by Angela Hunt
“I hope the ant who bit me wasn’t a visiting tourist, then.”
Deborah released Alex’s wrist. “This welt should be gone by sundown. If you don’t have Benadryl, ask me when we stop for a break. I know I have some in my kit.”
Alex thanked her with a smile. “I never travel without it.”
“That’s good.” Deborah peered toward the front of the line, then lowered her voice. “So? What do you think of our Mr. Bancroft?”
“The commando?” Though she wasn’t in the mood for girl talk, Alex forced a laugh. “He’s all right, I guess.”
Deborah lifted a brow. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice how he was flirting with you.”
Alex would have stopped dead in her tracks if not for fear of being run over by Milos Olsson, who was panting heavily behind her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“My dear Alex,” Deborah said, grinning, “you’ve had your eye to a microscope far too long. Do you even remember how the game is played?”
Alex frowned. “I hardly think this is the time or place for games.”
“Any time, any place is appropriate when the propagation of the species is a priority.” Deborah smiled at Bancroft’s broad back. “Even the Bible says we are to go forth and multiply.”
“We’ve multiplied enough, I think. Last time I checked, the planet had more hungry children than it needs.”
Deborah heaved a sigh, then ducked beneath a spider web hanging like a silken parachute from a branch. “You’re right about that, I suppose, but still . . . I hope to find a little romance before I’m too old to enjoy it.” Her voice softened. “At least you have a child. My biological clock is rapidly winding down, and the Lord hasn’t yet seen fit to bring a husband and children my way. Sometimes I wonder if a family is in his plan for me.”
Beneath the brim of her sheltering hat, Alex cringed. Deborah Simons could spend her last breath blaming God for her lack of children, but Alex had a hunch the strait-laced entomologist had never even lost her virginity. “Wake up and join the twenty-first century,” she muttered under her breath.
“Beg pardon?”
“I said you can have Mr. Bancroft if you want him. I’m not interested.”
“Oh.” A moment of thoughtful silence, then: “Maybe you have your eye on someone else? Dr. Kenway, for instance?”
“Good grief, we’re not in high school.” From beneath her hat, Alex shot her companion a black look. “I have no time for anything but my work and my daughter—can’t you understand that?”
Deborah tilted her head back, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t have to get riled up about it. I was just trying to make conversation.” She shook her head. “Too bad. You’re an intelligent woman with a lot to offer. And your kid deserves a father.”
Alex snorted. “She has a father, a deadbeat who doesn’t deserve the title. And while I appreciate your interest in my emotional well-being, I can assure you that I am content with my life.”
“Sorry—didn’t mean to pry.” Deborah walked a while in silence, then lowered her head to meet Alex’s eye. “If you’re not interested in Duke, then you won’t mind if I talk to him a while?”
Alex wriggled her fingers in farewell. “Knock yourself out.”
As the entomologist pushed her way through the line, Caitlyn slid back into step beside her mother.
She grinned up at Alex. “I heard some of that.”
“Really? I wish you hadn’t.”
“She had a point, Mom. Your life shouldn’t be all work and no play.”
“I play a lot.”
“Like when?”
“Like . . . when you and I have fun together.”
“We do word games and crossword puzzles. Those don’t rank very high in the field of mindless entertainment.”
“Mindless entertainment is vastly overrated. The world is filled with loads of more important things.”
They walked without speaking while an oriole practiced his trills somewhere in the canopy overhead. As Alex bent to step under an overhanging branch, Caitlyn said, “Love is important, isn’t it? I mean . . . man-woman love?”
Straightening, Alex found herself torn between maternal instincts and self-defensiveness. “Well,” she waited until Caitlyn had passed under the branch, “sure it is, honey. And I’ve had that kind of love. I was in love with your father, and I gave that relationship all I could give. Then you came along and I adored you while your father . . . well, by that time he didn’t want to love me anymore. He loved you, but he didn’t have time for either of us. Our breakup wasn’t your fault, and I don’t think it was my fault, either. He just walked away and never looked back.”
Shadows lurked in Caitlyn’s brown eyes when she looked up again. “Do you miss him?”
