“It’s a full-on cave system back in here!” Bones’ voice echoed back to Maddock at the entrance to the cave.
“Bones, we were in an underwater cave today, and we’ll be back in it again in just a few hours. Do we really need more caves?”
“It’s funny, most caves I’ve been in, even the more remote ones, there’s always signs of human presence. Trash, something…but this one is pristine.”
“Yeah, well, let’s see…we’re pretty much smack dab in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a tiny, uninhabited coral atoll, and if that’s not enough, we’re in the most rarely visited part of that, in the middle of a jungle. Then you walk into a cave and wonder why no one’s ever been there?”
In return Bones’ light beam jiggled on the cave wall, beckoning. “C’mon! There’s a fork in the road up here, I’m going left.”
“Hold up, I’m on my way.” Maddock didn’t really want to explore the cave, but a SEAL didn’t leave one of their own alone if it could be avoided. They were in this together. He followed the main tunnel straight back and down at a slight angle until he saw Bones standing at a T-intersection, playing his light on the walls. A couple of small lizards jumped past their feet and out of sight.
“I’ll check the right passage, see how far it goes.” Maddock had to stoop a bit to go this way, but he was able to quickly walk down the rocky corridor until it jogged to the left and opened into a smallish chamber with nothing in it. He examined the walls and ceiling with his light but found nothing of interest and headed back to where he had been with Bones.
When he got there, Bones was out of sight, so he followed the left path until it wound around to the right. Here he was faced with both a left-right fork and a higher passage that opened up in the ceiling. It was from this pathway that he heard Bones’ voice emanate.
“Dude, you’ve got to see this! Can you hear me?”
“Sure can. Your voice is hard to miss.”
“Use the foothold on the right side of the wall and jump up to the tunnel. From there it’s a short walk back.”
Maddock found the piece of rock and gained the tunnel. “This must have been easier for you,” he said to Bones.
“Hey, my height has to be an advantage sometimes. At least you don’t bang your head climbing into every freaking car ever made.”
The tunnel-like area sloped down until it opened into a good-sized chamber. Bones was standing upright in the middle of it, and he had plenty of headroom. But what made this natural room special was the evidence of human presence. Maddock shone his light beam first on a small fire pit, then some piles of charred animal bones, and finally on some modern items including glass jars and plastic containers.
“So much for your no one’s ever been here before theory.” Bones grinned as he looked around the former dwelling.
Maddock walked down the short passage to join Bones in the chamber, which had obviously been occupied for some length of time in the past. “Interesting.”
“What is all this crap?” Bones played his light across the objects while Maddock hunched down for a closer look.
“The bones look like fish, birds, and those might be turtles,” he finished, pointing at the larger ones.
“Stuff they cooked on this fire.” Bones pointed to the small ring of stones around a dirt pit still filled with ash. “So somebody camped out here for a while.”
Maddock pointed at another of the objects. “And this is a glass jar, empty, possibly used for holding or collecting rain water.”
“If it was water, it must have been rain water, or morning dew scraped from leaves, because this island is completely dry.”
“Right. And this here,” Maddock said, pointing at one of the plastic containers without touching it, “looks like a woman’s make-up holder. An old one.”
“How do you know so much about make-up? Something you want to tell me?”
Maddock didn’t reply. A thought had just struck him. He looked across the old fire pit at Bones, who now gaped at him. Maddock put words to both of their thoughts. “Could it be that Earhart and Noonan survived the plane crash, and lived for a time as castaways, with this being their campsite?”
Bones stroked the stubble on his chin as he pondered the notion. At length, he said, “I suppose it’s possible. But make-up? Not sure why she would need make-up on the flight, though.”
“I read in the briefing materials that she did a lot of media stops, like newspaper photos along the way that her husband set up. So maybe she wanted to look good.”
“That’s a chick for you. Speaking of pictures, we better take some.” Bones removed his camera from a pocket and got some close-ups of the items without physically disturbing them.
“There’s a busted knife over here.” Maddock pointed to what looked like an old buck knife — a rusty blade that had become separated from its plastic handle pieces which lay nearby in the dirt. Bones photographed it.
“Hopefully Spinney doesn’t see these when he appropriates our cameras to look at the dive images.”
Bones laughed in agreement. “I’ll take some harmless beach and dive site shots to have something in front of the wreck site images. If he scrolls back too far he’ll stop there.”
“Good idea. We better get back to camp.”
“Did you see anything in that other passage? No human bones, I guess.” The idea that Earhart had met her fate here was both creepy and exciting at the same time, and Maddock suppressed a shiver.
“Nope, nothing at all.”
“Okay, let’s go.” They walked up the tunnel to the edge and dropped back down into the main passage. From there they retraced their steps until they reached the outer cave entrance. After climbing down the jumble of boulders and regaining flat ground, they walked back to the wheelbarrow.
“Your turn on this thing,” Maddock said.
Bones shook his head. “Typical white man, adding to the red man’s burden. Ro-sham-bo you for it?”
“Just take…”
Maddock’s words dissolved in the thunder of a nearby explosion.