The men might have disagreed on the details of when and how a meeting should take place, but they were united on two things. First, they were committed to reaching the Aucas with the gospel message; and second, Operation Auca was going much better than anyone had expected. Apart from that, they would have plenty of time to hammer out the details of their first meeting with the Aucas, or so they thought.
Chapter 13
A Place to Land
Jim turned the headband over in his hands. It was a work of art. A line of fluffy, lime green parrot feathers was woven all the way around the headband. Sticking out from among the parrot feathers, on what Jim assumed to be the front of the headband, were longer feathers the color of nearly ripe tomatoes, like the ones growing in Jim’s garden. “Come in and have something to drink and tell me all about it,” Jim said to Ed McCully and Nate Saint, who were standing beside him on the airstrip at Shandia.
As they strolled into the house, Ed and Nate began telling Jim the story of how they received the headband. There wasn’t much to tell, really. During their regularly scheduled gift drop, an Auca man had removed the clothes and enamel bowl from the bucket and then put something in it to be transported back to the airplane. When Ed had finally pulled the bucket into the circling Piper, there was the headband.
“It’s obviously a gift,” said Ed.
“Looks like they want to be our friends. This is great. One of us can wear the headband when we go to meet them. That way, they’ll know we’re the ones who give them gifts from the sky,” said Jim excitedly.
“Great idea,” Ed said enthusiastically. “I can’t believe how fast this is all coming together.”
Nate and Jim nodded.
The three men sat around the Elliots’ dining table for half an hour, eating chunks of pineapple and papaya, drinking lemonade, and discussing how the headband was one more sign they were on track with Operation Auca. The time for a face-to-face meeting must be getting close.
All too soon, it was time for Nate and Ed to leave. They climbed back into the Piper Cruiser and took off for Arajuno. As the plane disappeared, Jim looked forward to the following week when it was his turn to go with Nate on the gift drop.
The week dragged, but finally Thursday rolled around. It was a clear but slightly windy day. Jim and Nate flew first to Arajuno, where they prepared the plane for the gift drop. Jim stowed the canvas bucket and rope behind his seat. Nate loaded a box containing the gifts they were going to dispense that day. As they worked, two Quichua Indians walked by. They stopped and took a long look at what the two missionaries were doing. “You missionaries are crazy. You give all the best stuff to the Aucas. Why don’t you give it to us?” they said.
Jim’s heart skipped a beat. The Indians had said it jokingly, but it set off an alarm bell in Jim’s mind. The secret was out! Did all the Quichua Indians in the area know the missionaries were dropping gifts to the Aucas? Jim turned to Nate and asked, “What do we do now?”
Nate had no answer, but Jim knew it was something they would have to think seriously about. If the Quichua Indians managed to pinpoint exactly where the Aucas lived, a war could break out.
Once in the air and soaring over the tangled jungle, Jim’s thoughts turned to the gift drop. Today, they were going to try something different. Jim and Nate were going to attempt to show the Aucas that several large trees needed to be cut down in preparation for an airstrip inside Auca territory. Jim had not learned enough of the language to be able to tell the villagers directly, so another plan had been formed to get the message across. The gifts were going to be dropped on top of the trees that needed to be cut down in the hopes that the Aucas would want the gifts enough to cut down the trees to retrieve them. No one was sure the plan would work, but it was worth a try.
“We should spot them any minute now,” Nate called over the sound of the engine as the plane approached a clearing that contained several Auca huts. Nate looped the Piper over the clearing a couple of times, flying low enough for the Aucas to clearly see the two missionaries inside. This was part of the plan. When the two groups finally met face-to-face, the missionaries wanted the Aucas to be able to recognize them as the same men who had been giving them the gifts.
“There they are—two of them!” yelled Jim.
Nate dipped the wing a few degrees to see and then nodded. The plane turned sharply into the wind. “Are you ready with the first drop?” he asked Jim.
Jim held up an ax wrapped in canvas cloth. “Tell me when to drop it.”
Nate slowed the Piper as much as possible and aimed for the largest tree at the edge of the clearing. “Now!” he yelled to Jim.
Jim let go of the ax. As it tumbled down, he hoped that it would get caught up in the high branches of the tree. Instead, the ax plummeted all the way to the ground and landed beside the tree. Two young Auca men raced over to get it.
Nate shook his head in disappointment. “Let’s try it again. I’ll come around for another pass.”
This time, the bundle—four plastic combs wrapped in cotton bandages— landed gracefully on a branch near the top of the tree. The Auca men looked puzzled.
“I hope they want the stuff enough to cut the tree down to get it,” said Jim.
“We’ll find out next week, I guess,” replied Nate with a hint of doubt in his voice.
As Nate looped the plane around and flew back over the clearing, Jim spotted an old man dancing around and waving his arms up and down. “Looks like he’s inviting us down to visit,” he blurted excitedly to Nate, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.
Nate nodded.
“They look so friendly. I think they would welcome us,” Jim went on. In the back of his mind, though, another voice was speaking, the voice of Dayuma. Jim mulled over what she had told him during their last visit. “Never, ever trust them,” she had said. “You might think you know what they’re going to do next, but you don’t. Never, ever trust them!”
Jim tried not to listen too closely to the negative voice. If they did not trust the Aucas at some point, how would they ever be able to meet with them face-to-face and share the gospel? Yet Jim could not let Dayuma’s warning go unheeded. Meeting the Aucas was going to require a balance of trust and caution on the missionaries’ part.
