Michael groaned as he slid his pack from his back, then lifted his arms to stretch his tired muscles. They had traveled through several kilometers of canopy forest, then found themselves in another stretch of edge habitat. Knowing that water had to lie somewhere nearby, Delmar pressed through the thick foliage until an inky ribbon appeared. Pausing there, he decided to establish an overnight camp on a stretch of riverbank.
“Hang your hammocks in the surrounding trees, and secure the mosquito netting while light remains,” Delmar had called, his grin revealing the gold surrounding his two front teeth. “We wouldn’t want the bats or mosquitoes carrying you away tonight.”
“Ken?” Lauren’s whine carried across the clearing. “Is he serious?”
Grateful for the day’s end, Michael opened his pack and pulled out the lightweight field hammock Carlton had given him earlier that morning. The ultramodern sleeper weighed only fifteen ounces, including support ropes, mosquito netting, and detachable rain fly.
As Bancroft and Chavez set about hacking away at the shrubby vegetation, Michael moved to a pair of trees and tied on his hammock. Once it was secure, he dropped his bag into the center of the fabric, then carefully lowered the mosquito netting over his bed and backpack. Though he was keen to learn about the jungle through firsthand experience, he wasn’t particularly eager to share his bed with an assortment of insects and vermin.
Slipping his hands into his pockets, he looked around to see how he could help the others. Carlton was building a fire in a small clearing, while Delmar stood at the water’s edge sharpening a narrow branch.
He walked toward Delmar, intending to offer his help, but he couldn’t help but notice that Alexandra and her daughter were struggling to secure their hammocks. An inner voice warned him away, but the girl looked as though she would welcome his help.
Locking his hands behind his back, he changed direction and approached them. “Can I offer my assistance?”
“No, thanks. We’ll manage.” Alexandra’s words came from behind clenched teeth, so he winked at Caitlyn and moved on to the river.
Delmar was tying a hook onto a length of monofilament as Michael approached. The Indian tracker glanced up, then held out the line. “Feel like fishing, Doctor?”
“I’d be happy to have a go at it if you’ll tell me how it’s done.”
The man’s mouth twisted in something not quite a smile. “The waters here are dark and still—perfect for piranha. Just tie the empty end of that line to a branch, then thrash it in the water. Bait it with a grub you’ve smeared with some blood from your finger; soon you’ll have fresh meat to bait the hook.”
Michael pulled his hunting knife from its leather sheaf, then cut a thin branch from one of the riverside shrubs. By the time he had securely tied the monofilament to the branch, Delmar and Bancroft already had lines dangling above the water.
The big Texan, however, looked a trifle nervous about approaching the water’s edge.
“Watch, amigos.” Delmar thrashed the tip of his stick in the water, then let the blood-smeared beetle on his hook drop into the water with a plop. Barely an instant later, the stick bent and the guide flipped his trophy onto the shore—a six-inch red-bellied piranha, whose razor teeth gleamed in the setting sunlight.
The guide grinned up at Michael. “He will bite you if you do not kill him. Do you know how to do that?”
Michael fingered the handle of his knife. “With a blade?”
“No. Like this.” While Michael and Bancroft watched, Delmar picked up the piranha by the tail, then tilted his head and sank his teeth into the spine just behind the gills. Within seconds, the toothy jaws stopped moving.
“Now I use my blade.” After tossing the fish onto a broad leaf, the Brazilian picked up his machete and chopped the fish into several bloody pieces. He tossed one of the silvery bits to Michael. “Put that on the end of your hook, Doctor, and we will have dinner within minutes.”
The guide’s words proved prophetic. Michael baited his hook, beat the water with his stick, and lowered the meat into the inky blackness. A moment later a piranha jerked on the end of his line.
Conscious of the other men’s eyes upon him, he swung the fish up, caught it by the flipping tail, and tilted his head. Though it unnerved him to breathe in the fishy scent and know that razor-sharp jaws were snapping only inches from his face, it would be far easier to kill the fish before removing his hook from its jaw.
The other men cheered as he bit down. Grinning in an acute combination of embarrassment and victory, he tossed the dead fish to Chavez, who had poured oil into a skillet.
Cheered on by Michael’s accomplishment, Olsson, Baklanov, and even Fortier dropped lines into the water.
“The women aren’t going to like this.” Bancroft looked up at Michael and winked. “Should we tell ’em they’re eating catfish or grouper?”
“You’d have to cut the heads off.” Michael glanced dubiously at the growing pile of toothy corpses. “Without the head, we won’t have much to cook.”
“We eat them all,” Delmar insisted. “Except the teeth, and our women save those for tijeras.”
“I’m sorry—what?”
Delmar’s forehead wrinkled as he sought the word. “Tijeras—you know, to cut things. Strings and yarn.”
“Scissors.” Michael supplied the word as he studied a piranha’s jaw. “Hinged scissors. Brilliant.”
As the sun sank over the treetops and the canopy began to flutter with nocturnal life, Carlton assembled the team around the campfire. He, Chavez, Delmar, and Bancroft were carrying a few bags of rice as emergency provisions, he explained, but these would not last more than a few days. In order to travel light, they would eat foods provided by the jungle. “Like piranha,” he finished, pointing to the steaming skillet.
“I hate fish.” Lauren Hayworth’s voice cut through the rattle of insects in the hot air. “I’d rather starve.”
“Stop complaining, Lauren,” Carlton snapped. “Eat what you’re given and be grateful for it.”
Michael looked up in time to see Miss Hayworth’s jaw drop, then he leaned back to let the women approach the fire. With the somber dignity of a chef at a four-star restaurant, Chavez served piranha to his companions. Delmar thoughtfully chopped the heads off a pair of fish for Caitlyn.
Aside from the whimpering Miss Hayworth, the other women seemed to be in good spirits. Alexandra nibbled at her fish with her eyes closed while Deborah Simons held hers aloft, staring at it as if it were a unique entomological specimen caught in one of her traps. Emma Whitmore ate stoically, with only an occasional disdainful glance in Lauren Hayworth’s direction. She did, however, discreetly spit out the eyes.
He watched, amused, while Caitlyn Pace flipped her decapitated fish over several times, then touched it with her tongue. Seeing her grimace, he walked over and squatted before her.
“How is it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Tastes like sardines, I guess. Maybe anchovies. And I’d give anything for a pizza to put under this thing.”
Michael tapped her on the shoulder. “I was rather hoping you’d be brave enough to have a go at it first. That way I’ll know if it’s edible.”
Rising to the challenge, Caitlyn closed her eyes, pinched her nostrils with two fingers, and took a big bite. Her nose crinkled, then after a moment she removed her hand and began to chew.
“I was right.” She looked at him, smiling as she swallowed. “We do need a pizza.”
Michael laughed. Gripping his dinner behind the gills, he ate it as cautiously as he’d killed it. He found the fish bony, crunchy, and a wee bit salty, but his ravenous appetite appreciated the food.
“Tell you what,” he told Caitlyn, who watched him with wide eyes. “When we make it back to civilization, the pizza’s on me. Deal?”
Caitlyn laughed, then cast a guilty glance in her mother’s direction. “Deal!”