by Andy Briggs
Jane didn’t have the words to reply. She just smiled and took in the vista; she knew exactly what he meant. Out here was freedom, away from rules and regulations, far from the nightmares that had haunted them both back in so-called civilization. Their near-death experiences had lit a fire within them that made them feel more alive than ever before.
Archie and Clark broke out the cooking gear and soon had food bubbling away. Greystoke walked in a slow circle, holding a GPS device above his head as he searched for a signal. “Blasted thing!” he muttered.
Robbie smirked. The previous night he had broken into Greystoke’s equipment and carefully unscrewed the device, breaking a single wire that connected to the antenna—rendering the GPS useless.
“Are you sure we’re headed the right way?” Greystoke said, casting a suspicious sidelong glance at Jane.
“Pretty much.”
“Pretty much?” His voice was cold. “Out here there is no margin for error, my dear.”
Jane’s smile dropped and she glared at him. “There are also no street signs, your lordship.”
She saw her father raise a hand to cover the smile on his face, but Clark’s eyes narrowed and he reached for the GPS.
“Gimme that. She knows. They both do. Two heads better than one, eh?” He examined the GPS, carefully rolling it in his hand and giving both Jane and Robbie a suspicious look.
Archie spoke up. “Well, we need to get going. I don’t like the look of those clouds.” He indicated the black swirl that had appeared over the mountain peak behind them. The weather was unpredictable at the best of times, but the glowering cumulonimbus above looked ominous.
• • •
The rain came in leaden sheets so heavy that the group could only see a few yards in front of them. Their path meandered close to a sharp slope that dropped to a cliff below, so the reduced visibility was more than an inconvenience.
Ponchos had been broken out, snugly fitting over their backpacks but doing little to keep anyone’s legs dry below the knees. The ground rapidly changed from parched leaves to mud that sucked them down to their ankles and slowed progress. Rivulets of water trickling down the mountainside soon sprang into fast-flowing streams with enough force to sweep their feet from under them.
“Are you sure this is the way?” shouted Clark from over pattering rain that sounded as if the forest canopy was ready to collapse on them. His injured leg was forcing him to the back of the group with Robbie.
Robbie squinted, the rain stinging his eyes. “Think so. We really need the sun to check the direction.” The driving rain drowned out any response from Clark, but as Robbie wiped his eyes he was startled to see the large man was bearing quickly down on him despite his injured leg. He wiped his eyes clear just as Clark roughly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him so close he could smell the man’s stale breath.
“Listen ’ere, mate,” Clark hissed as low as he could. “This ain’t no game. This is serious cash that’s gonna get us all out of this hellhole and we don’t need you screwin’ it up!”
Robbie shook him off. He was too surprised by Clark’s sudden violent streak; this from the man who had found him stowed away on a cargo ship and offered him unquestioned help and friendship. Was the lure of being so close to the riches he’d always wanted now distorting Clark’s priorities? Robbie’s mind wondered, trying to make sense of it all, before he realized Archie was shouting a warning.
“Guys!”
Robbie glanced up just in time and saw the earth move through the trees uphill. Archie and Greystoke were already scrambling for cover from what was approaching. Rain stung Robbie’s eyes again, forcing them shut—but not before he heard the low rumble of the mudslide as it rushed toward them like a freight train. The previous earth tremors had dislodged a huge chunk of earth higher up and the sudden rain had been all that was needed to turn it to liquid.
Robbie turned to run, blindly grabbing for Clark who was frozen to the spot, staring up at the wall of mud and debris piling toward them.
“Clark!” Robbie could say no more before he felt the ground pulled from beneath his feet as the mudslide poured into him. He felt himself falling backward, and caught a brief glimpse of Jane reaching for him with one hand, the other securing her to a sturdy tree limb, before he tumbled onto his back.
Robbie reached out for anything to which he could anchor himself, but his hands cut through the shifting mud. He could feel it everywhere—in his eyes, his ears, even seeping into his mouth.
