“Now what?” Evan asked.
Kincaid’s gaze met Bess’s. “Lass?”
She nodded. “We go,” she said, moving into place behind him. One way or another, she thought. “If we don’t, it’s all over.”
As if by signal, rain began to fall again. Kincaid nodded to the waiting Cuna guide and he led the way along a twisting game trail into the forest. Her heart in her throat, Bess fell into step behind Kincaid and just in front of Evan and the other Englishmen.
Minutes later, when she looked over her shoulder, she saw no sign of the river, only sheets of water against a curtain of green. Whispering a silent prayer, and fixing her gaze on Kincaid’s broad back, she trudged on through the mud and tangled mass of vegetation.
Chapter 19
Bess’s confidence seeped away drop by drop as she trudged through the wet, clinging ferns and trailing vines. Ahead of her, the men took turns hacking a path with their machetes. The rain had stopped as quickly as it had begun, but now the heat and humidity made walking an effort. Her shirt and breeches were soaked through from her own sweat; thorns had ripped her stockings to threads and embedded themselves in her flesh. Ants and spiders crawled up her legs and fell onto her face and hair from the greenery above. Her leather shoes were so soggy that blisters had formed on her heels and broken into raw, open sores that burned with every step.
The shadowy forest was strangely empty, the primeval silence broken only by the slash of machetes and the occasional roar of a howler monkey. From time to time a strange bird would shriek, or underbrush would rustle, but most of the time Bess could hear her own heavy breathing.
Gradually, the palms and giant ferns gave way to ancient groves of cotton trees, cedar, mammee, calabash, and nameless hardwoods. Huge trees with trunks as wide as London streets formed a leafy green canopy overhead, shutting out even what feeble sunlight filtered through the overcast sky. Here the walking was easier; the all-enveloping verdant ceiling made the mossy forest floor as open as a plantation lawn.
But it was still hot . . . and sticky. And something was biting her elbow. Again.
Bess kept walking, glad for once that she wasn’t a man and wasn’t expected to take her turn at the front of the column . . . glad to have Kincaid’s solid bulk ahead of her. There was something unnerving about the jungle, something forbidding. In Maryland, Bess had always loved the woods. The trees there seemed protective rather than sinister like these. August on the tidewater could be much hotter than this rain forest, but it had never been as wet.
The Cuna guide answered to the name Hah-kobo, but whether it was the Spanish form of Jacob or some Cuna word, Bess didn’t know. Hah-kobo’s entire English vocabulary seemed to consist of “We go” and “No,” with a few hand gestures thrown in for clarity.
The second guide, Che, the one who had run away before she could touch his hand at the landing site, seemed to have vanished. She had seen or heard nothing of him since.
Presumably, they were trekking toward the spot on the map that she had pointed out to Kincaid in the village. The concept of a map was foreign to the Cuna, but Kincaid had showed the place to Evan, and he knew enough of the territory to tell the chief where Bess wanted to go.
Now that she was actually in the jungle, where one tree looked much like another and every hard-gained mile took them deeper and deeper into a tangle of green hell, Bess doubted if she would ever see the coast again, let alone find a treasure buried more than half a century ago.
“Kutii, where the hell are you?” she whispered. She had looked for him so hard that she’d almost given up hope. Never before in her life had he gone so long without appearing beside her. “You promised me,” she murmured urgently. “You said you knew the way and you’d come with me.”
Kincaid stopped so quickly that Bess almost ran into him. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she mumbled, putting her head down so that he couldn’t see her eyes.
What would Kincaid do if she couldn’t point out the exact spot where the gold was hidden? What if they just kept walking until they were swallowed up by the rain and the jungle? Would anyone know or care if they simply disappeared?
At nightfall, Hah-kobo found a hollow tree large enough for all of them to crouch inside. Efficiently, he drove two lizards and a snake out of the recesses and chopped off their heads, then cut bark from a cedar tree to reach the dry inner layers so that he could build a fire just inside the shelter. Without speaking, Hah-kobo went out into the darkening forest and returned a few minutes later with palm shoots and nuts, two overripe wild pineapples, and a palm leaf full of what could only be tree sap sprinkled with fat white grubs. Bess contented herself with a raw palm shoot and a section of pineapple. She was certain that she’d never sleep, but no sooner did she rest her head on Kincaid’s chest than she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.
