Calico Pennants (14 page)

FOR FIVE DAYS the trade winds had not come. The cruel heat would not relent, and the humidity wrapped round the island like liquid amber. Pestered by biting flies and swarms of gnats even at midnight, Julian lay, naked, on his hammock, fanning himself with a frond. The air remained motionless and stifling.

Waking to leaden skies he decided to hike over the divide to look for Amie where the great waterfall plunged endlessly into the Seven Sisters. There they might languish in the cool water to allay their torrid misery.

Her endurance tested by oppressive weather, Amie welcomed him as a friend, and together they bathed in the restorative waters. In her hair Amie wore a brilliant red blossom; around her neck, a plumeria lei.

The compelling glow upon her cheeks made Amie’s face seem like a floral corolla. Amidst many splendors, Julian saw Amie as the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes upon. Helplessly enamored, he was left breathless and reeling. Julian did not want to take his eyes off her. Not ever!

Afflicted and depleted on the beach, Julian had seemed almost pathetic to Amie at first, but now, as she washed his shaggy hair and trickled clear water over his face with her fingers, she acknowledged the obvious change in his physical bearing. The rejuvenating reservoir was working its magic on him, just as it had, over time, on her.

Now convinced that she did not want him gone, the very idea of being cast again into suffocating loneliness seemed a desolation Amie could not endure. Yet her sentiments for Julian had outpaced mere need. She had begun to experience feelings of unabashed desire for the man. For Amie, such empathy had been long suppressed—not only since being marooned on the island, but perhaps before that.

“What relief!” Julian proclaimed as he submerged himself in the cool, fresh water, then came up sputtering.

“I don’t mind the heat,” said Amie, “but the humidity is unbearable.”

“Is it like this often?” Julian asked.

“Only when the Trades don’t blow.”

“It’s miserable out of the water.”

“I know a place where it’s much cooler,” said Amie. “It’s quite far, though. And it’s a difficult ascent. There’s a cave near the cinder cone where we can sleep.”

“I’m up for the climb,” said Julian. “What do we need to bring?”

“Very little: A basket of fruit and a tapa cloth on which to lie. Nothing more.”

Walking over a narrow trail, just behind Amie, Julian moved along sheer cliffs that in places dropped hundreds of feet to the ocean. Venturing deeper into these primitive hanging valleys than he had yet gone, Julian was amazed by the wild profusion of flowers. Ginger and ti formed the understory in forests of kukui, mango, and bamboo. Pandanus abounded along the rugged and precarious coastal cliffs. And as they neared the cone-studded, volcanic crater, streaks of yellow, gray, and black traced the courses of ancient lava flows. Pictographs painted by long-forgotten artists were carved upon stone walls.

“This place is called Po,” Amie informed Julian. “Do not ask me how I know this: I simply know it. Po is an ocean of time. It is eternity. A place where sea, sky, and land become one.”

“You’re trying to frighten the hell out of me,” Julian conferred.

Having nearly forgotten the emotion herself, Amie was surprised by his allusion to fear. “When I landed here,” she told him, “I thought I was ready for death. But I did not die. In fact, as you’ve seen, Julian, there’s a regenerative force present in this place that defies explanation.” She sat near to him on a stone and offered him water from her salvaged canteen. “Now I often dream about my own death—though I question if death even exists here. Perhaps the most cruel tragedy of all would be to wander forever over strand and through forest, homeless and hungry to the point of craving, an intruder in Heaven, welcome nowhere.”

At the volcano’s summit, looking over steep, variegated escarpments, and finally to the shore where the open sea boomed upon carpets of untrodden sand, Julian vicariously felt the pulse of the earth throbbing within his veins. Understanding the reverence he felt for term and creation, Amie took Julian by the hand and led him over the warm loam to the mouth of a cave once consigned to ceremony—or perhaps sanctioned as a sepulcher. Smooth and dusky stones, slippery with moisture, shone in the pale light, and soft, green moss framed the cavern’s aperture. Though she spoke softly, her voice echoed within the recess.

“We experience ourselves as fevered, dancing electrons, revolving in this fanciful orbit or that, barely acknowledging the nucleus we circle...”

His hand tightened within hers, and she noticed in his grasp a slight trembling. She was moved by his trust. With dream-like improbability, a geological fault had opened in the ground upon which they’d been treading. Suddenly they seemed enfolded within an incalculable moment—a segment beyond all apogee—one that might be shared only by complementary souls. Amie considered how uncommon it was to find one of compatible disposition. Their eyes met in a headlong glance of affection.

