by R. R. Irvine
“As far as is known, there was no Cargo Cult before the Europeans arrived,” she began. “When they did, a new world opened up for the Pacific Islanders. Technology seems to have changed their outlook on life forever. It began first with the arrival of the great sailing ships. The islanders had never seen vessels that big before and they began building fake docks and warehouses. They fully expected those docks to lure in ships that would be filled with cargo, cargo that would make them rich like the Europeans.
“When World War Two came, and with it airplanes, the island people traded up, so to speak. They immediately abandoned the old technology for the new, trading dock building for airstrips and mock-ups of airplanes they had seen.
“The cult is strongest in the New Guinea area, though there are interesting offshoots scattered as far as Samoa and Fiji, not to mention this immediate area of the Pacific. Some groups have even built fake radio masts and telephone poles with which they hope to contact the spirits. In some areas, the islanders have been known to paint red crosses on their chests, hoping to catch the eye of Red Cross relief planes.”
Coltrane whistled. “Don’t they ever get tired of waiting for cargo that never comes?”
“The Cargo Cult is like all religions. It’s a matter of faith. To these people, God is the cargo giver. It’s just a matter of making the correct preparations and incantations to satisfy Him. Only then will His gifts arrive.”
“Since we’re dropping cargo, why aren’t we gods?” “They see us strictly as helpers doing God’s work.” “It sounds complicated.”
“Not really. Cargo is power to them. That’s why they admire America so much, because it’s the most powerful country in the world. One of the Cargo Cult groups actually tried to buy President Johnson back in the sixties. To them, he symbolized power and even magic. As they saw it, his power would have been transferred to them.”
“How much did they offer?” Coltrane asked.
“All they had.”
“They’re as nuts as the rest of the world, Doc. Nuttier even.”
Nick couldn’t help smiling. Coltrane’s reaction was the same as many early scholars, who considered the Cargo Cult as a kind of collective madness.
“Anthropologists now believe that John Frum is more of a Christ figure than first thought,” she told him. “His promise to return one day with planeloads of cargo is symbolic of both resurrection and salvation. Salvation and resurrection are common to most religions.”
“All right, Doc, cut the crap and come back here and man your post while I do the flying.”
After dropping the cargo, Nick watched in fascination as the parachutes landed on the far side of the river just as Coltrane had predicted. By then she was strapped in the copilot’s seat again and using her binoculars to watch the scramble for cargo. The entire population of the village looked to be lined along the riverbank, where two canoes were being launched to retrieve the gifts.
Coltrane banked steeply away from the village and started climbing at full power, heading downriver toward the ocean and well away from Mount Nomenuk. The roar from the turboprops was deafening. The Widgeon felt as if it were shaking itself to pieces.
Nick clenched her teeth and held on, wondering how much stress a World War Two-era airplane could take. Coltrane didn’t look worried though. Judging by his grin, he was having the time of his life.
As soon as they crossed the coast, Coltrane throttled back and came around. They were now at twenty-five hundred feet, some five hundred feet above Mount Nomenuk. He veered east until the mountain was directly between them and the village. Only then did he head straight for the mountain in a shallow dive.
“Get ready,” he said. “The strip’s going to be on your side of the plane.”
Nick slid open the side window for an unobstructed view. The wind howled along with the engines.
By now, the mountain looked as if it were rushing at them. It filled the windshield. Nick had to force herself to ignore what looked like impending disaster and concentrate on the ground below.
Suddenly, the Widgeon tilted and began sideslipping, following the contours of the mountain. The trees looked close enough to touch.
“You’ll see it in just a few seconds,” he said.
Without warning, he chopped the engines to idle and lowered the flaps. The Widgeon shimmied. So did Nick’s stomach. The plane felt on the verge of stalling.
Nick started to say something, but the words died on her lips when she saw the airstrip. It had been hewn from a forest of breadfruit trees and looked as precisely tended as a garden. Even the grass on the runway looked closely cropped.
