by Joanne Pence
“Thank you. I hadn’t expected anyone to meet us.”
“My pleasure.” He beamed, giving her hand an affectionate squeeze before he released it. He was a pleasant looking man, tall, with blue eyes, sandy hair and a ruddy, boyish complexion.
Darius stepped out beside her, and she introduced him. “This is Darius Kane, and this is Mister…”
“Hallinan. Hank Hallinan.” He held out his hand to Darius. “Pleased to meet you.”
“And you,” Darius replied as they shook hands.
“I’m sorry,” C.J. murmured to Hank, apologizing for forgetting his name.
He smiled warmly at her. “I understand. You were upset when you were here. I felt right bad for you, little lady—”
“By the way,” Darius interrupted, putting his hand on C.J.’s shoulder, “I should explain. I’m here to help Miss Perkins. I’m her fiancé.”
Hank’s eyebrows rose slightly; then he smiled broadly.
“Well, that does explain it, now doesn’t it? I was wondering about a sweet young thing like this travelling with some man. But now I see. Why, if she were my intended, I sure wouldn’t let her go off to a place like this alone. No sirree, I sure wouldn’t.” He picked up C.J.’s bag and started back toward his jeep. “Let’s get a move on,” he called over his shoulder to them.
As soon as Hank’s back was turned, C.J. shot Darius a scathing look. “What nerve!” she whispered.
“Nerve? If you can tell strangers I’m your brother, I can certainly tell them you’re my ‘intended.’” He looked like a kid who’d licked the bowl after making chocolate pudding.
“As if I’d have such bad taste!”
Darius chuckled causing Hank to glance back quickly at the two of them.
They reached the jeep and climbed in for the short ride to the village, C.J. sitting next to Hank, and Darius in the back.
“What’s the word on Alan? I reckon you found him,” Hank asked.
“Homesickness,” C.J. said blandly. “He went to Hong Kong for a while, then just felt he couldn’t return here, and went back to the States.”
Hank nodded. “Not surprising, I guess. He never did seem content here, always looking over the rainbow. For that pot of gold, you know.”
C.J. gave him a quick glance. Did he know something? Or did he simply have more insight into Alan’s character than she expected.
“Yes, he’s a dreamer,” she replied.
They swung into the village. It was just as C.J. remembered it: green and lush, children everywhere, and longhouses on stilts six feet off the ground lining the river. The longhouses could be reached only by ladders, and at night the ladders were pulled inside to protect the families from attack. About fifty families lived in each longhouse, sleeping on mats.
The first time she’d gone to Sarawak, she hadn’t known anything about the tribal people, the Iban. This time, on the flight over, she asked Darius to tell her about them.
She soon regretted her curiosity.
The Iban were the original “wild men of Borneo” of P.T. Barnum fame. They had once been headhunters. Heads of their enemies from neighboring tribes would be brought back to the longhouses and placed on shelves. Because the Iban believed a man’s spirit continued to live in the head after death, food and cigarettes would be stuffed into the victim’s mouth and the cigarettes lit so that the spirit would feel happy.
The government had declared headhunting illegal some years ago and, as far as was officially known or reported, it now happened only about once every five years. But who was counting?
Darius had never been to Sarawak, although he had once traveled to Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. In the interior, where the Dayaks, a people similar to but a little less violent than the Iban, lived, he’d seen a number of dried human heads gracing the doorways of the longhouses. To keep the government off their backs, the natives insisted the heads on display had been taken many, many years earlier, but Darius hadn’t been so sure about that.
The more C.J. heard, the more nervous she became. Fear of pythons and orangutans paled compared to headhunters.
The two missionaries and Peace Corpsmen whom C.J. had met on her last trip, as well as an unknown white man, were waiting for them when they arrived, along with what looked like the entire village. A stranger’s arrival was a rare occurrence that brought everyone out to gawk.
“Alan’s in the States,” Hank called out as he pulled the jeep to a halt. “He was homesick.”
A murmur went through the crowd as everyone commented on the announcement. Hank stood up. “While y’all are here, let me make the introductions. Y’all remember Miss Perkins, I know. This here is her fiancé, Mr. Kane.”
Then he turned to C.J. and Darius. “Miss Perkins, you probably remember lots of these folks.” He gestured with his hand as he made the introductions. “Here’s Zachariah Jenkins and Bill Everett from the Methodist church, Tony Scioza was with Alan and me, and this here is John Carter, Alan’s replacement. Kaloo Mangyalubyang is the leader of this village. The mayor, we call him, and his assistant is Malu Butangyang. And all the rest of these here folks will make themselves known to you before the day’s out.”
Everyone laughed at that and greeted C.J. and Darius warmly.
She felt her skin prickle as the “mayor,” Kaloo, took her hand to shake it. He was one of the few Iban who practiced that particular Western custom. Damn Darius’s talk of headhunters, she thought. Kaloo was dressed in his finest clothes: red batik material around his hips with a silver belt holding a white loincloth and the batik in place. On his head was a magnificent headdress of bright multicolored material, shaped like a ten-inch hatbox, and topped with six long, rather ugly gray feathers. His skin was light brown with complex black tattoos covering both arms. When he smiled in greeting, C.J. saw that more teeth were missing than not.
