bandaged and the time was right, I took Elaine aside and slipped another twenty-dollar bill into her hand. She attempted to give it back, but I insisted. She tried again. “Please,” I said.
“But water costs nothing,” she protested.
One of our guards, the one with the military training, joined us at the kitchen table. Cigarettes were passed around. Puffing deeply, he related a little about his military career, the various weapons he had learned to use. And, loyal to his old employer, he expressed confidence that the Guyanese Defense Forces would reach us in the nick of time. “It won’t be much longer.”
The few times that a truck engine ripped away the silence, an alert was called. Our hearts leaped. Each time the rumble conjured up images of that Temple dump truck with a dozen or more armed fanatics. Each time Elaine or one of the men recognized the vehicle by the timbre of the engine and identified the owner. That relieved me every time, except once, when they said, “Oh, that’s Mike’s truck.”
With an exchange of greetings and loud footsteps on the hardwood floors Mike, the owner of the other disco, appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. He said hello to Javers, Krause and me, putting all of us on edge. He stayed for only a few moments, then walked into the main part of the disco. When we asked whether it was not true that he was a Temple sympathizer, our hostess said, “He was afraid to go home because Peoples Temple might come there and find him.” Sensing our suspicions, she assured us, “He’s all right. He’s scared too.”
Most reassuring was the tapping of rain on the roof. The sound insulated us from the outside world, making it impossible to key on footsteps and other relatively subtle noises. Perhaps eventually it would conceal the approach of assailants; for the moment, it meant we could shed a little tension.
Occasionally, a defector would step into the kitchen and announce the need to relieve his or her bladder. As the person slipped outside, he or she would quickly close the back door so the rest of us would not be open sniper targets. This routine was repeated several times before I went out with some others.
The worn ground was slick as wet marble, and household junk was stacked randomly among the glistening trees. The pungent smell of wet earth cleared my head; again it occurred to me that my chances might be better on my own. A night in the rain was tolerable, and certainly I would be more inconspicuous alone at the edge of the bush. But I needed the camaraderie, and the illusion of strength in numbers.
Back inside at the table with my two colleagues, that tradeoff between comfort and security became even clearer to me. Of all the members of our reporting crew, I had wound up with the two least physically formidable. Under normal circumstances, that would not have been a consideration. Tonight it was: all of us foresaw violent scenarios.
Krause—nicknamed “Ralph” by the NBC crew because of his Ralph Lauren jeans—stood about five feet seven, smoked heavily and spoke with the confident, nasal tones of one who told officials he had journeyed to Guyana to report on a picture larger than the Peoples Temple story.
Javers, a self-described Philadelphia kid with a scraggly beard and an enterprising spirit, had impressed me as a talented reporter. But he seemed to believe that we could defend ourselves if a band of gunmen kicked open the doors and blazed away. We would pick up the table before us and hurl it at our attackers, he suggested, though both of us had only one usable arm.
“What time is it?” I asked. Midnight passed, but the other time-posts inched by. I yawned again and again, exhausted, yet too wired to sleep. Conversation was a therapeutic, time-passing device.
Subconsciously, as the squalls picked up, we keyed our senses on the sounds outside. We listened to the metallic tapping of rain on the roof. Minutes dragged on, and the conversation lagged. Then it happened. A boom like the ones on the airstrip reverberated through the house. Out front, where the guards were posted, there was a scramble of feet on hardwood and urgent shouts. With a collect
ive gasp, we all hit the floor or froze. I crouched against an interior wall, reaching for a knife in my pocket. Javers took shelter, and Krause darted into a small bedroom occupied by the little girl.
An eternity later, one of our protectors came back to inform us that the “shotgun blast” was a rotted branch that had plunged to the roof after absorbing enough rain to snap off. After a general release of tension, we went back to our posts and marked time.
After a while, chills rippled through my body. My clothing was damp, and I had been sitting still too long. Javers asked Elaine for a blanket. With the wool around my shoulders, my shivers stopped.
