Jungle of Bones Read online

  “Well, I guess we’ll never know!” Dylan said, raising his voice. “He was too busy getting himself killed over in Timbuktu!”

  Dylan’s mother spoke slowly and deliberately. “We’ve talked about this before. Your father was a war correspondent in Darfur, in Sudan. He was covering the genocide of tens of thousands of people when he was killed. He knew the risks, but if he could have, he —”

  “If he knew the risks,” Dylan interrupted, “he shouldn’t have been there.”

  “Is that what you were thinking when you climbed out your window and went for a joyride last night?” She fumbled for something in her purse. “Or do your own rules not apply to you?”

  When Dylan failed to answer, his mother shook her head. “I want to show you something I hadn’t planned on showing you until you were older.” She took an envelope from her purse and handed it to Dylan.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s one of the last letters your father sent to me before he was killed.”

  Dylan opened the envelope with its weird stamp and funny markings. He wasn’t a very good reader. Slowly he unfolded the letter and let his eyes take in the page.

  My Dear Natalie,

  If anything should ever happen to me, know that I love you and Dylan more than life. I’m working here in Darfur because life has given me this chance to be a part of something bigger than myself: helping to stop the genocide of a nation’s people. If I should ever get killed, it will be so that others might live. What I am doing may not seem as noble as fighting in war as a soldier, but this is a battlefield, and I can contribute much. My weapons are my camera and my pen.

  Please never let my devotion to this cause make you doubt my love for you and Dylan. I hope someday my son will understand the importance of sacrificing his own needs for the needs of another. I think of you both every morning when I wake and every night before I fall asleep. Hopefully I will be home soon.

  All my love,

  Sam

  “He shouldn’t have been there!” Dylan shouted, tossing the letter on the floor. He refused to make eye contact with his mother. He didn’t want her to see his eyes tearing up.

  Natalie stooped and picked it up. “You’re not the center of the universe,” she answered. “Sorry to be the one to tell you this. You’re just not.”

  As Natalie turned to leave, Dylan raised his voice. “I’m not going to Oregon!”

  She turned and shook her head. “You have no choice.”

  “I’ll run away,” Dylan shouted.

  “Fine, then run away.”

  “You-you want me to?”

  “No, I want you to be a decent human being. Somehow you think the world owes you something. Your father was the kindest person I’ve ever known, and you still have a mother who loves you more than anything. If you think that living on the streets will be better than spending the summer with your uncle, I can’t stop you. I just don’t want to be around when Todd finds you — and he will find you.”

  As his mother walked from the detention center, Dylan clenched his fists tightly. When his father died, it had hurt more than anybody could have known. Dad was the one person who understood. Mom tried, but Dad was the one who had liked his music, his skateboarding, and the writing that he never showed to anybody else, because they might laugh. He had never needed to protect his thoughts from Dad. He was like Zipper — he always listened. He never criticized.

  But then he went and died.

  Dylan didn’t like feeling trapped, and right now he felt cornered. Having his mother afraid of what he might do had always been his ace in the hole. Now that card was disappearing and he didn’t have any backup. He wasn’t dumb enough to think that being on the streets would be any fun. Nor did he doubt his Uncle Todd would find him if he ran away. He would probably treat it like some high-tech mission with operatives and data searches. He’d probably use his connections to have the CIA or the FBI come after him. The man was a crazy war buff and still lived, talked, and dressed like he was in the military. Living with him would be like boot camp.

  Nobody called or stopped by the rest of the day. It wasn’t until the following afternoon that a deputy came and released Dylan, leading him to the front office. “You have two people waiting for you,” he said.

  Dylan drew in a deep breath, bracing himself. He didn’t like it when he wasn’t in control. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, pushing his jeans so far down that his shirt no longer covered his underwear. His mom hated when he wore his pants this way.

  Dylan first spotted his mother and then Uncle Todd. The two sat patiently in a waiting room to the side of the reception desk. Seeing him, they stood and came out to greet him. Dylan purposely shuffled his feet and walked slowly to show his disdain. This wasn’t cool, what they were doing.

  Uncle Todd extended his hand. “Hi, Dylan,” he said. At first Dylan didn’t return the handshake, but Uncle Todd kept his hand extended with a patient stare until Dylan reluctantly shook his hand. Uncle Todd’s grip was like a vice. “Good to see you, son. It’s been too long.”

  “I’m not your son,” Dylan muttered.

  Uncle Todd motioned him through the front door leading outside. “Let’s go home.”

  Dylan felt like a caged animal with his uncle in the house.

