“So, to make a long story short, the guys and I spend three more days telling stories to the kid and drinking bug juice and creeping to the bachel-ors’ house until the PT boat shows with some mechanics and welders and all the supplies I have requested from my pal the quartermaster. And the islanders all line up while I pass out many machetes and knives and chocolate bars and various other luxuries from Uncle Sam. And that night they throw a big party in my honor with much drinking and dancing and a swell time is had by one and all. But as we are ready to leave, the kid chief comes up all leaky-eyed, asking why am I leaving and will I come back and what will his people do without me. So I promise him I will be back soon with many wonderful things and to save me a spot in the bach-elors’ house, but until then, every time he sees a plane, he and his people will know that me and the Sky Priestess are looking out for them.

“Then when we are back at base I am working something with the colonel to run a recon mission to inspect the airstrip for emergency use. No bombs. I am thinking we will fill the Sky Priestess up with medicine and supplies for the Shark kid and his people as soon as permission comes through. And I’m fully intending to come

through, as I gives the kid my word and he believes it, but how am I to know that on our very next bombing run a squadron of Zeros will surprise us and fill the Sky Priestess with all manner of cannon and machine gun slugs, sending us down in a ball of flames and killing me and everyone aboard quite dead.”

The guy with the beard cleared his throat and said, “That was a swell story the first dozen times we heard it, Vinnie, but are you going to talk or play cards?”

“Bite me, Jewboy, it ain’t like we haven’t had to fight the yawns through your loaves and fishes epic a hundred fuckin’ times.” Then Vincent flashed him a feral grin. “And since it is now your bet, I will advise you to fold, as I am now holding a hand that is so hot it is about to burst into flames like the proverbial bush.”

The guy with the beard held up a punctured palm to silence Vincent. “You’re holding a pair of eights, Vinnie.”

“I hate fuckin’ playing with you,” Vincent said.

Tucker Case heard the beating of wings above his head and suddenly there was a familiar little face in front of him. Roberto was hanging upside down from the harness ropes around Tuck’s chest. He never thought he’d be glad to see the little vermin.

“Roberto! Buddy!” Tuck smiled at the bat.

Roberto squeaked and bent forward to lick Tucker’s face.

Tucker sputtered. He could smell papaya on the bat’s breath.

“How about climbing up there and gnawing through these ropes, little guy?”

Roberto looked at him quizzically, then laid a big lick on him, right across the lips.

“Ack! Bat spit!”

Tuck heard a weak voice from above. “He no gnaw rope. His teeth too little,” Kimi said.

Roberto took flight and landed on Kimi’s head and began licking and clawing him ecstatically.

Kimi was suspended about two feet above Tucker and about five feet away. It hurt his neck, but he could see the navigator dangling if he stretched. “You’re alive!” Tucker said. “I thought you were dead.”

“I am bery thirsty. Why you put us in tree?”

“I didn’t. It was an old island guy. I think he’s going to eat us.”

“No, no, no. No cannibal in these islands for many years.”

“Good. You tell him that when he comes back.”

Kimi struggled against his bonds and set himself spinning. “These ropes hurt on my arms. Someone put us in crab harness.”

“I figured that out,” Tuck said. He craned his neck and eyed Kimi’s harness. “Maybe I can swing to you and catch on to your harness.

If I can get hold of it, I might be able to untie you.”

“Good plan,” Kimi said.

“Yankee know-how, kid.”

As Tuck started to swing his arms and legs, he felt the harness tighten around his chest. Soon he was swinging in a wide elliptical pattern that brought him within a foot of Kimi, but the harness was so tight he could barely breathe. Weakened from lack of food and water, he gave up. “I can’t breathe,” he gasped.

“That good plan, though,” Kimi said. “Now I have Roberto bring that knife over by door of house and I cut the ropes. Okay?”

“Roberto can fetch?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I want to see Yankee know-how.”

Sarapul tried to run back to his hut, but the pain in his ancient knees wouldn’t allow him to move faster than a slow amble. If only he could ab-sorb the power of an enemy or two, perhaps the pain would subside and his strength would return along with his courage. It was courage he needed now. Instead, he had questions.

Why, if Malink dreamed a message from Vincent, did the white bitch say that he did not? And if Vincent had sent a pilot, why did the Sky Priestess not know about him? And if Vincent had not sent a pilot, who is hanging in the breadfruit tree?

In the old days Sarapul would have asked the turtle, his clan animal, for an answer to his questions. Then he would have watched the waves and listened to the wind for an answer, perhaps he would have gone to a sor-cerer for an interpretation. But he was too deaf and blind to see a sign now. And the only sorcerer left was the white man who lived behind the big fence and gave medicine to the Shark People: Vincent’s Sorcerer. Sarapul didn’t believe in Vincent any more than he believed in the god Father Rodriquez had worn around his neck on a chain.

Father Rodriquez had said that the old ways—the taboos and the totem animals—were lies and that the skinny white god on the cross was the only real god. Sarapul was prepared to believe him, especially when he offered everyone a piece of the body of Christ. But Christ tasted like dried pounded taro and Father Rodriquez lost

the old cannibal as a convert when he said that you would be thrown into fire forever if you ate anyone besides the stale starchy god on the cross.

Then the Japanese came and cut off Father Rodriquez’s head and threw his god on a chain into the sea. Sarapul knew for sure then that the Father had been lying all along. The Japanese raped and killed his wife and made his two sons work building the airstrip until they became sick and died. He asked the Turtle why his family had been taken away, and when the sign came in the form of a cloud shaped like an eel, the sorcerer said that it had happened because the Shark People had broken the taboos, had eaten their totem animals and taken fish from the forbidden reef: They were being punished.

The next night Sarapul killed a Japanese soldier and built an oom to bake him in, but none of the Shark People would help him. Some were afraid of the god of Father Rodriquez and the rest were afraid of the Japanese. They took the body and fed it to the sharks who lived at the edge of the reef.

In the morning the Japanese lined up the old sorcerer and a dozen children and machine-gunned them. And Sarapul lost his mind.

Then the American planes came, dropping their bombs and fire from the sky for two days, and when the explosions stopped and the smoke cleared, the Japanese left, taking with them all the coconuts and breadfruit on the island. A week later Vincent arrived in the Sky Priestess.

Sarapul still had the machete that the flyer had given him. It was more than he had ever gotten from Father Rodriquez’s god, but the cannibal did not believe that Vincent was a god. Even if Vincent had scared away the Japanese and brought the food that saved the Shark People, Sarapul had angered the old gods before and he would not do it again.

When the white Sorcerer arrived, he too talked of the god on the cross and although the Shark People took the food and medicine he gave them and even attended his services, they would not forsake Vincent, their savior. The god on the cross had let them down before. Eventually, the white Sorcerer turned to Vincent too. But Sarapul clung to the old ways, even when the Sky Priestess returned with her red scarf and explosions. It was all just entertainment: Christ was just a cracker, Vincent was just a flyer, and he, Sarapul, was a cannibal.