Restless Soul (2 page)

“Gotta get going,” Gary said. “Gotta get to the firebase. Probably have to clear some ground there tomorrow for a helicopter pad. Gotta get there before dark.”

Wallem called for Moore and Sanduski. “In a few minutes, Sarge. Give us a few more minutes. It’d only be fair for everyone to get something.”

Lightning flashed and thunder followed closely. Then another sound came that Gary didn’t place at first. The rain pelted through the roof and
rat-a-tat-tatted
on the stone and the golden statues. The light turned gray, but not so dim that the golden statues couldn’t be seen.

Moore gave a whoop and brushed by Gary.

Sanduski stopped in the opening and gaped. “Fort Knox!” He shouted back over his shoulder. “Load up.”

The rest of the group squeezed past Gary.

More than satisfied with his share of the haul, the soldier stepped out into the downpour. He tipped his head back to let the rain wash the sweat off.

His pack felt heavier, and his pockets bulged. He fought the grin that spread across his face and lost, letting out a whoop. He wished he could take one of those Buddhas.

“Grab fast and move out!” Gary called back to his men.

No use looking at his map in this dreary muck. He’d rely on the compass and his gut instinct.

Lightning flashed and the ground rocked again. Above the patter of cleansing rain, the whisper-hiss of machine-gun fire stole his breath. Mud spat up around his feet. Hot fire slammed into his legs.

Gary screamed.

“Wallem!” he managed to call out as he fell. “Company. Moore, get out here. We’ve got—”

“Company. Such beautiful company you are, Annja Creed. And I am very much enjoying the pleasures of it.” He stood behind her at the sliding glass door and slid his fingers through her silky chestnut hair.

She leaned against him, happily discovering he hadn’t put on a shirt. At five feet ten inches, Annja was nearly his height.

“And I am so very much enjoying this vacation, Luartaro.”

“Lu, please.” He leaned around her and softly kissed her cheek. “How many times do I have to ask you to call me Lu? It’s what my family calls me. And it’s much easier for you to pronounce.”

“Lu.” She blew out the breath she’d been holding, fluttering the hair that hung against her forehead. “Lu. Lu. Lu. This vacation was long overdue.”

He brought a long strand of her hair to his nose and inhaled. “I wish it could go on forever, Annja, this vacation.”

“But we’ve only got another four days,” she said. “Maybe we should leave this bungalow and see a bit of the countryside? We didn’t travel halfway around the world to Thailand to spend all our time in bed.”

“Speak for yourself.” He chuckled.

Annja reveled in his voice, throaty and rich with a sensuous Argentine accent. She waited for him to speak again, but when he didn’t, she edged away and pressed herself against the glass door. It was cool with the rain that had blotted out the July sun. She followed a rivulet with her finger as it slithered down the pane.

The patter was gentle, like his breath on her shoulder, and it made the green of the trees beyond their cabin more intense.

They’d found this resort on the internet, though there were no public internet connections available in the lodge or any of the cabins. Wireless service didn’t exist here. Neither were there television sets, nor telephones, save an old rotary one in the office. With that they had both immediately agreed on the place, as they could keep the world at bay for a while.

Annja had been in South America, filming a segment for
Chasing History’s Monsters
on the fossils of ancient penguinlike creatures that had been discovered in the mountains. She’d met Luartaro Agustin at one of the dig sites there.

He was charming and smart, and when he’d surprised her by suggesting that they spend some more time together, she’d hesitated only a moment.

She desperately needed time off—from the show, from her life, from everything. So right there in his lavish office, she’d twirled the huge globe that took up most of one corner, closed her eyes and pointed her finger.

Luartaro had come over to see where her finger had landed. Northern Thailand. She’d surprised him by walking over to his immense oak desk and calling the airline to make a reservation. For two.

As she watched the rain, she thought that perhaps Luartaro had fallen in love with her, though he wisely hadn’t said the words.

Would those words frighten her away? Did she love him? Not yet. But perhaps…with time… She’d only known him a handful of days before they’d recklessly packed their bags and flown here. She’d learned through difficult circumstances that life was terribly short, and she decided to take a chance on joy for once.

Could
she love him? Perhaps if she let herself. The attraction, physical and otherwise, was strong.

She watched the way the rain distorted his handsome reflection.

