Maroon Rising

by John H. Cunningham

  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.

  The cold made the minutes drag, but as the sun rose above the gray band on the horizon, the clouds to the north parted to reveal a valley with other peaks rising in all directions. Nanny pressed against me and I felt her shivering.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Since you’ve come here before and not seen any flash on the mountain, let’s each focus on different sections of the valley,” I said. “Increase the odds that one of us will spot a flash, if there is one.”

  The sun rose slowly. Long shadows reached out and gradually shrank back toward the northern slope of the Blue Mountain peak. The scenery and height, or maybe the altitude, took my breath away. Nanny’s teeth gradually stopped chattering. And then—just when I thought the sun was high enough that we’d either missed whatever we were supposed to see or there wasn’t anything to see—her hand shot forward.

  “There!”

  Stephen and I turned to see her arm was outstretched downward toward a sparkle of pearly light.

  “I see it!”

  If you weren’t searching for it, you might never notice the flash—or was it a reflection? Didn’t look like one—more of a radiance than a reflection. And whatever it was, based on the distance from here, it had to be about the size of a Frisbee.

  “Must be over near the crossroads,” Stephen said.

  “Crossroads? Like we could drive the truck down there?” I said.

  His long glance made me feel foolish.

  “No, where many trails intersect. It looks to be close to that place.”

  “Didn’t Tarrah mention some cross of evil” I said. Nanny and Stephen looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

  “Then let’s go down from here,” she said.

  The descent was easier than the climb had been, especially once we picked up a hidden trail a third of the way down the peak. ”We’re in the heart of the Maroon region from the time before the peace treaty had been signed,” Nanny said.

  I studied the shadows and imagined how the Maroon warriors had moved through the hills like silent sentinels, dispatching any Spaniard or Brit foolish enough to come hunting them.

  Stephen stopped suddenly and held his hand up. His gaze was fixed further east, and he squinted as he studied the ridgeline to our right.

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “Like what?” I said.

  He didn’t answer, just stood there a few minutes before continuing down the trail. Nanny and I shrugged and followed after him.

  The Blue Mountain range was lush. I’d once heard the country was 98 percent green, which right now felt 100 percent accurate. There was no sign of civilization anywhere in sight. Only countless hills, many green and rounded so they looked like rows of broccoli with their heads all standing up straight. The environment literally hadn’t changed for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The light churning mist and old growth landscape made me half expect an ancient Maroon to pounce on us.

  The angle of descent eased. I could see nothing but the trees and shrubs pressing in on us, yet the narrow trail continued. I bit off the urge to ask if Stephen knew where, exactly, we were going.

  After another twenty minutes, I had my answer.

  The crossroads consisted of two trails intersecting at rough right angles. Otherwise unmarked, the trails themselves had narrowed to dirt lines that looked as if they were now used only by animals, with vegetation encroaching from the sides.

  “The crossroads were once a location where Windward and Leeward Maroons met to share information on their strategies, their numbers, their victories and losses,” Nanny said.

  “You’ve been here?”

  “It’s a sacred spot, Buck. Once prohibited to all but the leaders, scouts, and warriors who had killed the most enemies.”

  I liked the sound of “prohibited.” That could easily mean a place with low traffic, exactly the kind of location you’d want to hide items of value. Could it be the cross of evil that Tarrah had mentioned?

  “Can you tell where the reflection was coming from?” I said.

  Stephen glanced from Nanny to me.

  “I have an idea.” He again turned his eyes toward her and waited until she gave a discreet nod. “Come.”

  He stepped forward into the wedge of land between the two far trails. He pushed through some thick brush until he stopped at a flat rock wall that led straight up.

  Dead end.

  The gray rock surface was coated in moss, lichen, vines, roots. It was impenetrable, an impasse.

  “Now what?” I said.

  Stephen again looked at Nanny, who looked sullen. After a five-count, I stepped forward.

  “Let me see the archive material again.”

