Island of the Sequined Love Nun Chapter 56~57

56EscapeKimi was trying to harbinger up yaup and was having no luck at every last(predicate). Hed been chanting and waving his arms for half an minute and there still wasnt a cloud in the sky.Youre not holding your arms right, Sarapul said. He was fabrication under(a) a ribbon tree, chewing a betel nut and offering constructive denunciation to the navigator. Sepie lay nearby watching.I am too, Kimi said. Im holding them the same way you do.Maybe it doesnt work for Filipinos.Its beca white plague Im shot, Kimi said. If I wasnt shot, I could do this.Sarapul scanned the horizon. Not even a bird. Thats it. Its because youre shot. He spit out(a) a rubor stream of betel nut juice. And youre not holding your arms right.Kimi resumed chanting and waving his arms.Hey Sarapul said.What? Did you hear thunder? I knew I could do it.No. Be quiet. Someone is calling you.Kimi listened. Someone was calling him, and they were getting closer. He limped d hold the beach toward the voice and sa w tucker Case coming nigh the island.Hey, boss, what you doin out here during the day? The Sorcerer gonna be plenty mad at you.Tuck was out of breath. He is mad. I need your boat, Kimi. And I need you to navigate for me.Not his ship, Sarapul said. My ship.The doc is going to crop up me if I dont get off the island. groundwork I use your boat?The old cannibal was silent for a moment, thinking. Where you go?I dont know. Guam, Yap, anywhere.Can I come?Yes, yes, if I can use your boat.Okay, we leave vanadium days. Right, Kimi?Kimi looked at Tuck. It not be respectable sailing for five days.I tolerate to go now, Kimi.Can Sepie come?Sepie stepped behind, surprised. You want to clutch me? Women dont sail.You come, Kimi said. Okay, boss? he said to Tuck.Tuck nodded. What for forever. Sepie, go posit Malink that I need everyone to bring drinking coconuts. Many drinking coconuts with the husks taken off. Bananas, mangoes, papaya, and dried fish if he has any.thither is plenty shark meat, Sepie said.I need it now, Sepie. Go. Tell Malink that Vincent affects it.Sarapul began to chop at the underbrush in depend of the sailing canoe to clear a path to the water. Put down palm leaf to glide ship on, he told Tuck. Tuck began to gather long palm fronds and lay them down in a path to the water.Kimi, can you go get the things from my select? Theres things we can use.What about Roberto?Call for him, but go get the stuff. The money too.Okay, boss.Ten minutes later Tuck looked up to see Malink leading a line of chisel the great unwashed through the jungle. All were carrying baskets of solid food and husked green coconuts.You are leaving?Yes, I have to go, Chief.You are taking our ship and our navigator.And our mispel, Abo added from behind Malink.I have to go, Malink. The Sorcerer and the riff Priestess are going to kill me.But Vincent send you. How they hurt you?They dont really believe in Vincent. They use him to get you to give up the chosen, Malink. Theyre goin g to start killing off your peopletoo.They no kill the Chosen. Chosen are for Vincent.No. I told you before. They take out your organs and sell them to be assign inside of other people.Malink scoffed. You can no put one man kidney in other man.It was in state magazine. Didnt you see it? Demi Moore, Melanie Griffith, Mariel Hemingway, all of them? You didnt read about it?Recognition lit up Malinks face. Boob pedigreeYes, Tuck said. Where do you think they get those boobs?Oh, no.Yes.He speaks the truth, Malink said to the islanders. It was in People. Put the food in the boat.He took Tuck aside. You will come mainstay?Ill try.And bring our navigator.Ill try, Malink. I really will.You try.Tide, Kimi called. We go now.The center of the canoe was filled with coconuts, fruit, and bundles of dried shark meat wrapped in banana leaves. Kimi order the men to get on either side of the canoe and push it over the mat of palm fronds to the water. When it was afloat, Tuck lifted Sepie in, then climbed in himself. Kimi, standing on the outrigger platform, started to hoist the sail. It was the shape of a tortilla oddball stood on end with a bite taken out at the top. Tuck recognized the pieces of his pack sewn into the nylon patchwork.Where is Sarapul? Kimi said.Here The old cannibal was running out of the jungle, seeming stronger now than Tuck had ever seen him. He had gone rump for his spear, a long shaft of mahogany with a wickedly bristly metal tip. Tuck caught the old man by the forearm and pulled him out of the surf and into the canoe.The canoe was already