by Jeff Buick
This was the trickiest part. The uppermost rocks of the cliff face were the least compacted and most subject to erosion. Although they appeared solid, they were easily dislodged, and each time he looked for a new hold McNeil pulled out numerous rocks before finding a well-anchored one. The minutes dragged on and his strength began to wane. He was less than four feet from the top, and within inches of Samantha’s outstretched arm, when both his finger holds crumbled at once. He stayed prone to the wall for a split second, then his body began to fall away. He pushed with his toes, willing them to give him the vertical lift he needed to grasp Sam’s hand. He made it, barely, and caught her wrist with his right hand.
He saw the pain course through her as her torso was pulled tight into the rough rocks atop the gorge. She grimaced and clenched her teeth, and tears appeared at the edges of her eyes. He knew the pain must be excruciating. He prayed that the men behind her, holding her legs, could take the added weight. Slowly, he hoisted himself up, using only the lessening strength in his arm. He grasped her above the elbow, then pulled upward again until he could hook his loose hand under her armpit. His eyes were level with the rock edge, and he could see Hal and Beya, their faces drenched with sweat as they strained to keep Samantha from plunging into the gorge. He saw the fatigue, and he knew that they were finished, that they could hold her no longer. He made a move that would either save him or kill him.
With every shred of strength his well-honed body had left, he jackknifed hard left, then kicked his right leg out and up. The momentum of the slight pendulum gave him the added lift he needed, and he rolled atop the edge. He lay there for a moment, panting, then looked to Samantha.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, his breath coming in gasps.
“No,” she said. “I think you pulled my arm out of its socket. You should lose some weight.”
He laughed. He looked her in the eye and laughed like he had never laughed before. And she joined him. He cradled her smiling face in his hands, and when they had finally stopped, he said, “Thanks. You saved my life, you know.”
“Uh-huh, I know. You owe me one. And I wasn’t kidding about my arm. It’s really screwed up.”
He rose to his feet and pulled her up by her good arm. He gently grasped her damaged limb and tried to lift it. She winced when it reached about halfway, and screamed when he tried to move it a fraction farther. He slowly lowered it, and shook his head.
“It’s dislocated,” he said. “You weren’t kidding. It’s pulled right out of its socket. Shit.”
Hal tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Mr. Travis, I can fix this.”
The diminutive man spoke the words without pomp or arrogance, simply with confidence. The same confidence that emanated from him as he guided the expedition through the dense jungle.
“Have you ever done this before?” Travis asked.
Hal laughed. “Many times. My brother played professional football for a few years, and there were numerous players with dislocated shoulders. It’s quite common—that and gashes from cleats.”
“Your brother played in the NFL?” Travis asked.
“No, no, of course not. Not American football—soccer. We call it football. Which makes sense, being that the game is played with the feet. Where you Americans ever got the idea to call your game football, I’ll never know. Passball or runball would be better. Anyway, I have had experience with popping dislocated shoulders back into place.”
“Will you two shut up and do something? My arm is killing me,” Samantha said, still standing, but barely.
Hal had Samantha lie on her side, her dislocated shoulder away from the ground. He sat perpendicular to her and placed one foot under her arm on her ribcage, the other against her neck. He grasped her with both hands by the forearm, and before she had time to tense up, he jerked her arm toward him, sharp and quick. A sickening sound, akin to bones breaking, snapped through the air a split second before Sam screamed. Hal stood up and helped her to her feet. Samantha slowly rotated her arm, wincing slightly at the residual pain. She had full movement in the limb, but once she tried it and felt the discomfort, she lowered it to her side and held it still. She gave Hal a wide grin and then a hug with her good arm. She rested her head on his shoulder and watched as McNeil used a machete to hack into the trunk of a tree with a ten-inch diameter. With every blow, wood chips flew into the air. It took less than two minutes for him to fell the tree, and then he set to stripping the branches from the lower third of the trunk.
“What’s that for?” she asked him.
“The bridge is useless, and we’ve still got five people and a couple of boxes to get across. I’m going to rig up another way to get over. Grab the portable Panther unit, and get someone on the other side of the gap on the line. I don’t feel like yelling in case the war party is getting close enough to hear. It’ll give away our position and allow them to find us sooner.”
Samantha grabbed the lone Panther unit that remained on their side of the gap and held it up. Alain saw what she was doing and grabbed his portable unit. A moment later she heard his voice. She relayed McNeil’s order that they keep quiet, then passed the unit to him.
“Alain, find a tree with at least a ten-inch diameter and strip an eight-foot length off it. Bury it three feet into the ground about ten feet in from the edge. Get Dan to tie a rock to one of the nylon ropes and throw it over to us. We’re going to glide across. You can anchor your end by having the porters throw their backs into it; we’ll have to tie ours into a tree.”
“I’ll send a rope long enough for you to anchor it to your post and then the tree,” Alain said. Travis radioed okay and resumed digging a hole for base of the tree trunk.
Samantha helped dig the hole, but asked him about the arrangement. “Why don’t we just tie the rope to that tree?” She pointed to a large tree some thirty feet back from the precipice.
