Heart of Fire

  She retired to her tent immediately after eating, as she had made it her custom to do. When she opened her pack, she found the map in the same pocket, but not in the same position. So they had looked at it, for all the good it had done them. She double-checked the next portion of the code to make certain she had deciphered it right the first time. Then, satisfied that everything was okay, she undressed and stretched out to sleep. She felt more exhausted than normal; dealing with Ben Lewis took a lot of a woman’s energy.

  The next set of directions took them deeper into the mountains, and the way became increasingly torturous. They had to scramble up and down ravines, and the footing was so slippery that Ben resorted to linking them together with rope like mountain climbers. The amount of ground they could cover in one day was cut at least in half. Most worrisome of all, they had to take so many detours that Jillian was constantly fearful that she would miss the next landmark. Still, she couldn’t see any other way they could have gone. It would have taken expert mountaineers with rappelling equipment to scale some of those cliffs. They were taking the path that was open to them; there was no other choice.

  On the fifth day of such climbing, they were caught on a narrow, winding trail on the side of a mountain when a storm blew up, hard and fast. There was no way they could get to shelter, and there wasn’t any room on the trail to even get under one of the tarps. The trail was little more than a natural ledge carved into the mountainside, with vertical walls above and below. They were totally exposed to the wind and pelting rain, with the lightning stabbing around them and thunder booming right over their heads.

  “Get as close against the wall as you can, and crouch down!” Ben bellowed, working his way down the line so all could hear him. Then he returned to where Jillian sat with her back against the cold stone, her head and shoulders hunched against the rain. He crouched beside her, wrapping his arms around her and shielding her as best he could from the stinging force of the rain. A tropical rainstorm wasn’t a gentle thing; it roared and battered, the immense force of it tearing leaves from trees and sending creatures scurrying for cover.

  She huddled in his embrace and stoically prepared to wait out the storm. It would have been suicidal to try to negotiate the ledge in such violent weather, not to mention useless, for the storm would certainly be over long before they could reach any sort of shelter.

  Minutes dragged by while the deluge beat down on them. Rivulets from above began to grow in width and strength, sluicing down on them, swirling muddy water about their feet. The storm seemed interminable as they crouched there for what seemed like hours, cowering from the lightning and on edge at every sound. But suddenly it was gone, moving on through the mountains with metallic echoes of thunder. The rain stopped, and the sun came out, almost blinding in its brightness.

  Cautiously they stood, stretching cramped legs and backs. Just as they did, Martim shook a cigarette out of his waterproof pack and reached for his lighter. The wet metal slipped from his fingers and fell across the path. In a reflex, without thinking, he stepped forward to get it.

  It all happened in an instant.

  “Not so close,” Ben called sharply.

  There was a whooshing, sodden sound, and Martim had time only for a strangled cry of terror as the ground collapsed beneath his feet and he disappeared from view. It seemed as if they could hear his scream for a long time before it abruptly ended.

  “Shit!” Ben exploded into action, unlooping a section of the rope he carried slung over his shoulder. “Get back!” he roared. “Everybody stay away from the edge. The rain softened it.” Obediently they moved to huddle once again against the mountain, their faces blank with shock.

  There was nothing on which to anchor the rope, so he tied it under his arms and tossed one end to Pepe. “Don’t let me go over,” he said, and stretched out full length to slither to the edge.

  Jillian started forward, her heart lodged in her throat, but forced herself to stop. Her added weight would only increase his danger. Instead she poised herself, ready to jump and add her strength to Pepe’s if the ground beneath Ben gave out too.

  Cautiously Ben peered over the edge. “Martim!”

  There was no answer, though he called twice more. He twisted his head around. “Binoculars.”

  Swiftly Jorge found them and slid them across the sodden ground to Ben’s outstretched hand, taking care not to go too close.

  Ben put the binoculars to his eyes and focused them. He was silent for a long minute, then tossed them back to Jorge and began slithering away from the edge.

