Jaguar Hunt

by Terry Spear

She swung in her harness seat before the pulley carried her onward, and she flew toward him. No brakes applied this time. He still couldn’t feel any relief as she zipped along the cable like nothing had been the matter only seconds earlier. Until she was on the platform, he wouldn’t feel she was safe.

  He pulled the binoculars away as she grew closer and slowed down at the last second just as she landed on the deck. Before the guide could unhook her, David pulled her into his arms and held her tight against him, not wanting to let go. “Damn, woman, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  She actually smiled at him, and it was the most beautiful sight in the world.

  He quickly stepped back as the guide hurried to unhook her. David helped her out of her harness before the guide could. She was shaking hard, the adrenaline still rushing through her blood. His was, too, and he fumbled a little with her buckles.

  The guide apologized several times as David embraced Tammy again. When they reached ground ten feet below the landing, they were met with applause from several other tourists standing around the ladder.

  Someone offered medical assistance. David thought he could use some. But Tammy waved the man away.

  “Are you okay, Tammy?” David asked, so shaken his darn voice crackled. He was supposed to be the pillar of strength. Strong, tough Golden Claw Special Forces agent.

  “Yes, let’s go,” she said, her voice wavering a little.

  Someone offered them a ride to their resort, but it was not that far a walk and Tammy shook her head. “I want to walk. Thank you.”

  The family that had been behind Tammy rushed up to see them. They must have gone back down the ladder from the starting platform after the line snapped and been given a ride here, Tammy thought with relief. The husband and wife expressed their gratitude that Tammy had made it back all right. The teen with the camcorder said, “That was too cool. I caught it all! If you want a copy, we can send you the video.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tammy said, shaking her head.

  “Here, send it to me,” David said and gave the girl his email address. “For your kids’ sakes when you have them,” he explained to Tammy. “They’d want to know how their mother handled a situation in a crisis.”

  She groaned, but David thanked the girl, wrapped his arm around Tammy’s waist, and walked her through the jungle to their cabana. He still didn’t want to let her go, whether or not she was feeling more secure now that she had her feet firmly planted on the ground.

  As much as he hated to admit it, he was feeling insecure. He hadn’t felt that helpless since he was about five and lost his way in the dark after he and Wade had a fight on vacation. They’d gone off in different directions in the jungle. Boy, did he and Wade get holy hell for it, too, since they were supposed to be asleep in their hut while Mom and Dad were off hunting.

  “When we get home, I mean, really get home, I’m taking you out to any kind of dinner you’d prefer,” he said. He wanted to do more for her, anything. He was just so grateful she was alive and well.

  “Steak and the theater.”

  He couldn’t believe she had agreed so quickly! He thought he’d have to convince her first. “You got it.”

  She glanced at him. “I’m talking theater as in a play, not a movie.”

  “What? You don’t think I have any culture?”

  She chuckled, and from the impish expression on her face, she didn’t seem to believe he was as enthusiastic about seeing the play as he was about escorting her to it.

  Chapter 10

  “If there ever is a next time to take the zip-line adventure, you can go,” Tammy said. “I’ll wait for you at the other end.”

  “Hey, I don’t blame you there.” He would have switched places with her in a heartbeat. “Are you really okay, Tammy?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  When they reached their cabana, she headed down another path into the jungle.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, concerned.

  “Didn’t you hear the jaguar roar?”

  “Yeah, was it one of the boys?”

  “I’m sure of it. He was watching me, looking like he wanted to rescue me from my little zip-line disaster. Maybe now they’ll be more receptive to meeting with us. Otherwise, maybe we can find their trail.”

  “So was the jaguar you saw very visible or being reclusive? I never saw him in the dense foliage, even with the binoculars.”

  “He was sitting in a tree in plain view of the cable, watching for me, or for you, possibly, thinking that you would be the one to go on the zip line, even though they had left a message with the guide that they would meet me at the platform. Had one of those family members gone first and seen him, he would have given them a real surprise. Did the guide at your end hear him roaring?” Tammy asked, heading in the direction where the jaguar had been when she’d seen him in the tree. When they were far enough from any sign of people, she stopped and began stripping.

  David raised his eyebrows—she wasn’t being shy now—but he didn’t say anything about it.

  “We did. The guide wondered what was up. I assumed it was one of the boys in jaguar form, alerting his brother or even me of the trouble you were in. I suspect they aren’t quite ready to approach us yet, or they might have met us at the platform,” David warned as he hurried to take off his T-shirt. “What if one of the boys steals our clothes?”

  “I don’t think they will. The one I saw looked like he wanted to help me when I was stuck. If they do steal our clothes, they’ll be in the worst sort of trouble.” She didn’t even want to think about that, though she and David could return to the cabana at nightfall in their jaguar forms, since their lodging wasn’t too far away and it was surrounded by foliage. Thinking further, she realized that wouldn’t work. They needed to move to the bungalow when they returned, so they couldn’t wait until dark. They didn’t have time to go back to the cabana and change and then come all the way back here.