Inside the burrow they felt the respite of a subterranean sanctuary. This retreat, with its mysterious odors, shadowy niches, and images of half-seen forms, challenged perception to move beyond the customary margins of the senses, and into more empirical realms of understanding. Abandoned or lost, they had discovered one another within the very pitch of remoteness, and for Julian the flesh he had not touched in love was now radiant in proximity. He offered the brush of his fingertips to bridge remaining distance and calm apprehension.

And while barely perceptible, internal currents warned Amie of something both imminent and profound, she was neither afraid nor resistant. Though the egotism and impatience of other men pulled at her memory, she acknowledged that Julian—though perhaps graceless at other endeavors—was nonetheless a gallant suitor.

Amie moved closer to better feel his presence. His skin gave off the scent of freshly milled koa wood. His hair was dressed with an herbal potpourri of her making. Amie embraced the luxury of abandonment as rings of thunder moved through valleys and over mountain tops, gathering its energy round their refuge. Outside, the drops began to lightly fall.

Moving to the mouth of the cave she stared at the rain. Inevitably it came after a humid interval. Experiencing an ecstatic desire to go rushing into the shower, she pulled off her halter and unfastened her skirt. Spreading her arms, Amie ran, naked, from the cave into the mist.

Julian rushed to the opening to see her frolic in the sprinkle. Her figure was lithe; wetness glistened upon her shoulders and back. Without qualm, Julian shed his clothing and went running in her footsteps. Over coarse volcanic ground he moved, into the dense and humid forest. What exhilaration! Ahead he could see Amie’s angular body moving swiftly through the dripping boughs—a mercurial animal in flight. Once Julian might have been breathless in pursuit, but now he was practically equal to her agility. Overtaking her in a field of ferns, he reached out and encircled her bare waist with his well-muscled arm. Amie’s rain-soaked hair was plastered over her forehead and face, and her lips glimmered. He tried to pull her close. She shrieked playfully, resisted half-heartedly, then laughed. The rain continued drenching them, and Amie shivered slightly in the uncharacteristic embrace of his arms. Boldly, Julian strung nearly imperceptible kisses, like the beads of a necklace, round her throat.

Trying at once to lift the mantle of little remembered sensations, Amie was out of synch with each overture. Julian moved to kiss her lips. She did not resist. His breath smelled of mint and his tongue went round and round inside her mouth, stopping finally for a single touch upon the tip of her upper lip. The sparks of an erupting volcano ignited long-forgotten passions as he ran his open palms over her thighs and legs, as if he were sculpting her out of clay!

They fell together among soft ferns. Slippery with rain water, their bodies were cool yet burning. The heat of his parched lips passed to hers. His tongue explored the recess behind her small earlobes. Her skin tasted sweet, like dampened flower petals. Amie’s body rolled like the waves of the great ocean and she did not close her eyes until they lay, rain soaked, in the afterglow of fulfillment. Amie realized she would never again hear the sound of rain without remembering these first intimate moments with the castaway.

Back inside the ancient cave Julian watched in fascination as she dried herself with the tapa.

“The paragon we find in love is at once common and improbable,” she told him. “We pass untold days shrouded in slumberous silence, constructing moments of blissful union. And we sustain ourselves in spite of insularity, waiting and waiting for the divine touch of a stranger.”

Julian was nearly overcome with the power of her voice. He moved toward her. Amidst deepening folds of the earth’s cavern, he kissed her lightly. The cave’s lichen-covered walls seemed to whisper words of encouragement, audible not by human ears, but by the auricle of the soul. Amie moved again to the mouth of the grotto and looked outside. “The rain is letting up now,” she said.

Julian, too, scanned the perimeter of the sky. “But the storm is not yet finished,” he said.

Together they ate the fruit Amie had carried with her, and in late afternoon they lay together again, this time upon the broad, tapa-covered stone. Julian made love to her with the power of an effaced god—a god resurrected by potent feelings of urgency and passion. Nearing climax, Julian envisioned the fire of the once terrible volcano. He called out her name repeatedly, like a disincarnate spirit. “Amie, Amie, Amie...”

And as the resounding thunder came again, she was lost to the increments of her history. Reverie slowly slipped away, and Amie arose and went to the opening to assess the storm that was gathering power.

