Scotty didn't comment further. After a while Rick reached under the seat and drew out Shannon's quiver. He had wrapped it in a plastic bag in which his trousers had been returned by the dry cleaner.
The quiver was of soft leather, and made to be slung on the back. It was compartmented for three kinds of arrows. Rick drew one out and saw that it was a blunt type for hunting small game. Next to the blunt ones were razor-sharp broadhead arrows. The third variety was smaller broadheads. There were a dozen of each.
On the back of the quiver were two zippered pouches. In the first Rick found four new bowstrings and beeswax for waxing them, plus a small file and a whetstone for keeping the broadheads sharp. In the other compartment were two sets of finger cots, or protectors, and a stiff leather arm guard. He slipped a protector, made like sections of glove fingers, on the first three fingers of his right hand. A size too large, but it would do. The arm guard would be all right when he adjusted it.
The bow was in its own special compartment. Rick checked and saw that it was undamaged. It was in two sections, the upper limb made to be fitted into the handle, which was permanently attached to the lower limb. It was an excellent bow, not as heavy as some, but a deadly weapon in the hands of a good shot. It pulled fifty pounds at twenty-eight inches draw.
Rick slipped the quiver back under the seat. He planned to carry it when necessary, so that he, too, would be armed. He was a better than average bowman. It was one of the few sports in which he could nearly always beat Scotty, thanks to his own aptitude and Shannon's teaching. He noticed suddenly that the seat belt light had flashed on. He tightened his belt as the plane descended into Cotabato.
He watched as the city came into view. It was a community of small houses located on a series of rivers or canals. The surrounding countryside was given over to rice paddies and occasional coconut groves.
This was the first step in the backward trail. Rick had no idea what they might find, but lacking any other course of action they had decided to go back along the Sampaguita's route hoping to pick up a clue. They would stay in Cotabato only as long as the plane stopped, just time enough to meet Tony Briotti's friend, Father Murray, an American missionary priest.
As the plane swept in for a landing across the unpaved runway Rick saw the white robes of a priest and knew that Major Lacson's message to the Cotabato constabulary detachment asking that the priest meet the plane had been received.
Father Murray, a lean, tanned, sun-helmeted man of youthful appearance, greeted them as they stepped from the plane. Zircon introduced himself and the boys, and the four retired to the shade of a royal palm to talk.
"Tony and Howard's disappearance was shocking news," Father Murray commented. "You have no new information about what happened to them?"