by R. R. Irvine
Nick turned back to the runway. More than anything, she wanted to ask about the airstrip on Mount Nomenuk, but decided it would be better if she could somehow coax the information from Lily without direct questions.
“Did you see the airplanes that landed here during the war?” she asked.
Lily nodded. “They seemed gigantic to me, but then I was a young girl. The soldiers seemed like giants, too. I hated them. We all did. They and their airplanes. Their planes were not from John Frum.”
“It would be a great help if you could describe the planes that landed here.”
“Which planes?”
“The Japanese . . .” Nick caught her breath. “Were there other kinds?”
“American planes came too, but that was later.”
“Lily, anything you can remember will be helpful.”
“You can see them for yourself in a moment.”
Nick peered up and down the runway. There was nothing man-made in either direction, not even a rusting war relic, though the northern end of the runway was obscured by a fold in the landscape.
“I don’t see anything,” Nick complained.
Lily smiled reassuringly. “From here, neither do I.”
She headed north. As Nick followed, a surge of adrenaline shot through her like an electric shock. Her fingers tingled in expectation. The thought of touching an artifact, a piece of history, had her short of breath. A true find, her father liked to say, put sex to shame. She wondered if he had sublimated his feelings as his marriage disintegrated. Or was she the one sublimating?
The heat, added to Nick’s flush of excitement, was oppressive. Sweat flooded her eyes. Distantly, her feet throbbed, but she didn’t care. A real airplane, even if only in pieces, might be enough to provide the template for John Frum’s air force. And even if such a template didn’t coincide with the models she’d seen on Mount Nomenuk, finding a Japanese plane would be a feat in itself. Few had survived the war, and those that did had been quickly destroyed by the occupying forces. The one or two that remained were in museums.
They topped the rise.
“My God!” Nick whooped, elated.
Two planes stood at the head of the runway, twin-engined, twin-tailed, which made them Mitsubishi G3M2s, nicknamed Nells, the Japanese Navy’s long-range bomber. Nearby lay the rusted hulk of a Japanese tank.
But the moment she wiped the sweat from her eyes, elation gave way to disappointment. She’d been guilty of wishful thinking. The planes weren’t real. They were mock-ups. “Dammit!”
“What’s wrong?” Lily asked hurriedly.
“It’s not your fault, Lily. I was fooled there for a minute, that’s all.” Fooled just like the followers of John Frum intended. It was a good thing she wasn’t a pilot.
Otherwise, she’d have killed herself landing for a closer look. “Is it all right if we see them close-up?”
“Of course. Touch them if you’d like, but be careful. Henry is very proud of all the hard work that went into building them.”
“May I take photographs?”
“I didn’t ask Henry about that, but I don’t see why not.”
After snapping several long-shots, Nick moved in for a closer inspection. The detail work amazed her. Leaves, branches, and mud bound with hemp twine had been worked together to achieve surfaces that looked almost metallic. The wings and tail were properly tapered. White leaves, almost silver in color, simulated the cockpit glass. Underneath it all had to be some kind of wooden skeleton, much like the models she’d built as a young girl. The only jarring note was the undercarriage. Instead of wheels, the airplane rested on wooden struts that had been driven directly into the ground. Even so, the achievement was stunning.
Nick shook her head, annoyed with herself for giving way to even a moment’s disappointment. The mock-ups in front of her were as good as the dummy aircraft the allies had used to fool German aerial reconnaissance during the war. Had these two mock-ups been here during the war, our own P-38s might easily have mistaken them for Nells and strafed them, she thought.
Despite their twin-engine, twin-tail configuration, Nick was a long way from proving that the mock-ups had been fashioned after the Nell. For instance, why would the Baleseans use a Nell as a model when they hated the Japanese? It didn’t make sense, especially since John Frum seemed to love everything American. That left Nick with only two other twin-engine, twin-tail American possibilities, the P-38 fighter, and the B-25 medium bomber. But the P-38 had distinctive twin booms behind the engines, while the mock-ups didn’t. She racked her brain for other planes with similar configurations. Only three came to mind, the British Manchester and two German planes, the Dornier and the Messerschmitt 110. And none of them had been used in the Pacific, as far as she knew.