He had a rugged face weathered by long days in the sun, a shock of black hair with the faintest hints of silver at the temples, broad shoulders and considerable muscles from years spent digging at sites throughout the mountains and foothills of South America.

He had flashing eyes that she could easily lose herself in.
Had
lost herself in, she corrected herself. He was intelligent—in addition to being an archaeologist, he taught at a college during the regular academic year, had written three textbooks and was fluent in half a dozen languages. Though, unfortunately, Thai was not one of them. They had a lot in common.

Perhaps she was reading too much into his actions. After all, he knew very little about her, which was a plus, as far as she was concerned.

He didn’t know that danger too often surrounded her and that some mystic force seemed to have chosen her to battle evil.

She hadn’t told him that she was an orphan with little sense of a real connection to people. Nor had she told him—and never intended to—that on a whim she could summon Joan of Arc’s sword from some nether-dimension to fight whatever malignant force had crossed her path.

She had been on a dig in France when she found a piece of the legendary sword. She didn’t know how, but in a heartbeat, magically reformed by her touch, it had appeared in her hand, whole and shining, more than five hundred years after its famous wielder had been put to death by fire. Now the sword was poised just beyond this world, waiting for her call. She sometimes thought of it as waiting in a closet in her mind, though
armory
might be a better term.

Because of the sword and her risky life, she never allowed herself to become too attached to people. She had Roux and Garin, but they were associated with the sword, Roux claiming they had witnessed Joan’s horrific death and had existed in a kind of decadent limbo in the centuries since.

Luartaro was different. Like so many others, he wasn’t a part of that life. Normally, she would have kept her emotions in check. But there was something special about him. She felt things for him that she hadn’t intended.

And what does he think of me? she wondered. Did he consider her merely a television personality with a flair for archaeology? Or was she just another woman who had quickly succumbed to his boyish grin?

She watched his reflection in the window again. He had moved close enough that he was stroking her hair again, but he, too, was staring out at the rain and the mountains beyond.

The view was the reason she was paying eight hundred baht a night for their cabin, four times what the average room cost. It was more lavishly furnished than most of the other accommodations at the lodge. It even had its own bath and shower. But best of all, it offered an incredible view of the lush countryside.

Beyond the sliding glass doors was the path that led to the swimming hole and another that wound its way to the small restaurant that served only native Thai dishes. The rain was slowly turning those paths into mud slicks.

In the distance, the mountains that ringed the place disappeared into the gloom. “Complicated mountain ranges,” one of the locals had called them on the bus ride to the resort. Misty clouds hung halfway down them, and the rain was blurring the rest.

Mae Hong Son was called the City of Three Mists because no matter the time of year, there were always low-hanging clouds present. “Three” because the mists were different—the forest-fire mist of the summer, the rainy mist in the monsoon season and the dewy mist of their mild winter.

The area had long been considered a “land of exile” because it was largely inaccessible, but tourists had eventually found the place, and buses and rental cars brought them in from larger cities. She and Luartaro had opted for a bus, the seats of which had not been very well padded.

Mae Hong Son claimed a hot spring, small and large crystal clear streams and a magnificent cape—none of which Annja had seen. There was an elaborate Buddhist temple nearby, so the brochures said, and a tribe where the women elongated their necks with a series of rings—the Karen of the Pa Dong.

“I think we should do something touristy,” she said, breaking the silence that had settled comfortably between them. “Maybe we could take an elephant ride or do some mountain biking. The pamphlets—” she pointed at the nightstand “—say they have meditation classes in the mornings, rafting and—”

“If you want to venture outside,” Luartaro interrupted, “why don’t we visit a spirit cave?”

A shiver raced down Annja’s back, and she bit back a
No!
before it could escape her lips.

She couldn’t explain what brought on the touch of dread, not to herself and not to Luartaro. She could just claim that exploring a cave was too close to her real life as an archaeologist. That wasn’t too far from the truth. She hadn’t planned to let real life interfere with this long-overdue vacation.

She shook her head and turned away from the window. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close; he couldn’t see the sour, conflicted expression on her face.

“I saw a flyer about it in the lobby—a spirit cave,” Luartaro continued. “And I remember it was also mentioned on the internet when we found this place. Ancient coffins carved from trees, burial grounds inside the mountains. There’s such a cave less than a day’s hike from here, and a guide takes you out in the morning. This area is known for its spectacular limestone caverns. There are hundreds of caves in the mountain ranges. It would be a shame not to visit at least one while we’re so close…especially since you want to venture outside.”

