by Kay Thorpe
The head of the rapids was reached without mishap, although Mark bemoaned lost opportunities for studying the various mosses along the way. Greg's announcement that they would make camp for the night before putting off into the safe deep water again met with enthusiastic approval from the older man, who immediately declared his intention of returning along the route they had travelled to collect specimens. This time Jason was quite ready to accompany him, obviously preferring the open banks to the dark depths of the forest.
Greg insisted on them taking a couple of the Indians with them, despite Mark's assurance that they would be perfectly safe alone. A couple of the ones remaining were set the task of catching' something for supper, vanishing silently into the forest with blowpipes at the ready.
`With any luck they'll come back with some bush turkeys,' he remarked to Keely. 'Make a change from fish, although we could always open some beans if you'd rather have what you know about.'
`We still have almost two hours of daylight left,' she pointed out, ignoring the satire. 'I thought you were in a hurry?'
`We made good time so far. Enough so to give Mark what he needs.' He was busy with one of the packs, not looking at her. 'With luck we'll make journey's end by midmorning day after tomorrow. Only another two bad stretches after this. If you want to make yourself useful try finding some dry matches in that other pack. These are damp.'
Even with a fire lit and glowing, the Indians made no attempt to join them, squatting comfortably in a small circle some short distance away to converse among themselves. The shadows lengthened along the river's edge, merging into the belt of trees beyond and lending an eerie light to the slight mist hanging over the water where it slid between the outposts of rock. Aeons ago this whole area would have been bare before the river washed down enough silt to form a base for seeds to root. The jungle was self-perpetuating, spreading wherever soil of any kind offered itself, unconquered and unconquerable in its vastness. Leaning casually against one of the packs with legs outstretched towards the fire, Greg looked as though he belonged; as though this was where he wanted to be. A savage in a savage land, Keely reflected, and felt her throat start to ache.
`I hope they're all right,' she murmured when an hour had gone by since the Colbys' departure. 'They're taking an awful long time to collect a few specimens.'
`Which one are you worried about?' Greg asked without lifting his head. 'Jason might be a bit of a fool in some ways,
but he's not going to risk his life over his job. If Mark wants some of those podostemeae from the rocks at the base of the falls he's going to have to get them himself.'
`That's hardly fair,' she protested on a rising inflection. `Just because Jason doesn't have his uncle's enthusiasm for this part of the world you don't have to call him a coward! He loves his work equally well but in a different way.'
`You've known him all of a week,' he said. 'I guess that gives you adequate time to have worked out exactly what makes him tick, considering your bent for spot analysis. Personally, I'd say he's no clear idea of what he does want ... unless it's to Make love to you. If I'd gathered his hopeful motives for staying on board last night I'd have left you with him.'
`No, you wouldn't.' She was taut and biting. 'I'm not a chattel of yours to be handed around as you think fit. If I'd stayed on board last night it would have been because I wanted to.'
But instead you preferred to risk yourself in my hands,' on a mocking note. 'Maybe I should have taken you up on that promise you showed while I had the chance.'
Keely was silent for a long moment. When she did speak her voice was low. 'Why do you find it so necessary to be hateful all the time?'
He studied her across the small distance between them, eyes suddenly harder. 'Why do you find it so difficult to admit you want a man? Women are no less physical when it all boils down, you just like to think you are. If you'd start being honest with yourself we might hit it off together ... for a time.'
`And after that?' The words were dragged from her against her will, almost as though some deep down part of her needed to hear the answer.
He shrugged. 'You'd go your way and I'd go mine. What else?'
`I'm just trying to get things quite clear.' She still felt the same crazy impulse to go on With this dangerous conversation. 'The way I see it, you're suggesting I should become your mistress until you get tired of me. Is that right?'
`I suppose it's one way of putting it.' There was an odd expression on the angular features. 'Considering it?'
Her head came up slowly. 'I wouldn't consider it,' she said with clarity, 'if you were the last Man on earth!'
His face changed again, mouth tilting into the familiar jeering line. 'Honey, if I were the last man on earth you'd have to stand in the queue. If it's true love you're after settle for Jason. He won't excite you, but he'll be ever faithful.'
`You don't excite me,' she shot back at him, and saw him smile.
Not much I don't. Care for another example?'
Keely drew in a steadying breath. 'You wouldn't find it so good for your ego this time. I was feeling out of my depth last night in that village. You just happened to come along at the right psychological moment, that's all.'
`Meaning you'd have responded the same way to any man offering comfort?' Greg shook a sceptical head and reached out for her, ignoring the group of Indians nearby. `There's one way of proving it.'
She had asked for it, and she knew it, yet she still somehow hadn't anticipated such immediate action, on his part. The sight of the men emerging from the trees behind him brought a surge of mixed emotions.
`Your hunters are back,' she said.
`What a relief,' he mocked, but he released her wrist. 'So we leave it till later. And don't think I'm going to forget either. Psychological moment, my eye !'
The Colbys came back soon afterwards. Even Jason was enthusiastic about the specimens they had obtained.
