Maroon Rising (11 page)

“No. You here to see me, because I’ve known you’d be coming.”

I pressed my teeth together. Nanny glanced over her shoulder and mouthed “Obeah.”

I’d already figured that out. Along with the ancient Ashanti and African languages the last vestiges of Maroons sought to keep alive, some continued to practice the beliefs their forefathers brought with them from Mother Africa. A tingle tickled my arms.

The old woman smiled, her teeth brown but still in place. She turned to the papers spread out on the truck bed.

“My eyes aren’t so good—”

I pulled the magnifying glass from my pocket. She laughed and nodded, then bent over the papers, most of which were incomprehensible to me. Her quick review of Morgan’s journal made me think she’d studied it before. She stopped near the sudden conclusion of loose notes and glanced up, then shoved everything back in its plastic case. She had paused over the page that referred to the flash at dawn on Blue Mountain’s peak.

She confirmed that there was an old legend—from the days the Taino Indians had Jamaica to themselves—about magic in the mountain, and specifically a cross that marked what she referred to as the site of a deep evil. She looked from Nanny to me.

“We been using fear to our advantage ever since we was dragged out of Africa.”

The tingle in my arms shot across my shoulders. Watching me, the old woman cackled—I felt like she could see it.

“We need to go up there tonight, to the mountain, and wait for sunrise,” I said.

Nanny looked at her watch, then at me. “I’ve been there at dawn and there was no flash on the mountain.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s all we have to work with,” I said. “And think about this. What if the flash is visible
from
the peak, not
on
the peak?”

Nanny squinted her eyes for a second then popped them wide. “We never—” She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost three o’clock now…” Her eyes narrowed. “We’ll need a guide. And a vehicle.”

“Use my truck,” Tarrah said. “I get out in Moore Town and Stephen can take you there tonight.”

Adrenaline was pumping so much energy through my body I didn’t care how much it hurt from the trip upriver. A nighttime hike to the 7,400-foot high Blue Mountain peak would knock my already kicked ass out, but if it led to a clue about Morgan’s stash, my legs and back would just have to suck it up.

M
oore Town was far enough from the water that the river wasn’t visible, so I had no idea if the speedboat that nearly swamped us was here or not. Nanny had gone to check on the Colonel and get his thoughts on the materials. She returned with a jug of water and a backpack.

“Chicken sandwiches and flashlights,” she said. Stephen, waiting by the truck, was Tarrah’s great grandson and looked to be around my age. He had a serious-looking face with a turned-down mouth, short hair, and short stature—maybe five foot six.

“Stephen, thanks for guiding us tonight.” Nanny gave him a brief hug, but even that didn’t soften his expression.

“Going to be cold tonight, maybe wet, too,” he said.

“How long does it take to hike to the peak?” I said.

“Normally about seven hours.”

“
Seven?
”

“We got Granny’s truck.”

I glanced at Nanny, unsure how far we could drive and what impact that would have on the time. I wanted to get moving and cover as much of the distance in daylight as possible—especially if we were driving the old truck along hiking trails. There were no roads that led to the Blue Mountain peak.

“Did the Colonel have any ideas on the flash?” I said.

Nanny shook her head. “He’s heavily sedated.”

“That bad?”

She sighed. “Afraid so.”

I wanted to know how far we could drive and what impact that would have on the time, but Stephen’s lips were pinched tight. For whatever reason, nobody wanted to talk about what had happened to the colonel.

And so we climbed inside the truck, which had roll-up windows, no radio, and an ashtray full of gray powder that stank. I dumped that out the window, not wanting to smell it for the next several hours.

Stephen drove. Nanny sat in the middle, but with her legs on the passenger side due to the transmission being a four-on-the-floor standard shift. The road out of Moore Town was gravel—dirt, really—and it only got worse as we crossed the river and began a treacherous journey through dense forest, part of the heavily contoured topography.

After a couple hours in, I wondered whether we could have gone faster on mountain bikes—we were averaging maybe fifteen miles per hour. But then we began a steady ascent, which the old Ford handled admirably. We straddled streams and passed perilously close to a steep drop-off—a slide six inches to the right and we’d have plunged hundreds of feet to a rocky demise.

Nanny was calm, occasionally speaking to Stephen in one of the African dialects. She patted me on the leg every so often and asked if I was okay. I wasn’t, but I’d never admit it to her. I had no aversion to precarious travel—hell, anyone who’d ridden in Betty or the Beast could tell you that—but I preferred being in control of the situation. Ceding that to Stephen had me squirming in my seat.

The mass of the mountain filled the windshield. If I leaned forward I could see sky, but only just. The light faded quickly since we were on the eastern side, and the old truck’s headlights were weak. When the boulders, cliffs, and sinkholes finally forced us off-trail, Stephen pulled into a relatively flat place and turned off the engine.

“Can’t drive no more.”

“How much further to the peak?”

He glanced down at the odometer. “Maybe two hours, walking.”

“We’ll stop for rest,” Nanny said. “Let’s light a fire.”

Using the flashlights, we collected dry wood and sticks. The temperature had already dropped ten degrees, and a chill crept through my tired bones. No sooner did we dump the wood in a pile than it started to rain. We kicked the wood underneath the truck, got back inside the cab, and waited.

