The Orchid Hunter

by Sandra K. Moore

  On the way back to the hut to catch some z’s, I considered my options. Daley’s being so close, and with four pistoleiros in tow, meant I’d have to do a little fancy footwork to stay away from him. The unknown American might be friend or foe, but I guessed foe. He might be more difficult to shake than Daley.

  The bottom line: Kinkaid’s moth had to point me to the orchid tonight. I needed to grab that orchid and get the hell out.

  “All I want,” I told myself, preaching to the choir, “is the orchid I came here for. I don’t want to have anything to do with the mine, the research station, Kinkaid, the pit viper, or this village.”

  And that was for the best, because clearly none of them wanted me.

  Chapter 9

  Before settling in for the day’s sleep, I needed a bath. Bad. I grabbed a clean pair of undies from my duffel bag and headed into the village for someone who could point me to the bathing pool.

  In the middle of the afternoon, the village seemed only a little busier than it had in the dark. The communal living building sat square in the middle of a natural clearing. Loosely grouped around the building, the Yanomamo busied themselves: the men repairing bows or carefully pressure flaking arrowheads, the women weaving slivers of palm into baskets. A couple of girls combed each other’s hair and painted decorative designs on their faces. All the little boys were off somewhere doing whatever boys do, I guessed.

  Entirely peaceable, and not likely to survive many more years. I felt a twinge of regret for these people. In another twenty years they’d be wearing Western clothes, and twenty years after that they’d be gone, dispersed into the cities or sucked into slash-and-burn agriculture. It had happened—was happening—all over the rain forest.

  A woman coming out of the building came over to me. While she pointed and gestured, I recognized her as the woman who’d helped me with the mosquito netting the night before, Marcello’s adoptive mom. At the end of our five-minute pantomime, I had a good idea where the bathing pool was. Nice lady.

  With any luck, the bathing pool wouldn’t be full of either mercury or Yanomamo.

  Her instructions and my nose led me a short distance through a liana forest where trailing vines hung like spaghetti through the midstory. On the other side, a hill abruptly interrupted the lay of the forest. The earthy, slightly musky odor wafting my way told me I was close.

  You get used to sniffing out water’s scent after a while. When I live outside, in the weather, everything is vital and real. Living in town, in an apartment or house, stunts my ability to do that. Four walls and a roof give me an excuse to pretend “outside” doesn’t exist. In town, rain is a nuisance that slaps the car hood as I drive through it to get somewhere. Here, rain is a pleasure that taps my head and runs down my shoulders and arms, giving me goose bumps as my body cools. I feel much more connected out here. Maybe that’s why I’ve never really felt at home in a city.

  I stopped to listen. Well beneath the birdcalls and monkeys chattering in the canopy, and under the shifting leaves as a bit of wind sifted through the midstory, I heard water shattering on rock. When I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could trace the sound due east. I headed in that direction.

  The waterfall’s splash dropped the temperature a good fifteen degrees. Maybe that drop was in my imagination, but I didn’t care. I needed a break from the heat and even a fake break was better than sweat trickling down my sides. Past a banana tree, through some tall ferns, and the pool stretched out like a tropical paradise behind some movie star’s Beverley Hills mansion. Large-leafed undergrowth leaned decoratively over the pool’s edge. Even the moss looked landscaped.

  And not a creeping or slithering or stinging thing in sight.

  My boots came off first. Then I stripped my camouflage shirt off my back and dunked it into the water at the pool’s edge. The canvas pants peeled from my legs inside out, they were so damp with perspiration. The muscle-tee undershirt, cotton sports bra and panties came next and I submerged all that as well. The clothes wouldn’t be washed but they’d be rinsed and I’d take it. I wrung out the wet clothing, turned inside-out things right side out, and laid them on a flattish rock to dry. I dropped my fresh panties on a bowing fern at the pool’s edge.

