by Dale Mayer
He wasn’t sure how much longer they still had to go though, as he’d lost a little bit of his time here, but he also knew they couldn’t afford to waste any more time either. Pablo didn’t have that time. They were fighting as it was to keep him alive. “Pablo,” Ryker said, “while you’re conscious, you need to tell us about other plants to help bring down your fever. Anything that your tribes know about here to help you.”
“I’ve been trying,” Pablo gasped. “I know this one’s for the slices. There’s another one that we can make a tea from too, but not until we stop.” He pointed out some branches just off to the side. It was from a little plant near the ground.
Ryker bent carefully with Pablo still on his back, and, between the two of them, they pulled as much of it as they could. Pablo immediately popped some of the leaves into his mouth. “If I chew it,” he said. “That will help too.”
“Do you have enough?” Ryker asked, straightening up and shifting the weight on his back.
“For now, yes. And, if I can save some, we’ll make tea, and I can soak the leaves in the water. But otherwise, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.”
“Okay, let’s go then,” Ryker said. “I know this will likely hurt, but I need to pick up the pace. We’ve fallen behind.” He started to run as soon as he said that, and he could hear Pablo groan almost immediately. But Ryker had to ignore it. If there was one thing worse than being in the jungle like this with a wounded man, it was being separated from the others. Ryker couldn’t afford to let that happen at any cost. He kept bolting through the trees, ducking and moving as fast as he could as he tried to catch up to the others, who were now at least one hundred to maybe two hundred yards in front of him, but they were definitely out of sight.
Chapter 7
Manila stopped when she couldn’t see any sign of Ryker behind her. She wanted to call out, but she didn’t dare because she didn’t want to let anybody else in the vicinity know where they were. As she stopped in place, Andy reached out and grabbed her hand.
“Come on,” he said in a low whisper.
“There’s no sign of Ryker and Pablo,” she said, resisting Andy’s urge to go forward.
Up ahead, Miles said, “Forget about them. Ryker has got this in hand.” Then he tapped the comm device in his ear. Relieved, Manila nodded and turned and fell into place behind Andy. But still, she kept turning to look behind. When she thought to bring it up with Miles again, she heard a heavy thump. As she turned, Ryker ran toward them, catching up, even with Pablo on his back. She could feel the relief settling inside her.
As soon as he reached them, she kept up, just staying ahead of him to make sure that she didn’t slow him down. “You had me worried,” she hissed.
“We’re fine,” he said.
She glanced at Pablo to see him smiling at her briefly, and she nodded. “Good thing. The terrain up ahead looks rough.”
“All the terrain is rough,” he said. “This was the best route that we could figure out.”
“When did you figure that out?” she asked.
“Before we even left and landed in the jungle,” he said.
She stared at him, startled, and he nodded. “You never go into a scenario if you don’t have a way out again. At least one. If not three or four.”
She thought about that and realized that it was more than just common sense. That was a survival instinct which she didn’t appear to have any experience with. Even though she had traveled all around the world to various geological locations for rocks, she hadn’t had any experience with something like this. She’d always had helicopters, telecommunication, support people and teams available. Well, the good news here was, this team was on her side. The bad news was, they didn’t have helicopters to pick them up from the jungle.
“How will we get off the shore?” she asked.
“By boat,” he said succinctly.
“Do you have one waiting for us?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head. “Not like you mean.”
She didn’t know what that meant either. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming in his comments. He’d answer every question, but he wouldn’t volunteer anything. But then she realized the amount of effort he expended carrying Pablo. Pablo had to be at least a hundred and twenty pounds. When she realized she had slowed her steps, of course, that was keeping them behind too. She immediately walked as fast as she could to catch up, knowing that Ryker would match her steps and stay with her.
As soon as she caught up with the others, she watched Benjamin glare at her. She shrugged. “I stopped to make sure they were okay.”
“They’re fine,” he said. “And, if they slow us down too much, we’ll have to leave them behind.”
“We’ll hardly do that,” she said, glaring at him. “They came to save us.”
“They also know how hard this rescue would be. They knew what they were getting into.”
“He knew what he was getting into, you mean,” she snapped. “This is only about Ryker.”
“That’s not the point. People have jobs all over the world where they help others. He’s hardly unaware of all the possible outcomes.”
“That doesn’t mean we ditch them at the first sign of trouble that they run into.”
“Whatever,” Benjamin said. “I’m going home, and I’m staying home.”
“It sounds like a good thing,” Andy said. “What we don’t want is this to be a case of losing our humanity and what makes us special, all due to hardships where we turn on each other.”
She agreed with that. She hadn’t really seen Benjamin as somebody who would be a deserter. But then he wasn’t much of a team player either, so that made sense. He hadn’t been her choice on this trip, but one of Global’s owners had insisted. She guessed he’d had a ton of experience but none down in Colombia. She really wished she had a couple Colombian-experienced geologists. But then the tour guides were supposed to be that for her team, and one had betrayed them, while the other one was injured. And she wouldn’t leave Pablo behind, no matter what Benjamin said.