The jerk-chicken sandwiches were amazing. I could have eaten all three myself, but at least one was enough to stop the cramp in my stomach. Forty-five minutes later, the clouds parted and a canopy of bright stars lit the sky.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been in such a remote location,” I said.

“The Blue Mountain range is nearly two hundred thousand square acres,” Nanny said.

“Big for a Caribbean island.”

I got out of the truck, retrieved the wood—mostly dry—and made a teepee of sticks. My watch read 10:09. The note in Morgan’s journal referred to a flash that could only be seen at sunrise, so we’d need to commence the hike around three o’clock a.m. in order to reach the peak in time.

Nanny pulled out an old newspaper from her bag that helped me start the fire. Before long we had a nice blaze going. We refrained from discussing the purpose of our trip in front of Stephen, which left only the basics.

“No, I’ve never married,” she said. “You?”

“Yeah, briefly.”

“That bad, huh?” Nanny said. “You look like you just drank one of Ms. Tarrah’s teas.”

“Worse.” I sat forward on the rock we shared—Stephen was on the other side of the fire, sleeping on the open ground. “So what drove you to archaeology?”

“History, of course—the history of my people.” Nanny’s white teeth were bright in the firelight. “My studies and interests are exclusively focused on the last five hundred years of Jamaican history.”

“You’re the perfect person to solve Morgan’s archives. But I’m sure you’ve tried many times. What makes you think this’ll be different?”

“You, Buck Reilly. A fresh perspective from someone who has unearthed antiquities others failed to find. We …
I
am counting on you to help us see something we’ve overlooked—and your idea about the flash being seen
from
the peak rather than
on
the peak could be just that spark we needed.”

I took a deep breath, partly grateful, partly proud, and partly afraid of failing. It would take more than one clue to solve this mystery.

“That being the case, I suggest we get some sleep.” It was nearly midnight.

We crawled into the bed of the pickup truck. Nanny had a light blanket in that apparently bottomless bag of hers.

“We can use each other’s body heat to keep warm,” she said as she rolled onto her side.

I was cold, but I hesitated.

“Don’t be shy, Buck Reilly. Spoon me, I’m cold too.”

I lay down, slid close, and pressed my body against hers. She pulled the blanket up over us—I was anything but cold now. I tried to think of the day’s events, the archives, the flash at sunrise, anything to take my mind off the fact that I was pressed against the beautiful professor. Instead, my mind rewound to the moment I fell off the raft but she hung on, how calm she was, how she pulled her shirt off without any hesitation.

Beautiful, smart,
and
confident.

Her breathing settled into the slow rhythm of slumber. She was clearly not distracted by the heat between our bodies—or the involuntary reaction it caused in mine. I backed my hips away but kept our shoulders pressed tight, closed my eyes, and started counting backwards from one hundred.

Somewhere around -263, I lost count.

A
sharp tug on my foot launched me upright into darkness. I saw stars blurred overhead, a dark figure crouched by my feet—

“Hey!” I said.

Something stirred next to me.

“What’s wrong?” Nanny.

“Time to go,” Stephen said.

I lay back down, my heart still thumping. Good grief.

I’d been dreaming, something about Jack and Heather, with Gunner laughing in the background. The remaining fluorescence on my watch indicated—probably—2:45. Once out of the truck bed I stretched, which hurt less than I expected. Nanny climbed out after me and stuffed the blanket back into her bag. The few hours of sleep helped, but I was jumpy from the sudden reveille.

“Got to go,” Stephen said.

We all turned on flashlights and moved in single file, with me bringing up the rear. Night sounds carried on the cold predawn breeze. Heavy mists and low clouds blocked most of the sky and swirled through valleys below, distorting my depth perception to the point that—

Damn. If the fog blocked our view of the valley, the freezing night behind us and rough climb ahead of us would be for nothing.

“You okay back there?” Nanny said.

“Still waking up. So you’ve done this before?”

“Many times. I grew up in Moore Town—we did this hike and sunrise ceremony at least once a year.”

Looking for the flash? No wonder she seemed so sure of foot. I stayed close to her and Stephen until my senses adjusted to the ambient light and the tempo of their movement. The path was narrow but well worn. The ascent sharpened, and in places we needed both hands to climb up steep rock slopes, taking turns shining flashlights on the rocks to allow each other to see.

“We’re behind schedule,” Stephen said. “Need to take a more direct path.”

“Jacob’s Ladder?” Nanny said.

All I heard from our guide was a grunt.

Time passed with no conversation. All our concentration was focused on placing one foot in above the other. I grabbed hold of dark rocks and hauled myself up. My lungs were burning as we crested a ridge.

All of a sudden there was a floor of misty gray below us. Stephen and Nanny had stopped.

“We’re here,” Nanny said.

“What about the fog? Will that clear? How will we see whatever it is we’re looking for?”

Stephen gave me a look. “Patience.”

It was now 5:20. A ribbon of pink seared the eastern horizon behind us.

“According to the notes, the flash or reflection takes place on the north side—or north
of
the peak,” Nanny said. “Morgan’s raid of Panama took place in January of 1671 and he returned to Jamaica a couple months later. It’s May now, so there should be a slight difference in the position of the sun.”

“North is that way.” Stephen pointed to our right, so we settled in to watch in that general direction.

I felt like I had as a little boy on Christmas Eve, staring out my bedroom window hoping to glimpse Santa’s sleigh. More than once I was certain I had, only realizing when I was older that it had just been airplane traffic.