Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place' (9 page)

Alani growled in annoyance and stifled a reply,
flung her hands into the air and dashed back to her still-idling
Jeep, noisily ground it into gear and flew back down the hill in a
cloud of reddish dust.

Buddy watched his sister disappear into the distance
with a wry smile on his wide, brown face, and then wearily climbed
back into the plane as it rocked and groaned anew in protest. He
paused as he delicately stepped over the unconscious form of Chris
and glanced with a weighted sigh at the remainder of his cargo-
haphazardly piled boxes of coconut purses, gently swinging stalks
of green-yellow bananas and other various and sundry things all
awaiting their destination, all of which were now delayed in their
arrival by the unconscious form of the golden-haired stranger that
lay in a heap among them.

Buddy looked back at the sleeping form of Chris as
he climbed through the cockpit opening and said calmly, “You gonna
be okay, bro, just relax...” Chris’ head lolled drunkenly to one
side in response, and Buddy continued with a smile, “Nevah
mind.”

Buddy squeezed his bulk into the squeaky pilot’s
chair and re-started the balky radials, slamming the throttles
forward with a roar and a blast of blue smoke. The Electra
accelerated swiftly and leaped off the dusty runway, the wind of
its passing scattering the remaining wisps of low-lying mist into
the early-morning breeze. Turning lazily in a slow, rising circle,
Buddy grabbed the mic and keyed a toggle. “Waianae tower, this is
Yankee Zulu X-ray Two Two Zero.” An unintelligible squawk replied
and he continued, “Hey bro'! I got me a stupid haole tourist that
done busted himself up out on Lualana Road…” Buddy listened for a
moment and then replied, “No, no he not bleedin' or nothin'. I
think he just got like a concussion or somethin’. Anyway, you wanna
let Doc Onagawa know I on my way wit' him so I don' waste no mo'
time today? Mahalo, bro, see you in about twenty, Aloha!”

Buddy clicked the mic back onto
its holder and reached above his head to a document pouch that
bulged nearly to bursting with what looked like literally
hundreds
of music CD’s.
Rummaging casually through them with one hand as the other rested
lazily on the wheel, he selected one almost at random and slid it
into a nearly invisible slot above the instrument rack. As the
plane bounced noisily above the pastoral landscape, Buddy tapped a
key, and the lilting strains of ‘E Ala E’, a traditional Hawaiian
ballad, drifted softly from the speakers, a gentle serenade to the
passing scenery below.

Chris awoke in the darkness of the
cargo hold, the dull throbbing hum of the engines and a warm tenor
voice greeting his return to consciousness. As his blurry vision
cleared, his eyes suddenly focused on the
other
living occupant of the plane’s
cargo hold. It was an enormous, furry brown
spider
, its tiny eyes glittering in
the semi-darkness, slowly crawling towards him on a stalk of gently
swinging bananas.

In stumbling panic at this frightening sight, Chris
reeled and scrambled backward as he sputtered, “What the f-! Oh-
my- God...! Ohhh SHIT!” and tumbled backward onto the flight deck,
his elbow striking the throttles in the center of the console and
knocking them askew as he toppled awkwardly into the co-pilot’s
chair, crashing into the control yoke and pinning it into the dash.
The engines roared and the plane dove sharply and tilted to one
side as Buddy exclaimed, “What da hell?!” and scrambled to regain
control as Chris flailed helplessly beside him. Now thoroughly
awake, a mask of confusion crossed his face as Chris patted his
head and his hand encountered the cold, hard plastic of the helmet,
and then creased further in puzzlement as he looked through the
face-guard and saw the shoulder-pads.

Buddy guffawed and righted the plane as he casually
addressed his accidental co-pilot, only adding to Chris’
bewilderment at awakening in this alien environment, “Hey! You
awake! Welcome back, bro!”

Chris could only sputter a reply as he pointed to
the sight of the giant spider still framed in the cockpit opening.
“There- there- there- there's a- a- A-!”

Buddy inquired lazily, “C'mon, bro, spit it out-
There's a...?”

“
A spider!!!”