“I need to know what planes were Henry’s models for building these replicas,” Nick said.
Lily tapped the side of her head. “He flies them in his dreams.”
Nick clenched her teeth in frustration.
“The planes come from John Frum,” Lily went on. “They belong to him as we do. As does everything. Even Jesus is a part of John Frum’s plan.”
“I’m not sure the Reverend Innis would agree,” Nick said.
Lily smiled, a perverse glint in her eyes. “The reverend does John Frum’s work. He just doesn’t know it.”
“Did Henry admire the Japanese airplanes when they were here?”
“Not during the war.”
“And now?”
“There are those who say the Japanese didn’t really lose the war. They say the Japanese are richer than America even. They say that we should look toward Japan, not America, because it is a much closer neighbor.”
“Does Henry say these things?”
“Henry speaks for John Frum.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, Lily.”
Lily closed her eyes. “When Japanese planes were stationed here . . .” She opened her eyes and pointed at the runway beneath their feet. “. . . the American planes dropped bombs on them. After a while, the Japanese gave up bringing their planes here. Or maybe they had none left to spare. After that, the Japanese came here only in very small ships, but as the war went on even those stopped arriving. Finally, the soldiers could only be supplied by air. Their cargo was dropped by parachute at night. Not all went to the Japanese. John Frum saw to it that some of the cargo drifted inland, where we could find it.”
“What type of cargo?” Nick asked.
“Young women do not go looking in the dark for such things.”
Nick decided to try another approach. “Why did Henry choose this spot to build John Frum’s air force?”
“We built them for you, of course, because we knew John Frum would send you here to us. And we were right. Your coming has proved John Frum’s power. Soon, even more cargo will arrive.”
“Do I count as cargo?” Nick asked.
Lily smiled. “Only if John Frum sent you.”
“Do you believe he did?”
“I think Henry does.”
CHAPTER 26
April 18, 1942
The North Pacific
He couldn’t get his wife out of his mind. They were already an hour into the mission, an hour away from the Hornet. Or where the Hornet used to be, Johns corrected himself. She’d cut them loose and run. The only thing she could do. And his wife, would she cut loose and run? Johns imagined her waiting for him when he came home. All smiles, as if nothing had happened.
He was jolted out of his reverie by an anxious call on the intercom. “Smoke on the horizon!”
The B-25 dove so suddenly Johns was thrown against the bulkhead. Through the Plexiglas nose, he could see the ocean coming up at them at an alarming speed. The navigator held on, praying the pilot would be able to pull up in time.
“Christ,” he breathed with relief as the bomber leveled off at the wave tops and turned away, off course, but a necessary maneuver to follow orders. Avoid contact. All shipping was to be considered
enemy shipping.
“Navigator, come to the cockpit,” the pilot snapped.
Johns, still swallowing hard to get his stomach back under control, grabbed his maps. As soon as he poked his head into the cockpit, the pilot said, “I’ve done a one- eighty. I’ll hold her on this course for another three minutes and then climb into the clouds. Once under cover, we’ll circle well clear of the smoke before coming back onto our course. Will you still be able to get us there?”
“Leave it to me.”
“Bombing Tokyo with the others would have been easier,” the copilot said.
Johns started to nod, then caught himself. At least we’ll have enough gas to get home, he thought, even with the added weight of two passengers.
He eyed the solid cloud cover above them and crossed his fingers. “I’ll get you there, skipper.” He tried to instill confidence in his voice. They had to believe in him or they might panic.
