Minutes to Burn

Chapter 28

Rex hiked up the small trail cut into the cliff walls at Punta Berlanga, Derek, Cameron, and Diego following quietly. Above the cliffs, the ground was all rock, covered with low, scrubby saltbushes resembling haystacks. Rex let Diego navigate through the masked booby mating grounds. They crested a small rise, and dozens of the birds spread before them, spaced evenly across the lava.

One booby took a few halting steps and sky-pointed, angling its neck straight so its beak shot upward toward the sun. A bright white bird- save jet-black markings at the wing tips; a stout, yellow-orange beak; and a dark ring circling its beak and narrow-set eyes-the booby was odd-looking. It lowered its beak, panting, vibrating its wattle to shed heat. Most of the other boobies sat with their heads turned backward, accessing oil from glands on their rumps and brushing it through their feathers. Somewhere, a male sang a hollow, rustling whistle of a mating call.

A chick stumbled awkwardly out onto the path, and Diego halted, let-ting it cross. A fluffy white creature that resembled a little snowman, the chick leaned forward into the breeze, spreading its wings to practice flap-ping. Its white downy coat was patchy, its neck thin and fragile. Diego crouched, patiently waiting for the booby to cross. Cameron started to step around, but Diego raised a hand, snapping his fingers sharply, and she froze.

"Do not walk through the nesting grounds," he said.

Another masked booby chick stumbled ahead of them, its feathers ripped from the right side of its head. Darkened blood had crusted down its neck, and it wobbled unsurely on its feet. "What happened?" Derek asked.

Diego pointed to a nearby nest. "The females lay two eggs, but they only care for one offspring. The runt is murdered by its sibling, cast out to die of starvation or exposure, or attacked by its parents and killed."

Derek shook his head. "Christ," he said.

Rex shrugged. "Limited resources."

The chick fell over and struggled to rise, its eyes flickering in the sock-ets. Its wings pulsed twice, then stilled. Diego stepped over it and sig-naled the others ahead. They passed a group of male frigate birds in a tree ballooning their bright red gular sacs to draw the attention of females flying overhead.

Once they passed the aeries, Rex was glad to reclaim the lead. The steepness of the island's east side allowed them to pass through the vege-tation zones quickly. Palo santos dominated the arid zone, their forked, skeletal branches overgrown with wispy vines. From a burrow hidden beneath a flourish of saltwort, a land iguana watched them pass, not even bothering to lift its head. A distinct dusty yellow, the land iguana had a smaller crest than its marine counterparts, and its tail was shorter, not needed for swimming.

The underbrush thickened and grew more lush as they hiked up into the higher-altitude transition zone. Pega pegas-short-stemmed trees with spread branches and coarse, lichen-covered bark-sprouted virtu-ally everywhere, set off by the occasional mango tree. The higher reaches were infiltrated by introduced species, plants that the farmers had imported from the continents-avocado and mango trees, cedrelas, and balsas. These plants had proved aggressive in their active dispersal, invading the fragile vegetation with a predatory ease. Citrus sprang up like weeds wherever their seedlings had blown.

Clearly the main coastal thoroughfare, the trail climbed patiently upward before widening into a brief dirt road graded by the farmers. Rex pulled to a stop at the base of the road, which was split with a wooden tower rising fifty feet into the air. A structure built of weathered planks and crisscrossing boards, the tower supported a splintery ladder up one side, leading to a crow's nest of sorts, a precarious shack perched like a belfry. A makeshift widow's walk, it usually afforded the inhabi-tants a clear view out to the horizon, so they could anticipate the arrival of supply ships and the return of local fishermen.

The wind made a loud rushing noise as it whisked through the top of the watchtower. Leaning an arm against the structure, Rex paused. The road continued on, stretching a little more than two hundred yards between and past the farmhouses before fading into the Scalesia forest. Slender groves of towering balsas crowded the road. On either side of the tree-lined road sat crop fields and expanses of cleared pasture.

Most of the village houses were nestled among the balsas, but a few sat farther back, situated in the middle of plantain or yuca fields and angled to face the shadowy mass of the Scalesia forest. At its maximum, the island's population was twenty-three, but it had been rapidly drop-ping since the first quakes. The houses had seemingly been abandoned, and the fields had become overgrown with shrubs and scattered domes-tic plants. Big grassy wastelands, the fields would take decades to be reclaimed by the native forest.

Well into the cleared field to the west of the road, a few cows congre-gated in a pen beside a small bloque house, just beyond a stretch of castor oil plants. "We must figure out how to kill them," Diego said, watching the livestock graze. He ran a sleeve across his dripping brow. "But I'm pleasantly surprised by the lack of goats and dogs."