Dawn came in a rush of pelting rain and high-pitched squeals. A black peccary sow with three offspring in tow had wandered near the camp. Kincaid and Evan managed to kill two of the young pigs while Hah-kobo kept the mother at bay. The peccaries joined the two lizards and the snake on a makeshift spit over the morning fire. Bess thought the taste of the scorched peccary a little strong, but a definite first choice over the lizards.
When they had devoured all the food and kicked the remains of the fire out into the rain, the grumbling men picked up their packs and began to fall in for the day’s march. Hah-kobo, who had not looked once at Bess or spoken to her, glanced expectantly at her now.
Bess met his sloe-eyed stare. For a long minute, nothing happened; then she felt a frizzen of excitement run through her. Without knowing why, she lifted her right hand and pointed. “Catarata,” she said. Waterfall. She hadn’t known that she knew the Spanish word or that she would utter it. Her grandfather had mentioned a waterfall in his journal, but she wasn’t certain whether or not it had been in reference to the place where the ambush had occurred and the gold had been buried.
“Catarata, ” Hah-kobo repeated. He looked up at the trees overhead, and Bess wondered if he was trying to see the sky. Then he cupped his hands over his mouth and gave a loud, hacking call. Immediately, the sound was answered by a similar cry from the forest. Hah-kobo nodded and set off, the soles of his bare brown feet padding catlike against the thick carpet of the jungle floor.
They passed from the tall trees into a morass of scrub palms, fallen logs, and thorn trees. Fungus grew thickly on every branch and tree trunk. Frogs of all sizes hopped and climbed amid the lush creepers and rotting leaves. Bess felt them squish beneath her feet, and jump against her legs as she walked. Here and there orchids grew. The air was heavy with the scent of decay and wet undergrowth. With every breath, she drew in the smell and taste of an alien world.
Then, suddenly, Hah-kobo stopped in his tracks. He raised a hand, and one by one, the seamen fell silent. Bess stared. Ahead, in the shadows of a fallen log taller than she, something moved.
Sunlight. Black against gilt . . . flowing liquid gold. Gleaming eyes and teeth like shining ivory blades.
Bess’s breath caught in her throat as the creature—a huge jaguar—materialized from the dark into the relative light. He faced them unafraid, fierce cat eyes glowing with the fire of twin green emeralds.
Bess could see the beads of sweat running down the back of Hah-kobo’s neck. She waited, motionless, knowing that if the jaguar leaped, he could rip out the Cuna’s throat before any of them could lift a weapon to stop him.
Kincaid didn’t flex a muscle, but she could feel his sinews tighten; she could sense his readiness to attack the big cat, and she could smell the mixture of fear and courage that emanated from his taut skin. His unspoken shout of warning came loud and clear in her mind, a command as real as any she had ever heard with her ears. Stay still, Bess! Don’t move!
The jaguar opened his mouth and uttered a mixture of bone-chilling cough and roar. Bess stood riveted, but the sailor directly in line behind her broke and ran.
The bl
ack-and-gold animal became a blur as he leaped through the air. Then the sailor screamed as the weight of the jaguar bore him to the ground. Evan raised his pistol and tried to fire, but the hammer fell harmlessly, the gunpowder soaked beyond use. The victim screamed again, a hideous high-pitched wail of agony.
With a Highland war cry, Kincaid threw himself at the jaguar. Bess’s heart missed a beat as the Scot’s machete descended on empty air. The cat snarled, leaped straight over Kincaid’s head onto an overhanging branch, and was gone before anyone else could shoot.
Bess ran to the dying man and tried to stanch the blood bubbling from the great gash in his throat. The sailor’s face and chest had been sliced to the bone. He gasped and tried to rise, but his eyes were already glazing over. Blood trickled from his mouth. He groaned once more and lay still.
“Holy Jesus,” one seaman muttered.
Another prayed in Gaelic.
