by Dean Ing
Reventlo and his passenger, Benteen, let the ivy stop them without falling, both cursing and laughing as they slowed. Last of all came Myles with Pilau as his passenger, dragging his boots heavily to stop fifty feet beyond the council house. The pungent stink of hot oil wafted across the clearing as Coop began the bridfest of inspections. It didn't take him long to find the problem.
Pilau, of course, had carefully oiled the brake drums of all the scooters. It took Lovett a while to explain to Pilau that sometimes, a little friction can be a very good thing. It would take several days, Coop snarled, before those brake drums would grip properly. Until then, he added, the gah-damn Cushmans wouldn't come to a quick stop without a boat anchor and a short chain.
The following morning, Lovett got his first look at the overgrown landing strip. "I see what you mean, Cris," he said, leaving his scooter to walk among the lush jungle growth, swinging one of the machetes they had taken from the C-47. With those knives in their belts, Benteen observed, they looked like old yuppie buccaneers. "Pilots took off in the shadow of this bluff, facing the water. Good thing it has a downslope."
"Bugger their takeoff, think of the landing," Reventlo replied.
"Overshoot and you were marmalade against the Cliff."
"Goddamn Japs were outa their gourds," said Gunther, hands on hips, shaking his head in wonderment.
"It took great courage, I think," said Keikano quietly.
Gunther looked up at the schoolteacher and grinned. "I'll give 'em that.
You gotta remember, kid, I fought those guys when I was your age; and I ain't the kind that forgets quick."
Keikano's smile was tentative toward Lovett. "And you?"
"I was too young then. Hell, I've owned three Japanese cars.
"Traitor," Coop said, only half joking.
"Once he's been shot at, Coop's the sort to hold a grudge," Reventlo said, poking into the undergrowth. "I was a prisoner of the Nips for most of the war, but I've come to terms with all that, years ago.
Actually, I have a few hours in confiscated Japanese aircraft; I'd hate to tell you how far back that goes."
From near the vertical bluff came a hail from Myles. "Another twin-row engine," he called. A single circular "row" of cylinders indicated modest power; a twin-row suggested the more powerful military craft.
"If you are searching for big pieces, try there," Keikano blurted suddenly, and pointed far to the right of Myles. "I think no one has moved them since I was young."
"Since he was young," said the Brit to Mel Benteen. "Oh, to be sixty again!"
"Speak for yourself," she said tartly as Keikano led them to a spot they had not visited earlier. The schoolteacher's memory was good; soon after Myles added his machete to the party they had hacked away enough vines to reveal the skeletal remains of what had once been a two-place., fabric covered biplane, its single-row engine ripped half away from the frame.
I 'Jeez, 11 said Coop, studying the torn stubs of upper and lower wings, then libeled a famous American trainer. "Japs had Stearmans?"
"No. It's a Tachikawa-or was," Reventlo said, slashing at vines, ducking low. "I've flown them. A trainer of prewar design, dead slow, fixed landing gear."
"Fixed, my ass," Coop retorted. "It's sure retracted now."
"That's why it's here," said the Brit. "Looks as if he shed his wheels on his way in and ended up in the jungle."
Lovett, fingering shreds of ancient fabric that still adhered to wooden strips along the fuselage, shook his head. "This is not," he began, then realized that Keikano stood near. "This could be middle five figures, if you spent six repairing it."
Coop Gunther tested a slender wooden longeron, which broke with a punky snap. "Rotted plumb away," he said gloomily. "I don't think you could cart this off and have anything left."
Reventlo had moved to the rounded mass of the radial engine now.
"Shattered his prop," he mused, "when his gear failed. That means he probably bent the crankshaft. This old Hitachi radial engine might bring a nice piece of change-or not. It doesn't look a very promising prize, lads."
"And it isn't where it ought to be," Myles chimed in. "You know what I mean," he said to Reventio, with a sidelong glance toward the schoolteacher. "Let's get on with it." And Vic Myles set off into the brush again, swinging his machete.
The day wore on with more small discoveries, none as promising as the tattered wood-and-fabric biplane. When Chip began to skirt the base of the forty-foot bluff, his young Fundaboran shadow entreating him to be careful, Reventlo drew Lovett and Gunther aside. "This won't do, lads.
