caught up with the others, there wasn't a single inch of her that wasn't coated with brown sludge.
The remaining craft puttered over behind the first, their guides poling like gondoliers to keep them up against the bank until the lead boat was dragged out of the water.
Sam joined the others on the opposite side of the tree and helped pull on the rope. The boat was a lot heavier than it looked, but with the leverage and relatively solid footing, they were able to drag it up into the weeds under the broad arms of the kapok. Thirty exhausting minutes later, all three boats were crammed into the tiny clearing. They stood shivering as a group beneath the dripping canopy, which only served to mildly attenuate the deluge.
'Check this out,' Dahlia said. She leaned closer to a heliconia shrub, and gently peeled back a cluster of broad-leaved branches. 'Jay? Do you still have the camera handy? I want a shot of this.'
Sam crowded closer with the others while the cameraman separated and headed back toward the boats. It was a phasmid, a walking stick insect, a long-legged, slender-bodied bug that perfectly mimicked the stem upon which it stood. She had to smile at the memory of the first time she had seen such a creature, and the hundreds of others with similar strange and wondrous adaptations they would encounter along the way. She envied these first- timers. There was truly something special about the instances when one's eyes were opened to the magic of the Amazon basin.
'Such an amazing evolutionary marvel,' Dahlia said. 'To think that somehow through the ages this insect's entire body changed shape to replicate its natural environment. And look how slowly and stiffly it moves, almost like the branch itself in a gentle breeze.'
'Wait until you see some of the epiphytes,' Sam said. 'The world's largest flower grows from the rafflesia epiphyte, and blooms for only three days a year. It has the most beautiful maroon and yellow flower, but releases the most horrible stench to attract flies for pollination. And there are butterflies you have to see to believe.'
'And hoatzin hatchlings are born with two claws on the end of each wing that allow them to climb around in the canopy until they're able to fly,' Galen said. 'The spatuletail hummingbird has two long tail feathers that end in large turquoise discs that it has developed the ability to control independently.'
'Jay!' Dahlia called.
'I'm coming, I'm coming.' Jay held the camera in one hand and his backpack in the other. He tried to swing it up over his shoulder at the same time that a section of the bank fell away from his foot. There one moment, gone the next, Jay slid down toward the raging river.
Sam ran to the edge and fell to her knees. Jay had managed to stop himself halfway down, his legs buried in the mud nearly to the knees. With one hand he clung to a tangle of roots, while he reached toward the water with his other, where his backpack rested in the trench carved by the hulls of the boats, inches from being washed away by the current. Branches and whole tree trunks raced downstream. One particularly dark trunk with thick, ridged bark even appeared to be heading straight toward the bag as Jay finally took hold of the shoulder strap.
'Leave it!' Sam screamed.
'I've got it,' he said. The expression on his face was that of embarrassment, not concern. He shook his head as if silently chastising himself, and began to drag himself upward.
'Let it go! Hurry! Get up here!' Sam grabbed his wrist and pulled as hard as she could.
Two of the men dove to her side and seized Jay by the forearm and elbow right as the trunk reached the river's edge and exploded out of the water in a blur of wide jaws and sharp teeth.
The caiman snapped down on the backpack and nearly yanked the cameraman out of their grasp. It shook its head violently from side to side and jerked away. There was a flash of its yellowish belly, and then it disappeared with a splash, dragging its prize to the bottom of the river where it could pin it against the soft bed and wait for it to drown before consuming it.
Fortunately, all the beast had stolen was the backpack, and Sam was able to help Jay up over the lip. He fell to all fours and retched. His face had gone a deathly shade of pale and one of his boots belonged to the mud for the time being, but at least he was alive.
'Are you all right?' Merritt asked from her right. He and Sorenson had been the ones to rush to her aid.
'Jesus Christ,' Jay said, rubbing his hand as though to confirm it was still there. 'I saw it coming the whole time. I thought it was just a tree trunk.'
'You have to be more careful,' Sam snapped. 'Out here, nothing is ever what it seems.'
III
They ate and lounged at the edge of the rainforest until the torrent waned to a patter. The river had risen nearly to the banks, but the amount of debris had diminished substantially. Large branches and broken trunks still sped downstream, although in nowhere near the same numbers as before, and the current had slowed just enough to provide suitable notice to dodge them. There were sections where the limbs had tangled to form impromptu barricades, which were fairly easily skirted. All in all, they had only lost two and a half hours, and were again making excellent time. Barring any further delays, they should reach their point of debarkation shortly after nightfall.
And from there the real trek would begin.
Merritt hunkered down in the boat with his poncho over his head, using the man in front of him as a screen from the brunt of the rain, now more of a blowing mist then an actual storm. At first, listening to the birdman naming every species of avian that poked its beak out of the trees had amused him, but over the last three hours it had grown monotonous, and he currently enjoyed fantasies of casting the man over the side in hopes he might have the opportunity to identify the various species of crocodilians and carnivorous fish. Merritt shifted in his seat to get some feeling back into his rear end. His knees bumped the birdman's back, silencing his Latin recitation between genus and species. He couldn't hide his grin.
What was he doing here anyway? He had allowed himself to be bullied and bought, neither of which sat well with him. While the old man hadn't come right out and said that he would go directly to the Army with news of his whereabouts, the threat had certainly been implied. There was more to it than that, though. He had lied. The money would be a godsend and would buy him several more years of anonymity, but that wasn't the true reason he had agreed to come along either, if he were being completely honest with himself.
He peered over the birdman's shoulder toward the lead boat. His eyes immediately settled on Sam's back. She turned to look at the forest and he studied her profile. What was it about her? It wasn't as though she had shown any interest in him. In fact, quite the opposite. She hadn't missed an opportunity to be condescending, and her personality was really quite maddening, but there was simply something about her...something more than just her outward beauty that drew him inexorably to her. Of course, he could justify his presence here in any number of ways, but truth be told, he was here because he had sensed the aura of danger surrounding them. He imagined rolling over the body he had found by the river, only instead of Gearhardt's son's face, he saw Sam's, her wide blue eyes reminiscent of another pair already scarred into his soul, and quickly chased the image away. He couldn't allow that to happen to her. That was the reason he now sat in this boat, shivering and stinking like a wet dog, listening to the litany of scientific names for random birds, staring at a woman whose skin crawled at the thought of him.
And he couldn't have been more content.
Perhaps he would find his decision a poor one, yet for the first time in years, he felt like himself again. Even the sensation of the cool rain on his skin was invigorating.
He shifted again and prodded his right knee into the birdman's kidney. Just for fun.
Sam turned around and caught him looking. He offered a guilty smile and averted his gaze. Even soaked to the bone and wrapped in an unflattering poncho, she was positively stunning.
He tilted his face to the sky and reveled in the caress of the elements. The clouds had settled into the upper canopy and clung to the leaves like smoke...