“Enough of this,” still another cried. “This is no place for us. Back to the ship, I say. Back to the ship before we’re all dead.”
Kincaid went to Bess, pulled her to her feet, and wrapped his arms around her. “He’s gone,” he said.
She closed her eyes and soaked up the security of those strong arms. She’d been afraid, but not for herself. It had all happened too fast for that. But when Kincaid had charged the jaguar, her blood had turned to ice water. “You could have been killed,” she whispered. That could have been him lying there with his lifeblood draining away into the wet leaves. “Kincaid,” she murmured thickly.
“I couldna do anything,” he said.
Her knees were weak; her head felt light. Take me home, she wanted to beg him. Take me out of here. Forget the gold, forget everything but us. Just take me home.
Kincaid’s hands . tightened on her shoulders, and he pushed her to an arm’s length away and looked into her eyes. “You’re all right,” he said. “You’re safe, Bess.”
Shame made her cheeks hot. He thought she was frightened for her own safety. “I’m fine,” she muttered. “You’d best see to them.” She motioned toward the knot of angry crewmen. “They’ll desert us if you don’t stop them.”
“I say we go back,” the bosun argued. “There’s no gold here—only death.”
Evan grabbed the front of the bosun’s shirt and yanked him out of the group. “You’ll go where you’re told,” he said harshly. “So long as I’m captain, I have no—”
“We’re not on the ship now,” a tall, one-eyed sailor shouted. “Ye can’t—”
Kincaid moved so fast that Bess wasn’t sure what was happening. Suddenly the one-eyed man was lying face-up on the ground and the Scot was leaning over him with one knee on his chest and a knife at his throat. “Ye heard your captain,” Kincaid said softly. “We’ll have no mutiny. Either ye hold your tongue or I’ll cut it off with the rest of your head.”
“Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!” the sailor begged.
Kincaid glanced at Evan and the captain nodded. Kincaid stood back to let the sailor up. “Same goes for any of ye,” the Scot said. “Mr. Davis is your captain, and he works for me. Any man who wants to shirk his duty better just go.”
Bess’s eyes widened in surprise, but she refrained from saying anything.
“Remember,” Kincaid continued, “that jaguar is still out there. And he’s still hungry.”
The crew’s faces remained sullen and angry, but they obeyed Evan’s orders to make a stretcher for the dead man. They wrapped him in palm leaves and carried him with them as they continued the march.
About an hour later, they crossed a narrow river by wading hip-deep through the brown, muddy water. As they gained the bank on the far side, the bosun slipped and grabbed at a tree root. A large snake struck at him, sinking its fangs into his wrist. The man’s screams brought two of his companions, who chopped the huge reptile into pieces with their machetes. But despite all Bess’s efforts to help him, the bosun died in less time than it took a kettle of water to boil.
A tree had toppled near the river, and the ground beneath the exposed roots was still soft. Kincaid ordered a single grave to be dug in the black earth, and both dead men were buried there with only a brief prayer and two simple twig crosses to mark the spot.
They had gone only a few hundred yards from the grave site when Che appeared from behind a bibby-tree and began to speak rapidly to Hah-kobo. The Cuna scout, Che, had a dead monkey and a dead opossum slung over his shoulder. Those he gave to Hah-kobo, but before Evan could question him, he dashed off again.
“What is he afraid of?” Kincaid asked Hah-kobo. The dark-skinned guide merely shrugged, picked up the animals, and continued walking.
It rained again for a short time, and when the rain tapered off, Bess could hear a new sound nearby, the rush of water. A few hundred yards more, and Hah-kobo led them into an area of giant mammee trees. The underbrush grew sparser and was replaced by ferns that grew taller than a man’s head. The ground beneath the ferns was covered with moss and tiny yellow flowers. Hah-kobo stopped, pushed aside a curtain of ferns, and Bess gasped.
Just ahead of them was a waterfall, perhaps thirty feet high, with a wide, still pool at the bottom. Hah-kobo went to the water’s edge, knelt down, and drank from his cupped hands.
Bess stood speechless. Her heart thudded against her chest, and she had the strongest feeling that her grandfather had once stood on this very spot. Grandpapa James. She hadn’t felt so close to him in years. Her throat tightened, and her eyes began to tear.
