by Murray Pura
Nate looked at him with large blank eyes. “It doesn’t matter. They could show up at any time.”
“Nate. I couldn’t fly well for the longest time. Did you know about that?”
“Sure. I know something about it.”
“There had been an air accident. My little brother was killed. I blamed myself. Swore I’d never do stunt flying again. Which meant I could never do combat flying.”
Nate clasped his hands together so hard they turned white. “Yeah.”
“So it was your sister, Nate. She helped me. Just by giving me a safe place to talk and get it off my chest. It wasn’t an overnight cure, but it started the ball rolling. I’m shaking the fear of stunt flying, Nate. They’re not going to kick me out of the Army Air Forces after all. I’m getting out from under it.”
“That’s good.”
Becky knelt by her brother and put a hand on his arm. “You know about Moses. I don’t have to tell you how his death devastated me.”
“It devastated all of us.”
“I know. But he was going to be my husband, Nate.”
Nate said nothing.
“I swore I’d never love another man. Never. It made me a holy terror. And when I started having feelings for Christian I was frightened. Frightened of breaking my vow. Frightened I wouldn’t be capable of having any sort of intimate relationship with him, that I wouldn’t know how to talk or listen or show him that I cared.”
“So? You’re doing that now.”
“Bit by bit. Only because I told him about the man I loved and lost. Only because I let go of Moses and let him be in heaven while I went about trying to live on earth. Only because Ruth talked to me about it and Bishop Zook. Only because I prayed to be free of what happened that day in Pennsylvania.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
Raven leaned back. “We kept the stuff that hurt us and ate at us right inside.” He put a fist over his stomach. “It made us sicker and sicker. Like holding in poison instead of spitting it out.”
“You think I’m doing that?”
Becky rubbed Nate’s arm. “He talked about his brother’s death. I talked about Moses’ death. Maybe you can talk about the death of the people you tried to save in Nanking.”
Nate’s face contorted and turned blood-red. “It was thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Every day the Japanese bayoneted and raped and buried people alive. Every day they shot. Every day they beheaded. One day two officers had a contest to see who could decapitate the most people without replacing their sword. One officer killed a hundred and eight, the other a hundred and five. They laughed about it and drank sake. The Japanese newspapers treated it like a baseball game: The two officers went into extra innings.” Nate gripped the front of Raven’s uniform. “It wasn’t just your brother.” He looked wildly at Becky. “It wasn’t just Moses. It was thousands of babies every week. Thousands of women. Thousands of men. Children. Grandmothers. Grandfathers.” He grabbed Becky’s hand and squeezed it until her bones cracked. She winced but did not pull away. “Every day I was covered in blood and gore from head to foot. Do you know what that’s like? Head to foot.”
“Tell us,” she said.
“You can’t handle it. Go back to your Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Tell us.”
“I can’t…it puts the faces back in my head…”
“The faces are there anyway, aren’t they, Nate?” asked Raven. “Eating? Sleeping? Don’t they always come to you? My kid brother always came to me. Falling out of the plane. Looking at me with those dark eyes of his. And my father would show up—angry, yelling, hitting me with his fist, telling me I killed him.”
Nate put his head into Raven’s chest and began to weep, his hands grasping for Raven’s shoulders. “I hid as many as I could. They found them. Pulled them out of the closets and basements. Shoved bayonets down their throats. Again and again. I prayed…but they killed again and again—”
“They didn’t kill them all.” Becky put her hands on his back. “You saved children. You saved families.”
“We couldn’t stop them. There weren’t enough of us. The Chinese didn’t have enough planes. They didn’t have enough tanks. They couldn’t fight. They had nothing left.”
“We’ll fight them, Nate,” Raven said. “I promise. If they come to the islands. We’ll use all our planes and all our ships. We’ll do it here. We’ll do it in the Philippines. Everywhere we have to.”
“They’ll overwhelm us.”
“No.”
“God knows they’ll overwhelm us.”
“Then God knows we won’t give up. We’ll keep on fighting back with rocks we dig out of the earth with our fingernails.”
“It’s no good. It’s no good.”
His weeping intensified. Raven and Becky put their arms around him. She glanced back at the house and saw her father standing at the doors of the lanai. He was alone.
“If I could lie down.” They were barely able to make out what Nate was saying. His voice was suddenly weak.
Becky stood up. “There’s a hammock right over here.” She helped Raven get her brother to his feet and shuffle the few steps to where the hammock was slung between two trees. They laid him down in it, balancing him, careful to make sure he didn’t suddenly roll out. He seemed to fall asleep within moments. Raven sat down with his back to one of the palm trees.
“It’ll take more talk,” he said. “A lot more talk.”
Becky looked down at her brother. “I know that. But it’s a start, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Raven gazed up through the palm fronds at the blue November sky. “The old man was smart. He wouldn’t hit me anywhere others could see. Nothing on the face or hands or neck. But under my clothes, that’s where the bruises were. All in different stages of healing. Fresh ones were purple and black. Not so fresh and they had more of a red tinge. Yellow and green? Healing pretty good.”
