The Mark of the Spider: A Black Orchid Chronicle

by David L. Haase

  I clenched my butt muscles and tortured my legs, rising just enough to peer out the side window of the plane. A carpet of fluffy green spread out as far as I could see. A village of any size should appear as a smudge on the carpet, but I had no idea how Chik would find a place to land. Not my problem, I thought, and settled back into my claustrophobic hole with Sammy’s bulk spilling over into my space.

  Half an hour out of Tenom, still flying only a few hundred feet above the green, the plane’s engine coughed, chug-a-chugged and stopped. The Porter hung in the air, waiting. Sammy and I looked at each other; Chik flipped switches on the instrument panel.

  Bush pilots all over the world favor the Pilatus Porter for its short takeoff and landing ability. With almost no air speed, they seem to hang in the air and can glide without power for miles, or so their pilots claimed. I had ridden in Porters during my Peace Corps stint in Thailand and crash landed onto a mountaintop in one; everyone walked away from that one, and the plane was up and flying in a week. This could have been the same plane, for all I knew. It appeared old enough.

  “Anybody else concerned about this?” I spoke into the new silence. “No worries,” Chik said, as he fiddled with the instruments a little faster and more emphatically. The plane nosed forward just a hair, and we started to move again.

  Chik’s legs did a tango on the foot controls while his left hand held the steering column absolutely steady. His right played the control panel’s toggle switches like a piano.

  “Uh, Johnnie.” I broke the silence again. “Any ideas on our next steps?”

  “Hang tight. We’ll be all right.”

  “You sure?”

  “This happens.”

  “Has it happened to you?”

  I was getting smarter. I wanted details.

  “Not to me, but given the conditions these planes fly in, it’s bound to happen, mate. No worries.”

  I probed further.

  “No worries. Does that mean you aren’t worried?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “How about generally?”

  “Trust Chik.”

  “I do. I do trust Chik. It’s the plane I worry about.”

  “If we have to go in, just do what Chik says.” That was Johnnie in full flight-attendant mode.

  I wasn’t overly concerned about crashing, but I had a tingle of doubt about how we would get down out of the tree tops after we crashed. And who might greet us below.

  “Okay, hold on.” Chik spoke like something exciting and fun was about to happen. He pushed the steering column forward, and the carpet of green filled the plane’s windshield. We picked up speed.

  “Is this a good idea?” I didn’t think so.

  Chik wagged the wings left, then right. Our speed increased. He flipped one more switch as though a miracle should occur. Nothing.

  I realized he was trying to jump start the engine, but with no wheels touching the ground and no clutch to pop, I didn’t know how that could happen.

  The Porter gathered speed, and I could see the dial on the altimeter crawling backward, measuring our increasing descent. The green grew closer.

  Chik flipped the magic switch. Nothing.

  “Hold on,” Johnnie shouted.

  Chik wagged the wings one more time. I tucked my chin up tight against my backpack. Chik played the toggle back and forth a dozen times like a toddler at a light switch.

  The engine coughed, sputtered and barked alive again. Chik pulled the throttle and the steering column back one smooth motion.

  The plane rolled into a wide turn, the left wing tip slapping greenery. I looked toward Sammy beside me and saw nothing but tree tops in the window. Slowly, we leveled out, clawing higher into the cloudless blue as the engine roared happily. The sun had risen over our left side as we headed south, but now arced over the right wing. The Porter headed back toward Tenom.

  Johnnie and Chik huddled in a shouted conversation. Finally, the Aussie twisted around to Sammy and me.

  “Chik says we have to go back.”

  I nodded agreement. The trip was a bust, I thought, but at least we had avoided a catastrophe. My relief was premature.

  Twice more, the engine sputtered, and twice more Chik performed his aerobatic miracle, although from higher altitudes each time.

  Johnnie cussed a blue streak as we came to a halt on the same dusty road we had left little more than an hour earlier.

  “I swear, Chik, I am going to castrate that bloody Chinese bastard.”

