Five Wives by Joan Thomas

Author:Joan Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2019-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

17

THEY PUT THE GIFTS TOGETHER with the greatest of care. An aluminum kettle. A bag of salt. A little bag of coloured buttons and some ribbons. Nate will do a gift drop on the same day every week, so the Auca will start expecting it. This will build trust.

The first drop is October 6. Nate and Ed find the clearing empty, but they drop the gifts anyway. The second is October 13, and Nate says six or seven people rushed over in excitement when the gifts landed between the longhouses. After that, the sound of the Piper coming over the trees draws a crowd every week.

In the morning they watch Nate take off, Benjy in Marj’s lap. Marj runs her palm over the bristles on the top of his head, enjoying their bluntness. She’s just given him his first crewcut. “Who’s that in the airplane?” she asks him.

“Daddy,” he says flatly, bored by the question.

The fourth week, Nate jacks up the gift lode: he starts to drop machetes. Because it’s such great sport to watch the excitement on the ground when the people look up and see what’s falling towards them.

“Nate,” Marj says. “Didn’t Shell Oil try airdrops before they went into Auca territory?”

“Yeah, they did.”

“Didn’t they drop tools like machetes?”

“Could be.”

“And weren’t some of the Shell employees later killed by machetes?”

He’s sitting on the stool, staring at her wordlessly. “Okay,” he finally says. “I won’t drop machetes.”

He flies the men in so they can practise with the spiral bucket, and Olive comes to Shell Mera with Peter. The men spend the afternoon at the airstrip. The trick, as Marj understands it, is to pit centrifugal force against centripetal force, and somehow factor in drag. Marj watches Nate’s first pass over the airstrip, discovers that the weight swinging from the end of the rope is her new kerosene iron, and takes the kids to the lounge.

An hour or two later, she hears the men in the backyard with the football. They sound excited. It must have worked.

Olive comes to the kitchen to help with supper. “I can make boiled yucca taste just like mashed potatoes,” she says. “It’s my only jungle skill.”

So Marj surrenders the yucca to her and turns her attention to browning the pork chops.

Olive stands close to her at the stove. “I need to tell you something.”

Marj poured too much oil into the frying pan and the pork chops are spitting like crazy, drilling minuscule fiery darts into her hand. “You’re pregnant?”

“No. Not that. It’s just—Peter is thinking seriously about pulling out of the operation.”

“He is?”

“Yes.”

Marj dials the flame down and turns towards Olive. “What’s that about?”

“Well, he’s been praying and praying about the mission, and he can’t seem to get any peace about it.”

Shouts float in through the window and they both glance over and watch Jim throw a long pass. Ed lifts into the air and hooks the football down with exceptional grace.

“Peter is a really intelligent person,” Olive says. “I don’t know if the others recognize that—he always feels like a junior partner in this group, especially with Jim.

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