Camouflage Heart

by Dana Marton

  “I lost it when I lost the boat.”

  She heard something move in the bushes ahead to the left, lifted a little so if Brian had to jump up, he could get his arm from under her neck with ease.

  But instead, he suddenly relaxed, letting his head fall back with a strangled laugh.

  “What?”

  “Look.” He nodded toward the forest, and a second later a large orangutan sashayed out into the open.

  He stopped and looked them over with interest, his orange fur wet and matted. The open perusal on his face was nearly human. She felt embarrassed by her nakedness.

  Oh dear. She looked for her pants—out of reach.

  Brian got up and pulled on his clothes. She stayed where she was, staring at the animal, too scared to move. It was pretty big, as tall as four feet, showing some nasty teeth as it curled its black lips.

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Nah. Harmless things.”

  The orangutan lumbered closer, fingered the platform she was lying on, poked her naked belly. She forced herself to stay still, not wanting to provoke it. She was a city girl. She didn’t know how to deal with wild animals. Her only exposure to the animal kingdom had been a couple of goldfish back in grade school.

  “Brian?” she squeaked.

  He looked up from buttoning his shirt, stepped closer. “Hands off, buddy, the lady is mine.”

  Her breath caught in her chest, and she recognized at that moment he realized what he had said, because he snatched his gaze from her and pretended to pay attention to his buttons again.

  She worked up enough courage and grabbed her own semidry clothing, shrugged into it piece by piece, careful to keep a few feet between herself and the orangutan. “What does he want?”

  “Who knows.” Brian reached his hand toward the animal. “He’s just probably curious.”

  The next second, without warning, the orangutan rushed up the nearest tree, startling her into a small scream. He disappeared from sight as quick as he had appeared.

  “What was that about?” she asked, and heard gunfire in the distance just as the last word was out.

  “We have to go.” Brian jumped to the canoe.

  She made quick work of dressing and went to help him. It wasn’t easy. She kept slipping in the mud. Dammit. She scraped the back of her hand, but ignored the burn.

  The guns sounded closer and closer.

  Then the canoe was free, and they carried it toward the river, making slow progress between the trees.

  Brian dropped the front finally. “We’d be sitting ducks on the water,” he said, his face mirroring his frustration.

  “Can we hide until they pass?” She set down the back end and jumped when a succession of shots banged through the air somewhere nearby.

  Whoever was shooting, she didn’t think they were shooting at Brian and her. They were too far still. But they weren’t poachers, either. She had shot a semi-automatic rifle when she’d gone after Brian to Hamid’s camp, and that’s what the shots sounded like now, coming fast together.

  He looked at her, back at the canoe, hesitated for a moment, then grabbed her hand and lurched forward.

  “Run!”

  Chapter Ten

  They scampered through the forest, careful to make as little noise as possible, ducking under vines, zigzagging around obstacles. Audrey was gasping the humid air when they stopped a few minutes later. But at least they had managed to put some distance between them and the gunfire that seemed to come from every direction.

  “Sounds like a major offensive.” Brian scoured the woods.

  A loud boom of some serious weapon punctuated his last word, coming from the east.

  She jumped closer to him. “What was that?”

  The tight set of his shoulders relaxed, and he flashed an unexpected grin at her. “The army.”

  “How do you know?” She held her soaring hope in check. Could it be so simple? Could rescue be just around the corner?

  “That was a rocket launcher, not your standard guerilla ammo. It’s too cumbersome to carry around in the jungle and not much use with the limited visibility the trees impose. Let’s go.”

  “Do you think they came for the hostages?” She hurried to keep up with him as he moved forward, even passed him after a while, eager to spot their saviors. “We’ve done it, haven’t we? They will protect us and send word of the KL attack.”

  “With some luck. We have to be very careful, though.” And as if to punctuate his words, he grabbed her and pulled her back, shoved her behind him.

  She gasped at his uncharacteristic roughness. “You don’t have to—” Then she saw something move on the branch that a second ago had been inches from her face.

  A snake.

  “Don’t move.” Brian stood perfectly still, as the snake stared at them and lifted its head, ready to strike.

  Her blood thundered in her ear. How on earth had she missed that? It was at least five feet, although hard to tell exactly since its length was draped, and in some sections coiled, around the gnarly branch.

  “Is it poisonous?” She barely breathed the words.

  “Move back slowly.”

  She couldn’t. She was as paralyzed as if she’d been bitten. All she could think of was Joey, her aunt’s German shepherd that had gotten into a fight with a rattler during one of the summers she had spent with her aunt in Texas, and the painful death the poor dog had died, despite all intervention.

  “Don’t look at the snake. Look at your feet.” Brian’s voice was full of patience.

  It reached her on some level. She had to move. He was in front of her and couldn’t pull back until she did. He had put himself into harm’s way for her once again. She took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed one foot back, then the other.

  “You’re doing fine, keep going.”

  The sound of gunfire filled the air again. They were so close. The army was here. They were as good as saved, and could tell them where the hostages were. Nicky could be back in Kuala Lumpur by tonight, and she with her, and Brian. She pushed away the panic that gripped her limbs and did as Brian had asked.

