Into the Wild Page 19

  “Why did you stop?” she wheezed.

  “We have to go up,” said Cy. “Up where?”

  The older man pointed to the jungle-carpeted cliff. A seventy-degree incline with roots, stubby plants and dwarf trees sticking out of the muddy face. “The only way to get to the páramo and beyond.” Spenser held silent as she accessed the challenge. Come on, angel. Fold.

  “You’ve done this before?” she asked Spenser, eyes trained on the climb.

  “Both times kicked my ass.”

  “Any tips?”

  For Christ’s… He’d expected her to tough it out—for a while—but this was ridiculous. If looking at the formidable terrain ahead didn’t scare her off, what would? “It’ll take three hours.” She bent forward, rested her hands on her thighs and gulped air. “It might take me twice that, and given that incline, I’ll probably have to crawl on all fours, but,” gulp, gasp, “nothing worth having comes easy, right?”

  A cliché he’d used more than once on Gordo. Just now it irritated the hell out of him. “There are prickle bushes, arrow plants with spikes and a shitload of branches and bushes that’ll poke your eye out if you’re careless.”

  “I’ll be sure to avoid them.”

  “Those are the things you need to grab hold of for stability!”

  “You don’t have to yell.”

  “I’m not yelling!”

  Cy shot Spenser a look that said otherwise.

  River reached into her jacket pockets and traded her insulated gloves for the leather work gloves Spenser had provided. “These should protect my hands from the worst of it, right?” she asked Cy.

  He eyed her up and down, frowned. “We’re not going anywhere until you rest.”

  “No time,” Spenser said.

  “I’m fine,” River snapped, even as she massaged her temples and gasped for air.

  “A pain in my ass. Both of you.” The treasure hunter reached down and scooped a handful of select green seeds from the jungle floor. He poured a few into River’s palm. “Squash these between your fingers and suck out the milky fluid.”

  “What is it?”

  “A natural drug,” Spenser said, remembering how Jo had encouraged him and Andy to partake.

  Liberally.

  “A miracle drug.” Cy squashed several between his own fingers. “You’ll breathe easier and reduce the risk of muscle cramps. Plus there’s the bonus energy boost.” River’s already flushed cheeks burned a deeper shade of red. Probably reflecting on her experience with coca tea. “No, thanks.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s do this.” She dug in for the climb.

  Spenser hauled her back. “A minute,” he said to Cy. Hands raised in surrender, the senior adventurer backed away while Spenser tugged River close. “Is this another stunt to prove something to David?”

  “No.”

  “Your dad?”

  “No.”

  Spenser frowned. “Me?”

  “Get over yourself, McGraw. This is for me.”

  Back to an arm’s-length attitude. “What happened between this morning and now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You won’t look me in the eye. Not for any length of time.”

  “Really?”

  “Just now you’re staring a hole in the tree behind me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are.”

  She tried to shrug him off. “We’re wasting time.”

  Spenser grasped her stubborn chin. “Look at me, dammit.” She did and his heart skipped. Not in a good way. “What’s wrong, angel?”

  She stonewalled for five seconds then blurted, “I didn’t like the way you looked at the chakana this morning. Like it was…the Holy Grail.”

  Spenser flashed back on the charge he’d felt when he’d held and admired that ancient relic. “In a way it is.” If she possessed one tenth of his fascination with legendary treasures and lost civilizations, she’d obsess on that amulet as well.

  “I don’t like how you’re trying to get rid of me.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You purposely set a brutal pace today and now you’re trying to scare me off this climb.”

  “It’s dangerous!”

  “And I’m a lightning rod for disaster.”

  Fury shot through his body. “Don’t put words in my mouth, River.” Rather than shake her, he spun away. “Goddammit.”

  “You want me to chicken out. To poop out. You want me to give you the map, and entrust you, oh, Mr.

  Macho, Mr. Celebrity Treasure Hunter, with finding my dad while Cy escorts me back to the Jungle Lodge or some other safe haven. Deny it.”

  He couldn’t. Fists clenched, he turned and saw her leaning against a tree, fighting for balance and breath.

  “You said you wouldn’t abandon me,” she said in a raspy voice.

  Empathy tempered his anger. “I won’t refuse to take you and I won’t leave you alone. But I wish you’d volunteer to go back with Cy. Aside from the risky terrain, River, there’s the possibility that someone’s trailing us or maybe waiting up ahead, looking for a prime moment to jump you for that map.”

  “All the more reason for you to keep me close. To protect me.”

  “That’s the point. If you’d give me the map, if you’d turn back, I wouldn’t have to protect you. I’d be absorbing full risk.”

