The Solomon Curse

Remi pointed at the opening to the trail that led to the bay as they passed it. “There’s the bay road. The village is about three miles down the coast. According to the survivor, it took them a full day to haul the treasure to the cave.”

Leonid did a quick calculation. “What, exactly, are the directions that Lazlo found hidden in the diary?”

Sam glanced at Lazlo in the rearview mirror. “Care to demonstrate your photographic memory?”

“Ahem. It said ‘Toward the rising sun from the last hut, to the goat’s head, then into enemy territory to the small waterfall. The way lies beyond the falls.’”

Leonid shook his head. “Seriously? That’s what we’re going on?”

“He obviously intended it to be a reminder to himself, not a series of directions to be followed. But it should be enough,” Remi said. “We’ve worked from more obscure clues than this.”

“Right,” Leonid snorted. “So we have to find a village that’s no longer there, which may or may not be the only one in the area, then locate whatever a goat’s head is, then find a waterfall. Assuming it’s still there. Somewhere beyond that, which could be ten meters or ten kilometers, there’s a cave. Which may or may not be visible and could well be crawling with murderous rebels. Did I get this right?”

A deafening roar of thunder exploded overhead and moments later the road darkened with gray rain, reducing visibility to no more than twenty feet.

“You left out where we’re going to probably have to camp out at least one night, and possibly several nights,” Sam said. “But don’t worry. We got a couple of tents and some supplies.”

“And plenty of bug spray,” Remi added.

“In this soup?” Lazlo asked. “I say, nobody said anything about camping. I’d rather hoped to try the blackened ahi for di

“Then there’s an incentive to work fast,” Sam said. He glanced off to his left and slowed. “I think this is the trail to the village. Remi?”

She peered through the rain at an unmarked gap in the jungle. “Could be. It’s hard to tell.”

“Well, we’ve got nothing but time. Might as well give it a go,” Sam said, slowing further as golf-ball-sized raindrops hammered the Nissan. He engaged the four-wheel drive and they lurched off the pavement, the tires slipping in the mud before gripping sufficiently to propel them forward.

The rain stopped just as they arrived at the stream that had proved such a challenge to Rubo on their last trip. Sam slowed and gazed at it. “Now, was it across the stream or up the hill?”

“Are you kidding?” Leonid muttered.

“I think it was across the stream,” Sam said, goosing the gas. The overloaded vehicle splashed through the stream. The jungle closed in around them as they climbed the bank.

When they rounded the bend and the village appeared, Remi exhaled a silent breath of relief—they’d taken the right trail from the road. The SUV coasted to a stop in the clearing at the base of the first cluster of huts, and several curious villagers stared at them as they disembarked. Sam led them up the hill to the group, where he recognized the shaman from the prior trip. The man nodded to them and pointed to the hut far up the hill where they’d interviewed Nauru and shook his head. Sam nodded and fished in his pocket and then extracted a fifty-dollar bill and handed it to the man.

“Rubo,” he said, then shook his head as well. The old man’s eyes widened in understanding and he hesitantly took the bill. “You speak English?” Sam asked.

The man shrugged in denial and then pointed at one of the youths sitting nearby. The young man rose and approached. Sam repeated his question and the youth nodded.

“Little speak,” he said.

“We’re looking for an old village. Abandoned,” Sam said. The youth’s eyes were confused. Sam tried again. “A village. Where Nauru used to live. We need to find it.”

This time, it appeared that the message got through because the youth turned to the elder villager and a short discussion ensued. After some back-and-forth, the youth squared his shoulders and addressed Sam.

“Nothing there. Bad.”

“We know. But we need to go,” Remi said, stepping forward.

More discussion between the youth and the old shaman and then the same impassive stare from the young man.

“No road.”

“Right. We can walk.” Remi paused. “Can you show us where it is?”

Sam withdrew a twenty-dollar bill, deciding the matter as the youth’s eyes lit up at the windfall. He had another brief exchange with the old man and then snatched the money from Sam’s hand like he was afraid it would disappear into thin air.

“Now?” he asked.

Sam nodded. “Yes.”

They returned to the SUV, unloaded the backpacks and sacks containing the camping gear and spelunking equipment, and divided it among themselves. When everyone had a pack and a sack, they set off into the brush, following the barefoot youth as he marched into the rain forest with the ease of an antelope. Lazlo exchanged a troubled glance with Leonid, who looked even more glum than usual, and they followed, struggling under the weight of their burdens, as Sam and Remi strode effortlessly up the faint game trail.

The trek took a solid hour. The last vestige of the squall intermittently drizzled on them, making the slippery ground more treacherous. The sun was just breaking through the clouds as they entered a clearing at the base of another hill, the area soundless except for the cries of birds in the surrounding jungle. The boy gestured toward a brook ru

They took a break in the shade of the trees and the youth nodded at the structures.

“Tables.”

Remi nodded. The only things left of the hapless village were the worktables used for cleaning fish and laundry and built using indigenous limestone carved from the nearby hill.

“Looks like the same rock the king used for his islets and temples,” Leonid said.

“Makes sense. Relatively easy to cut and plenty of it,” Sam agreed.

Lazlo gazed around the clearing. “Nothing else here. Bloody amazing it can all disappear—if this fine lad hadn’t shown us the way, we’d have never known what we were looking at.”

Remi nodded. “According to Nauru’s account, everyone was slaughtered. So there was nobody left to keep the elements at bay.”

Sam moved to the brook. He eyed the sun overhead and pulled a compass from his shirt pocket. After glancing at it, he returned to the group and regarded the youth.

“Thank you. We stay here now,” he said. The young man seemed puzzled and Sam repeated his statement, augmented with some simple sign language. Understanding played across the youth’s face and he shrugged. If the crazy foreigners wanted to camp in the middle of the Guadalcanal jungle, it was none of his business—he already had his prize. “You go back,” Sam said, pointing at the trail.

Their escort nodded and with a wave disappeared into the rain forest, leaving them alone in the clearing. Sam pulled a portable GPS unit from his pack and turned it on, then entered a waypoint for the village site so they’d have coordinates to return to if they had to retrace their steps. After ten minutes in the shade, he glanced at his watch and shouldered his gear. “Might as well get going. East is over there. ‘Toward the rising sun from the last hut.’ That says east to me.”

“What about the goat head?” Lazlo asked.

“That’s a little more problematic. I’m hoping we’ll know it when we see it.”

“What if it was referring to something that’s long since been blown or washed away?” Lazlo pressed.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Leonid gave them a dark look and waved away a mosquito. “Goats’ heads. Villages that are no longer there.”