  “Which Chinese bastard would that be?” I said.

  “The one who leased us the plane in Kota.”

  “Wait a minute. You rented a plane from a Chinese guy so you could go looking for Chinese doing mysterious stuff in the outback? Really? Are you nuts or naïve?”

  We exchanged opinions in a frank and voluble fashion before I stalked off back toward the Sarawak Hotel.

  I make it a point never to drink before late afternoon, but that day I jogged straight to the Brunei Bar for an early nerve relaxant. No beer this time. I hit the gin and hit it hard.

  Johnnie arrived cool and calm shortly afterward.

  “I’ve been dealing with my guy quite a while. He’s always been trustworthy,” he said, picking up where we had left off. “Besides, there’s no proof he sabotaged the plane or anything. These things happen.”

  “Fine, they happen. Your guy is a saint,” I said. “Did you give any thought to what might have happened if we had crashed?”

  I had wondered about that more and more as I stormed back to the hotel. Johnnie seemed relieved to change the subject.

  “It wouldn’t have been that big a deal if we had to go down.”

  I noticed he did not use the word “crash.”

  “Chik would have eased us in, full flaps and all that. The wildlife would have stayed away. We could have contacted Kota on the radio. We had plenty of supplies, so, really mate, I think you may be making too much out of this.”

  I waved for a second Tanqueray and tonic, double on the gin.

  “What if, mate,” I said, revving up. “What if we are all injured? Or if bandits happen by? Or timber thieves? Or unfriendly natives? Or headhunters!”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry yourself about headhunters,” Johnnie said, choosing the least likely eventuality. “That’s just a myth, you know.”

  “Really? A myth like black orchids?”

  “Probably not,” Johnnie said, shaking his head. “Black orchids really are a myth, from what I understand, although if anyone can find one, it would be you.

  “Headhunters did exist here once,” he said, taking a sip of his scotch. “Indonesians put a stop to it—oh, back in the early 2000s, I think it was. Raided a hotel and found the compound littered with heads. Imagine their surprise. That was political, though.”

  “Political? What difference does it make why someone lops off your head?”

  “Mate, you’re overreacting,” he said. “Let’s plan our next trip. Next weekend then?”

  “I don’t want to plan anything with you until we resolve this headhunter–cannibal–unreliable airplane thing. I thought you were kidding; now you’re telling me there were headhunters just a few years ago. How do you know everyone got the word that headhunting is now frowned upon?”

  During four months in Tenom, I’d never heard of headhunters or cannibals until Johnnie brought them up.

  “You know, mate, word gets around. It’s not likely that you’ll run into a lost tribe or anything like that. Even the remotest Dyak wear bras now. Some of them anyway,” he said. “And, just to keep the record straight, headhunters are not cannibals and vice versa.”

  My drink in hand, I turned to him and gaped.

  “What?”

  “Headhunters are not cannibals, and cannibals are not headhunters. Two totally different kinds of behavior.”

  “You’re nuts,” I said, shaking the ice in my glass for another refill.

  “No, I’m not. I learned that from a mate in t
he service. He’s an ethnologist. Studies primitives.”

  Johnnie looked at me as though I should be reassured.

  “You’re absolutely nuts.”

  “An educated man like you working practically in the wilderness, you should know this stuff. Cannibals are okay; headhunters, well, sometimes they go looking for trouble. But they only go after their enemies to settle scores or to collect a little juju,” Johnnie said.

  The Aussie infuriated me. He claimed to be a bookish intelligence analyst but he knew an awful lot about the wild. And how does a desk jockey get a tan like his? Not from the sun shining through an office window.

  “So, what about next weekend?” He never gave up. “I have to go back to Kota for a day, and Chik will’ve figured out the plane by then.”

  “How about if we look for a safer mode of transport? Your Chinese guy must have a used Land Rover or Toyota pickup or something.”

  “No can do. You saw that forest. Roads don’t go very far. But we can go by boat. Should have suggested that in the first place.”