  She shook her head. “I need to be there. I need to do this.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  River unzipped her jacket and pushed off the tree. “Tell me you’re not considering the possibility that Henry discovered the legendary lost treasure.” She produced the chakana, holding it in front of her as if taunting the devil. “Tell me you’re not wondering if this is part of Atahualpa’s ransom.” Spenser burned with familiar desires. His fingertips tingled. He gravitated toward her, toward the amulet, wanting to examine the craftsmanship, to ponder the origin. He stopped cold.

  “Just as I thought.” She shoved the necklace back under her shirt.

  “River—”

  “This isn’t about me or my dad. It’s about you.”

  “You’re not being fair.”

  “You’re not being honest.” She looked away. “Cy! How much juice do I need to get me to the top?” she asked, squashing seeds between her fingers.

  Spenser watched as the older man approached and advised. He watched as River complied and then ordered Cy to take the lead.

  His head throbbed with two scenarios. Either she’d fly to the top or plummet to the jungle floor.

  Without looking at Spenser, she sucked back more of the tasteless white fluid then launched herself at the daunting jungle wall. “Are you coming or not?”

  Heart pounding, he gathered up a supply of the droga. She was going to be the death of him. Fuck it.

  Better that than the other way around. “Let’s fly, angel.” CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  GATOR’S STOMACH LURCHED as The Conquistador piloted his helicopter through a turbulent patch of sky. So many clouds. Some of them black. He worried that his employer was insane enough to fly into the storm dead ahead, but at the last second, the man made a sharp turn and dip and suddenly they were skimming the top of the jungle.

  Holy shit.

  Con laughed and Gator realized the man was fucking with him. “Few have the balls to fly into the Llanganatis,” he yelled over the engine’s roar.

  In other words, few were crazy enough.

  “Commercial airliners steer clear,” Con added as they gained altitude and sped toward a cloud-covered mountain. “This area is known as South America’s Bermuda Triangle.” Great.

  Gator was beginning to doubt his own sanity. Instead of calling The Conquistador from Triunfo, he should’ve driven to the nearest airport and skipped the country. But self-preservation had taken a backseat to greed. He could taste that Inca treasure. Eight billion dollars. The closer he got to the legendary mountains, the greater his hunger. He’d already killed two men, risked his
own skin and freedom, and suffered bodily injury. Looking through high-powered binoculars, he’d watched McGraw and blondie suit up and disappear into the jungle with a treasure hunter that he recognized from Baños. That’s when he’d had one of Con’s obsessive thoughts. “They’re after my treasure.” Now he was flying into an Andean Bermuda Triangle with a fucking lunatic.

  They buzzed into a cloud bank and Gator tightened his seat belt. “Hope to hell you know where you’re going,” he muttered.

  “I know where McGraw is headed. We’ll be waiting. You’ll get the second half of the map, and then I’ll know exactly where I’m going.”

  Gator frowned. “You mean we.”

  Instead of answering, Con bobbed and weaved, maneuvering the helicopter through a sudden hailstorm while Gator fought not to puke.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  RIVER IGNORED the disgusting muck, the threatening plants and the potential bugs and germs. She ignored the excruciating burn in her muscles and the eye-crossing lack of oxygen.

  She climbed.

  And climbed.

  She grabbed hold, dug in and focused on reaching the páramo. Anger fueled her every labored move.

  Anger directed at Henry, Spenser and herself.

  The climb was so steep and she was so weak that she did indeed keep to her hands and knees. Spenser and Cy seemed tireless, damn them. Although Cy was focused, whereas Spenser seemed distracted.

  What was he thinking about? She would’ve asked had she the spare breath.

  Miraculously, about an hour into the climb, she started feeling better. Then, soon after, she was feeling no pain. It had to be the seeds. She’d had a double dose thus far, and if she needed more she had no qualms about asking. Anything to get her to the top. Closer to Henry. Closer to closure…and returning home.

  Spenser had pegged it back in Baños. She was out of her element. She thrived on order and there was no order in the wild. Everything was up to chance. Everything was chaos. She couldn’t think straight.

  She’d fallen into bed with a man she barely knew. She’d entrusted Henry’s fate to not one, but two treasure hunters. She was flirting with hypobaropathy and jungle rot. She was high on seed juice.

  She was a mess.

  But a determined mess.

  River clawed soggy dirt and toed spiked branches in order to move inches closer to regaining control of her life. She couldn’t shake the worry that she’d used Spenser to fill a need. She couldn’t shake the suspicion that he’d used her to locate a treasure. She didn’t trust what they’d shared. She didn’t trust anything or anyone…including herself.

