by R. R. Irvine
“The insignia on their wings was American,” Nick probed.
“You’d know more about things like that than I would,” Lily answered.
Nick gritted her teeth. Being diplomatic was a pain in the ass.
Lily rose. “It’s time I returned home, and left you to yours.” She started down the step, then paused. “Remember what I said about the storm coming. Don’t be lulled by the stars in tonight’s sky.” Without further comment, she disappeared into the darkness.
Once they were inside the house, with the door closed against the constant humming of insects, Elliot adjusted their lanterns until they were producing maximum light.
“Now,” he said, addressing Nick, “what was that Lily said about a storm?”
“She told me John Frum is sending us a big one.”
Elliot and Buettner exchanged looks that quickly eroded into skeptical smiles.
“I thought Henry spoke for John Frum,” Buettner said.
Nick shrugged.
“All right,” Elliot said, striking a professorial pose, “let’s hear some interpretations of the ceremony we just witnessed.” He nodded to the two students.
Axelrad looked behind him as if he couldn’t believe he was being addressed and Tracy, Nick suspected, was on the verge of crying.
“That question’s too easy,” Buettner jumped in. “After all, what’s to interpret? The boys had wings and insignias. They flew in formation. That makes them airplanes.”
“Birds fly in formation, too,” Elliot pointed out.
“Then, what about their gestures? A hand to the heart is pretty universal, I’d say. A heartfelt welcome is the way I’d translate it.”
Elliot chewed at his lower lip for a moment. “That’s probably a safe assumption. Even so, we should keep an open mind.” He mimicked the children’s salute, hand to heart and then skyward. “It could be a supplication to the gods, too. My heart to yours, John Frum.”
“That’s the most obvious,” Nick agreed. “The sky, the heavens, the air above us, they’re the usual symbols of God’s domain.”
“Let’s not forget,” Elliot went on, “that the Baleseans claim to be Christians. They attend Reverend Innis’s church.”
“Along with John Frum’s,” Nick pointed out. “Whose symbol is a Christian cross, albeit a bright red one.”
Elliot nodded. “Point taken. So we’re agreed then. Most likely we’ve been welcomed, maybe even blessed in the name of John Frum.”
“Who is sending us a storm to remind us who’s boss,” Nick added.
“The rain’s stopped and there isn’t a cloud in the sky,” Buettner said.
“Maybe so,” Nick told him, “but I’ll stick with Lily’s prediction, if you don’t mind.”
Buettner snorted. “We can always use the radio and get the official forecast from Guam.”
CHAPTER 23
Nick found herself glad of the excuse to call Coltrane and make certain he’d gotten back to Guam safely. But the radio wasn’t cooperating. So far it had produced nothing but static.
Buettner went down on his hands and knees to carefully disconnect and then reconnect every fitting. Once that was accomplished, he settled onto the folding chair and tried again.
The only result was a loud hiss from the speaker.
“Goddammit!” Buettner muttered. “They’ve got cellphones the size of pocket combs, computer chips you can stick in your ear, and we get this piece of crap. It cost a small fortune.”
He grabbed a screwdriver and prepared to attack the radio’s supposedly waterproof case.
Elliot intervened. “Here, let me try my hand at that.” He commandeered the screwdriver, adjusted the lantern light, and bent over the radio. At the first turn of a screw, he leaned back and shook his head. “This screw was already loose. The seal’s been broken.”
Buettner glared at his grad students, who looked guilty, probably because they’d been assigned the grunt work of carrying the radio gear from the tent to the house.
Hunching his shoulders, Elliot went back to work. Four screws later, the case slipped off. Something rattled. It was immediately apparent there was a broken part, a wafer-size transistor board that had snapped completely in two.
“I don’t want to sound paranoid,” Nick said, “but that doesn’t look like the result of an accident.”
“Don’t look at us,” Axelrad said, Tracy joining his protest with a nod of her head.