  Nanny swung the pack off her shoulder and took her time removing the plastic case that held the old documents—which the shade of the woods would have made it impossible to read without the flashlight. I shuffled through them until I found the one that had led us here, alluding to the flash at dawn. The next page had what appeared to be water or age stains, and under the glare of the LED light I saw the faint, mysterious illustrations—only a few lines: curved, angled and parallel. The next page was much cleaner and had ancient writing on it that Nanny had previously deciphered as someone’s biography.

  I held the drawing up for both of them to see, a sense of frustration blooming inside me.

  “These sketches mean anything to you?”

  Stephen immediately turned to Nanny, whose eyes revealed nothing. Then she looked at my face.

  “My guess is Taino petroglyphs,” she said.

  “Taino Indians were here long before the Spanish—and certainly the British, or Maroons,” I said. “What would they have to do with …”

  I turned to face the rock wall, turned back to look at them. Stephen nodded. I glanced at the wall again, then bent over and started searching the forest floor until I found a flat, sharp rock.

  I began to scrape moss off the face of the wall. Irritated that they just watched me, I continued scraping until the edge of the rock caught in a groove.

  Nanny stepped closer.

  Now, more gently, I peeled away the loose green material until I had uncovered an image. An ancient petroglyph of what looked like a telephone pole with three crossbars on top. What the heck?

  I had researched many a Taino site, but since they hadn’t been much for hoarding precious metals or stones, they’d been of minimal interest. They had inhabited much of the Caribbean at one time but had pretty much died out—slaughtered by more aggressive tribes or done in by the diseases Europeans brought to the islands.

  “This mean anything to you?”

  Nanny leaned closer and after a quick look shook her head.

  “And that flash we saw? The woods would cover this petroglyph, and any others on here. Something higher up must have caused the flash.”

  Stephen pointed up the sheer rock wall. I tilted my head back—there! I could see a narrow natural shelf bathed in morning light but also coated in fauna of the moist woodland. Leaves, vines, and lichen hung off the shelf.

  “So?”

  “There’s a natural chunk of quartz above that shelf that has attracted people for eons,” Nanny said. “More petroglyphs, too. But we never connected the quartz to the flash from Blue Mountain.”

  “Eons?” If the area was that well trampled, the odds of us finding anything here seemed slim. And if they already knew about the quartz and the petroglyphs, why had Nanny and Stephen waited until we were here to mention them, even if they didn’t
get the connection? Maybe it was all the silent, significant glances they kept giving each other, but I was getting more than a little agitated.

  I glanced straight up—there was no direct climbing route to the ledge—then walked forward around the corner of the wall. There were crevices and enough exposed jagged edges for a climb, so I started up.

  “Be careful, Buck,” Nanny said. “No way to get you out of here if you fall and break something.”

  Her voice already had a distant sound as curiosity drove me up the wall like a spider monkey. I zigged and zagged my way toward the southeastern-facing shelf. The final several feet required me to grab hold of the rock outcropping and pull myself up. The rocks dug into my fingers—my arms shook, my face scraped against the damp wall—

  “Buck?”

  With my arms still shaking, I finally hauled myself onto the shelf and pushed my back against the wall, taking a moment to catch my breath. My feet dangled some twenty-five feet above Nanny and Stephen. She looked frightened, and even Stephen was staring up at me with his mouth open.

  A big exhale nearly caused me to slip off the front of what was not that big a ledge. I edged sideways—carefully—and spotted a dinner-plate-sized chunk of rose quartz embedded in the wall and surrounded by matte-black rock, which accounted for the beacon that had caught the sunlight. So much for its being Morgan’s stash site.

  “What do you see?” Nanny called up.

  “You mean you haven’t been up here before?”

  “No …”

  “You didn’t seem very excited about the petroglyphs.”

  “Of course I was. Why else would we have come down here?”

  Stephen said nothing.

  I pulled the sharp flat rock from my pocket and started scraping at the moss, which peeled off like dried wallpaper. I could make out what looked like a curved edge. I scraped at it—then another, and another. After several minutes I’d uncovered a carving—several carvings–of symbols. They were circular and oval and all connected.