  “Sherwood, take Martim’s place with the litter,” he said tersely, and Rick was shocked enough that he moved to obey without complaint.

  Jillian’s face was white and strained. By chance she had been looking right at Martim when he went over, and she had seen the expression of utter horror and helplessness in his eyes as the earth gave way beneath him. The knowledge of his own death had been there, and there hadn’t been anything he could do. Her father had also died from a fall in these mountains. Had it been on this very ledge? Had that same sick, helpless look of realization been in his eyes, too?

  “What are we going to do?” she asked in an almost toneless voice.

  Ben gave her a sharp look. “We move on. We have to get off this ledge.”

  “But... we have to go down. He might not be dead.” She felt they had to at least make the effort, even though, logically, she knew it would have taken a miracle for Martim to have survived. “And if... if he is dead, we have to bury him.”

  “We can’t get to him,” Ben replied, edging closer to her. He didn’t like the way she looked, as if she were going into shock.

  “But we have to. He might just be hurt—”

  “No. He’s dead.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to tell if he’s still breathing, not even with the binocu—”

  “Jillian.” He put his arms around her and pulled her close against his muddy body, stroking his hand over her wet hair. “He’s dead. I give you my word.” Martim’s skull had broken open like a ripe melon on the rocks below. There was nothing they could do for him, and he didn’t want Jillian to see the body.

  “Then we have to get his body.”

  “We can’t. The ledge wouldn’t hold up even if we had the equipment we’d need. It would take a team of experts to get him up.”

  She was silent for a minute, but he felt the fine trembling of her body and held her closer. “We’ll come back for his body?” she finally asked.

  In this case, he had to tell her the truth. “There won’t be anything left to come back for.” The jungle would have destroyed all traces of Martim’s body by the time they could get back.

  “I see.” She squared her shoulders and pushed away from him. She did see. If she hadn’t been so shocked and upset, she would never have asked such a foolish question. There was nothing they could do for Martim. All they could do for themselves was to continue on the expedition.

  12

  It was a subdued group that moved on. Ben kept even closer watch on Jillian than usual, worried by the tension on her face. It wasn’t just Martim’s death that had upset her, though that had been bad enough; there was something more, something that went deeper.

  He was also beginning to worry that they wouldn’t be able to work their way off this damn ledge before dark, forcing them to sleep there. There wouldn’t be any room for tents, so they would be exposed to the swarms of mosquitoes that had begun plaguing them as soon as they left the river, as well as any other menace.

  Ben called a break and sent Pepe on ahead to scout, wary of their situation. He crouched down and stared at the surrounding mountains looming over them. He felt as if he were in a hole, with only a circle of sky directly overhead. The situation wasn’t that bad, but it was the way he felt. They couldn’t get off the ledge soon enough to suit him.

  Jillian was also staring silently at the mountains. Ben went over to her, taking care not to come too close to the unstable e
dge.

  “What is it?” he asked quietly, hunkering down beside her.

  She had plucked a leaf and was unconsciously shredding it. She didn’t look at him, but kept her gaze on the mountains. “My father died in a fall,” she finally replied. “In the mountains, we were told. It had to be these mountains, somewhere along the trail we’ve been following. Perhaps even here on this ledge. God knows it’s dangerous enough.”

  He wanted to comfort her, to just hold her close until the pain eased, but there was nothing he could do. The urge was a new one for him; he’d never wanted to take care of anyone before. It was a little startling. “There’s no way of knowing for sure,” he said. “Don’t let yourself think about it.”

  “It isn’t something I can shut off like a faucet. I loved him, you know.”

  “I know.” Her love for her father must still be strong, for her to expend this much time and energy in an effort to restore his good name, to risk this kind of danger. Most people wouldn’t even have contemplated an expedition this dangerous, this rigorous, but she was doing it for a dead man. A sharp pang hit him as he realized that when Jillian loved, she loved forever.