  “Do you believe the cable was tampered with, or that it just broke by accident?”

  “No telling. A competitor running a zip-line operation could have been responsible. Or it could just be an overused or defective cable. Safety personnel aren’t monitoring a lot of these places that closely,” David said. No matter who was to blame, David was ready to take a jaguar-sized bite out of them.

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Have you ever heard of actual cases of cables snapping like that when someone was on them at these adventure sites? One of the cables for the Slide for Life snapped during survival training when an instructor was demonstrating the technique to new Enforcer recruits six months before I had to take the course. He fell to his death from seventy-five feet, but I thought the resorts would be a little more careful, afraid of being sued.”

  “A few are. Considering the number of people using zip lines, the number of cable failures is small.”

  “Survival rate?”

  “None.”

  A shiver stole through her as she thought of dangling one-handed from the cable. “Good thing my reaction time is quicker and my hearing is better than a regular human’s. I heard the steel ripping and tightened my hold on the lower cable before the top one snapped in two.”

  “I’ll say. My heart is still drumming faster.”

  “I thought it was just because you were so glad to see me.”

  He laughed and shucked the rest of his clothes. “Hell, that, too.”

  She finished undressing, shifted, and bolted toward the ceiba tree where she’d spied the jaguar, keeping the remaining zip-line cable in sight so she’d know she was headed in the right direction.

  Even if investigators were checking the broken cable, which would have snapped back toward the platforms, she and David should be well out of their sight. She could maneuver much more easily through the jungle as a jaguar than as a human, but even so, it was taking her precious tim
e to get there. She felt David move beside her, the heat of his body, a brush of his fur against hers.

  He seemed as shaken up as she had been over the whole incident and was sticking closer to her than she thought necessary. She had to admit she liked the way he’d been so concerned and even offered to take her to dinner. And he’d agreed to the theater, too.

  She smelled his delightful, spicy male jaguar scent. David didn’t need any of that human-produced Wild Earth Essence fragrance to get her attention.

  Going after the teen jaguar was her mission now, but she really needed this—the run on solid ground, muddy as it was, smelling the earth and vegetation around her—to feel connected with all of it. The run helped smooth her raw, jagged nerves.

  She truly was glad David was with her on this mission, the first time she really liked having a partner. The other two JAG agents she’d worked with would have told her to stay behind while they investigated the dangerous situation. Not because they would have worried about her, but because they thought she would get in their way.

  She’d thought David would react the same way after her life-threatening ordeal, and she really appreciated that he hadn’t. They finally reached the tree where she had seen the jaguar standing on the branch and smelled the same scent that she had picked up in their cabana, confirming it had been one of the teens. She wondered if the boy had intended to draw her and David into the jungle after they were at the zip line today.

  Jumping onto a branch, she looked up, knowing she’d have to go a lot higher in the tree to reach the branch where the teen had been. She didn’t mind going up as a cat, though about twenty feet high was usually the limit for her. She normally didn’t need to go much higher than that.

  Coming down, she was all right as long as she concentrated on the next branch she’d jump to and not the ground. Her cat’s balance lessened her fear of heights.

  So when David jumped onto the branch next to her, grunted, and looked up, indicating—she thought—that he would go instead of her, she shook her head. She could do this. She wanted to do this. She needed to.

  She leaped onto another branch, and another, then one more until she was where the male had been resting while David waited below for her. He’d jumped down and was searching the forest floor for where the teen had raced off to. A few orange jaguar hairs clung to the branch, but what really caught her attention were a pineapple and a bunch of bananas set up in the crook of the tree, almost like a peace offering. She didn’t remember seeing them there when she was hanging from the cable.

  She couldn’t figure the two boys out. As jaguars, she and David had no way to carry the fruit back to their rental unit except with their teeth, just like the boys must have done to bring it up here. But why?

  She could envision one of the kids taking pictures of an Enforcer and a JAG agent in jaguar form hauling a pineapple and a bunch of bananas back to their clothes, then posting the images on Facebook or something. She could imagine that cocky Quinn Singleterry snickering about what they were doing down here in Belize.

  She jumped down from the tree and joined David. Hearing men off in the distance talking about the cable, she knew they’d have to wait until later to inspect the break. They followed the trail the boy had left when he climbed down the tree. They explored for some time, but when they lost the teen’s tracks at a river, Tammy stared across the dark water. They’d never found the other boy’s trail, if he’d even been there. The teens were bright. If the JAG branch could train them, she thought they’d make good Golden Claw agents.

  After exchanging glances of agreement with David, they headed back. Tammy prayed her clothes and David’s were still where they had left them. When they arrived at the spot and saw their jeans, boots, and shirts still piled where they had shucked them, she let out her breath with relief.

  After scanning the vegetation and observing no sign of any jaguars, she turned to see what David was doing. He’d already shifted, dressed, and was patiently waiting for her. Her brothers would have chided her for being so slow and pushed at her to hurry it up.