`Most of those rock plants growing in the river are epiphytes,' Mark explained in answer to Greg's idle questioning. 'Normally they grow only on other plants, like parasites, but these have adapted surprisingly well. The only trouble is they're made almost entirely of water. Take them out of it and they'd shrivel up to nothing in the heat. I've seen a plant several feet long shrink to a few fibres within half an hour of being cut. Luckily I've had the opportunity to study them in their natural environment on several occasions.' He turned back to his nephew. 'Jason, we must get these properly packed and classified before we sleep tonight.'
Keely caught Greg's glance and felt the tension rise within her. With the other two occupied it left the two of them to entertain one another. But not in the way he was thinking of, that was for certain
The bush turkeys brought back by the two hunters proved excellent eating. They ate primitive fashion about the fire in the humming darkness, tearing at the roasted meat with fingers and teeth in sublime indifference to the juices running from it. After the first self-consciousness had worn off, Keely had to concede she had rarely enjoyed a meal more. The leaping firelight against the dark mass of trees at their backs, the sound of water falling down the ravine, the occasional cries of animal life from the forest, all somehow contributed to that enjoyment. Off the surface of the river itself the night air retained a great deal of the daylight heat without being too uncomfortable. For once even the mosquitoes seemed to be leaving them alone.
Looking round the circle of faces, both dark-skinned and light, she could almost begin to understand something of the urge which brought men like Greg to live their lives in the wilderness. There was peace here; acceptance without question; life itself reduced to the simple basics. Yet wasn't that simplicity itself dangerous in its very lack of challenge?
Without ambition there was no progress, and without progress there was no point. The Indians lived and died—for what? Full circle, she thought wryly. If there was an answer it was beyond her to come up with it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
jason and Mark began work as soon
as they had finished eating, soon absorbed in their task of sorting and separating the specimens of plant life they wished to preserve. On the far side of the fire, Keely drank down the last dregs of the coffee which had been their only concession to civilised habit and tried to ignore the fact that Greg's head was almost touching her hip as he lay with it propped against a bent elbow in the same casual pose he had adopted earlier. The Indians had retired a short distance away to sample the stock of native beer they had brought with them in calabash jugs. They were obviously having a great time of it judging from the volume of noise coming from the group.
`Why don't you go and join them?' she suggested low-toned to Greg at last, unable to bear the strain of silence any longer. 'You're well in. I'm sure they wouldn't mind opening ranks.'
`That stuff they're drinking is lethal to anybody not brought up on it,' he said without moving. 'No knowing what I might be capable of under its fluence.'
`You don't need any incentive.' Her tone disregarded caution. 'You're more of a savage than they'll ever be !'
This time his head did turn enough to look up at her, one brow faintly lifted. 'Feeling safe because the Colbys are close by? Try another crack like that and you'll find out just how savage I can get !' He waited, mouth pulling into a jeering smile when she failed to answer. 'Sensible girl. First time you've shown any real sign of discretion.'
`Being the better part of valour?' Two spots of colour burned high on her cheekbones. 'Perhaps I'm only just be-
ginning to accept your lack of ordinary human decency in its true sense. Most people have some redeeming feature no matter how rotten they might seem on the surface. I'm giving up hope of ever finding yours.'
His voice was indifferent. 'I'll try not to let it get me down.'
He had turned his face back to the fire, his features from this angle sharply etched in bronze. Looking down at him, Keely knew a sudden irrational longing to bend and put her lips to that strong, cruel mouth and search for the man she had thought she sensed last night during the first brief moment of his kiss. She could tell herself he wasn't worth a second thought till the cows came home and it still wouldn't make her believe it right down inside where it mattered. Mark Colby knew a different Greg; it was only to her that he showed this other side. It was almost as if he wanted her to hate him. As if he got some kind of personal satisfaction from making her cringe from him. Last night she hadn't cringed away and so he had found another way of getting at her. But for a moment, just for a moment, there had been some different element in his embrace before his lips had once more hardened into brutal demand.
She hadn't meant to say it, but the words were out before she had time to think about it. 'That woman in Peru has a lot to answer for, doesn't she?'
It seemed an age before he spoke, his whole body tensed although he hadn't moved a muscle. 'Who told you about that?'
She heard the bite in his voice, but it was too late now to retract. 'Does it matter? She's the reason you despise the whole female sex.'
`Maybe one of them.' He was in control of himself again, face shuttered, mouth cynical. 'And I'd say despise was the wrong word. Let's call you a necessary commodity; useful to have around, but preferably only when required.'
`A pity,' she retorted, 'that you can't depersonalise us altogether !'
'You've already done that for yourselves.'
`Meaning what?'
`Meaning, honey, that you're all the same under the skin. Opportunists every damn one of you ... and the first to raise a yell if the tables get turned occasionally. You were willing enough to use your sex to try to get me to bring you out here, but not prepared to come through in any way when it came to the point. I should have sorted you out there and then instead of settling for half measures. You might have thought twice about risking your neck again.'