  “Hey, Lewis.” It was Rick, approaching them. “Why do we have to carry all of Martim’s personal supplies? It makes the litter too damn heavy for this kind of walking.”

  “We may need them,” Ben explained patiently. “We don’t know what’s ahead of us. Anything can happen.”

  “We could at least leave his tent behind. What do we need an extra tent for?”

  “In case something happens to one of ours.”

  “But we didn’t have any extras before; everyone carried his own.”

  “The tents don’t weigh that much,” Ben said sharply, rapidly losing his patience. “What are you complaining about?”

  “With Martim gone, we don’t need to carry as much food, do we?”

  Both Ben and Jillian stared at him in disbelief, and finally Ben shook his head at the man’s stupidity. “We don’t leave food behind. Ever.”

  Rick’s face was sulky. “I was just asking.”

  “And I just answered.”

  Rick turned sharply to leave. Jillian, watching him, saw the way he suddenly lurched to the side, heard that sodden whooshing sound again. She didn’t think, didn’t pause, simply launched herself forward in simultaneous motion as the ground gave way beneath her brother. Her scrabbling hands caught at his shirt as he plunged downward; the fabric tore and he slipped through her grip, only to catch again as his hands locked on her forearms.

  She heard screams, cries, curses, but couldn’t tell where they came from. Rick was screaming, surely; she could see his open mouth as she was inexorably dragged through the mud toward the edge by his weight. Maybe she was even screaming herself; she simply didn’t know. There was a strange dreamlike quality to it as he pulled her farther and farther over the edge, time moving in slow motion, sounds far off and distorted.

  Then vises clamped around her ankles and stopped her slippery progress over the edge of the precipice. Her shoulders were burning with agony from the strain. Rick’s hands began to slip on her arms and desperately she tightened her own grip.

  The cursing was still going on above and behind her, lurid, inventive curses that included every swearword she’d ever heard and some, in Portuguese, that she hadn’t. She closed her eyes as the pain in her shoulders and arms became worse, gasping from the fierceness of it.

  More ground gave way beneath them, plunging them farther down. Rick’s weight jerked on her shoulders and she screamed in pain.

  “Don’t let me go, please, Jill, don’t let me go,” he was babbling, his face white and twisted in panic.

  “I won’t,” she whispered. He slipped some more, until their hands were locked around each other’s wrists. His grip was so tight that she could feel the delicate bones in her wrists grinding together.

  “Pull her back!” Ben was roaring. “I’ll kill every one of you bastards if you let her go!” He had dug his heels into the mud, straining backward with every ounce of strength in his body, holding her ankles in a death grip. His threat was empty, because if she went over, he’d be with her; he sure as hell wouldn’t let go.

  Jorge was on his knees, stretching forward to hook his fingers in the waistband of Jillian’s pants, and he added his considerable strength to the effort.

  “Try to get a loop around Rick’s feet,” Ben ordered, his teeth clenched. Veins bulged in his forehead, and sweat ran in his eyes. “We’ll pull him back upside down if we have to.”

  For an instant no one moved; then Floriano grabbed the rope. Kates had stood back at first, fear for his own neck outweighing the knowledge that, without Jillian, there was no point in going on; now he evidently decided that the risk was worth the possible gain and threw himself down beside them, also grabbing her legs.

  Floriano wasn’t skilled enough with the rope to get it around Rick’s feet, given how the panic-stricken man was kicking. He was also hampered by not being able to get close to the edge himself. He moved as close as he dared, but still couldn’t see Rick’s feet. He dangled the loop blindly, to no avail.

  “Take her ankles,” Ben ordered, his voice tight with strain, and Joaquim hurried to do so. Ben staggered to his knees and rapped out a demand for the rope; Floriano gladly wriggled backwards, out of danger, and thrust the rope into Ben’s hands.

  Ben stretched out on his stomach. “Hold my legs.” Vicente and Floriano instantly obeyed, clamping their hard hands around his boots.