“Not anymore, no. My heart is filled with you.”
She reached out, intending to slip an arm around Caitlyn’s shoulder, but the girl artfully dodged the gesture.
“I think Dr. Kenway must be a lot like my dad.”
Feeling suddenly limp with weariness, Alex made a face. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, Dad was intelligent, right? And Dr. Kenway’s very intellectual.”
Alex blew out her cheeks. “I suppose they are both smart men.”
“And Dad was handsome, right? I think Dr. Kenway is very handsome. He could be on TV playing Tarzan or something.”
Rolling her eyes, Alex thanked the stars above that Kenway walked at the back of the line, well out of hearing range. “Yes, they’re both handsome in their way. But Kenway looks nothing like your dad. Your dad was medium height, with blond hair and blue eyes. Your doctor friend’s eyes are blue, but they’re darker . . . and sometimes they’re a little scary. And all that hair?” She pretended to shudder.
Caitlyn tossed her head. “I don’t think he’s scary. I think he’s the nicest man in this group. And I like his hair.”
Alex pressed her lips together as a moment of understanding dawned. Caitlyn’s sudden fixation on Michael Kenway had to be a preadolescent crush. After all, Alex had been about ten when emotional infatuation hit her for the first time. She had fallen in deep and desperate love with Johnny Quest, not even minding that he was only a cartoon character.
Softening her tone, she smiled down at her daughter. “You’re right, honey, Dr. Kenway seems to be a nice man. A little too religious for my taste, but nice.”
Her daughter’s left brow rose a fraction. “Would you ever marry him?”
“Not in a million years. But that’s okay—you can still be his friend. I think we can trust him with friendship, don’t you?”
She had hoped this limited approval would lighten Caitlyn’s heart, but though her daughter smiled in response, tiny worry lines remained in the center of her ten-year-old forehead.
“He’d make a good father,” she said, her voice distracted. “And he likes kids.”
“I’m sure he does, honey, but when a man and woman get married, it’s important that they like each other more than anyone else in the world. And right now I’m pretty sure I’m not on Dr. Kenway’s list of favorite people.”
Caitlyn said nothing, but walked ahead, her eyes on the ground. Alex followed, her internal alarm systems on full alert. Something was not right with her daughter.
Caitlyn had never been good at keeping secrets, and behind her pasted smile a suggestion of melancholy radiated like some dark aura.
What could be bothering the child? Was it possible . . . no, Caitlyn was bright, but she could not have picked up any clues about Alex’s threatening illness. She had been too young to remember her grandmother’s symptoms, and Alex had been careful to hide every sign, every fear.
She swiped her damp bangs from her forehead, then saw her daughter glance back to the place where Kenway walked with the Peruvian soldier. So that was it, then. Caitlyn had developed a crush on the doctor, and Alex’s lack of support had splashed those tender feelings with a cold dose of reality.
This would pass, surely. U
nlike some diseases, adolescence was not terminal.
7 APRIL 2003
4:12 P.M.
Michael groaned as he slid his pack from his back, then lifted his arms to stretch his tired muscles. They had traveled through several kilometers of canopy forest, then found themselves in another stretch of edge habitat. Knowing that water had to lie somewhere nearby, Delmar pressed through the thick foliage until an inky ribbon appeared. Pausing there, he decided to establish an overnight camp on a stretch of riverbank.
“Hang your hammocks in the surrounding trees, and secure the mosquito netting while light remains,” Delmar had called, his grin revealing the gold surrounding his two front teeth. “We wouldn’t want the bats or mosquitoes carrying you away tonight.”
“Ken?” Lauren’s whine carried across the clearing. “Is he serious?”
Grateful for the day’s end, Michael opened his pack and pulled out the lightweight field hammock Carlton had given him earlier that morning. The ultramodern sleeper weighed only fifteen ounces, including support ropes, mosquito netting, and detachable rain fly.
As Bancroft and Chavez set about hacking away at the shrubby vegetation, Michael moved to a pair of trees and tied on his hammock. Once it was secure, he dropped his bag into the center of the fabric, then carefully lowered the mosquito netting over his bed and backpack. Though he was keen to learn about the jungle through firsthand experience, he wasn’t particularly eager to share his bed with an assortment of insects and vermin.