The sky was black and portentous. Fog hung low in the valleys. She could see that the ocean had changed from its normally placid shade of blue to an ominous cast of steely gray. White-capped waves grew wrathful as they came pounding over reef and shore. No doubt they were lucky to have the protection of the cave, but unless the storm passed quickly, they would be sequestered.

“It looks like we’re in for a very bad time,” she told Julian.

“As the rain falls outside, we’ll make love all night long,” he ventured.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “The wind could reach gale force. The storm surge might advance three hundred yards inland. It’s a good thing we came here, Julian. This is Wili-Wili!”

He turned quickly at her exclamation. “What did you call it?” he demanded.

“Wili-Wili—a powerful typhoon,” she defined.

“Kong said it would come,” he muttered. “But how could he have known?” Julian felt somehow manipulated by his curious Hawaiian acquaintances. He spat in frustration as the understanding of an enigma so meddlesome yet eluded him. “What about our homes and supplies?” he asked. “How can we protect them?”

“It’s too late,” said Amie. “We must remain far inland, or we could be swept out to sea by the surge.”

“But I must make certain the Scoundrel is secure.” Julian protested.

“Even now the waves are too high, Julian. Such storms approach very fast. If you try to swim out to your boat, the curls will dash you against the reef. You would be killed.”

“How long will the storm last?” he wanted to know.

“Since I came to the island, Wili-Wili has come twice before. Once it lasted only overnight. The other time I was here in the cave three days and two nights. But it’s the only place on the island where I know we will be safe.”

“There’s nothing for us to eat,” he observed.

“I will go down the mountain, to the groves, and gather food for us,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” he presumed.

“No, you’ll only slow me down. I know every step of the trail—every turn, every rock.”

“But can you carry enough fruit to last out the storm?”

Her heuristic expression chagrined him somewhat. “By now,” she said, “I would have thought you’d believe in me...” She prepared to journey down the mountainside.

Julian stood at the mouth of the cave and watched as she started across the cinder cone, the expression of one well acquainted with risky endeavors and tenuous missions written upon the contours of her smooth face. He followed her path as she strode with unfaltering determination over the ridges and fissures of the lava field. In the space of a single breath, Amie disappeared into the rain forest.

THE RAIN, at first a welcome shower, was now a deluge. The easterly wind blew fiercely, stripping leaves from vines and bending the tops of the tall palms almost to breaking. Caught by the raging gale, pieces of leaf and bough, sand, feathers, and foam flew through the air, spun into senseless vertigo. With his hand held over his brow, Julian peered across the crater where the trail opened onto the lava plain. Amie was not in sight. Through torrential sheets of rain he could scarcely distinguish the shoreline and horizon. He realized that even if Amie had managed to make it to the groves before the squall had grown to such intensity, there was little chance she would return until it ended. He hoped she had found shelter to wait out the storm.

“I should never have let her go alone,” he said to himself. “The trail is steep and perilous—no doubt slippery once wet. If anything has happened to her...”

He retreated back inside the cave to escape the downpour. Sitting upon the broad stone, chin in hand, he consternated. If Amie did not return soon, he thought, he would have to look for her. But such a search posed problems. What if he, himself, became lost? Where the forest was particularly dense the trail was not always evident—especially for one who had traversed the path only once. And what if Amie had taken some alternate route? They might pass each other unaware while moving in opposite directions. That would be a disaster. Julian would simply have to trust her acumen. And wait.

He remembered the first time he’d seen her. Standing under broad leaves in the banana grove, sunlight had filtered through the canopy of fronds and shone favorably upon her face. Even then she embodied grace. Julian thought: some people take light in a special way; it penetrates their skin, illuminating them from within, then reflects itself off perfect equanimity, shining outward like a beacon. Julian was drawn, without regret, to Amie’s light. Her charity, at first, had ensured his well being. Encouragement and camaraderie followed. Finally she had offered love to fill a long cultivated void in his life. Now as the storm compounded itself by the minute, he feared for her safety.

Outside the tempest raged, and Julian could not sit idly inside the cave while Amie’s whereabouts and condition remained uncertain. Naked, except for shorts and his newly made sennit sandals, he stood in the pelting rain and looked out to sea. Initially he thought he was seeing through the storm’s curtain to a line where angry sea met leaden sky, but as he continued to look at the pitching water he realized that what he was actually seeing was not the horizon at all, but a thunderous wall of water perhaps thirty feet high and still several miles beyond the reef. Of course it was curling its way toward shore.