She could tell by his voice that the prospect enticed him.

“All right,” she said after a moment. “A spirit cave. First thing tomorrow morning.” Another shiver coursed through her.

“Wonderful! And we’ll manage to make time for an elephant ride or some rafting before we leave,” he added. “And maybe see the long-necked women and that big Buddhist temple. But for the moment, since it’s raining…” He drew her toward the bed.

At first glance, Annja couldn’t tell whether the guide was thirty or fifty. His eyes were bright, hinting at youth, but his skin was tanned and leathery from the sun, the wrinkles deep especially at the edges of his eyes. Careworn, she judged his face. His black hair was thin and short, slick with either sweat or oil, and his shoulders hunched slightly.

He smiled broadly and nodded to their little group. “Zakkarat,” he said, holding his index finger to his chest.

He wore khaki pants, frayed and stained green and brown at the ankles as if he’d never bothered to hem them, instead letting the ground and his heels wear the fabric down to a more suitable length. He had a faded polo shirt with an illustration of a gibbon on it, and over that an unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt that was a riot of color—red, blue, green, with birds and flowers. He also wore a cord around his neck with a whistle dangling from it and old black-and-white tennis shoes.

“Zakkarat,” he repeated. “Zakkarat Tak-sin. Your guide to Tham Lod Cave.”

Luartaro reached for Annja’s hand and swung it as if he was a child. He was smiling, too, obviously happy to be off to the spirit cave, as the pamphlet called it. His skin felt warm against hers, and she intertwined her fingers with his and reveled in his boyish attitude.

With them were two other couples, one in their twenties—on an ecohoneymoon, they’d proudly announced. The other was a middle-aged Australian pair who were on their third trip to Thailand.

“Comfortable shoes, all?” Zakkarat looked at everyone’s feet.

“Comfortable shoes, yes,” Luartaro replied. The others nodded in agreement.

“Five, six miles to the cave,” Zakkarat said. “Two hundred baht now, more later for extras. Not much more. This is one of the cheapest trips for tourists.”

Luartaro was quick to pay the guide, whispering to Annja that the pamphlet said there would be a charge to enter the cave and for the raft.

After passing out small water bottles, Zakkarat led the way. He had a quick gait and was nimble, ducking under branches and stepping over ruts, and Annja put him closer to thirty for it. He chattered as he went, pointing first to the tops of the mountains and mentioning the mist. They were unlike other mountains she’d traipsed through, certainly unlike the familiar Rockies and the mountains she and Luartaro had combed through for the ancient penguin remains. These peaks had been weathered away into twisted shapes and odd-looking knobs largely covered by jungle. They were beautiful and ghostlike in the mist.

She regretted not bringing her camera. Luartaro wasn’t taking as many pictures as she would have, or from what she deemed the proper angles. The path Zakkarat took was wide and flat from the traffic of countless tourists. To the sides stretched swaths of dark green moss, still shiny from yesterday’s rain.

Though practically everything was green, there were remarkable variations, Annja noted. Some of the leaves were so pale they appeared bleached bone-white by the sun. Others were a deep green that looked like velvet. Shadows were thick near the ground where the large leaves reminded her of umbrellas. If there were patterns to the colors and light, she couldn’t discern them—everything was a swirl.

Had someone taken a picture of the scenery and turned it into a jigsaw puzzle, it would be one of the most difficult ever to assemble, she thought.

Annja listened intently to hundreds of tiny frogs that chirped like baby birds. After a mile, she spotted a fence far to her left, and a tilled field beyond. On the opposite side the ground rose at a steep angle, and she wondered if there were caves beneath.

A bit farther along, the Australian man drained his water bottle and looked at his watch. “My feet are hurtin’, Jennie,” he said. His wife smiled sympathetically and pointed to a thin river that meandered out of the fields to their left. It widened as they kept walking, eventually paralleling the path, which had started to narrow.

“More than two hundred caves in Pan Mapha in Mae Hong Son alone,” Zakkarat announced. He numbingly rattled off facts about their length in meters and feet with so little inflection that Annja guessed he’d been repeating his speech and leading tours so long that he was bored by it all. “This cave we go to, a most popular spot. Tham Lod Cave does not need climbing equipment. Easy on the feet, yes?”

