The Solomon Curse

CHAPTER 42

After another half hour of hard going, the jungle thickening as they made their way east, Remi stopped and pointed. “Look. Another cave,” she said, indicating a dark area between two groves of trees midway up the ridge. The group regarded the opening — small, by any measure, barely large enough for a human to squeeze through.

“You’re right,” Sam said. “Come on, gang. This could be it.”

They worked their way up the rocky slope, the terrain rough underfoot. Sam slowed after nearly going down when his foot shifted an unstable rock. “Be careful. Some of this is loose. Probably a recent landslide,” he warned.

“We’re right with you,” Remi said.

Sam continued up to a small flat area just outside the cave and waited for them to make it up. Lazlo was huffing by the time he arrived, and Sam was about to say something, when Leonid cried out from down the slope.

“Gah!”

Sam and Remi hurried to where Leonid was face down on the rocks, his left leg bleeding where it was wedged between two flat boulders. “Are you all right?” Remi asked.

“Stupid. I should have been watching where I was stepping instead of looking around,” Leonid said through clenched teeth as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“How bad is it?” Sam asked.

“Hurts. But I don’t think it’s broken.” He winced as he tried to pull his ankle free. “It’s stuck in there pretty well.”

“Lazlo, we can use the machetes to shift the smaller of these rocks so he can get loose,” Sam said, and then looked to Leonid. “When you feel the pressure ease, try to pull your foot out.”

“I understand the concept,” Leonid muttered as his eyes teared.

Using both blades, they were able to move the flat rock enough so Leonid could pull his leg free. Blood ran down his calf to his ankle where the rough edge had savaged the skin, and the white sock and tan boot were now crimson. Leonid tried to stand, testing his weight, and grimaced. “Not broken, but it hurts like hell.”

“Let’s get it bandaged and stop the bleeding,” Remi said, reaching into her pack for the first-aid kit. Two minutes later, she’d cleaned the abrasions and, using butterfly strips, closed the worst of the gash. Eyeing her work, she swabbed the entire area with antiseptic and wound gauze around it. “There.”

“Think you’ll live?” Sam asked as he helped Leonid to his feet.

“You’ll still have me around to torture for a while longer.”

“Can you walk?” Remi asked.

Leonid tried, pain obvious on his face. “Barely.”

Sam looked up at the cave mouth. “Lazlo, you and Remi have a look in the cave and let us know if you find anything. But be careful.”

Leonid grimaced again. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

“No worries. We’ll be back in a jiffy, treasure in hand, I’m sure,” Lazlo said brightly. Remi looked less confident but offered a wan smile.

“You’re going to wait here?”

“Unless you need me,” Sam said.

“I think I can manage,” Remi replied.

“Go on,” Leonid said to Sam. “I can be trusted to sit here without killing myself.”

“Are you sure?” Sam asked.

“If you’re not back in a few days, I’ll make sure a suitable memorial is erected.”

“Thoughtful, as always,” Remi said. With a final glance at the morose Russian, she resumed her ascent, Lazlo and Sam close behind, all of them eyeing the rocks underfoot with renewed caution.

At the cave mouth, they switched on their lights and directed the beams inside. Remi sniffed and crinkled her nose. “Stinks. Sulfur.”

“They don’t have bears here, do they?” Lazlo asked in a whisper.

“I don’t think so. But you never know. Could be some of those octogenarian Japanese holdouts in there, too.”

“Right,” Remi said. “They probably trained the bears to attack.”

“Very amusing, as always,” Lazlo said with a sidelong glance at them.

“Remi?” Sam asked.

“You can go first this time,” she said.

Sam stepped forward and ducked down. The gap was no more than four feet high, and, stooped over like an old woman, he inched forward with careful steps. The space widened but the ceiling was still low. The main cave was tiny compared to the first one, barely more than ten feet wide and twice that length. Sam glanced around the area and shook his head as his light bounced off the flat walls. There was no continuation like in the first cave. Just the one area.

Remi shuffled in next to him, followed by Lazlo, and Sam turned to them. “Well, the good news is, there are no skeletons.”