Soon, another boom shook the house with a percussion that could only have been caused by gunpowder. “Christ,” someone cried. Like the first time, the defectors hit the floors and pressed themselves to walls. Javers and Krause bolted out the back door into the rain. Another wet branch.
After a while, I went into the darkened rooms with the defectors. Krause was already asleep. I shared a mattress on the floor with Javers, but was unable to doze off. Even when I shut my eyes, events replayed themselves. Sleep was impossible. Rest was less important to me than being ready for whatever might happen, so after an hour or so of tossing I returned to the kitchen.
As morning slowly approached, Dwyer paid us one of his periodic visits. He said that Guyanese troops would be coming by train from Matthews Ridge, thirty miles to the north. Apparently the government had not wanted to risk ambush by flying airplanes to an unsecured airfield at night. We had heard reports of imminent rescue before and were not relieved.
Before daybreak, a barely audible whistle wended its way to us, shrill and soulful. “What was that?”
“The train,” said Harold Cordell, his back against a wall in the darkened room, his knees drawn up.
My heart quickened. “Are you sure?”
“I heard it every day in Jonestown,” he said. “That’s it.”
Nevertheless, we were not home safe yet. The next reports took the edge off our tired elation. The troops were not taking the train all the way to town; apparently concerned that the cars might be dynamited or otherwise sabotaged, the Guyanese forces were marching the last several miles, very warily and slowly.
Some of the defectors joined us in the kitchen. We chatted casually for a while, then the notebooks came out. With Cordell doing most of the talking, the defectors told us which members had done the shooting at the airport. There was disagreement about some identities.
“You’re gonna see the worst carnage of your life at Jonestown,” Cordell interjected without warning. “It’s called ‘revolutionary suicide.’ ”
In the cover of night, as the train slowly made its way toward Port Kaituma, Stanley Clayton, a cousin of Black Panther Huey Newton, fearfully made his way along the muddy road from Jonestown to the tiny river port.
Clayton had lacked the gumption to step forward and accept passage out with Congressman Ryan, but he had had the street smarts and survival instincts to escape on his own. He had been standing around in the kitchen after the Ryan party left, getting ready to fix the evening meal.
Then, like the blanket of black clouds overhead, a strange mood fell over Jonestown. People were quiet, expectant. No more cries of children nor buzzing machinery; no scurrying feet along the boardwalks. The music had stopped. Everything was suspended, in shock. The banter and loud talk ceased; whispers took over. What did they feel? What did they think would happen? Were they upset that some—mostly white people—had abandoned them? Did they regret not having left themselves? Did they believe the trouble would blow away in time like the storm clouds?
Clayton heard Marceline Jones’s amplified voice, shrill and worried, ordering everyone to quarters. About twenty minutes later he heard the command for assembly in the pavilion. He had picked up the news that Don Sly had tried to kill the congressman. He had seen someone come into the kitchen and haul away a large metal vat. Then Lew Jones came to tell him to report to the pavilion, along with everyone else. And Clayton obeyed.
At about 5:00 P.M., Maria Katsaris ran up to Mike Prokes on one of the pathways. A group of armed members had gone after Ryan, she said. “It’s out of control.” She told him to meet her at Jones’s cabin, West House. He took off as instructed.
In the pavilion, hundreds of people waited on the benches or stood around, still in their finest clothes. An eerie silence hung over them. Tim Carter was struck by the blank stares on the faces of many. On stage, a young woman freaked out. She danced and screamed uncontrollably. “I’m going to be a freedom fighter!” Paralyzed by apprehension and the absolute quiet, no one moved a hand to stop her. For five minutes or so, she babbled incomprehensible slogans. Finally, someone subdued her.
A short distance away, Maria Katsaris encountered Tim and Mike Carter near Mr. Muggs’s cage. She asked Tim to lend a hand to Mike Prokes—he would need help lugging out a big suitcase. First she wanted Tim to change his clothes, then report to West House.
