Ancient Echoes (28 page)

With the introduction of dams on the Snake and Columbia, the
fish faced eight dams over the course of their journey. It took phenomenal
strength to make it past the dams and then leap against the current, far more
than any human could manage. Before the dams were built, salmon nearly choked
the Pacific Northwest streams. Despite “fish ladders” and other aids to
migration, few fish now survived the journey.

Wild salmon and steelhead had disappeared altogether from
many waterways.

Or so everyone thought.

Here, the fish were plentiful enough that even without
decent hooks, lines, or bait they were biting. A stack of fish quickly formed.

“Any thoughts on what this place is?” Devlin asked after a
while.

“Not really,” Melisse replied.

“I think it’s some sort of glitch in time and space. Like
the Bermuda Triangle.”

“That’s original,” she said sarcastically.

“You got a better idea?”

“Yes. Stop scaring the fish.”

He concentrated on his line and soon had his eye on a big
steelhead circling near. Thoughts of grilling it over an open fire made him salivate.
He sat still, hoping it would go after his bait, when he noticed something
shimmer downstream, on his side of the bank. He stared a moment. “What the
hell? It looks as if the ground is moving.”

“You’re dreaming.” Melisse concentrated on snaring one of
the largest trout she had seen that day. The wooden hooks required a well-timed
sharp snap of the wrist.
“Got it!”

Devlin stood. “Whatever it is, it’s coming this way.
Fast!”

Melisse glanced where he stared as she pulled in the fish.
She stood. The very earth seemed to ooze toward them. Her eye followed the hump
in the ground from off in the distance, forward, toward her and Devlin just as
she saw something jump at her.

A large black bug landed on the leg of her cargo pants.
Another on her boot.
Then two.
Three.
A dozen.
She swatted at
them, trying to get them off her.

Devlin jumped back. “What the fuck!”

Melisse smacked the bugs from her boots in an effort to keep
them from crawling up under her pants legs. “They’re like some kind of giant
beetle.” At that moment, the line she continued to hold went lax. Where a long,
plump trout had dangled moments before, she now saw a skeleton covered with
bugs.

“The fish!”
Devlin yelled. As he
spoke, the beetles covered their food supply, devouring the fish in seconds,
and continued toward them.

“They’re flesh eaters!” Melisse cried. “Run!”

They ran, yelling, toward the camp. At first the others
thought they were making some kind of unfunny joke. But then, they watched the
earth become a gelatinous, oozing mass that seeped toward them.

Rempart stared as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.
“Impossible! Dermestidae, or flesh-eating beetles, are small and slow and like
damp, moist environments. This isn’t the climate they live in.”

“Whatever they are, you’d better not let them swarm you!”
Melisse shouted.

Everyone ran, swatting at the biting, stinging creatures.

“We can’t outrun them,” Devlin shouted, “but the creek
curves up ahead. We’ve got to jump in. Don’t stop!”

The creek water moved rapidly, and they couldn’t tell its
depth. They had no choice but to get in. The ice cold water reached their
waists and the strong current knocked them off their feet. They tried to go
straight across, but found the current pulled them downstream. They clutched
any large rocks or boulders they could find to prevent being swept away. Devlin
grabbed hold of Rachel, the lightest, who had the most difficulty fighting the
water’s strong draw.

From the opposite bank, someone threw a rope at them. “Grab
hold
, lads,” a voice said. “And ladies.” Despite their
shock, they gratefully followed the order.

One by one they were towed from the water by two men wearing
faded camouflage clothing. The men had neatly trimmed beards and hair, and
looked to be no more than thirty years old. Strangely, each carried a long bow
and a quiver of arrows.

The men hustled the university group away from the banks,
then
scoured the water. The beetles had stopped at the
creek’s edge and faded back into the land. “Water is too fast for them,” the
second man said.
“Fine and clever thinking to hurl yourselves
into the flow.”
He smiled pleasantly. His accent, like the first man’s,
sounded odd and unrecognizable.

