After gulping the mixture down in three large gulps, Delta swallowed against the slightly bitter aftertaste. Shaman took the bowl, dipped his finger in it and pressed the wet finger on her forehead. Delta closed her eyes, and concentrated on the loud crackling of the fire. After this, he placed both hands over her heart. They stood in that position until he started a low, rhythmic chant. The men around the fire joined in. It was so very beautiful. The song seemed to go on for a long time, and Delta kept her eyes closed and listened intently to the flow of their words. Slowly, the chanting died down, and Delta opened her eyes, expecting to see the shaman still standing before her. Not so.
Delta had no idea how long the song had gone on, but when she finally looked around, she realized she was completely alone. Even the fire had nearly died out.
“Where’d everybody go?” Delta asked out loud – as though expecting a response. A single spear stuck out from the ground near the fire, and Delta plucked it out and balanced it in her hand. It was weighted perfectly. Poking her head into the nearest hut, Delta found it empty. “That’s odd,” she muttered, backing out into the dark jungle. She started to leave the clearing, but stopped when she spotted a jaguar standing at the edge of the forest.
“Shit,” she snapped, facing it squarely. “Con,” she whispered in a low voice, “where are you?”
The large cat made a sound somewhere between a growl and a snort. Then it turned from her and started back into the rainforest. It stopped at the edge of the clearing, looked over its shoulder at Delta, and made the chuffing sound once again.
“What?” Delta asked, shrugging. The cat seemed to answer by taking two more steps and then looking at her again. “Like I’m going to follow you into the jungle,” Delta said. The jaguar sat down, facing her. Delta looked at the huge animal and grinned. The cat sat just like her cats did at home whenever they were waiting for her to do their bidding. But this cat could kill her in an instant.
In an instant.
Delta supposed if it really had wanted to attack, it would already have done so. She was alone, with only a single spear at her disposal, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to outrun it. Maybe it really wasn’t going to hurt her. “Fine. So, you want me to follow you, or what?”
Coming off its haunches, the cat turned to the jungle, looked back at Delta, chuffed again and waited. Only when Delta took a step forward did the jaguar enter the dark forest.
“I’ve done some crazy things in my life, but this...” Following the jaguar into the darkness, Delta stopped at the edge of the clearing where the rainforest became truly untamed by the villages’ inhabitants, and cast a final glance back at the village clearing. How had everyone managed to slip away from the ceremony without her hearing them? And where was Megan?
Cocking her head to the side, Delta listened. In the distance she heard beating drums. Was there another village nearby?
“Shaman?” Delta called out, as she broke into a swift run behind the powerful animal. She was amazed that she didn’t stumble on roots or lash her face on thorny vines as she had when she first entered the rainforest. She seemed to know the jungle now, able to move like one of the inhabitants.
When the jaguar came to a stop, Delta stopped also. Across from a small stream burbling over smooth rocks, Delta saw Megan kneeling by the water and filling her canteen. Delta started to call her name, when she saw the raised ridges of a crocodile’s back floating toward her.
“Megan!” Delta shouted, sprinting toward the stream. Holding the spear up, Delta considered throwing it, but knew that would be futile. She had never thrown a spear, and would merely waste the only weapon she had. As the crocodile neared, Megan looked up and waved to Delta.
“There’s a crocodile in the wat—”
But it was too late. The crocodile sprang up at Megan, and as she jumped away, Megan fell backwards, hitting her head on one of the rocks. Having missed its intended prey, the crocodile splashed back in the water and floated downstream.
“No!” Delta cried, as she splashed through the waist-high water. At the sounds of her splashing, the crocodile submerged with one powerful beat of its tail.
When Delta reached Megan, she pulled her away from the stream bank and checked for a pulse. “Megan? Can you hear me? Shit!”
Suddenly, the yellow eyes of the croc resurfaced, gliding its way slowly toward the bank Delta and Megan were on.
“Connie! Shaman!” Delta screamed out, but neither of them appeared or answered her desperation.
The crocodile, which Delta estimated to be about twenty feet in length, slowly lumbered out of the water a little way downstream, never taking its ugly, beady eyes off them. Delta frantically looked for an escape route, but she knew she would never be able to get both of them away from the crocodile before those huge, yellow teeth chomped down on one of them. She’d seen enough youtube clips to know how fast these reptiles could be when they wanted something badly enough.
“I can’t do this alone,” Delta muttered, staring into the open mouth of the crocodile, which paused about ten feet away from them. Raising the spear, Delta locked eyes with the crocodile. One well-placed spear and she could end this. Delta chuckled sardonically. Who did she think she was? Sheena, Queen of the Jungle? Lowering the spear, Delta shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do, Storm.”
Looking back across the stream, Delta saw Connie coming from the village.
“There you are! Where the hell have you been? Forget that. Help me get Megan out of here.”
Connie shook her head. “Can’t. I’m not even supposed to be here.”
Delta eyed the crocodile, remembering the devastating attack at the Tarcoles bridge near Rivas. “What does that mean?”
Grinning warmly, Connie said, “You’ll see.”