The fact that Ryker was going above and beyond to keep Pablo safe showed just what kind of a man he was, and that brutally highlighted what kind of man Benjamin was. She couldn’t imagine seeing two more different species of males at the same time.
She wasn’t sure exactly where Andy fell in that spectrum now, but she thought a lot more honor was within him as he kept siding to save Pablo. She also knew that the longer this trek kept going, the harder it would be on Benjamin, and it would show his uglier side faster. Nothing like the veneer of society falling away when they were in a jungle like this, where it became a fight for survival, and the real people on the inside showed up.
She was happy for Andy though because he appeared to be the right kind of people. Miles and Ryker too, she already knew were the right kind. Only Benjamin showed himself to be so much less than she had hoped for. She could also see the darkness of night settling in deeper. And she realized just then that, no matter what they wanted, they couldn’t avoid staying another night in the open air.
When Ryker caught up with her the next time, she said in a low voice, “Any idea how far we still have to go?”
“No,” he said. “Well, I’m estimating somewhere around seven miles.”
“It’ll be dark soon,” she murmured.
“We still have a couple hours of light to go,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Do you think so?”
Pablo spoke up. “It falls more rapidly on this side of the country,” he said. “So we have about an hour and a half.”
“So, we will put every moment of that to good use,” Ryker said, motioning to her. “Go, go, go. Some parts of the jungle are fine, and some parts of it are much less fine.”
She nodded and used the last of her energy to catch up with the others. She had hoped by now that the others would be long gone on this part of the trip. But no such luck. They were just ahead. “We can’t keep going too long,” she warned Ryker.
She groaned at that. “That’s not what I want to hear.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “This is the scenario we have. We could come across more guerrillas at any moment.”
Almost like his words were prophetic, no sooner had he said that when an odd whistle came from Miles up in front. She froze and looked back at Ryker. He frowned, and he grabbed her, and all three hid in the brush.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
Immediately he placed a finger against her lips and gave her a hard look. She pinched her lips together and waited. She heard footfalls, quiet and stealthy. She realized it was the guerrillas, and she slowly sagged to the ground, desperate to hide farther and deeper into the underbrush. But Ryker had a problem. He was carrying Pablo, and, although Pablo was as quiet as he could be, Ryker couldn’t hide himself or Pablo as easily.
But, being Ryker, he wasn’t short on answers. Instead of going down as she had, he scrambled up and very quickly disappeared into the branches above. She could only hope that Benjamin and Andy were well hidden and that Miles was looking after them.
And, sure enough, two guerrillas walked past, their steps steady and purposeful, rifles at their sides slung over their shoulders. Whether they were looking for them or looking for something else, they headed in the opposite direction of where her team had come. Which meant that they should be aware very soon of the group’s travels because of their very obvious trail.
Yet maybe the descending darkness would hide their tracks. And she knew that her group would immediately have to veer off the pathway and forge a new one. That would make their traveling even harder.
As soon as the pair of guerrillas were past them by several hundred yards, Ryker slipped down the tree and gathered Manila and moved as fast as he could forward to catch up to the others. They quickly then veered off into the densest part of the jungle.
She knew the snakes were everywhere, and she could just feel the predators’ eyes watching them as they continued to slog for miles. They weren’t on the main pathway or even an old pathway, so now it was truly hard going. She wished they could return to the more traveled path, but, every once in a while, they froze and stopped as people passed. Not close but close enough. Close enough that she knew they wouldn’t get through the last few miles in any way but the hard way.
When Miles finally brought the group to a stop, she glanced around to see how everyone was doing. Benjamin had almost a glazed look in his eyes as he leaned against a rock. Andy had sagged to the ground right where he stood. She stared up at Miles. “How much farther?” She desperately wanted it to be the answer she wanted to hear, but Ryker answered her.
“We still have several more miles to go.”
Ryker knew the group was lagging badly. And, if it wasn’t for the fact that they had come across several guerrillas out on hunting parties, he would have taken the slightly easier pathway rather than trying to forge their own way through the jungle. But they didn’t dare.
He and Miles exchanged hard looks. Miles’s gaze slipped to Pablo as he frowned. Ryker twisted slightly and whispered, “Pablo, you awake?” There was a slight groan which was almost a moan. It whispered through his lips. It dawned on Ryker that Pablo was slowly succumbing. Grim, Ryker looked at Miles and asked, “What do you think?”
Miles gave a hard shake of his head. “He’s in bad shape.”
“I know. How much farther?” He studied the light that they had.
“Maybe forty minutes of daylight left? But it’s worse while we’re at the end of our breath here. We can try diverting to a slightly easier path, but we might end up in a fight.”
He contemplated what that would mean and then shrugged. “Still, might be easier.”
“If it is, yes,” Miles warned. “But if it’s not?”
“We have to get to the coast,” he said. “Otherwise, Pablo won’t make it.”