"That must be Frank's," Rex said, pointing through a stand of citrus toward the remains of a camp. Two canvas tents, a rocky fire pit cradling ashes and scorched stones, a large aluminum specimen freezer-all arrayed in the pasture about a hundred yards beyond the house, farther upslope toward the forest. A piece of canvas on one tent flapped loudly in the wind, the noise carrying up the dusty road.

Until he saw it, Rex hadn't grasped how imposing the specimen freezer was. A metal block large enough to pack a big mammal, like a rhino, head-to-tail, it looked as if it had fallen from space. He tried to picture a supply boat dropping the thing off on the coast of this untamed island, but the image failed him. Built of aluminum, it wasn't as heavy as it appeared, but getting it up the mountainside to the village had certainly been an honest day's work for a few unsuspecting crewmen. He imagined Frank, hands set on his sturdy hips, fishing cap shading his eyes, barking out commands and pointing the way. Maybe the expedited delivery charge of $400 wasn't exorbitant.

"So," Rex said to Derek as he started for Frank's camp, "you run a pretty lax ship. Not a lot of saluting and 'Sir, yes sirs' going around." He wove through the patch of citrus plants, passing alongside the small house. The others followed him, Diego still mumbling about the live-stock left unattended.

"SEALs are like thoroughbreds," Derek said. "You don't want to reign them in too much, especially during down time. But we spin up at a heartbeat when the shit's about to hit."

Rex placed a hand against the wall as he rounded the corner, Cameron at his heels. "Well, let's hope that's the-"

A screaming face met him, an ax whistling through the air at his head. Rex yelled and raised his arms protectively just as Cameron hit him from behind, taking him down hard. The ax sliced just above his head and stuck in the side of the house, sending a spray of mortar back into Derek's face. Derek shoved Diego clear, and Diego tumbled to the soft grass. Cameron sprang up to a crouch, one hand protectively pressing down on Rex's head, the other instinctively slapping her hip for a pistol, though there was none.

Ax still raised, the dark-skinned man looked at them with confusion just as Derek struck him beneath the ribs with a stun blow to the solar plexus. The air left him in a deep bark, like that of a seal, and he tumbled to his knees, clutching his gut. Cameron had him bent forward in a choke hold when a pregnant woman stepped heavily from the doorway, crying, waving her hands, and yelling in Spanish. Rex stood, feeling slightly queasy.

"It's okay!" Diego shouted, pulling himself to his feet. "He didn't mean it."

"Okay, my ass," Cameron yelled. "He came at Rex with a fucking ax." She bent the man's head forward even more sharply, and his face darkened a few shades. His mouth was working open and closed, trying to find air.

The pregnant woman continued to chatter in Spanish, and Diego talked over her, translating for the others as quickly as he could. "You scared them… they thought the island was abandoned… there's danger here, something that's been picking off the villagers…stalking their live-stock…"

The woman stepped forward, pleading with Cameron, and Cameron shook her head, clearly not keeping up with the Spanish. Cameron released the man, who fell onto all fours, vainly trying to suck air in. Finally his lungs loosened, inhaling in a deep screeching rush, and he almost convulsed, his shoulders heaving. "Lo siento," he said between breaths. "Lo siento, lo siento."

Derek looked at Cameron, and she stepped back, her arms loose at her sides. "He says he's sorry," she said.

They all sat around the wooden table in the small house, Floreana bustling near the sink gracefully, despite her enormous belly. Diego was pleased to make the connection between Ramon and his son, and he conveyed that Ramoncito was doing well at Puerto Ayora. At the mention of her son's name, Floreana stopped pumping the spigot handle abruptly. She took a moment to gather herself before returning to washing the dishes.

She had served them encebollado, a native tuna soup laden with onion and yuca. Cameron watched the bulge beneath Floreana's apron, scratching her forehead at the hairline. "Are you nine months?" she asked in Spanish.

Floreana shook her head nervously and held up six fingers.

"Jesus," Cameron muttered. "She's huge for six months."

Ramon said something, and Diego nodded. "He said he wishes they'd left like the others, but he doesn't think he can move her safely now given how big she is. He thinks she'll deliver early."

Floreana reached over to clear Cameron's plate, and Cameron laid a hand on her arm. Their eyes met, Floreana a bit surprised.

"When we leave," Cameron said, "we'll take you with us. Get you to a hospital where you'll be taken care of." She spoke slowly so that Diego could translate.

