Kelly watched one specimen waft by overhead through a beam of sunlight. It seemed to shine with its own luminescence. “It’s like someone shattered a stained-glass window and showered the slivers over the treetops.”
He tightened his arm around her, trying to capture this moment forever. They stood in silence and awe for several minutes. Then distant voices intruded, rising up from below.
“I suppose we should go down,” Nate finally said. “We have a lot to accomplish.”
Kelly nodded and sighed. Nate understood her reluctance. Here, isolated above everything else, it was possible to forget, at least for a while, the heartaches and hardships ahead of them. But they could not escape the world forever.
Slowly, they finished dressing. As they were about to leave, Nate crossed to the rear deck and unhooked the bamboo-and-palm-leaf awning so it fell back across the rear door, returning the room to the way he found it.
Kelly noticed what he did and moved nearer, examining the hinges along the top margin of the door. “Closed, it blocks the doorway…pushed open and stilted, it’s a shade cover for the deck. Clever.”
Nate nodded. Yesterday he had been surprised by the ingenuity, too. “I’ve never seen anything like it out here. It’s like my father mentioned in his notes. An example of the tribe’s advancement over other indigenous peoples. Subtle engineering improvements, like their crude tree elevators.”
“I could use an elevator right now,” Kelly noted, stretching a kink from her back. “It does make you wonder, though,” she went on, “about the Yagga—about what it’s doing to these people.”
Nate grunted in agreement, then turned to reassemble his own pack. There was much to wonder about here. Once ready, Nate gave the room a final inspection, then crossed to the door where Kelly crouched.
As Kelly slung her pack to her shoulder, Nate leaned in and kissed her deeply. There was a moment of surprise…then she returned the kiss with a matching passion. Neither of them had spoken of where the two would go from here. Both knew much of their urgency last night had come from a pair of wounded hearts. But it was a start. Nate looked forward to seeing where it would lead. And if her kiss was a clue, so did Kelly.
They parted, and without another word, they headed to the ladder leading down to the common areas of the dwelling.
As Nate descended, cooking scents swelled around him. He reached the bottom rung and hopped off. After helping Kelly down, they both walked through the common area to the large front deck. Nate’s stomach growled, and he suddenly remembered his hunger.
Around a stone hearth set into the deck, Anna and Kouwe were finishing the final preparations for breakfast. Nate spotted a loaf of cassava bread and a tall stone pitcher of cold water.
Anna swung around with a platter of honest-to-goodness bacon in her arms. She lifted her bounty. “From wild boar,” she explained. “A pair of tribeswomen arrived with a feast at daybreak.”
Nate’s mouth watered. There was also more fruit, some type of egg, even what looked like a pie.
“No wonder your father stayed here for so long,” Private Carrera mumbled around a mouthful of bacon and bread.
Even this reminder of his father failed to squelch Nate’s appetite. He dug in along with the rest.
As he stuffed himself, Nate realized two of their party were missing. “Where are Zane and Olin?”
“Working on the radio,” Kostos said. “Olin got the GPS up and running this morning.”
Nate choked on a piece of bread. “He got it working!”
Kostos nodded, then shrugged. “He has it recalibrated, but who knows if anyone’s receiving.”
Nate let this information sink in. His eyes flicked to Kelly. If the signal was received with the revised coordinates, they could be rescued as soon as this evening. Nate recognized the glimmer of hope in Kelly’s eyes, too.
“But without the main radio to confirm,” Kostos continued, “we may just be spittin’ in the wind. And until I get solid confirmation, we proceed with our backup plan. Your mission today—along with Kelly and Zane—will be to make sure Frank is ready for a quick evac if necessary.”
“Plus to gather some of the tree’s sap,” Kelly said.
Kostos nodded, chewing hard. “While Olin works on the radio, the others of us will split up and see if we can’t find out more from the Indians. Get intel on those damned repellent powders.”
Nate didn’t argue with the sergeant’s plan. GPS or not, it was safest to proceed as cautiously and expeditiously as possible. The remainder of the meal was finished in silence.
Afterward, the party vacated the dwelling in the nightcap oak and climbed down to the glade, leaving Olin alone in the dwelling with his satellite equipment. Manny and the two Rangers headed in one direction, Anna and Kouwe in another. The plan was to rendezvous back at the tree at noon.
Nate and Kelly headed toward the Yagga with Richard Zane in tow. Nate hitched his shotgun higher. The sergeant had insisted every member of the party go armed with at least a pistol. Kelly had a 9mm holstered at her waist. Zane, ever suspicious, had his Beretta in hand, eyes darting all around.
In addition to the weapons, each of the three teams had been equipped with one of the Rangers’ short-range Saber radios, to keep in contact with one another. “Every fifteen minutes, I want to hear an all-clear from each group,” Kostos had said dourly. “No one stays silent.”
Prepared as well as they could be, the group split up.
As Nate walked across the glade, he stared up at the giant prehistoric gymnospore. Its white bark glistened with dew, as did its leaves, flickering brightly. Among the tiered branches, the clusters of giant nut pods hung, miniature versions of the man-made huts. Nate was anxious to see more of the giant tree.
They reached the thick, knobbed roots, and Kelly guided them between the woody columns to the open cavity in the trunk. As Nate approached, he could appreciate why the natives called their tree Yagga, or Mother. The symbolism was not lost to him. The two main buttress roots were not unlike open legs, framing the tree’s monstrous birth canal. It was from here that the Ban-ali had been born into the world.
“It’s big enough to drive a truck through,” Zane said, staring up at the arched opening.
Nate could not suppress a small shudder as he entered the shadowy heart of the tree. The musky scent of its oil was thick in the passage. All around the lowermost tunnel, small blue handprints decorated the wood wall, hundreds, some large, others small. Did they represent members of the tribe? Did his own father’s palm mark this wall somewhere?