He lost all sense of direction as he spun around. Something soft bounced into him and ricocheted away—Clark? He tried to reach for it, but his grasp was slick. Then he struck something hard—a tree. His breath was knocked out of him as he spun around the object. Before he could get a grip, the muddy torrent bore him away again, glancing his shoulder off another tree before his stomach lurched and he dropped like a stone. With a sickening sense of dread, he knew he had been dragged over the cliff.
• • •
To Jane, it felt as if her arm was being yanked from her socket as she held on to the tree, the mudslide flowing beneath her, pulling at her legs. For almost half a minute there seemed to be no end to the torrent—until it suddenly petered out to a trickle then stopped. The trail they had been on was now five feet higher, a slick wedge of mud that led from the mountain above to the drop below.
Even though the avalanche had stopped, Jane didn’t dare let go of the branch. She fought for breath, still shocked at seeing Robbie and Clark dragged away in an instant.
“Jane!”
Archie emerged from a knot of trees, Greystoke following closely behind. The backs of both men were covered in glossy mud from where they had hidden from the deluge.
“Dad!” Seeing Archie finally gave Jane the strength to release the branch. She caught her balance in the mud and ran across to hug him. With every step she took, the mud shifted beneath her boots and her arms windmilled, keeping her balanced.
“Where are the others?” asked Greystoke with concern, although Jane had no doubt he was only worried about being left out here alone.
“They were swept over,” she answered as the reality hit her: They could be dead. That was how the jungle usually claimed its victims, with swift attacks. Normally she had no time to let the danger sink in before it had passed, but now she felt sick at the thought of losing her friends.
“ROBBIE!” she yelled, trying to move closer to the edge of the slope to see over.
Two steps were all it took for the mud beneath her to ebb forward, slowly pulling her toward the brink. She tried to remove a foot to backtrack, but the mud held it fast and she inched toward the inevitable drop.
“Hold on!” yelled Greystoke.
She turned to see him yanking his poncho off, and dropping his backpack to the floor. He was already soaked to the skin as he freed the climbing rope bundled to the bottom of the pack.
Once again, Jane struggled in the mud, but it held her tight. She turned back to see Greystoke swing the rope with one hand.
“Grab hold!” he shouted as he let go of one end.
Jane caught it, instantly twisting it around her wrist for extra security, and slid to a halt. Archie held the rope as Greystoke backed toward the trees to get a firmer footing.
“I’ll pull you back.”
Jane shook her head. “No. I’ve got to see what happened to the others.”
“Jane,” said Archie, his voice breaking with concern. “We can do that. First I want you to come back where it’s safer.”
“So you can go over the edge to look?” Despite the fear she felt she couldn’t help but give a short laugh. “And who’s going to hold the rope? Me?”
Archie knew his parental responsibility was to argue, but she was right. Before he could even answer, Jane had tied the rope around her waist and held the trailing cord with one hand.
“OK,
give me some slack.”
Archie glanced at Greystoke who shrugged—it wasn’t his decision. Archie muttered under his breath, then composed himself. “OK, go easy though.”
Jane edged toward the slope, leaning as far forward as she could. She called for more slack and reached the incline. It was a good seventy degrees, possibly more. The mud had carried debris through the trees, some of which had wedged in low-hanging branches. Rain flowed over the waterlogged mud in fast-flowing streams. Descent without the rope would be impossible, even with it …
Then she saw a shock of color poking through the mud about thirty feet below. It was the unmistakable red of Clark’s poncho, but he wasn’t moving.
“Clark?” Jane’s voice sounded small, drowned out by the heavy rain. She tried again, louder: “CLARK!”
For a moment he didn’t stir. Then he looked up. Only the whites of his eyes were clearly visible beneath his mud mask. It was so comical, Jane nearly laughed aloud. “Are you hurt?”
“Of course I’m bloody hurt!” he snapped back with enough grumpiness to tell Jane he was fine.