Good for most of the tourists, Annja thought, wishing for something a little more adventurous and taxing.

The path narrowed to the point they had to walk single file, and Annja noted faded signs tacked on trees written in Thai and English advertising a bird show. They’d obviously been posted years earlier, and she wondered if the show still continued and, if so, what it entailed.

They came to a fork in the trail. Zakkarat pointed to his right and said, “Temple. Tours available there, too.” Through the mist, Annja could barely make out a large stone building with hints of ornate corners. The other course, the one they followed along the river, led to an old wooden gate that hung off its hinges and which they easily stepped through.

The path became rougher, and gnarled tree roots poked through here and there. Zakkarat slowed his pace and jabbed his finger at the largest roots.

“Take care,” he warned. “Take care that you do not trip.” He nodded to another sign advertising a bird show. “Going out with a big group tomorrow night for the birds.”

“So there
is
a bird show,” Annja mused.

“Ain’t there birds out now?” This came from Jennie, who was looking up into the trees and alternately watching her husband, who was still grumbling about his feet.

Apparently, she’d not noticed the other bird-show signs.

“Ah, there’s a red one with black streaks on its wings.” Jennie pointed. “And there’s another red one. So what’s with the bird show? Are they trained? Parrots?”

The ecotourist wife answered before Zakkarat had a chance. “We’re in the bird group tomorrow night,” she said. “At sunset, all the bats fly out of the cave we’re going to right now and a colony of swifts fly in. Trading places, if you will. There are supposed to be three or four hundred thousand of them. The swifts have adapted to living in the cave and hang on the stalactites like they would tree branches. This is the only place in the world this happens, I’ve heard. We bought some ultra-high-speed film for it. No digital camera for me.” She pointed to the expensive-looking camera around her neck.

“You can come back tomorrow to see the birds if you want, Jennie. I’m not walking back out here again,” the Australian husband announced. “I’m too old for this nonsense. My blisters have blisters. I’m picking our next holiday. A beach somewhere so I can park my bum. Maybe Hawaii? Or Aruba on some package deal?”

The river practically butted up against the path as they made their way. They stopped at a collection of small huts, one of which offered concessions, another of which shaded a dock. It was thirty more baht per person for the bamboo raft ride to the cave.

Luartaro and Annja were the first couple on board.

Zakkarat used a pole to edge the raft away from the bank. “Not deep here,” he said. “But it is wide. Taking this raft is better than wading, yes? Stay dry by taking this raft. The Shan tribe provides the rafts and gets the baht here. That is good.”

He pointed to a woman and child near one of the huts. “Tourism money has cut the Shan’s need for slash-and-burn rice farming. That is very good.”

“Are you a member of the Shan tribe?” Luartaro asked.

“Yes. All the people in my tribe respect the caves and their creatures—the birds, bats, fish and snakes. The tourists who come to see the caves are helping our community.”

The raft floated with the current for several minutes before Zakkarat poled it to a stop against the opposite shore and motioned his passengers to get off.

A young boy collected a few more baht from everyone.

The cave loomed sharply to the right, and Zakkarat took the lead and gestured to a half-dozen crude wooden steps that had been built next to the entrance.

“Follow me, please.”

Annja took the first spot in line and was quickly swallowed by a cavern filled with stalagmites, small sinkholes and vents.

The change in temperature hit her immediately. The air was cool from her knees down, closest to the ground. Above that it remained warm and humid. The light had changed, too, and Annja closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they had adjusted better to the dimness.

She looked up, but couldn’t see the ceiling; it was lost in overlapping shadows dotted with the tips of stalactites.

“Cave elephant,” Zakkarat said, pointing to a formation of rock and limestone that had been fashioned by water dripping across it through the centuries.

Annja could make out the broad shape of it and the outline that could be construed as ears and a trunk.

“Cave dog. Cave monkey.” Zakkarat pointed to other limestone formations that were not quite so easy to make out. “Cave crocodile.”

The ecowife pointed to one that looked like a snake and snapped a picture of it.

Annja shielded her eyes as the woman took another picture and then another, the flash in the darkness almost painful in its sudden brightness.

“So it’s called a spirit cave because of the animal spirits that fill it, right? Spirits in the lime, I guess you could call them,” the ecowife said.

