The Hunt for Shambhala

4

Selena tossed and turned on the hard riveted floor behind the cockpit with only an old US Marines blanket for comfort. She glanced across at Riley who was snoozing up against the bulkhead and cursed under her breath. “He’s like a sodding cat,” she muttered. “Can sleep anywhere.”

Selena and Riley had met in Angkor Wat. Selena was there with her father researching items for the museum, and Riley was there with a few mates back-packing around Asia. Their first contact was when she accidentally wandered into a Selfie he was taking with his friends and he’d asked her to stop photobombing.

She had looked aghast and denied that she even knew what the phrase meant, but after he’d explained it they’d had a laugh and shared a beer back at the hotel. Later that same night when a fight started in the bar and Riley saved Selena’s father from a black eye, they had made a joke about hiring him to work security at the museum, but he had politely declined.

She had kept an eye on him the rest of the holiday and on her last day she had ‘accidentally’ run into him in the hotel lobby where she struck up another conversation with him. It was then he mentioned Clarissa — a boat named after his aunt who died and left him the money in her will.

When she found out he had a boat she had offered an even greater sum if he would sail her around the islands of southern Laos to study some new archaeological finds, and this time he had agreed — but only after playing hard to get for a few days. They had sailed down the Mekong River from Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. After crossing the border they spent the rest of that lazy Laotian summer in the islands in the Gulf of Thailand.

But they really got to know each other when her father flew back to England and Riley’s mates went back to New South Wales. When it was just the two of them. Neither of them would have thought the other was the right fit, but they had gotten together nonetheless. Too many Thai Sabais under a full moon worked its wicked magic on them and the next thing they knew they were a couple.

For the rest of that summer.

And then when they really got to know each other they realized that neither of them was the right fit for the other, and that plus the distance between them ended any chance of their staying together. There were no regrets on either side, and now they were just good friends with a lot of inside jokes between them.

Now, thinking back to those days they seemed like a million years ago and she was starting to feel decidedly middle-aged. One of the side-effects of that was realizing that a lot of her life was now piling up in her rear-view mirror instead of stretching out before her like a fresh new highway. It wasn’t the greatest of feelings.

But she guessed Riley and everyone else in the world had the same rear-view mirror, and she was happy that most of the stuff in that mirror was good stuff — happy memories and good times. If the price you paid for all those memories was an ever-shrinking future ahead of you then so be it, she thought with determination, and turned to face Riley.

“Sleep well?” he said.

“Not a buggering wink.”

“Ah…”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“No, you don’t.”

“I do. You’re thinking I have a habit of going around and collecting men with convenient modes of transportation.”

“What?! You are crazy.”

“Nonsense. You’re thinking — first me and the boat, and now this American and the plane. Next I’ll be looking for an astronaut.”

“You said it.”

“I was being facetious.”

“But of course you were.”

She sighed. “Suppose we better make sure he hasn’t fallen asleep and flown us to Antarctica.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” the Australian said, turning over and closing his eyes. “Nothing like sleeping on a plane.”

“Bastard.”

The peace Decker was enjoying didn’t last long, and soon his daydreams were interrupted by the sound of the Englishwoman grumbling and complaining as she approached the cockpit once again. As she clambered over to her side of the cockpit she kicked over a small case beside Decker’s seat. It was made of leather and had his initials on the side: JMD. Papers went all over the floor and he started to pick them back up again.

“Damn it all,” he said with a heavy sigh. “That was my flight case!”

“Mr Decker…” she began, ignoring him completely.

He could tell by the tone it was more grief, so he immediately pushed the headphones over his ears and started an imaginary conversation with a control tower that existed only in his mind.

“Mr Decker, that was the worst sleep that…”

He raised a finger to silence her so she wouldn’t interrupt his imaginary discussion. He was hoping she would give up and turn around, but when she sat down next to him, buckled in and folded her arms in defiance, he signed off with the non-existent tower and sighed deeply. “You were saying?”

“That was the worst sleep of my entire life!”

“What was wrong with it?”

“Have you ever slept on a hard floor surrounded by old crates and broken pottery?”

“You should have used one of the bunks at the back,” Decker said with a grin.

“One of the bunks?” Selena said. “You mean you have beds on board?”

“Of course I have beds on board,” Decker said. “I live in the Avalon.”

“You let me sleep on that hard metal floor when there’s a bunk?”

He nodded. “The bunks are extra. You’re only paying twenty-five big ones. That’s coach class… steerage, if you will.”

“I don’t believe this,” she said. “You’re not exactly a gentleman, are you now?”

“Whatever you say, p-”

“Don’t you dare call me princess!”

“I wasn’t going to call you princess. Where the hell did you get that idea?”

“Something about the way you looked at me… and you have this sort of Seventies Han Solo vibe going on with you and your little aeroplane.”

“This ain’t no Millennium Falcon, and you ain’t no princess. I was going to say whatever you say, please just give your mouth a rest.”

“Which is even ruder.”

“Princess…” Decker shook his head “A duchess at best.”

“Let’s agree to have nothing to do with each other unless we strictly have to.”

“You got it.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

“What are you doing, Mr Decker?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing?”

“Are you trying to have the last word?”

Decker scoffed. “What? No!”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“I’m going to sleep.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Decker let it go and the moment moved on when Riley Carr thrust his head into the cockpit. “You haven’t got anywhere I could punish the porcelain, have you mate?”

Decker gave him a quizzical look. “What?”

“You know, drain the lizard… flush my buffers?”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Selena said. “He means does one have a toilet?”

Decker looked horrified. “At the back,” he said, and then turned to Selena as the Australian moved out of sight. “He’s a real gem.”

“He’s a good man.”

“It would be helpful if he spoke English.”

“He does have a slightly colorful vocabulary, I admit, and he’s pretty old school. Doesn’t even do computers.”

“No?”

“Not at all. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but when Riley Carr says he needs to log out it means something else entirely.”

Her words were punctuated by the sound of the toilet flushing and a moment later a grinning Riley Carr emerged back into the cockpit. “Stay out of there guys, I think I just choked the bowl.”

Selena rolled her eyes. “Oh, Riley, please…”

“Back to beddy-byes for me, mates!” he said, and gave them a salute before moving back down to his ad-lib bed in the cargo bay.

“A real gem…” Decker said to himself. He turned to ask Selena a question about the Australian and saw her yawning loudly. She pushed back into the co-pilot’s seat and closed her eyes. The soft, worn leather was actually very comfortable and Decker noticed she was beginning to fall asleep at last.

“Wake me when we’re there, please Mr Decker…”

And then she was out like a light.

Decker smiled and shook his head. He thought Selena Moore was all right after all, but only when she was asleep. She was a crazy one all right, but after Bangkok he’d never see her or the Australian again, and that was just fine with him. He could live without mysterious journals and mythical kingdoms and Thai gangsters. All he wanted was to fly.

To Decker, the air was his home and the higher the better. He’d never fit into life on the ground and the first time he ever flew a plane he knew he never wanted to come down. That was when he was twelve and he took a Tiger Moth up over the summer squash fields of Monroe County, New York. He flew over those towns like a hawk — Bergen, Churchville, North Chili — and he knew the place like the back of his hand by the time he was old enough to leave home and see the world.

And that was when he joined the United States Marine Corps and trained to be a pilot, flying a Lockheed Martin KC-130 out of Miramar, California. All of it so long ago, he thought with a warm smile and shake of the head. Life was simpler now — just him and his plane and his cargo business.

No sir, no more stress or trouble for John Mitchell Decker.