burials,” he said, shaking his head. Then stood in silence for several seconds, hands at his sides, before saying it again. “Definitely not wind burials. No platforms . . . no ceremonies. The people who died here”—my friend appeared to wince and then straighten—“they weren’t buried. These people were . . .”
I gave it some time before asking, “Were what?”
Futch had picked up his backpack and was walking toward the same wall of vines, a satellite photo from Google Earth in his hands. “If there was a crash,” he said, “it either came from this direction or hit the trees from behind us coming from the northeast. Which would make sense.”
The pilot was swinging a machete as I asked Tomlinson for a second time, “These people died how?”
When he still didn’t answer, I shouldered my pack and walked toward him, saying, “What’s going on? Whatever you’re thinking, it’s purely your imagination. Don’t believe me if you want, but it’s true.”
Maddening, but it was classic Tomlinson: making jokes one moment, the next he’s mired in some dismal trance—the paranoid residue, possibly, of one hallucinogenic voyage too many.
I put a hand on the man’s shoulder and turned him. “You okay?”
Tomlinson didn’t look okay. His face was pale, beaded with sweat. Eyes dazed, but they also communicated suffering. “You’re dehydrated,” I told him. “How many times do I have to say it? If you wait until you’re thirsty, it’s too late. Here . . . drink this.”
“I need some sunlight, Doc,” he replied, then brushed past me, ignoring the canteen in my hand. “I’ll be at the creek when you’re ready. I’m done exploring for today.”
Tomlinson, the sensitive psychic, was wrong once again.
Futch had vanished in the foliage, already some distance between us, but close enough there was no reason for him to yell, “My god! Oh . . . my . . . god!”
I spun, feeling a familiar burn down the back of my neck.
“Doc! You won’t believe this!”
Inexplicably, as I headed off at a jog, Tomlinson called after me, “I knew it was there.”
Unlikely. Not when I saw what the pilot had found.
No one but an expert could have identified a wedge of metal, six feet high, that had buried itself in muck like a hatchet. Then had remained there, stationary, while seven decades of vines and tree roots had winched it deeper into the earth.
The Grumman TBF-1 had several distinctive features, as only someone like Futch would know. He had found an aluminum component. Just the tip—the rest of it, like an iceberg, was implied.
“It’ll be obvious when I cut more vines,” he told me, sounding numb. “But you see it, right? See the shape?”
Yes, I did.
It was the tail rudder off a World War II torpedo bomber. I could only guess, but Futch seemed sure.
An Avenger.
—
AFTER HOURS OF BATTLING mangroves and mud, I settled back and relaxed while the seaplane transported us from the silences of history and wilderness, toward Sanibel Island, where the bridge would be busy with twenty-first-century traffic and where Dinkin’s Bay awaited, a time warp in its own way.
The giddiness of discovery had worn off. We were tired, bruised, and I’d had to break out the first-aid kit more than once. Now, while insulated from the world below, was the time to discuss how to proceed.
“We need to do this right,” Dan said through the intercom. “We’re equal partners. So let’s hear some suggestions.”
“We don’t tell anyone,” Tomlinson said immediately. He was still subdued, but at least had returned to the current decade. “Not about the wreckage or the Bone Field. I have some close archaeologist friends, but that spot is sacred. It’s too late for us. We’ve already breached the capsule. So I say we ask their permission to find what there is to find. One way or another, we’ll get our answer—and god help us.”
“From the archaeologists, you mean?” Futch was confused, but already didn’t like the idea.
“From the people who died there,” I translated. Then said to Tomlinson, “He’s asking for ideas. We want to uncover enough wreckage to ID the plane but without messing it up contextually, or getting arrested. In other words, what’s our next move?”
“Exactly,” the pilot said. “We’re going back there, that’s a given. I am, at least. But we need to agree, come up with a plan that’s organized. Something low profile that makes the best use of our time. And we still have to dive that damn creek!”
He had known from the start that there were