by Winn, J. K.
“And you’ve survived. Why shouldn’t I?”
He released an exasperated sound. “I’m a little more experienced than you are. You have been rafting before, haven’t you?”
“Not really.”
“How about primitive camping?”
She offered him an apologetic smile. “Does summer camp count?”
He groaned. “Damn. This is going to be even more of a job than I bargained for.”
“How dangerous can the river be?”
A glance at Leah clinched his concerns. The crown of her short blond hair glowed in the lamplight like a halo. Her blue eyes shone with a childlike innocence. “With your lack of experience, I’m more and more certain this is not a good idea.”
“If you want to chicken out-”
Dylan held up a hand. “Whoa. I’m not threatening to leave you high and dry. If anyone should guide you down that stretch of the river, it’s me. At least I know what to expect. I’m just not sure a greenhorn like you should attempt it when it’s dangerous for an expert.”
She leveled her gaze at him. “I’m going with or without you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Are you always this headstrong?”
“Yes. When do we leave?”
“With your itinerary, no later than nine tomorrow morning. I’ll pick you up here.”
“I still need to buy a few supplies.”
He shook his head. “Schedule revised for noon departure.” He rummaged the battered notebook from his shirt pocket and began scribbling. “Here’s where to go. Tell Alessandro what you need. If he doesn’t have it, he’ll find it.” He tore the page from the book.
Leah took the page he held out to her. “I want you to know how much I appreciate your help, but I don’t want you to think you have to baby me. I can take care of myself.”
“I hope you’re right. I’ll just start earning my fee right now, Ms. Roberts.” He saluted her casually. “See you tomorrow noon.”
As Dylan left the bar, instinct told him to look around. Leah leaned forward on the barstool, her arms wrapped around her. In her Amazon best, she looked the least likely tourist ever to succeed on the Maranon. If he didn’t have a promise to repay, this trip wouldn’t be worth the potential risk to both their lives. But he did make a promise. And he always kept them.
Chapter Two
Leah wrestled a bag of supplies off the ancient wooden counter of Allesandro’s dry goods store and carried it past shelves stacked with a random selection of soups, canned vegetables and beans. She maneuvered around four army-issue jackets hanging from a metal coat rack on wheels before reaching the door.
Like Alice through the looking glass, she stepped outside into another world. The odor of fried food and a high-altitude chill assaulted her. She drew her jacket closer and pushed past women with long, ebony hair in braids under Alpaca hats alongside intricately woven rugs and carved ceramic vases. Many of the women had young children by their sides or infants strapped in a blanket wrapped around their backs. Car horns blared and brakes squealed, voices hawked goods in Spanish and Quechua, but the infants slept or stared at the world around them in patient acceptance.
A tide of humanity flowed in both directions, cramming the sidewalks and insuring a monumental effort with each step she took forward, as well as the occasional elbow in the ribs. After making painfully slow progress back toward the hotel, Leah ducked into an alley to avoid the crowd. She emerged onto a maze of winding streets that took her past rows of earth-toned stucco buildings, one much like another. She made her way down one block after another until she couldn’t decide where to turn next. Finally, nothing looked familiar. Dammit. She was lost.
Heart pounding, she stopped, took a calming breath and looked around. The sun was overhead, noon approached, and she could only guess which way to go. The last thing she wanted was to keep Hart waiting. It had been hard enough to convince him to take her on this trip, she didn’t want to alienate him from the start.
A landmark. She needed a landmark. The tallest building in town was the church, so she searched for its bell tower. With relief, she spotted it over the building tops.
Leah automatically checked her watch, but she didn’t need to read the time to know she was late for her appointment. She took off hurriedly in the direction of the church, pressing her heavy package against her hip to keep up the pace. At the bottom of a massive stairway leading up to the impressive stone cathedral, she silently mouthed a prayer for a safe trip, adding one for finding her grandfather alive, then rushed on past Spanish colonial buildings layered over ancient Incan stone foundations. Winded, she had to stop intermittently and lean against one of these sedimentary structures to catch her breath. The altitude, she realized, sucked the air out of her. She hoped this wouldn’t complicate her trip through the mountains.