Slipping his hands into his pockets, he looked around to see how he could help the others. Carlton was building a fire in a small clearing, while Delmar stood at the water’s edge sharpening a narrow branch.
He walked toward Delmar, intending to offer his help, but he couldn’t help but notice that Alexandra and her daughter were struggling to secure their hammocks. An inner voice warned him away, but the girl looked as though she would welcome his help.
Locking his hands behind his back, he changed direction and approached them. “Can I offer my assistance?”
“No, thanks. We’ll manage.” Alexandra’s words came from behind clenched teeth, so he winked at Caitlyn and moved on to the river.
Delmar was tying a hook onto a length of monofilament as Michael approached. The Indian tracker glanced up, then held out the line. “Feel like fishing, Doctor?”
“I’d be happy to have a go at it if you’ll tell me how it’s done.”
The man’s mouth twisted in something not quite a smile. “The waters here are dark and still—perfect for piranha. Just tie the empty end of that line to a branch, then thrash it in the water. Bait it with a grub you’ve smeared with some blood from your finger; soon you’ll have fresh meat to bait the hook.”
Michael pulled his hunting knife from its leather sheaf, then cut a thin branch from one of the riverside shrubs. By the time he had securely tied the monofilament to the branch, Delmar and Bancroft already had lines dangling above the water.
The big Texan, however, looked a trifle nervous about approaching the water’s edge.
“Watch, amigos.” Delmar thrashed the tip of his stick in the water, then let the blood-smeared beetle on his hook drop into the water with a plop. Barely an instant later, the stick bent and the guide flipped his trophy onto the shore—a six-inch red-bellied piranha, whose razor teeth gleamed in the setting sunlight.
The guide grinned up at Michael. “He will bite you if you do not kill him. Do you know how to do that?”
Michael fingered the handle of his knife. “With a blade?”
“No. Like this.” While Michael and Bancroft watched, Delmar picked up the piranha by the tail, then tilted his head and sank his teeth into the spine just behind the gills. Within seconds, the toothy jaws stopped moving.
“Now I use my blade.” After tossing the fish onto a broad leaf, the Brazilian picked up his machete and chopped the fish into several bloody pieces. He tossed one of the silvery bits to Michael. “Put that on the end of your hook, Doctor, and we will have dinner within minutes.”
The guide’s words proved prophetic. Michael baited his hook, beat the water with his stick, and lowered the meat into the inky blackness. A moment later a piranha jerked on the end of his line.
Conscious of the other men’s eyes upon him, he swung the fish up, caught it by the flipping tail, and tilted his head. Though it unnerved him to breathe in the fishy scent and know that razor-sharp jaws were snapping only inches from his face, it would be far easier to kill the fish before removing his hook from its jaw.
The other men cheered as he bit down. Grinning in an acute combination of embarrassment and victory, he tossed the dead fish to Chavez, who had poured oil into a skillet.
Cheered on by Michael’s accomplishment, Olsson, Baklanov, and even Fortier dropped lines into the water.
“The women aren’t going to like this.” Bancroft looked up at Michael and winked. “Should we tell ’em they’re eating catfish or grouper?”
“You’d have to cut the heads off.” Michael glanced dubiously at the growing pile of toothy corpses. “Without the head, we won’t have much to cook.”
“We eat them all,” Delmar insisted. “Except the teeth, and our women save those for tijeras.”
“I’m sorry—what?”
Delmar’s forehead wrinkled as he sought the word. “Tijeras—you know, to cut things. Strings and yarn.”
“Scissors.” Michael supplied the word as he studied a piranha’s jaw. “Hinged scissors. Brilliant.”
As the sun sank over the treetops and the canopy began to flutter with nocturnal life, Carlton assembled the team around the campfire. He, Chavez, Delmar, and Bancroft were carrying a few bags of rice as emergency provisions, he explained, but these would not last more than a few days. In order to travel light, they would eat foods provided by the jungle. “Like piranha,” he finished, pointing to the steaming skillet.