“If you want to get back into my good graces,” Buettner told them, “do the honors and fix us something to eat.”
Buettner turned to Nick. “Who do you have in mind as chief saboteur?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. One minute life on this island seems idyllic, romantic even, and in the next I feel that something’s out of whack. There’s a sense of secrecy here that shouldn’t be.”
“Such as?” Buettner asked.
“According to Sam Ohmura’s book the Cargo Cult is proud of its airplanes. Yet here, they’re in no hurry to show them off, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“The weather’s been bad, that’s all.”
“What about Mount Nomenuk being off-limits?”
“All cultures have their taboos, you know that,” Buettner said. “Look at America. We’re still repressed puritans at heart.”
“I still say something’s not right,” Nick said. “Henry Yali is hiding something.”
Elliot groaned theatrically. “Save us from a woman’s intuition. My wife was a great one for that, you know. She put more stock in her intuition than anything else. „Elliot,’ she’d say, „you’re groping in the dark. You may have your books and your Ph.D., but I have insight.’ ”
“Like mother, like daughter, is that what you’re saying?” Nick shot back with more heat than she’d intended. Even now, after so many years, Elaine was still inflicting pain. Or was it her father? All it took was a few words from Elliot to set her off. And yet the father that she still loved had once loved her mother, who Nick still had trouble thinking of with kindness, let alone affection. The guilt rubbed her raw.
Elliot ducked his head apologetically. “Sorry, Nick.”
She forced a smile, but the damage was done. She could hear Elaine saying, I have my insight.
That was one of Elaine’s mantras, uttered time and again.
The words had terrified Nick as a young girl.
I have my insight. It’s in my blood, in my very soul. I will pass it onto you, an inheritance, so you will be just like me.
The thought had haunted Nick ever since, causing her to wonder if her genes were like time bombs waiting to explode. Would Nick’s world turn black one day? Would she, like Elaine, end her days in dark depression?
Elliot said, “It was a joke, Nick. I’ve always said gut instinct is important. Without it, an archaeologist had better stay in a museum and leave the field work to those who have an innate feeling for their work.”
“Enough already with the family history,” Buettner said, holding up a placating hand. “The fact is, Nick is right. Usually, the Cargo Cult welcomes outsiders, especially Americans.”
“They’ve built us a house, haven’t they?” Elliot pointed out.
“True enough, but there’s something else we should consider. Maybe Sam Ohmura has ruined Balesin for the likes of us. Remember what happened to the Hopi Indians. They spoke freely to the first archaeologist they encountered and he exposed their private rituals. After that, the Hopi learned their lesson and told so many different stories, no one knew what to believe.”
“That’s a possibility,” Nick conceded.
“On the other hand,” Buettner went on, “Ohmura is a good anthropologist. If there’d been some secret agenda here on Balesin, I’m sure he would have mentioned it in his book, even if he hadn’t known exactly what was going on.”
Elliot spoke up. “There’s another possibility. Henry Yali could be a nutcase.”
“I’ve considered that, too,” Nick said.
Bu
ettner shook his head. “None of this explains why someone would want to sabotage the radio.”
“To cause us grief, if nothing else,” Nick said.
“That’s not an unusual attitude among primitive peoples,” Elliot responded. “Though I’m not at all sure the Baleseans belong in such a category any longer. They’ve had too much contact with the outside world, especially since the war, to be considered an unspoiled society. There’s also the possibility that someone was just plain curious to see how a radio works and opened up the case.”
“When could it have happened?” Nick asked.
“Possibly when you were out joyriding with your boyfriend,” Elliot replied. “Curt and I were asking around about Walt Duncan, but he seems to be the invisible man.” He turned an inquiring gaze on the two students. “As for you two, I thought you were supposed to be sorting things out here.”
Tracy flushed a bright red while Axelrad stammered, “Well, we did go out for a little while. Like we weren’t gone very long. I mean, at least I don’t think so.”