Two airplanes stood at the head of the runway as if poised for takeoff. They didn’t look authentic exactly, since they didn’t appear to have wheels or a real under- carriage, but they were a far cry from the crude replicas pictured in Sam Ohmura’s book. These looked like World War Two bombers. At a guess, they’d been modeled after the Japanese Betty, a twin-engine job manufactured by Mitsubishi. Confirmation of their exact type would have to wait for a ground inspection, if ever that became possible.
Then she saw the hangar. Placed the way it was, among the trees, it would have been virtually impossible to spot from the air at a normal altitude. But the Widgeon was no more than a hundred feet off the ground at the moment, and sinking.
Part of her knew Coltrane was taking a terrible risk.
Another part of her couldn’t care less and stayed focused on the hangar. Its metal walls showed no gaps; its corrugated roof looked watertight. The hangar also appeared life-size to her, more than large enough to accommodate the planes at the head of the runway, or real airplanes for that matter. Such attention to detail stunned her. The planes weren’t going anywhere. But evidently that hadn’t daunted the builders. To them, carving this airfield out of the wilderness must have been an act of faith. Considering the difficult locale and tools at hand, it must have taken a massive effort on the part of the islanders.
Nick jerked back from the open window, realizing suddenly that the treetops were about to brush their wingtip. She was opening her mouth to yell a warning when Coltrane hit the throttles. The sudden surge of power threw Nick back against her seat.
The Widgeon banked one way, then the other, to avoid a cluster of larger trees. Nick held her breath. Then there were even taller trees dead ahead. She clenched her teeth, expecting impact.
“Hot damn!” Coltrane whooped. “I should have been a fighter pilot.”
He pulled back on the yoke and the Widgeon climbed away.
Nick caught her breath. “Let’s try it again so I can take some photos.”
Coltrane tapped the gas gauge on the instrument panel. “Pilots have only so much luck, you know. I’ve spent a lot of mine already and I don’t like to make too much of the trip in the dark. Guam’s not so big that I couldn’t miss it. Don’t forget, Amelia Putnam missed her island not all that far from here.”
“You mean Amelia Earhart?”
“She was a married woman. She should have been proud to use her husband’s name.”
“Amelia Earhart didn’t have the use of a Global Positioning System,” Nick retorted, pointedly using the aviatrix’s maiden name. “I’ll tell you what. If you anchor here and stay overnight, I’ll fix you dinner even if you are a Neanderthal.” Hope you like Spam, she added to herself.
He eyed her skeptically for a moment, then shook his head as he brought the Widgeon on course for a landing at the mouth of the river. “Got a short hop scheduled in the morning,” he replied.
She felt disappointed that he hadn’t accepted her offer, although she wasn’t certain why.
CHAPTER 19
“Spying on people is a sin!” The shout startled the Reverend George Innis so badly he jumped half a foot and nearly fell off the church’s corrugated roof. If his binoculars hadn’t been strung around his neck, they’d have gone flying over the edge.
Regaining his balance, the reverend shook his head at Todd Parker, who was s
tanding at the foot of the ladder, one of his grubby sandals already perched on the first rung, a mocking smile fixed on his unshaven face.
“Look out below,” Innis called out. “I’m coming down.” The last thing he wanted was to share the cramped bell tower with Parker. The man had no sense of space. He used his belly like an insect probing with its antennae. Once contact was made, Parker would stick to you like glue. Making matters worse, he reeked of the native beer. It seeped from his pores like a natural insecticide, or so he claimed.
If it hadn’t been for the smell, and the beachcomber outfits—baggy white trousers and shirts, plus a tattered straw hat—he’d have been a good-looking man. The reverend’s wife, Ruth, claimed it was all a pose, a kind of statement that allowed him to shun all responsibility.