She and Darius were led by Hank toward the “short” version of a longhouse, where the foreigners lived. “That room there,” he said to C.J., pointing at a door in the long building, “was Alan’s place. It’s John’s now, but so that you can have it while you’re here, he’s sharing my room.”
C.J. faced John Carter. “Thank you, that’s very kind,” she said with a smile, but was surprised to see a frown on his face. He smiled back as soon as he realized she was looking at him, but there was no sincerity in his gaze.
“Mr. Kane can, uh, bunk with Tony,” Hank sputtered. C.J. smiled inwardly at his obvious discomfort at not knowing just how to deal with this relationship. Unmarried couples often shared rooms in the U.S., but in Sarawak? And right under the noses of two missionaries? It wasn’t going to happen.
“Fine,” Darius said, also recognizing the man’s quandary.
The full coterie of men walked C.J. to the ladder that led to “her” room.
She climbed up and entered the tiny room alone. It hadn’t changed much since the last time she’d been there. A wafer-thin mattress lay on one of the few solid spots in the floor. Elsewhere, there were missing slats and warped pieces that protruded higher than the rest. One hole in the floor was there on purpose. It provided the Iban-style bathroom facility. Bamboo mats to sit on, shelves, a kerosene lamp and a small chest of drawers made up the rest of the furniture.
“Miss Perkins?” a male voice called to her from outside.
“Come in, please.”
John Carter entered the room. He was of average height, with a stocky build. He had brown hair, thinning at the crown, yet he looked fairly young, in his mid-twenties, C.J. guessed. His features were plain, making him the type of man one wouldn’t bother to notice in a crowd. He wore jeans and a T-shirt—the standard foreigner dress in Sarawak.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said, his dark brown eyes studying her.
“Not at all.”
“I tried to leave everything as your brother had it, in case he came back.”
“I see. You didn’t believe this assignment would be permanent, then?”
“I d
idn’t know. It was all so unexpected.” He smiled. “Alan’s in the U.S., you said?”
“Yes.”
“Back home?”
“No.” Was he just being polite, or was there a purpose to this?
“It must have been a pleasant surprise for you to find him so easily.” Again, the ingratiating smile was flashed at her.
C.J. was thankful for her artistic training, guessing that was what made her so aware that the look in his eyes was at odds with the smile on his lips. “Actually, I didn’t find him. He contacted my parents and told them he was fine. That’s all,” she lied.
“I see. How nice for you. I...we were all surprised that you would come to pick up his belongings personally. We could have packed them up and shipped them. The expense of this visit must be tremendous.”
She and Darius had wondered who would ask that question first, and they had figured out their response. “Darius once lived in Kota Kinabalu in Sabah. He wanted to see it again, and I wanted to see it for the first time. This was a good excuse for us to come to Borneo.”
“You must be wealthy.”
How rude of him, she thought, to persist with these questions.
“Not me.” She gave him a telling look, hoping to embarrass him into silence.
But he continued. “So Alan will soon be back in Columbus, Ohio, and his sister is sightseeing. A happy ending for the family.”
He knew about Columbus. The others must have told him. “No. He’ll never go back to Columbus. Nothing is there for him.” Something about this man’s questions was bothering her, and she felt the need to steer any possible interest away from her parents’ home. “I think he’s going to live in New York City.” It was one place she knew he’d never move to.
“Well, it’s almost suppertime. They’ve prepared a bit of a feast to celebrate your arrival. They couldn’t party during your last visit because of the circumstances, so the village wants to make it up to you this time.”
“How nice!” C.J. was both surprised and warmed by such thoughtfulness.
A short while later she went outdoors with Carter. Hot as her room had been, it seemed cool in comparison to the outdoors. The heat was intense, but the humidity was even worse. The air was so filled with moisture she couldn’t believe it wasn’t raining.
Darius and the others joined them. True to John Carter’s word, the village had prepared a huge meal of hot, spicy and unrecognizable meat, fish, and fowl; rice; and leafy unfamiliar vegetables. The meat had a musty pungency to it that not even spices could cover. Much as she tried, C.J. couldn’t put out of her mind the many rat-like animals that dwelled under the longhouses and lived off the refuse and garbage. They could easily have become part of the meal now gracing the dinner table. Being a guest, she managed to swallow enough to hopefully avoid insulting her hosts.
The local liquor flowed freely, while the villagers performed music and dancing. Screaming dancers wearing feathers and animal skins wheeled and soared in mock battles. A young man danced with a traditional mandau, the wide sword of the headhunter. He whirled the sword and leaped about to wild gamelan music. C.J. didn’t want to admit that her hair stood on end as she watched him, and she drank more than she should have while that performance was going on. Less aggressive dances followed.
The evening was long, but fascinating.
She put all thoughts of John Carter and his questions out of her mind until Darius walked her to her room and said good-night. “Wait,” she whispered. “I need to talk to you.”
As he followed her up the ladder, she could feel the knowing glances and smiles of the villagers.
Ignoring them, she relayed her conversation with Carter and her concern over his questions.
