Page 40 of Still See You Everywhere

WHAT DO YOU SEE?”

We’ve finally arrived at our destination, a gentle rise about five feet above the beach with a massive Pisonia to one side and all sorts of vegetation everywhere else. Spying us this close to the water, the seabirds are going nuts. Dozens and dozens, swooping and calling, with many gliding closer and closer to study us with their dark, beady eyes. If the delicate white terns were magical beings, these large, sooty birds are the goon squad, wanting to know what the hell we’re doing on their turf.

I edge back beneath the protective canopy of the tree.

Ronin remains waiting patiently for my answer. We’ve each downed a bottle of water and inhaled the first of our sandwiches. While I reveled in the salty sweet comfort of a perfectly prepared PB&J, Ronin had started unpacking his bags. I recognize an impressive camera with a multitude of lenses, something much smaller and sleeker that appears to be a recording device, and then tools, lots of tools. Compact shovel, collapsible pail, smaller scoops, brushes, screen mesh, all wedged into a modest-sized equipment bag that apparently holds four times its actual volume in supplies.

Ronin’s movements are quick and efficient.

I want a nap. Or a dip in the ocean, or a nice swimming hole. Aren’t tropical islands required by law to have a gorgeous, turquoise-colored swimming hole, fed by an equally gorgeous cascading waterfall?

Clearly, the heat and humidity have made me delirious.

“You are overheating,” Ronin states.

“No shit.” I’m too tired to care about the swear jar.

“Your face is red. You should take a cloth, wet it with cold water, and place it on the back of your neck.”

I stare at him. For a terrible moment, I’m not here, but in a valley with a glacier-fed stream where a red giant is patiently showing me how to filter drinking water and soak a bandana to tie around my neck.

I scramble to my feet, furiously batting the memory away. “I’m fine. Just needed a sec. So, what’s going on here?”

“What do you see?” Ronin repeats patiently.

“Green. Like I’ve seen all morning. Everything is green. Lots and lots of green.”

“You see a color. What about shapes?”

Belatedly, I remember his earlier lecture. Study the landscape for straight lines, square angles, balanced objects. Nature doesn’t do symmetry. People do.

I take a deep breath, peer around me. Then I swallow my pride long enough to place one of the half-frozen water bottles on the back of my neck, sigh in relief, inspect some more.

The landscape around me is hardly flat. The Pisonia tree to my right has a thick, twisted root system that undulates beneath our feet, while the ground drops off sharply ahead and a cluster of tangled debris stretches out to our left.

The debris… At first glance it’s helter-skelter, except then it’s not. The shape beneath the pile of detritus is too perfectly formed. An elongated mound of rocks with no good reason for being there.

I point my finger. “That. The size and shape, it’s not haphazard enough.”

He nods soberly.

“You think it’s a pirate’s grave?” I’m perplexed. “Couldn’t it be anyone? You said this island has served as a way station for centuries.”

“In traditional Polynesian burials, bodies are placed in the fetal position. The prone position is distinctly Western, as is the stone mound.”

“Still a big leap from European sailor to nefarious pirate.”

“Agreed. What else do you see?”

I purse my lips and do my best to remember the pirate legend. Something about a V-shaped tree and eagle-shaped rock. Spinning in a slow circle, I get nothing. My turn to stare at Ronin.

He takes a few steps toward the Pisonia, tapping lightly with his machete at a dark circular mark lower on the trunk. Upon closer inspection, it’s clearly an old wound, say from where a large upward-reaching branch broke off.

Begrudgingly, I grant his point. “If that limb were still there, the tree would be V-shaped. But plenty of the trees on this island fit that description.”

“I would prefer X marks the spot,” Ronin agrees. “Trees and habitat change, especially two hundred years later.”

“I don’t see an eagle-shaped rock.”

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