He hustled back to his cubbyhole and began running a clock as soon as the skipper turned north and began climbing. At thirty-two hundred feet exactly they were socked in and flying blind. From now on their survival depended on his ability to account for every deviation from their original course. Time, speed, wind drift, a mistake in calculating any one of them would get them killed. He no longer thought about his wife.
CHAPTER 27
By the time Nick and Lily reached the village square, Yali’s platoon was drawn up beside a bonfire that had been built near the flagpole. A rolled tarp, with a small lump inside, lay at the foot of the pole. For an instant Nick was reminded of a snake that had just swallowed its kill.
Everybody, including her father and Buettner, were staring at it. Karen Tracy was sobbing hysterically in the arms of a pained-looking Frank Axelrad.
At Nick’s approach, Elliot looked up and shook his head. “Bad news. There’s been a death. Henry found Walt Duncan, or what’s left of him.”
Nick stared at the small bulge in the tarp. “What happened?” she asked.
“God knows,” Buettner answered, revealing stricken eyes. “Henry says the crabs got at him, but . . .” He seemed to run out of words.
Nick, eyeing Yali intently, said, “Henry, are you saying the crabs killed him?”
The shaman’s casual shrug belied the furtive look in his eyes.
“What about you, Chief?” Nick turned her gaze on Jim Jeban. “Do you think that crabs attacked a man?”
Jeban’s fearful eyes betrayed him completely, and made Nick reassess Yali’s reaction. What she’d taken to be a furtive look was much more than that. Yet whatever she’d seen in his eyes was now gone, replaced by a steely look of determination, not to mention a clamped jaw. Both men were hiding something. She felt certain of that. Judging from Elliot’s raised eyebrow, he agreed with her.
She was wondering how to pry loose their secrets when Buettner spoke up. “I blame myself for this. Walt Duncan was once my student. He . . .” Buettner’s eyes shimmied away from the tarp. “. . . he wouldn’t have come here if it weren’t for me. His death is on my hands.”
“Duncan’s student days were long gone,” Elliot reminded him. “He was faculty and a professional. He came here hoping to make a discovery just like the rest of us. Remote locations have their dangers. He understood that.”
“Christ!” Buettner muttered. “More fools us, then. We all think fame is just around the corner, but sometimes, when we turn that corner . . .” He looked down at the tarp. “. . . something else is waiting for us. In Walt’s case, he was trying to prove my theory about an Anasazi connection. So that makes him my responsibility, whatever you say.”
Elliot shook his head. “If I remember correctly, you told all your students the same story. Not all of them were crazy enough to believe you.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Buettner shot back. “So is Nick. Does that make you two crazy?”
“Probably,” Elliot answered.
Buettner opened his mouth as if to fire another salvo, but ended up nodding in agreement. “You’re right, Elliot. This is no time to feel sorry for myself. We’ve got work to do.”
“Did you examine the body?” Nick asked.
Buettner looked away. It was Elliot who said, “Thanks to the crabs there wasn’t much to see.”
“Maybe you need another opinion,” she said.
Elliot answered with one of the long-suffering sighs that had once driven Nick’s mother wild. Then he forced a smile and said, “We’re in your hands, daughter.” His nearly invisible wink, however, said he had his suspicions about Duncan’s death.
Nick drew a bead on Henry Yali. “What do you think happened?”
He wrinkled his nose to indicate the faint smell that was already in the air and shrugged.
“As a duly authorized magistrate of the United States Government I am authorized to issue a death certificate,” Chief Jeban said.
“And what are you going to put down on the certificate, „Death by Crabs?’ ” Nick spat.
Lily grasped her arm, squeezing hard, whether for support or to send some kind of warning Nick couldn’t tell.
“I told your father that the crabs got to him,” Yali said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t say they killed him. If you ask me, your friend was there for the taking, on the ground, dead or dying, and unable to defend himself. Such things happen. It’s the way of nature and the will of John Frum.”