Rempart and the students stared at the strangers, scarcely
able to believe what they saw, even as they shivered from cold, exhaustion and
fright.

“Come along now,” one of the strangers said, looking back
into the trees. “We must hurry. This is not
a safe
area come nightfall.”

“Who are you?” Rempart asked.

“The name is Sam Black, and this is my cousin, Arnie Tieg.
The village is not far.”

“Village?”
Rempart asked, looking
from one to the other and then at Melisse. “Are you saying there’s some sort of
town out here?”

“Let’s go,” Sam Black said.

“Wait!” Rachel cried. “Where’s Devlin!”

Alexandria, Virginia

JIANJUN GOT OUT of the taxi he’d
taken from the Van Dorn Metro station. A small white and yellow house, complete
with manicured lawn and flower beds, stood before him.

Michael had never contacted him, despite the quantities of
information he had sent about the pillars and their history, PLP, and Jennifer
Vandenburg. Jianjun was tempted to pursue the PLP angle by going to New York
City to talk with Vandenburg and Calvin Phaylor, but he hesitated to do that
without checking with Michael first. Also, the line of inquiry near Washington
D.C. needed to be followed before he left the area.

Anthropology Professor Emeritus Thurmon Teasdale had created
the map Jianjun sent to Michael. Obviously, Lionel Rempart considered it of
great value, but Jianjun could not figure out why, nor exactly what area it
covered. He needed more information.

He tracked down Professor Teasdale’s widow. He took a deep
breath, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell.

Lurline Teasdale was an elderly woman who readily spoke with
Jianjun, and didn’t ask him for credentials or anything else to prove who he
was. Instead, she warned him against looking into the “secret expedition” that
had followed Lewis and Clark. She was convinced that her husband’s interest in
their story had somehow brought on his death.

“That discovery excited Thurmon beyond anything I can
remember,” she explained over cups of tea and a platter of sugar cookies as
they sat in her cozy living room. “He gained access to an old journal in the
Smithsonian. There had been rumors about such an expedition, but never before
any proof.”

“So he believed it was real,” Jianjun probed.

“Absolutely! “

“And this all happened about fifteen years ago?” Jianjun
asked.

“Good gracious no. It happened over thirty years ago, back
when Thurmon was a young professor. A couple of his anthropology students found
the journal. They were foreign students, I believe, and quite interested in the
Mormon culture, which foreigners tend to find rather exotic. In any case, the
students thought the journal was fiction, but Thurmon believed it all quite
true. There were too many details that corresponded to other information
Thurmon had. For example, the journal writer spoke of the woman he loved. A
young woman spent her entire life sending letters to Thomas Jefferson asking
him what had happened to her fiancé. When Thurmon told me that I found the
story so very touching and sad, I’ll admit it made me cry for her, poor dear.”

Jianjun nodded and said nothing. The thought of a woman’s
tears—any woman’s—made him nervous.

Mrs. Teasdale also told him that Thurmon had spent several
summers in Idaho back in those days, seeking the pillars described in the
journal, and any signs of the lost Mormon settlement. He had no success, and
eventually he ran out of money to pursue that particular project. He gave up
his dream until about fifteen years ago when a wealthy individual contacted him
about his early studies. That person convinced him to create a map of the area
he had explored.

Thurmon did so, but where that area was
,
Lurline had no idea.

Thurmon had been quite excited about getting back into that
line of study, but one day after completing and delivering the map, he had a
heart attack and died.

Men often have such heart attacks, she had to admit, yet
Thurmon never had any hint of illness.

“Tell me, Mr. Li,” she said, her gaze clear and sharply
intelligent, “what really brings you here? I haven’t spoken to anyone about
Thurmon’s map since Professor Lionel Rempart came here last year to ask for a
copy. Now, I learn on the news that he and his students are lost in Central
Idaho.”

“We’re trying to find them,” Jianjun admitted. “I had hoped
you could help.”

She apologized that she had no further information, and soon
after, he thanked her for her hospitality and left.

