The Orchid Hunter

by Sandra K. Moore

  “I’m trying to protect my scientific interests.” Rick shoved himself out of the pool, water sheening his muscles. He picked up his clothes from behind a big palm tree a few feet away. “I want to have a place to do my research during the next twenty years,” he called over.

  “The Amazon will be around in twenty years,” I argued as I wrestled myself into my stiff, damp canvas pants, “but you won’t if you get yourself killed trying to stop something that can’t be stopped.”

  “The gold mine is illegal—”

  “And the government is letting it happen. How much more of a clue do you need here? Nothing can be done.”

  “I don’t buy that,” he said stubbornly. He zipped up his pants and stood there, water dripping down his carved pecs and abs. “I believe I can make a difference.”

  “You don’t want to make a difference. You want to manage this thing. Has it occurred to you they don’t need you to do that for them?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, making his biceps bulge. “It’s better to do something than to turn my back on them. I’d rather take the chance of getting involved.”

  “It’ll take more than a nosy Americano to get the miners to quit being greedy and the Yanomamo to want to live the American dream. Let them sort it out for themselves.”

  “That’s the easy way out. Don’t you care about what’s going to happen?”

  I scooped up my remaining clothes in one arm. “Look, I don’t want to see the Amazon cut down and burned or the native peoples poisoned any more than you do. But there’s nothing in the world that’s going to stop it. If you believe you can, you need to take off those rose-colored glasses you’re so fond of.”

  “What’s really got you pissed off?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t care about these people or what happens to them. Or even what happens to this place.” He jerked his thumb at the green extravagance around us. “So you can’t be pissed about my helping them.” His lips clamped into a thin line.

  “You’re right. I don’t have time to be pissed about that. I need my orchid tonight,” I informed him, “so I can get out of here in one piece before you start raising hell.”

  “I’m due at the village for the negotiations tomorrow.”

  “That’s not my problem. I get the orchid and I’m gone.”

  “What’s the rush?” He jammed his arms into his sleeves and shoehorned his T-shirt over his head, for an instant becoming a faceless, sculpted body from a hot novel cover.

  Jeez, how annoying. Did he not get it? “Look, I got a guy following me,” I admitted. “If I get out tomorrow morning, I save myself a lot of trouble. All I need is a couple of hours of your time, and then it’s all yours. Hell, show me how to use the tracking equipment and you can stay in the village for the big powwow while I get the orchid.”

  “No way,” he retorted. “I haven’t waited four years for this moth to show up just to have you lose it.” Before I could object to his assumption of my incompetence, he said, “The moth flies tonight. I’ll get your orchid before I come back to ‘save the world,’ as you put it.”

  Then he turned his back on me and stalked toward the village, leaving me out in the thick and restless jungle he was so afraid would disappear.

  And me? I watched him go, wondering why everything that was so important to him just didn’t seem that important to me. And why that was starting to bother me.

  Rick and I hiked through the late evening and early night in silence. Mosquitoes clouded our heads. A throaty roar reverberated through the canopy and ended with a strangled wheeze, a howler monkey warning off a rival. Shapes flitted drunkenly in the growing darkness. Bats.

  When we reached the mutually agreed upon base spot to set the moth loose, Rick busied himself with his tracking equipment while I scouted the terrain. To the unpracticed eye, the four hundred yards in all directions might look exactly the same, but to me, they were as different as night and day. It took me almost an hour to familiarize myself with the area we thought the moth might hang around in, then a little while longer to review the preliminary precautions I’d taken that afternoon when I was supposed to be napping. If Daley decided to show his ugly mug, I wanted to be ready. Everything was good to go.

  “How’s it going?” I asked when I returned to base.

  Rick didn’t look up from the monitoring equipment in his lap. “Good,” he said shortly.

  I’d had about enough of his holier-than-thou attitude, but I didn’t want to get into it. Getting into it meant I wanted him not to treat me like I was a plague. Wanting him not to treat me like I was a plague meant it bugged me that he thought of me that way. And it bugging me that he thought of me that way meant way more than I was prepared to deal with.