Floreana smiled, her eyes filling with emotion. She placed her hand over Cameron's and squeezed it once tightly.

Derek tapped his spoon against the edge of his bowl. "I'm not sure you can make that promise, Cam," he said softly.

Floreana cleared several more of their bowls and stood washing them, hunching forward so that her stomach didn't press up against the basin. Cameron watched her for a moment, then lowered her eyes to the table. She ran a hand through her hair, troubled.

"You're right," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm having a bit of trouble with the accent," Rex said to Diego. "Ask them if they knew Frank."

Diego spoke with Ramon, and Ramon smiled at the mention of the man. "Si," he said. "El huevo gordo." He pointed at his wife, and when Cameron looked puzzled, he held his arms out to indicate a big stomach.

"Yes," Rex said in Spanish. "He was a touch on the heavy side."

Ramon spoke slowly, so Cameron was able to keep up with his Span-ish. "He came here a few times, trying to get me to come look at some-thing he'd put in that big freezer of his. He always seemed upset, his face sweaty and red, and he stumbled through his Spanish, so it was difficult to understand him. Finally, I told him I was busy with my crops and ani-mals and I had no time for his fancy toys and ideas. I told him nosing around like that was bad luck. And I was right." Ramon sat back and folded his arms, a sad expression on his face. "At first I thought he'd just gone home and left his things behind because that's how Norteameri-canos are."

"But now?" Rex asked. "Now what do you think happened to him?"

Ramon spoke rapidly for a few minutes, losing Cameron. She waited patiently, catching a phrase here and there. Ramon finally finished and Diego stared at the table, tracing a ridge with his index finger.

"What'd he say?" Cameron asked. "What's that last phrase mean?"

Diego raised his hand and let it fall to the table with a slap. "Tree monster," he grinned.

Rex slowed as he approached Frank's deserted camp, letting Cameron and Derek catch up to him. Diego had stayed behind to discuss with Ramon the ecological considerations of the mostly deserted island.

Something in the emptiness of Frank's camp made it seem haunted. Maybe it was the incessant flapping of the loose tent canvas, the omi-nously large specimen freezer, or the canteen dangling from one of the tent posts, as though Frank had just hung it there and gone for a hike. Some trash was scattered near the entrance to the first tent-jars and books and tools. A black Gore-tex slicker lay on the grass, blown, Rex figured, from the post. It was eerie seeing these things, objects stripped from the dead.

The ground was extraordinarily soft underfoot. Though the sun had dried the dew quickly, a few beads of water still clung to the little spider-webs threading the lush grass. Nearby, several giant tortoises lay retracted into their shells, their high-domed backs rising from the grass like boul-ders.

The loose canvas flap on the tent snapped in the breeze, its rope swaying as they approached. Cameron fisted the cord, pulling it tight. The noise ceased immediately, leaving a sudden silence. She looped the loose end through a hole in the canvas, knotting it. The wind kicked up again, filling the fresh silence with a low whistle as it carried through the shack atop the watchtower down the dirt road.

The sun bounced off the specimen freezer so strongly it made them squint. Derek raised an arm against the glare as Rex strode to it and examined the thick lock that jutted out from the door just beneath the handle. The size of a shoe box, the lock had a jagged mouth of a key slot. Around back, there was a vent for the humidor, which cleared the moisture from the freezer so as to preserve the specimens. The vent's grate caught on steel teeth if it was forced inward, locking it into place to prevent scavengers from getting in and devouring the specimens.

Rex tapped the lock with his fingers, swearing under his breath. "We'll search for the keys, but I'd bet Frank kept them on his person."

Derek checked the freezer door, testing it with his fingers. Pressing his ear to the door, he knocked twice with his fist, gauging its thickness.

"Tucker packing any C4?" Cameron asked. Derek backed up, shaking his head.

"Even if we did have some, there'd be no way to reseal the freezer," Rex said. "The heat would turn the specimens to Jell-O in about five minutes." He groaned, banging his forehead lightly against the alu-minum. It sent a tinny echo through the interior. "And there's no way we can haul this whole thing back to civilization."

"What do you think's inside?" Cameron asked.

"I don't know," Rex said. "But it must be for multiple specimens-it's certainly larger than any land form on the islands. It's also locked, which means Frank collected something before he disappeared." He tapped the door with his fingernails, making a hollow ping. "Ain't curiosity a bitch?"

