The Howling Cliffs (Sara Mason Mysteries Book 2)

Book summary

In "The Howling Cliffs," Sara Mason embarks on a perilous journey through the Vietnam jungle to uncover the fate of a missing soldier. Alongside her friend Esmerelda, Sara later investigates a decade-old cold case in Hawaii, involving a young girl's mysterious disappearance near ominous cliffs. Facing life-threatening obstacles, Sara relentlessly pursues the truth, delving into a web of danger and secrecy that challenges her at every turn.

Excerpt from The Howling Cliffs (Sara Mason Mysteries Book 2)

Human bones are occasionally sighted along mountain streams in the Hawaiian Islands where Sara Mason had recently purchased a second home. Ancient burials at remote sites are washed away over time by the effect of torrential tropical rains on eroding lava cliffs and steep hillsides. Since those Hawaiian graves were never identified with markers, such bones could belong to a commoner or a King or Queen. No one could know, but bones along Hawaiian streams were more common than finding remains of American servicemen and women in the Vietnam jungle where Sara Mason, Esmerelda Talbot, Huxley Keane and the veterans’ search party presently found themselves.

“The Yards found Palmer.” Sara glanced across the small clearing to the veteran who had become Huxley’s best aide.

“Yes, the Montenyards, the Hmong people that Huxley told us about.” Esmerelda looked up into the treetops. “To think they used to live in this jungle.” Not that much to see existed anymore except struggling new trees, brush and scrub.

Sara, with Huxley’s help, had developed the Orson Talbot Foundation in the Sacramento River Delta in California, named after Esmerelda’s murdered husband. Beside the cold cases they worked on at home, Huxley had gotten her and Esmerelda approved to be included in the searches in Vietnam. Huxley and his team of retired veterans made at least one trip each year searching for his brother’s remains, those of Esmerelda’s daughter, and the other MIAs in the group of abducted medical personnel.

Animals previously found in Vietnam, such as elephant herds, Bengal tigers, crocodiles, and a variety of monkeys and birds, could easily have carried any human remains far away or even eaten them.

Then the forested areas were laid waste by the aerial spraying of Agent Orange and other defoliants. When Agent Orange was sprayed on a plant or tree, it sped up the growth through the trunks and stems and into the leaves at a rate the live plants couldn’t handle and thus forced them to die. With no food growing anywhere, animals and other creatures starved and died.

“You know what I noticed, Esme?” Sara and Esmerelda sat detached from the group in a moment of private conversation.

“What’s that?”

“The vets in this group, in these trips we’ve made with them, I’ve seen them age drastically.”

“I noticed that too.”

“It’s as if this is their last objective in life and it’s taking a toll on them.” Sara motioned with her eyes toward one of the men they had seen go completely gray over the few years since they had first met him.

“But not your Huxley. He’s the mainstay here. He’s much younger than these vets and he’s strong and aggressive, just what these guys need.”

Sara glanced at Huxley in admiration. He stood tall and erect with broad shoulders and a determined expression. He was the picture of strength and endurance, the type of leader that kept morale buoyant. Framed by a full head of dark hair that he refused to shave off regardless of the present-day trend among many men, and dark brows, his blue-topaz eyes sparkled, even in the filtered sunlight of the forest.

April had passed, the time of year the majority in the group preferred to be in the jungle. The dry season was over and now gave way to escalating temperatures, causing the moist jungle floor to become insufferably humid.

Since the first trip they made with the group, Sara and Esmerelda accepted the sight of the crew, especially the Vietnamese in their camp, who would strip down to shorts and boots. They were on a mission and would do whatever necessary to accomplish their goal. The group had packed an enormous supply of bug repellant. Sara, Esmerelda and one-half of the photographic duo were the only women along and wouldn’t be taking off much of their clothing. Sara and Esmerelda rested on some rocks at the edge of a stream. They removed their waterproof hats to give their perspiration soaked scalps a chance to breathe.

The search team followed a well-worn and widened trail through dense jungle and rocky terrain southwest of Krong Klang below Quang Tri in central Vietnam; the same trail used by the Viet Cong to escape with the MIAs for which the team searched. The ever-present fog and fine drizzle gave the forest a mythical aura during the daylight hours and an eerie cast under moonlight. Soon, it would be typhoon season north of the 18th Parallel. Hopefully no storm that strong would hit their location.

The sun broke through with penetrating heat stirring up the humidity and adding an additional bit of discomfort. In place of the majestic triple canopy of trees that stood before chemical defoliation, after the war mangroves were planted near all the streams and waterways. The Mangroves should have invited the return of birds. Yet, closing in on half a century later, not many were sighted or heard.

The estimate was that the normal forest would take well over one hundred years to grow back. Whole herds of wild elephants and other creatures died out from Agent Orange and other defoliants. It was hoped that any survivors crossed over to Laos and Cambodia. Not many elephants existed presently in Vietnam except in zoos. However, wild herds had recently been reported around Dac Lac, a Central Highlands province.

Sara and Esmerelda eyed each other’s matted hair and chuckled. They were a pair! Sara’s long natural sun-streaked blond hair with a few premature grays contrasted to Esmerelda’s short, dyed jet-black waves. For convenience sake, Sara kept her hair braided. Esmerelda, having been away from a beauty shop for many weeks, had a lot of telltale gray beginning to show through her short coiffed strands.

On the outside they seemed different as noon and midnight. On the inside, they were closer than mother and daughter. On a day-to-day basis, both had reserves of energy and their thoughts and actions played off each other. Sara was naturally thin. Despite her age, Esmerelda would have no part of what she termed an old lady’s shape. Being active kept them thin and fit, which was a prerequisite for joining the search team. They sipped bottled water and watched two of the crew interact over by some tall shrubs.

