Burial Ground (11 page)

Behind Leo and Colton sat Dr. Carson,
Samantha, whose head turned on a swivel. She was in her element out
here, so full of excitement that she nearly glowed. Not for the
first time, he envied her passion, and wondered if she were
similarly passionate in other ways. At her back, a mound of
supplies had been roped to the frame of the craft. Rippeth lounged
in the stern, maneuvering the outboard motor with such practiced
ease that it appeared to be an extension of his arm. What little
light pierced the canopy reflected from the man's freshly shaved
scalp.

The men behind Galen made him uncomfortable.
He was going to have to try to barge his way onto the lead boat the
first chance he got. He still couldn't figure out why their pilot,
whose knees seemed hell bent on bruising Galen's kidneys, had come
along with them. It wasn't as though they were going to encounter
any rogue aircraft in the middle of the Andes. And Webber certainly
wasn't any graduate student or research assistant. He had the air
of a brawler, but the quiet temperament of a fisherman, a dichotomy
that could only have been spawned in the service. Perhaps it was
simply the way the man rode with his rifle in his lap that caused
Galen's unease, or maybe it was the fact that Webber patted down
the mound of roped supplies behind him as though to ensure that
something hidden remained that way.

The third boat was piled high with the
majority of the scientific gear between the pole-wielding guide, a
kid named Kemen who didn't even look old enough to shave, and
Morton, who manned the motor. The documentary crew was squashed
between them. Dahlia wore a khaki vest with snaps that glinted from
the countless pockets and matching shorts, her hair tucked up
beneath a Dodgers ball cap. She pointed excitedly to either side of
the river for Jay, who followed her direction with his camera. His
long-sleeved thermal top was already damp with sweat, despite the
removal of the flannel shirt that was now tied around his waist. As
it bore the bulk of their supplies, the trailing boat moved more
sluggishly in the current, and required extra time to change
direction to follow in the wake of the first two.

Even in the relatively placid river and with
the engines cranked to a fierce whine, they couldn't have been
moving at more than five miles an hour in the straightaways, and a
fraction of that around the bends. The plan was to take the river
as far into the mountains as they could before striking off on
foot, unless they saw something in the jungle to necessitate
premature disembarkation, specifically, any sign of Hunter's
passage. In an ideal world, Gearhardt's son would have left signs
to indicate his trail, carvings or flags on prominent trees, but
under the assumed circumstances, they couldn't count on being so
fortunate. And that was one thing none of them seemed to want to
talk about. Leo's son had
drowned
up in the mountains ahead,
and none of them knew why or how. What in the name of God were they
doing following in his footsteps at all?

But deep down, Galen knew why. The nature of
Hunter's discoveries was far too amazing to leave unexplored, which
was why even now, despite the cramp of fear in his gut, he could
hardly contain his anticipation. Somewhere in the vast uncharted
cloud forest was a species of raptor that had never been
documented, perhaps one that no man had ever even seen.

Galen slapped his neck and readjusted the
mosquito netting that covered his head and shoulders to keep those
pesky stingers at bay. The last thing he wanted was some bizarre
tropical disease.

As they rounded a bend in the brown river,
he caught a glimpse of the mountains, which rose straight ahead in
sheer, jagged cliffs, their upper reaches invisible beneath a mass
of clouds. That was where they were going, straight up into those
clouds. And somewhere up there, protected from human intervention
for millennia, was the ornithological discovery of a lifetime.

A contented smile had barely graced his lips
when he heard the thrashing of leaves above him. Before he could
even look up, he felt raindrops on his shoulders and arms. The air
became water, and the surface of the river appeared to boil. It had
been too long since his days in the field. He had forgotten how
quickly these tropical storms descended.

Galen tried to remember where the pack with
his poncho was loaded, but in the span of seconds, it no longer
mattered.

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."

2:28 p.m.

They ate and lounged at the edge of the
rainforest until the torrent waned to a patter. The river had risen
nearly to the banks, but the amount of debris had diminished
substantially. Large branches and broken trunks still sped
downstream, although in nowhere near the same numbers as before,
and the current had slowed just enough to provide suitable notice
to dodge them. There were sections where the limbs had tangled to
form impromptu barricades, which were fairly easily skirted. All in
all, they had only lost two and a half hours, and were again making
excellent time. Barring any further delays, they should reach their
point of debarkation shortly after nightfall.