Otomi released his grip on her wrist and closed his eyes.
Lily met Carter’s gaze and he shook his head, fighting his own tears.
He didn’t want to say it, but he feared they might’ve just heard Otomi’s last words.
Chapter 9
The sun set at lightning speed, bringing with it plagues of insects and bloodcurdling howls from the monkeys. Darkness consumed them in a flash.
Lily had a decent fire blazing between the tent and the rotting jungle floor, and though its heat wasn’t welcome, the light and protection it provided were. From where Lily sat, she heard every ragged breath rattling from Otomi’s throat. While he lay in an apparent state of unconsciousness, Carter rummaged through Otomi’s backpack, looking for a satellite phone, or at the very least a map.
Lily didn’t put much hope on either miracle.
Her hunger pangs screamed at her, but despite cooking the rice and beans, she struggled to force anything down. It didn’t feel right to eat, not when their guide might be dying just six feet away. Her mind flitted to her father’s final moments of life.
Her dad had been out on one of the back paddocks when he’d had his heart attack. Three of her brothers had been with him when it’d happened. Two had stayed at his side, alternating turns at CPR, while Danny had raced the four-wheeler back to the farm to call an ambulance. Lily, her mother, and her three other brothers had made it back to her father’s side in time to be with him when he passed away. The ambulance had arrived more than an hour later to announce what they already knew.
His death had somehow seemed peaceful. His final moments were on a lush patch of green grass that he’d tended with his own hands. His fat milking cows had circled around them, curious about the attention. And her father had been surrounded by his wife and all seven of his children when he drew his last breath.
Her father was sixty-six years old when he died. His days had been filled with working on the land, and she’d always thought he was as fit as his sons were.
Apparently not.
In the ensuing days after his death, dozens of people had come through their home, offering both their condolences and an abundance of meals. Lily recalled looking at their ten-seat dining table brimming with food options and nearly throwing up at the sight. The idea of eating after what they’d been through was nauseating.
It was exactly how she felt now.
Once Carter finished tugging everything out of Otomi’s pack, he splayed his legs out before him and let out a big sigh. “I know it was a big ask for a satellite phone, but at least a map would’ve been helpful.”
She’d heard what he said, but her mind was a black fog, unable to comprehend the enormity of his statement. Her eyes drifted to Otomi and she stared at his chest, desperate to see it rise and fall. It seemed like forever, but she sighed when it did.
“So. I have a compass, but it’s only really helpful if we knew which direction we were heading. Here’s what we do know.” Carter drew her attention away from Otomi’s near lifeless body. “Otomi said he was taking us on a shortcut. So I figure if we keep heading downwards, then surely we’ll hit the river. All we have to do then is find the boat.”
The firelight gave her a very small viewing area. The rooster caught her eye. It pecked away at something in the bottom of its cage, oblivious to its owner’s life-or-death battle. “Shouldn’t we go the way we know? Back up to Agulinta and then to Yaxchilan?”
Carter blinked a few times, then frowned. “But that took two days. We don’t have enough food for another two days.”
“We’ll ration it.” Lily wiped sweat from her forehead, feeling grit and dirt beneath her fingertips.
He was silent for a few heartbeats. “Do you think we’ll find the way? I haven’t seen any tracks so far.”
“It’s better to go where we’ve been than try to figure out where we haven’t.”
The flames danced across his eyes. “I guess so.”
It was a long moment before Lily voiced what was on her mind. “What about Otomi?”
Carter nodded as if he’d expected her question. “We’ll make some kind of stretcher and carry him up with us.”
She nodded, and the shadow that clouded her heart lifted a fraction. “Okay. We can do that.”
“Of course we can. But you need to eat first.” Carter held her plate toward her. “Please eat; you need your energy.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, gripped the plate, and spooned a small portion of rice into her mouth.
The monkeys struck up a howling frenzy, blasting out a deafening noise that made it impossible to continue their conversation. It went on for several minutes, and Lily assumed the final gasp of the sun had vanished from the horizon. As suddenly as the cacophony had started, it abruptly stopped, plunging them into eerie silence.
Carter stood and let Pompa out of the cage. The fat bird spread its wings and ruffled his feathers, casting fluff into the air. Carter strolled to their packs, which were lined up by a tree trunk, and began plucking items from them. “So,” he said, “I figure it’ll take at least two more days before we reach the river again.” He looked to her for confirmation.
She shrugged her shoulders. “At least. We’ve had two overnight camps since we left the boat, and we took our time at each temple. But we’ll be slower carrying Otomi.”
“And we don’t know where we’re going.”
“Right.” She nodded. Whether they went up or down, they were in trouble.
“Between us we have three half bottles of water and one full one, but we’ll need to be conservative because we won’t run into fresh water again until we get back to Yaxchilan.”
That wonderful experience already seemed like a week ago. “What about food?”
He pointed at the diminished sack of rice. “I’d say we have enough rice for at least four more meals, and there’s one tin of corn and two tins of beans. So we’re fine.”
