Randy White - Hunter's moon

There wasn’t. I had checked the shack.

“From who?” I asked for the second time.

Wilson didn’t reply-for the second time.

He was studying the pigs, now coming along the beach toward us-the farmer in him paying attention.

“Those aren’t domestic hogs. See the tusks on the boars?”

The animals were black, hump-necked, with elongated snouts.

“What were they rooting for?”

“Crabs,” I said. “Sea worms.”

The president frowned. “That’s why they’re moving the way they are-more like a pack. They’re hungry. Trip and fall, those hogs would gut you, then eat you. Mr. Tomlinson? You are supposed to have a gift for knowing things. What’s your read on this place?”

Tomlinson appeared nervous-unusual. “Well… it seemed kinda fun until you started talking about a bunch of damn pigs eating us. I mean… the water’s nice and clear. Lots of coconuts that would go real good with rum. But you’re right. Sam? Those bastards are coming after us. ”

Tomlinson looked from the pigs to me, his expression a mixture of awareness, dread, and disgust. “Doc? Is he right? I’ve never even thought about it before. Getting eaten by a fucking pig?”

I asked, “Don’t you usually smoke a joint about this time of morning?”

“I get a late start every now and again. But what do you expect me to do when I’m in a airplane?” He couldn’t take his eyes off of the pigs.

I smiled. “Relax. I wouldn’t take any naps on the beach. Otherwise, we’re okay.”

“Geezus… I’d like to believe that. They’ve got cloven hoofs, man. Like the devil. Who knows what happens after that. Eat you, then they could shit out your soul. That really could be the end.” In a louder voice, he said, “And I’m a vegetarian, ” as if he wanted the pigs to hear.

Wilson said, “Sharks don’t care about your ideology and neither do those hogs. Vegetarians are edible and no amount of broccoli’s going to change that.” He was looking at his watch, his mind on other matters. Was he considering waiting for someone… or something?

After a few seconds, he muttered, “ ‘Island of Snakes.’ Perfect, ” but not pleased, the way he’d said it before.

I had emptied the ninth gas container into the wing. Tanks were full. Because I said I wanted to go for a swim after we’d refueled, Wilson caught my eye. “I’d planned on overnighting. But I think we need to get our butts out of here.”

Meaning we’d have to improvise.

I said, “Let’s go.”

At 1:20 Local Time,we landed in a Bay of Honduras backwater, where we saw men fishing from handmade boats with outboards. We pulled up on a beach near a couple of pickup trucks-one of them a new Dodge. We bought fuel, then ate achiote chicken with tomatillos and chilies made by a woman cooking outside her hut.

Wilson remained alone, directing the operation from a distance. He’d brought a can of aviation fuel to augment the local gas and he had us add it.

“Mountains ahead,” he explained. He didn’t have to remind us to filter the gas through a chamois.

Because Tomlinson and I carried food to him, one of the locals said to me, “He must be a very important man in your country. A jefe. ”

A chief.

Five minutes later, we were under way, pointed south.

The largest country in Central America is half the size of Florida. Borders moved below us as topography, rain forests, low volcanic craters striated with green, and rivers that appeared as switchbacks, water black as blood. With window vents open, we flew low enough to smell earth, leaf, water. Once, as we approached a village, Tomlinson said he got a whiff of simmering beans.

We went cross-country, avoiding cities and the few major highways. Wilson had a bush pilot’s instincts and we used valleys as cover. It wasn’t until somewhere near the border of Honduras and Nicaragua, while following the contour of low mountains, we ascended to forty-five hundred feet. Even then, we stayed low enough to enrage howler monkeys, who shook their fists at us from the tops of trees.

I was familiar with this country. Took pleasure in the remembrances of my years here. As Tomlinson used ruler and dividers to track our position on the chart, each landmark he mentioned brought back people, events, missions-not all pleasant. But unpleasant memories are useful gauges and mine verified all the fun I’d had. For me, returning in this unorthodox way was a little like coming home.

As a military pilot, the president had flown in and out of the Panama Canal Zone many times, he said, but never over this area. Not at deck level, anyway. It was the end of the rainy season, but we’d drawn a rare cloudless day. He enjoyed himself. It keyed memories of what he said was the best thing about getting elected president: Air Force One.

“No other perk comes close,” he told us. “The White House and staff were great, don’t get me wrong. You have a basketball court, putting greens, tennis, a private movie theater, even a bowling alley-which I never used. It always struck me as a little sad, frankly, because it was about the only thing Richard Nixon enjoyed during his last days. Bowling alone.”

In the West Wing, he said, Friday was Oreo yogurt day, and the kitchen turned out the earth’s best french fries, 5 p.m. sharp.

“But there was something special about that plane,” he told us. “The backup, too-neither is officially Air Force One until the president steps aboard. Wray loved the whole ceremony because it meant freedom. Walking across the South Lawn to the helicopter, she’d be smiling. Her real smile. And it got bigger when she stepped off and saw Air Force One waiting, the honor guard at attention.

“We could relax there. Her office was forward, next to mine. She’d work while I’d do an hour on the elliptical. Or she might go aft and make sure there were plenty of souvenirs for the press corps to take home. Matches, china, blankets. Those people take anything not nailed down. But even they loosened up a little once we got airborne.

“President Clinton used to go back and play cards all night with reporters. Shoot the bull like a regular guy until reporters hammered him over that intern business. Harry Truman-he called his plane The Independence -he’d loosen up with a couple of drinks, and he always had the pilot notify him when they were over Ohio. Senator Taft was from Ohio and Harry hated the man. He’d get up and take a piss over Ohio every time.

Wilson laughed, hands on the yoke, looking military with his buzz cut and earphones, straightening the microphone when he spoke. He had a lot of stories about Air Force One, most assembled from his talks with the crew: Gerald Ford was their alltime favorite president because he was such a decent man. President Reagan was the most charismatic, Carter was the most family oriented, George H. W. was the funniest, Clinton was the smartest, and Lyndon Johnson was the crudest and rudest.

“If he got a steak he didn’t like, he’d dump it on the floor. He made military aides wash his feet and cut his toe nails.”

Tomlinson said he’d read somewhere that Johnson had huge testicles and, after a few highballs, he wasn’t shy about showing them.

“Didn’t he walk around naked on Air Force One?”

Wilson ignored the question. He wasn’t going to confirm something negative about a member of the club.

“The best thing about that aircraft,” he said, “was to land in Peking, or Baghdad, or Cartagena”-he gave me a slight nod-“and to look back at that great big gorgeous 747 from the tarmac. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in that don’t-screw-with-us lettering, and the presidential seal. Like it had been chiseled from the Rockies; a force that had come a long distance to protect, to do good things, to stand for something… better.”