Lost Empire (Fargo Adventures 2)

1442 Spans 315°

Into the Lion’s Mouth

The fourth-largest island in the world, Madagascar was in many ways a world apart. For instance, it was home to five percent of the world’s plant and animal species. Of these, eighty percent were found nowhere else on earth: lemurs of every stripe and size, cave-dwelling crocodiles, carnivorous plants and spitting beetles, and giant centipedes, thirty-two species of chameleon, two hundred two species of birds, and an array of baobab trees that seemed plucked from the mind of a science-fiction movie director. And for all that, not a single endemic poisonous snake called the island home.

Madagascar’s history was no less unique. While the island’s official history began in the seventh century with Bantus using encampments along Madagascar’s northern tip as trading posts for passing Arab merchants, archaeological finds in recent decades had to probe deeper, suggesting Madagascar’s first settlers had arrived from Sulawesi, in Indonesia, between 200 and 500 C.E.

Over the next eleven hundred years, Madagascar became the melting pot of Africa, populated mostly by Portuguese, Indian, Arabic, and Somalian settlers, until the Age of Exploration arrived and the scramble for Africa began. European colonial powers and pirates alike rushed to Madagascar, and the island saw a series of ruling dynasties until the late eighteenth century, when the Merina family managed, with the help of the British, to gain control of most of the island in a hegemony that ended almost a century later with France’s invasion in 1883 and what became known as the Franco-Hova War. In 1896 France annexed Madagascar, and the Merina royal family was exiled to Algeria.

THEY GAVE THEIR GEAR a once-over, then donned their packs before standing back to take in the scenery. The drive from the Antananarivo airport had taken them east on Route 2 and down from the central highlands that ran roughly north to south down the island’s spine to where they stood, the coastal lowlands, a two-mile-wide ribbon of rain forest and ravine-laden terrain buttressed by fifteen-hundred-foot escarpments interlaced with waterfalls. At their back was the Canal des Pangalanes, a five-hundred-mile-long chain of natural and man-made lakes and coves connected by canals.

It was in this section of the Pangalanes that they hoped to find the spot Blaylock had indicated with his cryptic notation. From there it would be only a matter of pacing off 1,442 “spans” (which they assumed and hoped referred to Blaylock’s staff) on a compass bearing of 315 and looking for a “Lion’s Mouth” into which they could leap or stare or whatever Blaylock ha

d in mind. The problem was, Moreau, the author of the map, had clearly missed Cartography Day in Explorers’ School. His sense of scale and distance was nearly nonexistent. Sam and Remi’s exploration would have to be trial and error.

“It never sounded simple,” Remi now said, “but looking at this place . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head in frustration.

Sam nodded. “The land that time forgot.”

IN THE LEAD, Sam stepped off the road onto what resembled a game trail, which evaporated after a hundred yards, at which point he unsheathed his machete and began bushwhacking through the head-height brush. With every step, saw-toothed leaves nicked their exposed skin while spiked stems plucked at their clothing, frequently requiring them to stop to free themselves. After thirty minutes they’d covered a quarter mile, when a garage-sized clearing opened before them. Remi took a reading from their handheld GPS, looked around to get her bearings, then pointed. They set off again, Sam hacking a path while Remi navigated. Thirty minutes turned into an hour. Sweat beaded on their pinpricked skin, and their clothes became so saturated they might as well have just stepped from a swimming pool. Despite the blazing sun, each of them felt slightly chilled. After another thirty minutes, Sam stopped suddenly and held up his hand for quiet. He glanced back at Remi and tapped his nose. She nodded. Smoke. Somewhere nearby was a campfire.

Then, somewhere off to their left, came a rustling sound. Something was moving in the underbrush. They stood stock-still, barely breathing, trying to pinpoint the location. It came again but sounded farther away.

Suddenly a male voice called out, “Are you good folks lost, by chance?”

Sam looked back at Remi, who shrugged. Sam called back, “I wouldn’t so much call it ‘lost’ as ‘serendipitous exploration.’”

The voice chuckled. “Well, that’s a first. If you feel like a break, I’ve got coffee on.”

“Sure, why not? Where—”

“Look to your left.”

They did so. A moment later the flaming tip of a branch jutted up from the undergrowth thirty feet away. “If you keep going straight for ten or twelve more paces, you’ll run into a game trail. It’ll take you straight in.”

“On our way.”

Five minutes later they pushed their way off the trail into a clearing surrounded by dwarf baobabs. Strung between two of them was a netted hammock. In the center of the clearing, hemmed in by a pair of fallen logs for seating, a small campfire crackled. A mid-seventies man with silver hair and a goatee smiled up at them. His eyes were a mischievous green.

“Welcome. Have a seat.”

Sam and Remi shrugged off their packs and sat down on the log opposite the man. They introduced themselves.

The man nodded, smiled, and said, “Everybody calls me Kid.”

Sam nodded at the revolver strapped to the man’s hip. “Because of that?”

“More or less.”

“A Webley?”

“Good eye. Model Mark VI, .455 caliber. Circa 1915.”

“Enough gun talk, boys,” Remi said. “We appreciate the invitation. It feels like we’ve been out there for two days.”

“In Madagascar time, that’s about two hours.”

Sam checked his watch. “You’re right.” Sam noticed what looked like a two-foot-high pyramid of dirt clods lying at the man’s feet. “May I ask . . .”