With that, Miles led the way to the closest slightly traveled path. Then they fell into line. Everybody was exhausted and pushed beyond their limit but still trudged along. Ryker watched as Manila forcibly tried to keep up. But she was sagging too. And he couldn’t let her. He grabbed her arm and kept her with him, moving her forward with each step.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” she whispered in a hard voice.
“You can’t be last,” he said.
She nodded. “It’s just so hard to keep up.”
“No choice,” he said. “Remember? We don’t really know who and what we are until we hit a particularly bad situation, and then we find out the truth.”
“What if the truth is pretty ugly to admit to?” she whispered.
“It isn’t,” he said. “You have to keep digging deep.”
She nodded and didn’t even bother looking at him. “Maybe, but it’s still hard.”
“Of course it is,” he said. “Everything in life worth doing is hard. Just think. In a couple days, you could be sitting back, curled up in bed with a cup of coffee, and I could be sitting beside you, wondering what all the fuss was about.”
At that, her lips quirked, and she said, “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Will you?” he asked, curiosity spiking. “That would mean that I was seeing you first thing in the morning or had spent the night in bed with you and had gone out to get coffee early in the morning.”
“I can see that happening,” she said calmly.
His eyebrows shot up, and he studied her with interest. “Tell me more,” he invited her.
She shook her head. “I so do not have the energy for that.”
“True,” he said, “but in a couple days …”
“In a couple days,” she said, “I suspect we’ll be in that bed together. But only if we make it that far.”
“Oh, we’ll make it,” he said. “Just think of the extra incentive you just gave me.”
She reached out and smacked him ever-so-lightly on his cheek and said, “There’s an attraction between us that everyone else has already seen.”
“If they’ve seen it, whatever,” he said. “As long as they don’t bother you about it. Just because there’s a connection doesn’t mean either of us is foolish enough to act on it.”
“At least not here,” she said with some spirit. And then, with a laugh that seemed to add an extra bounce to her step, she picked up the pace.
He watched her pull away, and he softly called out, “You won’t get away that fast.”
She sent him a saucy look. “But you still have to catch up. You’ll never catch me if you’re behind all the time.”
He grinned at that. As long as the banter was harmless and kept her spirits up, he was all for it. The fact of the matter was, she was a hell of a specimen too. Not only was she physically long and lean but she was also fit, and her brain and heart were in the right place. Especially her heart. She kept checking to make sure that he was there with them.
He wasn’t used to that. Even a SEALs team would have left him on his own to survive as they knew best. Not that they would have completely abandoned him by any means, but they would have waited for him to have caught up at the next station. And, if he hadn’t shown up, then, yes, they would have come looking. But, in her case, she wasn’t letting him get too far behind at all.
It was a novel idea, and one that he thoroughly enjoyed. But Pablo and the heat pouring off his body worried Ryker. He was already dealing with the dehydration and the jungle humidity of Colombia, but, with Pablo’s weight on his back, Ryker felt like he was in a furnace. But he kept up, and they kept going faster and faster and deeper and deeper, and he knew every mile they got under their belt was another mile they wouldn’t have to deal with.
And just when they were ready to take a break, there was a sudden shout in front. He heard Miles swearing. “Four,” he said over the comm.
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“Dammit.” Ryker quickly raced ahead, getting Manila to hide by the end of the brush. He pulled up his firearm, and, as the first gunman leveled his rifle at Miles, Ryker picked him off. And, with the first shot fired, the guerrillas spread out. But that sent one in his direction. Ryker took him out quickly, and, as he raced forward, he picked up the guerrilla’s weapon and headed to the next one.
Miles stood with his hands up, and two guerrillas angrily screamed in his face. Ryker came up from behind and, using the rifle butt, slammed one of the men on the side of the head. Miles took down the second one in the next instant.
Manila stood up, looked at him, and asked, “Did you kill those first two men?”
He looked at her and said, “If you point a gun, don’t point it for any other reason.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “I guess there wasn’t much choice, was there?”
He shook his head. “There wasn’t. Now, check the bodies for water and food.” He motioned as Miles was already running through the men on the ground, checking them for anything that they might have had. He took their weapons from them and did a thorough search but came up empty. “Then leave them where they are,” Ryker continued. “These last two will wake up soon enough, but we’ll have their guns. Still, we need to be long gone.”
Now, with everybody heavily armed with rifles, Andy carrying two, Benjamin with one, even Manila holding one, they picked up the rest of the weapons and started to move.
This time Ryker took the lead. He ignored the burden on his back. He had packed several hundred pounds in his SEALs lifetime through rough terrain for many miles in any given day so many times anyway. Not in this humidity, he’d agree, but this wasn’t the time to get fussy. He could feel the weight every time he landed, jarring up and down his spine. But, worse than that, he knew it sent an echo through the jungle.
As soon as he got close to a mile put between them and the latest guerrillas, Ryker slowed ever-so-slightly and turned his footsteps into much more silent steps as he glided through the jungle forest, knowing that Miles was pushing the others behind to keep up. As he glanced behind, Manila was right on his heels. He smiled at that. A path diverged up ahead, and he deliberately chose the one less traveled.
