Kuma chuckled at him. “You may have that, right old-timer, but I don’t think I’d trade my GPS for your compass.”
“How about you call me old timer again and I break you in half?”
Another deep chuckle. “I like you, captain, you’ve got character.”
They pulled the last of the gear off the boat and set it up with the rest in a dark pile about thirty yards off the beach. The island was full of volcanic, tropical jungle. It was thick and crowded with lush growth. An eruption in the last fifty years had leveled most of the island’s large trees, allowing the smaller plants to thrive and take over, giving the jungle the look of a dense wall of young trees, the thickest of which were perhaps eight inches in diameter. Small compared to the trees of the Amazon and the Congo. or even of the older forests of some parts of Hawaii. Nearly impenetrable.
There were a total of fourteen crew members: the captain, first mate, a freelance photographer, the ship’s engineer, and a variety of specialists. The engineer informed the captain that he would not be venturing out onto the snake infested island unless there was a gang of naked native women who were desperately in need of a strong Norwegian to teach them the ways of the missionary. The captain laughed at his crudeness, while the two young female scientists shook their heads in disgust. Yep, he would be staying on the ship.
One of the women, Dr. Connel, asked, “Is this far enough in?” The captain glanced out over the beach. The crew’s field photographer, a man who had worked all over the world for National Geographic, answered her.
“The tide line is there,” he said, pointing to the waves of smoother ground. “Venturing into the jungle is not safe in the dark. We’ll be out of the water here, and the ground is suitable for tenting. Tomorrow when we push inland, we will scout for a more appropriate campsite.”
The man knew what he was talking about, the captain admitted. In his mind, the captain added, and hopefully, that new camp will be near fresh water. One thing the captain had learned throughout his long hard life, was that it was impossible to live without water, and no matter how well prepared an expedition was, well, shit happens.
Six-foot fiberglass stakes with electric torches were erected in a forty-foot semicircle, with the curve extending out to the edge of the jungle and the halfway mark at the water’s high tide line. Within that circle, heavy-duty North Face pop-up tents were put up. They, too, were set up in a semi-circle following the curve of the lanterns. In the middle of their semi-circle, two long tables were unfolded. Those tables were piled high with cooking instruments that had been pulled out of one of the waterproof Pelican cases they came to shore with. Most of the crew had laptops or tablets, which they pulled from yet another large sealed case. Everything else was left out on the sandy ground. Their equipment was protected by the rugged, shock-proof plastic.
It was late, but the researchers were having trouble relaxing. Partly because they had been cooped up on the ship for so long, and partly because of their eagerness to get underway. The captain cautioned them all.
“Stop,” he called out as two of them prepared to enter the jungle. “There are most likely snakes in that jungle, and snakes in this part of the world can kill a man lightning fast, and there’s no damn hospital here to save you.”
“We’ll be careful, we just want to look around a little,” the man who was speaking was young and muscular, probably in his mid-twenties.
He looked like a runner, or a wrestler. The Captain didn’t know, but he was definitely Type A, and he definitely didn’t want to sit around.
“Maybe we should wait,” his partner told him.
“No worries, I’ve hiked in all sorts of jungles. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of.”
“Listen, son.”
“Son?”
“You are putting this crew and this entire expedition in jeopardy for your own selfish reasons. Knock it off. Play on your iPad, and go to sleep. You can traipse all over the island in the morning. For tonight, though, no one is leaving this camp.”
“Look here,” the young researcher started. The man was strong, confident, and successful. Obviously not used to taking orders from anyone, especially an old sea dog like the captain. He strode over into the middle of their tent semi-circle, presumably to confront the captain, who stood calmly next to one of the long tables that had been set up, the table that held the coffee pot.
Mr. Tough was intercepted by Dr. Connel. “Hey, what the hell is up with this aggressive attitude, Jones?” She had her hands on her hips in the well-known, pissed-off woman stance.
It was a good question, the captain thought. These young people were supposed to be scientists, researchers, and thinkers, not truculent, not cock-strong. Nonetheless, and unbeknownst to anyone else, the captain stood with one hand resting quietly on the butt of an eight-inch bowie knife attached to his leather belt. He had used the knife many times, once or twice on men.
“Just relax,” Connel told the man, who had flushed red at her rebuke. “Take a seat and have a cup of coffee. We’ll hit it hard in the morning, okay?”
“Look, son, I didn’t mean any disrespect,” the captain said as he offered his hand. “I really like you all. You seem like good people, smart people. In my years, though, I’ve seen a lot of good people meet bad circumstances because they went off without being prepared. I’m happy to go out with you first thing in the morning if you’d like. Provided, of course, I can grab a cup of coffee first.”
The young man, who was actually a geologist and volcanologist, let out a long breath, closed his eyes, and let his shoulders relax. A moment later, he opened his eyes and the anger had melted away. He extended his arm and took the captain’s offered hand.
“You are correct, sir. I’m sorry. It’s been a long trip and I’m just anxious.”