  “Boat? On-the-water boat?” I said.

  “What other kind? Rivers are the locals’ highways in places like this,” Johnnie said. “You know that. Easy to get up and down river. Cheap. Go farther faster than you can tromping through the forest.”

  “Uh, I have a problem with that. If that’s the only way, I’ll have to drop out of this expedition,” I said.

  “What’s the problem? Everybody uses boats. I know a guy—not my Chinese friend, a New Zealander, very reliable—who can get us an inflatable. Much roomier than the Porter. More headroom, too. If we have to camp, we pull the motor, drag the boat ashore, flip it over, and we’ve got shelter.”

  “Johnnie, I can’t swim,” I said.

  “That’s why we take the boat.”

  “But what if it tips over or sinks or a croc attacks?”

  “You afraid of crocodiles?”

  “No. I can’t swim,” I said. “I almost drowned twice, and I still have nightmares. Going by boat won’t work for me. I have to pass.”

  “Look, nobody gets out of the boats around here. You leave the crocs alone; they leave you alone,” he said.

  “You’re missing the point. I don’t go near water. This hotel has a pool; I’ve never seen it.”

  “So, you’re afraid you’re going to drown in your own sweat? That’s pretty good, mate.”

  “It’s not funny. I’m sorry to back out, but I’m not going by boat.”

  “You’re really that worried?” Johnnie asked.

  “Not worried. Terrified. Panicked. Look at my palms. I’m sweating at the thought of getting near water.”

  I held out my damp palms. Just looking at them made me shiver.

  “Nah, mate. You’re just thirsty. You need another drink,” he said, waving two fingers at the barman. “We’ll think of something.

  “You might die out there,” Johnnie said, “but I won’t let you drown.”

  Empaya Iba Speaks

  I am Empaya Iba, spirit of the Black Orchid People, guardian of the Mother Soil, giver of the Long Sleep, seer of the Many Eyes, mage of the Many Legs.

  You forget Empaya Iba.

  No gifts do you leave at my altar.

  Iba’s shaman grows lazy;

  And cares not for the midnight flowers.

  Be at peace, gentle ones.

  Iba sees and sends his sister

  With the midnight flower.

  She will bring a new shaman.

  Iba will give him the mark.

  He will tend the midnight flower.

  You will fill my altar once more.

  All will be well. I have seen it.

  So say I, Empaya Iba, spirit of the Black Orchid People, guardian of the Mother Soil, giver of the Long Sleep, seer of the Many Eyes, mage of the Many Legs.

  Chapter 4

  Temptation

  Johnnie turned up at the Sarawak Hotel the following weekend bearing a fist-sized bottle of Valium.

  “That’s your solution?” I said.

  “Take two and call me in the morning.” He laughed. “No, really, take two. Then, if you don’t want to get on the boat, you don’t have to.”

  I’d never taken a tranquilizer in my life, but boredom, curiosity and greed all thought this trip was a good idea.

  “So?”

  Johnnie offered me the bottle of tranqs. I dropped twice the normal dosage into my hand and washed the pills down.

  Chik and Sammy had the inflatable packed when Johnnie and I arrived. I slipped on the bright orange life vest I had insisted that Johnnie provide and climbed into the boat. We shoved back from the bank of the Padun River on the south side of town, and Chik once again pointed us toward the rising sun.

  I sat in the bow, facing the stern, and focused on thinking about anything other than water and drowning. I ignored the horizon and the spectacular sunrise and kept my eyes in the boat.

  Well, Sheikh Ibrahim, maybe we’ll find your black orchid today, I thought, and your secretary will write me a nice big fat check. I chuckled at myself.

  Sheikh Ibrahim bin Abdullah bin Rashad Al Ain, the third wealthiest man in the United Arab Emirates, paid me a ridiculous daily rate plus expenses plus the occasional outrageous gift, just because he could. To top it all off, however, he offered ludicrous incentives. Like the $1 million bonus for a single black orchid, or even just a verifiable photo of one.