The crocodile, which appeared to be ignoring everyone but Delta, took another step towards her. “You get Megan, Con, and I’ll distract the croc.”
“I can’t help you, Del. It’s against the rules.”
“Fuck the rules, Chief!”
Connie nodded, still grinning. “Exactly.” With that, Connie disappeared into the darkness.
“Con! Don’t go! I need you!”
“It’s your journey,” came Connie’s voice from the darkness.
“Connie!”
Connie didn’t answer.
“God damn her.” How could she leave me like that?
When the crocodile slammed its long mouth closed, Delta turned to it.
There had to be something she could kill it with. She could wait till it got closer...or....Shit, what the hell kind of test was this, anyway?
Delta inhaled a deep breath and calmed herself. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself graduating from the Academy. She remembered the isolated feeling she had in that warehouse; saw the faces of the two armed men who were getting ready to torture her. She recalled being alone in that burning house, with no way out. In every case, she had broken the rules to survive. In every instance, Delta had gone out on a limb, and just simply gone for it, regardless of the consequences. She was an expert at breaking rules. Is that what Connie meant by “exactly”? Was it because someday, breaking the rules would cost her her life? Was she supposed to learn how to live within the system? Was it time to discover how to be a part of the bigger picture?
Delta glanced over at the other side of the stream and saw the jaguar lying there, watching her. Oddly enough, it felt as if there were others watching her as well.
When the crocodile slithered forward again, Delta lowered the head of the spear and held it about two feet from the crocodile’s nose. When the crocodile continued coming at her, Delta jabbed his snout with the tip of the spear. This stopped the croc, and he dropped back and eyed her.
“We can do this all night if we have to, but you’re not getting us,” Delta said calmly. The crocodile responded by trying it twice more. Both times, Delta poked it in the nose. After the fourth jab, the crocodile turned away,
suddenly disinterested, and waddled downstream.
“Hang in there, baby,” Delta mumbled as she hefted Megan’s unconscious body over her shoulder and started out of the jungle. About fifteen feet from the bank, something inexplicable happened: Delta stepped into a thick, boggy swamp, glubbing around her ankles like a huge bowl of oatmeal.
Already in up to her waist before she realized she was sinking deeper, Delta cried out. Delta dropped her spear in the effort of hefting Megan to the edge of the swamp and pushing her as far away from danger as she could. It sank into the oozing mess.
“Connie!” Delta yelled, trying to pull the spear from the mire; but it was impossible.
“Delta?” Megan said, sitting up, disoriented and shaken. “I have to get you out of there.”
“Don’t come any closer. I think it’s quicksand or something.”
Megan stared over Delta’s shoulder, her eyes suddenly fearful.
Following Megan’s gaze, Delta saw that the crocodile had returned and was coming straight for her.
“Oh, God, Del, what should we do?”
“You can’t get me out of here by yourself. Go get help, and tell Connie this little test is over. I don’t give a shit if they want my spirit anymore.”
Megan rose on shaky legs and half ran, half stumbled in the direction of the drumbeats. Delta watched as she disappeared, and wondered if Megan hadn’t suffered a concussion. Her voice had sounded hollow and stilted.
Delta looked around for something she could use to pull herself out. I sure as hell didn’t fight all this way just to sink to the bottom of some godforsaken swamp. While she considered her options, she stayed still. To her relief, she discovered that she hadn’t sunk much since she’d stopped wriggling. Josh was right about quicksand—struggle and die; be still, and there was a chance.
This wasn’t so different from being trapped in a fire or dragged out to the desert to be shot. Delta had seen her share of sticky situations—some, she wasn’t sure how she’d escaped from unscathed. Each time, she had thought about getting out of the mess to return to Megan. Megan’s love had helped pull her through many rough situations. But this time was different. This was about Delta’s love; her love of life, her love of herself. This time, she was in this because she needed, once and for all, to discover just who Delta Stevens really was.
The crocodile stared at her with its beady reptilian eyes, but they had a very different look from the stare-down they’d exchanged earlier. The creature moved slowly to the edge of the swamp, stood parallel to it, and swished its powerful tail back and forth. One gigantic swipe knocked everything out of the way.
Delta studied the tail’s movements before looking back at the crocodile’s face, and at that moment, the Shaman’s words, Connie’s words, Delta’s thoughts and feelings all started to make sense.
The next time the crocodile swished its tail, Delta lunged, and forced every muscle in her aching body to concentrate on clinging to it. Once her arms had encircled it, the crocodile started walking away from the swamp, each thick, short leg sinking slightly into the earth as it slowly dragged Delta from the goo. When her feet were clear of the oatmeal, the crocodile turned, looked at her with that same toothy expression, and then blinked before disappearing, with surprising speed, into the darkness.
Slowly rising on shaky legs, Delta tried to regain her composure.
“Very good,” came Shaman’s voice from behind her.
Delta turned to face him, not the least bit surprised by his sudden appearance, but quite surprised that she’d clearly understood him.
“You speak English?”
The shaman grinned for the first time since Delta had seen him. “Nature is a universal language, Delta Stevens.”
“Did Megan make it back to camp?”
