by Cindy Dees
And just when she thought she couldn’t get any more miserable, Tex announced they were going to keep moving after dark. She staggered along behind him, so fatigued she could hardly see straight. Time slowed to a stop and her whole existence consisted of the next minute.
And then it narrowed down to the next step.
When she was sure she’d reached the end of her rope, somehow she found a few more steps in her rubbery legs. And a few more. And a few more after that.
It was, simply put, torture.
When Tex finally halted, almost twenty-four hours into their forced march, she no longer cared that she was caked in mud, hungry, thirsty, or running for her life. She only wanted to stop and never move again.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Tex said quietly. “Let’s get some rest.”
She nodded wearily. She noticed vaguely that he was looking up into the trees.
He walked over to the base of a big tree wrapped in vines and gestured to her. “After you,” he murmured.
“Aren’t you going to build us a shelter or find us something to crawl under?” she asked in confusion.
“Tonight we climb a tree,” he said casually.
“We do what?” The idea refused to compute in her numb brain.
“Think in three dimensions for a minute. Everyone who’s chasing us is thinking in two dimensions. They expect us to run around the jungle floor. So, we’re heading up there. It’ll be safer.” He pointed up into the trees.
Her mushy brain saw the logic, but her mushier legs thought it was a lousy idea. She’d reached the point where she had no mental or physical reserves left to cope with anything new he threw at her. “Tex, I’ve never climbed a tree in my life. How am I supposed to do this?” she asked helplessly.
“Just put your hands and feet where I tell you to. I’m coming right behind you, so if you slip, I’ll be there to catch you.”
That was small comfort as he talked her so far up the tree she couldn’t even see the ground anymore. If she fell from this height, kidnappers would be the least of her problems.
Finally he murmured from behind her, “See that pair of branches just to your left?”
“The big ones that run side by side?” she replied.
“Yup. Straddle the nearest one, facing away from the tree trunk.”
She did as he directed.
Nimbly he scrambled onto the branch beside hers and leaned back against the tree trunk. He pulled a couple pieces of rope out of a pants’ pocket. “Now we’re going to tie ourselves to the tree so we can get some sleep without falling out of the damn thing.”
She sat still while he lashed her torso snugly to the tree trunk and did the same for himself.
He smiled jauntily at her. “It’s not the comforts of home, darlin’, but do your best to get some rest. We’ve got about six hours of darkness left, and we won’t move any more tonight.”
Six hours. Of stillness. Of unconsciousness.
Heaven. Who cared if she was tied in a tree fifty feet above the ground? Her head landed on Tex’s solid shoulder.
She slept extremely soundly. And that’s why it took her several minutes to register that there was something warm and heavy in her lap as dawn broke the following morning.
Finally she woke up enough to open her eyes and look down.
Her scream ripped through the early morning silence, loud and piercing across the green expanse of the jungle.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tex jolted wide-awake as an ungodly screech tore apart the silence of the jungle. He was instantly at full battle alert, his gaze taking in the situation in a single quick glance of assessment.
Kimberly screaming her head off. Her hands up in the air, her body pressed back against the tree trunk. A large, bright yellow snake curled up in her lap. Holy shit. An eyelash viper. Tree dweller. Venomous bite, deadly to humans.
In the next millisecond, the question of shutting up Kimberly first or getting rid of the snake first popped into his mind and was answered. He slammed his hand across Kimberly’s mouth, stifling the sound, even though she still screamed against his palm. She was completely hysterical.
Clearly not a fan of snakes, he thought dryly.
He took a moment to assess the deadly viper. Fortunately the creature, deaf like all snakes, wasn’t freaking out at the sounds emanating from Kimberly. But the vibrations of her screaming and wriggling had disturbed it. The snake was alert and testing the air with its tongue.
Good news, it had been a chilly night, cold enough to make the snake’s reflexes sluggish.
Bad news, eyelash vipers had lightning-fast reflexes to begin with. Sluggish for that snake might still be faster than his. Plus, it was curled up in Kimberly’s nice, warm lap. He’d have to assume the snake was at full speed.
Keeping his left hand pressed tightly against Kimberly’s mouth, he leaned over slowly, moving his right hand by gradual degrees closer and closer to the back of the snake’s head.
When the snake finally began to turn his head, its tongue flicking to catch the scent of his hand, Tex lunged.
He grabbed the viper right behind its triangular head.
The snake went nuts. It writhed and flailed, flinging its long body every which way, trying to get loose.
It hissed furiously, opening its mouth wide to reveal a pair of curved fangs. It even spit its venom in a futile effort to free itself. The deadly, milky yellow fluid streamed down Tex’s wrist and forearm.
He prayed fervently he didn’t have any fresh scratches in the path of that venom, or he might as well have been bit by the damn snake. The venom would get into his bloodstream through the tiniest open wound on his arm.
If that happened, it was lights out for him. He’d go into convulsions in a matter of seconds and stop breathing within thirty minutes or so. An eyelash viper was not a snake to be messed with lightly.