“Once we get a person’s weight on the rope, it’s going to sag quite a lot. To compensate for that and to give us enough slack to clear this edge of the gap, we’d have to tie the rope almost twenty-five feet up that tree. Try getting these boxes up there. Plus the speed at which you’d be moving when you hit the other side would be far too great. You’d be lucky to land without breaking both your legs. This way the angle is far less, you move at a reasonable speed, and the chances of hitting either this edge or the far one are greatly reduced.”
“Question answered,” she said, continuing to dig.
They reached three feet into the tropical soil before Travis lowered the stripped trunk into the hole. They backfilled it and then attached the rope that Dan had thrown across to both the pole and the anchor tree. They pulled the rope tight, and Travis nodded his approval at the downward angle it formed. Gravity would do the rest. Travis cut a few short pieces of vine, tested them for strength and lashed them to the side of a box. Then he looped the vine over the rope and tied it to the other side of the box while Hal and Beya held it up off the ground. Once he was finished, they slowly lowered the box and let it rest on the rope.
Travis spoke into the Panther. “Okay, here comes the first box.”
Alain nodded quietly and Travis let go his grip. The box began to slide, slowly at first, then with increasing velocity as it traversed the gorge. Just before it hit the pole on the far side, Dan yelled to the porters to release their grip. They let the pole fall and the box crashed into the soft earth just shy of them. They untied the box and lifted the pole back into place. Travis sent across the final two boxes in the same manner. Then it was Beya’s turn.
“They won’t let go of the pole this time,” Travis told Beya. “They will keep it upright and break your fall with their bodies. Okay?” The porter nodded that he understood, then allowed Travis to lash his wrists with the vine. One hand was on each side of the rope, the vine looped over the top. Beya tucked his knees up into his chest area, and then Travis and Hal let go. The body weight caused the rope to sag immediately, and the man’s feet barely cleared the edge. A split s
econd later, he was suspended over the abyss, his speed increasing as he slid along the angled rope. He cleared the far lip of the crevice with a couple of feet to spare, then crashed into the waiting glut of bodies near the far pole. The impact knocked a couple of men down, but the group held, and seconds later Beya was on his feet, waving.
“Nothing to it.” Travis turned to Koko. “Your turn.” He lashed the man’s wrists and repeated the procedure with the same result. Hal was next. He was fairly light and the rope didn’t sag as far, allowing the man the smoothest trip of the three. Then it was Samantha’s turn.
“Tell me if the vines are too tight around your wrists,” Travis said, as he knotted the short length to her left wrist, then threw it over the rope and started on her right.
“That’s fine,” she said as he finished. She was suspended in air, her body pressing against his as he tied the vines. After he finished he stood there for a moment, just holding her. “I’m ready if you are,” she said.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said softly to her, his face only inches below hers. “Just keep your knees tucked up against your chest and let the guys catch you at the other end. Okay?” She nodded and he stepped out from in front of her. Instantly, she was moving.
She felt the wind begin to pick up as her velocity increased. Her eyes watered slightly and the group of men at the far end became blurred. Her arm ached from having been dislocated only half an hour earlier. She moved faster and faster, the far edge coming up quickly now. For a moment she thought there was no way she would clear it, but would instead crash into the rock edge and plunge into the darkness. She pulled her knees up with all her strength and skimmed the edge, crashing feet first into the tightly bunched group of porters that awaited her. Bolts of pain shot down her injured arm and she screamed. Then all was quiet. Too quiet.
The jungle had taken on an eerie silence. A lonely cormorant cried in the distance, but even the ever-present swallowtails had suddenly vanished. Travis stood rigidly, listening for the sounds that he knew were coming but he didn’t want to hear. A fern rustled; then the bushy top of a bamboo swayed, almost imperceptibly. The jungle seemed to part on command, and fifty faces covered with war paint suddenly stared out at him. He stared back for a moment, then reacted.
With a speed Samantha had never seen in a man’s movements, Travis grabbed a length of vine from the ground and ran toward the edge of the gaping crevice. At the last possible second, he threw the line over the rope and grabbed it with his loose hand. His momentum shot him out over the empty void as darts from the pygmies’ blowguns flew past him. His hands began to slip on the vine and he slid down, his sweat making the already slippery vine impossible to hold on to. His grip gave way just as his body cleared the far edge and he crashed into the rocks and dirt at full speed. He rolled with the impact and came out of the roll on his feet. He waved at the men to disperse, to get into the safety of the trees. At a full run, he slipped his machete from its sheath and spun sideways, his arm arcing out and severing the rope that linked the two sides of the chasm. Then he hit the tree line and dove into the brush. Once again, all was quiet.
A line of pygmies rimmed the far side of the gap, staring into the jungle but saying nothing. A minute later they tucked their blowguns into their loincloths and retreated back into the darkness of the rain forest. Then they were gone.
Travis raised his head above a bank of ferns and watched the last of the war party disappear into the jungle. He looked down, checking for punctures from poisoned darts. Satisfied there were none, he turned his attention to the remainder of the expedition. Samantha was a few feet away, still hidden behind a capsized umbrella tree and nursing her damaged limb. Dan and Alain were both up and trying to get a head count on the porters. After a minute they had accounted for everyone, and began checking the equipment. With all that had happened in crossing the gorge, they had lost no men and only one box of ammunition. Dan reported this news back to Travis.