She took several more shots of other formations in rapid succession and of the natural limestone columns that extended twenty meters or more to the ceiling.

“Spirits of dead animals? No.” Zakkarat chuckled. “Some of the local tribes claim that the souls of the human dead live here. That is why it is called a spirit cave. Those tribes, but not the Shan, will not come here. They fear for their lives. Some other tribes, they are not so superstitious. It is these tribes, but not the Shan, that stole most of the artifacts that were here. But there are some pieces, not so good, for you to see. I will show you.”

The group edged deeper into the cave, and bats, hidden by the shadows, started squeaking.

Zakkarat picked up a gas lantern from the floor and lit it. The squeaking grew louder as the light grew brighter. A mud-colored snake slid across the path and toward the wall.

“This is all so beautiful,” Annja said.

“Yes,” Luartaro whispered. “Though not so beautiful as you.” He took a few pictures of her looking at one of the limestone formations, bouncing the flash so it would not be so disturbing.

They both stared at the immense chamber striped with earth colors and shining in the meager light.

No matter how many caves Annja had traipsed through, she never really tired of them and was always amazed by what magnificent formations nature had sculpted.

Annja felt relaxed in the cave, though she knew from their mannerisms that some of her companions, the Australian husband in particular, were made uneasy by the surroundings. The sense of foreboding she’d had the night before seemed far away.

They walked on, following the bobbing light of Zakkarat’s lantern.

Annja could hear moving water a few minutes before they reached another river, or perhaps a branch of the same one.

Zakkarat indicated another bamboo raft.

“More baht, right?” the Australians said practically in unison. “For the Shan.”

Zakkarat poled them across to the far side of the cave.

“Follow me, please.” He led them up a fairly steep rise to a ledge that overlooked a cavern.

“No rails,” the ecowife noted. “We’ve been to quite a few caves. Not near the safety standards as in Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave. Or even that Mark Twain one in Missouri. They all had railings.”

Zakkarat’s course took them around a deep sinkhole and to another chamber from which tunnels branched away. Scattered road cones and faded danger signs blocked off a few of the passages, and Annja suspected there was a risk of cave-ins. Another sign, more recent from its bright paint, dangled from a rusty chain. It read Do Not Pass—Low Oxygen.

“See here? Cave painting. Authentic.” Zakkarat pointed to a spot midway up the wall. “One of seven in this cave. But the only one I can show you today. Most paintings are where it is under excavation. Archaeologists from Bangkok found a skeleton under a rock shelf, supposed to be twenty thousand years old. The oldest skeleton found in Northern Thailand. The dig is off-limits, and the skeleton predates the coffins you will see. But this cave painting you can look at. Do not touch, though.”

Annja squinted to make out a faded design. At first glance it looked like a shadow or a smudge. Beneath it, affixed to the stone, was a large black-and-white photograph of what the painting had looked like before tourists had rubbed it away by touching it. The photograph clearly showed a deer, an arrow and the sun overhead.

“There’s writing on the photograph,” Luartaro said. He leaned close and almost touched the picture. “A date. This photograph was taken thirty years ago.”

“Pity that people have to ruin things,” Annja said. “Inadvertent or no, people don’t understand how precious the past is. I wonder what the artist was like. He or she probably painted it with burned bamboo. A lot of bamboo still grows around here.”

“The cave paintings off-limits today are in better condition,” Zakkarat said. “Perhaps it is why they stay off-limits.”

Zakkarat led them up a damp slope, then down, stepping over and through pools of water and past columns that dripped with moisture and glimmered like jewels in the gaslight. They walked down a set of rickety wooden steps, and they reached the river again.

“A beach, I say,” the Australian man grumbled. “That’s where we’re going next. With a book in one hand and a drink in the other. I’ll sit on my bum and soak up the sun. Aruba, I think. Or maybe Jamaica. Rum and cola from a bottomless glass with one of those paper parasols in it.”

Zakkarat pushed the raft into a darkness that his small lamp couldn’t keep at bay. Bats screeched from high overhead and fluttered their wings. The air turned thick with the smell of guano.

“God, the stink. It’s incredible. I can’t believe we paid to smell this stuff.” This came from the ecowife. She doubled over and retched. Her husband hunched over, too, and held his stomach.