SAVANNAH

By Gene Alvin

“Roy?” Jeff’s voice echoed back at him from the recesses of the hangar. “Roy? You in there?” He heard a slight rustle then saw movement under the old Nieuport Twenty-eight biplane that was parked in the hangar.

“Wha’dya want?”

“Hey, wake up, Juan has a mail packet for Macaba. I told him you and Annie were ready.”

Roy rolled out from under Annie’s fuselage and struggled to his feet. He stretched, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, glanced sideways at his friend and limped toward the coffee pot against the wall.

“Leg’s botherin' you again, huh? You know, you’re gettin too old for this, you and Annie both.”

Roy’s leg was shattered in a dogfight over Vaux, France in WWI. His biplane, Annie, had also been severely damaged. He was bleeding profusely, unconscious and barely alive, yet somehow, the brave little Nieuport had managed to get her pilot home to the aerodrome at Touguin. There was an eerie silence as the ground crew discovered his limp body in the cockpit. That was when Annie got her nickname, “Ghost Plane.”

When he recovered, the first thing he did was scrape up enough money to buy Annie. Next, he painted a ghost on her rudder. That was twenty-four years ago. He and Annie had been inseparable since then. They barnstormed their way across America, worked for the U.S. mail and finally, when progress and age put them out of business, flew to Belem, Brazil, where an old pilot and airplane could still find work.

“You know,” Jeff said, “I think you oughtta hang it up, find a pretty senorita to take care of you and settle down.”

Roy turned, glanced at Annie, then fixed his gaze on his friend and nodded back toward the plane.

“She takes care of me. She always has, and I take care of her. First thing a woman would want is for me to quit flyin and get rid of Annie, and that’s not going to happen, now or ever.”

“Hell Roy, Annie’s almost as old as you, I imagine she’d like to call it quits too.”

Just then a Model “T” chugged up to the hangar door. Juan Salazar tossed a mailbag out of the window, waved at the two of them, and then rattled off in a cloud of dust.

“Guess it’s time to head for Macapa. Annie checked out okay?”

“Yeah, I gave her a good going over yesterday. She’s got a new set of plugs, and I replaced a fuel line. Both tanks are topped off.”

Roy climbed into the cockpit, and switched on the magneto. Jeff turned the prop, once, twice, and then Annie roared to life. He taxied out onto the dirt runway and pushed the throttle all the way forward. Halfway there Annie started to run rough. Her engine coughed, growled back to life, then quit. Roy spotted a huge Brazil nut tree; its dead trunk sticking up a good hundred and thirty feet above the lush green carpet of jungle below. It looked like an immense finger pointing to heaven. Just beyond it was an open savannah with a dirt landing field and a dilapidated operations shack at one end of it.

"C’mon old girl, we’re in luck’” he whispered, “You can do it, don’t let me down now. Just a few hundred more yards and we’ll be okay.”

Sweat dripped down his forehead. His knuckles were dead white as he gripped the control stick. Annie sputtered, spit and choked, then her engine roared back to life for an instant, shuddered and died. The savannah came up in a rush. Annie’s wheels thumped down, bounced several times, rolled, then hit a log hidden in the tall grass. She flipped up on her nose catapulting Roy out of the cockpit. He smashed into the trunk of a huge Kapok tree, twitched, and then the world went black.

Roy drifted in and out of consciousness. The next five days were a blur of dreams mixed with odd moments of wakefulness. On the fifth day, he woke to see a strange painted face and deep black eyes staring into his.

“What…who, who are you? ...Annie, is she all right?”

“Annie?” the face said, “You only one.”

“Annie, my plane, what happened to her?”

“Flying machine crash. You only one.”

Roy knew better than to try to explain. He tried to lift himself up, got dizzy and laid back down.

“Not yet, wait, soon you get up.”

He couldn’t tell what his nurse looked like due to the paint on her face. Strange circles of red and white adorned her cheeks while streaks of yellow danced across her forehead. Her long black hair was tied with a piece of hide decorated with shells and colored stones.

“What day is it?”

She shrugged and started to walk away.

“Wait! Who are you? What’s your name? What tribe?”

“Tajehna, Shaman of Aparai.”

“Tahighna?”

She smiled; a softly mysterious smile, almost a caress, then turned and walked outside. The next morning, he was able to walk. His wounds, though deep, were almost totally healed. Tajehna came into the hut and gave him a cup of Coxiri, a medicine made from Manioc root.

“Heal quickly, drink.”

Her face was clean, no trace of the paint. She was quite pretty, he guessed her to be about thirty-five maybe.

“I’ve got to get back to Annie, see if I can fix her. I’ve got to get to Macapa.”

“Tomorrow maybe, we take you there.” There was that soft smile again. That night one of the tribesman came to his hut and motioned for Roy to follow him. Drums had been playing for about an hour. He was taken to a clearing just outside the village. Tribesmen, dressed in ceremonial garb and feathered headdresses surrounded a crackling fire. Dancing flames highlighted their painted, semi-naked bodies. This, he was told, is a Wako, a ceremony of healing; this completes the Shaman’s cure. The last of the sickness will be driven from his body.