The captain shook his hand hard.
“I know that you have the experience here, captain, but try to remember that we are extremely excited and anxious to get to work.”
“Of course,” the captain replied, “of course. Come on gang, we made it through a long transatlantic journey, let’s get some shut-eye. Tomorrow is a brave new day.”
“Aye-aye,” was the amused reply from the ring of young scientists surrounding him.
Dawn was accompanied by enthusiastic smiles, hopeful energy, and good will. Mr. Tough, Calvin Jones, came up and apologized to the captain for his outburst. They fired up a long tabletop griddle and the captain showed off his pancake-making prowess. He was flipping them high into the air, for effect. Everyone was in good spirits, laughter was abundant.
Captain loved these first days of any expedition, before frustrations and setbacks marred people’s good spirits. He had slept well last night on an excellent air mattress provided by his employers. Now he sipped his coffee and leaned his head back in the poly canvas camping chair. Breakfast had wrapped up; several men were cleaning up the cooking supplies. Now it was time to pack up for the day.
The group had objectives they wanted to accomplish, of course, and they would be outlined at the start of each day. The group was split up into three teams, two with four members, and one with five. The captain was responsible for the group with five, and they set off into the jungle toward the topographical high grounds. In addition to the captain, there was the photographer, a botanist who was also an ornithologist, a biologist, and a climbing engineer.
“What is a rock climbing engineer?” the captain asked the woman as they walked through the dense jungle.
“What does it sound like?”
The captain shrugged. “So I guess you’ll take care of us if we have to do any climbing?”
“Or descending.”
“Descending?”
“As in spelunking - you know, caves? And yes, I’ll take care of you... if you’re nice.”
The captain chuckled,
“I will definitely be nice to you.”
Their photographer was leading the way, his eyes flitting down on the hand-held global positioning system he carried. The photographer, along with the biologist, appeared to have quite a bit of field experience. Photographers were like that, though, they tended to jump into situations headfirst, anything to get the shot or the angle they needed.
Shuler kept touching the large knife at his side. This island gave him a sense of unease. He hoped that when they eventually walked out of the dense vegetation and into the higher elevations, he would start feeling better. Jungles, though beautiful in their own right, were also terribly claustrophobic. Moreover, they were dangerous. They walked for hours, and many times the field biologist, who was a very big man, would ask them to stop while he examined animal signs. When he stopped to observe two snakes, the captain stayed far away. The biologist would jot down notes on his ridiculous electronic notepad, and take a picture of whatever it was he was seeing. The captain found himself wishing tattoo head was in their group so they could chat. He had grown to really like the man on their journey here.
It felt like midday, though it was only ten in the morning. The tropical sun did not care what time it was. It heated the island rainforest quickly, bringing out a crushing humidity. It was as if a dense fog had settled around their group, and their breathing quickly became labored. Traveling through a dense jungle was already physically demanding; doing it with the equivalent of lungs full of water was just torture. The humidity in the air had turned the whole of the island’s lower elevation into a bit of a cloud. It was not so dense they couldn’t see in front of them, but there was a definite haze in the air.
Marion, the group’s botanist and ornithologist, was in a bit of a state of unrest.
“Can’t see any damn birds anywhere,” he huffed as he moved along the line. Marion, at 40, was by far the oldest of the group of researchers. The captain estimated he was at least a decade older than his colleagues.
“I can’t take leaf impressions either. Everything’s wet with this damn humidity.” The man loved leaf impressions. In fact, he had published a moderately successful coffee table book full of fantastic full-color glossy pages of his impressive collection of exotic leaf imprints. The book was a must-have for yuppie nature enthusiasts. The captain supposed it went with the whole hippy botany thing, probably loved hugging trees as well, though the botanist didn’t seem to fair too well out here in the real wild.
“How can we observe anything if we can’t see it?” the short man huffed in frustration. He smacked a mosquito that had begun making a meal of his white bald head. His hand came away with a small blood smear on it, and there was a similar mark left on his head.
“Great, now I have malaria to look forward to.”
“Where did you come from?” the biologist asked with a sneer.
“Hey!” the ropes engineer said sharply, holding her hand up to the brutish man, “that’s enough.” She shooed him out of the way as she came up to the short botanist.
“Marion,” she said in a calm tone, “we all had our anti-malarials before we left, right?”
“Well, yes,” he reluctantly replied.
“Then don’t worry so much, okay? You have insect repellent don’t you?”
“I did, but sweated it off,” he said glumly, and wiped a swath of perspiration off his forehead as if to emphasize his point. “It keeps getting in my eyes.”
The big biologist stifled a laugh, which elicited a nasty look from the ropes woman, whom, the captain thought, was not someone he would want to tangle with. Shuler also thought that the man did have a comical amount of sweat running down his shiny bald head, but said nothing. As they watched, another mosquito landed on him. Marion looked absolutely miserable and pathetic.