The snake’s whole body whipped about, its tail wrapping around Tex’s upper arm in a powerful grasp. The thing had to be a good six feet long, and at its thickest was nearly the diameter of his wrist. It was a monster of a snake.
Tex paused in indecision. He had to have both hands free to wrestle with the snake and throw it away from him before it bit him. But he dared not let Kimberly advertise their position to the entire free world anymore, either.
“Kimberly,” he panted urgently as he struggled to hang on to the powerful creature. “I need both hands to get rid of the snake. You’ve got to stop screaming.” He prayed she was coherent enough to understand and obey him.
Thankfully she went quiet under his palm.
He grabbed the snake with his free hand, fighting to disentangle himself from its furious coils. Normally he’d break the neck of a snake like this and eat it for supper. But the thing was so damned big and muscular, he wasn’t certain he could snap its neck. If he tried and failed, he’d get bit for sure.
When he finally managed, his arms straining, to get the bright yellow creature stretched out more or less in front of him, he threw it as hard as he could. It bounced briefly across the end of the limb he was sitting on, giving him a momentary start.
But then it wriggled and fell off the branch, tumbling through the foliage toward the jungle floor far below.
Kimberly tore at the knots holding her in place and worked the rope free. She flung herself at him. Fortunately he had a foot hooked around the tree trunk so she didn’t tumble him right off his perch.
Her arms wrapped around his neck in almost as tight a hold as the snake’s, choking him until he could barely breathe.
He squeezed her close against him, the adrenaline shock of waking up and seeing that deadly snake in her lap finally hitting him. His hands shook and he didn’t feel all that much steadier than she. That had been a close call.
He took one deep breath and allowed her to take a couple breaths, and then he spoke into her hair. “We’ve got to go, Princess. Right now. Your screaming will bring every person within a mile to the foot of this tree in the next few
minutes.”
She looked up, disoriented. “I want to stay here,” she wailed.
She was still too messed up over that snake to realize what she’d done. She had no idea she’d just brought the whole damn rebel army down on top of their heads.
He didn’t waste any breath explaining to her. He yanked out his knife and slashed the ropes holding him in place. He stuffed the pieces of rope into his pocket.
“Let’s go,” he bit out as he started climbing down the tree. She shook her head in the negative and he let out a breath of frustration. They didn’t have the time to argue about it, and he didn’t have time to coax her out of her hysteria.
He figured if he left her up there alone, she’d come down after him, so he kept climbing downward. He figured right. She scrambled after him, more interested in staying close than in remaining in her leafy perch.
He dropped the last ten feet or so to the ground and looked up. She’d stopped in the branches above him. Her face had one of those looks of frozen terror on it that didn’t bode well for getting her to move any time soon. Damn.
“Is it gone?” she asked in thick-throated horror.
He frowned. “Is what gone?”
“The snake,” she gasped, searching the ground frantically.
“Trust me, darlin’. That li’l ole yellow snake was a whole lot more scared of us than you were of it. He skedaddled the second he hit the ground.”
Still, she hesitated.
“Come on down, Kimberly,” he coaxed calmly. “The bad guys will be here any minute. We need to get out of here.”
She blinked at him in non-comprehension.
Dammit.
“Kimberly, get your butt down here right now or I’m going to climb back up there, turn you over my knee, and blister your behind,” he barked.
He sagged in relief when she lurched into motion. Ten to one her father had conditioned her into that automatic response to a no-kidding order. The bastard.
He waited impatiently for the long seconds it took her to negotiate her way down the last dozen feet. Please God, let her not flake out on him now. There’d only been a few times in his life when he’d truly needed a woman to come through for him, and this was one of them. He added a specific plea to his silent prayer that Kimberly wouldn’t fail him like all the other women in his life had.
The moment her feet hit the ground, he grabbed her hand and took off running. They raced through the jungle like wild animals, leaves whipping their faces and branches tearing at their clothes. There was no time for stealth. They had to get away from that tree as fast as they possibly could.
It was only a matter of minutes until he heard gunshots and crashing noises behind them.
“Oh, my God!” Kimberly panted beside him.
“They’ve found roughly where we were and are shooting up into the branches,” he grunted. “Keep going.”
The shots spurred both of them onward. When Kimberly started to lag behind he just barged on, gripping her hand tightly and dragging her alongside him. If she could stay on her feet, he’d provide the forward speed.
He didn’t know how long they ran. A half-hour maybe. Even he had a stitch in his side by the time they stopped. He was in good shape but carrying two heavy rifles and bodily dragging another human along at a dead run was taxing, even for him.
Kimberly’s breath came in rasping gasps. He gave her sixty seconds to catch her breath, then he took off again. He didn’t waste breath on speaking and neither did she.
Somewhere in their mad dash, she must have gotten her wits about her after the snake encounter because she wore a grim expression of determination. She knew this was a run for their lives.
Ten more minutes of running and another one minute break. They kept that up for an hour. Kimberly was staggering beside him, and her breath came in great, wheezing pulls that told him she was done for. He gave them three minutes to rest; and when he set off again, it was at a much slower jog.