Lazlo took in the cavern. “Not much to it, is there?”

“No. We can scratch this one off our list,” Remi said.

They did a cursory inspection to ensure they weren’t missing anything and filed back out, blinking in the bright sunlight as they exited.

“Now what?” Lazlo asked.

Sam’s gaze roamed over the ridge stretching into the distance and drifted down the slope to where Leonid sat. He checked his watch and sighed. “Much as I’d like to keep looking, it will be dark in about five hours, and with Leonid’s leg cut up like that, he’ll be risking infection if we stay out here. So I’d say we head back to the truck, get him taken care of, and live to fight another day. Now that we have the GPS coordinates, we can easily return later and resume the search.”

Remi smiled. “I don’t know that I’d agree with the term ‘easily,’ but the rest of it makes sense.”

“Which I take to mean that we don’t report the killing field we stumbled across just yet,” Lazlo said.

“Correct,” Sam said. “But we will. First things first.”

They returned to Leonid and helped him to his feet. Sam explained his reasoning for calling it quits and Leonid offered only a token objection. They set off back down the hill, following the stream again, Lazlo and Sam taking turns supporting Leonid as he limped along, his discomfort obvious.

When they got back to the village, the sky’s vibrant blue was turning purple as dusk approached. The villagers watched as they made their way to the Nissan and Sam stopped short before they reached it, hands on his hips.

“That’s not good news,” he said, staring at four flat tires. He crouched down and examined the nearest one. “Someone cut the valve stems off. This was deliberate.”

“Why on earth would they do that? And who is ‘they’?” Remi demanded.

“Obviously, someone who doesn’t like us, for whatever reason,” Lazlo said. “Could also be kids amusing themselves—”

“What are we going to do now?” Leonid interrupted, beads of sweat rolling down his pale face. The journey had obviously taken its toll on him.

“Not to worry,” Sam said. “I’ll call Des and see if he can get one of the lads to go into town and rent a vehicle to pick us up. Leonid, do you think you can make it another mile or so to the main road?”

“Why didn’t you call earlier?”

“It’s not like there was any way to get to us. That area’s impassible,” Remi explained. “Worst case, we can give Des directions and hope he can find his way here to the village.” She eyed the trail they’d driven up. “Although he’s never been here before, so he might get lost.”

Leonid shook his head. “I can make it. We’re in no rush now, correct? So we can take our time?”

“I’d imagine it will take a few hours to take the skiff in to Honiara, rent a truck, then drive here, especially at night,” Sam said. “So you’re correct that we’re in no hurry. Although I don’t like the idea of trekking through the jungle at night.”

“We have flashlights,” Lazlo reminded.

“Which will make us great targets for any predators,” Remi said. “Let’s just hope there are no rebels around.”

“Did you have to say that?” Lazlo said.

Sam powered on the sat phone and reached Des. After explaining the situation and agreeing that the Aussie would embark for town while it was still light out, he hung up and turned to them. “We should stay quiet as we hike to the road. Whoever did this might be waiting for us to try to get back that way.”

“Maybe it would be worth another twenty to have our escort show us an alternate route to the main road?” Remi suggested.

Sam smiled. “Excellent idea.” He looked over his shoulder to where the youth was sitting with several others, watching them, and waved him over. The young man practically bolted to them and for an instant Sam wondered whether the vandalism wasn’t part of his moneymaking enterprise and then dismissed the thought. They’d never know for sure so no point in wasting energy on speculations.

After a quick negotiation, they set off down the slope, taking a game trail rather than the main track. Half an hour into it, the sky rumbled ominously and rain began pelting them, making the ground slippery and slowing their progress even further. Leonid’s limp was more pronounced as time stretched on and he cried out in pain several times when he misstepped in the darkness, twisting his ankle, punctuating his intakes of breath with a Russian curse.

When they finally made it to the pavement, their surroundings were pitch-black. Leonid sat by the road shoulder with a sigh of relief and Lazlo and Remi joined him, their energy spent. Sam called the Darwin and confirmed that Des had gone to town, and after paying their escort and watching him disappear back into the jungle, they settled in for a long wait on the desolate road.