In the pavilion on an elevated section of stage, in his prison-green chair, with the sign above his head—THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT—Jones sat above his people. There in front of him, their faces upturned, were his “children,” over nine hundred who had followed him for many miles and many years. The time-wrinkled and weathered faces of the elderly, some who in reaches of memory could call up images of a fresh-faced boy-man spouting with the best evangelists in Indiana. The old ladies from Watts and the Fillmore, who struggled down the steps of Temple buses with puffy ankles and felt the glow in the services, the warmth of family. The former millhands, nurses, clerks, teachers, truck drivers and longshoremen. Those who chose the South American bush over the slow death of urban jungle. Those who came needing help, and those who came to give it. The idealists. The true socialists. The teen-agers, such as Judy and Patricia Houston, at the threshold of adulthood. The professionals, such as Gene Chaikin, and the students, such as Johnny Brown Jones and Harriet Tropp, ready to begin careers. The smaller children, growing and learning, several hundred of them. The three dozen babies who had been born in Jonestown.
“How much I have loved you,” Jim Jones began. “How much I have tried to give you a good life.”
As the applause died down, he went on. “In spite of all I have tried, a handful of people ... have made our life impossible. There’s no way to detach ourselves from what’s happened today.... We are sitting here waiting on a powder keg,” he said, fear tinging his voice.
The man whose voice had slurred and whose thoughts had faltered during the Ryan visit was alone again with his family. No outsiders were present; only the tape recorder monitored what he said. He was in his loft, with his audience captive. His pliant voice almost whined in sadness, hopelessness. Gently he lifted them and carried them along, bending and choosing his words, breaking it to them slowly.
He declared: “It is said by the greatest prophets from time immemorial, ’No man takes my life from me; I am laying my life down.’ ” His people shouted, “Right! Right!” as they had so many times before when he spoke of dying for the cause. Yes, this was what he wanted to hear. “As Jack Beam often said, ‘If this only worked one day, it was worthwhile,’ ” he told them to cheers.
Speaking of impending violence, of catastrophe on Ryan’s airplane, he reminded them, “It almost happened here. The congressman was almost killed here. You can’t steal other people’s children without expecting a violent reaction.”
As the clapping and supportive shouts faded, Jones’s voice turned intently earnest and he talked of betrayal by the defectors and the response. “Now what’s gonna happen here in a matter of a few minutes is that one of those people on that plane is gonna shoot that pilot. I know that. I didn’t plan that but I know that’s gonna happen. They’re gonna shoot that pilot and down comes that plane into the jungle.
“And we had better not have any of our children left when it’s over because, I’m telling you, they’ll parachute in here on us
....
“So my opinion is that we be kind to children and be kind to seniors and take the potion like they used to take in ancient Greece, and step over quietly because we are not committing suicide. It is a revolutionary act.”
Although a woman cried “yes” when he asked for dissenting opinions, Jones plowed ahead at first: the children would be butchered if they were not killed first, he said. Some people should go to Georgetown and get Tim Stoen, he suggested. “He brought these people to us, he and Deanna Mertle. The people in San Francisco will not be idle over this. They’ll not take our death in vain, you know.”
Christine Miller, as usual, stood in dissent, to ask Jones whether it was too late to go to Russia, as they had planned earlier. Jones assured her, “It’s too late. I can’t control these people; they’re out there. They’ve gone with the guns. And once they kill anybody....” There was another obstacle: Jones would never surrender Don Sly to the authorities. “You think I am going to deliver them Ujara [Sly]?” he asked rhetorically, raising his voice. “Not on your life ... I’ve lived for all. I’ll die for all.”
Despite the supportive cries and applause for Jones, Christine Miller—the one always mocked for her objections, the one whose materialism had been merely tolerated by Jones—was not finished. It did not make sense to her, this casting aside of all hope, this surrender of life, all dying for one, all going over to the “other side.” Could they not emigrate to Russia, where they would be among other communists, where they would be a living reminder of American oppression?
Finally, the woman’s persistence and logic forced Jones to turn to a radio operator. “You can check with Russia to see if they’ll take us immediately; otherwise we die.”
Breaking into the cheers, Christine Miller argued again for life. “I think there were too few who left for one thousand two hundred people to give them their lives.”
Raven Page 82