“How did you know where to look?” Nick asked, recalling how Yali and his platoon of men had trooped off into the jungle only a couple of hours ago, their movements too precise for those of a random search party. Surely, searchers would have spread out rather than stay in formation.
Yali shrugged. “We came across him by accident.”
Nick glared at Yali, hoping to spot a crack in his composure, but the shaman merely folded his arms and smiled back.
Lily was now gently tugging on Nick’s arm, but Nick persisted, “Where did you find the body?”
“Where it shouldn’t have been.”
“I saw you and your men march off this morning. You knew where to look, then, didn’t you?”
“We found him in one of John Frum’s places. It has no name that you would recognize.”
Nick looked to her father, who spoke up. “We’d like to see it for ourselves.”
Yali shook his head. “There is nothing to see. And even if there were, the coming rain would soon wash all signs away.”
As if on cue, the first drops began falling, drumming against the tarp.
“Just a goddamned minute,” Buettner blurted. “Walt Duncan was a young man, no more than thirty. He’d been on any number of field expeditions and knew how to take care of himself. Even if he had broken a leg or some such thing, he would have been able to cope.”
Lily released Nick and said, “What would you have us do? We have no police here on Balesin. There was no need until you and your people came here. As soon as possible, we’ll notify the authorities on Guam. Until then, all we can do is pray for your Mr. Duncan.”
Lily nodded at Yali, who in turn gestured to his men. Four of them immediately detached themselves from the platoon and took up the tarp, hoisting it onto their shoulders.
“Well bury him immediately,” Jeban said. “And since tomorrow is Sunday, we’ll ask the Reverend Innis to hold a memorial service.”
CHAPTER 28
The Reverend Innis stared accusingly at his wife. She was sitting in the front pew, peering up at him as he practiced his sermon. Never before had she interrupted him to say such a thing.
He blinked. Maybe he’d misunderstood her. Maybe it was his own wishful thinking he’d been hearing. With an exaggerated gesture, he inserted a pinkie finger into his ear as if clearing away the wax.
“You heard me all right,” Ruth said. “There’s no call to hold services for that man just because he died on the island. He was an outsider.”
“We have to consider his soul,” the reverend responded. “To do otherwise would be . . .” He raised his hands
, then dropped them to his side. The thought of a lost soul, unattended, made his heart ache. And on this island of all places, with its secrets and its unaccounted dead. Well, maybe not unaccounted, he thought to himself. Not anymore. He’d seen to that a long time ago, conducting his own private, one-man service for the forgotten dead. It was all recorded in his diary, the one thing he’d kept secret from Ruth all these years.
“Listen to me,” she said, interrupting his thoughts, “we don’t even know the man’s beliefs. Holding services might even be a violation of his faith, or his last wishes.” She shook her head slowly. “I’ve never known Chief Jeban to ask you to hold any kind of services before. The plain fact is, he and Henry would be happy if we disappeared from Balesin altogether.”
The reverend sighed with relief, but not too loudly. Ruth had given him a way out, but he couldn’t take it. A man’s soul was at stake. His, too, maybe.
She smiled as if reading his silence as indecision. “Mr. Duncan might be a Muslim or a Jew,” she went on quickly. “In that case, our service might be an affront, or maybe even sacrilegious.”
“Surely, his friends would know,” the reverend replied, thinking it was about time he dug out his diary from its hiding place and made a new entry covering recent events.
His wife, not pausing to listen, continued. “It would be just like Henry to get up to mischief like that, getting us into trouble with your bishop. Besides . . .” She rose from the pew and approached the reverend’s raised dais. “. . . I have this terrible feeling that he’s up to something. I can feel the tension in the air.”
“Now, Ruth,” he consoled. “That’s to be expected when someone dies.”
She folded her arms across her bosom and glared at him, a sure sign she was upset.
“Have you been talking to Lily again?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t discount a woman like Lily. If you ask me, she knows just about everything that goes on.”
“She also knows every old wives’ tale, most of them good for nothing but frightening children.”