  I put one toe in, kind of staring at the water in sheer exhausted mindlessness. Running seventy-two hours on about four hours’ sleep can really take it out of a girl. You know when you’re so tired that your brain is numb and everything moves in slow motion, but your eyes latch on to something, like the wallpaper pattern, and you don’t move for a while even though you know you could just lie down? It’s just too much effort to do anything other than look at whatever’s in front of you. Ripples from the waterfall spread toward me in rough rings, and what little sunlight fell through the canopy dappled the clear water. I zoned.

  A movement caught my attention. My eyes focused automatically on the waterfall and I saw Rick walk waist-deep through it on a submerged rock ledge, crystal-clear water sheeting over his head and shoulders. Before he could look up, I dropped into the pool.

  I’m not usually missish, but flashing for Rick would be a little like walking around nude with your brother. Icky. As it was, the water felt like it’d come straight off a glacier and had every part of exhausted, overheated little me shivering with the cold. It wasn’t exactly as clear as your rich aunt’s backyard pool, but clear enough to give you a general idea of what was under the surface. And it was deeper than I expected.

  Rick dove off the ledge and made a beeline in my direction. He surfaced a few feet away, water slicking his prominent cheekbones. “This is fantastic,” he called over the crashing water, treading. “I feel better all the time.”

  “I’m glad.” And I was. Surprisingly so, setting off a twinge in my chest. Jeez. First Marcello and now Rick. I was going soft in my late twenties.

  Still, he’d ticked me off and I wasn’t ready to give that up yet.

  “I wouldn’t have made it without your help, Nurse Robards,” he said, grinning and conjuring up a bedroom fantasy.

  I bet I’d look good in a perky white cap, no-nonsense shoes, and nothing else. “Don’t mention it.”

  He dove again and circled back toward the waterfall. I wondered if his distance meant he’d shed all his clothes as well. It made me feel better to think he was just as self-conscious as I was.

  He was down a long time and I was just starting to get antsy when he surfaced like a porpoise, exploding out of the water with enough force to show me his back and bare hips. When he raised his arms straight out at the top of his leap, like he was going to fly, his back made a nice V shape with the long, lean, muscular bulges made for a girl’s grip. Is it just me, or is the tan line low on a guy’s hips one of the sexiest sights on earth?

  Strike another assumption from the nerd list, I thought. The geek’s got a body. From every angle at my disposal.

  He sank back into the water and turned, flashing me his muscled pecs. “Come over here.”

  I thought about grabbing my undies but it was the moment of truth. Which action would be more embarrassing: swimming over in the raw to discover he was actually wearing a Speedo, or making a big deal out of putting on my bra and panties? Not being the cocktail-party type and therefore not accustomed to making this kind of “what’s the least embarrassing thing to do?” decision regularly, I struggled.

  Oh hell. I started swimming, determined to swagger through it. I had nothing to be ashamed of.

  As I got within about five feet and stopped, he slicked the water from his face. His longish hair had formed an adorable ducktail. “I owe you an apology,” he said.

  “You think?”

  His grin faded, but not much. “Yeah, I do. Are you interested in hearing it?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I retorted.

  “Receptivity doesn’t seem to be your strong suit.” He smiled just enough to take the sting out.

  Cheeky boy. I wondered how well he could see without his glasses. Five feet seemed a safe d
istance.

  “I’m feeling receptive,” I said.

  “Here goes.” He treaded a little closer into my space—four feet and counting—and cleared his throat. “You’re right. Your job isn’t my business.”

  After a moment I asked, “Is that it? Where’s the part where you prostrate yourself at my feet and beg my forgiveness?”

  The sudden image of his strong hands grabbing my ankles under the water warmed me all over. Maybe I’d have to rethink the “brother” idea I’d had earlier, especially when that slow-burn smile spread across his mouth, which, if he were to dive right now and grab my ankles, would be on a level with…my sweet spot tingled.

  “Screw that,” I muttered under my breath, trying to stop the images in my fertile little brain from multiplying faster than I could tamp them down.

