By the time they’d gone only a quarter of a mile from the main part of Takeo Yoshihara’s estate, Josh Malani had skidded off the rutted road twice, and the second time Rob Silver had to tow Josh’s truck back onto the track.
“Maybe we’d better leave your truck here and go the rest of the way in the Explorer,” he suggested as he unfastened the tow rope from Josh’s front bumper.
“I can make it,” Josh insisted. “I’ve been on lots worse roads than this one.”
The look in Josh’s eye told Rob that argument would be useless, so he tossed the rope into the back of his Explorer and continued along the road, glancing in his rearview mirror every few seconds to make sure Josh’s rusty pickup was still behind him.
Miraculously, Josh managed to keep on the track the rest of the way, finally lurching to a stop in the clearing where the canopies had been set up to shelter the worktables. Josh gazed around, his disappointment at finding nothing more interesting than some worn rocks clear on his face. “This isn’t actually the site,” Katharine told the boys, coming out of the shelter of one of the canopies. “It’s up that way. Come on.”
As she led them along the steep trail into the ravine, Michael once again felt the strange sensation in his chest.
Not a pain, really.
Just a funny feeling, as if he were about to run out of breath, even though he was breathing just fine right now.
Weird.
Steeling himself against the odd phenomenon, he continued along the trail until at last they came to the ledge on which the fire pit and the skeleton lay.
“Jeez,” Josh whispered as he gazed down at the remains that still lay in exactly the position in which Katharine had uncovered them. “What is it? A chimpanzee?”
“Not a chimpanzee, and not a gorilla,” Katharine told him. She knelt down and began explaining the features of the skeleton, but Michael was no longer listening, for the moment he’d seen the skeleton, a feeling even stranger than the one in his chest had come over him.
A feeling that ran over his spine like fingers of ice.
A feeling almost like fear, but not quite.
He stood staring down at the skeleton, transfixed, then slowly forced himself to look away.
He glanced around.
Maybe it was just that it reminded him of someplace else — someplace he and his mother had been to years ago, some other dig, somewhere in Africa.
But most of the places they’d been in Africa hadn’t been anything like this. They’d been in dry, desert areas, places where rain was so scarce that practically nothing grew at all, while here they were surrounded by rain forest, with trees towering overhead, vines climbing up their trunks, ferns sprouting from the vertical faces of the ravine, mosses everywhere.
Nothing like the part of Africa he’d been to — or anyplace else he could remember, either.
His eyes returned to the skeleton. He stooped down, and reached out a hand, laying it on the steeply sloping forehead of the skull.
Why? he thought. Why did I do that?
“Careful,” he heard his mother say.
Jerking his hand away almost guiltily, he looked up at her. “What is it?” he asked.
Katharine’s brows furrowed and her lips twisted into a quizzical half smile. “Haven’t you been listening? I was just telling Josh that so far it doesn’t seem to quite fit with anything I’ve seen before.”
But Michael’s eyes remained on the skeleton. Again he felt the strange, cold shiver, the tightness in his chest. Involuntarily, he reached out, but before he could touch the skull again, his mother’s voice cut through his reverie.
“Michael? Honey, are you all right?”
Michael pulled his hand away from the skull and straightened up. How could he tell his mother what he was feeling? How could he tell anyone, since he barely understood it himself? Finally tearing his eyes away from the strange skull, he looked up into his mother’s face.
“What is it?” she asked again. “What’s wrong?”
Michael’s mind raced, but before he could reply, he heard Josh answering his mother’s question.
“One of our friends died last night.”
Katharine’s mouth dropped open. “One of your friends?” she echoed. Her eyes shifted from Josh to Michael. “You mean one of the boys you were out with last night?”
Michael nodded, “Kioki Santoya,” he said. “He was on the track team.”
Katharine sank down onto a large boulder. “How?” she asked. “What happened?”
Slowly, Michael and Josh told her the little they knew about Kioki’s death.
“And he just died?” Katharine asked as they finished. “In the middle of a cane field?”
As Michael and Josh nodded, Katharine instinctively stood and put her arms around her son. “How awful,” she said. “You must feel—”
“I’m okay, Mom,” Michael said, his face reddening with embarrassment as he pulled himself out of her embrace. “I–I hardly even knew him.” His eyes darted toward Josh, and he was instantly sorry for how the words must have sounded. “I mean—” He floundered for a moment, then: “Oh, Jeez, I don’t know what I mean!” Turning away, he stumbled up the trail toward the deep cleft in the face of the ravine that was the ancient fumarole. A moment later, almost hidden by the dense foliage that surrounded him, he dropped onto a fallen tree.
Shit!
What the hell was wrong with him? Why had he said that?
Suddenly, he saw a movement a few yards down the trail. Great! Now his mother was coming after him, like he was still ten years old.
Or still had asthma!
But a second later it was Josh Malani who appeared, and once more Michael felt himself flush with embarrassment. “Look, I didn’t mean that about Kioki. I mean—”
“It’s okay,” Josh told him, dropping down onto the log next to him. “I say things I don’t mean all the time.”
Michael felt the heat in his face dissipate a little. “Still friends?”
Josh grinned. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” The two boys sat quietly for a minute, listening to the singing of the birds and the splashing of the waterfall. Then Josh spoke again. “How come you didn’t want your mom to hug you?”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “I’m not a little kid anymore,” he groaned. “I mean, Jeez, Josh! Do you like it when your mom hugs you in front of your friends?”
Josh turned to look straight at Michael. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “My mom never hugs me.” He stood up. “Maybe we better go back down there, huh?”
Michael and Josh were just starting down the trail when Rob Silver appeared from around the bend. “Hey, what are you two up to?”
“Nothing,” Michael said. “Just talking.”
“Up here?” Rob asked, wrinkling his nose against the sulfurous fumes that filled the air. “How can you stand the stink?”
Michael and Josh looked at each other. “What stink?” Michael asked.
“That fumarole,” Rob replied. “Can’t you smell the sulfur? Your mom and I have been practically choking on it all afternoon.”
Michael was about to say something, but once again Josh spoke before he had a chance.
“It’s not so bad. I’ve smelled a lot worse.”
Rob Silver rolled his eyes. “Not unless you live in a landfill. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They walked back down to the clearing where the skeleton was, and Michael, unable to stop himself, gazed at the skull once again, the odd feeling washing over him stronger than ever, as if commanding him to stoop down once more, to take a closer look. Then, as he forced himself to back away, he realized that the strange feeling in his chest — the feeling that he was about to lose his breath — was gone.
Five minutes later, as they were getting back into Josh’s truck, Katharine called out to them. “You guys want steaks for dinner?”