“Where’s Robbie?” her voice almost broke as she said his name. Robbie had changed so much since she first met him that she now couldn’t imagine not having him around.
“He’s down ’ere,” said Clark gruffly. “But he ain’t comin’ up.”
Jane didn’t like the sound of that. “I’m coming down!”
Archie put up a feeble show of trying to stop her, but there was no other choice. He tied one end of his own rope to a tree and tossed it to Jane so she could attach it to Clark. Jane turned around, holding her rope with both hands as she carefully stepped backward. With each step she risked falling flat on her face, so she didn’t rush her descent. Twice she had to clamber over stumps wedged between trees before she reached Clark.
He had been caught by a huge low-sweeping bough that had hooked him up from danger. She helped him wipe the mud off his face and saw he was cut and bruised, but in one piece. His backpack had taken the brunt of the impact as he had pinballed down the slope. She tied the second rope under his arms and waited as her own line was tied to a tree so both Greystoke and Archie could haul Clark back up the incline.
It took a good ten minutes before Clark was safe and the men could once again lower Jane down. The rain began to ease a little, although all that did was offer a better view of the sheer drop she was approaching. Being with Tarzan had given her a head for heights, but for some reason, even though she had a rope tied to her, standing on the muddy slope felt much less safe than soaring through the treetops a hundred feet above.
The incline suddenly gave way to a sheer cliff where mud slopped over the edge in a slow waterfall. Jane collected herself, gathering her confidence before leaning back over the edge and peering down.
The cliff dropped for several hundred feet, vanishing into the canopy below. Ten feet down, Robbie lay on his back—by some miracle caught from plummeting to his death on a lone curving trunk that clung to a gap in the rock face. It was barely big enough for him, and sagged under his weight. He didn’t dare move; instead he stared straight ahead, not risking a look at Jane.
“Took your time,” he said with forced jollity.
Jane grinned, her confidence growing. “You just sit back and let me do all the work. As usual.” She called up for more slack, which she looped under her arms as she had done when learning to rappel one summer camp, long ago.
“Not a bad view,” she said casually as she rappelled the first few feet.
Robbie didn’t have time to answer because the trunk he was lying on suddenly cracked and he dropped… .
4
Jane didn’t pause to assess the situation. She acted on pure instinct, as she had been forced to do ever since she’d got lost in the jungle. Mustering the strongest kick she could, she leaped from the cliff.
Her eyes didn’t leave Robbie as she flew toward him, the rope whipping out behind her. The rush of air was deafening and rain stung her face, as painful as the pelt of small stones.
Time seemed to slow as the breaking branch under Robbie sagged. The wood didn’t fully break, but he’d reached the tipping point and flipped backward off the branch with a scream.
In less than two seconds, Jane cannoned into him in mid-air—so hard that the breath was knocked from him and his scream turned into a wheeze. She wrapped both her arms and legs tightly around him as the slack in the rope suddenly snapped tight, constricting around her waist with such ferocity Jane yelped, convinced she would be sliced in half. Instead, their rapid descent stopped. Robbie’s additional weight pulled at her limbs and she could already feel him slipping from her arms as they swung like a pendulum back toward the cliff—
They slammed hard into the rock face, the brunt of the impact taken by Robbie’s backpack. Caught like a fish on a line, they rotated lazily around before the rope began slowly lowering. Jane tried to recall if her father had tied it to a tree. Or was their combined weight now pulling him, Greystoke, and Clark through the mud?
Robbie found his croaky voice. “Now what?”
Jane could still feel him slowly slipping through her arms. She clenched her legs tighter. She was probably crushing the air from him, but he wasn’t complaining.
“Your pack—it’s too heavy!” she said through gritted teeth.
Even as she spoke, Robbie had spotted the problem. He tried to move his arms to shuck it off, but Jane held him in a vice-like bear hug.
“You’re gonna have to let go of me,” he said urgently.
