Calico Pennants (11 page)

MUSTER UP! You’re looking rather pathetic, Captain!” said a voice from over Julian’s shoulder.

He turned to find the bird perched on a nearby limb. “Where have you been?” he wanted to know. “I haven’t seen you for days!”

“Whirlwind romance,” answered the familiar.

“You?” inquired Julian.

“Imagine the ego,” said BV. “Do you think humans are the only creatures on earth who appreciate a pretty face?”

“Of course not, but...”

“Tamara Sly was half your age, Captain, but I volunteered not one word of criticism.”

“What makes you think I had it for Tamara Sly?” Julian kidded.

“Most humans don’t realize it,” BV needled, “but when they’re sexually aroused they give off an unmistakable mating scent. Not to mention the fact that they get a shamefully guilty look in their eyes. As a species it’s impossible for you to watch yourselves: you’re far too egocentric. But if you could see yourselves I think you’d be terribly embarrassed.”

“You don’t say,” said Julian cynically.

Just then Jewel flew up to join her mate.

“Julian,” said Buenaventura, “this is Jewel.”

Quite surprised, Julian came face-to-face with BV’s vibrant mate for the first time. “The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure.”

“Sometimes his attitude seems rather condescending,” BV told Jewel, “but he means no harm.”

She seemed prepared to accept BV’s human comrade without proviso. “Perhaps it’s time we lead him to Amie...” Her suggestion could not have been welcomer.

Guided by the two macaws, Julian climbed the south-facing promontory, up a path he’d not previously noticed. The morning was gray and steamy as he moved to initiate his redemption. Sweat poured off his brow. His heartbeat was wild, though his breath was strong.

Hopefully the apex of this five-hundred-foot hill would become the apogee between maddening isolation and fellowship; for apparently a covenant had been conceived, with or without his conscious consent, between the remote, esoteric woman, Amie, and himself. Of course Julian was grateful for her kind and able ministrations during his illness, still he could not imagine who or what he might find at the end of this trail.

Descending the promontory through sauna-like alcoves, he emerged around a final outcropping of large, moss-covered boulders. Crossing over a stream he entered the perimeter of Amie’s enclave. The rough-hewn home site certainly fascinated Julian, yet he was disgruntled as well. For he’d fervently hoped to come across some sort of community, not another castaway like himself!

Respectfully he approached the house. He called out a greeting but nobody answered. He walked round and round Amie’s tree house, noting various improvised conveniences: the rope ladders made from banyan vines; the bamboo shades and palm-thatched roof with leafy shingles; the intricate system of gutters fashioned to deliver water from the stream. Judging from the relative sophistication of her house, she’d lived here for some time. Apparently there was much she could teach him about survival on the island, but generally Julian found the evidence of her longtime residency disheartening. He certainly did not plan to spend the rest of his life here!

With cupped hands he drank from Amie’s reservoir. Having quenched his thirst he ventured uphill from the house. He discovered the banana grove and picked one of the fruits to eat. She was living a life of comparative abundance while he waited on the beach for rescue, famished and expiring. He wondered why she’d not approached him sooner. Why such reticence? Why such mystery?

Amidst his parade of speculations he almost failed to distinguish her as she came walking up the Seven Sisters path. As shafts of sunlight filtered through the tops of the trees, highlighting her long, curly hair, Julian beheld Amie for the first time. Slim and lithe, she was radiant as an emerald, and he blinked his eyes thinking he might be inventing such a creature. But Amie was no mirage. The perfect manifestation of her environment, her smooth face was without tension. Graceful arms descended to pliant hands and elegant, slender fingers. Her hips were girlish and her legs were long and muscular. She appeared strong and agile, decidedly feminine.

Through gray-green eyes she seemed to be shamelessly apprising some aspect of his bearing beyond contemporary understanding. Julian, in turn, thought he recognized her from some other place. But where? Then he remembered: The girl whose reflection he’d seen in the tide pool on Maui had implored him to subscribe to a timeless, recurrent reverie.

“Welcome,” she said. Her voice was deeper than he might have expected.

