Page 41 of Still See You Everywhere

“That takes a bit more imagination.” He moves again, gesturing for me to join him.

When I peer at the rock mound from this angle, I still get nothing. Ronin waves his machete around the general outline of the shape.

“Perhaps an eagle in repose,” he suggests.

I arch a brow. “Now which one of us has heat stroke?”

He smiles. “Which is why we are here this morning. Conjecture is a waste of time. Plus, Mr. MacManus is not a fan.”

“Pisses him off? Hey, does that count for the swear jar?”

“You’re going to be poor by the time we return.”

“Do you ever have to toss in a nickel?”

This earns me an enigmatic grin. It’s a good look for him.

“We are going to take a peek,” he states now. “Pick a spot, remove the debris, then carefully excavate enough rocks to reveal what may or may not lie beneath.”

I’m not sure what I think of this. Unearthing pirate treasure sounds like fun. Human remains, not so much so.

“I don’t have any experience in grave robbing,” I hedge.

“The work is simple. Photograph extensively. Remove first layer of cover. Photograph again, then additional excavation, then additional documentation. When we arrive at the final layer, I’ll take over.”

I hesitate, still feeling uncertain.

“Have you never seen a dead body before?” Ronin asks gently. “Skeletal remains are nothing to fear. We respect our dead. Everything we do now is with the utmost dignity and respect.”

I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve seen too many corpses. And forget skeletons; it was the mummies that nearly broke me.

He continues to peer at me calmly. God, that face… How does anyone tell this man no?

Ronin tosses me a pair of gloves, and we get to work.

IT’S NOT SO hard. Easy, really, in ways I don’t want to think about. Ronin sets up his small GoPro to record away, then unpacks his camera to shoot rapid-fire photos of the site from every conceivable angle. Next up, we untangle the top layer of branches and dead leaves. The first section of the rock mound emerges almost immediately, a rounded pile of dark stone and green vegetation. The rocks are small, roughly the size of my hand. They appear similar to the rubble I’ve already noticed on sections of the beach, including a pebbly finger of the atoll that juts out fifty yards ahead of us.

More documentation. Some muttering under Ronin’s breath as he pauses to dash off a few quick notes and draft a couple of pencil sketches. Then back to modern photography.

I work on my breathing, reminding myself that I’m on a tropical island and these are ancient remains and nothing like what I have experienced before. Historic, not contemporary.

This is not that. I repeat it to myself again and again. This is not that.

The beautiful terns appear from time to time, darting overhead. The larger seabirds, however, have grown immune to our presence and drift farther out over the ocean. Periodically, some sort of bird drama seems to erupt, with a flurry of wings and a spike in volume. But mostly the birds do their thing while we do ours.

Then we’ve completely cleared the debris from the rock pile. The moment of truth.

Ronin stops long enough to show me how to work the camera. Just point and shoot, he instructs. The camera feels heavy, my hands shaking more than I’d like.

“This is not that,” I mutter to myself, though I’m having a hard time believing my own words. It’s the nature of trauma. Once you’ve experienced the worst-case scenario, you can never go back to believing bad things won’t happen. You can only remind yourself that you were strong enough to survive the first time, and you’ll be strong enough to survive again.

Ronin picks a spot near the top of the mound, where the pile of rocks already appears disturbed. Various clumps of vegetation sprout from between the dark stones. While originally the grave had appeared overgrown by the jungle, our work has already separated it from its surroundings.

That spikes my unease higher. Surely a two-hundred-year-old pirate tomb should be more consumed by its surroundings by now, at one with the riotous plant life, pounding waves, and crying birds instead of resting perfectly above ground with barely a stone out of place.

“This is not that,” I whisper, even as my body breaks out in a fresh layer of sweat.

Using one of his smaller trowels, Ronin removes a half dozen clumps of greenery, exposing a small section of stones near the top end of the pile. He pauses. I hear him utter a low murmur of lyrical words, something between a song and prayer. A tribute to the deceased, an apology for our trespass? I have no idea. Then Ronin delicately lifts the first rock, laying it on a protective tarp. Followed by the next and the next.

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