“I’ll get the food,” Tracy said and hurried toward the rear of the house, Axelrad on her heels.
“Is that how you train your students, Curt?”
“Elliot, give it a rest,” Nick said.
“It’s moot anyway,” Buettner added. “Coltrane won’t let us down. He’ll be back ASAP if he doesn’t hear from us on the radio.”
A moment later the rattan rustled as Karen Tracy ducked around the hanging mat carrying sandwiches. “Spam specials,” she announced, “with cheese, the last of the cheese actually.”
“And warm soda to wash it all down,” Axelrad said as he arrived holding cans of cola.
“I ought to flunk you for lack of creativity,” Buettner teased.
At Nick’s first bite of the sandwich she realized just how ravenous she was. So intense was her hunger, in fact, even the Spam was tolerable.
Between mouthfuls Buettner said, “If Lily’s right and a big storm is coming, we should get as much done as possible while the good weather holds. So we’ll divide up the tasks. Elliot and I have already put our heads together on this and we’re in agreement on a plan of attack, if that’s acceptable to everyone.”
He glanced around, saw no objections and continued. “Gail and Frank will provide our baseline, mapping the village hut by hut. Each name must be recorded by precise location if we’re to verify social strata among the Baleseans. It’s true that previous work on the island indicates that we’re dealing with a matrilineal society, but prior work should never be taken for granted. So whatever you do, be exact and don’t think of this as grunt work. Without a baseline, anything we publish will be suspect. Understood?”
Wide-eyed, his students nodded one after the other.
“While you’re doing that,” Buettner went on, “Elliot and I will be recording interviews with as many villagers as we can. We’ll be concentrating on origin myths and pre-World War Two customs. We’ll also try to get Henry to send some scouts out to round up Walt Duncan. The last thing we can afford right now is a loose cannon.”
He paused, taking another bite of his sandwich.
Elliot, by prearrangement, Nick suspected, continued. “That leaves you free to go after your airplanes, Nick.”
“Agreed,” she said. “As I see it, the key question is whether or not they’re based on real aircraft. If we can determine that, we might eventually be able to answer the question of the evolution of John Frum as worshiped on Balesin. Is he based on a real man, as Henry Yali would have us believe, or is he myth?”
Elliot grinned. “That’s my daughter. I trained her well.”
“All right, Elliot,” Nick said. “You’re forgiven.”
“Did I miss something?” Buettner asked.
Elliot shrugged halfheartedly. “Old family business, that’s all.”
Old wounds was more like it, Nick thought. Old wounds that never heal. Time did tend to scab them over, though, until now Nick found it easier to remember Elaine’s good times, the times when the black shroud had lifted and she had become a loving mother.
“Now to the business at hand, daughter,” Elliot went on. “I hope you have a plan of attack.”
“I’m getting a guided tour of the airfield in the morning,” Nick said, enjoying the look of surprise on both their faces. “Lily, Yali, and I are meeting in the square and then heading for the Reverend Innis’s church. Lily says that’s the best place to start.”
CHAPTER 24
Bathed in sweat, the Reverend George Innis jerked upright in bed, his muscles board-stiff. By force of will he unclenched his jaw to call out, “Jesus Christ!”
Beside him, his wife, Ruth, came awake with a start.
“My God!” he breathed.
“Is it the dream again?” she asked tenderly, reaching out to comfort him.
“Worse.”
“Tell me about it.”
He sighed, venting air as if it were his last gasp. His heart thumped. That dream would give him a heart attack one day and kill him. Then, at least, he’d be free of it. Maybe. Or would it follow him all the way to hell?
Ruth found his hand in the darkness, took hold of it, and squeezed reassuringly. “You know it always makes you feel better to tell me about it, George. It helps you get back to sleep.”
“Sleep,” he repeated without conviction. Better to stay awake than to relive something like that twice in the same night.