fifty yards from the shore. Sarapul took the long oar at the rear and steered it toward the channel as Kimi stood on the outrigger platform and manipulated the sail.The Shark People stood on the beach looking stunned. A few waved. Malink looked forlorn, Abo heartbroken.thanks, Tuck shouted over the wave. Thank you, Malink.You will come back. Malink said. It was not a question.Tuck turned to look out to sea, then looked back to see the Shark People wading into the water after them. Behind them he saw a dark figure come out of the jungle. There was no warning shot or demand to halt. Stripe came out onto the beach and opened up with the Uzi. Tuck pushed Sepies head down under the parade of the gunwale just as a line of bullets stitched and splintered the wood. Kimi screamed and Tuck looked up to see a row of red geysers open in his back. He clung to one of the lines for a split second, then unrelenting into the sea. some other scream, this one from Sarapul, the hideous screech of a raging lynx, and the old man went over the side. The gunfire halt and Tuck risked popping his head up to look back to the beach. Stripe was slamming a new break short into the Uzi as he waded after the canoe. The Shark People had fled from the water and disappeared into the jungle or were cowering on the beach, uneffective to move.With the sail loose, the canoe had swung around and was being carried by the ti de toward the reef. They would miss the channel by unless a few feet, but they would miss it and run aground on the reef. Tuck reached up to captivate the steering oar just as Stripe let off another burst from the Uzi. At a hundred yards he was spraying a wide pattern, but Tuck heard a join of bullets thunk into the side of the canoe.The normally crystal water near the shore was clouded with the sand and silt throw up by the Shark Peoples retreat, so Stripe did not see the dark shape lamentable through the water toward him. He wanted a shot. He set the Uzi to semiautomatic and unfolded the stock to take careful aim.Tuck was standing now, leaning hard on the steering oar to bring the canoe around and through the channel. The outrigger scraped over the reef as the canoe approached broadside.Stripe lined up the sights between Tucks elevate blades, held his breath, let it out, then squeezed the trigger.Sarapul came out of the water like an angry marlin, spear-first. The metal poin t entered just under Stripes chin and exited his skull at the crown, dragging brain and bone on its evil barb. As Stripe fell back, he emptied the clip into the sky.The canoe slipped through the channel into the open ocean. Out on the horizon, a bantam cloud appeared and dropped a mercurial lightning bolt into the sea, followed a few seconds later by Kimis thunder.57 tungsten with the BatThe Sorcerer stood on the beach over the supine body of Yamata. The spear was still sticky out of the moderates skull like a gruesome note spindle waiting for a canceled receipt from the Reaper.How did this take place? the Sorcerer asked.Malink looked at his feet. The Sorcerer seemed more surprised than angry. A day had passed since Sarapul had killed Stripe, and Malink had waited in fear for the time when the Sorcerer would come looking for him. The other guards had torn the village apart looking for Tuck, and Malink had confessed that the pilot had odd the island in an old canoe, but he had claimed ignorance of the whereabouts of the guard. Sarapul had been right. They should have pushed the body out to the edge of the reef for the sharks to eat. Actually, that had been Sarapuls second suggestion for the disposal of the body.It look like accident, Malink said. Maybe he running and fall on his spear.I want the man who did this, Malink, the Sorcerer said.He is dead.The Filipino did this?Malink nodded. The other guards had found Kimis body in the village, where the Shark People had been preparing it for burial.I dont think so. The Filipino took four bullets in the back. Whoever did this was very strong. Now you must tell me the truth or Vincent will be angry.Malink was not afraid(p) of Vincents wrath. He only now complete that all the wrath his people had ever felt from Vincent had comeby way of the Sorcerer and the toss out Priestess. He was afraid of the pitch Priestess.The American do this before he leave in the canoe. The guard shoot the girl-man and the American ki ll the guard.Why didnt you tell me about this before?I am afraid Vincent will be angry.Where did they get a canoe? None of the Shark People know how to instal a canoe.It was the girl-man. He know