  “We’ll be flying back to Portland tomorrow,” Uncle Todd said, as if commenting on the weather. He handed Dylan a piece of paper. “You need to bring the following items if you have them. If not, we’ll go shopping in Portland.”

  Dylan glanced at the long list: compass, mosquito spray, suntan lotion, hiking boots, sunglasses, light jeans, T-shirts, athletic socks, toothbrushes, and about a hundred other things. “Where are we going? On an expedition?”

  “Actually, we are. We are going to Papua New Guinea. But I’ll fill you in on that while we’re flying to Portland.” He handed Dylan two white tablets. “Here, take these while I’m thinking of it.”

  “What are they?”

  “Malaria pills. Starting now, we need to take them every week until we get back. Now take them.”

  Dylan stood and put out his palm. Pills in hand, he retreated to the kitchen. “I need some water,” he called back. When he reached the kitchen, he pretended to swallow the pills, but instead threw them in the garbage. He wasn’t going on any expedition, and he wasn’t going to take any weird medications. After his dad died, the guidance counselor at school had recommended that Dylan take some kind of pills to help with his depression. They just made him feel numb and empty. After a couple months of this, Dylan refused to take them. Adults were always trying to fix or change him, instead of just leaving him alone.

  “What if I don’t want to go to this Pa Pa Guinea Pig place?” Dylan asked, returning to the living room.

  Uncle Todd sat watching television. “It’s not negotiable,” he said, not even looking up. “And get used to the name Papua New Guinea. You’ll be seeing that place in your dreams by the time we’re done. It will be your home for the summer. If it’s easier, some people call the place PNG.”

  “Where is it, and why are we going there?”

  “Like I said, I’ll explain it all tomorrow, but roughly, PNG is on the other side of the planet.” He glanced at his watch. “We better get some sleep. You still need to pack your bags, and we need to be up at O-five hundred to catch our flight.”

  As Dylan started up the stairs, Uncle Todd called out, “Your mom told me about your climbing out the window. Tonight that would be a huge mistake. Good night and sleep well.”

  Dylan replied by whistling. Zipper shot up the stairs from his favorite spot near the couch. Dylan entered his room and slammed the door. Falling to his knees, Dylan hugged Zipper. “Uncle Todd probably put a land mine on the porch roof, or rigged a trip wire to a hand grenade,” Dylan said. “What can I do?”

  Zipper wagged his tail.

  One thing Dylan did know about his uncle was he wasn’t one to bluff. He meant every word he said. Dylan stood and paced back
and forth in his room, holding his head in his hands. It felt like his brains were going to explode.

  Dylan knew he had no choice right now, so he would go along with this stupid PNG thing. But when the time was right, he would bail out. He wasn’t anybody’s puppet. Hands shaking with anger and frustration, Dylan packed his suitcase. He paid no attention to the list Uncle Todd had given him, but he made sure to throw in his music headset. His headphones helped him to tune out the world, and right now the world really needed tuning out.

  That night, Dylan’s constant tossing and turning crowded Zipper off the bed. Dylan dreamed he was running across a desert with a demon chasing him. Ahead he spotted a root cellar with an open door. The demon had almost caught him when, at the very last second, Dylan dove into the darkness and slammed the door closed. He turned the lock and ran to the far corner. Crouched on the floor in the dark, he watched in terror as the demon attacked the door. Dylan covered his ears to muffle the demon’s screams. With each charge, the door splintered and began ripping from its hinges. Finally, with one last charge, the door crashed to the ground.

  “Wakee wakee wakee,” called the monster. “Get your butt out of bed. It’s O-five hundred!”

  Dylan woke with a start. Sitting up and breathing fast, he realized it was morning and Uncle Todd was standing in the doorway of his bedroom. “I’m awake,” Dylan grumped, swinging his legs out of bed. It was still dark.

  “Breakfast in ten minutes,” Uncle Todd announced.

  Dylan fumbled with his clothes, wishing he was back in the root cellar with the demon. By the time he dressed and dragged his suitcase downstairs, his mom had breakfast on the table. Uncle Todd sat sipping on a cup of hot coffee. “I’m not hungry,” Dylan mumbled.

  Uncle Todd motioned for him to sit. “This morning don’t eat for yourself. It’s not all about you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This morning you need to eat breakfast because your mother was kind enough to get up early and fix it for us.”

  Dylan looked to his mom but she avoided eye contact. For a moment he considered arguing, but Uncle Todd’s intense gaze discouraged that. Grunting, Dylan slumped into a chair and began eating. He wouldn’t have admitted it to his mother or Uncle Todd, but the scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon didn’t taste half bad.

