A Rare Breed

by Mary Tate Engels

  "Wrong! What if you got injured?"

  "If I missed picking up my supply drop, they'd send someone to check on me."

  "So you're saying that we have to spend the night down here?" By her expression, Yolanda

  was clearly amazed at the concept.

  Jake swung the cooler to his shoulder. "Looks that way. Follow me."

  "This is crazy," Yolanda objected. "I'm not camping. Just get me out of here, but I'm not sleeping on the ground."

  Jake ignored her and, with no apparent alternative, Brit followed him. She admired his lean masculine form as he strode sure-footed and confident over the rocks. He wore thick-soled hiking boots that secured his tight-fitting jeans above the ankles. His hips were slim and his back, straight and sturdy. The pale blue shirt hung from broad, angular shoulders. Dark hair, needing a trim, barely brushed his slightly frayed shirt collar.

  Brit stumbled and noticed for the first time that her expensive Italian shoes were ripped beyond salvation. They barely stayed on her feet. Then she saw that her dress, too, was virtually ruined. The exquisite silk with its tiny hand-painted flowers looked like something a shipwrecked character in a B-movie would wear, including an uneven tear that revealed a nice expanse of one thigh.

  Yolanda didn't look much better. Of course, she still wore her diamonds, but both knees of her silver lame jumpsuit were ripped and one sleeve flopped beneath her armpit. Rudi still had his Rolex and gold chains, but his shirt had a couple of bloodstains and a large rip in back from the fight. Frank stumbled along, somewhat dazed, his shirt torn, also. The only one who was strong and sure was Jake Landry, striding confidently ahead of them.

  Brit concluded that she couldn't possibly dream up a more unusual or potentially exciting situation. Jake Landry was better than a dream, actually. He was real; or, at least, she thought he was. To make sure she could relish him a little longer. Brit decided to wait awhile before she pinched herself to see if she were awake.

  Chapter Two

  Jake sat on the cooler and propped his elbows on his widespread knees. This was their second rest stop in the last half hour, and he wondered if they'd make it to camp before dark. This group obviously was not in very good physical condition. He knew the terrain was rough to the uninitiated, but this bunch of prima donnas was getting to him.

  "These things cost nearly two hundred dollars and aren't worth two cents!" Brit exclaimed unexpectedly, her voice shrill and echoing against the towering canyon walls. She flung the tattered shoes as hard as she could into the rocks. Sitting on flat sandstone, she cradled one foot tenderly and massaged it.

  Jake gazed at Brit for a long moment, thinking about taking matters into his own hands and massaging her feet himself. No, they needed to be on their way. And she would need those shoes. He drew on his rapidly dwindling patience and retrieved the flimsy items she had thrown, examining them as he made his way back to her. At first, he had thought she might be resilient and spunky enough to cope with the hardships of this wilderness. But apparently he had been wrong. With this latest outburst, she had fallen into line with the rest: complaining, miserable, and difficult.

  "I'd hang onto these if I were you." He held them out to her. "They could come in handy."

  She leveled her sparkling green eyes at his face. "Handy? For what? Knocking off lizards? They're torn and won't stay on. What good are they?"

  "Well, the leather soles are still okay. It's only the straps that are broken."

  "In case you haven't noticed, that's how I keep them on my feet." She tucked her legs up and hugged them to her chest as if resisting any further walking.

  He knew he had to get her, and the others, going again. "Why, this one still works."

  She gave him a doubtful glance.

  Jake turned the battered sandals over in his large hands, showing her as he talked. "Put this on, and I'll rig up something for the other one until we get to camp. Then I can make you some shoes."

  She looked at him incredulously. "Excuse me. You're going to make a pair of shoes?"

  "Yep. Moccasins." He pulled a thin leather strip from his pocket, knelt before her, and patted his thigh for her to place her foot there.

  A smile twitched at her lips. "Moccasins?"

  He grinned slightly. "A skill my old grandmother taught me. Comes in handy from time to time." He reached for her foot and aligned it on his thigh. Then he began binding the tattered sole to her foot.

  "Tell me you just happened to bring along that cord."

  He pursed his lips and concentrated on his task. "You never know when you might have to tie something up."

