“We want to ensure that nothing comes sniffing around in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t want to try to take on a jaguar in the dark. Or at any time, but especially not at night,” he warned. Drake believed him. He didn’t want to ask him how he knew.
Morning brought more hiking, but tougher going due to the absence of trails. Spencer studied Jack’s GPS and calculated the route direction, and then zoomed out and studied the satellite image, which showed a solid field of green.
Using the trajectory from the final outpost’s paver stones, their goal for the day was a barely visible stream eleven miles east. While they were in uncharted territory now regarding what to expect, their hope was that the same general pattern would hold and that they were no more than twenty-five miles from Paititi — or two days’ hard push from their current location.
Allie pushed along without slowing them down, determined to not be a hindrance. Her limp lessened through the morning, and by the time they reached the stream where they would camp for the night, she seemed greatly improved.
They spent most of their daylight hours the following day slogging through the rain, following game trails through the jungle as they pressed on. In the early afternoon they heard the crashing of a nearby waterfall — a promising sound, because the journal had theorized that Paititi would be located in an area surrounded by waterfalls and a river.
At the base of the waterfall, they took a break while Spencer studied the GPS. “We’re two miles short. You want to keep going, or have you had enough for today?” he asked.
Drake eyed Allie. “It’s up to her. I could go on. But if there’s no pressing reason to, this is a pretty nice spot.”
Allie pursed her lips. “Oh, sure, make it all about me. I’m fine.”
“This is a good place to camp. And the rain’s letting up, so it’ll get hot soon. I vote for stopping here today,” Spencer said.
The river below the small waterfall proved to be full of fish, and they feasted on several different types that they roasted over a fire. The rain had stopped an hour after they set up the tents, and Spencer had used his petroleum jelly to ignite a small pile of damp branches in order to dry out an armful of others.
They spent the next two days exploring their surroundings, using their new camp as base, but their efforts yielded nothing but exhaustion. As their second evening by the waterfall drew to a close, Spencer’s skepticism about their chances of success grew more pronounced. Drake tried to ignore him, but the doubts had an insidious effect. He could tell Allie was also wavering, but they had no option B.
On the third afternoon, Drake was chopping his way through some particularly dense jungle, his machete heavy in his tired hand, when he heard the roar of falling water ahead — another waterfall, but bigger than the one they’d camped by. Allie called out softly from behind him.
“Do you hear that?” she asked.
“I do. Follow me. It can’t be much farther,” Drake answered.
“Lead the way,” Spencer said, his tone morose.
Drake hacked at the foliage with renewed vigor, and in a few minutes he emerged onto a ledge overlooking a breathtaking sight — easily five stories of water tumbling over a cliff edge into rushing rapids below.
“I’d say that qualifies as a waterfall,” Drake said, inching along the rock outcropping to get a better look at the pool below.
When his feet went out from under him, slipping on moss he hadn’t seen, it felt like gravity was suspended for a brief moment, and then the wind was knocked out of him as he landed on his back, though his backpack absorbed the worst of it. He shook his head groggily and tried to stand as Allie edged closer to help him, but felt himself sliding inexorably toward the precipice, the slick growth covering the rock accelerating his fall.
Allie and Spencer watched in horror as Drake’s expression went from confusion to fear in a kind of slow motion. Desperate, he clawed at the rock, trying to find a hold. Blood stained the surface of the stone as he tried to latch on to it to break his slide, and then he was gone, sucked into the roaring vortex.
“No!” Allie yelled, pushing forward. Spencer restrained her, knowing that if she made it much farther onto the ledge, the same fate awaited her.
“Stop screaming. Unless you want to draw every hostile for ten miles,” Spencer warned, his tone sharp.
“Oh, God. We have to help him…”
“Not by joining him. Come on. Let’s find a way to the bottom.”
Spencer backed away from the edge, pulling Allie with him. Farther in the brush they found a faint track that led down the side of the slope. After some rough terrain, they emerged at the base of the waterfall, where the cascading water exploded into a deep pool before frothing along a narrower channel that transformed into whitewater rapids. Spencer shrugged off his backpack and removed his shoes, and then dove into the pool as Allie watched.
He bobbed to the surface after almost a full minute, like an otter, and then went under again. He repeated the process several times, with no success. When he came back up for the final time, he swam to the edge of the pool and climbed out, gasping for breath. Allie studied his glum expression with shock written across her face. She tried to speak, but the only sound she produced was a dry rasp. He shook his head and looked away, unable to meet her gaze.
Drake was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Pinpoints of light floated in Drake’s consciousness, his senses numb. He coughed reflexively and water exploded from his mouth and nose. He choked and sputtered, hacking more as fluid streamed down his chin as his body tried to clear his lungs. Pain seared through his head and he retched, and then instinctively he tried to reach up and touch the raw spot on his skull.
His arms wouldn’t move. As he regained full consciousness, he realized that his wrists were bound over his head and secured to something. He opened his eyes and instantly winced — one of them was almost swollen shut from the battering he’d endured in the rapids after dropping into the pool and being flushed down the river. Vision in his other eye was blurry, but as he strained to focus, he could make out figures near him.
As his eyesight cleared, he could make out faces — indigenous tribal features burned deep brown from the sun, the vaguely Asian cast to the eyes and flatter nose typical of the Amazon rainforest’s primitive inhabitants. His gaze stopped at a young woman around his age, her animal-skin tunic soaking wet, like his clothes. She held his stare unflinchingly, and then one of the young men next to her emitted a whoop, and he felt something pulling at his belt.
The man held up Drake’s knife, unmistakable malice in his gaze. After waving the weapon around, laughing along with his companions, he turned to Drake with an ugly expression and approached, his grip on the knife tightening as he prepared to put it to use. He held it over Drake’s head, and then a warning shout barked from beyond Drake’s field of vision. The man hesitated and stepped back, his black eyes locked on Drake’s, obviously not happy. Drake passed out, his last impression a lightning bolt of agony shrieking through his skull as he tried to pull free.
When he came to again, his head was less tender, and when he tried to move his arms, he was able to. He tentatively cracked his eye open. The young woman was sitting nearby, looking at him. Next to her was a wizened elder with long gray hair, his complexion the color and texture of rawhide, the skin wrinkled from a lifetime in the rainforest.
They were in some sort of structure. He could make out thatch overhead, the dried fronds supported upon a crude framework of wooden poles, saplings that had been stripped and tied together to form the roof. Rain dripped from the sides, but inside they were dry.