Burial Ground

I

Pomacochas, Peru

October 26^th

4:38 a.m. PET

Galen was thankful it was still dark. He didn't want to see the size of the cloud of mosquitoes that swarmed around the long, slender aluminum boat. The humming was so loud it nearly drowned out the putter of the outboard motor as they chugged slowly upriver from the weathered shack where they had procured their transportation. The guide assigned to Galen's boat, a native named Naldo who spoke Quechua and a seemingly random smattering of Spanish and English words, stood at the bow with a long pole to help navigate the unseen rocks and snarls of debris, while one of their party, a man he knew only as Sorenson and with whom he had never shared more than a nod in passing, manned the Evinrude. Naldo wore a dirty white Henley missing several buttons and a pair of brown corduroys so old they lacked nearly all texture. He balanced on the prow with filthy, bare feet, humming tunelessly.

Frogs and insects raised a ruckus from the forest around them, while the drowsy cries of birds and monkeys echoed hauntingly. Something splashed near the bank to his right, but with the fading moon and stars eclipsed by the canopy overhanging the river, all he could see were shadows. He could barely discern the silhouette of the lead boat ahead. It's grumbling motor left a thin trail of diesel smoke that settled over the river like a fog in the stagnant air. His generous benefactor and his henchman, as Galen had come to think of Colton---though he would never speak as much aloud---rode at the front behind their guide, a man named Santos, who wore only a pair of cutoff jeans. His thick black braid trailed down his back between bony shoulder blades that bracketed his knobby spine. Galen hadn't been able to tell in the moonlight if the man had been wrinkled by age or by too much time in the sun. Truthfully, he hadn't paid much attention to their guides at all. He could blame it on the darkness and his inability to clearly see them, but he knew it was a consequence of his nerves, which were strung as tightly as high-voltage wires.

Behind Leo and Colton sat Dr. Carson, Samantha, whose head turned on a swivel. She was in her element out here, so full of excitement that she nearly glowed. Not for the first time, he envied her passion, and wondered if she were similarly passionate in other ways. At her back, a mound of supplies had been roped to the frame of the craft. Rippeth lounged in the stern, maneuvering the outboard motor with such practiced ease that it appeared to be an extension of his arm. What little light pierced the canopy reflected from the man's freshly shaved scalp.

The men behind Galen made him uncomfortable. He was going to have to try to barge his way onto the lead boat the first chance he got. He still couldn't figure out why their pilot, whose knees seemed hell bent on bruising Galen's kidneys, had come along with them. It wasn't as though they were going to encounter any rogue aircraft in the middle of the Andes. And Webber certainly wasn't any graduate student or research assistant. He had the air of a brawler, but the quiet temperament of a fisherman, a dichotomy that could only have been spawned in the service. Perhaps it was simply the way the man rode with his rifle in his lap that caused Galen's unease, or maybe it was the fact that Webber patted down the mound of roped supplies behind him as though to ensure that something hidden remained that way.

The third boat was piled high with the majority of the scientific gear between the pole-wielding guide, a kid named Kemen who didn't even look old enough to shave, and Morton, who manned the motor. The documentary crew was squashed between them. Dahlia wore a khaki vest with snaps that glinted from the countless pockets and matching shorts, her hair tucked up beneath a Dodgers ball cap. She pointed excitedly to either side of the river for Jay, who followed her direction with his camera. His long-sleeved thermal top was already damp with sweat, despite the removal of the flannel shirt that was now tied around his waist. As it bore the bulk of their supplies, the trailing boat moved more sluggishly in the current, and required extra time to change direction to follow in the wake of the first two.

Even in the relatively placid river and with the engines cranked to a fierce whine, they couldn't have been moving at more than five miles an hour in the straightaways, and a fraction of that around the bends. The plan was to take the river as far into the mountains as they could before striking off on foot, unless they saw something in the jungle to necessitate premature disembarkation, specifically, any sign of Hunter's passage. In an ideal world, Gearhardt's son would have left signs to indicate his trail, carvings or flags on prominent trees, but under the assumed circumstances, they couldn't count on being so fortunate. And that was one thing none of them seemed to want to talk about. Leo's son had drowned up in the mountains ahead, and none of them knew why or how. What in the name of God were they doing following in his footsteps at all?

But deep down, Galen knew why. The nature of Hunter's discoveries was far too amazing to leave unexplored, which was why even now, despite the cramp of fear in his gut, he could hardly contain his anticipation. Somewhere in the vast uncharted cloud forest was a species of raptor that had never been documented, perhaps one that no man had ever even seen.

Galen slapped his neck and readjusted the mosquito netting that covered his head and shoulders to keep those pesky stingers at bay. The last thing he wanted was some bizarre tropical disease.

As they rounded a bend in the brown river, he caught a glimpse of the mountains, which rose straight ahead in sheer, jagged cliffs, their upper reaches invisible beneath a mass of clouds. That was where they were going, straight up into those clouds. And somewhere up there, protected from human intervention for millennia, was the ornithological discovery of a lifetime.

A contented smile had barely graced his lips when he heard the thrashing of leaves above him. Before he could even look up, he felt raindrops on his shoulders and arms. The air became water, and the surface of the river appeared to boil. It had been too long since his days in the field. He had forgotten how quickly these tropical storms descended.

Galen tried to remember where the pack with his poncho was loaded, but in the span of seconds, it no longer mattered.