  “I’m petrified of snakes,” she said after they had gotten far enough to move normally and resumed their trek. She was watching every branch now, every spot she set her feet, instead of blindly following Brian, getting lost in her thoughts as she had earlier.

  “They didn’t seem to bother you before.” He glanced back.

  “Before?”

  “When we passed them.” He turned his attention to the woods again, led the way around a patch of giant root buttresses.

  The muscles in her legs went weak. She pulled her neck in, feeling all of a sudden that the trees above them were full of nasty things just waiting to drop on her shoulders. She tugged the new leaf-hat he’d made her earlier firmly into place. Snakes. She hadn’t seen them before. She’d been too busy thinking about Nicky, and surviving to the next day. She had been focused on Brian.

  “It might not have been poisonous,” he said over his shoulder. “I don’t remember seeing that kind before. There must be a hundred species of snakes on Borneo, I doubt anyone but the local tribes know all of them.”

  Great. That information made her feel so much better. There were things she simply didn’t need to know. She shivered in the heat, her skin covered in goose bumps from thinking about a hundred different snakes.

  The gunfight ebbed, then started up again. The closer they got, the slower they went.

  “You better stay here,” Brian said after a couple of hundred feet. “This is going to be tricky.”

  “No,” she said without thinking, as the panic she had just conquered, slammed into her midsection again. “I don’t want to stay alone.”

  He looked at her for a long moment then drew her in for a tight hug. “I hate the thought of leaving you behind, but they might shoot at me. Hell, they probably will. Things could get dangerous.”

  “What isn’t?”

  She lifted her face t
o him, and realized that more than she was scared of snakes and other jungle perils, more than she was scared of being left alone, she was scared for him. What if something happened to him and she wasn’t there to help? “We’re a team. I’m coming.”

  He watched her for a long moment, brushed his lips against her forehead suddenly, then let her go. “Okay. But only because I don’t think it’s safe to leave you tied to a tree. Stay behind me at all times.”

  She smiled at him and filled her lungs.

  They crept from cover to cover, bush to bush. Then the vegetation thickened as they came to the edge of a swollen creek. The army was on the other side. She couldn’t see them, but the gunfire was close enough for her to want to stay flattened to the ground.

  Then after a while, the guns fell silent.

  “I’m going to try to make contact,” he said, and led her to a large rock boulder. “You wait for me. I’m not going far.”

  She began to protest, but he silenced her with a look. “This part is not negotiable.”

  “Don’t take any chances.”

  He looked at her with humor in his startling blue eyes. “I think it’s a little too late for that.”

  He dropped to his stomach and crawled to the trees on the side of the creek. From her vantage point she could see both him and the other side. Then the leaves began to move over there. The army was coming. She could see the first soldier hack through the jumble of vines.

  More came, scanning the jungle, their guns in front of them, ready.

  Brian stripped off his shirt, stuck it out on a stick, a makeshift “white flag” that was dirty brown. “Americans,” he yelled the single word at the same time, but it was no use.

  They started shooting as soon as the first syllable was out. And they did a thorough job of it. She didn’t have to be told to run. Brian pointed south, scrambling toward her, and she sprinted, pushed by a strong sense of self-preservation.

  “Not too trigger-happy, are they?” she said when they were far enough so they could stop to catch their breath.

  “They’re in the middle of a fight. They’re gonna shoot at everything that moves. Can’t say I blame them. Still, I had to give it a try.”

  She was drowning in disappointment. It didn’t work. Their best hope for survival was a bust.

  “What are we going to do?” Without the canoe their mission was doomed, and they definitely couldn’t go back that way to retrieve it. “Maybe if I went to them. They wouldn’t shoot at a woman, would they?”

  “Don’t even think about it. We’ll wait until nightfall, then I’ll sneak into their camp and disarm a guard. I’ll explain what’s going on, so he can call off the rest. Then they can radio in what we have on KL and call in help to pick up your sister and the others.”

  It sounded feasible, not that she felt comfortable with it, but it had been a while since she had felt comfortable with anything. Brian had proven to her over and over again that he was capable, that he knew what he was doing. She had to trust him. And she did. “Sounds like a plan. What do we do in the meanwhile?”

  “Find food and shelter. But if they move on, we’re going to have to follow them.” He took off his belt and jumped to the ground, ripped off his shirtsleeve, rolled it up.

  “What are you doing?” Then she saw the dark patch on his pants. “You’re shot!”

  She dropped to her knees next to him, pressed the rolled-up cloth to the wound while he tied the belt in place to keep the pressure on.

  “It’s your good leg.” Her gaze flew to his. God, it was so unfair.

  “Just a flesh wound. Nothing serious.” He smiled at her. “If all goes well, tomorrow morning they’ll be airlifting us out.”

  She had to believe that. Because no way could Brian make it out of the jungle like this. And neither would she without him.

  “Come on.” He grabbed her hand and stood with her. “We have a lunch date with some grubs.”