“Well, lass?” Kincaid’s deep voice yanked her from her reverie. “Are we any closer to this treasure of yours?”
She nodded, still unable to speak. It was here. She knew it. Gooseflesh rose on her arms and she struggled to breathe. Her eyelids fluttered. She took a step toward the pool. The water was so dark that it looked black. A narrow stream trickled away on the far side, but the flow coming over the falls seemed far too great in volume to be contained in this small, still tarn.
As she drew nearer, the sound of the cascade filled her ears; she was mesmerized by the music of the frothy, tumbling water. She could almost swear she heard voices coming from the falls . . . voices long stilled by time and circumstance. Her grandfather’s voice. His laughter.
And more. Suddenly, Bess stiffened as she heard the sound of musket fire. Men screamed and horses snorted. A flaming arrow arced across her consciousness and—
“Bess! Get down!” Kincaid slammed into her, knocking her facedown on the mossy ground.
She blinked, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind, realizing that the screams and shots were real. They were here and now, not coming from the past.
She raised her head and stared across the glade to see dozens of naked Indians running toward her. An explosion went off just above her head, and she smelled the acrid scent of black powder. Kincaid was shooting at the attackers. She fumbled for her own pistol, but realized that it was gone. She looked frantically around, saw the weapon lying close to her, seized it, and took aim at one of the hostile Indians. She squeezed the trigger, but the gun wouldn’t fire.
“Caribs!” Hah-kobo yelled.
An icy current of fear seized her as the meaning of the Cuna’s words sank into her consciousness. Caribs! The cannibals of the Caribbean. The stuff of late-night horror stories and sailors’ warnings. Not phantom ghosts, but real. Their eerie, trilled war cries turned her blood to ice.
Time slowed to a stop. Etched against the vivid green of the forest wall were howling barbaric figures, brandishing bows and arrows and stone-headed war clubs. One fierce apparition, his bright copper skin painted with stripes of yellow and black, leaped high into the air. His face was contorted with an expression of sheer savagery, and in his outstretched right hand he bore the ravaged, dripping head of Evan Davis.
Kincaid fired again, and the Carib fell, his chest blossoming a bright red flower. But the tide of carnage flowed on toward them. Vaguely, Bess realized that Kincaid had jerked her to her feet and shoved her beh
ind him. But even his raw courage could not protect her this time. The battle waged hand to hand throughout the clearing, and three more painted devils stood beyond the pool, firing short, feathered arrows so tiny and delicate that she knew the tips must carry instant death.
We’re going to die here, she thought as an arrow struck the moss only inches from Kincaid’s boot. I’ll never see the sun go down over the Chesapeake again, and I’ll never live to hear my baby’s first cry.
Her child. Kincaid’s son. The black chasm of hopelessness yawned before her. The tiny scrap of life that she carried under her heart would perish with them, the flame snuffed out before it had kindled.
“No!” she screamed. “No!” She summoned all her strength and will for one last chance. “Kutii!”
A single bolt of lightning rocked the clearing, followed by a blinding downfall of rain. Bess shut her eyes against the onslaught, and when she opened them, Kutii was standing there, larger than life, in full Incan battle array.
Bess felt for Kincaid’s hand. It tightened on hers, and she heard his sharp intake of breath.
The rain stopped abruptly and a shaft of sunlight broke through the interlaced foliage overhead. The clearing was so quiet that Bess could hear the drip of raindrops off the leaves.
Kutii’s war club glittered gold in the sunlight, blinding the eyes of the Caribs. His golden breastplate, his jeweled diadem, his silver armbands incised with the emblems of his rank and ancestry, awed them into silence, and one by one, their war cries died in their throats.
A ripple of fear went through the Carib warriors. The line wavered; then one brave screamed a challenge and lunged forward. Kutii swung his razor-edged war club. The terrible weapon didn’t touch him, but the Carib fell as though he’d been struck by lightning.
Kutii turned, his fierce black eyes lingering on first one Carib and then another. “She is the Star Woman,” he said in a terrible voice. “You have dared to attack one who comes from the stars.”
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