He felt like someone who had been handed pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle. All the pieces might be there, but he couldn’t yet fit them together,
and had no idea of what it would look like when finished.

“FUCK!” FISH
SAID,
his one expression for all situations. He kept an AR-15 on his shoulder. “We
didn't sign up for this.”

Having led his team between the pillars, Hammill kept his
expression neutral. But Fish had it right. The military had a term for it—FUBAR—fucked
up beyond all recognition. He refused to admit it to his team, though. Not to
anyone. Not yet, anyway.

At least he didn't have to worry about admitting it to his
boss since every piece of electronic equipment they had was DOA. PLP’s piss-poor
intel
had put his team at risk. When he saw the four
searchers disappear between those pillars, Hammill should have turned around
and headed back to Salmon City. Back to broads, booze, and a back rub. Instead,
the whole team followed, and now they were in trouble.
Him
included.

PLP had sworn nothing was dangerous here.
Nothing
“weird.”

Weird, his ass.
This was fucking
unbelievable.

By habit he kept checking the sat phone, but it had crapped
out even before they went through the damned pillars.

Maybe this was the long lost redneck version of Atlantis.

“Fish, I need a perimeter,” Hammill ordered as soon as they
had descended the mound on which the pillars stood. “I want to know what the
hell this is.”

The PTT didn't work either, and they had no idea why not.

“Fuck,” Fish said, which meant, “I don't know either.”

Hammill found footprints heading east, back to the area
they'd come from. If they belonged to the students, they might manage to save
themselves.

It wouldn’t be bad, he thought nervously, if he and his men
ended up at Telichpah Flat to discover that this mission was over. They'd have
made a hell of a lot of money for a few days out in the bush. Damn good for a
bunch of bullet sponges.

Soon, though, he and his men noticed something was wrong,
although they couldn’t quite put a finger on it. They told themselves that they
must be a little off their direction. Hammill tried to use his compass, but the
needle went around in circles. And the GPS had bellied up along with their sat
phone.

FUBAR.

DUSK FELL AS THE university group
reached what Sam Black had called “the village.” Upon first hearing the word,
Melisse's heart leaped.
People and civilization.
Electronics.
Means of communication.
But then, as the group stepped out of the forest, and she caught her first
glimpse of it, her excitement died.

The land directly in front of them had been cleared for the
distance of a football field before reaching a ten-foot high wooden fence with
stakes at the top. Visible above the fence were only a single large building
and what looked like a guard tower.

Melisse hoped this wasn’t a trap. Rempart and the other
students had immediately trusted Black and Tieg, and treated them like saviors.
Melisse wasn’t so sure. Her thoughts turned back to Devlin. Rachel swore he had
helped her grab the rope to be pulled to safety, but then she lost sight of
him. The rocky creek bank offered no tracks or other solutions. Black and Tieg
seemed to think they had pulled him out of the water, and then he purposefully
hid. If so, their looks implied, he would be sorry. They had refused to spend
more than twenty minutes searching for him for fear of being caught outside the
village at night. To do so, they claimed, was a death sentence.

As they entered the village, Melisse saw how small it was.
The two-story building and guard tower were in the center.
Located
around them like numbers on the face of a clock stood six small log huts at the
2, 3, 4 and 8, 9, 10 o’clock points.
At 12 o’clock were animal pens and
a stable, and at 6 o’clock were a large storage shed and a couple of outhouses.
All the structures were made of logs. They had no glass windows, only shuddered
openings and doors. The walkways were not paved or cobbled, but what appeared
to be hard-packed gravel.

Four men came out of the bleak central building. All had a
military bearing, although they had long hair and beards. Their baggy-legged
camouflage clothing was clean, but old and patched.

Six huts, six men.
Melisse scanned
the area. Where were the women?
The children?
Normally, a village meant mail delivery, telephone lines, and radio reception.
But that didn’t seem the case here. Right now, she'd settle for a dirt road to
civilization.