“You must be Amie...” Julian stood up and began to move toward her. The suddenness of his advance startled her, and she recoiled. He stopped. “My name is Julian Crosby,” he offered.

“Are you well now?” she asked.

“Completely recovered, thanks to you.”

“When I found you, you were dangerously dehydrated,” she told him.

“How did you know I was there?” he asked.

“The blue macaw led me to you.”

Julian craved contact from the deepest part of his entity, yet he was receiving signals imposing restraint. Each watched, waited, speculated in silence. On a nearby limb BV and Jewel sat side by side.

“This might sound like a stupid question,” Julian said, “but what is this place?”

“I don’t honestly know,” said Amie.

“Are there any other people here?” Julian wanted to know.

“No one else,” she said.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes...” She was hoping he would soon give up the inquisition so she might simply be his friend.

“Have you explored the entire island?”

She nodded. “There’s nobody else here. We’re all alone.”

“How did you get here?”

“Same as you,” she said.

“Shipwreck?”

“She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“How long have you been here?”

Amie shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not sure,” she said.

“What about your boat?” he asked.

“Gone” was all she offered.

The expression on Julian’s face was dubious. He motioned to the clearing where Amie’s home stood. “You’ve made quite a comfortable life for yourself,” he observed.

“In the beginning I was like you. I slept on the beach. I weathered storms. I waited to be rescued.”

“But nobody came,” he finished in a low voice.

“I cried and cried. I lit a fire on the beach. For weeks I never let it go out. I watched and watched until the horizon disappeared. Not a single ship. During the time I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a plane fly overhead.”

“Right after I swam ashore I thought I saw a plane crash on the mountainside,” Julian related. “I ran through the forest to the place where I saw it disappear. But when I arrived, there was nothing but a lone dragonfly circling and circling.”

“A Calico Pennant,” she determined.

“A what?”

“They’re the best flyers in the world.”

“Then I only thought I saw a plane...”

A protracted silence intruded on the conversation. Finally she said, “If you are hungry, I will make you some food.”

It was a good suggestion. And they walked, not side by side, the short distance to Amie’s house.

Again Julian examined the castaway as she scrubbed tubers and peeled wild onions to bake with lemon grass inside her stone oven. Her lips were full and her cheekbones high. Her deep tan hid what would otherwise have been a field of freckles. Sandy eyebrows framed emotive eyes. She moved with the grace and agility of one well adapted to such circumstances.

“Where did your journey originate?” Julian asked.

“New Guinea,” she said.

Showing astonishment Julian conjectured, “We must be quite far south...”

“The island is situated very near the equator,” Amie informed him.

“I have nautical maps,” Julian offered.

Amie shrugged. “I don’t suppose they’ll do us much good without a serviceable craft,” she said.

His enthusiasm fell slightly. “I presume you have observed the full range of seasons,” he said.

“Many times…”

Having flavored the sweet potatoes with herbs and extracts, Amie moved to her oven and prepared to make a fire using a piece of convex glass and a bit of reflective material salvaged long ago. Observing the process, Julian offered her a match. She smiled tolerantly. “I don’t need those,” she said. Once the fire was kindled and the crock of vegetables was cooking, Amie prepared a luxurious fruit salad. As she washed, peeled, and sliced the fruit she could see that her guest was quite hungry. When the mixture was ready she offered the repast. Julian accepted the compote and immediately began to savor the sweetness.

“I have a number of useful items,” he told her. Of course he was referring to materials he had taken off the Scoundrel.

Again Amie looked at him curiously. Obviously, she was in need of very little. “I saw the debris from your boat strewn over the beach where you landed,” she said.

“I still have to get things organized,” he explained.

Amie found his feigned confidence ingratiating. “Survival does not come easily at first,” she told him. “Only when you finally give up resistance will you begin to live in harmony with your fate. It’s not so bad if you can stand the solitude,” she said.

“Have you stopped hoping for rescue?” he asked.

“I seldom think about it anymore.”

“I think of nothing else,” he related.

“That will pass...”