Jane hesitated, unsure if her legs alone would be enough to support him. The rope suddenly jolted, lowering them a couple more feet. They had no choice. She nodded—then unlocked her arms.
No longer supported, Robbie’s torso dropped straight down, pulled by the weight of his pack. He scrambled to remove his poncho. It caught across his face, but he managed to throw it off, the bright yellow material fluttering away on the wind. He pulled his arms from the straps, but the pack still refused to fall. Cursing loudly, he remembered fastening the pack’s strap around his waist to stop it rubbing as he walked. His fingers were numb as he worked at the plastic catch.
“Hurry!” shouted Jane as they inched farther downward. As both their legs were covered in mud, she could feel Robbie slowly slipping away. She could only imagine the chaos up on the slope as the three men struggled to restrain the rope with slippery, muddy hands.
Robbie tried again, arcing his body so he could see the clip even if he couldn’t feel it. He pressed the plastic release again and his backpack suddenly fell far away. Straining his abs, Robbie lunged closer to Jane and they threw their arms around each other in a fierce bear hug—they had never been so close—just as his slick legs slipped through hers and he dangled precariously over the void.
“Things haven’t improved,” he said through gritted teeth.
That wasn’t entirely correct—at least they had stopped inching lower. An eternity seemed to pass when there was a sudden yank on the rope and they rapidly ascended in a series of jerky movements.
Before long they were hauled back up to the incline where they could see Archie, Clark, and Greystoke heaving at the rope, which they had looped around a tree to form a pulley.
Nobody spoke as they were hauled to safety. All five figures sat back and caught their breath, thankful to be alive. Jane realized it was the first time she could remember being in peril in the jungle that Tarzan hadn’t shown. She only hoped that meant he was far away from the aircraft, safely out of Lord William Greystoke’s clutches.
• • •
The campfire dried out their damp clothes and attracted insects; it was the only beacon in the inky darkness. Robbie watched as a flying bug the size of his fist crawled across the floor between him and Jane. It was so close to her that she should have freaked out—would have freaked out in the past—but now she simply wat
ched it clean its slender antennae. After saving his life, he had only managed a simple “thanks.” Anything more seemed inappropriate.
Lord Greystoke wildly swatted around his head as flies and beetles hummed past him. He was a man used to the luxuries of life. Archie cooked supper over the fire and Clark nursed his injuries as he tinkered with Greystoke’s GPS.
“Is it always like this?” said Greystoke, his voice already wary as he indicated the darkness around him.
“No, it’s normally far worse,” Robbie replied when nobody else spoke up.
A piercing caw suddenly rose from the trees, causing Greystoke to flinch. “What the hell is that?”
The others didn’t react; it was an all-too-familiar sound. “Monkey,” said Robbie absently. “I thought you’d been out here before? With your ‘business interests’?”
Greystoke flailed at the bugs circling him. “Not so rugged a venture, I’m afraid. Helicopters and air-conditioned jeeps are the way one travels with any degree of civilization.”
Jane didn’t flinch as the slender insect moved closer to her foot and slowly crawled up her leg. “Why bother coming out here to find him?” she asked suddenly. “Why not leave him in peace?”
Greystoke couldn’t take his eyes off the creature on Jane’s leg. All he could see was a slobbering, disease-carrying beast.
“Because he’s family,” said Greystoke eventually. “He needs to be given the choice.”
Jane smirked, and Greystoke focused his intense gaze on her. Gone was the mask of a confounded Englishman, replaced by a ruthless, calculating businessman. “If it was one of your family out here: your father, your mother, perhaps …”
Jane flinched at the mention of her mother. Robbie suspected it was a deliberate cheap shot designed to provoke a reaction.
“Wouldn’t you want to know they were safe?” Greystoke continued. “To afford them every opportunity of joining the real world rather than living out here as a savage?”
The locust on Jane’s leg suddenly took flight, circling toward Greystoke.