Shortly after noon, she arrived back at the hotel. A clean-shaven Hart was waiting for her in the lobby in an unsoiled navy-blue windbreaker over well-worn jeans. He took one look at her and tapped his watch.
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I’ll be right back with my bags.” She rushed past him, but her jog upstairs left her even more winded, so she opted to ride the rickety lift back down, dropping backpack and duffel bag near the door. “What should I do with these?”
“I’ll take care of them.” Hart grabbed the luggage, hauled it outside and tossed it into the back of a black Land Rover.
Leah hoisted herself onto the passenger seat and he climbed in behind the wheel. When he turned the ignition, the engine roared to noisy life.
“We’ll head through the Cordillera, the mountainous backbone of Peru,” Hart said, “to the road’s end at the mouth of the Maranon River, higher in the Andes. From there we’ll take a raft downriver to Iquitos. For now, just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Lost once already that day, she was more than happy to have him take charge of their itinerary. “Will do.”
Hart maneuvered the SUV through streets bustling with typical Cuzco traffic to the edge of the city where the road abruptly began a steep ascent up a mountain pass. Just past the last cluster of adobe casitas, Leah glanced back over the clay-tiled rooftops dotting the Spanish colonial town. They cornered a ridge and the town disappeared from view.
Beyond the ridge the road dipped into a verdant valley surrounded by sheer rock faces, then climbed into scrub-covered hills where stout cactus, covered with woolly white hair, grew alongside eucalyptus. Fragrant flowering jasmine perfumed the air.
She turned her attention back to Hart. “Since we’re stuck together this week, it might be nice to get to know each other.”
A sharp bend in the road demanded Hart’s attention, but he safely cleared it. “What do you have in mind?”
“You could start by telling me why you chose the wilderness tour business.”
He stared straight ahead at an obvious obstacle course, smoothly steering the vehicle through a series of switch-backs. “I was trained as an Army Ranger. Thought I’d put my skills to use here.”
“Very comforting credentials.” She watched a lizard scamper across the road, barely avoiding their wheels. “I had a friend whose brother wanted to join the Rangers. They’re like the Green Berets, aren’t they?”
“The Rangers think they’re better trained for combat, no matter the place or condition.”
“That must make you an authority on difficult situations.”
“I sure hope so on this trip.” He rounded a curve. “It’s your turn to tell me why you became a journalist.”
She hesitated. If they didn’t form some kind of bond, this week would seem like a century. Still, Hart’s attitude made her reticent. “I actually was pre-med at UCLA when I wrote an article for the student paper on the conditions in the biology laboratory,” she said. “You know–the inhuman treatment of lab animals. The editor liked it enough to ask me to write more. I took a couple of journalism classes to hone my skills, and before long I changed my major. I’ve been a journalist ever since.”
Leah grasped the Land Rover’s roll bar as Hart executed a sudden hairpin turn. His driving, like his personality, often seemed abrupt and unexpected.
They huddled along for what seemed like hours, passing the most amazing scenery she had ever encountered, a hybrid of mountain and jungle vegetation against towering peaks. Occasionally a delivery truck would barrel down the road toward them at an impossible speed. Each time, Hart would pull off to the side as far as he could to avoid a collision, sending his wheels to the edge of a dizzying drop-off.
Her leg had begun to ache and she rubbed it. “How long ‘til we reach the river?”
“About two hours more to the head waters of the Maranon.”
They drove past a group of decapitated ruins, then began to climb another precipitous mountainside. Down below the jungle looked like an undulating sea of green moss. Near the crest of the mountain, she thought she could glimpse the ocean for a moment before the road entered a cloud forest. Surrounded by mist and trees, her head against the headrest, she watched their descent into a river valley overshadowed by immense snow-capped peaks.
