Free Lab Notes: a novel by Gerrie Nelson

that afforded unobstructed views of the bay, the marina and the bluff where BRI stood.
    Atop the bluff, the venerable live oaks stood wearing their somber winter green. Out on the bay, shrimp boats dragged their nets while clouds of sea gulls chased behind them. A flock of white pelicans and a great blue heron fished near shore.
    Vincent walked up behind Diane and placed his hands on her shoulders. She reached up and placed her hand over his. They stood there, quietly lost in thought, taking in the panorama.
    Raymond Bellfort stood at the window looking down upon the marina from his first floor office suite, a John Phillip Sousa march blaring in the background. He observed Diane and Vincent Rose as they approached Woodwind in the company of Colton Fey.
    Bellfort smirked when he saw Fey help Diane Rose climb aboard the sailboat—no doubt Colton licked his lips when she kicked off her pumps and hiked her skirt a few inches above her knees to negotiate the step up.
    Raymond looked on as Vincent Rose ran his hand along Woodwind’s teak cap rail as though she were a thoroughbred. He watched as Vincent joined the others in the cockpit, positioned himself at the helm and threw his head back in laughter—an uncommon sight to be sure.
    Just then, one of Andor’s assistants walked out onto the aft deck of the Enterprise and tugged at the ship’s bell lanyard.
    Raymond silenced the music with his remote control and headed for his side door. Outside, he paused at the corner of the veranda to survey his formal gardens and marina.
    Now, certain that he had won the Roses over, he took a deep breath and exhaled hard, his shoulders drooping in resignation.

μ CHAPTER SEVEN μ
     
    Yami, the Kogi shaman and high priestess, emerged from her round mountain hut, reached for the bom pole beside the doorway and rang the assembly bell. Turning toward the steep, rocky pathway, she squinted against the gusts. Her face pulled up into bronze creases, the results of living seventy years close to the glare of the sun and blasts of the mountain’s breath on the northwestern slope.
    Securing her red ceremonial ambodei at her waist, Yami made a slow descent, all the while observing the women congregating in the clearing below.
    Even from twenty feet above them, Yami sensed the anticipation among the young priestesses, especially those who would provide food to the warrior hunters for the first time. Yami smiled as she watched the young women bustling from basket to basket. Their excited chatter could be heard over the roar of the mountain as they divided the bounty harvested from the tribe’s lofty fields and high valleys.
    Yami and her tribe lived more than half way up the mighty Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta . From the occasional outsiders who were permitted entry to the Kogi’s aerial farmlands, she had learned that her mountain arose from the Caribbean Sea and the city of Santa Marta in Colombia.
    For twenty-some years, Yami had exchanged information with Olimpia, who taught about plants at a great university on a distant mountain. In return for Olimpia’s facts about the world below, Yami taught her to make tonics from mountain herbs, set broken bones with the black roots of the bristly varu plant, remove the healing sap from mavaco trees during the full moon and many more of her ancient lessons.
    Yami also told Olimpia about the warrior hunters who for centuries had arrived on horseback every third full moon and stayed two nights and three days in the stone hacienda in the high valley.
    She warned Olimpia that only priestesses were permitted to descend through the clouds, down along the secret pathways during hunter visits. But Olimpia had not taken it to heart. And she bore the consequences.
    Now, with a sigh, Yami looked through the glacier-capped mountains and listened to the world beyond. Another outsider would bring pain. But, again, the warrior hunters would prevail.

μ CHAPTER EIGHT μ
     
    Vincent looked out at the water from his