Parker was younger than Innis by at least ten years, maybe even fifteen, and six inches taller than the churchman. That extra height made his tendency to invade another’s space all the more intolerable, because speaking to him toe-to-toe put a kink in Innis’s neck.
“Instead of spying on the newcomers,” Parker shouted even louder, “you ought to pray for them.”
Halfway down the ladder, Innis paused. “I was keeping an eye on things, that’s all,” he said, reluctant to come any closer.
“A clergyman shouldn’t tell lies. You never know when God might be listening.”
Damn the man, Innis thought. His doubting tone rankled.
“Can’t a man admire an airplane in peace?” he said, annoyed at himself for feeling compelled to explain his actions to the likes of Parker. Worse yet, it wasn’t the airplane that had been occupying his thoughts.
Parker broadened his smile as if mind reading. “You’re beginning to sound like Henry Yali. If you’re not careful, you’ll be painting a red cross on your church and waiting around for John Frum like the rest of us.” Parker grabbed hold of the ladder as if he were about to climb up to make contact.
“Watch it,” Innis warned and hurried the rest of the way down.
“Well?” Parker demanded as soon as the reverend had his feet on the ground. “Don’t just stand there, sky pilot. Tell me what you saw through those spy-glasses of yours. What’s that airplane up to and is that lady archaeologist worth eyeballing or not?”
Innis held his breath, but it was only a matter of time before he’d have to inhale the inevitable alcoholic fumes.
“They were circling Mount Nomenuk,” the reverend blurted out.
“Are you sure?” Parker demanded.
Nodding, Innis drew a quick breath and blinked in disbelief. The man smelled of mint, not beer.
“It’s a long way off to be sure,” Innis said. “But that’s the way it looked to me.”
“Mount Nomenuk, you say.” Parker shook his head. “Somebody should have talked to them when they first arrived. Somebody should have explained the rules.”
Innis thought that over. From the church roof, he’d had a different perspective than anyone in the village. There was a good chance the flight path had been invisible to anyone but himself.
Parker closed in. “Maybe I should volunteer to set those people straight. What do you think, Padre? Is the lady scientist worth my while?”
Innis smiled. That explained the minty mouth wash. “Be my guest.”
Parker winked. “On second thought, I say to hell with it. Why waste shoe rubber when I own the only store? Sooner or later everybody has to come to me.”
Behind Innis, the screen door banged. With a start, the reverend lurched around to see his wife framed in the chapel’s doorway.
“I thought you’d gone to the village,” Innis said to her.
She glared at him. “George, have you been up on the roof again in this heat? You should know better than to climb up there alone. What if you’d fallen off? Who’d have been here to take care of you?”
“I heard the airplane,” he said guiltily.
“You men and your planes.”
Parker backed off. “I’m a boat man, myself.”
“Someone had to keep an eye on the newcomers,” Innis went on. “They were flying over Mount Nomenuk.”
“Then it’s time we paid them a visit, don’t you think, dear? In this place, good, god-fearing people have to stick together.” She glared at the store owner, who’d begun to edge away. “Don’t you agree, Mr. Parker?”
He started to say something, then settled for a shrug.
“If that’s a yes, Mr. Parker, why don’t you accompany us to the village? That way we can present a united front when we introduce ourselves to the newcomers.”
“I wouldn’t want to close my store during business hours.” Parker turned on his heels and hurried away.
“I hope we’ll see you at Sunday services,” Innis called after him.
Parker raised an acknowledging hand but kept walking. He’d never yet attended one of Innis’ services.
“That man’s impossible,” Ruth said. “It’s a wonder you waste your time on him. He’s a born sinner who’s on his way to hell.”
Innis smiled. He knew Ruth didn’t mean it. She was only upset because he’d gone up on the roof without someone to hold the ladder.
“I’m sorry, dear,” he said. “I’ll keep my feet on the ground from now on.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “You go wash up and we’ll be on our way to the village before it gets any hotter.”
