Hawkins inspected the caved-in skull. “Yes, sir. Without a doubt. But I think it’s safe to say that this is a mystery to be solved another time. She’s long since dead. Over.”
After a moment, Drake replied. “Agreed. Over.”
“Actually,” Bray said. “I think I’m going to stay behind. See if I can’t uncover more of the body.”
“What?” Joliet said. “Why?”
“Doesn’t seem right just leaving her here,” Bray said, stepping closer and taking the skull for the first time.
“I don’t mean to be micromanaging you all from the ship,” Drake said. “But what’s the holdup? The sun isn’t going to stay in the sky all day. Over.”
Hawkins sighed. “Sir, Bray is requesting to stay behind and exhume the rest of the body. Over.”
After a moment, Drake replied. “Let him stay. The pudgy bastard’s just going to slow you two down. Over.”
Hawkins and Joliet laughed.
Bray bristled and said, “Hey!”
With a shrug, Hawkins said, “He’s right.”
“Assholes,” Bray said, but he couldn’t disguise the thin smile on his face.
Hawkins pushed the Talk button on the radio. “Joliet and I are heading out now. Bray is staying behind. Keep an eye on him. If we’re not back by nightfall, help him get back to the ship without crashing the Zodiac into the side. Over.”
“Copy that, Ranger, good hunting. Out.”
After shaking hands with Bray, Hawkins led the way into the humid jungle. The air was thick with the scent of rot. He knew there was little to fear on the island. Beyond a few bird species, the island would be unpopulated. Even though he’d never admit it, the skull had him spooked. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but had no doubt something awful had happened here. The very air seemed tainted by it. He pushed his irrational fears aside and focused on the mission at hand: Find Kam and get the hell off this island.
11.
Ten feet into the jungle, Kam’s footprints included deep, round heel marks. This was good news because they would catch up to him more quickly if he was walking, but also added one more layer of confusion to the young intern’s disappearance. If he’d entered the jungle in a panicked state, why had he stopped running as soon as he’d no longer been visible? Since then, the footprints revealed a calm, measured gate, which stayed on the muddy path.
This is going to be easy, Hawkins thought. Howie GoodTracks had taught him to notice the minutest aberrations in the natural world. Every scuff, scratch, indentation, or patch of grass bent in the wrong direction told a story. The depth of a footprint in mud could reveal the target’s size, weight, and sex. When tracking people, the gait, or distance between steps, and what part of the foot sank deepest revealed a person’s mind-set—calmly strolling, running flat out, or ambling randomly, like most lost people do. The angle of a bent branch could even hint at the target’s speed and, based on the freshness of the break, when they’d passed through. Skills like these weren’t taught in many schools, and certainly not by people like GoodTracks, who didn’t just know these things, but lived them. With Kam not hiding his path, most of these skills wouldn’t be necessary, but if Kam wandered off the trail, Hawkins would be able to follow him just as easily.
Twenty minutes into their rapid-paced hike, the trail rose up a steep grade. They slowed as they followed the path up, occasionally needing to scale short rock walls. At the top of one such stony rise, Hawkins leaned over the edge and reached his hand down to Joliet.
She took his hand and quickly scaled the eight-foot wall. At the top, she sat with her legs hanging over the edge and caught her breath. Hawkins sat next to her and opened his pack. After taking a swig of water, he offered her the bottle and she helped herself. The air in the jungle felt thick enough to drink and their bodies were saturated. But they still sweated in the late-afternoon heat and needed to drink often.
Hawkins took the bottle from Joliet when she offered it back to him, took one more swig, and capped it. Neither had said a word as they followed the path to this point, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. They’d often spent quiet days on the deck of the Magellan, reading books, writing, or just catching some rays. It was one of the things he liked most about her, but the silence was beginning to feel uncomfortable.
Joliet spoke first. “What are you thinking?”
“You don’t want to know,” Hawkins answered. And he believed it. During the last twenty minutes, he’d allowed his imagination to run wild, filling in the blanks of Kam’s disappearance and working out several different scenarios. Some were farfetched and easily dismissed. Others fit, but seemed unlikely, which was unfortunate because they had happy endings. But there was one scenario that nagged at him. The sequence of events lined up and the evidence seemed to support it. Unfortunately, that scenario wouldn’t have a happy ending.