“But I don’t want it to pass. I never want to lose hope!”

“Hope infers a future,” Amie said. “Time is different here, Julian. You’ll see.”

After their meal Amie gave him two torches for light, a woven basket in which to collect fruit, and a bamboo mat for sleeping. She also offered him a feather quill, ink, and paper tree bark for writing. She showed him where he could find butter fruit and ginger. She took him to see her taro field and her sweet potato patch.

“Where did you get the metal to construct your water system?” he wanted to know.

“Washed ashore,” she said vaguely.

Amie was intensely proud of her fishpond and she tried to educate Julian about the principles that sustained it. Together they walked onto the rocks that formed the pond’s perimeter. Her ingenuity and adaptability impressed Julian. “You are welcome to take fish from my pond,” she told him. “And if you would like, I will help you construct one of your own.”

At that moment Julian realized he would soon be going back over the hill to his own wretched encampment and a pervasive feeling of separation began to move over him like an accustomed memory. Apparently exclusivity was not reason enough for immediate affinity.

Julian began fingering the talisman that Amie had placed around his neck. The amulet depicted a single point amidst a vast field. “What is the meaning of this?” Julian asked.

“A symbol to represent the truth of our predicament.”

“And what truth is that?”

Placing her hand upon his shoulder, Amie made physical contact for the first time. Her touch was reassuring in the most profound way imaginable. “We are alone in Paradise,” she whispered.

HAVING LEARNED from the female solitary that they were alone on this tropical atoll and that the chance for rescue was remote, Julian might well have felt depressed and hopeless. He did not. He penetrated his fear for the time being and focused upon personal qualities often relegated to a background position in his personality—resolve and tenacity. For after seeing Amie’s marvelous domicile he awoke next morning determined to make the best of his exile.

Dismantling his first island home, he began constructing a permanent shelter made of bamboo poles and palm fronds. Such a house would allow the northeast breeze to blow freely through the porous hut, cooling torpid skin and calming nighttime anxieties.

From fallen wood found in the forest he constructed a small table and two chairs. Using the nails and screws he’d bought in Hilo, he built shelves on which to store salvaged supplies. Upon one particular shelf Julian placed a line of hollowed-out coconut shells. Inside the shells he collected the pieces of an obscure puzzle—unlikely items somehow deemed vital to his survival: nuts and berries; colorful stones; dragonfly wings for Amie; fish scales; colored sand; beetles; lures; feathers; patches of shirt material; his broken Rolex watch; rain water.

“Captain’s gone tropo!” crowed BV.

Julian was weaving a hammock from fronds.

“Jewel’s with Amie,” BV related.

“That’s nice,” said Julian.

“You know you want to see her again.”

“Of course I do...”

“No time like the present, Captain.”

“I’m busy now, Buenaventura. This is important work.” Julian tied one final knot securing the hammock to Koa wood supports then proclaimed, “Now it’s time for fishing. How about keeping me company, Buenaventura?”

The parrot flew away reciting pre—Colombian poetry:

“
We only come here to sleep,

We only come here to dream.

It is not true; it is not true,

That we come to Earth to live
.”

WITH HER HEAVIEST FISHING NET slung across her shoulders, Amie hiked three miles over hill and through dense forest until she descended to a beach front that she’d named Turtle Cove. Each evening a hundred sea turtles came here to bob and swim in the undulating surf. Normally Amie came only to observe and commune with these animals, but tonight her purpose was more diabolical. She slipped off her sandals and placed them on dry sand before walking cautiously over slippery black stones to a point where she could watch the creatures as they surfaced for air. Not often did she come to diminish their number, but this evening she meant to cast her net in hopes of capturing one of the sea turtles.

In truth, the cumbersome creatures were an easy catch, and on her fourth casting Amie netted a small tortoise. A tear of affection formed in her eye. Clutching her net tightly with work-strengthened hands, she begged forgiveness as she dragged the heavy sea turtle ashore. Once off the slippery rocks and on the sandy beach, she turned the unfortunate animal on its back. There it lay, helpless, as Amie disentangled her net.