  "Yeah, right." Brit watched apprehensively as his hands slid over the silky top of her bare foot, inadvertently touching and caressing it as he worked. His fingers were long and bare and ring less and he worked with the skill of a surgeon.

  Jake couldn't help but notice the slender shape of her ankle. He figured he had been partially right about her. She was spunky and had a sense of humor, but had probably been pushed to her limit by now, for she was pretty snippy. Well, what did he expect from a city gal? The mile- deep bottom of the Grand Canyon was not a beach in California. She had probably never been so isolated from society and the conveniences of modern life. He knew it wouldn't be easy to adjust.

  Jake stood up and observed his work. "How's that? Think you can walk with it?"

  Brit wiggled her foot, circling her ankle in the most exasperatingly sensuous way. Then she tested his handiwork with a couple of steps. "I’ll do, I think."

  Jake nodded, satisfied, then moved to where the group lay sprawled on large rocks. "I may as well tell all of you now that we don't leave any trash down here in the canyon. It's a pristine wilderness and, even though this part is remote, we have to take out everything that we bring in."

  "Everything?" Yolanda made a funny face. "How can you possibly do that?"

  "Just have to, that's all. Every bottle and can, every piece of paper, everything. I have large containers for trash, and we’ll backpack it out."

  "We?" she asked indignantly. "I'm not planning on backpacking anything out of here."

  "Well, right." Jake shifted and looked away for a moment, close to losing his patience with Yolanda. He spoke deliberately to her. "When we leave, no matter how we do it, we'll take our trash. That includes you, too, I'm afraid, Yolanda. Okay, everyone, ready to go on? We aren't far from camp."

  He hefted the cooler to his shoulder and the group trudged behind him, occasionally mum-bling complaints to each other. Jake ignored them. The last thing he wanted to do was to babysit a bunch of spoiled brats used to the good life. He had work to do and couldn't afford to lose more time with them.

  He despised the thought of catering to a celebrity who expected preferential treatment. He hated the animosity between the pilot and Yolanda's husband. And, dammit, he wouldn't let himself be distracted by an alluring woman like Brit who needed him to take care of her slender feet, whose smooth legs were long and shapely, and whose cat green eyes made him forget how to think straight. No, he couldn't, and he wouldn't. He repeated that pledge several times to himself as he climbed the rocks to his camp.

  Hobbling along behind Jake, Brit felt as though she were moving through time as well as space. The red rock amphitheater of the canyon walls rose up, enclosing the little group in a strange, different world. They climbed up to a small plateau above the riverbank where two tents, one fairly large and the other a small A-frame, formed Jake's camp. A box of pans sat next to a small one-burner stove on a flat log stretched between two rocks. Several leafy cottonwood trees shaded the area and a sheer canyon wall formed a dramatic stone backdrop.

  "This is it?" Rudi asked, voicing everyone's disappointment.

  "What did you expect, the elegance and convenience of Caesars Palace?" snapped Yolanda. "This isn't Vegas. We're out here in the middle of nowhere. No running water, except in the river. No . . . nothing."

  Rudi's gaze swept longingly at a distant edge where the sky met the canyo
n's magenta rim. "How in the world are we gonna get outta here?"

  "How are we supposed to sleep?" Brit pointed to the tents. "In there?"

  "Sleep wherever you want." Jake swung the cooler easily to the ground and drew a semicircle in the air with a sweep of his arm. "Pick any spot."

  "Out here?" Yolanda looked around. In the moment of silence that followed, she caught on. "Oh, no you don't! Not with the bugs and wild animals! I'm not sleeping out here!"

  "My equipment is in the large one, where it's protected from the weather." Jake started toward that tent. "I've been sleeping in the pup, but you can have it."

  "Thanks," Yolanda mumbled. "That's ever so generous of you."

  Jake shrugged his angular shoulders. "The animals probably won’t bother you. I can’t guarantee about the bugs. It's actually nice out here under the stars. Now, you make yourselves at home, so to speak. I have some work to finish before dark." He disappeared inside the large tent.