  “If you want, I can carry your clothes and you can shift back at the cabana,” he offered, as if understanding her hesitation.

  She hated to be this indecisive. She shook her head, and gentleman he was—except for this morning when he’d watched her shower in her bikini—he turned away. She shifted and threw on her clothes as quickly as she could.

  “What’s up with these kids?” she asked as they headed back to their cabana.

  “They’re looking for attention.”

  “They’ve certainly got ours. Did you see the fruit?” She glanced at David.

  “No, where?”

  “A pineapple and a bunch of green bananas were arranged in the crook of the tree branch. Do you figure the fruit was a peace offering of sorts?”

  “To appease the jaguar god and goddess,” he joked. “Were they there when you first saw the jaguar?”

  “I don’t know. When I first saw him, I was concentrating on him, trying to smell his scent, but the breeze was blowing the wrong way. I…I just can’t remember.” She shook her head. “What did they sign up to do tomorrow?”

  “Waterfall rappelling and swimming in the natural pool below it. One-hundred-foot drop to the pool. If you want to stay topside and watch for the teens, you can.”

  After the zip-lining disaster, she seriously thought of agreeing. But she didn’t want to let on to anyone—the boys included—that she couldn’t handle it after what she’d been through.

  “And miss swimming in the water after trekking through the hot, steamy jungle? Not on your life.”

  He smiled at her comment, his expression one of admiration. She liked that she seemed to have earned his respect.

  “I’ve gone rappelling off a one-hundred-foot tower, and as long as we’re not going face-first like in Australian rappelling, I’m good with it,” she said. “Well, unless I was in a firefight. Then I’d need my weapon trained on the ground as I rappelled.”

  “You’d definitely be fearsome. I’d think twice about tackling you,” he said.

  She smiled.

  “So tomorrow, we’ll have to wear long pants, bug spray, and hiking boots, and take a change of clothes or wear a bathing suit underneath.”

  “Do you have a bathing suit?”

  “Yeah, I have one. Just regular old swim trunks, though. Nothing like what you were wearing this morning.” He glanced at her, a hint of a smile curving his mouth. “Speaking of which, have you got something else to wear?”

  “Why?

  “The water might be a little rough. I’d hate to see you lose your suit.”

  “I’m surprised you’d say so.”

  He laughed. “Okay, if we’re being honest, I’d hate for anyone else to see you lose your suit.”

  She chuckled. “I like it when you’re being honest.”

  As soon as they reached their cabana, David said, “I’ll run off and get the key to the bungalow. It should be ready by now.”

  “Okay. I’ll start packing.”

  She couldn’t wait to move to the bungalow and shower inside, but all those thoughts fled when she entered the cabana and found the teens’ fresh scents in the place, meaning they had been here recently. Her heartbeat ratcheted up a notch. She stormed into the bedroom and found David’s and her bags were missing. She swore under her breath as she checked the drawers. All were empty.

  David walked into the cabana, and before he could say a word, she spoke first. “They’ve taken our luggage and all our clothes. I will kill both of them.”

  “I would agree, but I just can’t believe they’d steal our luggage,” David said, looking in the bathroom. “Our stuff in here is also gone.”

  “Believe it! Their scents are fresh in here and our bags have vanished.”

  “Maybe the clerk at the lodging desk had them removed a
nd placed in the bungalow because they needed the cabana vacated to ready it for other guests.”

  “That doesn’t explain the teens’ fresh scent in the cabana.” And after the one boy seemed concerned for her welfare and offering them the fruit, she really couldn’t understand their behavior.

  Instead of going to the main lodge, she headed in the direction of the bungalow to see if by some miracle the kids had deposited their stuff there.

  “If I’m right about the teens—that they didn’t steal our stuff…” He trailed off as he closed the door to the cabana and quickly caught up to her.

  “If you’re right, what?”

  “Maybe you’ll believe the boys aren’t all that bad.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it. Besides, not only did they take our bags, they packed them.”

  David didn’t appear to think that was such a bad thing. She frowned at him. “I don’t like having every one of the male persuasion handling my personal items.”

  Light dawning, he nodded. “I agree,” he said.

  She suspected he agreed about the boys not handling her personal items, but not necessarily himself.

  Despite her ire, when they drew nearer their rental unit, she felt her whole outlook brighten.

  A lovely terra-cotta tile porch wrapped around the bungalow. Colorful hammocks hung from the porch roof, and a chaise lounge for sunning begged for attention. The building looked new.

  “I thought you might like this place better.” David unlocked the door and they headed for the bedroom, though she already smelled the teens’ scents in the place. In the bedroom, his and her bags were sitting on either side of the bed.

  She closed her gaping mouth.

  “Looks like they’re trying to get on our good side,” David said.

  Since the black bags looked identical, she grabbed the ID tag on the one on the right side of the bed.

  “This is mine over here.” Her skin prickling with unease, she glanced at David. “Just like where I slept last night in the bed in the cabana. They couldn’t have sneaked into the cabana last night and seen us sleeping, could they have?”