Unfortunately the animal would not die immediately, but Amie knew of no humane way to affect a kill. When the sun came out tomorrow morning the turtle would retreat inside its shell and, unable to right itself, eventually expire. Then Amie would return to harvest her catch.

She returned home in waning light reflected off billowy, ocean-borne clouds and bathed underneath a dome of stars. By torchlight, Amie stood before her mirror, visually sculpting her figure—practically willing vision into flesh, fantasy into form. Her youthful face grew more lovely, her hair more shiny. Her lips seemed fuller, her eyes clearer. Her lucid expression suggested innocence peppered with a bit of longing. Her skin was luxuriant. Not since she was a newborn, cradled in her mother’s arms, had Amie known the security of such perfect physical harmony.

WITH BUENAVENTURA riding upon his right shoulder, Julian started over the promontory bearing a small gift of several fishing lures. He realized this bantam offering was hardly recompense for the help and encouragement Amie had already provided him, but, in truth, he had little she might need. He found the trail difficult as the stitching on his deck shoes was beginning to unravel and fray. Also, one of the soles had become dislodged and was flapping with each step he took. His gate looked silly and uneven as he crossed the meridian and began the descent toward Amie’s compound.

Who is this woman, he wondered, stranded like myself in a forgotten place? During their first and only meeting he had asked question after question, but come away with little information.

She possessed the candid face of a muse. He’d noticed at once that her hands were loveliest at task. And while he hungered for contact, he was not certain on which dynamic to begin. When Julian entered her encampment he found that she was not there.

“She’s probably with the Seven Sisters,” suggested BV. “She goes there each morning to commune.”

“Can you guide me there?” asked Julian.

“Follow the yellow brick road,” instructed the parrot.

Julian wandered through the banana grove to the place where he had first met Amie. There he located the path on which she’d entered the stand. He continued up the gentle incline, tracing the conformation of the path side stream. Coming to a clearing, he saw the first of the seven descending pools. Immersed in clear, sparkling water, and quite unaware of his presence, Amie swam, naked.

At first he said nothing, for he did not want to startle her. Taken with her rare beauty, he watched as her head and sun-dappled shoulders emerged above the waterline. Droplets shone like tiny gems as they fell from her face back into the pool. Her fingertips moved a few stray hairs away from closed eyelids. Lifting her arms and opening her palms toward the sun, Amie invoked the spirits to preserve her in a place she had come to cherish.

Opening her eyes, Amie saw him watching her. She smiled shyly and slipped beneath the water, up to her chin. Julian surveyed the seven pools that descended from the ninety-foot waterfall. “So this is the place you call the Seven Sisters?”

“It’s appropriate, don’t you think so?”

“It’s very beautiful here,” said Julian reverently.

“I would have brought you here eventually,” she said.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” he said, certainly not wanting to withdraw.

“The water’s fine,” said Amie. “ Would you like to swim?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” said Julian.

Perched upon a palm branch, Buenaventura regarded the scene from a higher perspective. “Situation’s critical,” he cautioned.

Of course Julian was inclined to discount BV’s warning.

“He’s an absolute delight!” said Amie.

“Sometimes he’s a real killjoy!”

Amie instructed Julian to find a large, round stone, wrap a broad ti leaf around it, and place it with the other stones upon the pool side altar she’d created long ago as an offering to the serpent god, Mo’o. Julian felt somewhat foolish, and asked, “Is that necessary?”

“It is unless you want to be pulled down to the bottom to spend eternity...”

Julian smiled. Carrying out the prescribed ritual was a small price to pay for a skinny-dip in this idyllic pool with the siren of any man’s fancy.

“Take off all your clothes,” Amie instructed.

Julian wasted little time doing as he was told. Off came his tattered shoes, his rumpled shirt, his torn, sagging pants. Amie drew him into the water with her rapt expression.

Immersing his body in the pool, Julian felt an unaccustomed intensity, and he shuddered.

“Are you cold?” Amie asked.

“No, it’s something else,” he said. “Something quite different.”