One was the former Marine 1st Lieutenant, Palmer Dane, forced out of the group by his VC captors, shot and left to die in dense jungle when he became weakened by dysentery. The VC were kept so busy trying to find their way, no one went back to check on him.

The other was the Yard, Thanh Van Thuy, who was not present during the prisoners’ march through the jungle, but was one of the tribesmen who helped the U.S. military in Vietnam. The Montenyards were who found the 1st Lieutenant close to death in the bush and spirited him out of danger. Several of the rugged Hmong took turns carrying him on their backs, despite his dead weight. When the terrain got rough, they carried him on a makeshift stretcher of poles and reeds. He recovered at the NSA naval hospital near Marble Mountain at Da Nang.

After coming out of a three-day coma due to infection, when Palmer was able to clarify what the Hmong had tried to explain though unable to speak English, a search party was sent out for the others, but to no avail. As far as the search team was able to penetrate the jungle without compromising their own safety, they had found scant evidence that the trail had been used for anything more than normal passage through the forest.

“Hux found Thanh.” Sara spoke quietly and reverently there in the jungle. The Human Remains Detection canine that Hux usually brought was on a job elsewhere. “Hux contacted dog trainers in Honolulu and that’s when he met Thanh."

During the Vietnam conflict, a young American junior senator turned his back on the Montenyards, who helped the U.S. military at every turn. Then most of the Hmong tribes people were slaughtered by the Viet Cong for their participation with U.S. troops.

Thanh’s family were among the dead. Then Thanh and a group of refugees braved the Pacific Ocean in a rag-tag fleet of flimsy boats. Half of them died at sea. Boats broke apart and sank, drowning the occupants. Sharks attacked. Thanh’s overcrowded vessel and two others barely made it to friendly waters off Hawaii. Fishermen rescued them. Thanh stayed, eventually gaining American citizenship and fulfilling a dream of becoming a Honolulu Police Officer.

While U.S. veterans were being compensated for their grave health issues caused by Agent Orange and other defoliants, Thanh and the Montenyards were denied benefits.

Thanh was retired now and donating his time working with HRD and other forensic trained dogs. Then along came Huxley seeking another animal for his next trip to Vietnam. Thanh found a new purpose when Huxley explained about looking for MIAs along a trail the VC used to march the prisoners. Hux and Thanh shared information, the most startling of which was Thanh’s knowledge of many trails, particularly the one where Hux and other veterans had searched for MIAs each and every year for the past ten years. Thanh had been back to his home country and searched for surviving tribes people. He had traveled many of those same trails.

Before the slaughter, thousands of Hmong lived in the jungle. Over time, he found one cousin and few others. The Hmong lived their lives knowing about the acidic soil. The few Hmong remaining knew they would find no remains of their family and friends. Ruins of homes and other representations of life were still found, mostly metal items that wouldn’t be claimed as easily back into the earth. Sometimes those scant remains were how the survivors found remnants of their former lives. While the Hmong had flourished living in the forests, they were now reliant upon their livelihoods from life in the villages that struggled to get restarted.

The biggest MIA lead came when Thanh told Huxley that the stream the search team followed had changed course more than a couple of decades earlier. They were missing a vital search area.

When Huxley was able to trust that Thanh would not lead them astray in the jungle as payback for U.S. war crimes, Thanh was accepted into the group to go to Vietnam with the HRD dogs. The former Marine 1st Lieutenant, Palmer Dane, was enthusiastic about having one of the Hmong participate. His feelings toward Thanh for the Montenyards having saved his life was overwhelming. Now the two were inseparable. One tall white-headed American and one short and stocky black-haired Vietnamese shared forgiveness that set them free.

“Hux’s brother Rockford was a nurse, like my Betty.” Esmerelda continued to stare at the water gurgling around rocks below their feet. “Betty was elevated to 2nd Lieutenant when she enlisted, fresh out of nursing school in San Francisco.”

Sara was careful not to dangle her feet in the water. “You said she’d been here only two or three weeks.”

Esmerelda evidently needed to relive the memories made real again by their frequent trips. “They were working at the NSA naval hospital in Da Nang when they were kidnapped.” She shrugged in a sad way. “One by one, they were grabbed right outside the hospital or at the showers while cleaning up after some surgeries.”

“They took her in the dead of night.” Sara nodded, remembering what she had learned. “Along with a number of other nurses.”

“Palmer just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Esmerelda straightened her shoulders as if facing a bad memory head-on. “According to Palmer, they were bound, gagged and hidden in the backs of nondescript rickety old farm trucks and taken into the jungle. They were met by a large band of Viet Cong who marched them northward, possibly toward the Ho Chi Minh Highway. They thought they might be taken to a prison camp.” She sighed again with a far-away look in her eyes.

“That could have been true.” Sara had thought the same when she first heard the details.

“Maybe the Viet Cong were going to force them to treat their own wounded. The nurses didn’t understand the language and really didn’t know why they were taken or where they were in the jungle.”

Sara had heard most of the history. After a week on the trail, and judging by the purported actions of the VC, they and their hostages were lost. “Palmer said Betty was the first to get dysentery. Then he got sick.”

“Betty, a thin wisp of a thing, probably didn’t last long before she dropped. To get dysentery that took them so fast, maybe they drank from a stream.” Esmerelda’s eyes were glassy, the memory always bringing tears.

Esmerelda shouldn’t dwell on how her daughter died. They needed to focus on finding her remains. “Esme,” Sara said, meaning to caution, but then hesitated.

However, knowing this, her third trip, or any trip could be her last if visas weren’t approved each year, Esmerelda rested little and investigated everything that caught her attention. She admitted to feeling a great measure of peace just being in the jungle where her daughter last walked.