The shaman nodded. “You have done well.”
“I almost killed that crocodile,” she said quietly.
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“And why not?”
“Because...” Delta struggled with the flurry of new ideas in her head. “It would have been wrong. I would have killed him through fear.”
“Why did you fear him?”
“I...guess because I thought he would kill us.”
“So, you would have killed him before finding out what he would do.”
“And I would have drowned in the quicksand,” Delta said thoughtfully.
“You were never in any real danger.”
Delta laughed. “Real danger? Where I come from, drowning in quicksand constitutes real danger.”
Shaman smiled. “Were you afraid of dying?”
Delta cocked her head. “Actually, I never thought of it.”
“Why do you suppose?”
“I’m not afraid of death.”
“But didn’t we just say that we are afraid of that which we do not know?” the shaman prodded.
“Yes.”
“Do you know death?”
The question puzzled her. “Do I know death?” Delta thought of Miles’s blood oozing over her hands as she sat holding him on a dark, cold street. “Yes. I do know death. Too well.”
“And you have let it rule your life. Join the living world, Delta Stevens, and release those whose deaths haunt you. Come. Close your eyes. Listen to the sounds of your breath as it joins with the rhythm of the universe. Breathe in as the land and the trees breathe. Feel your spirit touch the moon, the roots, the water, the air. Feel yourself become.”
Delta nodded as Shaman’s voice traveled into her ears, to her very being. And, as she let herself go, the drums she’d heard in the distance beat all about her. Opening her eyes, Delta found herself stood back in the clearing with Connie holding one arm, and Megan, the other.
“How’d he do that?” Delta asked, glancing across the fire at Shaman, who nodded once to her. All around the fire, men were beating drums while others danced. Shaman and Itka solemnly watched as the men performed their dance.
Eyeing Connie to her left and Megan on her right, Delta asked, “And what in the hell are you two doing?”
Connie and Megan frowned at each other and both women released their grips on Delta.
“Shaman said you had had enough and asked us to take you back to Itka’s hut,” Connie explained.
“Actually...I’m exhausted,” Delta said with a long sigh.
Megan laughed quietly. “I don’t doubt it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dance like that.”
Delta froze. “Dance? What are you talking about?”
“Call it whatever you want, honey, but you were absolutely hypnotic. You danced with those men as if you’d—”
“I’m telling you, I wasn’t dancing! I wasn’t even here!”
“Of course you were here, silly. We’ve been watching the most incred—”
“Look, I don’t know what you were watching, but I wasn’t here, and I never danced. I’ve been out in the jungle. So have you.”
Connie shot Megan a scowl that Delta didn’t miss.
“What? What’s the matter with you two?” Delta snapped.
Megan took Delta’s hand in hers. “Honey, you’ve been carrying on for almost two hours. You’re tired, and you drank way too much of Shaman’s brew.”
Delta took a step back and shook her head. “I don’t know what you were doing for the past few hours, but I wasn’t here. Shaman and I were in the forest with a jaguar and...”
Connie placed her fingers on Delta’s cheek. “You are part of their tribe now,” Connie said quietly. “You drank some of the shaman’s brew, Itka gave you a ceremonial blessing, and you spent the last two hours on a journey that only you will ever truly understand.”
What the hell was that? This wasn’t about becoming one with nature, or even this tribe. This experience, this journey, was about becoming one with herself. It was about facing the demons that had been eating her alive ever since she pulled the trigger and shot a man between the eyes. It was about letting go, as Conn
ie had said, and starting afresh. It was about Delta Stevens proving to herself that she wasn’t a killer. Her first reaction had been to kill the crocodile because of fear. That’s what had happened with the men she had killed. Delta had been afraid they would harm her or someone else, so she had killed them before they could kill. But it wasn’t that simple. Their deaths had stolen pieces of her humanity. They had taken part of her with them to Hell. And that’s what scared Delta the most—that she’d become an executioner of life, instead of its protector—someone whose primary instinct was to shoot first, think later. She’d lived with those deaths by believing she had simply done her job.
But she had lost her way if she believed that. After her first partner’s death, Delta had fallen off the path because she didn’t believe the rules applied to her any longer. And in doing so, she had almost destroyed herself.
Here, now, in the middle of a jungle, Delta started to cry. Her spirit had never recovered from the wound of Miles’s death, and she had spent the better part of five years risking everything in order to avenge it. But cutting corners, killing bad guys and acting like a vigilante would never bring Miles back.
Delta did not take her eyes off Connie. She hadn’t merely heard Connie’s words, she’d felt them. Every syllable shook Delta to the core. “But I did dance?” Delta asked, incredulously.
Connie nodded. “Your body reacted to the brew, but your spirit was someplace else.”
Delta nodded and pulled away from Connie. “What do you mean my spirit? How could I not know what my body was doing for over two hours?”
“You know the answer, Delta, only it’s a little scary to believe.”
Delta nodded, still slightly dazed. “Where’s Sal?”
“Shaman sent her back to the hut because he sensed that she was a disbeliever. She’s probably asleep by now.”
Delta Force Page 19