“I thought we’d lost you for sure,” he finished. “You were losing your grip on that vine awfully quick.”
“Yeah, there was a second there that I wasn’t sure. I’m just lucky the little guys were such shitty shots. One nick from a dart and the fat lady’s singing.”
Samantha was standing off to the side and Travis walked over to her. She looked bruised but in good spirits. “Nice move on the vine there,” she said, motioning back to the gorge. “Especially the heads-up on cutting it so they couldn’t get across.”
“Thanks,” he said. “You okay?” She nodded. “Why don’t you give me an azimuth so we can get moving? Let’s try to make the first of your last two targets before dusk.”
Samantha pulled out her compass and map. She lined up the compass and pointed to the solid wall of foliage. “Eighteen degrees off magnetic north,” she said. “That’s your route. I’ll let you know when we’re close so we can stop short of the actual location. That way you can recalibrate the GPS system to misdirect Mugumba and his men.”
Travis checked his own compass and gave the instructions to Alain, who took four heavily laden porters with him and started hacking through the underbrush. He noted the time and distance, then worked out an ETA to the first target. Two hours. They should be there about an hour before the daylight faded. He put a call through to Billy Hackett before stowing the communications gear. He asked the pilot to stay on call in case they needed him to scout a location. Given the money they were paying, Hackett was most agreeable.
Mugumba’s men were on the move. Travis knew his team’s escape from the pygmy war party was only the tip of this iceberg. The closer they got to the vein, the tighter the noose was going to draw around their collective throats. He broke open a box and pulled out a Remington Vent Rib Ranger. He loaded the gun and slipped another twenty rounds into his vest pockets. He checked his Smith & Wesson revolver, and slid it back into his belt. The tighter the noose, the bigger the weapons. He watched Samantha from behind as they started into the jungle along the path Alain had carved out. And for the first time, he wondered. He wondered if he could keep her alive. He hoped so. By God, he hoped so.
THIRTEEN
One hour and forty minutes of tough slogging brought the expedition to a suitable campsite. The surrounding terrain was rugged, with the towering Ruwenzori immediately to the east and north, and a series of heavily foliated foothills west and south. In the midst of this, Hal led them to a group of waterfalls cascading down to the valley hundreds of feet below. Another handful of smaller falls littered the hilltops, and crystal-clear pools formed beneath the gentle roar of the falling water. They chose a medium-sized pool, with a substantial clearing next to it, for their tents. Samantha pitched hers, put the mosquito netting and poisoned rope in place, and cracked open a bottle of water.
She was absolutely exhausted. Crossing the gorge had terrified her and stimulated her adrenaline to record levels. The trek through the jungle had worn off the last of the adrenaline, and now she found lifting the bottle to her lips to be hard work. She slipped out of the camp and wandered back down the path two hundred yards to another waterfall they had passed. She veered off the path and pushed her way through to the water. It was beautiful.
The falls were no more than thirty feet in height and not overly wide. But the ledge the water spilled over was surrounded on both sides by lush green ferns. The falls curved, forming a small amphitheater around the glistening pool of gently rippling water that lay at her feet. She set her bottle of water on a nearby rock and slipped off her shirt.
She knew that someone would have followed her from the camp—they always watched to be sure nothing happened to their geologist. As she continued to undress, she hoped it was Travis. She pulled her sports bra over her head and dropped it by her shirt, then did the same with her pants. She paused for a moment, sweeping her hair back off her shoulders and curling it into a bun. She reached down and slid her panties off, testing the water with her toe. It was cold, but cold felt good. She walked carefully i
nto the water up to her waist, then stretched her arms overhead and dove in.
The shock hit her immediately and she almost yelped in pain. The water against her sore arm was painful at first, then soothing as she acclimatized to the coolness. She swam slowly, her natural buoyancy keeping her afloat and reducing the pull of her arm on the damaged socket. It felt great—healing. She dove, only a few feet at first, then deeper. On her fifth trip underwater, she reached the bottom. She flipped over and looked skyward, thirty-five feet beneath the surface. Outlines of slow-moving black catfish punctuated the deep blue that merged water into sky. She breathed out slowly, watching as her expended air bubbles rose through the almost invisible water. She had dived many times before, both with and without compressed air, but this was perhaps the most relaxing experience of her life. She felt the carbon monoxide begin to build in her system, and her body told her it needed fresh air. She pushed off the bottom and glided to the surface.
Samantha broke the surface with hardly a ripple, breathing quietly and slowly. A duiker had arrived at the water hole while she rested on the bottom, and was satisfying his thirst, unaware of her presence. He was magnificent, the typical conical shape of his body made even more prominent by his muscular stature. A jet-black stripe ran from his crown to the tip of his tail, contrasting against his dark brown-red coat. The antelope finished drinking, stood silent a moment with his head erect, then bounded back into the bordering jungle. Sam swam to the edge, pulled herself from the water, dried off and slipped back into her clothes. She felt wonderful, and she let her thoughts drift ahead.