“Oh, my God!” he gasped. If Amie had taken shelter anywhere near the beach, she would surely be pounded, submerged, and swept out to sea.

He wiped water from his brow and face as he thought about Buenaventura. Where was his friend? And how was he faring in this war of the elements?

Debris swirled in every direction, and Julian could hear the desperate sound of cracking bark and tearing stalk. The intonation of the roaring wind reverberated through abstract canyons of improbability, touching both memory and emotion, and compromising his rationality. Not long ago this pretty little isle, drifting at the outskirts of forever, had offered security from a very different kind of storm. Now furious-looking clouds churned round and round the sanctuary, threatening to engulf all within their reach. Sublime harmony had been transformed into chaos. Julian felt the island’s pain in a highly personal way, for he had come to understand that this isolated atoll had a life of its own.

Into the cutting wind Julian moved with great difficulty. The gale blew so fiercely against his face and through his long hair that he was afraid his locks might be stripped from his scalp. At last he reached the place where the lava field gave way to a forest of ravaged vegetation. He found the trail head. Nearly blown off his feet, he clutched a branch as he called with all his might for Amie. The wind stole his words before they had left his lips. Again he looked out to sea. The ominous wall of water loomed closer to shore. The surge would soon be upon them.

Left no choice, he started down the mountainside in search of Amie. Maybe she, too, had seen the massive wave and started her ascent to safety. Perhaps they would meet on the trail before landslides carried the already insecure spoor downhill and into the sea.

The red earth beneath Julian’s feet was sodden. His sandals sank into thick mud; his advance was precarious and slow. Grasping the outgrowths of roots and clutching onto rocks and bare branches, he made his way in pouring rain down the side of the volcano.

At the edge of a fog-covered, dizzying cliff, he struggled with uncertain footing. One careful step after another made his distance. But just when he was feeling as though he might have gone beyond the worst part of the descent, the saturated ground and loose stones gave way underfoot and sent him repelling down a turbid slope. He clung first to one overhanging limb, which snapped under his weight, then another, which broke his fall. Julian climbed back to safety, soaked and covered head to toe in mud, and feeling fortunate to be alive.

Around a prominent arc Julian caught sight of the turbulent sea. The deadly wall of water was nearly upon them now, and he realized there was virtually no chance he would reach Amie before the wave crashed onshore. If she were stranded within a quarter mile of the shoreline, only a miracle would save her.

Julian held his breath and watched from a ridge as the surge pounded violently over the shore. All the land near Amie’s home, including her fish hatchery, her fields, and life-sustaining groves of fruit—all the way inland to the point where the towering waterfall flowed into the Seven Sisters—lay engulfed in sea water. Trees snapped like match sticks and were washed out to sea as the virulent wave receded. No doubt Amie’s fine house was in ruin—if it had survived at all! And what about the Scoundrel? Julian could not imagine there might be anything left of his boat...

Once the storm surge had broken onshore the wind grew even stronger. Julian had no choice but to retreat. It took him two hours to retrace his steps, and finally reaching the sanctuary, he staggered inside the cave and collapsed from exhaustion on the flat stone.

Outside the wind purled and howled, and the rain poured down unremittingly. Darkness fell, and the storm continued to rage throughout the night. The castaway dreamed endlessly of his consort. Theirs was a congress lately consummated in a private Paradise.

As Julian regained consciousness the dim morning light was rising round the summit. At the mouth of the cave he assessed conditions. It was still raining, though the eye of the storm had passed. Amie had not returned during the night, and his heart ached as he thought of her.

Determined to find her, Julian set off down the mountainside. The devastation he saw was overwhelming. With his way often blocked by fallen branches, he painstakingly cleared a path to deliverance. The footing was treacherous and uncertain. Virtually washed away by mud slides and supplementary streams, the remains of the trail challenged even his most persistent effort. A light but consistent rain continued to fall, and it took him the entire morning to reach the Seven Sisters. Along the way he called out at the top of his voice, “Amie! Amie! Amie!”

But no answer reached his ear. Fearing the worst and hoping for a miracle, Julian made his way through the ravaged groves toward Amie’s encampment. Coming into the clearing where her house had stood, he could hardly believe the anarchy he witnessed. Crushed, broken and splintered bits the size of tailings were all that remained of her once-proud structure. Certainly swept out to sea when the surge broke upon the shoreline, there was no chance Amie had survived. Her image now faded like a mirage. Julian put his head in his hands and began to sob as the blue and yellow macaw lighted nearby.