At this rate, our young friend won't be long in figuring that we aren't all that anxious to find a mining claim. We've got to make copies of that map, and record what we find so we go about this more efficiently.
And we do it in context of digging a hole here, a hole there-that sort of thing."
"Good ol' Jean-Claude could have his goons out watching, too," Coop said. "They're a whole lot more used to these creeper vines than we are."
"Shovels on top of the council house," Lovett put in. "We should carry
'em, and use 'em now and then. But you're right about making charts.
That's assuming Keikano will let us borrow his."
Coop snorted. "You kiddin'? One word from Chip and that little cutiepie would chew us a map outa his skivvies." Then, seeing the look in Lovett's eye: "Uh, soffy, Wade. You know what I mean. It's a lock, if Chip asks."
I know exactly what you meant. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, huh?" Coop: "Which him?"
Lovett leveled a forefinger at his old friend. "He's my grandson, Coop.
Shut-the-fuck-up."
When Coop Gunther saw that the finger was trembling with intent, he made a wry face and turned away.
"We can't have this, Wade," Reventlo said softly. "You'll have to ignore twaddle of that kind."
"Maybe you can pass the word then: stuff that crap when I'm within earshot, 'cause I don't want to hear it," Lovett growled, and resumed his inspection of the area. He knew the chief reason he didn't want to hear those innuendoes: they supported his own suspicions. Wade Lovett knew several friends who had chosen the gay life, a few of them among the Boring Old Farts; courageous, hard-living, frankly homosexual guys.
He'd heard all about the genetic bias theories, too. But deeply buried in Lovett's mind lay the conviction that environment shaped those biases just as profoundry. Chip's role models were chiefly female. Okay, so he's a surfer, which is a macho sport. But Domenica says he's interested in girls only as surfing pals. And I didn't see any ripe little tomato hanging on his arm after the recital.
And there were those dwnned silk shirts, and Chip's lack of interest in the strippers, and, and-and it probably took more guts to admit you were gay than it did to ride a booming surf, Lovett admitted silently.
Very well, so why should Chip's choice of lifestyle bother him so much?
The answer did not lie very deep. Lovett felt that the gay life was, for the most part, anything but gay in a hundred socially stigmatized ways.
That social stigma might disappear in a hundred years but Chip wasn't going to live that long. The AIDS thing was another worry, even if it was an avoidable statistic to those who practiced safe sex. Lovett's suspicion was that Chip might be one of those talented youths on the cusp of sexual orientation; an experience here, a gentle shove there, could channel him.
And Wade Lovett hadn't the faintest idea how to provide the right shove; in fact, wasn't entirely sure what would be right for the only grandson he was ever going to have. Too bad if you don't get any great-grandkids, whispered some brazen imp from his subconscious. Maybe that was the real worry, he decided; maybe I just want a little piece of immortality by proxy.
Crispin Reventlo obtained the map of Fundabora later through Chip, and the youngster's eyes were bleary before he had finished his copy work that night. Only Benteen retained enough youthful vision for closeup work to help him draw six copies. Lovett a
nd Revendo managed to rule the grid lines that separated Fundabora into one-mile squares.
They had located the two-way wired room speakers easily, behind dusty wall hangings. Someone, probably a visiting engineer, had long ago removed the toggles that had allowed paying guests of Funlsle Resort to order breakfast. It was Reventlo's idea to leave them unsabotaged; let Jean-Claude think he was privy to their private conversations, he said archly.
Always mindful of being overheard, the Brit gazed at his copy of the map. "This is depressing," he said.
"It's a start," Benteen countered.
"Oh yes, like that first step of a thousand-mile march," he said. "Take a square inch at random-a square mile of Fundabora. Now let's say our
'mineral deposit' is fully five hundred feet wide. More likely smaller, but humor me."
"I get it," said Myles, from over his shoulder. "Christ, what a blanket of English overcast you are."
Benteen waved at the bearded Myles for silence. "You mean like, needle in a haystack?"
