Burial Ground

II

8:56 a.m.

When they had come under siege by rain without the slightest warning, Sam had been prepared. Her shoulders and hair were still damp beneath her slicker, but at least she wasn't soaked to the bone like some of her other companions, who hunkered down in their seats in their rain gear or under tarps. Only their guides appeared unaffected. Santos still stood at the bow in only his cutoff jeans, a sheet of water covering his bare skin, poling them around hidden obstacles as the river grew more tumultuous. At least the rain had brought a respite from the assault of the mosquitoes. No longer did animals chatter from the dense canopy. Even the birds had ceased their relentless chirping to bed down in whatever dry alcoves they could find.

These storms were unpredictable. Sometimes they lasted just a few minutes, while other times it could pour for weeks on end. There was no way of knowing until it simply ceased as suddenly as it started. It had only been raining for four hours now, but already it felt like an eternity.

Sam occupied herself by watching the bank slowly disappear to either side as the river rose. The runoff carved channels through the mud and whole sections of earth fell away from the forest, exposing roots and rocks, which tumbled into the water. Branches and trunks raced toward them from ahead and banged against the aluminum hull. Progress slowed as the current grew stronger. The motors had begun to whine and issue a darker black smoke that reeked of burnt oil. They would only be able to go so much farther before they would have to rest the engines.

The stream that had once only been twenty feet wide was now closer to thirty, and flowed thick with muck. At a guess, they had traveled maybe twelve miles, which put them halfway to their first checkpoint, a deep valley beyond the easternmost row of mountains where the river was fed by countless waterfalls that had eroded into the sheer slopes from the higher country. They wouldn't be able to take the boats any farther than that. According to their maps, there was a thin gap that led to the southwest into a perpendicular canyon. That had been the start of Hunter's original route, and assuming they didn't stumble upon any sign of him before they reached it, that was where theirs would begin as well.

It was now just a matter of getting there.

A large gray trunk with wild roots like the tentacles of an octopus slammed into the side of the boat, and for a heartbeat she feared they would capsize. She locked her feet under the bench and gripped the sides so she would be better prepared for the next collision. A glance over the side showed her a dent the size of a satellite dish. And they hadn't even seen the tree, which had fired up from beneath the water like a torpedo from a submarine.

They couldn't afford to lose any of the equipment, let alone their lives. They had to get out of the river before it was too late.

Colton must have recognized the danger as well. He leaned forward and shouted into Leo's ear, but she couldn't make out his words over the roar of the rapids. Leo in turn stood and yelled at Santos, who looked back with a placating smile. He gave a single nod and pointed upriver toward a section of the bank that was several feet lower than the rest. It looked like there might be just enough room to drag the boats out of the water and into the high weeds, but the slope was slick with mud. Scaling it without the weight of their craft would be hard enough. Maybe they could tether the boats to the enormous kapok trees. Unfortunately, that would leave them at the mercy of the projectiles cruising downstream.

Santos guided the boat to the edge of the slope, beached the prow, and leapt out into the mud. He grabbed the coil of rope attached to the frame and scampered up the sloppy incline on all fours with simian agility. At the top, he wrapped the thick cord around a wide gray trunk and signaled for them to disembark.

Sam followed Leo and Colton to the front of the boat, and dropped down into the mire behind them. With none of Santos's finesse, she slipped and scrabbled and clawed her way up onto solid ground. By the time she caught up with the others, there wasn't a single inch of her that wasn't coated with brown sludge.

The remaining craft puttered over behind the first, their guides poling like gondoliers to keep them up against the bank until the lead boat was dragged out of the water.

Sam joined the others on the opposite side of the tree and helped pull on the rope. The boat was a lot heavier than it looked, but with the leverage and relatively solid footing, they were able to drag it up into the weeds under the broad arms of the kapok. Thirty exhausting minutes later, all three boats were crammed into the tiny clearing. They stood shivering as a group beneath the dripping canopy, which only served to mildly attenuate the deluge.

"Check this out," Dahlia said. She leaned closer to a heliconia shrub, and gently peeled back a cluster of broad-leaved branches. "Jay? Do you still have the camera handy? I want a shot of this."

Sam crowded closer with the others while the cameraman separated and headed back toward the boats. It was a phasmid, a walking stick insect, a long-legged, slender-bodied bug that perfectly mimicked the stem upon which it stood. She had to smile at the memory of the first time she had seen such a creature, and the hundreds of others with similar strange and wondrous adaptations they would encounter along the way. She envied these first-timers. There was truly something special about the instances when one's eyes were opened to the magic of the Amazon basin.

"Such an amazing evolutionary marvel," Dahlia said. "To think that somehow through the ages this insect's entire body changed shape to replicate its natural environment. And look how slowly and stiffly it moves, almost like the branch itself in a gentle breeze."

"Wait until you see some of the epiphytes," Sam said. "The world's largest flower grows from the rafflesia epiphyte, and blooms for only three days a year. It has the most beautiful maroon and yellow flower, but releases the most horrible stench to attract flies for pollination. And there are butterflies you have to see to believe."

"And hoatzin hatchlings are born with two claws on the end of each wing that allow them to climb around in the canopy until they're able to fly," Galen said. "The spatuletail hummingbird has two long tail feathers that end in large turquoise discs that it has developed the ability to control independently."

"Jay!" Dahlia called.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Jay held the camera in one hand and his backpack in the other. He tried to swing it up over his shoulder at the same time that a section of the bank fell away from his foot. There one moment, gone the next, Jay slid down toward the raging river.

Sam ran to the edge and fell to her knees. Jay had managed to stop himself halfway down, his legs buried in the mud nearly to the knees. With one hand he clung to a tangle of roots, while he reached toward the water with his other, where his backpack rested in the trench carved by the hulls of the boats, inches from being washed away by the current. Branches and whole tree trunks raced downstream. One particularly dark trunk with thick, ridged bark even appeared to be heading straight toward the bag as Jay finally took hold of the shoulder strap.

"Leave it!" Sam screamed.

"I've got it," he said. The expression on his face was that of embarrassment, not concern. He shook his head as if silently chastising himself, and began to drag himself upward.

"Let it go! Hurry! Get up here!" Sam grabbed his wrist and pulled as hard as she could.

Two of the men dove to her side and seized Jay by the forearm and elbow right as the trunk reached the river's edge and exploded out of the water in a blur of wide jaws and sharp teeth.

The caiman snapped down on the backpack and nearly yanked the cameraman out of their grasp. It shook its head violently from side to side and jerked away. There was a flash of its yellowish belly, and then it disappeared with a splash, dragging its prize to the bottom of the river where it could pin it against the soft bed and wait for it to drown before consuming it.

Fortunately, all the beast had stolen was the backpack, and Sam was able to help Jay up over the lip. He fell to all fours and retched. His face had gone a deathly shade of pale and one of his boots belonged to the mud for the time being, but at least he was alive.

"Are you all right?" Merritt asked from her right. He and Sorenson had been the ones to rush to her aid.

"Jesus Christ," Jay said, rubbing his hand as though to confirm it was still there. "I saw it coming the whole time. I thought it was just a tree trunk."

"You have to be more careful," Sam snapped. "Out here, nothing is ever what it seems."