  “Let me know when you’re ready,” I said. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

  “Everything’s tested. I’m ready.”

  He slipped the monitor strap over his neck and shoulder like a guitar player. I already wore my harness and had a two-hundred-foot coil ready to go, plus my running anchors. Rick opened the bug trap and carefully lifted the moth out. By the glow of the monitor, I could see the square computer-chip-looking transponder glued on the moth’s thorax. For the first time that evening, Rick looked at me. I looked back but didn’t say anything. He turned and opened his hands.

  The moth instantly winged up, beautiful and wild, disappearing into the night.

  Rick tipped the monitor toward his face, casting a dim red glow onto his glasses. The screen showed, among other things, vertical and horizontal coordinates for the moth. It headed further up, into the canopy, then took off east-north-east. The hunt was on.

  We clambered over downed trees and shoved our way through dense underbrush, me hacking a trail a few steps ahead while Rick watched the monitor and directed me. A half hour of slogging brought us to a Pterocarpus with those massive buttress roots.

  “Hold on,” Rick said, excitement tinging his voice. “It’s stationary.”

  I backtracked to him and stood next to him to study the monitor. “Time to go up?”

  “If it acts like its cousins, you’ve got about fifteen minutes before it moves again.”

  Somewhere a hundred feet over my head, in branches I couldn’t see, his moth had alighted on my orchid. We put on Yagoda’s portable headsets so Rick could guide me through the trees to the moth without vocally alerting Boa Vista of our progress. I strapped on my headlamp. I didn’t want to use it because it’d be a heckuva bright beacon for a sharp-eyed hiree of Daley to spot, but I wasn’t sure I’d have a choice.

  I got out my running anchors. Harness, carabiners and climbing rope were ready. I slipped a fresh bug trap into my backpack, since Rick would want his moth when all this was over.

  The Pterocarpus was much thicker than the kapok I’d climbed the day before. While I adjusted the running anchor’s length, I said, “I told you a guy was following me. Lawrence Daley. He wants to steal the orchid when I get it.”

  “Old foe?”

  “Yeah. He won’t mess with you unless he thinks he can use you against me. So if I see anything suspicious, I’ll give you a fruit-bat call. You know what that sounds like?”

  Rick nodded. “I’ll take the long way back to the village.”

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “Yeah.”

  I studied his angular face as best I could in the monitor’s glow. He’d programmed a waypoint for the village into his GPS tracking system, so he ought to be able find his way home, even at night. But I wanted him to convince me he could make it back to the village without my help.

  “We’ll get your moth back,” I promised.

  “I don’t doubt it. You’re too good at what you do.”

  “If we find this orchid, I’ll owe you,” I said.

  “You won’t owe me.”

  “Yeah, I will. And I’ll get your moth back. Or another one. Before I go.”

  “You’re in a hurry. Why b
other?”

  “Because it makes us even,” I said irritably.

  “Right.” His voice sounded distant, a little annoyed. “Life for life, moth for orchid.”

  “Isn’t that a fair contract?”

  “What makes you think I want a contract?”

  I drew breath for a real zinger but caught his lips instead, warm and firm. His fingertips pressed my neck, points of contact that grounded me to him, energy flowing between us like an electrical current. Every ounce of blood in my body flooded my chest before it turned south. He abruptly let go and I realized he’d barely touched me, and for only a second at that.

  “We’re a good team,” he said, still very close. “I’m sorry I’ve been a hard-ass.”

  “No worries,” I replied gruffly, trying not to sound like I’d lost my breath, which I had. “I’m a bitch and I know it. Just get your hard-ass back in one piece if Daley shows up. Can you do that?”

  “We bug nerds have a way of finding our way home.”

  I heard the grin and wished I could see it. “Maybe Marcello can help you when you get lost.”

  I felt a tug at my waist as he clipped a transponder to my harness, making me a blip on his monitor. It also put my thigh against his. “That kid can outtrack us both.”