  As Dylan walked from the house that morning, he knelt and hugged Zipper good-bye. “I’m going to miss you, old boy,” he whispered, blinking. A light rain fell, but that wasn’t what made Dylan’s eyes wet. With one last hug, he stood angrily and crawled into the car. He would have slammed the door but Uncle Todd was already holding it open for him, and closed it gently.

  Nobody spoke much as they drove to the airport. Not until they pulled to a stop and climbed out did Natalie speak. “Dylan, I hope you have a good summer,” she said, her voice wavering.

  “You’ve already made sure that won’t happen,” Dylan snapped.

  Suddenly his mother hugged him desperately. “Just know I love you.”

  Dylan stiffened, then pushed her away and pulled his suitcase from the trunk.

  “Take good care of Zipper,” he ordered, heading toward the terminal. He glanced back once and noticed that she was crying.

  Uncle Todd caught up to Dylan as they approached the ticketing counter. “It doesn’t take much of a man to be a jerk,” he said.

  Dylan ignored the comment, keeping to himself.

  After clearing airport security and finding their gate, Uncle Todd finally turned to Dylan. “Okay, so here’s what’s happening. And the sooner you get aboard, the sooner this train leaves the station. Last winter, my father, your grandfather, Henry died. He had full-blown Alzheimer’s disease. At the end, he had completely lost his memory and mind. During the Second World War, Henry was a B-17 bomber pilot and was shot down over Papua New Guinea. He never spoke of his war years. After Dad died, I was executor of his estate and in charge of cleaning out the old farmhouse down near Grants Pass. When I was cleaning, I found this in the attic.”

  Uncle Todd reached into his upper jacket pocket and pulled out a small leather-bound notebook. He handed it to Dylan. “This is a journal your grandfather kept during the months and weeks leading up to the day they were shot down. Five crew members survived the initial crash, but three died the first night. In the end, your grandfather was the only survivor. He was lost for two weeks in the jungle before being found by natives, badly dehydrated and burning up with fever from malaria and gangrene.

  “The military searched for the wreckage but never found it. Jungles in PNG are so dense, thousands of planes crashed during the war and were never seen again.”

  “Why did so many planes crash?” Dylan asked.

  “The air war against Japan to protect Australia was fought over Papua New Guinea. Most of the planes that crashed were shot down, but there was also bad weather, horrible maps with uncharted mountains, no radar or guidance systems, and a thousand other problems. It was hell. By the end of the war, more planes were lost in PNG than in any other country in the world. So many soldiers died that even today, after heavy rains, skeletons float up in the swamps.”

  “Cool,” Dylan said, leafing through the handwritten journal. At a glance, it was all about missions, weather, bad living conditions, and missing home. He handed the journal back to his uncle.

  “No, keep it. I want you to read every word,” Uncle Todd said. “That journal actually survived the crash and your grandfather’s two weeks in the jungle. I am convinced that somewhere in those pages we can find enough clues to help us finally find the wreckage. That’s where we’re going for the summer. We’re going to join three other searchers. Our group will try to find your grandfather’s B-17 bomber. The plane’s name was Second Ace.”

  Dylan shrugged. “What can be so hard about finding some plane? We’ll just get in a jeep and drive around looking for it.”

  Uncle Todd laughed aloud. “Papua New Guinea has everything from jungles and swamps to fourteen-thousand-foot peaks. It has some of the most unforgiving real estate on the planet. During the war, there were crews that crashed three miles from the airport. It took them more than a week to hack their way through the jungle with machetes to safety — and they knew where they were going. In some parts of the jungle, you can’t see wreckage fifty feet away.”

  Dylan slumped down in his seat and put on his headphones. “This is really a dumb idea,” he said, shutting his eyes and turning up the volume. The music hadn’t even started when the headphones were pulled from his ears. He opened his eyes to find his uncle staring at him intensely.

  “Hey, what did you do that for?” Dylan demanded.

  “You need to read the journal so you can be part of the team. Every member has an obligation to every other member to be as knowledgeable as possible. It may save a life.”

  “I don’t care if we find some dumb bomber.”

  Uncle Todd handed the headphones back. “You don’t care much about anything.”

  “Okay, I’ll read the journal, but I can still listen to music while I’m reading.”

  Uncle Todd shook his head. “You won’t need your headphones anymore. You use them to tune out the world, and this summer is all about discovering the world.”

  Dylan hesitated, tempted to defy his uncle.

  “Put them away, or I’ll put them away for you,” Uncle Todd said plainly.