CHAPTER 20
Nick was relieved to see the beach deserted as the Widgeon taxied toward shore. The absence of irate villagers meant that their flight over the airstrip had gone unobserved. At least Nick hoped that was the case, though the absence of a single soul was surprising, considering the value Baleseans placed on airplanes.
Coltrane cut the engines to idle and allowed the bobbing Widgeon to drift in with one of the breakers. When the seaplane bumped bottom, he turned to Nick and shook his head apologetically. “Sorry to leave you like this, Doc, but business calls.”
He caught hold of her hand as she was leaving the copilot’s seat. “Take care of yourself, Nick. I’ll see you on the next trip.”
She realized that was the first time he had used her name. “Are you getting sentimental on me?”
“Get out of here, Doc, before I forget I’m a businessman.”
He pushed her toward the door before she could decide whether she was pleased or furious.
As soon as she waded ashore, the Widgeon’s engines revved once, a kind of farewell salute. Then the plane swung around and headed out to sea, bouncing from wave to wave for what seemed like a mile before one last lurch bounced it airborne.
“Macho bastard,” she called after him. Her mother had warned her about good-looking men like Coltrane. But considering Elaine’s record, her warnings had to be as suspect as her cooking.
Nick shook off the memory of one of Elaine’s forays into food poisoning and started for the village. The vision awaiting her in the square was startling. It seemed like half the population of the island was working on the new house Nick had been promised.
Already the framing was in place and the thatch roof nearing completion. Men and women were working together, while children ran errands and played games.
“Over here!” Elliot called from the porch of the communal building where they’d dined the night before. He was perched on a long trestle table. Beside him stood Buettner and Lily.
At Nick’s approach, her father shouted, “Good news. Our new quarters will be ready by nightfall. We have Henry’s word on it.”
The work, she noticed for the first time, was being closely supervised by Henry Yali and Chief Jeban.
“It looks like rain,” she said, eyeing the clouds building overhead.
“Henry says they’ll have the roof finished before the first drops fall,” Buettner answered.
“Men like to make promises,” Lily said, joining Nick at the foot of the stairs. “Should it rain ahead of Henry’s schedule, which it often does, he’ll simply declare the downpour to be mist and not
rain at all. But don’t worry. You will be in your house, safe and snug, by nightfall. That’s my promise, because Henry or no Henry, the rain won’t stop the work. Besides, once the roof is complete, everyone will move inside to work on the walls.”
Rain began to fall.
“The mist is early,” Lily announced loudly, no doubt for Yali’s benefit, then retreated back onto the porch, with Nick right behind her. With the rain came staggering humidity of sauna-like proportions. Nick found herself sweat-soaked and gasping as she settled into one of the half-dozen wicker chairs that were grouped around the long rough-hewn table. Her father and Buettner looked half-drowned.
Lily seemed unaffected as she said, “I think it’s time for me to see to some afternoon tea for our visitors, the reverend and his wife.”
Nick glanced around, found no such couple, and looked to her father and Buettner for an explanation. They both answered with shrugs that denied knowledge of any such visitation.
“At a time like this,” Lily continued, looking pleased with the confusion she’d caused, “Henry would claim psychic powers. Maybe I should do the same. But the plain fact is, the reverend and his wife are almost as predictable as Henry is.”
Lily pointed to an opening in the trees on the far side of the square. “That’s the Mission Highway, or so the reverend calls it. It cuts straight across the island to the church and to Mr. Parker’s store. My guess is the reverend and his wife will be coming along any moment.”
“In this weather?” Nick asked.
“It’s God’s weather, the reverend would say.”
“I probably should stay behind with my students,” Buettner said.
“We can set places for everybody at the table, if you’d like, but I don’t think we should count on your young people wanting to come. Lovers their age set their own rules,” Lily smiled and Nick wondered if the woman saw lovers everywhere.
“I can assure you,” Buettner snapped, “that I expect professional conduct from my students. They’re on my time now.”