His heart still slammed against his ribs, though, and he felt light-headed with adrenaline. The kidnappers were closing in on Kimberly, and the helplessness of being unable to stop it nearly made him sick to his stomach. The Blackjacks didn’t fail. They just didn’t.
And he was about to. In a big way.
He wasn’t afraid of dying, himself. But he was appalled at the idea that Kimberly was going to die.
Think, man. Think!
There had to be something he could do to save her.
When they’d taken off running this morning, he’d chosen the same direction they’d been travelling all along. He hadn’t expected to come this way at a dead run, but the same theory still applied. Somewhere out here was a trap waiting for them.
The fact that he didn’t hear anyone crashing through the jungle immediately behind them led him to believe the captors were satisfied to let him and Kimberly continue in this direction.
He looked around, but the foliage was so dense he couldn’t see more than a few yards in any direction. They were going to be right on top of the trap before they found it.
He’d been tempted to ditch the rifles during that mad dash away from the tree, but he was glad he hadn’t. The weapons gave them a number of options they wouldn’t otherwise have.
God, he hated being blind like this. If only he knew what was coming!
KEEP GOING. If you stop, you’ll die. Keep going…
Kimberly repeated the mantra over and over to herself as she ran alongside Tex. It was the only thing that kept her going long after she was completely out of breath, long after her reserves of energy were spent, long after she’d run every step that was in her legs to be run.
When the idea of dying started to sound like not so bad an alternative to stopping, she switched to telling herself that if she stopped, Tex would die, too. It pushed her for another half hour or so.
When Tex finally slowed the pace to a fast walk, she nearly cried in her relief. She never wanted to experience that much agony of mind and body again for as long as she lived. However long that might be.
Chagrin washed through her at what she’d done. Tex had worked so hard to get them a head start, to buy them some time, to plan a smart strategy for getting out alive, and she’d blown it all with one good, loud scream.
It was her fault they’d had to race through the jungle like maniacs. She had only herself to blame for the misery Tex had just put her through. He was only trying to save her life.
Her breathing recovered slightly, even though the back of her throat felt raw and her lungs still felt as if they might explode at any second. “I can run a little more if you need me to,” she gasped.
He shook his head in the negative and gestured her to be quiet. His pace slowed down even more.
What was going on? She listened intently and didn’t hear a thing. They’d long ago left behind the sounds of gunshots and pursuit.
Tex eased forward, moving as cautiously as a tiger on the hunt. She mimicked the way he glided around leaves and branches, slipping through the jungle in near total silence.
Her already overtaxed muscles protested.
Pain is better than death, she told her uncooperative body sternly. But not by much, her pain centers announced to the rest of her brain.
They continued onward for maybe another fifteen minutes when, abruptly, Tex crouched in front of her. She did the same. He gestured her to sit still while he disappeared into the jungle ahead.
He rejoined her in under a minute. “We’ve got a problem,” he murmured very low.
Her stomach dropped to her feet.
“How good are you at rock climbing?” he asked.
She blinked. “Not. I’ve never done it.”
“Well, you’re about to get a crash course,” he commented. “Come with me.”
“What’s going on?” she murmured as she hustled to keep up with him.
“The rebels have chased us into a box canyon. We must’ve passed the entrance a while back while we were running like bats out of hell
.”
Box canyon. She remembered the term from a stray snippet of a cowboy movie she’d caught a very long time ago. It had to do with dead ends and being trapped with no place to go. Oh God.
He murmured, “There’s a wall of rock ahead of us, probably a hundred meters high. It looks vertical from here, but I can’t tell for sure. Without climbing gear, I don’t know if we stand a chance of getting up it.”
Great.
“Problem is, we can’t turn around at this late date. I’m sure the rebels have the entrance to this thing sealed off with a line of men that’s practically shoulder to shoulder. With you along, we don’t have even a ghost of a chance of doubling back through the line.”
They walked forward for several minutes, each step bringing her closer to her doom. She couldn’t believe he just kept walking deeper and deeper into the trap.
Still, this supposed cliff hadn’t come into sight. “How far is it to the dead end?” she asked in some confusion.
“About a half-mile.”
“And we’re just going to keep on heading deeper into this canyon thing?” she asked in dismay.
“There’s no way out behind us. That’s why the rebels quit chasing us. They know they’ve got us trapped. I won’t know if we have a shot at getting out the back door until I see it.”
“But if there’s not another way out, they’ll have us cornered with nowhere to go.”
“Honey, we’ve already got no place to go.”
His words were like a bucket of icy-cold water. They froze her brain into momentary shock. In denial of the real issue, she latched on to an odd detail. “How the heck did you see these cliffs through all this brush?” she whispered.
“I climbed a tree and had a look over the understory of vegetation.”
“And you can see a half mile away?” she exclaimed under her breath.
He grinned briefly. “Yeah. I’m a bit far-sighted. I’m the spotter for my team.”
She didn’t ask what a spotter was. Clearly, it took good eyesight to do the job. They had more important things to worry about at the moment.
Then she pushed aside a banana leaf, and there it was. An enormous rock cliff. As he’d described, it started behind them on their left and arced all the way around until it disappeared behind them on their right.