“Here,” the woman said, sounding slightly exasperated. She extracted from her bag a pink bandana, and in less than a minute, she had secured it, pirate-style, on the top of the bald man’s head, effectively protecting his shiny head from the biting insects, and absorbing the sweat before it could run into his eyes. She offered him a pleasant but quick smile and said, “Good to go.”
Captain stood back from them a few feet as the big biologist stepped up close to the smaller man. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a black tech-tee, just like the rest of them. His arms and legs, however, were covered with thick, long, dark brown hair. Coupled with his close-cropped beard and long brown hair, he looked a bit like a Wookie in people clothes.
“We’re here for a little more than a week,” he said, and placed a large sweaty hand on the botanist’s shoulder, who immediately tried to wriggle away.
“We have jobs we need to do.” He was staring intently at the man. The shorter man seemed to begin perspiring even more profusely, if that was possible.
“We need to get moving.”
A fly buzzed between their faces. It was a large, brown and black thing with a striped thorax and abdomen and long wings. The botanist tried to shy away from the fly but the big man would not let him. The fly landed on the biologist’s arm and somehow found its way through the jungle of hair to his skin. The fly began to bite him. He let it. Then, delicately, using just two fingers of his right hand, he plucked the small creature from his hairy arm and held it in front of the man.
He released the botanist, and with his other hand, he fished into a pocket and came back with a small, clear, plastic specimen jar.
“Unscrew this for me, please,” he said to the small botanist, still in front of him. The man did, without saying anything. Then the big man dropped the fly into the container, where it buzzed and complained as he replaced the lid.
He held the jar up a little higher, in order to get a good look at it. “Possible undescribed species right here,” he murmured. He tucked the jar back into his pocket and then addressed the man again.
“Don’t worry about the damn bugs, man. It’s the snakes we need to worry about.” He glanced around at the others in their small group, who were watching him expectantly. They needed to get a move on. “I’ve seen two different species so far, both mamba varietals that I have not seen before. Therefore, there’s not really much I know about them. But I do know that two years ago,” he held up his right hand in front of the man, then out to the rest of the group, “a green mamba struck me on my pinky finger.”
The hand had only a thumb and two fingers.
“After six weeks of nearly dying in the hospital, I was released. The snake cost me two fingers and fifty grand in anti-venom. I almost didn’t make it, and I have chronic asthma now. So pay attention to where you step, and what you touch. Stop swatting at the goddam bugs, you’re going to hit a tree with a snake in it, and if that happens out here… well, you’re a damn dead man.”
The botanist gave a little shiver, and the captain finally spoke up.
“Jesus man, I thought you all were a bunch of friendly hippies while we were heading out here, what the hell happened?” This got a little chuckle from the group and a frown from the biologist.
“I’m not kidding cap, this is serious.”
“I know it is, son, but let’s do ourselves a favor and relax just a bit. I’ve spent a lot of my life sharing quarters with strangers and even friends. We’ve got to go along to get along, you understand?”
The big man nodded. He slapped the botanist on the shoulder forcefully, “Sorry there, pal. Just watch your step, okay?”
Captain noticed the photographer a few yards in front of them, watching with an amused smirk. He caught the captain’s eye, shrugged a little, and then turned to go.
“Come on guys, let’s go,” the ropes engineer urged. “From the satellite recon we’ve received, we should hit the base of the volcano in ninety minutes. It would be nice if this damn jungle would let us move a little faster.”
It was actually noon before the mu
shy ground underneath started to morph into a dark gray loam. Then, soon after, they began to trudge uphill. They couldn’t tell visually, but because their very steps became more difficult. Then they began to feel the crunch of volcanic debris underfoot and after a small dip in the terrain, the dense trees overhead gave way and there was nothing but waist-high undergrowth. At last, they could see the volcano stretching up above them. Patches of trees, small ones, dotted the sides of the mountain, but it was mostly scrubby underbrush. Leafy thick brush and large rocks, ones that had rolled down the side of the mountain sometime in the last millennium, covered the area. A rich gray line of smoke trailed lazily up from the caldera. This was definitely an active volcano, they knew that already from thermal imaging, but it had not erupted in many years.
The black volcanic skirt stretched out for miles around the volcano. They knew that on the north side of the mountain, a large part of it had broken off and fell, settling to the earth in a giant heap that formed a second, smaller mountain. This second mountain did not erupt, but lava flow from the rest of the caldera still lapped at its base during large eruptions. The second mountain also acted as a blast barrier, shielding the northern third of the island from eruptions and lava flow. This was where they were heading, because of some very interesting things on the satellite images. For now, though, it was lunchtime. As the captain examined the now bedraggled crew, he knew they needed rest. He was not the leader of their little posse, but he sidled up to the field photographer, who had been driving them relentlessly on. He caught the man’s eye and made a sweep with his hand over the area, suggesting they set up here. The photographer nodded and halted his forward march.
“Lunchtime?” the big biologist asked.
Pathosis (A Dark Evolution Book 1) Page 11