The banyan roots, her faddah had told her, eventually envelop the tree supporting it, killing off its trunk, and when the trunk rots away there remains a hollow center. Natives used to live and meet and hide in them. If only this one held such a refuge inside, she thought. She could hide in there indefinitely. Meanwhile those roots could keep spreading and spreading, seeded by birds she commanded, and she imagined her web of roots taking over this whole damn evil camp. If she could only give the order. Strangle Lansdale! Strangle Frankie!

It only made her sigh. This banyan wasn’t developed enough or old or strong enough for strangling or even for hiding, and it might just be too high up mountain to survive forever.

Still, Frankie would get his comeuppance. Because that moke was getting suckered into the oldest con: the ones in power lead you to believe that you really could become like them, all so that you avoid thinking what was best for you and your own.

She wondered, again, if this was what was happening to her too, and then she pushed the thought from her mind by pulling binoculars from her bag. She looked toward the perimeter fence, topped with barbed wire. Just beyond this stretch of the fence, maybe a half mile mauka, was supposed to be one of those markings on the map she remembered. She’d nabbed the binoculars from the Main House. She lifted them to her eyes.

The clouds were low but she could still make out a hill, and what might be a lava tube entrance, but the rise of land obscured it. A two-rut road led up to it.

She had given up trying from inside The Preserve. Frankie lurking above and below made it too risky, especially without help. She had finally considered enlisting Wendell Lett, but then she couldn’t find Wendell and she could only hope he wasn’t on his next mission already. This location outside of camp was one close enough that she remembered from the map markings. But how to get there? If she exited camp toward the interior, there might be no returning to this side of the island. She would be fleeing alone in the rugged and unforgiving saddle, exposed between the two volcanoes.

She heard crunching. She turned to see Jock Quinn coming her way. He carried no sentry gun and had his shirt unbuttoned. His sleeves were rolled up like a sailor spoiling for a fight after losing a game of craps.

She lowered her binoculars into her bag, stepped out from the hanging roots, and waved.

He didn’t wave back. By the look on his face she thought he was going to bust her up. She pegged him for drunk, maybe.

“What are you doing?” she said, putting a smile on.