“You were right not to tell him—or anyone else—anything that can lead to Alan,” he said.
“Something else bothers me. Why would the Peace Corps replace Alan so soon? I’ve never known the government to do anything quickly. How would they know he wasn’t coming back? Do they have ties to the police? It doesn’t make sense.”
He looked away from her, as if not wanting her to read the same questions in his eyes. Or did he have the answers?
“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation,” he said off-handedly. “It’s probably nothing. I’ll see you in the morning.”
As he turned to leave the hut, C.J. whispered good-night, her eyes following him. He glanced over his shoulder at her before stepping outside, while she stood as if rooted to the spot.
She watched a look of uncertainty cross his face. Although he had made it quite clear that they had no future, she wondered if it was in some way almost as hard for him to leave her as it was for her to watch him go.
She was thankful when her old sense of humor returned and she smiled.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Well, I was just thinking, I always pictured you in a little grass shack, with wild, primitive nature at your feet, and here you are. I’m glad I got to see you here. The picture is perfect.”
His gaze burned as he looked at her. Then he left without another word.
Chapter 15
The next morning C.J. arose and went in search of Darius only to learn that he had already gone into the jungle alone. She hurried back to her room. Her notebook with the map Alan had drawn was gone.
She felt both perplexed and angry. Would Darius try to find the White Dragon without her? Would he take it out of Sarawak to get the reward? Or would he sell the jade to Yeng for even more money? And if he found it, would he come back to see her one last time?
She wandered around the village for the rest of the morning, growing more irritated at Darius’s absence by the minute. Finally she went into one of the longhouses, where she tried to help the women husking rice. She was sure they tolerated her only out of hospitality. About noon, she saw Darius casually strolling back into the village, hands in his pockets, whistling a jaunty tune. She hurried outside to wait, arms folded and foot tapping.
“What did you think you were doing?” she asked as soon as he was within hearing distance. “I thought we were going out there together!”
“Just checking the territory. I decided it would be best not to take you into something that could be dangerous before looking at it firsthand. Borneo does have cobras and leopards, even rhinoceros. Most of them don’t live in this swampy coastal area, luckily. But there’s enough that is lethal here that I was worried.”
She was tired of being treated like a helpless child. “I know Alan wouldn’t go anywhere dangerous!”
“As I’ve said before, Alan lived here for three years. He learned what to watch out for.”
“Well then,” she asked, glaring, “what now?”
“Lunch.” He walked off, leaving her standing there gawking at him. Finally she followed.
Their lunch of fresh fruit, rice and tea made her feel a bit more human—enough so that when Darius said he was going to take a walk along the beach, she decided to go with him.
The ocean was about two mile from the river village, at the end of a well-worn trail. A slight breeze blowing in off the water helped her to feel more comfortable than she had since her arrival.
Darius seemed to be spending far more time watching her than the scenery. Finally it began to upset her. “Is anything wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head and glanced at her again, then looked out at the ocean. Dark clouds filled the sky directly overhead.
“C.J., I…” He hesitated, then began to walk along the sandy beach again in silence.
She followed, her frustration growing. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Let’s go back.”
“Right,” she snapped. “Let’s go back.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets as they retraced their steps. Everything about him that day had infuriated her—the way he had taken Alan’s map and gone exploring without her, the way he kept trying to frighten her about the jungle, the way he seemed to be keeping something from her, and particularly the way he was avoid
ing any conversation. “Obviously we have nothing to say to each other,” she added with more than a hint of petulance.
He didn’t even bother to pretend she was wrong.
A strong wind gusted in from the ocean.
“If the rain starts,” he said quietly, looking at the sky, “we had better wait here. A beach is safer than the jungle in a tropical storm.”
She put her hands on her hips. “In that case I’ll just have to make it back before the rain ever starts, because I wouldn’t wait out a storm with you in Buckingham Palace, let alone on this beach.”
She saw his anger flare as quickly as hers had as she marched into the jungle.
When a few large drops of rain started to fall, C.J. began running toward the village. She hadn’t gotten very far when the rain picked up. Never had she been in such a torrential downpour. She was soaked in no time. Strangely, in the jungle, even the rain felt hot and steaming.
The trees started swaying wildly, and vines began to fall.
As the storm strengthened, the jungle turned gray from the sheeting water, and she could barely see where she was going. The wind, rushing through the leaves, was deafening. She stopped and looked at the trees in alarm, as the sound of cracking wood and crashing timber was heard nearby. In a matter of minutes the jungle had become frightening, menacing. She pushed her wet hair off her face and stumbled ahead.
“You little fool!” Darius caught her arm, stopping her progress. He was as soaked as she was, his clothing clinging to him.
“Let’s hurry!” She jerked her arm free and took a step away from him.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.” He grabbed her, spun her around to face him. Her hair slapped against her face, and he brushed it back roughly before his hands clasped her shoulders. “These rainstorms don’t last long, but they can be dangerous. They turn the ground into a river full of poisonous snakes and lizards. The trees droop, blocking the trails; vines and branches fall—and who knows what kind of creatures will come hurtling down with them?”