  Black orchids are the stuff of dreams. Flowers that look black invariably turn out to be genetically just very dark blue or purple. Having photographed thousands of orchids over the years, I was becoming inured to their magnificence. A black orchid would snap me out of that pretty quick.

  “Hey, mate.” Johnnie stirred me from a doze.

  “Yeah.” I squirmed to sit up. “We there already?”

  “No. Get your fingers out of the water. You’ll attract crocs.”

  “You said crocs won’t bother us,” I reminded him.

  “Let’s not give them an excuse.”

  I lifted my wet hand into my lap and marveled at the power of the tranquilizers. I gazed around the boat. The water wasn’t so bad. Really.

  Crocodiles. My very own Crocodile Dundee was pretty funny.

  I could add one more item to the tally of things in Borneo that I no longer worried about: Leeches, venomous snakes, poisonous spiders, bandits, poachers, headhunters, cannibals, water, drowning, and now crocodiles.

  Chik and Sammy laughed at me. They said I looked like a bright hood ornament for the boat, sitting in the bow decked out in my neon orange life vest. Everywhere we stopped—and we stopped at every village, visited every pathetic marketplace, and chatted up every person we encountered—the locals stared. I just smiled, Buddha-like, and kept taking the tranqs.

  At each landing, Johnnie explored and took notes on everything from population figures to types of housing. Through Chik, I asked about flowers and bought samples of every kind of bloom I found.

  Thus began a month of weekend expeditions that netted three species of orchid I had not seen in the Sabah Agricultural Park, but no sign of even a dark purple orchid, much less a black one. I don’t know how many rocks Johnnie culled, or how many reports of Chinese activity.

  Hope springs eternal, however, and I enjoyed the company of my three companions. I even cut back my alcohol intake when I was with them. I was willing to spend every remaining weekend I had in Borneo doped up on tranquilizers traipsing all over the mountains of northern Borneo.

  On our fifth trip out, up a nameless river near the Kalimantan border, we rounded a bend and came upon several small houses made of fresh bamboo and thatch. The place wasn’t on our paper maps, and Google Earth showed only untamed forest. Chik steered us to shore, and the residents of four raised long houses climbed down and began to set up an impromptu market.

  While Johnnie admired wares he had seen dozens of times before, I stretched my legs and strolled around the houses. From just outside the door of one of the huts, a wri
nkled, toothless white-haired old woman eyed me curiously.

  That was odd, I thought. Borneans, especially the up-country Dyak hill tribes, tend to be shy. I removed my sunglasses and waved. She eased back into the darkness of the house.

  I moved on, scouting as I always did for a path into the forest. Back in the wooded hills of West Virginia where I had a small cabin, paths abound for nature enthusiasts and hikers. I never had to look hard to find one.

  Borneo isn’t as accommodating. The wildlife travel through the treetops, not on ground trails. No animal tracks to waterholes. The locals traveled primarily by boat. In Borneo, I looked for paths out of habit, but I seldom found one. After circling the houses, I started back to the riverbank. Johnnie was buying up all sorts of stuff he didn’t need, mostly dead animal parts that we would dump in the river the first chance we got. He bargained poorly, making himself popular with the native Dyaks.

  The old woman I had seen earlier popped up out of nowhere and startled me so much I knocked my sunglasses off. Blocking my path, she ran her hands over my face like a blind person.

  “Hey, Sebbie, I think she likes you.” Sammy grinned.

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said.

  Giving up her exploration of my face, the old woman reached into the top of her sarong and pulled out a wrapped palm leaf. She offered it to me. I just stood there.

  “Sebbie, she wants to give you a gift. Take it.”

  Sammy chuckled.

  The old woman pushed the tiny parcel into my chest. I took it and nodded thanks. I had nothing to give back.

  “You think she’d take my sun glasses?” I asked.

  “I doubt it. Open the leaf. But be careful. It might bite.”

  Sammy was enjoying this way too much, but I agreed with his jovial warning. I half expected something to jump out at me.