“How about dropping them a pair of trousers?” Nate Saint’s voice interrupted Jim’s thoughts.
“Sure,” said Jim, reaching behind him for a bundle of clothes. “Do you want me to drop it near the small house?”
“I think so,” replied Nate.
Jim dropped the bundle from the plane and watched as the old man scrambled to get it.
“Let’s try one more gift,” said Nate.
Jim nodded in agreement.
“The wind’s a bit stronger than normal, and out of the northwest too, but let’s try a bucket drop anyway. There’s a pot back there we can put in it.”
Soon Jim had the pot in the canvas bucket and was ready to lower the gift to the ground. He waited for Nate to get the Piper flying in a tight circle above the clearing.
“Try to land it on the edge of the river,” Nate told him.
Easier said than done. With the crosswind, it was almost impossible to direct the bucket anywhere. Finally, after seven attempts, Jim guided the bucket to rest on the edge of the small river that flowed alongside the clearing. The bucket was immediately swarmed by five young Auca men.
“They’ve got it!” said Jim triumphantly.
The plane continued to circle as one of the Indians removed the pot. “They’re sending something up to us!” Jim yelled to Nate.
“Great. Let me level off and slow the plane a bit, and then you can pull it in.”
“What a way to end the visit!” exclaimed Jim, hardly able to wait for what the Aucas were sending up.
As Nate began to level the plane, the radio crackled. “56 Henry, come in. This is Shell Mera. Over.”
It was the voice of Marj Saint. Nate reached for the microphone. “Shell Mera, this is 56 Henry. Go ahead. Over.” 56 Henry was the call sign for Nate’s Piper Cruiser.
“Nate, Frank Drown’s baby at Macuma is sick and needs to be flown immediately to the clinic at Shell Mera. Over.”
“I read you. I’ll head there right away. Let them know I should be there in about thirty-five minutes. Over.”
“Will do. This is Shell Mera, over and out.” Marj’s voice faded from the crackling radio.
“Sorry about this, but I don’t have time to drop you off. You’ll have to come with me,” Nate said to Jim as he pulled the throttle to the full-power position.
The Piper immediately began to gather speed. Jim felt the wind pulling at the bucket, which was still dangling from the end of the rope.
“You’ll have to pull the bucket in as best you can. I don’t have time to slow down while you do it,” Nate told him.
Jim nodded that he understood. If Valerie was sick, he would want Nate to get to Shandia as quickly as possible. He began to reel in the rope. It wasn’t easy, though. The wind resistance on the bucket meant he had to strain every inch of the way to get the bucket back into the plane. To his great disappointment, when he finally reeled it in, the gift the Aucas had placed in it was gone. It had been blown out by the wind. Jim wondered the rest of the way to Macuma, and then on to Shell Mera from there, what the gift had been.
The gift drops continued regularly every Thursday. Regrettably, the Aucas didn’t seem to get the message about cutting down the trees to open up a possible landing strip. They managed to retrieve the gifts from the top of the trees without ever swinging a blade.
In mid-December, Nate Saint made a discovery that got everyone excited. He and Ed McCully had finished the scheduled gift drop and were on the way back to Arajuno when they decided to fly along the Curaray River, which ran through Auca territory. As they followed the river, Nate spotted a stretch of white sandy beach alongside it. He and Ed made a return flight a few days later to investigate the beach a little closer. They flew in low, and while Nate kept the Piper level at a steady sixty miles per hour, Ed dropped small paper bags of flour at two-second intervals. From the number of bags that hit the beach, Nate and Ed were able to estimate that the stretch of sand was two hundred ten yards in length—just long enough to land the plane. They nicknamed the sandy stretch “Palm Beach.”
Nate told Jim that in all his years of flying over the Oriente, he had never seen a beach that was so long or straight. There was just one problem–the beach probably wouldn’t be there for long. The tributaries of the mighty Amazon River changed constantly, building up a sand bank on one side of the river while carrying another away. If they were going to use Palm Beach as a landing site for a face-to-face meeting with the Aucas, they were going to have to do it soon. Otherwise, the rainy season of mid-January would most likely destroy their new airstrip.
With that realization, plans for the next stage of Operation Auca went into high gear. The men decided to follow the schedule Jim had been suggesting all along. On January 3, the next full moon, and the last full moon before the wet season set in, the anxious missionaries would land on Palm Beach and attempt to make contact with the Auca Indians. If the Aucas didn’t come the first day, the men would camp out on the beach until they arrived. This strategy was likely to be less threatening than just walking into an Auca settlement. One thing they knew for sure: do not surprise an Auca warrior!
The next piece of the puzzle was where exactly to stay on the beach. A tent seemed too flimsy. A spear could be thrust right through it without any warning, and it would take all four men to stand guard at night, meaning no one would get any sleep. Jim came up with a better idea. As a boy back in Portland, he and his friends had built countless tree houses during summer vacations. Why not build a tree house in one of the ironwood trees that stood on the far edge of the beach? From up in a tree house they would be able to see anyone coming, and it would be hard for anyone to sneak up on them during the night. Everyone agreed it was a good idea. Since he had the most construction experience, Jim was given the job of cutting all the necessary timber. By transporting precut pieces of wood, the men could more quickly build the tree house once they unloaded on Palm Beach. They could not afford to be stranded out in the open for even one night.