She looked over at Hart, whose eyes were plastered on the road. As attractive as he was, he exuded a certain type of masculinity, a type she rarely found inviting. A type that always seemed too cock-sure of themselves to be good relationship material. Back in L.A., Robert awaited an answer to his proposal. No matter how appealing Hart was, she wasn’t available.
Hart caught her stare before she could turn away. She flushed, quickly turning away to look out her side window. The road had narrowed to one-lane and was no longer in one piece. The edge occasionally dipped off the side of the hill, macadam crumbled to rubble beneath the Land Rover’s wheels. Large pot-holes. like huge wounds, exposed the hill’s anatomy. At points, they had to slow to a crawl and hug the hillside to remain upright.
Jostled, Leah’s leg ached again. She shifted in her seat. If she complained, she’d only confirm his opinion of her, so she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to fuel his argument that they should have taken an easier route.
They began another descent, winding around one hairpin turn after another. Around an especially sharp switch-back, she heard a resounding snap, followed by a grinding noise. “What’s that?
He pumped the clutch. “Damn!”
Not reassured by his reaction, her throat felt as dry and gravely as the road beneath their wheels. “What’s wrong?”
“This is an old vehicle. The clutch just went out. We’ll coast down this hill and pull over where we can.”
Hill? If this was a hill, the Grand Canyon was just a ditch. Her stomach cramped. “Losing a clutch on this road might be a bit of a problem,” she said in a masterpiece of understatement that sounded ridiculous even to her. Just keep quiet, she thought. Don’t talk. Her throat burned. Sweat trickled down her back.
He decompressed the brake slightly. “I’ll find a level spot and pull over as soon as I can.”
The sun already grazed the tops of the tallest peaks and she had visions of the two of them stranded in these mountains for the night - or longer. She wanted desperately to ask whether they’d even make it to Iquitos, but refrained.
Dylan eased the Land Rover down the mountainside without changing gears. Near bottom, he smiled broadly. “Lucky for us we were on the downside. We’d have been stuck if we had to climb without being able to shift gears.”
She forced a smile. “Silly me, I can’t think of anything luckier. And to think I actually thought we might be in trouble.”
She caught him trying to suppress a grin. What a relief to see he had a sense of humor.
At a clearing by the river, he pulled off the road and popped the Land Rover’s hood. Leah climbed out and leaned against the vehicle, watching him tinker with its innards. “What can I do to help?”
“I have this under control. Just keep yourself busy.” He waved her away. “But this is the time of day to begin keeping an eye out for snakes. There are some venomous species around here.”
“I’ll be careful,” she promised, but sneaked a glance around to be certain she was safe. Reassured, she snatched a book from the back seat and lowered herself to the ground with her back against a tree to read.
Hart passed her on his path to the back of the vehicle. “What’s your book?” He bent over the Land Rover’s rear tool compartment in a scrabbling search.
“Heart of Darkness-” The creak of lid and clank of tools interrupted her.
“Conrad’s appropriate under the circumstances.” He had apparently found what he needed and straightened. “As I recall Conrad uses Kurtz’s journey into the jungle as a metaphor of self-discovery.” He cocked his head in her direction. “It’s curious you should be reading that now. Are you also on a journey of self-discovery in addition to your cockamamie assignment?”
His comment unnerved her. “You’re familiar with Conrad?”
“Read him in Modern Lit 102.” He smiled at her. “You might consider me a savage, but I’m an educated one.”
An educated savage. She smiled to herself, pleased to find an ex-Ranger, now Jungle guide, on evaluation terms with Conrad. “Where?”
“U. T. Austin.”
Dylan flashed a wire hanger in front of her face. “I’ve got it.”
She froze. The hanger hung between them like a bad joke. What was he planning to do with it? Tie some loose parts of the engine together to keep from losing a vital organ. “What?”
“Our new clutch.” He moved toward the vehicle’s front-end.