  Silence ensued as the four crash survivors looked bleakly at each other, then at their crude wilderness surroundings. It was obvious that Jake was not going to take care of them. He had his work. He had done his duty by rescuing them and now they were on their own.

  "I'm not looking forward to sleeping outside like this," Brit ventured, feeling suddenly very insecure and small, trapped in a strange land with strangers. The wild animals Yolanda mentioned seemed real and threatening. Daylight had begun to diminish as the sun disappeared beyond the canyon walls. Night was rapidly approaching.

  "What . . . kind of animals do they have down here?" Yolanda asked.

  "Oh, probably bears, mountain lions, tigers." Frank chuckled devilishly as he rattled off the names of the fiercest creatures that came to mind.

  "No, Frank." Brit folded her arms. "There are no tigers here. And probably none of the others, either."

  "Don't forget the snakes," he added.

  Both women gasped at the mention of snakes.

  "All right, enough!" Rudi shouted, waving his arms at Frank. "Shut up, fool! We won't get a minute's sleep now. Besides, with no blankets, how are we going to keep warm tonight? It's al-ready getting cool. I could use my leather jacket that's floating down the Colorado right now."

  "We didn't crash into the Colorado River," Frank explained. "It's some small tributary. We're in a remote canyon far away from the usual tourist places."

  "Where are we? Near anything?" Yolanda demanded.

  "Beats the hell outta me. That's another thing we need to ask Jake." Frank walked around, careful not to get too close to Rudi. The hostility between them remained.

  Brit glanced optimistically at the large tent where Jake had disappeared. "Maybe he has extra blankets in there."

  "Well probably all have to huddle together to keep warm tonight." Frank glanced mockingly at Rudi. "And hope you don't decide to attack anyone again."

  "Hey, I said it's over, okay?" Rudi grumbled. "I . . . just lost it for a minute."

  Frank rubbed his hands together and headed for the cooler. "I don't know about you folks, but I've worked up an appetite this evening. Hey, this shrimp looks mighty tasty. And how about a little champagne, too? We should celebrate. After all, we're still alive. I never thought I'd live if I went down in the canyon. Anybody else want some?"

  They all gathered around with paper cups extended while Frank popped the cork and poured. Brit proposed a toast, hoping it would help to mollify the group. "To us. And to our safe rescue!" She lifted her cup with the others. The four survivors stood in an uneven circle, their dis-agreements forgotten for the moment, laughing at their ragged clothes, nibbling shrimp, sipping bubbly champagne, glad to be alive.

  Even as they congratulated themselves, Brit thought of their reluctant rescuer tucked away in that big tent, working. She recalled his large, rough hands and his long, sensitive fingers and how they felt touching her skin when he fixed her shoe. And she simply could not dismiss her feelings of anxiety, or was it trepidation, whenever they were close.

  Finally, the group began to move around the campsite, trying to familiarize themselves with its strangeness. Rudi and Yolanda sat on a slab of sandstone, talking quietly, and Frank stretched out on another boulder. Brit took the nearly empty champagne bottle and headed for the large tent. Jake shouldn't be left out of this. After all, he had rescued them.

  She rattled the canvas doorway and squinted inside. "Excuse me, mind if I come in?"

  A small battery lamp threw a yellow glow over the shadowy figure of Jake sitting on the floor, typing. He looked up from the notebook computer. "Sure. Come on. I'm just finishing some notes I wanted to make on my findings today before I forgot them."

  "Notes on your findings, huh? Us?" She stepped inside and sat beside him, crossing her legs Indian-style.

  "No, although it might be wise in case anyone wants to make a stink over what happened."

  Brit frowned. "You mean, someone might sue you? For what? You saved us."

  "That's your opinion. I'm sure the others have a different view of what I did for them. And before the night's over, who knows what they'll think? Or do!"

  "You don’t honestly think they would actually sue, do you? For what?"

  "You never know. From the way they're talking, and acting, I wouldn't doubt anything."

  "Well, I wouldn't sue," she declared. "I'm glad you found us. We'd still be sitting down there by ourselves beside the river if you hadn't come along." She sighed and shook her head, trying to reconcile the rapid changes this day had brought. "My friends won't believe ... all this."