But he told her just the same. “It started out like it always does. I was at the airfield. There were planes all around me. They looked very real and I kept reminding myself that I must keep clear of their spinning propellers. That if I didn’t, it would happen to me like it had to the others. That I would be chopped into pieces like everyone else.”
“My poor boy,” she murmured. “You’d better tell me everything from the beginning, and be rid of it once and for all.”
The reverend nodded in the darkness, swallowing against the lump growing in his throat. The dream was true. It had to be; it was too much like the stories he’d heard from Lily. But to Ruth he said, “It’s only a dream.”
“You know it will make you feel better if you tell me.”
After a long, deep sigh he said, “Henry Yali was there, he and all his followers. At first, I thought they’d come to attend my sermon, so the sight of such a multitude made me very happy. I remember thinking that I’d finally gotten through to him, and that he had turned away from John Frum. But somehow my sermon went wrong. The words coming out of my mouth didn’t make any sense, even to me, and Henry kept turning to his followers and shaking his head as if condemning me.
“I remember thinking that I might never get such a chance again. So I tried speaking more slowly. But it was no use, because suddenly the words coming out of my mouth were Henry’s, not mine. And I could hear myself promising that John Frum would be here soon to save us all.”
“Then what happened?” Ruth probed gently.
“I remember telling myself that I was speaking blasphemy. So I tried to stop, but the words kept coming. I was praising John Frum, the messiah. I was damning myself to hell.”
He shuddered.
“My poor dear,” she cooed, holding him, rocking him, humming softly.
“Then suddenly everyone changed. They were all wearing Japanese uniforms from the war, even Henry.”
“You were only a baby when the war ended,” she reminded him.
“Henry was wearing a sword,” he went on. “He was an officer. He was the one who gave the order to fire and I . . .” The reverend had to pause for breath. “. . . fired like everyone else at the airfield.”
“What airfield?” Ruth asked quietly.
“The one on Mount Nomenuk.”
“And then?”
“I kept waiting for John Frum to step out of the plane, but it was Coltrane I saw through the windshield.”
“There, you see how silly you’re being. Mr. Coltrane’s plane can only land on the water.”
“The plane had two engines,” Innis went on. “It looked like Coltrane’s.”
“Be calm, dear. It was only a dream. Remember that.”
Sweet dreams, his mother used to say when she tucked him in. That was one of Innis’s few memories of her. Sweet dreams, not nightmares.
He took a deep breath, steeling himself against what came next. “After we shot at the plane, the real killing started. At first I thought it was the propellers, but it was Henry’s sword, whirling like a propeller, cutting off heads and splashing blood everywhere.”
Innis squinted, trying to get a better look at the memory inside his head. Was it Coltrane who’d been killed or someone else? He was about to ask Ruth’s opinion when he thought better of it. It was only a dream, after all.
He shivered. Or was it a premonition?
“Maybe I should warn Coltrane,” he said.
“He’ll think you’re a fool,” she replied. “Besides, he’s flown away, so what difference does it make?”
Coltrane told himself he was being a fool, that business was business. But Nick Scott kept getting in the way.
He was standing in the doorway of the metal shed that served as his office, staring up at the sky. The horizon was black and threatening.
Christ, he should have heard from Nick by now. Or from Buettner anyway. But he hadn’t been able to raise them on the radio since he left the island.
He shook himself. “You are being a fool. That woman can handle herself.”
Besides, she wasn’t on her own. She had her father and Curt Buettner, who was an old hand in this part of the Pacific. Even so, the loss of radio contact worried Coltrane. Probably it was nothing more than equipment failure caused by the usual jungle rot, he told himself.
“If you believe that,” he added out loud, “why did you turn down that lucrative, short-hop charter?”
So he could fly back to Balesin as soon as the weather cleared, he thought, scanning the sky.
He ducked in the office to check the barometer. It was holding steady on rainy. When he tapped the glass, the arrow dropped to rock bottom.