  He leaned out as far as he dared, and the weak ground began crumbling beneath him. He could see Jillian’s face, Bitterly colorless except for the mud that caked it, etched with pain. She wasn’t making a sound. Rick was still screaming and kicking wildly, pleading with them not to let him fall.

  “Goddammit, hold still!”

  Rick either didn’t hear or didn’t understand, senseless to everything except his panic and the emptiness beneath him. Ben swung the heavy loops of rope as hard as he could, hitting Rick on the head. “Shut up! Shut up and listen to me!” The raw fury in his voice must have gotten through, for Rick abruptly stopped screaming. The sudden silence was as nerve-racking, in its way, as the screaming had been.

  “Hold still,” Ben ordered, his voice tight. “I’m going to try to get a loop around your feet. Then we’ll be able to pull you up. Okay?”

  Rick’s gaze was blank with terror, but somehow he focused on Ben. “Okay,” he said, the word barely audible.

  Jillian turned her head to look at him, her eyes pleading and almost blind with pain. Ben had to grind his teeth to hold back more curses as he realized what Rick’s weight must be doing to her more fragile joints. She should have been the one screaming, but of course she would bite it back, self-controlled even now.

  Ben coiled the rope, moving fast, intensely aware that every second must feel like an eternity to both Jillian and Rick. He wasn’t too happy to be hanging over the edge like this himself, feeling the mud crumble away under him. He shook out a loop and twirled it sideways, toward Rick’s swaying feet. Catching both feet would be a miracle, so Ben didn’t expect it. All he wanted was to get the rope around one foot; that would be enough. He’d roped plenty of calves and steers in his day, growing up on a ranch in Alabama, and this wasn’t much different, except he was hanging upside down.

  The loop swung under Rick’s swaying right boot and Ben expertly flipped it upward; the rope caught his foot and Ben jerked to tighten the slipknot. It was a good catch, just below the ankle. “Pull me up,” he yelled, and the hands on his legs began tugging him backward.

  Once he was on stable ground again he lurched to his feet and thrust the rope into Floriano’s hands. “You and Vicente hold him. Hold tight, goddammit, because it’s going to be a strain when all of his weight pulls on you.”

  Floriano’s black eyes were steady. “We understand.”

  Eulogio had been standing back out of the way, but now he moved to also take hold of the rop
e. The wiry little Indian was pretty strong, so Ben estimated Rick was safe enough. The problem now would be pulling Jillian back to safety.

  Cautiously he crawled as close to the edge as he dared. “Rick, listen to me. I got the rope around your foot. We have three men holding it up here, so you aren’t going to fall. We have you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Rick gasped.

  “You have to let go of Jillian. You’ll drop, but only for a few feet.”

  The thought of releasing his grip on Jillian was impossible; Rick’s panicked eyes rolled in his head. Jillian was solid, a link to safety that he could feel; what if they didn’t really have a rope around his foot? He couldn’t tell if they did, couldn’t marshal his panicked thoughts into any sort of calm decision, couldn’t even look down to see for himself if the rope was there. Jillian’s face filled his vision, white and strained, his own desperation mirrored in her eyes.

  “No, I can’t,” he wailed.

  “You have to. We can’t pull you up until you do.”

  “I can’t!”

  Fury burned through Ben like lava. Jillian was hurt, in pain, and he couldn’t do anything to help her until Rick released his grip on her. “Turn loose, you son of a bitch,” he said in a guttural voice. “I’ll knock you in the head with a rock if I have to.”

  “Rick.” It was Jillian’s voice, a barely audible whisper. “It’s okay to turn loose. I can see the rope around your foot. They have you. It’s okay.”

  Rick stared upward at her for a long agonizing second, then let go.

  The sudden release of his weight sent the men holding Jillian tumbling backward, but thank God Jorge retained his grip on her waistband and his backward momentum jerked her back, too. The three men holding the rope dug in their heels, braced against the brutal jerk as all of Rick’s weight swung against them. Rick was screaming again, his voice hoarse with terror.