She thought his comment was a gross understatement. Lily finished the last mouthful of her rice and had a small sip of water.
“Remember, this is worst-case scenario. Chances are, we’ll run into other people along the way.”
“I hope so.” Although as they hadn’t seen anyone for days, she doubted it.
Otomi moaned, and both Carter and Lily raced to his side. Carter touched his shoulder. “Hey, buddy, we’re here.”
Lily placed her hand on his chest. Otomi’s eyes flickered open and he turned to Lily, but stared straight through her. She shuddered at the sight. Lily couldn’t be sure if it was the limited light or the poison taking over, but Otomi’s skin had a hideous purple hue. His breathing had become erratic, just inhaling seemed to be a challenge.
“Can we give him water?” Lily looked to Carter for an answer.
“The book said no.”
Lily shook her head. It didn’t seem right. Otomi’s lips were dry and flaky and his breathing sounded raspy. Despite what Carter said, she held her bottle to his lips, but Otomi didn’t even open them. Carter pulled down Otomi’s jaw, and Lily poured in the smallest amount. Otomi jerked and spluttered. The coughing fit wracked him violently, and Carter rolled him onto his side and patted his back.
When he settled again, Otomi whimpered, and a tear rolled down his cheek and fell onto the tent floor. His breathing slowed, and soon Lily assumed he’d fallen asleep. Carter nodded at her, and the two of them crawled out of the tent and sat by the fire again. Pompa pecked at the ground around an enormous tree, and somewhere in the blackness, a bird squawked out a mournful call.
Carter reached for a stick near him and used it to poke the flames. Sparks floated upward, caught in the slight breeze, drifted over his shoulder, and were swallowed by the dark void around them.
She felt him watching her, and locked eyes. “He’s going to die, isn’t he?” Lily sucked on her lip, forcing back the burn in h
er throat.
Carter tossed his stick aside and crawled to her. He put his arm around her shoulders, tugging her body to his, and she couldn’t hold back anymore. The tears flowed and she sobbed into his chest, crying for a man she’d known for just four days.
Lily tried to stop as Carter smoothed her hair, but she couldn’t. Sheer exhaustion and overwhelming horror gripped her. The fact that Carter hadn’t answered her question confirmed it.
Otomi was going to die.
The shocking consequence of his death suddenly hit her. She pulled back from Carter’s chest. “Are we going to die?”
“No.” His hazel eyes pierced her. “We are not going to die.”
“But we’re lost in the middle of the jungle.”
He removed his arm from her shoulders and tugged on his beard. “We’re not lost yet.”
She sat back from the flames, wiping her eyes and nose. “We don’t know where we are. That makes us lost.”
“We’re in Mexico, in the Yucatan. And we know enough to get us out of here.”
“Really? What exactly do we know?”
He ran his hand through his hair, drawing it back from his forehead. “We know that above us are two ancient temples. All we have to do is find our way back to them.”
She studied him. The soft glow from the fire highlighted a deep scar over his right eyebrow that she hadn’t noticed before. “You make it sound easy.”
He nodded with conviction. “Because it will be.”
Aware there was no point in arguing, she sighed. “Okay. What should we do now?”
He leaned forward and dusted his hands. “We’ll need to carry Otomi somehow. Want to help me build a stretcher?”
“Sure.” She nodded, grateful to have something to do. She crawled to her feet and it seemed every muscle hurt. Her back ached, her feet throbbed, and she rolled her neck from side to side trying to loosen the stiffness.
“First, we need strong branches, long enough to fit Otomi but not too heavy.” Lily headed toward the surrounding trees. The trunks were enormous, so big she’d have no hope of wrapping her arms around them. She looked up, trying to see how tall they were, but lost sight of the tree as it faded into the blackness above them.
Walking side by side, they headed away from the camp and into the dense jungle, with their flashlights illuminating the area in front of them. Hundreds of branches littered the forest floor, but picking the perfect ones was time consuming. Lily had no idea how long it took, but eventually they returned to the fire with their load.
Carter snapped off twigs lining the long, sturdy branches and tossed them into the fire. “Okay, now we need sticks about this length.” He held his hands shoulder-width apart. “We’ll lash them across this way.” He indicated horizontally to the longer branches they’d already collected.
Once again, they headed into the trees. Carter suggested they’d need about six sticks, and as they stepped farther and farther from the campsite, Lily made sure she could always see the flickering fire.
“Oh shit.” Lily stopped. Before her was a giant void. The jungle floor had literally dropped away. She stood on the edge of the world.
“Jesus, Lily. We could’ve fallen right off.” Carter dropped the branches and eased up beside her.
“I know.”
Their flashlights highlighted nothing but blackness. The moon was a giant beacon in the sky, but it was a long while before her eyes adjusted to the minimal light, allowing some shapes to form. Way down below she identified treetops, but that was about all.
Other than the moon and stars, there were no other lights. No big cities shimmering in the distance. No floodlit roads cutting through the landscape. Not even a plane in the sky. The isolation was a shocking reality check.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Welcome to the Yucatan jungle.” He actually seemed chirpy.