“I’m sorry, Christian.”
“Funny. He didn’t care where he hit Mom. Didn’t care if people saw her black eyes or broken nose or swollen cheeks. But for me it was all under my shirt and pants.”
She knelt and put her arms around him. “You mean a great deal to me. Not many men would talk to another man the way you spoke with my brother.”
“The wounded helping the wounded.”
She snuggled up next to him. “Put your arm around me.” He did. “Tighter.” He did that as well. “Pray for me, please, will you? Not just for me. For Nate.”
“I’m not a big one for praying out loud in front of an audience.”
“It doesn’t have to be long. And I’m not an audience. I’m your woman.”
“Are you?”
“I am.”
“I like the muumuu on you. The color of the dress goes with your eyes. And the white flowers on the dress go with your teeth.”
“My teeth?” She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You nut. How’s Nate?”
“Breathing deep and slow.”
“Thank you, God. Now pray a bit, please, Christian.”
The sound of male voices raised in song suddenly came down to then from the house.
Eternal Father, strong to save.
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
“That’s Dad’s favorite hymn,” Becky said, her eyes still closed. “He always gets us to sing it at Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter.”
“That’s about sailors, though.”
“They added another verse or two to the hymnbook last year. Just wait.”
O Spirit, whom the Father sent
To spread abroad the firmament,
O Wind of heaven, by thy might
Save all who dare the eagle’s flight,
And keep them by thy watchful care
From every peril in
the air.
Raven closed his own eyes. “I’ve never heard that before. I like it.”
Becky hummed the tune. “Save all who dare the eagle’s flight, and keep them by thy watchful care from every peril in the air.”
“God.” Raven began his prayer. “You know what Nate’s been through. Clean and bandage his wounds. You know what Beck’s been through—please do the same for her. I like to fly, Lord, but I’d rather not fly to kill. So please bring our world to a place of peace. That won’t happen overnight in places like China or Europe or Russia. So until that time of peace defend the nations. And give the nations the means and the will to save the innocent. In the name of Jesus.”
Becky was asleep, her fingers curling around his as her breathing deepened. He took in the scent of her hair, a wonderful mixture of heat and perfume and skin, kissed her on the top of her head, and let her rest. She murmured something over and over again but he could not make it out. The men’s voices drifted down from the house a final time.
O Trinity of love and power,
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them whereso’er they go,
Thus evermore shall rise to thee
Glad praise from air and land and sea.
EIGHTEEN
Becky rolled over on her back behind the sand dune and bushes.
“I’m cold.”
Raven was toweling himself off. “How can you be cold in Hawaii?”
“The sun went behind a cloud.”
He looked up. “It’s a small cloud.”
“And there’s a wind.”
“What wind?”
“Breeze. Wind. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Beck, come on.”
“Hey. It’s my invitation to you.” She extended her arms. “Warm me up, Thunderbird.”
He lay down beside her and she rolled into his arms.
A minute later she sighed. “It’s working.”
“What’s working?”
“I’m warmer already.”
“Warm enough?”
“Oh, no, not warm enough. You can’t shake me that easily, hotshot.” She hugged him closer.
A moment later he said, “It’s like flying.”
“What is?”
“You are. The way you make me feel.”
She kissed his neck softly. “Flying?”
“Yeah. Flying fast and high through the cumulus, right through it to the perfect blue on the other side.”
“Sounds good.”
“Except this is better.”
She brushed her damp hair back and forth over his face and eyes. “Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“How fast and how high are you flying now, hotshot?”
“Ceiling—forty thousand feet. Air speed—five hundred and twenty-five miles per hour.”
“That’s pretty fast, Thunderbird. I don’t think we have any plane that can go through the sky that fast, do we?”
“Not yet. Someday though.”
They lay together on the beach quietly. Then Becky whispered, “Pick me up and carry me into the surf.”
“But you’re dry and warm.”
“Exactly. And getting dry and warm was all the fun. I want to do it again.”
Raven shot to his feet, scooping her up so suddenly she shrieked and laughed. He ran over the dune and out of the bushes to the beach. Five or six men were surfing a hundred yards away and two women lay on their towels but that was it. He plunged into the big waves, her arms around his neck, and waded out until the ocean was crashing over their heads and practically knocking him off his feet. Becky shrieked again and again as seven- and eight-foot breakers pounded them.
Interlacing her fingers behind his neck she pulled his face toward hers and kissed him slowly, just as a wave knocked them to their knees. He laughed and grabbed at her hand, walking with her, both of them staggering, out of the crashing sea and back to their hideout in the bush behind the dunes.
“Did anyone ever tell you how perfect you are?” he asked.
“I’ll never tell.”
“How much you’re like Hawaii?”
“How can I be like an island?”