Amazed by a sudden and totally unexpected surge of effervescence, Julian was at a loss to explain such a feeling. Perhaps he was stronger, more virile. But how could such a thing be true? It seemed to him as if years had been instantly washed away. His thoughts and visions became increasingly volatile, his spirit more resilient. Bewildered by such feelings of conjunction with the physical circumstances around him, Julian looked to Amie for an explanation.

“Quite extraordinary, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes, but what is it? What are these feelings?”

“How can I explain?” she said gently.

“Please try!” Julian searched the periphery of the environment like a man whose mind and body were suddenly capable of anything.

“I’m not sure I understand completely,” said Amie.

“But after all this time you must!”

“What if all we have to do is offer stones and innocence, and this pool renders visions of immortality?”

“How can it be?” asked Julian incredulously.

“Perhaps we who live to risk—or risk to live—are blessed with multiple lives!”

“I’ve never been one to take risks,” said Julian.

“Yet here you are...”

“And where is here?”

“A place where we see ourselves reflected in nature, from the smallest insect to the most awesome volcano. We are in the clouds. We are patterned as the veins of each leaf. We are thinking cells. We are waves and light and weather. We are memories of variation. We live within a split second. Our feelings color in life’s outline, and thus we put our own peculiar charge upon existence.”

“I would never have dared to wish for this,” said Julian.

“Ah,” quoted Amie, “but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a Heaven for?”

Back at Amie’s tree house, Julian graciously received the gift of the foot-and-a-half diameter tortoise shell. In return he presented Amie with the hand-tied fishing lures. She stored the charms with her homemade jewelry rather than with her nets and poles, then earnestly involved herself in the creation of Chelonia stew. It would simmer all day long in a stone cauldron over glowing coals.

It was a warm morning and Julian lolled shirtless and barefoot. He nibbled on wild raspberries and watched Amie at work, though he could not seem to dismiss the image of his reflection as it had appeared to him in the bathing pool. Even though his blond beard had grown full, there was no mistaking that facial ridges and furrows, once so familiar, had disappeared. He observed that the skin on his hands now felt supple, more pliant. Weathered creases had receded; bony ridges appeared tapered to perfect symmetry. The muscles in his forearms, once weak and pathetic, had become tough and sinewy.

“Your shoes are falling apart,” Amie observed.

“Nowadays everything is made in foreign markets,” Julian lamented absently. “Cheap labor. Poor quality...”

Amie looked at him curiously. Chopping wild onions to season reptilian flesh, she said, “Tonight I will make you a pair of sandals.”

“I suppose I could use them,” said Julian. “The skin on my feet is dry and cracking.”

“It’s the salt water,” said Amie. “And the hot sand... But I have something for that, too.”

“You know, it’s really not so bad here,” Julian allowed.

Less inclined to give herself away, Amie instead chose to question him about the circumstances surrounding his arrival on the island, and about his recently surrendered life in civilization. Julian related the saga of his impromptu trip to Hawaii, and how he’d spontaneously bought the Scoundrel from Kamehaloha Kong. He told her about the trip to Hilo with Kamehaloha and Tamara to watch the landing of Hawai’iloa, about BV’s adoption, and about his breakdown off the Kona Coast. Several weeks adrift, followed by a vertiginous storm, had brought him to this disregarded atoll.

“Do you have a family?” she asked.

“I was married almost twenty years,” he related. “But we divorced several years ago. I do have a daughter, though I have not seen her since she moved to Seattle.”

“Then you were living alone...”

“For the past few years,” he confirmed.

“Did you love your wife?” Amie asked.

Julian found the question peculiar, and a little invasive. “Why do you ask?”

“I was married once,” Amie offered.

“Before you came here, of course.”

“Yes...”

“So your husband was not with you when—”

“When I was marooned here,” she finished.

“Why were you sailing the Pacific alone?” Julian inquired.

“After several record-breaking voyages, I needed one last effort to ensure my reputation, so I decided to make an all-out effort to go around the world. An empirical challenge... A fool’s play, as it turned out.”