They stood for a long time, silently staring into the blackness, and she wondered if he was gripped with the same sense of foreboding she was, the one that weighed her down like a concrete blanket.
He let out a huge sigh and bent to collect the branches he’d dropped. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”
Lily dragged her eyes away from the vast beyond and highlighted their footing again with her flashlight. They meandered back toward the flames, and along the way found three more suitable branches. Carter tossed them down, and while he fiddled with the branches, she went into the tent.
Otomi’s breathing was erratic; each breath looked torturous. Listening to his raspy chest, she shone her flashlight on his bandages. His leg had swollen so much the bandages strangled his calf. “Carter!”
He was there in a flash. “Look.” Otomi’s foot was dark purple and had ballooned to at least twice its original size.
“Shit. Shit.” Carter scrubbed dirt off his hands. “That’s not good.”
“Do we take the bandage off?”
“I don’t know. The guidebook only said to bandage the appendage up.”
“Then what did it say?”
He cocked his head. “Go immediately to a hospital.”
She glared at him. “You’re not helping.”
“Just telling you what it said.”
Lily’s heart was set to explode. “What do we do?”
Carter drove his fingers through his hair. “I think we take the bandage off?”
“What? What about the poison?”
“I know, but it’s too tight. Look at his foot; he’ll lose circulation.”
Acid burned her stomach at the thought of touching Otomi, but as Carter moved to their guide’s feet, she had no choice.
“I’ll lift his foot,” Carter said, “and you undo the bandage. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Carter placed his hand under Otomi’s ankle, and Lily worked quickly to undo the butterfly clips. She flipped the bandage around and around, gradually revealing red and purple-mottled skin. The higher she went the worse the smell became, and Lily rode a hideous wave of nausea when she uncovered the actual wound.
The two puncture marks were no longer tiny pinpricks; they were great festering wounds, red, pus-filled, open abscesses.
Lily had smelled death before. Having grown up on a farm, she’d seen her fair share of animals in various stages of decay. Based on what she smelled and saw right now, Otomi would be lucky to make it through the night.
She cast the ghastly thought aside and finished unravelling the bandage. Carter put Otomi’s foot down and shook his head at her. He may’ve arrived at the same conclusion she had. With nothing else to do, they both retreated back outside.
She sucked sweet forest air into her lungs, crumbled to the ground, wrapped her arms around her legs, and stared wide-eyed at the flames. Tears didn’t come this time; it was more a state of disbelief that monopolized her thoughts.
How could one day give rise to so much emotion?
This morning she’d been filled with an overwhelming sense of achievement; twelve hours later an overwhelming sense of despair dominated.
“Lily?”
She viewed Carter over the fire. His lips were the color of overripe strawberries, as if he’d licked them repeatedly. “Yes?”
“Otomi probably won’t make it to tomorrow.”
She sighed a deep sigh. “I know.”
“Which means we have a very big decision to make.”
Her mind spun. “What?”
“What to do with his body.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well . . . we could try to take him with us.” He paused as if letting her finish his train of thought. She knew where he was going with his opening statement, but she didn’t want to say it. Couldn’t. She sucked her lips into her mouth, refusing to answer.
“Or we leave him here.”
She squ
eezed her eyes shut and covered them with her palms. Both Carter’s options were hideous. The thought of carrying a dead man for miles made her stomach turn, but the other option was appalling too. To leave him here, all alone, was wrong on so many counts.
“Lily?”
She dragged her palms away and her chin dimpled. But she didn’t want to cry anymore. More than anything, she was angry. “This is so fucked up. Everyone told me this was dangerous. You know what my boss said?”
A log tumbled into the fire, casting fireworks of sparks that shot into the air and drifted away in the breeze. “What?”
“He said a girl like me wouldn’t survive out here.”
“Well, he’s wrong. You will survive. We will survive.” He stood and tossed the branches they’d so carefully gathered for Otomi’s stretcher into the fire. Then he came around to her. When he sat again their shoulders touched. “You and I are going to walk out of here and tell the world all about what happened. They’ll see that not only did you survive, but you survived under the most extreme circumstances.”
She nodded, wanting to believe every word he’d said.
“We can do this, Lily. But I need your help.”
She blinked at him. No one had ever needed her, not for anything.
“We’re in for a rough couple of days, but we have to work together. Okay?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He put his arm around her shoulders for a quick squeeze. “Help me catch that silly bird, then we’ll get our beds organized.” He stood and held out his hand. She reached up, he tugged her to her feet, and she wiped her dirty palms on her cargo pants.
Pompa wasn’t as hard to catch as Lily thought he would be; the bird was obviously used to being handled. Once he was safely in his cage, she turned to Carter. “Tell me we’re taking the rooster with us.”
He rolled his eyes to the blackness, as if debating her question.
“Carter, I’m not going without the bird. You heard what Otomi said. Pompa is obviously important to their family. To their income.” She paused, letting it sink in. “It was Otomi’s dying wish. Are you going to deny that?”
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