  "Your friends in L.A.?"

  "No. My friends at work in San Diego."

  "I thought you were going to L.A. when you crashed."

  "That's right. I have a new job there. Supposed to start tomorrow."

  "And what do you do?"

  "I used to be a secretary in a large insurance firm in San Diego. That's where my friends still work."

  "So, the company's transferring you to L.A.?" He pushed a few keys on the keyboard, closing the program in the computer.

  "Please don't stop. I didn’t intend to interrupt."

  "It's okay. I'm finished. Tell me about L.A."

  He turned his attention to her. She was struck by the angled planes of his face, the almost chiseled look of his swarthy features. In the closeness of the tent, she could see that he was not exactly handsome in a model-perfect way, but there were some fascinating qualities about him, like strength and honesty, that were visible in his eyes.

  "Well, I'm heading for a completely new job. A new life, actually." She smiled as she considered her rosy future. "I'm going to be a consultant on a movie."

  "Oh. Now, there's a logical transition." He looked at her, puzzled.

  "You see, my Great-grandmother Bonnie wrote a book about her life, and it was published many years ago. Now, a movie company is producing it. I've been hired as a consultant to make sure Bonnie's story remains true to her real life. And to add what I can about her."

  "Bizarre. Is that how movies come about?"

  "Not usually, from what I've gathered. I'm very lucky." She paused and laughed. "At least, until today I've been lucky."

  "You were damned fortunate in the way you came down." His tone grew sober. "They don't usually make it when they crash in the canyon. Your pilot did a hell-of-a-job."

  "Yeah, I know." She gazed admiringly at his computer. "That's a great little computer. I'm surprised to find something so modern here. I mean, everything else is pretty crude."

  "It's great for fieldwork," he explained enthusiastically. "I can make unlimited notes. Doesn't take up much space. Carry a few extra batteries and I don't have to bother with paper. Then when I get back to my office, I'll just print it all out. It enables me to have only the base essentials that I need down here. But, no internet access. Didn’t think I needed it."

  "Nothing extra, like blankets?"

  "Oh." He snapped his fingers. "Blankets. Everyone will need something tonight."

  "
And, would you have, possibly, an extra toothbrush?"

  He grinned. "Matter of fact, I do. A handful. I use them to clean my artifacts."

  "Yuk! They have dirt in them?"

  He moved to a box and started digging. "There may be a few clean ones." Triumphantly he pulled up several. "Maybe the Romeros won't mind sharing."

  She shook her head. "Don't bet on it. I can’t imagine them sharing a TV set, let alone a tooth-brush."

  "I never bet. The odds are always stacked."

  Brit tucked away that bit of information before continuing. "Jake, you must think we're all jerks. The arguments. The fight. I was awful back there about my shoes, but I was just so aggravated that I'd paid so much and they fell apart."

  "I understand. You've all had quite a day."

  "We're just upset. Tomorrow will be better, I'm sure."

  "Yeah. You're going home. No offense, but none of you belong down here."

  "You're absolutely right." She poured the last of the champagne into the paper cup and handed it to him. "Here. We had a toast with the champagne from the cooler. This is all that's left. Since you did the rescuing, seems only right that you have a couple of sips."

  He started to refuse, but she insisted with a persuasive smile. "Please. We want you to know that, in spite of everything, we appreciate your efforts. We'd really be up the creek, so to speak, without you, Jake."

  He moved closer and took the cup from her, his rough fingers brushing hers. "Don't thank me, yet. You haven't spent the night."

  "Is it really dangerous?" Brit's eyes widened. "What kind of animals roam around down here?"

  "Not dangerous at all." Jake took a healthy sip of the champagne. "I happen to think it's beautiful at night here."

  "Tell me about the animals." A part of her wanted to know. Another part didn't.

  "Coyotes, javelina, bobcats, an occasional mountain lion."

  "Predators. That sounds dangerous to me." She hugged her arms to her ribs and shivered.

  "We'll keep a low fire going. I don't think we’ll have a problem." He shifted to a lounging position, propped on one elbow. His long body stretched out, taking up one side of the tent. "I'm sure the Romeros aren't very good at roughing it."