"Think of every bloody square mile gridded into five-hundred-foot squares. Roughly a hundred little squares per mile. How long will it take us to search the lot? Never mind," he went on, "Chip would have a long bi and before we finished."
Benteen said it for them all: "Are you suggesting we give it up so soon?"
"I'm suggesting," said the Brit, "that we take a more logical approach.
Concentrate on areas where," and now he made silent quotation marks by wiggling his forefingers, "our mineral deposits' seem most promising."
"I've thought that all along," Benteen said.
Lovett traced a finger along the beach line. "To begin with, searching these elevations doesn't make sense. Nor along here," he circled the regions around the old resort and the village a mile from it. "You wouldn't expect it at these elevations either," he said, indicating the rocky heights.
Myles: "Why not? Isn't that where you find most, uh, mineral depressions?"
"Use your noodle," Coop grunted. "Anything up there would be impossible to get down."
"Then how did it get up," Myles asked.
"A very good question, Vic. You tell me," Lovett replied.
"Oh. Yeah. I'm too tired to think straight," the Texan admitted.
"But that's a fair dinkum point of departure," Reventlo murmured, scanning his map. "We've seen some roads that weren't kept open. We need to chart them, see where they went. There had to be some ready access to this," he finished, pointing at the airstrip. "Actually it seems pretty simple when you bother to think about it."
Coop Gunther had been rubbing his leg where the prosthesis fitted. "I can't do any more hiking for a while; this thing swells up something fierce," he said. It shouldn't prevent him from working in the maintenance sheds, he added, limping off to his room.
Before they turned in, Reventlo and Lovett visited the aircraft where the Brit managed to contact Alice Springs terrriinal. Not to worry, he reported; they'd had trouble with dirt in the fuel, made a safe landing, and were flushing the lines. It might take a few more days. "I can't keep this up forever," he said as he flicked off the last toggle. "My bonus is already up the spout."
"If you gotta go, you gotta go," said Lovett. "Just make sure you come fluttering back with something that'fl fly us all out."
"Even if I have to charter it," the Brit promised.
They walked back slowly, palm fronds hissing in the night wind above them. "What do you think of our chances now, Cris?"
"Impossible to say. We could strap those old engines into the C-47 and off-load them to storage at Darwin."
"For cash?" Lovett's tone said he doubted that.
"For proof," Reventio corrected. "We might pick up more investors if we need them, given some hardware to show."
"Even if they don't know the site," Lovett persisted.
"Especially then. I'm not keen on letting our aces show."
They could hear that tone-deaf piano before they reached the council house, and found Keikano sitting beside Chip, a coconut-oil lamp nearby smoking like a Cushman. "Hey," said the pianist softly, and got up to meet them. "I've got a favor to ask. For Keikano, really." The two men waited. "It's a biggie," he added. The schoolteacher remained on the piano bench.
"Can you say it here," Lovett asked.
"Keikano swears there's no bugs down here. If he's lying, it's his little butt. You'll understand when you hear the favor."
"If we hear it," Reventlo prodded.
Chip took a deep breath. "When you ferry the plane, he wants to go with you. He'll come back, really he will. But he feels like he has to go soon. No telling how long before another trading ship stops here."
Reventio thought for a long moment before walking to the piano.
"Keikano," he said gently, "I'd like to take you with me. And I would, even though you could have passport trouble. But how d'you think your President would react?"
Silence, and a lowering of the head. "I'll tell you how," Reventlo 'went on. "He wants you here. If you disappeared when I did, any imbecile could draw the right conclusion. Jean-Claude could make my crew very, very sorry, and I don't doubt he would."
The gentle mouth was trembling. "Then the rest of you must remain here?"
"We have to," Lovett said. "We signed a contract and we intend to honor it." Put that way, not quite a lie; yet it left a dirty taste in his mouth.
the medicines you promised; the books, the supplies. Could you bring more, and sell it to me? I can pay with pearls, but Jean-Claude must not know of this."
Reventlo said that he might if he had a good reason. Then he cocked his head and viewed Keikano shrewdly. "You7re a conduit, um, a contact to those people in the north, aren't you?"