  “So you don’t want an apology?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, treading water with short strokes to keep my breasts blurry, in case he was less nearsighted than I suspected. “Are you going to get around to it today?”

  “Isn’t admitting I was wrong enough? You didn’t strike me as the type to want flowers, too.”

  “Maybe I’m higher maintenance than you thought.”

  “I guess you are,” he replied, looking undaunted by the idea. The grin was definitely back, turning his good-looking features into suddenly handsome ones.

  “I’m surprised flowers even occurred to you.”

  “Why?” His brows shot up. “You’re a botanist.”

  “Anal-retentive bug nerds,” I said dismissively. “You know how they are.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said, treading a little closer. Three feet. Definitely within my personal space now. His eyes glinted with a much more adult version of Marcello’s mischief. “Tell me.”

  “I’d better keep my professional opinion to myself.”

  Likewise, I kept my gaze to myself. On a very few occasions—very few—I can resist temptation. But meeting his eyes was somehow more erotic than checking out his equipment. Those brown eyes just got deeper and deeper the longer I looked at them until I felt like I’d drown. Happily.

  His voice lowered slightly. “If you won’t tell me what I’m like, how will I know what to do?”

  “It depends on what you want to do,” I countered.

  “I want to do lots of things,” he said, slipping easily through the water. Two and a half feet. Another foot and my space would become our space. “I want to show you something.”

  I glanced down. My brain immediately spun into overdrive trying to remember if water was a magnifier or reducer.

  You want to show me something? Then don’t you move, big boy. I took a deep breath and affected mild interest in what he was saying.

  “It’s back here,” he said, “behind the waterfall.”

  “Hey, little girl, want a piece of candy?” I remarked, treading a little faster.

  Rick laughed and back-stroked away, toward the fall. His lower body rose tantalizingly in the water but didn’t surface. “Hey, little girl, want to see a Streptocarpus campbellus?”

  Damn him. I’d never seen a Streptocarpus campbellus in my life.

  “There’s a rock ledge, here where I’m standing.” The tops of his shoulders gleamed wetly in the shard of light cast down through the canopy. “It’s inside there.”

  I side-stroked past him, keeping my back to him. The waterfall deep-muscle massaged me as I stepped up on the ledge and toed my way through it.

  Behind the fall, I caught my breath. A shallow cave had been dug out of the hillside where the waterfall now plummeted. Enclosed on all sides, the stony bower held shade-loving lithophytes—rock-dwelling plants—that clung to every crack and ledge. Long-fingered weed cushioned my bare feet and stroked my ankles where I stood in the waist-deep pool. It smelled fresh and wet and deep and rich. Something about the coolness of it, the darkness, the enclosed space, made it comforting. It was the kind of place where secrets were told and promises kept.

  And there, halfway up, was the Streptocarpus campbellus. I could just reach it to stroke its leaves. It was like magic, touching this beautiful plant I’d never seen before. Several plants, actually, because this genus was unifoliate—one leaf per plant. I studied the stem structure and admired the leaves’ brilliant green coloring. Buds arced gracefully, deigning to bow. Another week or two, and they’d be in full bloom, splashing nearly Day-Glo purple against the darker moss and lichen. Too bad I wouldn’t be here when it happened.

  “Gorgeous, aren’t they?” Rick asked over the waterfall’s roar as he waded to stand next to me.

  “Unbelievable,” I said, turning a leaf to study the underside’s red coloring. “I wish I had my equipment.”

  “I thought for a while it might be Streptocarpus wenlandii.”

  “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  We talked for a while, and I guess you could say at one point we actually argued over the plant’s genus, our voices echoing around the small space. He knew a lot about plants for an entomologist, but I guessed he wasn’t a one-subject wonder like I was. I liked plants but I wasn’t crazy about them. It was tramping around in places like this that I liked. But Rick seemed as adamant about his botany as he was his entomology.

  “Look, I’ll take a specimen for the herbarium,” I said finally, a little exasperated. “We can’t make a definitive taxonomical statement until it’s reviewed in the lab.” I didn’t add that Harrison would have been the man to consult. Kidnapped, missing or dead, he was a better taxonomist than I could hope to be.