Green eyes sparked in the flickering light. 'I wouldn't be worth much in my job if I weren't prepared to take a few risks to get a story. And why don't you stop kidding yourself? If you'd ever really intended to make me keep that so-called bargain you'd have done it the night you came to my room.'
He shook his head. 'Too easy. This way you don't know when or where, and that's part of the price. Only make no mistake about it, you're going to pay out in full.'
`No, I'm not.' It was hard to keep her voice down so that the others would not hear, harder still to meet the glittering impact of his gaze. He had raised himself up so that their heads were on a level, so close she could see the two-day stubble of beard along his jawline as individual hairs rather than an overall dark shadow. There was something in the fleeting thought of that roughness against her own skin which quickened her senses. It took all she had to stop the swift flare of emotion from showing in her face. 'I'll kill you first,' she said.
`You might have to.' His mouth had taken on a slant. `What was it you were saying about savages?'
Keely bit her lip, conscious that he was laughing at her. His quick changes of mood were one of the most disconceiling things about him. She couldn't keep up. A little desperately she tried another tack. 'Greg, do we have to fight like this all the time? You've had your fun. I'll even admit to regretting the whole affair if that's what you want.'
`It goes some way.' He studied her with eyes scarcely less hard than they had been a few moments ago. 'A little more practice and you might even get the hang of it.'
Her brows contracted. 'The hang of what?' `Compromise, honey. Except that you're wasting your time. I don't recognise the word.'
`You wouldn't.' She said it through her teeth. 'And stop calling me honey !'
Her voice had risen enough to attract attention from across the fire. She felt rather than saw the others look up and forced herself to calmness again. There was nothing to be gained from losing her temper—or her nerve either. That was what Greg wanted, to have her break down and beg him to leave her alone. Well, she wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. Not unless it became a last resort. All she had to do was to make sure she was never alone with him again as she had been the night before in the village. No matter what he threatened, he was hardly likely to attempt to carry it through with the Colbys looking on.
She got up with deliberation and went round the fire to where the others sat, dropping to her haunches at Jason's side and smiling an interest in what the two of them were doing. 'Any way I can help?'
`We've almost finished.' It was Mark who spoke, his glance going thoughtfully from her face to that of the man still lounging opposite. 'I wonder if the Indians are likely to keep up this row much longer. Perhaps I'd better put it to Greg, or we'll all be shattered for tomorrow's journeyings.'
Keely avoided Jason's eyes as the older man got to his feet and moved off over the scrubby grass. 'It's turning out
to be a lot more difficult trip than I imagined back in Manaus,' she said wryly. 'We seem to have been weeks in this darned jungle !'
`I know.' He sounded sympathetic. 'It gets to you like that, unless you're lucky enough to be able to ignore the worst of it like Mark does. For him the incentive of finding the Fire Flower more than makes up for any privations he might have to endure.'
But not for you?'
`No. I'm hating almost every moment of this trip !' His voice was suddenly impassioned. 'I'd give anything to be back among civilised surroundings again. These people could murder us in our beds and nobody would be any the wiser.'
`I hardly think that's likely. Greg seems to trust them implicitly.'
`Why shouldn't he? He's more at home among them than he was in Manaus.'
It was what Keely herself had been thinking such a short time ago, yet some part of her leapt instinctively to Greg's defence. 'Perhaps he feels he has more reason to trust these people.'
He looked at her sharply. 'You're finding excuses for him. After the way he's treated you since we set off I'd have thought you'd be the last one to stand up for him in any way.'
`There's good in everyone if you look for it.' Keely was already regretting the too
hasty reply. 'Even a man like Greg Stirling can't be entirely without a better side to his nature. Your uncle has a great deal of faith in him.'
`He only sees what he wants to see.' The words were faintly bitter. 'He's even talking now about an expedition to the Peruvian mountains.'
`Then tell him you don't want to go.'
`He wouldn't accept it.'
`He'd have to accept it if you were firm enough.' Keely encouragement reached out and touched his hand in instinctive
. 'Jason, you can't live all your life being something you're not. Sooner or later you're going to have to make a stand and tell him you want to do your own thing. He loves the challenge of these expeditions to far-flung places, and you'd rather stay at home and work. It's quite straightforward.'
`And rather dull.' He was watching her with a certain acceptance in his gaze. 'No, don't bother trying to deny it. I know it. Girls go for a spirit of adventure in a man, and I've never had one.'
Not all of them,' she returned quickly. 'You've just never met the right one for you, that's all.'
`I've met her.' The statement was quiet.
Mark came back before Keely could think of any adequate reply—if there was one. 'Greg says they'll settle down once they see we're ready to,' he announced. 'I'm afraid the hammocks are out for tonight, but we should be able to rig the nets up with some props. I'm afraid we have to settle for .sleeping in our clothes again, but apparently this part of the river is clear of piranha, so we might manage a quick dip before leaving in the morning.'
`I hope so.' Keely was glad of the excuse to start moving. She avoided looking at Jason again. He wasn't really serious, she comforted herself. He just thought he was. He would get over it once this thing was over. She only hoped the same might apply to her with regard to Greg.