by F. E. Hubert
ignored her and only talked about the dig, so she quickly took her bowl and sat down by the fire with the rest of the crew.
“All clean I see. Shouldn’t you be having dinner with the smart people?”
She looked up from her food as Jake plopped down beside her on the ground. She shrugged.
“They’re not so interested in talking to me, so I thought I’d get out of their hair.”
“Their loss.” He said with a wink.
While he chewed on a mouthful of the spicy stew his men cooked for their dinner every night, he pointed at the small group in front of the large equipment tent with his spoon.
“It’s interesting to me how they want to learn things, about the temple for instance, yet they refuse to listen to anyone that isn’t exactly like them. Seems,” He thought for a moment, spooning in his bowl. “Silly.”
He grinned in a way that made Kim suspect that he’d been about to say something a lot less polite.
“So, why’re you here?” He asked, taking another bite of his food and looked at her with interest, while he chewed.
Kim pegged him at least forty the first time she saw him, but now that they were up close, in the flowing light of the fire, she realized she might have been fooled by the weathered face and the careless clothes. Still, in her world, the normal world as she called it in her mind, he would still be way too old to have anything in common to talk about, but here he was the only one that seemed even remotely interested in her, and, she smiled at her own surprise, she liked him.
“I won it.”
That stopped him short. He looked at her with big eyes, his spoon frozen in mid-air, temporarily forgotten.
“You’re here as a prize?”
She nodded, suddenly feeling like a trespasser again. The non-archaeologist, reeling at all the jargon and obscure references. The feeling lasted about three seconds. Then Jake let out such a whooping laugh, that she couldn’t help but smirk and ignore the curious glances in their direction, as he howled and slapped his knee. After a while, his laughter tapered off to snorts and hiccups. She smiled at him, a bit proud, like she’d pulled off a neat trick and expected praise for a good performance, and a bit curious to know what she’d done that was so funny.
“I’m sorry,” He held his fist before his mouth as he worked to compose himself. “It’s just,” He suppressed another snigger. “We usually have to pay people to get them to come out here.”
“I get study points?”
He shook his head in elated amazement, the light of the fire reflected miniature flames in his eyes.
“How are you liking it so far?” He asked, trying to keep a straight face and not succeeding very well.
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders “I hate it,” She looked at the man beside her with a severe expression. “But I’m sure it will get better.” She certainly hoped it would. He grinned and took another bite.
“That’s the spirit,” He waved his spoon at her, working to swallow before he continued. “I like that.” He looked at her again with those gleaming eyes, the way someone looks at a tire, debating whether it’ll hold or not. Seeming satisfied with what he saw, he continued:
“How about I teach you something about archaeology while those snots,” he jerked his chin toward the Professor’s aides. “Piddle about, making little rubs? There’s a lot out here to see that’s interesting.” He circled his finger to indicate the area around them.
Doubt must have been written on her face, but Jake either didn’t care or he was used to people doubting his capabilities.
“I used to be a professor myself,” He wriggled an eyebrow at her round-eyed surprise. “And a much better one than that mastodon.” His thumb inched sideways to point at Aldritch working in his tent.
Kim couldn’t nod fast enough to accept Jake’s offer. Anything that would keep her out of those dark tunnels.
Missing
Another scream broke the night. Not hers this time. She shot up from her sleeping bag, listening for more sounds over the thudding of her heart. After a moment, she slipped into her pants and shirt. She was still buttoning it when she saw Jake and some of his men gather beside the glowing remains of the fire. His gaze flicked shortly in her direction.
She couldn’t understand a word they said, but she didn’t need to hear to understand they were already looking for the source of the scream.
“Not you then?” Jake smiled at her when she stepped up to the group, in between issuing orders in the sharp tones of the local language. It didn’t take long to rouse everyone and do a headcount.
“One short.”
She saw a cloud of worry darken his face as he looked over the gathered crowd of bleary-eyes and hastily put on clothes.