  The ground shimmied, jolting River out of her mental monologue. “What’s that?”

  “Earth tremor,” Spenser said, moving in next to her.

  “Some call the Llanganatis ‘the mountains of electricity and earthquakes,’” Cy shouted down.

  “Electricity?”

  “Electrical storms,” Spenser clarified.

  The sky rumbled.

  River frowned. “Great.”

  “Rain’s coming,” Cy shouted. He was several feet ahead of her. “Going to get messy.”

  “We need to climb faster,” River said, even though she was moving as fast as she could without poking out her eye. She had not come this far to fry. She could just as easily get struck by lightning at home.

  “If I hurry,” Cy bellowed over a distant crack of thunder, “I can reach Brunner’s camp and have at least one shelter ready by the time you get there.”

  “Do it,” Spenser said, giving River a boost when her foot slipped off a branch. He’d been shadowing her all day. Catching her when she bobbled. She appreciated the gesture, even though it dented her pride.

  Cy held his position until River caught up. “Give me your pack,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “The lighter your load, the faster you’ll climb.”

  “But it’ll burden your load.”

  “No burden,” he said, tugging at her straps.

  She glanced at Spenser. It was the first time she’d really looked at him since they’d started the climb.

  His complexion was off and he was sweating profusely. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “So you said. Give Cy your pack.”

  “But—”

  “Just do it, dammit.”

  Another shimmy and rumble. A gust of cool, then humid wind.

  Adrenaline and dread surged through River’s fatigued but oddly charged body. Her brain felt weirdly disengaged. Can’t think straight. She didn’t want to give up her backpack, although she couldn’t reason why.

  “Torrential downpour equals poor visibility and the possibility of a mudslide,” Cy said.

  Suddenly she wished her feet had wings. She relinquished her backpack and watched in awe as Cy scrambled up the tricky cliff face and disappeared from view. “Wow. What is he? Man or mountain goat?”

  “Keep going, angel.”

  “You’re a grouch.”

  “Keep going!”

  She crawled upward, smiling when she realized she did indeed feel lighter. She moved faster, but she wanted to fly. “How many seeds do you think Cy sucked to get that kind of energy boost?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. Goddamn.”

  River flinched at the sound of Spenser’s pained curse. She looked back and saw him shrugging off his cumbersome pack while clutching one knee to his chest. Pulse racing, she backed carefully to his side.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just give me a minute.”

  She glanced at the darkening sky. Lightning flashed behind ominous clouds. Those clouds could burst any second. “Sure you need a whole minute?” she nervously teased.

  He shot her an annoyed look, tried to stretch his leg, wiggle his foot and muttered a curse.

  River tried to focus on the moment, on Spenser. She felt as though someone had injected her brain with Mexican jumping beans. “Did you twist your ankle?”

  “No.”

  “Wrench your knee?”

  “Cramp.”

  “What?”

  “Muscle cramp. A goddamn charley horse. Get it?”

  She got it. She just didn’t understand. Her muscles hadn’t cramped and he was far more fit and experienced. Then she realized… “You’re not breathing right.”

  “We’re at thirteen and a half thousand feet, River.”

  “But I’m not having nearly as much trouble as you. Didn’t you suck the seed juice?”

  “No.”

  “But you had a whole pouch.”

  “For you.”

  “I’m sure there was enough—”

  “I needed a clear head.”

  River frowned. “I have a clear…okay, not totally clear, but—”

  “Exactly.”

  Perplexed and anxious, River looked at the angry sky, then back at Spenser. His expression warned of another kind of storm. Male pride no doubt figured in, but it went deeper, touched on his past.

  The bad stuff.

  “Where’s the cramp?” she asked. “Foot, calf or thigh?”

  “Thigh. What… Fuck!”

  “I’m sorry,” River said as she kneaded the knotted muscle, “but sometimes you have to hurt to help.

  Try to stretch your leg again, but slowly. And don’t pump your foot. Stretch. Slow. Easy.”

  “What are you, a doctor?”

  “A runner. I’ve dealt with my share of cramps and charley horses. I researched—”

  “I’m sure you did.”

  “Don’t be an ass.”

  “Sorry. It just… Fuck!”

  “Talk to me.”

  “What?”

  She continued the gentle massage with a keen eye on the ominous sky. “You’re too aware of the pain.

  Too stressed about the delay. It’s making you tense. You need to relax.”

  “I know what to do.”


  “Stop being all macho and let me help. Focus on something other than the pain.”