Buddy raised a sardonic eyebrow
and queried casually, “A really
big
, fat brown one...?”

“
Yes!”

Buddy waved a hand in dismissal and laughed. “Oh,
don't worry about him, that's jus' Arnold,” he said, pronouncing it
‘Ah-nuhld’, as in Schwartzenegger, and continued, “He prob'ly jus'
curious. He ain't nevah' seen no Haole before.”

Chris struggled to remove the
helmet, the effort clearly painful on his bruised and tender skull,
and asked with a note of temerity, “What? Ow! You have a pet spider
named
Arnold
...?”

Buddy replied, matter-of-fact, “Yeah. He's in charge
of pest control.”

Chris squeaked, “He's
what
-? Oh- my-
God.”

Chris struggled out of the shoulder pads, which to
Buddy’s silent amusement was like watching a neophyte illusionist
trying to remove a straightjacket. Finally casting the pads aside,
Chris checked out his new surroundings as he turned and settled
into the co-pilot’s chair.

The flight deck of the antique aircraft was
festooned with a myriad of knobs and cranks, toggles and switches,
all of which were stuffed and strewn with what looked like a
veritable family album of photographs. Glancing out the window with
a perplexed shake of the head, Chris turned back to Buddy. “Man,
it's like travelling back in time... exactly what am I flying
in?”

Buddy responded proudly, “Bruddah, you on a Lockheed
Electra 12-A, only one of its kind on Hawai'i...”

“
An Electra
Junior? Like the one in 'Casablanca'? But the 12-A's only had a
range of about 800 miles. How on earth did it get
here
?”

Buddy’s face creased in puzzlement. “Dey flew it
here, bro. How else you gonna get a plane out here?” Buddy nodded
to the instrument rack and gestured proudly about the plane,
“Anyway, welcome aboard 'The Mighty Menehune'.” Buddy extended a
meaty palm in welcome, “I'm Buddy...”

Chris returned the gesture and replied, “Chris.
Chris Matthews.”

Buddy looked at Chris with furrowed brows. “Dude,
you look way different on TV.”

“
It's the makeup.” Chris smiled
and continued, “Sorry, I get that a lot. Just call me Chris. So how
did you get this plane? It's amazing- beautiful. I've never flown
an- an antique before, how does it handle?”

“
You fly? Then
you gonna
love
this. She like a rock, bro. Check it out...” Buddy let go of
the wheel and placed his hands casually behind his head. “Give it a
try...”

“
Seriously...? Okay- Sure!” Chris
grasped the wheel-

And the world suddenly flashed
and
changed…

…
The sounds of Flak reverberated
in the cockpit, the sky outside dotted with puffs of black smoke.
The plane shuddered and swayed from the force of the blasts and
then rocked violently as several anti-aircraft rounds blasted
through the fuselage just behind the cockpit. Chris hunched down in
reaction as the plane lurched sickeningly downward, the dark
landscape below exploding with silent puffs of flame and
smoke-

And the world flashed again.

Chris blinked rapidly, clearing the disturbing
vision from his eyes, only to see Buddy pulling back forcefully on
the control yoke with one hand, bringing the plane back to level as
he reached over to Chris and gently shook his shoulder.

“
Yo, Chris! Dude, you
okay?”

Chris blinked again, “Whoa! What just happened?”

“
I think you blacked out again.
Your eyes went all funny and you kinda like slumped
over.”

“
No. I mean…” Chris shook his
head, still confused, and then went silent in contemplation of the
unexpected vision.

“
Hey, no
worries, this ain't no wimpy little 10,000 pound Cub. It take way
more than dat to crash
dis
plane.” Buddy pointed out the starboard window
and said with a smile, “Hey! Check it out, looks like we made it in
one piece.”

A small rural airstrip, carved into the tiny point
of land at the island’s edge, showed itself to Chris as Buddy
rocked the plane to the right.

Chris exclaimed in astonishment,
“What?! There? Are you kidding?! That scratch doesn't look big
enough to even land a
paper
airplane...”