“I hate fish.” Lauren Hayworth’s voice cut through the rattle of insects in the hot air. “I’d rather starve.”
“Stop complaining, Lauren,” Carlton snapped. “Eat what you’re given and be grateful for it.”
Michael looked up in time to see Miss Hayworth’s jaw drop, then he leaned back to let the women approach the fire. With the somber dignity of a chef at a four-star restaurant, Chavez served piranha to his companions. Delmar thoughtfully chopped the heads off a pair of fish for Caitlyn.
Aside from the whimpering Miss Hayworth, the other women seemed to be in good spirits. Alexandra nibbled at her fish with her eyes closed while Deborah Simons held hers aloft, staring at it as if it were a unique entomological specimen caught in one of her traps. Emma Whitmore ate stoically, with only an occasional disdainful glance in Lauren Hayworth’s direction. She did, however, discreetly spit out the eyes.
He watched, amused, while Caitlyn Pace flipped her decapitated fish over several times, then touched it with her tongue. Seeing her grimace, he walked over and squatted before her.
“How is it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Tastes like sardines, I guess. Maybe anchovies. And I’d give anything for a pizza to put under this thing.”
Michael tapped her on the shoulder. “I was rather hoping you’d be brave enough to have a go at it first. That way I’ll know if it’s edible.”
Rising to the challenge, Caitlyn closed her eyes, pinched her nostrils with two fingers, and took a big bite. Her nose crinkled, then after a moment she removed her hand and began to chew.
“I was right.” She looked at him, smiling as she swallowed. “We do need a pizza.”
Michael laughed. Gripping his dinner behind the gills, he ate it as cautiously as he’d killed it. He found the fish bony, crunchy, and a wee bit salty, but his ravenous appetite appreciated the food.
“Tell you what,” he told Caitlyn, who watched him with wide eyes. “When we make it back to civilization, the pizza’s on me. Deal?”
Caitlyn laughed, then cast a guilty glance in her mother’s direction. “Deal!
”
7 APRIL 2003
5:01 P.M.
After dinner, Alex watched in profound admiration as Duke Bancroft and Milos Olsson used a slingshot to propel a weighted rope over a high branch, then tied Chavez’s pack of supplies and cooking gear to the end of the line.
When the line dangled four feet off the ground, Delmar opened the foul-smelling leather pouch at his waist and sprinkled the bundle with some sort of dried herb. “It won’t be completely safe from predators,” he said, retying his pouch. “The ants can get to anything. But at least we can make them work a little harder for our food.”
Alex shook her head as she walked to the area where she and Caitlyn had hung their hammocks. She used to think the Indians spent their days pursuing food because a lack of education forced them to live hand-to-mouth. Now she understood that the jungle itself forced the lifestyle—without electricity, food could not be refrigerated. Salting as a method of food preservation wouldn’t even work here because none of the jungle structures she’d seen could effectively prevent ants or termites from getting at the food. She guessed nothing but pesticide could stop the insects that ruled the jungle, but poisoning them would affect the entire food chain.
Stepping out from behind a tree, Caitlyn tossed Alex a roll of toilet paper. “How embarrassing,” she said, her cheeks glowing even in the deepening shadows. “I will never get used to going behind a tree.”
“Just be glad you have toilet paper.” Alex opened her pack and stuffed the roll inside. “The natives don’t even have that. They use leaves, remember?”
Caitlyn backed up to her hammock, then gripped the edges and swung her legs up and into the curve of the fabric. “What if they get a poison leaf? Wouldn’t that itch like the devil?”
“Another good reason for taking the time to study your jungle plants.” Alex pulled the mosquito netting down over her daughter, then secured the Velcro strip along the hammock’s edges. They’d received vaccinations for hepatitis A, yellow fever, and tetanus before leaving Atlanta, but they had skipped the malaria treatment, trusting the CDC’s promise that malaria would not be a problem in the Peruvian Amazon. Still, one never knew what illnesses ticks, chiggers, and mosquitoes could carry. Dengue fever was common in these parts, and Alex had heard that ailment left patients wanting to die. . .