“We took shelter in the cave near the cinder cone,” Julian explained through his tears. “Before the storm grew so intense, she went down the mountain for food.”

“A beacon on an endless sea of time,” said BV, eulogizing the light of the forest.

“I cannot imagine life here without her,” lamented Julian. “After knowing her, after being here with her, the loneliness will be unbearable. She turned quarantine into Paradise.”

“That’s the trouble with Paradise,” BV said regrettably. “Just when we think it’s within our grasp, the scene changes, integrity dissolves, and only fundamentals remain.”

“Where is Jewel?” Julian wanted to know.

“Lost,” BV croaked. Privation was evident in his voice.

“How?” Julian asked.

“The tree in which we nested toppled. The wash carried it away. I was thrown clear, but Jewel died protecting her eggs.”

Fresh tears welled in Julian’s eyes. This time he cried for Buenaventura and his mate. He was not sure he could endure such tragedy. He was not certain he could continue. Turning to his friend, Julian suggested they go over the promontory to see if there was anything left of his house or the Scoundrel.

Together they traveled a familiar path. And reaching the summit of the divide, Julian looked down through fog upon the lagoon and beachfront. He had expected to see the crushed remnants of his home and his ship, but he saw neither. The strand was totally devoid of debris, as if he had never set foot upon the land, as if he had never put hammer to board and proudly constructed his beachfront domicile.

Once on the sandy shore Julian did locate a few of his belongings: his iron winch, pulley and chains were at water’s edge; his screwdrivers and wrenches were oddly, but neatly, arranged over a flat stone; and his hammock had torn free of supports and twisted itself round a tree stump.

Amazed to find the Scoundrel beached about one hundred feet inland and pushed up against a line of scrubby trees, Julian walked round and round the boat, carefully inspecting it. Miraculously the craft had sustained only minimal damage. Just how the small boat had avoided destruction remained a mystery.

Turning from the boat, Julian thought he heard a familiar sound. He stopped dead in his tracks. He listened intently as the whir of crackling, sputtering engines grew louder. BV began flapping his wings and chattering delirious nonsense.

“We are running on line. We are running north and south. Will repeat. Will repeat this message on 6210 kcs.”

“Not again!” said Julian as he searched the horizon.

“One hundred miles out. Please take bearing and report,” said the parrot.

“Where is it, BV?” asked Julian as he searched the sky.

“We are circling but cannot hear you. Go ahead on 7500.”

All at once the apparition emerged from low-hanging clouds, trembling as it passed overhead. “The plane!” Julian screamed.

“Merciless life laughs in the burning sun,

And only death intervenes, circling down...”

Buenaventura was nearly convulsive, like an evangelist speaking in tongues. And this time Julian was certain he recognized the pilot’s face.

Determined to find the aircraft, he triangulated his position with the plane’s angle of descent. Pinpointing the spot where it would land, he started up the hillside through tangled vines and fallen limbs, much as he had his first day on the island. Buenaventura flew branch-to-branch, all the while uttering nonsense.

Again he reached the fern-covered clearing where he was certain the plane had landed, but saw nothing. A solitary Calico Pennant whirled round and round his head. Following the insect with his eyes, Julian spun himself in a dizzying circle, fascinated in distraction. “Is that you, Amie?” he asked softly.

The dragonfly darted away. Julian sighed. He sat down among the ferns, laughing in the face of futility. Trapped within an experiential loop that seemed to offer no resolution, Julian felt tormented. But perhaps an answer did exist to this perpetual riddle...

Directly across the clearing Julian thought he detected a shiny spot covered by the clutter of vines and blades. He moved quickly over the meadow, and reaching the huge object, began removing verdant layers of camouflage. With sweat pouring over his face, he labored with determination. Within minutes the tail, fuselage and cockpit of a long-abandoned plane began to emerge. The words ‘Lockheed Electra dural’ were written on the underbelly; the number NR 16020 was inscribed on the tail.

Julian slithered inside the cockpit. To his surprise the seats were missing. The windshield glass was nowhere in sight. And it appeared that some of the plane’s instruments had been purposely removed. On the floor was evidence of dried blood.

He opened the door which led into the fuselage. A putrid smell immediately overwhelmed him. Peering into the tubular chamber and beyond the massive auxiliary fuel tanks, Julian drew a startled breath, then turned away. Confined within the navigator’s cabin, the decomposed remains of an individual, now mostly skeletal, lay slumped over a collection of maps and charts.