  Reluctantly Dylan opened the small leather journal and began to read, feeling the stare of his Uncle Todd.

  JUNE 21, 1942

  ARRIVED IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA AT THE JACKSON AIRSTRIP AT 0900 THIS MORNING. WAS GREETED BY THE COMMANDER WITH THESE WORDS: “WELCOME, GENTLEMEN. THIS ISLAND IS PLAGUED WITH MALARIA, DENGUE FEVER, DIARRHEA, DYSENTERY, AND EVERY OTHER TROPICAL DISEASE KNOWN TO MAN. IF YOU ARE SHOT DOWN AND SURVIVE, DO NOT START A FIRE UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE CAUGHT. ALWAYS SAVE ONE EXTRA ROUND OF AMMUNITION FOR YOURSELF IF YOU ARE CAPTURED BY EITHER THE JAPANESE, CANNIBALS, OR HEADHUNTERS. NONE WILL LET YOU LIVE. HEADHUNTERS WIL
L CUT OFF YOUR HEAD. THE JAPANESE WILL TORTURE YOU AND THEN KILL YOU. AND CANNIBALS, JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES, WILL ROAST YOU OVER A FIRE ON A POLE AND EAT YOU. YOU TASTE A LITTLE LIKE CHICKEN.

  “AVOIDING THE ENEMY IS THE LEAST OF YOUR PROBLEMS. WE HAVE TWO KINDS OF WEATHER, BAD AND WORSE. THERE ARE PLENTY OF SNAKES AND LIZARDS OVER TEN FEET IN LENGTH. BUGS ARE EVERYWHERE, SOME THE SIZE OF SMALL BIRDS THAT SUCK BODY FLUIDS FROM YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP. IF YOU DIE IN THE JUNGLE, RATS WILL PICK YOUR BONES CLEAN WITHIN DAYS. DON’T THINK WAR IS GLORIOUS. IT AIN’T.

  “IF YOU MAKE IT OUT OF THE JUNGLE TO A RIVER, MOST RIVERS ARE THICK WITH CROCODILES. ONCE YOU GET TO THE OCEAN, THE SHARKS ARE JUST AS THICK. WAR IS SERIOUS BUSINESS AND IS NOT FOR NICE PEOPLE. YOU WILL NOT HAVE SECOND CHANCES.

  “NOW, GET YOUR TRENCHES DUG QUICKLY. THE ENEMY ALREADY KNOWS YOU’RE HERE AND WE WILL BE UNDER FULL ATTACK IN TWO HOURS. ENJOY YOUR STAY!”

  Dylan turned to Uncle Todd. “Do they still have cannibals in this New Guinea place?”

  Uncle Todd nodded. “Twenty-seven of them were arrested just last week.” He smirked. “Kind of brings new meaning to ‘having a friend for dinner.’” Still chuckling, he added, “This summer, our biggest problem will be all the bugs and insects.” He motioned to the loading gate. “It’s time for us to board.”

  When they were settled on the plane, Dylan caught his uncle watching him. Reluctantly he picked up the journal again. The next entry was written three days after the first.

  JUNE 24, 1942

  THIS IS AN UGLY PLACE. THE FIRST NIGHT WE ARRIVED, I THOUGHT THE FULL TROPICAL MOON WAS PRETTY. NOW I’M CUSSING IT. FULL MOONS ARE WHEN THE ENEMY BOMBERS COME. ALREADY WE HAVE BEEN UNDER TWO BOMBING ATTACKS AND HAVE NOT FLOWN A SINGLE MISSION. LAST NIGHT I SAW MY FIRST CASUALTY, A YOUNG SERGEANT BLOWN IN HALF BY ONE OF THE BOMBS THAT DROPPED. I HELPED CARRY HIS LEGS TO THE GRAVE WE DUG.

  THE GREASE MONKEYS ARE STILL WORKING ON OUR PLANES. MAINTENANCE IS A JOKE. THERE ARE NO HANGARS, TOOLS, OR SPARE PARTS. WE HAVE WHAT WE LANDED WITH. AS OF RIGHT NOW, WE ARE LOSING THE WAR HERE. IF WE FAIL TO STOP THE JAPANESE, THEY WILL TAKE OVER ALL OF NEW GUINEA AND THE NORTHERN HALF OF AUSTRALIA. THE ENEMY IS ONLY SIX MILES UP THE TRAIL FROM US. A SNIPER IS PROBABLY WATCHING ME WRITE THIS ENTRY. OUR SHIPS LOAD AND UNLOAD AT NIGHT, HIDING AT SEA DURING THE DAY. WAR IS TOUGH.