  I knew the affection in his voice was aimed at Marcello, but it sounded awfully good to me, especially since his knee pressed the inside of my thigh and gave me all kinds of ideas. At that point it became clear I needed to either get up that tree or get a little more of what Rick had offered a minute ago. As time was wasting and neither the moth nor Scooter were following my personal schedule, I opted for the climb.

  “You can handle Daley,” I said, faking confidence as I slung the anchor around the tree. “It’s his Brazilian friends you need to worry about. I don’t think they’ll play nice.”

  “I’ll give you a shout if the moth moves.”

  I switched the headlamp to its dimmest setting and double-timed it to the canopy. Laying anchors and slings was about four times more dangerous at night than in daylight. On low, my headlamp could only illuminate about five feet. But there’s something about not being able to see the ground that makes it easier. I could pretend I was ten feet off the ground rather than a hundred. Be bold, young woman, I exhorted myself as I planted my feet against the trunk and leaned out.

  I fired up the headset. “How am I in X and Y?” I asked.

  Rick’s voice sounded close, softly intimate, distracting. “Ten degrees south in X, up another two meters in Y.”

  “Roger that,” I whispered, feeling ridiculously like a golf announcer. I gained the required height and said, “I’m there in Y.”

  “Anything south of you?”

  Still tethered by running anchor to the tree, I twisted around as far as I dared. I snapped the headlamp on bright for a split second and shot a high beam into the canopy. Nothing.

  “Hang on,” I said. “Let me give it another blast.” I turned my head slightly and punched the light on and off.

  I caught a glimpse of a small bird hovering like a hummingbird in a handful of narrow orchid leaves.

  Bingo.

  I fought down a surge of adrenaline. Clear head, I reminded myself. Don’t get overexcited. Don’t lose your cool. It’d be easy to get sloppy. Getting sloppy would get me dead. Eyes closed, I tried to center my thoughts. Put on the blinders. One move at a time. In a moment, I was ready.

  “I got it,” I told Rick. “Give me a minute to set my slings.”

  “The moth’s moving.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got the orchid in sight.”

  I made shorter slings than usual so I’d have a little more maneuverability. My shoulders and back would be sore from holding myself up and working the web slings along the branches, but it was a necessary evil.

  “Here comes a rope drop,” I said.

  “I’m clear.”

  I let the belaying rope go. It slapped and crashed down through the midstory, setting off a cackling mob of toucans. Oops on the nest, I mentally apologized.

  “You’re way up,” Rick remarked. “Be careful.”

  “I just need a minute.”

  My feet dangled where I hung in the sling, making my knees weak even though Rick had me covered. I grabbed the Pterocarpus branch with both hands, praying a snake hadn’t curled up on it somewhere between me and the Death Orchid, and hand-over-handed my way forward. When I had my nose on the orchid’s leaves, I worked the webbing to catch up with me.

  I snapped on the headlamp and dimmed it as low as it would go.

  The Death Orchid gleamed, a Laeliocattleya, delicate and luscious, demure and sexy, the feathery ruffles on an Old West madam’s nightgown. Its petals and sepals shone a brilliant white. But its lip, with which it tempted the Corpse Moth, echoed the moth’s own pearlescent black.

  Innocence and sin. Purity and decadence. Truth and deception. The Death Orchid, called that because it gave life.

  God, it was gorgeous.

  And there were two, here within reach. The adrenaline and excitement surged, warming my gut. Scooter’s salvation, right here. A whoop was starting to grow in my chest. I bit it back. Time to get on with business. Stay focused.

  First I removed the bug trap from my backpack and strapped it onto the branch over my head. That gave me some room to maneuver my gear. Then I carefully sliced off hunks of bark the Death Orchids clung to and packed both bark and plant in cardboard cylinders that slid into my pack.

  “I’ve got ’em,” I told Rick. “Just wait until you see—”

  “Jessie—” he whispered, but suddenly the headset died.

  On instinct I turned off the lamp, blinding myself.