He stepped on the arms of a folding chair and waved his hands to get their attention “Everybody gather. Someone’s missing. Now, I want all of you to look around and start checking if there’s someone you don’t see while we do a call-off. If you hear me call your name, please raise your hand.”
It took only a minute of confused yelling to discover that Hadwick wasn’t with them.
“Everybody stay here for a moment, Muz and I,” He pointed at one of his men. “Will double check all the tents to see if he’s here somewhere.”
“Not in your tent, I assume?” He whispered as he passed her, smiling in a way that roused something deep in her stomach. She was glad of the darkness just this once. It hid the deep flush that bloomed on her face.
“We can’t just leave him to his fate!” Professor Aldritch took the disappearance of his best student as a personal affront and wasn’t afraid to let everyone know about how he felt. He waved his hands around wildly as he bellowed at Jake. “We have to find him! Now! Before it’s too late -”
“We will find him,” Jake sounded calm, especially considering some of the things Aldritch said to him in his show of rage. “As soon as the sun comes up.”
Aldritch opened his mouth with a deep intake of breath, ready for another bout of shouting, but Jake held up a hand to silence him.
“We go off now, we’ll just lose more people. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be responsible for one of your other students getting lost or injured.”
To Kim, this sounded more like a challenge, but it seemed to be some magic formula and Aldritch went from red-hot to reasonable tut-tutting in record time. Jake put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and guided him back into his tent.
“The rest of you,” Jake circled his index finger at them when he stepped back out. “Try to get some sleep, but please don’t leave the clearing. We’ll set out guards, so you’ll be safe here. Nicj and Viko will get you a pillow or a blanket if you need one.”
At that he and Muz crouched near the entrance of the big tent and started talking in low voices, drawing on the ground with their fingers.
She woke up to the sounds of birds starting their day and Jake giving his men instructions for the search. They sat in a huddled circle and every time he pointed at in a direction, two or three of them would get up and start combing the terrain outside the camp in that direction.
“What can I do?” She asked, as she walked up behind him when the last team of three walked off toward the small river. Jake stood up to greet her as they left, a smile on his face.
“Take this,” He handed her a small backpack and a tall stick. “We’re going to check the path and up at the temple.”
She swallowed. The thought of going back into the temple dried her mouth to sandpaper.
“You had a real scare yesterday,” He paused his packing, looking back at her over his shoulder with vague concern. “If I’d realized it was that bad, I’d have punched his lights out for leaving you alone in there. Remind me when we find him.”
Her laugh was shaky, but real. His male bluster was exactly what she needed to take her mind of anything cold and dark.
He produced a sunhat from a pile of supplies, a smaller version of the tan adventurer’s hat he wore,
and pressed it down on her head.
“Looks good on you,” He softly flicked the rim. “Ready?”
She took it off again and held it between her teeth while she braided her hair back. She put the hat back on and gave him a grateful smile and two thumbs up.
They prodded the grass to both sides of the path as they went. Slow going, but they’d never see any clues, or Hadwick, hidden in the sea of green so they had to feel their way through the undergrowth for anything that might tell them where he went.
“He probably just went for a pee and tripped,” Jake parted the grass on his side for a second look, but only found some decomposing wood gone soft. “Or, if he’s unlucky, he got bitten or stung.”
His shrug seemed to indicate that things like that happened and were a normal part of life in the jungle.
“Wouldn’t he have called out for us?” It seemed too unreal to believe that someone could step out of the camp and just disappear like that. “We would have heard him. Everybody was listening after that scream.”
“Then there’s that, yes.”
“You think he’s dead?” Until she said the words, she hadn’t realized she’d been thinking them.
Jake shrugged again and squeezed his lips together until they made a tight, downwards line.
“Could be. Probably will be if we don’t find him soon.”
Kim started prodding her stick into the tall grass on her side with new vigour. Hadwick had to be okay. He couldn’t just disappear like this.
It took them more than an hour to check the path up to the