“Your beauty. Eyes like green palms. Hair the color of light. Skin as smooth as sand, freckles like—”
“Oh, shut up about the freckles.”
“But I love them.”
“You love my freckles? Do you love me?”
He bent forward and kissed her gently.
“Does that answer your question?”
“Yes, but don’t stop. Keep telling me.”
“I thought you might want to head back into the water again.”
“No. Let’s just stay like this.” She put her hands on both sides of his face. “Your eyes are bluer than the sky is. Let me float around in them instead.” One finger curled around his dog tags. “Christian Scott Raven. What about your other names?”
“I don’t have any other names.”
“You must have. I was thinking about it at Thanksgiving. My students are native Hawaiians. So is the new pilot. Their names mean something.”
“So does Rebecca. It means captivating. Which is exactly right.”
“I didn’t know that. I heard it had other meanings.”
“Trust me. I’m a Hebrew scholar. That’s the right meaning. And my name means a follower of Christ.”
“Okay. But you’re native. Like our Hawaiian friends. Except you’re Cherokee.”
“On my mother’s side.”
“Do you have a Cherokee name?”
Raven grew quiet. “We don’t share the names.”
She ran a finger over his mouth. “Sometimes you do.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll bet you do.”
He pulled away and sat on the sand beside her. “It happens.”
“Hey.” She put a hand on his arm and got into a cross-legged position. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tease you about that. I know it’s a serious thing. I should have throttled back. Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
His blue eyes rested on her. “Sure it matters. Knowing the name will give you a certain measure of power over me. So the Old Ones believed.”
“I don’t want power over you.”
“Well, you have some already, in case you haven’t noticed.”
She kissed his hand. “That’s different.”
“Love makes it different.” Raven smiled. “It’s okay, Becky. I was raised by my mother to believe in a higher power than all that. I’ve given my entire life over to Christ. He has the power. No one and nothing else. Still, I wouldn’t tell just anybody my name. It’s kind of a special thing.”
“I understand that.”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve never told anyone else. Only Mom knows. A chief back in Oklahoma knew but he’s dead. You’ll be the only other person in the world.”
“Really. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I brought it up. Just take me in your arms again and let’s—”
“Waya. Wolf.”
“Waya?”
“That’s the name.” His eyes seemed to take on a deeper blue.
“When can I use it?” she asked.
“When we’re alone.”
“How about the times I pray for you?”
“Sure. But I want it to be a you-and-me name. You’re very special to me. I trust you. I want this secret to reflect that.”
She put her arms around him from behind. “That has to be the greatest compliment you’ve ever paid me.”
“It’s bigger than a compliment. It’s truth.”
Becky hugged him. Then she turned her head so that her cheek rested against his back. “Tell me about your mother.”
“My mother?”
“All I’ve heard about is how rough your father was. Say something about your mother.”
“You sure? Talking about mothers isn’t likely to promote romantic passion.”
> “I can wait for the passion.”
“Really?”
She slapped his arm. “Hey. Just stifle it and tell me about your mom.”
“She was where I put down roots. She was the one who prayed with me and read the Bible to me in Cherokee. Tucked me in. Wanted me to fly—but not for money. To worship God, to worship him with my wings, with my flight, like a falcon or red-tailed hawk.”
“Or eagle.”
“Yeah. The eagle. But then the wolf came into the picture.”
“Hard to say something good about the wolf. Especially after going through the Bible. They’re always a symbol of some kind of evil.”
“A superficial reading takes you there. But the man who named me was one of the Old Ones and a Christ Walker.” Raven interlaced his fingers. “So he brought two verses together and made something new.”
“What?”
“Habakkuk 1:8—I’d be more fierce than the evening wolves. But he coupled it with Isaiah 65:25—the wolf and the lamb shall feed together…they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.”
“So what does that mean?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. He said it was for me to figure out. I had to fast and pray. Worship the Creator. Honor the Christ, the Messiah who had come to our people by surprise—surprise because he came with people who were harsh to us. And cruel.”
Becky gently turned his shoulders so he was facing her. “Not me.”
He rested his hands on her shoulders and stroked her cheekbones with his thumbs. “No. Not you. My mother thought my name and the Bible verses had to do with protecting the weak and the innocent, those who were pretty much defenseless. The fierce wolf who uses his ferocity to safeguard life, not take it. Maybe I’m on that path again. I don’t know. I’ve been off it a long time.”
“Because of your father. Because of your brother’s death.”
“Well. You can’t blame the world forever. Eventually you have to do what’s right. I thank God you showed up with your white T-shirt and oversized flight jacket and cat’s eyes.”
“Cat’s eyes?” Becky drew her knees up to her chest. “I didn’t do much really.”
“You did everything.”
“No, I didn’t. You had to do things. God had to do things. But I’m glad I helped a bit.”
“More than a bit.” He kissed her lightly on the lips.
“Yeah?” She smiled into the hand that cupped her face.