Keikano swallowed hard and said nothing.
Reventlo smiled gently. "I withdraw the question. But if you were helping those people, would you tell me?" More silence. Then, "No."
"Do those pearls belong to Jean-Claude?"
He might as well have slapped the schoolteacher. "They are entrusted to me. He would take them," spoken in disgust.
"Forgive me. I had to ask. Very well, Keikano, I'll bring extra medicines for you alone. Any special kind?"
"For elders with pains in the head, bleeding from the nose."
"Danm me, that's what I had," Reventio chuckled. "High blood pressure.
There's medicine for that, God knows I take enough of it."
"Could I buy some of yours?"
"I'd rather not. I can bring more, but it might not help. What you need, Keikano, is to get your old far-uhrn, your elders, to a doctor; Guam, even Leyte. The trouble with these particular medicines is in getting the right ones and, once you start taking them, it's not healthy to stop. You can see my problem," he said, smiling sadly.
"And you can see mine," Keikano said, not smiling.
"I think so. I'm truly sorry I can't afford to fly you out of here.
Perhaps when we all leave-but before that time, surely you could buy passage on a ship."
"I have tried. I was punished. Now, Jean-Claude has me watched when a trader is in the lagoon."
"Well, by God, when we leave, we'll get you out somehow.
A hopeful light flickered in the dark eyes. "Soon?"
"As soon as we find what we're after," Reventlo said, and offered his hand.
Keikano shook the hand with a tremulous smile and turned to Chip, who flung his arm around the slumping shoulders. "When I leave, you leave,"
he said, and this endorsement seemed to cheer the little Fundaboran.
"Right now, I could sleep for a week," he added. The three crew members shuffled up the stairs, waving to the schoolteacher whose oil lamp made a moving pool of light on its way out to the verandah.
"I really feel for the guy," Chip said as he and Lovett arranged the mosquito netting on their bed. "For sure, he's got problems he doesn't wanta share."
"For sure," his grandfather echoed softly. At least his grandson knew that little Keikano kept a part
of his agenda hidden. When it emerged, there could be umpteen kinds of hell to pay. "Chip?" Just as softly:
"Yeah, Pop?"
A dozen warnings, a hundred fears, all clamored to be spoken. Wade Lovett spent the moment sifting them all; found none he knew to be dependable. "I'm proud of you, kid." There was no answer. Chip Mason was already enjoying the sleep of the innocent.
During the next few days, Reventlo's crew split as they had agreed, Lovett spending much of his time with Coop Gunther and other ancient artifacts, Reven tlo leading the reconnaissance team with shovels and machetes. Some of Coop's problems with the earthmover, and the solutions they found, bordered on the ridiculous. The Letoumeau's batteries were a hopeless case; as Coop put it, "Not just dead, Wade, they're friggin'
petrified." And a diesel of eight hundred and fifty cubic inch displacement, he swore, couldn't have been hand-cranked by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Here, at least, Lovett could offer hope; a quarter-mile away in the council house was the light plant with its deep-cycle batteries. The exact opposite of lightweight aircraft units, those massive things may last over a decade; and many are equipped with built-in handles because, filled with stacks of thick lead plates, at first grunt they seem bolted to the floor. Lovett told Merizo they'd have to borrow parts for an hour or so if Jean-Claude was ever to get his "bigbig machine"
running. It was Pilau who took the hefty batteries from the coun cilhouse kitchen, trundling them back and forth one at a time in a wheelbarrow for each test. The native mechanic linked his units together under the watchful eye of Coop, who promised to educate him with a wrench over his noggin the next time he picked up an oil can. It was a hell of a way to do business but, on the fourth day, Coop nursed the huge V-12 engine into a thunderous mutter, mixing kerosene with engine oil as a passable fuel. After that, Coop's repairs went more swiftly.
Reventlo's progress was slower. They located two roads, neither passable by now, one track leading to a shallow pit where many tons of apatite had been removed. The other road seemed more promising, from the airstrip to the island's narrow ankle. Myles sweated off ten pounds flailing in jungle growths before he concluded that, if any caves lay near that swampy isthmus, they were too small to hold an airplane.