  She wiped his blood on her pants and went with him, food being the last thing on her mind for once. He was injured. Reality was still sinking in. His injury changed everything. They no longer had the option of walking away from the army and trying to make it out of the jungle on their own. He needed help, and he needed it fast.

  He grabbed a fallen branch to help him support his weight as he walked, and she watched his more pronounced limp. “Do you think this is going to work?”

  “We’ll make it work.”

  “What if the army…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, but her doubts echoed in her head. What if they couldn’t make contact? What if the army attacked them thinking they were the enemy?

  “If they get me before I can talk to them, I want you to find the river and follow it out of the jungle. Once you get down far enough there’ll be some villages. Somebody will have a cell phone or a radio.” His voice was thick. He didn’t turn around to look at her.

  “It’s not going to happen,” she rushed to say, wishing she had kept her fears to herself.

  “I hope not, but it could. If there’s one group trained as well in jungle warfare as mine, it’s the Royal Malaysian Army. It’s not gonna be easy to sneak up on them.”

  “But if I went to them? I’m a woman. I look foreign.” She wished he would consider that as an option.

  “They’d be shooting at you long before they saw you. They’re at high alert, in the middle of an offensive. I shouldn’t have tried to approach them at the creek. It was a mistake. If you end up on your own and meet up with soldiers, don’t move toward them unless you have a large enough open area where you can come at them from far away. Walk with your hands high in the air, or down on your knees with your hands linked behind your head. Whatever you do, don’t surprise them.”

  He stopped by a fallen log and lifted it, holding it with both hands.

  She was trying to form an argument, but the foot-long centipede he’d uncovered stopped her thoughts. A long moment passed before she realized he was probably waiting for her to pick it up. “I’ll chew off my own arm before I’m eating that.”

  But his attention wasn’t on what was under the log.

  He shook his head, nodded toward the woods, then slowly lowered the chunk of deadwood. What? She listened and heard the soft noise. A small deer, no bigger than a hare, stumbled from the bushes. It stared at them, drummed on the ground with its feet that were literally the length and thickness of a pencil, then darted to the right.

  Brian lunged and threw himself at the animal, but he’d been too far, his legs not having enough power for the move. He missed by a foot, and the deer took off into the woods with dazzling speed.

  “Damn.” He groaned as he got up.

  “Are you hurt?” She was at his side the next second, supporting him. Stupid question. Of course he was hurt. Fresh blood seeped through his pants. “Don’t do that again.”

  He pulled away, as if he was embarrassed, and shrugged. “We need to eat.”

  “Was it a fawn? It was tiny. I can’t believe how fast it ran.” Although its head, legs and coloring were that of a deer, its body was rounder, strangely formed.

  He found his stick and leaned on it. “A mouse deer,” he said. “That’s as big as they get. It would have made a fine dinner.”

  She’d only had venison once before and didn’t particularly take to it, but the idea of real food, meat, made saliva gather in her mouth. Her stomach growled. She kicked up some leaf mold and found a half-dozen beetle-like bugs, with alternating brilliant red and blue stripes. “How about these?”

  “Probably not a good bet. Bright color is usually a warning sign that they’re poisonous.”

  She watched the bugs burrow into the dirt as she stood. She wasn’t all that disappointed. “Maybe we’ll come across some fruit.”

  But they didn’t. It took another half an hour before they found a handful of grubs that were good to eat. And since the skies opened again by then, they washed down their lunch with some rainwater. When they were done, Brian help
ed her up a tree and wove some leaves together over them—not a terribly effective shelter, but the best they could do under the circumstances.

  He sat in the V where the branch met the trunk, with his arms around her. Her back soaked up his heat, and she let her head fall onto his shoulder. His leg was elevated on a cross branch.

  “How is it?”

  “I’m glad this happened now and not before. We’re almost out of here.”

  He took off the belt and checked his injury. It was no longer bleeding. His blood had clotted, the makeshift bandage stuck in the wound. He tore off his other sleeve and ripped it into a long strip, tied it around what was already there. “This should keep the dirt out.”

  She put her hands over his, wanting to hold on to him.

  “Tonight I’ll make contact. We’ll be out of here in the morning,” he said, as if sensing the despair that fought to take her over.

  He was injured, dangerously so—even a minor wound could get infected enough to become a life threatening problem in the jungle. And yet he thought not of himself, but how to set her at ease. His strength had a way of strengthening her, as if they shared some invisible link.

  “So tell me about this kid of yours,” he said in a transparent attempt to take her mind off their problems.

  And she did, to distract him from his. “Her name is Mei. Her mother is Chinese-Malaysian and she’s too young to keep her. She’s so beautiful, Brian.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes as she thought of the small picture the agency had sent her, the one Omar’s men had taken along with everything else that had been in her pockets.

  “How old is she?”

  “Three months.” She smiled through her tears. She had not specified age or sex when contacting the adoption agency, but was overjoyed as soon as they told her they’d found her a baby girl.

  “You’ll be a good mother.” He pressed his lips against her neck, and their warmth seemed to spread through her whole body. “You don’t scare easily.”