Roy sat down and accepted a cup of what he thought was Coxiri. This tasted different, though, sweeter. A flute joined the drum. The sounds swelled, louder and louder. He could almost see the sinuous tendrils of flute music weaving in and out of the drumbeats, and then writhing about him like a rainbow colored snake. Tajehna stepped out from the jungle wearing a scarlet priestess robe, a feathered headdress and silver bracelets on her wrists and ankles. She started dancing, slowly swaying to the beat of the drums. The robe dropped to the ground. All that covered her was a tiny g-string and an equally tiny halter. Magic symbols of red and white were painted on her legs, arms and stomach.The music swirled, drums pounded in his skull. The musky scent of burning Kapok logs filled the little clearing. He finished the cup of liquid. She was closer now, dancing right in front of him. At that moment, thoughts of Annie, Macapa and the world outside vanished. He was on fire. His body, his soul, and every fiber of his being vibrated and pulsed in time with the music. He started to get up, his head was spinning, his vision blurred.

The next day he woke with a start. He was in the savannah, lying under Annie. The jungle was silent. He stood up and started to walk toward the jungle, intending to go to the village. Odd, he couldn’t remember the direction.

He turned and looked at Annie. His jaw dropped, “My God,” he whispered as he stared at her. She was in perfect condition. Her prop looked new. She was repainted and looked like she did when he first saw her back in 1916. He stood in front of her and slowly turned in a three hundred-sixty degree circle, searching the impenetrable edge of the jungle for any opening that might lead back to the village. He wanted to thank them, find out how they had fixed Annie. How did they cure his leg? Most of all, he wanted to see Tajehna again.

“Tajehna, Tajehna,” he shouted, loud as he could. Only the sounds of the jungle replied.

Roy waited the rest of the day, hoping that Tajehna or one of the villagers would show up. The next morning he reluctantly climbed into the cockpit, switched on the magneto, got back down and cranked Annie’s engine to life, then climbed back in cockpit. He felt as though he was leaving something precious behind, something irreplaceable. He gained altitude then circled back to see if he could spot the village from the air. He shook his head, took off his flight goggles and wiped his eyes. Not only was there no village, but also the tree and the savannah were gone! He circled twice more, then regretfully headed southwest, back to Belem. Four hours later Roy was landing. As Annie touched down he could see Jeff standing by the hanger, arms akimbo, watching him. Roy dismounted from the cockpit and walked over to where his friend was waiting.

“What the hell happened to you? I’d almost given you and Annie up for dead. You’re not limping! Annie’s got a new paint job!”

Questions tumbled out of his mouth in a torrent. Roy tried to explain, telling him of the savannah and all that had happened.

“There isn’t any savannah between here and Macapa, Roy, what really happened? You’ve been gone a month. Did you find some money somewhere, rob a bank? Don’t give me this crap about a savannah!”

No matter what he said, Jeff wouldn’t believe him. Jeff knew the jungle and knew there was no savannah. He also had a little bit of bad news to lay on his friend.“Juan came by while you were gone. He said to tell you he doesn’t need you or Annie anymore. He’s got a replacement. Guess he couldn’t wait any longer.”  

Another week went by. Roy languished about the hangar, talking to Annie, trying to decide what to do. Finally, he took his meager savings and bought enough supplies and fuel for one more flight. Then he told Jeff what he was going to do.

“You’ve got to be kidding! You can’t find what doesn’t exist. You know how many gringos die out there in the Jungle? What are you gonna do, just flap about out there, you and Annie, til you run out of gas and crash? I thought you had more sense than that. C’mon, you can get another job. Ramon isn’t the only one that needs pilots, I’ll help you in the meantime, I’ve got a few bucks saved up.”

Roy was touched by his friend’s offer but the savannah was calling him like the Sirens of Mythology. The next morning Annie’s engine sprang to life. Four hours later, Roy was over the area where the savannah should be. He cris-crossed the area for over an hour. A storm was approaching. The sky was dark and overcast. The feeling of loss that haunted him for the last week intensified. Endless jungle was all that he could see, and he was running low on fuel.

Reluctantly he banked Annie into a slow turn to the southeast toward Belem. As she came around, suddenly there was the Brazil-nut tree! He had combed this area for over an hour and hadn’t seen it, now it was there, pointing to the heavens. He put Annie into a steep bank and flew toward the tree. As he passed it, there, just beyond Annie’s nose, was the savannah. A shaft of golden sunlight broke through the gray overcast and flooded the lush emerald green clearing.

“Let’s land here, Annie, I think we’re home.”

Jeff never heard from his friend again, but every once in a while to this very day, pilots flying in from Macapa can be overheard talking about seeing a little bi-wing Nieuport with a ghost painted on its tail, flying low over the jungle.

The End

Gene:  I was born in the French Quarter In New Orleans and grew up moving from state to state. My folks traveled a lot. I'm a cross between a computer geek and a professional cook. I worked at the Waterfront Hilton in Huntington Beach Calif.before being morphed into a geek by an out of work Leprechan. I then worked as a computer technician, owned my own little computer sales and repair shop, then retired. I have always loved SF/F and actually started writing when I was much younger. I wrote a poem called Frogs and Things that was published in a local newspaper in Los Angeles.  Life, however, stepped in and I had to make a living, pay bills, get married and other mundane things, so, regrettably, writing took a back seat. Now, however,I've retired to the lush green rolling hills and forests of South Central Tennesse. I'm writing full time, attending online writing classes and giving it the attention it has always deserved.  Contact Gene.