Lemuria by Burt Clinchandhill (most popular novels of all time .txt) 📗

meantime, enjoy the scenery. If you like, you can take the path that way. You’ll end up at the river bank where we arrived.”

“Maybe I’ll do that. Oh, and one more thing. Can you please check if the phones are working?”

“I will,” Mulder agreed. “But I’m pretty sure that they’re not. I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.” Jennifer smiled as Mulder turned and walked away. He’s not going to let me make that call any time soon, she thought. What have I gotten myself into? I need a plan.

Chapter 22 – The Flying Spaghetti Monster

South Bantam, Java, Indonesia, The Present

“All right, there are three power modes.” Kadek pointed to the display on the KTM’s steering wheel. “Just put it in two, and you’ll be fine for the ride. There’s no clutch or gears, so just use the grip to control the throttle and go. Now put your helmets on and follow me.” Completely silent, Kadek drove his bike to the edge of the lot and stopped at the beginning of the trail that led into the tea fields. When he looked back, Ignatowski was already stopping behind him.

“Ready?” Bishop asked as Lindsey put her arms around him.

“Ready,” she called out.

“Hang on.” Bishop turned the throttle, and the bike sped up toward the other two. Kadek throttled up, steering his bike onto the path, still moist from the morning dew. In silence, the three bikes found their way through the tea fields, and after a minute or two, they left the plantation and drove into the jungle up the foothill of the Kendeng mountains. Kadek skillfully swerved his bike around trees, sometimes missing them by mere inches. When he looked behind him, he noticed the others falling behind, so he slowed down a bit. Ignatowski swiftly closed in again, followed by Bishop. Ignatowski waved his hand, and Kadek sped up again. For the next ten minutes, the bikes left tire tracks on and off the path as the trail snaked uphill. A shed in the distance neared, and when Kadek reached it, he raised a hand and stopped his bike. The others promptly joined him. He took off his helmet. “This is it for now. We can park the bikes here.”

On the left and right, a row of traditional Sundanese houses called sulah nyanda—made of wooden frames covered with woven bamboo walls and a gable-roofed structure—flanked a narrow dirt road. In front of each house, family members, uninterrupted, continued their daily businesses—doing laundry, peeling rice, or smoking a traditional Bima pipe—not giving any notice to the strangers.

“They act as if they don’t see us,” Lindsey remarked.

“That’s okay,” Kadek explained. “They’re really friendly,” he said as a young boy, no more than ten years old, took his hand.

“The outer Baduy?” Bishop asked.

Kadek nodded. “We will now be taken to the village elder. She will speak to us. The others are not allowed to talk to us directly.” They passed a few houses before stopping. On a porch made of bamboo branches and covered with woven wicker palm leaves, an old, wrinkled woman sat in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe.

“Please wait,” Kadek said as he walked toward the woman.

“Apparently, we’re not very popular,” Ignatowski remarked, looking around as Kadek addressed the woman in a Sundanese dialect.

“You can say that again,” Lindsey corroborated.

“Usually, the kids are all over you,” Bishop added.

“Please,” Kadek called out. “Mr. Bishop.” He waved, and Bishop walked up to him. “Can I have your phone with the picture of the young woman?”

“Sure.” Bishop took out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and the image of Jennifer appeared. “Here you are.”

Kadek showed the image to the old woman, who took the phone and shouted something into the sulah nyanda behind her. A young boy exited the house, and the old woman addressed him, holding up Bishop’s phone. The boy took the phone, spoke a few words, and ran off into the streets.

“My phone?” Bishop urged the boy.

“No worries,” Kadek assured him. “It will be okay.”

Ignatowski couldn’t contain his laughter. “Amazing. Here we are ten thousand miles from home with one of the last isolated living tribes in the world, primitively living without any electricity, and look who gets his cell phone stolen.” He kept laughing.

“I assure you it will be all right,” Kadek told Bishop again. “Just wait.”

Feeling somewhat uneasy, they waited in silence for almost ten minutes, before the boy returned to the village elder. In suspense, they listened to what the boy had to say and watched the grand gestures his arms were making while he spoke. Then the woman called Kadek back and handed him the phone again. In a few sentences, she seemed to instruct him and waved him away.

“And?” Bishop asked, as he joined them again.

“The woman has been here,” Kadek spoke.

Surprised and shocked, they talked at once.

“When was she here?”

“Is she still here?”

“Where is she?”

“Was she okay?”

“Please, let me explain.” Kadek waved both arms in front of them. “Please.” It took a moment for everybody to stop talking. “She was here some time ago. She couldn’t be more exact than that. A village member saw her accompanied by a group of men and women, and overheard them saying they were planning on entering the land of the Arca Domas.”

“Arca Domas?” Bishop asked.

“A sacred place where only the Pu’un may go to conduct his sacred rituals. It’s an area of worship and filled with megaliths to please the ancestral spirits and gods.”

“Did they say if she left the area again?” Lindsey asked.

“They didn’t know,” Kadek answered.

“We’ll go there.” Bishop’s forehead creased.

“As I told you before,” Kaded said, “I can take you to the path leading to it, but from there....”

“Let’s go,” Bishop commanded, and within seconds they were back on their bikes and on their way. They’d traveled the muddy roads for a few minutes when Kadek raised his arm again and stopped.

“You see the rooftops over the green?” he asked as he took his helmet off. “Over there.” He pointed some two hundred