how. He build with Sarapul.The Sorcerer balled his fists. And Sarapul is gone too.Malink nodded. He sail away.Do you know where they were going?Malink shook his head. No. Sarapul is banished. We no talk with him.Wheres the guards weapon?Malink shrugged.The Sorcerer turned his back and began walking up the beach. Have your people bury this man, Malink. Dont let the other guards see him. And be ready. The Sky Priestess will visit you soon.Sarapul crawled out from some nearby ferns and stood at Malinks side, watching the Sorcerer walk away. We should have eaten this guy, he said, kicking Yamatas body.This is very bad, Malink said.He killed my friend. Sarapul kicked the body again.The Sky Priestess will be very angry. Malink was, at once again, feeling the weight of his position.The old canni bal shrugged. Can I have my spear back?Tuck knew that there was a way to use the hands of a watch in conjunction with the causal agency of the sun to determine anxiety, but since he wore a digital watch, it wouldnt have done him any true even if he knew the method, which he didnt. He guessed that Guam lay to the west, so he steered for the setting sun, spent the dark guessing, and rectifyed his course to put the sun behind them at sunrise.He did know how to sail. It was required fellowship for a kid growing up in a wealthy family near San Diego, but gossamer navigation was a complete mystery. Sepie was no help at all. Even if she knew anything, she hadnt said a enunciate since Kimi had been shot.Tuck forced her to drink the water from a couple of green coconuts, but other than that, she had lain in the bow motionless for twenty-four hours.He was now looking at his second sunset at sea. He corrected his course and realized that they must have been traveling north most of the day. How far, he couldnt guess. He steered southwest until the sun lay on the water like a glowing platter, hoping to correct some of the damage.He really wished that Sepie would come around. He needed some sleep, and he needed some relief from his own thoughts. Thoughts of the Sky Priestess, of the Sorcerer, and of his dead friend Kimi. Despite the navigat-ors surly manner, he had been a good kid. Tuck, who had been brought up in relative luxury, couldnt imagine having endured the life that Kimi had lived. And the navigator had never given up. He had lived and died with courage. And he would still be alive if he hadnt met Tucker Case.Fuck Tuck said to no one. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and squinted at the gunmetal waves.There was a flapping noise up by the mast and Tuck adjusted the steering oar to catch the sneak. The sail filled again, but the flapping continued for a second before it stopped.Roberto caught the shroud line that was secured to the outrigger and did an upside -down swinging landing that left him looking to the back of the canoe.Tuck couldnt have been happier if it had been an angel hanging from his shroud line.Roberto?Yes, the bat said. He was speaking in his own voice, not Vincents. The accent Filipino, not Manhattan.Tuck almost burst out laughing. His mood swings were so speedy and wide now that he was afraid his sanity might be falling through the chasm. I didnt recognize you without your glasses.I no like the light, Roberto said.Tuck looked to Sepie, still lying in the bow. Look, Sepie, its Roberto. The girl did not stir.You are very sad about Kimi, Roberto said.Yes, Tuck said, I am sad.He tell you he was great navigator and you no believe him.Tuck looked away. Something about bats increases shame by a factor of ten.You are going the wrong way, the bat said. Go that way.He pointed with a wing claw. The wind caught his wing and nearly spun him off the shroud line. He braced himself with the other wing claw and pointed again. I mean th at way.Youre shitting me, Tuck said.That way.Thats north. Im going to Guam. West.Thats west. I am born on Guam.Youre a bat.You ever see a lost bat?No, but Ive never seen a talking bat either. break? Roberto said, as if he had made his point. That way.After all the evidence is in after youve run all the facts by everything you know and youre still lost, you have to do some things on faith. Tuck steered in the direction Roberto was pointing.A few minutes later he looked up to see Vincent sitting on the obturate of coconuts in the center of the canoe. Good call, listening to the bat, Vincent said. I just wanted you to know that the Shark People are going to build some ladders.Well, thats a useful bit of information, Tuck said.It will be, Vincent said. past he disappeared.