Rex returned Cameron's smile, then ducked into the larger tent, sur-veying the dim interior. A rotting, fecund smell permeated the space. A mat and a single sleeping bag lay on the ground, along with a hurricane lamp that had broken in a recent tremor, a wooden chest, and a toiletries bag. He lifted the lid of the chest, and a swarm of tiny wasps rose up, clouding around his head. He cried out and stumbled backward, tripping over the chest. Swatting at the wasps, he shoved through the tent flap. The swarm lifted from around him in the breeze, flying in several tight swoops before disappearing.

Cameron and Derek looked at Rex, startled, then amused by his disheveled hair and red face. "Any stings?" Cameron asked.

"No. Podagrionids. Torymid family. Predators of mantid larvae." Rex dusted off his pants. "They use their sharp ovipositors to pierce the spongy egg cases before they've hardened, and lay eggs inside. Their off-spring hatch and feed on the developing larvae." He clapped his hands together and sank them in his khaki pockets. "They don't sting."

Cameron's lips pressed together in a hint of a smile. "The expression on your face, you could've fooled me."

Rex ducked back inside and approached the chest, raising the lid more cautiously. Sure enough, inside lay a segment of an ootheca about the size of a playing card, dotted with holes. He shooed the few remaining wasps and held it out before Cameron and Derek. "Case in point," he said. He turned the segment over, his fingers sinking into it. "Looks like it sustained some UV damage," he said. "That would have made it easier for the wasps to penetrate it." He held it closer to his face. Frank had written the estimated hatching date on a piece of tape stuck to the ootheca-11/25/07. "So Frank was alive through the end of Novem-ber," Rex said. "But this is odd. Mantids usually don't hatch until April. This is out of season."

He pulled one of Frank's T-shirts from the bed, wrapped the ootheca segment, and stuck it in his bag before heading into the other tent, which Frank had apparently used as a biostation. Cameron followed him in, and Derek waited outside. A folding card table remained stubbornly on its legs in one corner, though all the equipment it had held had slid to the ground in a quake-a cassette-tape case filled with glassine envelopes, a 160-watt mercury vapor lamp, a 10x loupe, a UV lamp, a Nikon with seven rolls of film, a dissecting microscope. Three killing jars sat in a cluster on the ground, the layers visible through the glass-crystalline cyanide, sawdust, plaster of Paris on top.

A sketch pad caught Rex's eye. He picked it up and set it on the card table, pulling an equipment chest over for a seat. When he flipped to the first page, an overscale sketch of a mantid stared back at him. Below it was taped a ripped segment of text that Rex recognized as belonging to an unpublished insect listing, one of several sheaves of reference notes about island fauna that Frank brought with him on surveys.

The paper was titled MANTIDS, and it read: Galapagia obstinatus: endemic species found on Baltra, Floreana, Isabela, San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, Sangre de Dios. Conventional collection methods-beating vegetation, malaise trap, or at lights. Arid to humid zones, though heavily prefers humid. Closely related to Musonia and Brunneria.

The "author," or discoverer of the species, was listed as "Scudder, S.H." in an 1893 article titled, "Reports on the dredging operations off the west coast of Central America to the Galapagos to the West Coast of Mexico and in the Gulf of California, incharge of Alexander Agassiz, carried on by the U.S. Fish Commission Steamer Albatross during 1891, Lieut. Commander Z. L. Tanner, U.S.N., Commanding."

Derek ducked into the tent, his hair damp with sweat. "Jesus, the sun," he said.

Rex waved a hand to silence him, focused on the next page in the sketch pad-another sketch, this time of a praying mantis ootheca. It was ensconced along a branch on a tree that had fallen over, making a clearing in the forest and leaving the ootheca exposed to the sun. Rex tapped the bulge of the ootheca segment in his bag. "Frank must have pulled this from the ootheca he drew," he said. "The picture explains the sun damage."

To caption the sketch, Frank had scrawled the mathematical symbol for "approximately" and then 250 offspring. Beside that, he'd written Ten viable.

Cameron pointed at Frank's note. "What's that mean?"

"Mantids usually lay oothecas from which two hundred to two hun-dred fifty nymphs are spawned. I don't know what 'ten viable' means. 'Viable,' as an evolutionary term, means that a mutated organism can develop and survive given favorable circumstances, but I don't see how that would be relevant here." Rex shook his head. "That's Frank for you. Typically vague."

He flipped the page, but the next sheet in the sketchbook was blank, save nine tallies, ticked off like a billiards score on a chalkboard. Rex tapped the sheet, frustrated. "Frank usually took copious notes," he said.

Outside, the flap came loose on the other tent, snapping in the wind, and they all started at the sudden sound.

Derek shrugged. "That was before the tree monster got him."