Buddy made a rude noise and dismissed Chris’
concerns with a casual wave of his hand. “Dude, that's nothin'. You
think that’s tight, you should see the strip on Kalaupapa out on
Molokai. In the winter, you gotta time your landing with da waves.
This one's a piece of cake. We just gotta make a quick pass to
clear da space-”

Chris interrupted with alarm,
“'Clear the space'-? Of
what
?”

Buddy laughed. “Usually there's a whole bunch o'
wild boar jus' chillin' on the runway…” Buddy shuddered and then
continued, “Trus' me, you no wanna hit one o' them things- it give
'spiral sliced ham' a whole new meaning.” And with that, Buddy
casually banked and dived, leveling out barely a dozen feet above
the narrow dirt track.

As Chris watched in amazement, several dark shapes
suddenly leaped to their feet and fled into the surrounding jungle.
Buddy laughed again and casually slapped a red ‘Staples’ button
that was glued to the dash.

The Button responded, “That was easy.”

Buddy tweaked the throttles and twisted the wheel
and the Electra rose and banked up and around, gliding with a dull
rumble of engines near the lush green cliff-sides that enveloped
the tiny airstrip. Buddy reached for the gear lever, flipped a
seemingly random toggle to his left-

…
and suddenly SCREAMED in pain,
writhing and grasping at his chest with his free hand.

“
AAAAAAAH! SH-!” Another wracking
spasm of pain hit Buddy, and he abruptly let go of the yoke as he
now clutched his chest with both of his hands, pitching forward
into the wheel and crushing it to the dash. Immediately, the
horizon disappeared and was replaced with the dark green cliff-side
that filled the tiny windscreen.

Chris grabbed frantically for the
control yoke and yelped in alarm, “Oh MAN! Not
AGAIN!!”
Chris seized the wheel, the
tendons straining in his arms, and again his vision
suddenly-
shifted
. Twisting and skewing between reality and something else
entirely, between bright Technicolor and smeary black-and-white,
Chris suddenly found himself somewhere-
strange,
but also-
familiar.

The brightly colored Hawaiian
landscape shifted and changed, becoming the fractured and garish
nightmare of Dresden on fire,
and
then snapped back again
,
then slid
elsewhere
, again in a strange monochrome of light and dark. Chris
looked to his left, Buddy having somehow changed into the dark,
still bulk of another, less familiar figure, its pilots cap askew,
dark blood crusting around a scorched and shattered
face.

The Electra lurched downward, and-

The world snapped back to
the
‘now’.

Chris tugged with all his might on
the wheel, desperately trying to right the plunging craft- but it
didn’t budge, having been pinned forward by the crushing bulk of
Buddy. Chris gritted his teeth and jammed his feet into the
floorboards and tried again, now desperately looking around the
cockpit for a solution to their inevitable demise. His gaze locked
on the twin throttle controls, and suddenly, the tiniest germ of an
idea came to him from-
somewhere…

…
The ground raced towards him,
smeary black smoke streaking across the windscreen, and Chris
attempted a desperate ploy, one he had only tried before in the
comfort of altitude, but one which, if it worked-

And again the world
shifted…

There-! Chris Grabbed the throttle controls with his
left hand and pulled them all the way back, at the same time
twisting the prop knob and reversing props as he simultaneously
pushed the throttles back to full. The unorthodox maneuver forced
the plane to attempt to stop in mid-air, the tail dropping like a
stone, and the sudden reversal of acceleration caused Buddy to
pitch back into his seat, finally releasing the wheel. Chris
scrambled to reset the props, this time without changing the
throttle- a move that in any other aircraft would have ripped the
engines from the wings.

But the ‘Mighty Menehune’ was made of sterner
stuff.

With a roar and groan of tortured metal, the twin
radials of the Electra grabbed air again and Chris yanked the yoke
back, forcing the nose of the plane up. He quickly looked out
through the narrow, slot-like windscreen, only to see the side of
the mountain still racing toward them through the glass. Twisting
the wheel to the right, Chris hunched his shoulders and braced for
the expected impact, watching the approach of fate with one eye as
the other closed tightly in anticipation of their impending
doom.