“You’re going to use a coat hanger to fix the clutch?”
“Not fix the clutch-this will be the clutch linkage.”
“A coat hanger?” Her throat constricted at the thought of a mere hanger between them and the disintegration of car parts. More than a little skeptical he could even complete this feat of alchemy, she approached the Land Rover. “You can make a clutch out of a coat hanger?”
“Any other suggestion? Would you rather spend the rest of the week in these hills?”
“If this works, I’ll sing your praises to General Motors. They could use someone like you.” She hung over the Rover awaiting the verdict.
Ten minutes later, he wiped his hands on his jeans. “We can hit the road. Hop in.”
He held the door for her, but let go long enough to slap at an insect that had alighted on his neck. With his arm raised, she noticed a long, narrow scar the shape of Florida across his bicep. “That scar’s pretty impressive. Where’d it come from?”
“Somalia. Years ago. But we have more pressing business. Let’s go.”
Dylan started the Land Rover, shoved the gear-shift into first, “So far so good,” and applied pressure to the gas pedal.
To her great surprise, off they went. Who would have guessed!
“The locals believe that each of these mountain peaks has a guardian spirit, an apus. One of them must be watching over us now,” he said.
“It’s a good thing.” And a good thing Dylan was so resourceful. Who else did she know who could turn a common household hanger into a car part? No one. Maybe she wasn’t so crazy after all to place her life in such capable hands.
* * *
By the time they arrived at a campsite near the river, the sun had dipped behind the highest mountain peak and the air had taken on a crispness that carried the rich smell of fertile soil. Leah emerged from the Rover drawing a cobalt sweatshirt over her lavender tee.
Nearby, Dylan wiped hands on his river bottom brown shirt and surveyed the site. “We’ll stay put tonight and make a fresh start in the morning.”
“Will the clutch incident set us back much? Time-wise?”
“Not much. We can catch up when we meet the motorboat downstream.”
Leah eyed the moldy-smelling sleeping bag he pulled from the vehicle along with a small green tent. The tent seemed far too tiny for one, let alone two. “Let me help you with that.”
Raised, it didn’t look any more spacious.
/> “You sleep in here,” Dylan said.
“Where will you sleep?”
He withdrew a sleeping bag from the rear compartment. “In this.”
“Outside, in the open?” She rubbed her chilled hands together, thinking about how cold it would be that night.
He removed a foam pad sequestered behind a Primus camp-stove and placed the sleeping bag on it. “I’m used to it. Actually prefer sleeping under the stars.” He propped the stove on top of a large, flat rock near where she stood.
The directions on the stove were in German. Here was her chance to show him he wasn’t dealing with a total nincompoop. “I know some German. Want me to translate the directions?”
He glanced over her shoulder at the stove, a sly smile lighting up his face. “Turn knob on right for propane,” he read.
“Where did you learn German?”
“Studied it in school. Practically every other student in the Austin schools took Spanish. I wanted to be different. Besides, I already spoke some Spanish at home. I’ve been able to practice my German in South America. There’s a fair number of Germans living here.”
“I know.” Outdone this time, she had to accept defeat. She gathered her pad and sleeping bag to make up her bed in the tent. When she was done, she joined him back by the camp-stove. He had begun chopping potatoes on a cutting block.
“Did you know that potatoes were originally domesticated in the Andes?” he asked. “You’re dining in the original home of the spud.”
If not the stud, she thought, eyeing him surreptitiously.
While he tossed potatoes, she added freeze-dried corn to a pan of water. Soon the appetizing aroma of vegetables sizzling on the stove reminded her that, in her rush to leave on time, she had forgotten to eat. Her stomach purred in hunger.
The wind picked up and made a rustling breeze in the nearby trees. “If you’re superstitious like the local campesinos, you’ll want to keep an eye out for a pishtaco tonight. The local villagers think they live in these mountains.”
“Is that something like a fish taco?” she joked.