  Then drifting up through the darkness came the squeaking chirp of a fruit bat.

  Damn Lawrence Daley to hell, I thought, and dropped.

  Chapter 10

  I hit the ground hard, boots thumping in the thick soil. Rick had disappeared, presumably headed for the village. Not too far away, a low scrabbling alerted me to someone’s approach.

  The climbing rope unhooked quickly from my harness and I left it hanging from the slings. It was a beacon to the Death Orchid’s whereabouts, but my goal was to get the orchid back to von Brutten’s lab, not prevent Daley from knowing where it had been.

  I headed off toward my little homemade obstacle course, making just enough noise to get Daley thinking I was panicked. Even in the dark, I had a good idea of where I was going; the terrain played out in my brain like a movie from the little tour I’d taken during the day. And without interference from the lamp, my eyes were adjusting to the dark. As I snuck along a stream, I heard the first pursuers behind me. Someone was smiling down on me again because Daley really had hired Brazilians, not Indians.

  Indians wouldn’t be fooled by any of the traps I’d laid. These bozos might. Here’s hoping Father João was right about there being only four of them.

  I passed my first landmark, a split banana tree next to a rock, crossed the wide stream quickly and ran silently back up the stream to about where I thought the pursuers would emerge on the opposite bank. Sure enough, they called to each other over the burbling water, apparently debating whether or not to cross. I scraped my boot on a rock and flashed my headlamp on and off.

  One of them stepped my direction. A profound silence, then a grunt and the snapping of bone as he landed in the streambed.

  I guess he didn’t realize he’d been standing on an eight-foot-tall embankment. Bummer.

  One down. Three left.

  I circled back up the hillside, found the kapok tree I was looking for, crouched behind it and waited. After a while Pursuer Number Two caught up with me. When he passed the kapok at full tilt, I reached out and shoved him into a Tachygalia myrmecophilia tree. He hit the tree hard, face-first, and started screaming. I quickly brushed off the biting ants that launched themselves onto my arm. The rest of the colony swarmed him. Easier target. He collapsed at the tree’s trunk and rolled, b
ut the ants would leap onto his prone body as long as he stayed within a couple of feet of the trunk.

  “The stream’s that way,” I said in my awful Portuguese, pointing.

  He rolled in that general direction, scratching and clawing at himself.

  Two down.

  It took a while longer to pick up Pursuer Number Three. Even Daley must have caught on and was exercising caution. The pursuer and I danced around each other, around trees and over rock formations, for what felt like an hour. But though he was a wily opponent, our dance whirled us closer and closer to a nasty surprise.

  Suddenly a crack—rifle shot—echoed along the ridge where I hid in the underbrush. It sounded like it originated in the valley below us. Fear iced my veins. Had Daley taken a shot at Rick? I clutched the trip rope I’d rigged.

  Come on, buddy, I mentally broadcast to Pursuer Number Three. I need to quit playin’ around and get on with it.

  He emerged from a palm thicket a few feet away from me. Another couple of steps, I coaxed. He clutched his pistol and cautiously followed my instructions. One more.

  There.

  I pulled hard on the trip rope. Way up in the midstory, the feeble branch the rope was tied to gave, and the half-dozen fire liana vines wrapped around it fell with it. Pursuer Number Three just had time to hear the commotion and look up before the vines landed on him like a gigantic stinging net. I couldn’t see them but I knew welts were rising almost instantly on his skin, welts he’d have to go to Boa Vista to have treated. A swim in a stream wouldn’t help. I left him alone to grunt and whimper, feeling only a little guilty about leaving him there.

  Three down, one left. And Daley.

  If Daley had hurt Rick, I had an extra special surprise for him.

  Halfway down the hillside, I got that hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck feeling, which I’ve learned to never ignore. I hunkered down next to a boulder and closed my eyes. All around me, nocturnal sounds filled the darkness—bats clicked in their curious Morse code, dozens of crickets drew one leg against another, an owl hooted and rustled. Nothing else.