judging by the way she looked at him, and then quickly glanced away.
How long until someone found them? How long until his ankle healed and he could lead them out of here?
“Don’t,” she whispered gently.
He didn’t have to ask, Don’t what? He only gave her a curt nod and slid back into the water and under the falls.
They got out onto the rocks eventually, and dried themselves in the sun. She stretched out on the blanket she’d brought. He limped along the shoreline, looking for a good walking stick.
Found one, too. He figured with it, he could get back to camp without having to lean on her the whole way.
Before they returned to the clearing, they gathered firewood to take with them and filled the two canteens. She explained that she would boil the water, just to be on the safe side. She’d saved the empty water bottles and she was refilling them with the sterilized river water.
He marveled at her resourcefulness. She’d probably be halfway to San Cristóbal by now, living off the land, if not for his holding her back.
She sent him a look. “I can read your mind, you know.”
“Okay. Now you’re scaring me.”
“It’s your nature to be fatheaded and overly sure of yourself. Just go with your nature. No dragging around being morose, okay?”
He laughed then, because she was right. There was a bright side and he would look on it. They were both alive and surviving pretty damn effectively, thanks to her.
“It can only get better from here,” he said.
“That’s the spirit.” She hooked her canteen on her belt, pulled a couple of lengths of twine from her pocket and handed him one. “Tie up your firewood.”
He did what she told him to do—just as he’d been doing for most of the day. After the wood was bundled, they gathered up the stuff they had left on the rock and headed for the trail.
Back at camp, he propped his ankle up to rest it. They ate more of the dwindling supply of freeze-dried food and pored over the maps.
She had marked the location he’d made her write down the night of the crash. It appeared that their own personal jungle was somewhere in the northernmost tip of the state of Chiapas, about a hundred and twenty-five miles from the state capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez and the airport where they were supposed to have landed. There were any number of tiny villages and towns in northern Chiapas, and deforested farmland and ranches were supposed to cover most of the area where they had gone down.
Actually, he calculated that they shouldn’t be in rainforest, but they were. And that meant that they must have been blown farther south after he noted the coordinates that final time. And that meant who the hell knew where they were? Their best bet remained to follow the river until they found human habitation.
And when would they be doing that?
At least a week, maybe two, depending on how fast his ankle healed.
That evening, as the sun dipped low, they slathered themselves in bug repellent and returned to the river with the fishing pole and a plastic bag containing grubs he had found under rocks at the edge of the clearing.
He assembled his pole and baited his line while she gathered more wood and tied it into twin bundles and then sat down with him to wait with him for the fish to bite.
They didn’t have to wait long. He felt the first stirrings of renewed self-respect when he recognized the sharp tug on the line.
“Got one.” He played the line, letting it spin out and then reeling it in. Finally, he hauled the fish free of the water. It was a beautiful sight, the scaly body twisting and turning, gleaming in the fading light, sending jewellike drops of water flying in a wide arc.
Zoe laughed and clapped her hands and shot her fist in the air. “Way to go, Girard! That baby’s big enough to make dinner for both of us.”
He caught the squirming fish in his hand and eased out the hook. “You know how to clean them?”
She groaned. “Unfortunately, yes.” She did the messy job while he baited his hook again.
He landed another one, just because he could. The meat would probably stay fresh enough for their morning meal. They could try smoking them to preserve them, and they would. Tomorrow. For tonight, two was more than enough. He cleaned that second fish himself, found a stick to hang them on and they started back.
Zoe took the lead with the two bundles of firewood and a full canteen. Dax, leaning on his cane, carrying the fish and his pole, followed behind.
They were almost to the clearing when the giant snake dropped out of the trees and landed on Zoe.
Chapter Seven
It was almost fully dark by then. In the trees, it was hard to see your hand in front of your face, so it took Dax a few seconds to make out what was happening.
Zoe let out a blood-curdling shriek and then one word, “Snake!”
He made out the thick, twisting form, the white belly gleaming, coiling itself around her as she sent the firewood flying. Dax dropped the stick with the fish on it, tossed his cane and pole to the trail and whipped out his hunting knife.
By then, she had managed to turn and face him. The snake started hissing, a loud, ugly sound. “Here,” she said, her voice straining as she tried to control the powerful coils. He realized she had a hold of the neck, right below the extremely large head, in both hands. “Cut here …”
He stepped up, grabbed the snake a foot below her clutching fists and sliced that sucker’s head clean off. Blood spurted and the thunderous hissing stopped. He felt the spray on his face. The snake’s powerful tail whipped at him, strongly at first and then more slowly.
Zoe held on to the detached head, whimpering, muttering to herself, “Eeuuu, icky, sticky. Yuck!” as he dropped the long, thick scaly body and it gradually went limp.
It shocked the hell out of him, to watch her lose it. Up till then, she’d been a model of determined cool and unbreakable self-control. “Zoe …”
“Oh, God. God help us. Oh, ick. Oh, help….”
He gaped at her, disbelieving. And then he shook himself. She needed talking down and she needed it now. And he was the only one there to do it. He spoke softly, slowly, “It’s okay, Zoe. It’s okay. It’s dead.”
She went on whimpering, muttering nonsense words, clutching the severed head of the reptile, as though she feared if she let it go, it would snap back to life and attack her all over again.
“Zoe. Zoe, come on. Let go.” He caught her wrists in his hands. “It’s dead. It can’t hurt you anymore. You can let go.”
With a wordless cry, she threw the snake’s head down and hurled herself at his chest.
He tottered a little on his bad ankle but recovered, steadied himself and wrapped his arms around her. Gathering her