  And at that point we both kind of woke up to our situation. Well, I woke up at least, to him standing so close the back of my right arm felt the heat radiating from his rib cage. And there I was, all hot and bothered over a freakin’ plant with my own fruits, as they were, on display for everyone to see. One glance down was all it took to tell me he’d noticed them. He, or perhaps more precisely, it, had been awake to our situation for a little while. And his blossom was more impressive than I could have guessed. No prize winner like Carlos’s, but more than ample for getting the job done. The sight set off a strong hum in my core that threatened to explode into a full-fledged burn.

  He met my gaze innocently enough. “Let me know what your research turns up,” he said. “I’m curious. I’ve never known a campbellus to evidence characteristics of either the wenlandii or the porphyrostachys. Even de Vries would have to admit they’re related.”

  I’ve got a question: what do you do when you’re standing naked with a guy who turns out to have a nice bod—scratch that—a great bod, a great bod that’s clearly glad to see you, and he keeps talking about plants as though his not inconsiderable banner of desire isn’t waving in the wind? What kind of message is that? Every other part of him was just so damned disinterested that I didn’t know what to do other than continue the casual conversation and ignore the way his interested part bobbed merrily in the water.

  While he went on about de Vries’s Delineation Theory, I got to thinking. Maybe I wasn’t worth jumping. Sure, other guys had found me worth jumping, but then Rick was a true scientist, and an earnest one at that.

  An idealistic, do-gooding, yoga-practicing, granola-bar-eating, heart of the jaguar, occasional fantasy-inducing bug nerd.

  I guess I wasn’t his type.

  Hell, he wasn’t my type, either.

  The steady hum in my core vanished when he said, “Who’s Scooter?”

  I was so surprised, I answered. “My great-uncle.”

  “You said he raised you.”

  “I need to get my gear together for tonight.” I turned my back to him to go.

  “Jessie.” Rick’s voice slid like a caress over my ear. He was so close I felt his breath on my shoulder.

  I paused. “What?” I asked, not looking at him.

  “I don’t bite.”

  About a dozen bad and obvious jokes sprang to mind. “Okay,” I said instead.

  “I know he’s importa
nt to you,” Rick went on. “I’m just trying to get a sense of what’s going on. You won’t tell me anything.”

  “I don’t want to make my problem your problem, okay?”

  His fingertips touched my shoulder, making me turn my head to look at him. “We’ll find the orchid.”

  Gratitude flooded my chest. Underneath all the excitement with the viper and the gold mine and Daley, I’d been tense about finding that orchid and getting it back to von Brutten. As much as I hated to admit it, I’d have had a hard time finding the Death Orchid so soon without Rick’s help. His knowing what I was up to was a relief, because it meant I could get on with my job without tap-dancing around my motives.

  He nodded. “As soon as I get the situation with the Yanomamo straightened out, we’ll set the moth loose and track it to your orchid.”

  I stared at him. The man was out of his mind. His little campaign for peace would take years, not hours. “What are you here for?” I asked.

  His eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean?”

  “The first rule of fieldwork,” I reminded him. “Don’t get involved with the locals.”

  “If I don’t get involved, there won’t be any habitat left for my research.”

  “Give me a break.” I crashed through the waterfall and dove deep into the clear, cold water. Parts of me that had warmed up in the cave instantly iced over again as the water enveloped them. When I surfaced, I headed for the pool’s edge.

  “What’s your problem?” Rick demanded, splashing in my direction. “I’m just trying to secure a sustainable habitat—”

  “It’s not your problem. It’s not your business.” I hoisted myself from the water, then stepped into my dry panties while I talked. “All this stuff—the mining, the mercury, the natives—it’s all theirs to fix. Not yours. Not mine.” I skipped the sports bra and jerked my still-damp muscle tee over my head. “We’re scientists, not working for a friggin’ Nobel Peace Prize.”