“That can be both good and bad,” Remi said.
“Yes. I understand. Wouldn’t want to run afoul of anyone’s sensibilities. I’ll have lunch with some of the other members of parliament and see what I can come up with. It’s not like you want mineral rights or anything, just to poke around in some sunken stones. Am I correct?”
“Absolutely. Anything we find would be the property of the Solomon people. We’re here merely out of curiosity.”
“I think that will go a long way to engendering support, then. You’re basically working for free, helping us catalog a piece of history we didn’t even know existed until today.”
“That’s how I’d present it,” Sam agreed.
Manchester smiled. “Well, I can’t guarantee a permit, but I’ll do what I can,” he said doubtfully.
“That’s all we can ask.”
“As for the oldsters, I have two people in mind. One lives down by Mbinu, halfway to the eastern tip of the island, and the other is more remote — he has a shack on a dirt road by the river east of the village of Aola. What are you driving?”
Sam and Remi exchanged a glance. “We have to find something to rent.”
“Get an SUV with good tires and four-wheel drive. You’ll need it.”
“Where’s the best place to find one?”
Manchester sat back down in his executive chair and wrote out a brief letter on official stationery with the Solomon Islands crest at the top and then scribbled several names and addresses on a separate sheet of ordinary paper. He slid both to Remi with a flourish.
“Rubo is about a hundred years old. He’s the one on the dirt road. The superstitious think he’s a shaman — a holy man. Tom’s a former logger who knows everyone. Not as old, but he’s plugged in to everything that happens around here. He probably already knows you’re looking for him,” Manchester said with a grin. “Both speak some English, so you shouldn’t need a translator. As for the car, this guy’s honest and his vehicles aren’t bad. Tell him I sent you and he’ll treat you well.”
They stood and shook hands and Sam’s was again crushed as he forced a tight smile. Once out in the swelter, he read the directions to the car rental company and shook his head.
“Quite an adventure, all right. Look at these directions. ‘Take dirt road east, past washed-out bridge, look for a hut on left near big banyan tree.’ How badly do you want to do this?” he asked.
Remi shrugged. “We don’t have anything better to do. Might as well see the sights.”
“Right. What could go wrong?”
Remi froze and then slowly shook her head. “How many times…”
“Oops. Sorry. I take it back. I never said it.”
“Too late. The universe heard you.”
“Let’s hope it’s not paying much attention to the Solomons today.” He looked around at the shabby storefronts and sparse traffic. A rooster eyed them from across the street before darting around a corner.
“Looks like a fairly safe bet.”
CHAPTER 10
The car rental company was owned by a chubby man with a Buddha-like countenance who laughed at the end of each sentence he spoke like a form of punctuation. He showed them a silver Nissan Xterra that was more dents than not and they agreed on what seemed like a reasonable price per day.
It began raining as they climbed into the cab. Sam took the wheel and within minutes they headed east at a crawl, the main road having almost instantly become a river from the cloudburst. They passed beneath a pedestrian bridge and Sam paused to look at the elaborate graffiti murals adorning the concrete pylons. Depictions of islanders from the distant past and of primitive deities ringed the concrete, the detail impressive even in the heavy rain.
Within minutes, they had left the city limits and crossed the swollen Lor Lungga creek, its rushing brown water thick with floating branches from the mountains. They passed Henderson Field, the international airport that had been built by Allied forces during the war, and soon were barreling along through dense jungle. The rain blew across the asphalt in silver sheets, and the Nissan’s wipers struggled to keep up with the downpour.
After a few miles, the rain stopped as abruptly as it started. When the clouds parted, steam rose from the pavement as the water evaporated under the harsh glare of the blazing sun.
“Well, one good thing about this place,” Sam said as Remi fiddled with the dashboard knobs, trying to coax the reluctant air-conditioning to action.
“What’s that?”
“If you don’t like the weather, all you have to do is wait a little while and it will change.”
“Right. A choice of humid hot and raining hot. My hair’s hopeless,” Remi said, tugging at her limp locks.
“After we finish up here, I’ll take you anywhere you want. Rio, Milan, Nice. Spas, salons, shopping, pampering, the works.”
“Any chance we can skip straight to the fun part?”
“Didn’t I tell you? This is the fun part.” Sam chuckled.
A small roadside sign announced they were crossing Alligator River, and Remi gave Sam a dark look. “I’m noticing a theme to the local attractions.”
“Alligators are different from crocodiles.”
“A distinction that’s lost on this girl at the moment. They’ll both eat you.”
“Well, there’s that,” Sam conceded.
They arrived at another bridge, this one barely wide enough to accommodate the Nissan, and then drove past a sign pointing south that said “Gold Ridge.”
“I wonder if that’s the mine?” Remi said.
“We can take a look on the way back, if you want. We’re not on any pressing schedule.”
“Let’s see how we do in the wilds. If not today, there’s always tomorrow.”
“Whatever my lady wants,” Sam said.
“That’s a little more like it.”
When they arrived at Mbinu, they found the little hamlet was barely more than a few modest homes along a stretch of nothing. They stopped at a tiny market and were immediately assaulted by heat and bugs. Several islanders sat in the shade of a tree by the side of the road, staring at them curiously. Sam approached, the sheet of paper with the names and addresses in his hand.
“We’re looking for a man named Tom. Supposed to live around here?” he asked with a smile.
The islanders stared at him, and then one made a comment in a language neither Sam nor Remi understood and the others all laughed.
Remi stepped forward. “Do you know Tom?”
More muttered comments, more laughter, and one of the men shrugged. Remi turned to Sam. “This is going well.”
“I remember reading that even though English is the official language, only a fraction of the population speaks it.”
“Looks like this isn’t that fraction.”
They waved at the islanders, who waved back, friendly enough, and tried the market. There they had a slightly better result — the heavyset woman behind the ancient cash register spoke a little English.
“Tom? He by da church. Down da road a piece.”
“Church?” Sam asked.
“Back that way.”
“Oh, good. And where, exactly, is Tom’s?”
“Look for sign.”
“Sign?”
“Skink.”
“Excuse me?”
“Skink.” The woman pantomimed a crawling animal and Remi nodded.
“Ah.”
They got back into the car and backtracked. It took them two return trips before they spotted a muddy sign with the outline of a lizard on it. “Want to bet that’s a kink?” Sam asked.
“Skink. With an s. At least that’s what it sounded like,” Remi corrected.
They bounced down a rutted muddy drive for a hundred yards and then rounded a bend. A tired-looking house occupied the far side of a clearing ringed by trees. A sixties Toyota sedan, almost entirely rust, was parked at the edge of the drive. An elderly man wearing a dark green T-shirt and shorts sat on what served as a porch, staring at them as they parked and got out of the Nissan.