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flying; how slowly he can floater in with full flaps."
Coop reminded them that Reventlo wasn't expecting a runway anyhow and
would most likely be prepared for another beach landing. "I don't mind
telling you, I expected him back by now. If he's bought a very damp farm
out there somewhere we sure won't read about it in the Morning
Fundaboran."
Benteen, trying to mother a sourdough thirty years her senior, reminded
Coop that their missing Brit had a lot of details to cover before his
return. "He might have had trouble raising Quinn back in the States, or
transferring the money," she said, looking to Lovett for ' support.
And getting it. "Don't forget, the barge and crew could take, Jeez, I
don't know how long," Lovett chimed in. "For all we know he'll come
chugging into the lagoon from the breakwater on a barge with a crane."
"Uh-huh," Coop said. "And then we-what, tow those freakin' Tojos behind
my Letoumeau all the way down the beach?"
"My Letoumeau," said the proprietary Benteen.
"Pelele's Letoumeau," Lovett rerfdnded her.
I 'What-effin'-ever," Coop said, unconvinced, inventing a scenario for
effect: "Hi there, Jean-Claude, mind steppin' aside so's our shiny new
fifty-year-old bomber doesn't grind your fat ass to lard while we load
our property on a barge? What say? Oh, yeah; well, some air chines turn
to shit when buried in the jungle, and some just get shinier. You'll buy
that, won't you, ol' buddy? You won't? But hey, we've got a signed
contract. Oh, you can't read, huh? Well, trust me, you can't violate
that contract without the gummint's say-so.
"Ahh, you say you are the gummint, and-whaddaya mean,' 'impound'?
Whaddaya mean, yours?" By now, Chip and Mel Benteen were grinning
openly, and Myles might have been smiling behind his thicket of beard.
Lovett put up his hands in silent surrender, and old Coop nodded with
the satisfaction of a vindicated pessimist. "That's what keeps me awake
nights, anyway."
Myles: "You been snoring like that, and you wide awake?"
Coop ignored him. "I wish Cris was here, that's all. Wish I knew what
options we'll have once we unveil these old beauties. You think we could
get 'em loaded some night while ever'body's skunk-drunk during those
games?"
"Not a chance; you know better than that," Lovett said. "Look, sooner or
later Pelele's crowd has to find out. Their annual bash may be over long
before Cris gets back. Besides, it'll take time to move those planes so,
that we don't collapse a gear strut or something, and the middle of the
night is not that-time."
"Well, they can let us scarf their food and haul their logs with
everybody smiling and all, but the later those guys find out about our
goodies, the better," Coop muttered.
"No argument there," Myles said, tamping his pipe with a dirty finger.
They moved off toward the Cushmans, making plans for the evening. Chip
had sentry duty; Myles said he'd endure Keikano's company just to fiddle
with the fireworks display again; Lovett had promised to find a
receptacle in the council house kitchen to recharge the battery in Chip's
little computer; and Melanie Benteen agreed to help Coop work on one of
the scooters. it smoked worse than Myles, and her eyes worked better in
lamplight than Coop's did though, she claimed, half the time as Coop's
helper she had no more idea what she was doing than the much-maligned
Pilau.
More days passed with no sign of Reventlo, and the crew became moody
with tension. On the afternoon when the games finally began, Benteen
admitted she was fighting a great temptation to knock off early. She had
seen that huge tree trunk erected in the central plaza with its tiny
platform a dizzying fifty feet up, and recognized it for what it was. "I
just hope they don't test it with kids first," she said with a shudder.
"Aah," said Myles, "those kids all climb like monkeys, Benteen. They
won't fall -off that platform."
"No. They jump," she replied, and set her big vehicle in motion again,
leaving Myles and Lovett to swap awed glances. Suicide leaps? She had to
be kidding. Or maybe not, those glances said. in the center The cave
wall was now completely removed to ground level, leaving parapets on
each side-as high as a man might reach. They had piled brush and fronds
in the entrance to the same level, but any native who got near enough
could have seen what was in that cave. By now, however, the village
resounded with the beat of log drums that resounded faintly down the
perimeter road. Evidently no villager had the slightest interest in what
went on anywhere but in the central plaza.
At last Benteen made her final pass of the day, getting an Ok sign from
Lovett, silencing the rumble of her leviathan near the cave. "The hell
with this," she announced.
The drumming had stopped long before they puttered to the village plaza,
and the sounds that greeted them reminded Lovett of a Little League
playoff. Instead of Cokes and hot dog stands, they saw coconut milk and
skewers with smoked pork, mystery meats, baked fish, and fruits lying on
mats here and there, visited by a steady stream of noshers. Those pole
bleachers were packed with citizens in their colorful, best attire and
the newcomers strolled near to stand with the overflow crowd.
Sitting at front center on his inevitable cushioned bench, surrounded by
his retinue of teenybopper wives and beef trust offensive linemen,
Jean-Claude Pelele gave a hand signal and a breech clouted boy separated
himself from a half-dozen others, all holding cane javelins. The lad
hefted his weapon, Aancing lightly as he gathered his concentration,
then hurtled forward, releasing the javelin behind a line of whitewashed
stones. The cane missile arced high though not very far, landing short
of several previous efforts, and Lovett saw that there was no target;
this was simply for distance. The audience gave a lusty cheer anyway,
and presently Jean-Claude signaled to another contestant.
Not far from the area where the javelins were falling stood a sort of
easel covered by a, tattered cloth mat. Worked into the mat was the
lifesized-or more accurately perhaps, death sized-figure of a man, a tan
figure on green matting. "Mel, what's that all about," he said, pointing
toward it.
Benteen spoke with the raven-tressed woman nearest her for a few
moments. Then: "Lance target," she confided. "They've finished with that
already; something they haven't done since the years they fought the
North village. I gather my informant isn't all that happy to see it
brought back."
Lovett studied the target, which seemed to have had the living hell
poked out of it. "I'm with the lady," he said. "But better this than the
real thing."
"Holdover from a warrior culture," Benteen said, her gaze following the.
flight of another cane spear. "Or new beginnings."
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