| |
"I think we have to head to the village but be cautious," Chance said. "We might not want to show ourselves to the natives if we can avoid it."
"It'll be tougher cutting through the jungle, but I think it's our best bet," Jared said. "We're all better against natural enemies."
Chance led the way, and Jared brought up the rear. We headed off through the dense vegetation. I was having huge mood swings. One minute I felt such a sense of joy that Chance was OK, and we were together again that I wanted to wrap my arms around him and nestle into his arms. Instead, we were bushwhacking our way through the jungle. A few steps further on, I was pissed to be viewed as some sort of test subject. A few more steps and the fear kicked in. The roller coaster of emotions was exhausting.
We'd gone far enough to lose sight of the trail we'd followed from the lodge when the wood knocking started. I quickened my pace to catch up to Chance. I reached for his hand and pointed to my ear. The grin on his face told me he recognized the sound too.
Chance reached for me and pulled me into a thicket of vines. He motioned to the others to take cover. He put his mouth to my ear. "I thought I heard something."
When I looked out from our hiding place, I could see that the trail we blazed was easy to see. Why hadn't we realized that? We never saw anything or anyone, so after several minutes we all gathered back on the trail. "We're making it too easy to follow our trail," Chance said. "Even though we aren't clearing brush, we're breaking twigs and pushing things out of the way."
Fudge. I couldn't think of any way around it. If we stayed on an established trail, it would be easy to follow us but if we made our own trail, someone could follow that too. "What can we do?"
No one had any ideas, so we continued on as we had been. When we thought we heard someone nearby, we'd take cover, but we saw nothing. We stopped often to drink water. All of us were soaked in sweat, and the sun wasn't even up yet.
Chance stopped and let us all catch up to him. "We need to split up," he said. "Jared and I will head into the village. We'll try to find a phone or radio."
"Why can't we all go?" I asked.
"Too many people. There's less risk of being spotted if we separate," Chance said. "You ladies head due east from here."
"I should come with you," I said. "A woman is less threatening."
"You may be right, but if Braun has minions in the village and they capture us, they'll keep us alive to lure you two back."
"He's right," Jared said. "I don't like the idea of leaving you, but we can probably convince them we're just two tourists exploring the jungle who got separated from our guide."
"Who will you contact?" Cassie asked.
"Meecham," Jared said. "He has the contacts to find us and get us out of here."
Neither Cassie or I was happy at the prospect of being separated from the guys again. It felt like we'd just gotten them back, and now we were losing them again.
"This sucks," I said, after Chance kissed me and stepped away.
"I know," he said. "We'll get out of this. We'll get help, and we'll find you."
We started to repeat discussion points about waiting in one place, sending only one person to the village, but rehashing things was only wasting time. "We need to go," Jared said. "The sun will be up soon."
We watched until they disappeared into the thick jungle. "Should we wait here, follow them, or head east?" I asked.
"You told them we'd head east," Gracie Layne said.
"Yeah, but I'm having second thoughts," Cassie said.
"But if we don't go where they expected, how will they find us?" Gracie Layne asked.
"It's risky to follow them," I said. "They might think it's Braun's men following." While we debated, we simply roamed around a small area of the jungle not really going anywhere at all.
I was trying to weigh the options and find the best solution. "Cassie, where's Gracie Layne?"
"I don't know. She was here just a minute ago. I noticed that the wood knocking sounds had changed. Before they were regular though they sometimes slowed or quickened. Now, they sounded much more random. We didn't want to shout in case someone was following us, so we walked around the area looking for her.