"You could hook around to the other side. But I hear the federal jam is even worse."
"Damn."
"Or you can sit on my lap and play coochie-coo," the blonde added.
"Thanks, but no thanks," said Remo, going to catch up with the Master of Sinanju.
"If we follow this to the end we'll get there," he said.
"Of course," said Chiun, who walked with his hands serenely tucked into the wide joined sleeves of his kimono.
They walked until they had rounded a piney hill and the line of cars-they saw TV microwave vans idling in the line like dejected war elephants-turned off the highway, and onto a wooded path.
They cut through the woods and started up the hill. Halfway up, they had a good view.
There were three lines of cars, all converging on a woodsy vale that might have been any patch of Northern California land except for the tents that dotted the place. Most were tents. A few were tepees. Big army tents were being pitched at one end. At the other, there were the pup tents and tepees.
The pup tent and tepee end were obviously the PAPA camp.
Most of the PAPA adherents, however, were climbing a brushy hillock in a double line. They bore three shrouded figures in stately procession. At the head of the line was a man in buckskin whose trailing war bonnet even at this distance didn't quite conceal his bald spot from Remo's sharp eyes.
As Remo and Chiun watched, the procession came to a shallow ditch at the hillock's rounded top. They lined it and without preamble, the shrouds were unceremoniously unrolled like flags, and three slightly stiff corpses tumbled out to land in the ditch with a thump.
"We commend our brethren to the earth, where they will abide in ecological harmony, nourishing the roots of the weeds that feed the thunderbugs that feed us now and by the millennium will feed the whole world," chanted the man in the war bonnet.
"Savages," said Chiun. "These people are savages."
"Because they don't bother with caskets?" asked Remo.
"No," said the Master of Sinanju. "Because they are morons. I do not care if they bury their dead in expensive shoe boxes or not. But there," he said, pointing to the hole the mourners were filling by the simple action of kicking clods of dirt in with their sandals and moccasins, "is where the dead are buried."
The Master of Sinanju pointed to a ring of stones at the foot of the hillock. A rusting bucket sat beside it.
"And over there," he added, "is their well. They are burying their dead uphill of their drinking water. In two months, it is going to taste like rancid duck. Have they no brains?"
"If they had," Remo said, "they wouldn't be eating bugs."
The ceremony, such as it was, was hastily concluded.
Someone could be heard asking, "Shouldn't we have waited for the media to set up their cameras?"
The man in the warbonnet-who Remo took to be Theodore Soars-With-Eagles-replied, "No. It will be better that they record my predictions for the endangered American people than the sight of our dead brethren. For if the federal government does not act soon, the dead will be beyond counting."
"What if they don't act?"
"They will act because the destruction of the ozone layer that is causing this will force them to act."
"They didn't act for acid rain."
"Or global warming."
"Or AIDS," someone else said.
"They will act here because it is not innocent trees, or deer, or persons who practice simple alternate lifestyles who are threatened, but the very ones who hold power in our corrupt society. For all know that the depletion of the ozone layer lets down carcinogenic ultraviolet rays, killing those who are cursed by being born light of skin. This is the first Caucasian-specific disaster in human history. The white man cannot wish this away."
Chiun frowned. "I do not understand a single word that man has said, Remo."
"Basically, he's doing a Chicken Little."
Chiun looked blank.
"He's claiming that the sky is falling," Remo explained.
"Is this true, Remo?" Chiun asked. "Will only whites succumb to this threat?"
"Only if they eat bugs. Come on, let's start looking around."
They started down from the hillside just as the first wave of press began setting up their cameras in front of a wooden dais evidently set up for Theodore SoarsWith-Eagles's press conference.
"Let's try to avoid these guys," Remo whispered.
"How? There are so many."
"Let's at least try," said Remo. "Remember our last assignment, where we were up to our hip pockets in television anchormen? Smith is still trying to explain the network casualties to the President."
"It was not our fault so many died."
"Maybe not, but half these guys have your description memorized."
They worked their way around and came upon a malodorous slit trench filled almost to overflowing with yellowish offal.
Chiun peered inward. His nose wrinkled up.
"How can they live in such filth? They do not even bury the waste of their miserable bodies."
"Since they eat only bugs, I'm surprised there is any waste. Boy, does it smell bad in there."
"What can one expect of dead bugs that have passed through the bodies of idiots?"
They leapt over the trench and continued on to a bivouac area where preparations for a full-scale press conference were under way.
A food-service truck was in operation, manned by two men in cook's whites.
"Come get your lobster salad sandwiches here," one cried. "We have lobster salad sandwiches and lobster salad bowls. Tastes just like thunderbug. All the taste and no risk to your health."
The food-service truck was immediately surrounded. Money changed hands and sandwiches were grabbed by eager hands.