The Orchid Hunter. Sandra Moore K.
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school laboratory. I read the tea leaves and didn’t like what I saw.
“No,” I said to him. “You may not share my plane.”
“If the pilot’s willing to take me, it’s not your concern.”
“And I won’t take you to your research station, even if I knew where it was.”
“I have a map—”
“And I won’t pull your ass out of the jungle when you get burned by fire liana.”
“Fire liana?”
“Or stung by Dresk’s beetles.”
“I have an antidote for that—”
“Or get a limb chewed off by a hungry jaguar.”
“Jaguars don’t—”
“Or get shot with a poisoned arrow by one of the several hostile indigenous peoples.”
At that his strong face solidified to stone. Arrogant jungle newbie on his first field trip. His presence was an unacceptable risk. We glared at each other.
“Not interested,” I clarified.
“But I am,” Carlos cut in. “Ixpachia Research Station is where we are going. However, my rates are rather steep.”
The bug nerd turned his back on me to juggle his tripod under one arm as he counted out bills. Carlos’s eyes widened.
“Hey,” I said to Carlos, grabbing his sleeve to take his attention off the cash. “I paid for your exclusive services.”
“You got those last night,” he said with an intimate leer.
My face heated up. “I paid you good money for a solitary trip. A flight in, five days working in the jungle, a flight out. I’m not sharing my plane.”
“But his money’s as good as yours.” Carlos’s perfect white smile would have dazzled me yesterday. Today it just made me mad. “And the flight is dangerous, is it not? Should I not be paid for the work as much as I can get?”
“We had a deal.”
He chuckled. “Gatinha, my word is true, but money is life.” He waved at the bug nerd. “Bring your gear, amigo!”
The Brazilian cackled as I stumped along behind Carlos and the bug nerd, fuming. I’d have a word with Chico next time I saw him. For now, I’d deal with it. But I didn’t have time to baby-sit anybody. Scooter was my priority. Everybody else would just have to get by.
Carlos jerked the Cessna’s cargo door open for us. A whoosh of stifling hot air fell out. The plane was just this side of a stripped-down drug runner: a pilot’s seat, electronics and little else. Even the passenger seats were gone. Good old Carlos must have a day job flying snow. Maybe dodging the joint Brazilian-American drug-enforcement guys had made him arrogant with the average sightseer. He was used to flying much richer cargo than what I’d bring back.
“Let me get that for you.” The bug nerd reached for my duffel bag.
Hell, why not let him play gentleman and throw out his back? Maybe I’d make this trip alone after all. But he easily swung the heavy duffel bag into the cargo bay with one arm. Then he hopped into the plane after it, holding out his broad hand for my day pack and smiling at me like this was a Boy Scout jaunt to Camp Okefenokee.
“I got it.” I kept my day pack and climbed into the plane. I settled down across from the open cargo door and hoped he wouldn’t start talking.
Up front, Carlos flicked switches and turned dials. A few minutes later, the Cessna’s single engine fired up. The bare metal wall I leaned against vibrated from my neck all the way to my butt. Even my ankles tingled from the jarring.
The bug nerd shoved his gear against one of the plane’s exposed steel ribs and scrambled up to the cockpit.
“The engine doesn’t sound right to me,” he shouted over the guttering noise.
Carlos shook his head. “This plane is safe, my friend. Go take a nap.”
“But the mechanical clatter—”
“It’s nothing!”
The nerd’s firm jaw tightened, then he yelled, “So where are the parachutes?”
Carlos flashed the nerd a dark look and jerked his head toward the cargo bay. Get out of my face. I could read the message from halfway down the plane. Carlos might be a good guy as far as illicit dealings in the jungle go—meaning he wouldn’t kill anyone without a good reason—but, like me, he was a mercenary who needed to eat. Mouthy pip-squeak “experts” got tossed out the cargo door at seven thousand feet.
Besides, the bug nerd had given him the full payment up front. Dumbass.
The nerd flopped down again across from me, mindless of the open cargo door to his left. He closed his eyes, apparently taking Carlos’s nap suggestion seriously. He wore pristine trekking gear that looked like it’d been ordered out of a Whole Earth Catalog: heavy canvas pants, a shirt a size too big for him, what had to be day-hiking boots made by Birkenstock. His dark brown hair lay longish on his collar, highlighting prominent cheekbones, a strong jaw and chiseled lips. I wondered briefly what he’d look like with a ponytail but decided “tasty” wasn’t a word a woman like me should use. The wire frames slipped a half inch down his nose. He didn’t move.
I turned my attention to the shed. The Brazilian who apparently acted as the local air-traffic controller was nowhere to be seen. Nothing out there but trees and bugs and already-intense heat.
The plane lurched forward. The Cessna stuttered and jerked toward the dirt runway. Deep jungle green rolled by. Workers’ arms rose and fell, blades slashing and hacking. Carlos turned the plane’s nose due west and the shed came into view again. A very dark man, maybe half Negro, half Indian, stood beside the shed, staring at us. Carlos stopped the plane to check something.
The staring man strode toward us purposefully, his gaze unwavering. A chill shot through my veins. Carlos fidgeted with controls, and still the man walked, unhurried and deliberate. How could someone stare so long without blinking?
Then the man grasped the open cargo doorway and leaned in. Twin puckered scars etched his face, neck, and the part of his collarbone I could see beneath his ragged shirt. Around his neck, a leather cord held a single jaguar tooth—a canine. His huge hands gripped the doorway with such strength I had no doubt he could bend the metal if he chose. Black eyes stared at me.
Directly at me.
The chill in my veins dropped to a freeze. He didn’t glare; his eyes were as emotionless as those of the jaguar he’d killed for its tooth.
Endless darkness welled up in my periphery. The plane’s metallic clatter heightened into deafening howls and screams and roars. The world dropped away from my feet, leaving me standing in utter blackness, alone. I no longer hunkered down in a Cessna waiting to go into the jungle. The jungle had come for me, and what hunted me breathed hot and heavy on my neck. I spun. Nothing. I spun again. Nothing. Panicked, I struck out with both arms, swinging wild. If I could just see.
As if in answer to a prayer, a dim yellow light grew near my feet, filling the darkness with itself, illuminating nothing. A single sound cut through the cacophony: a slithering hiss that singed my spine with fear and brought bile into my throat. I knew what it was. The yellow light sharpened into two flat, slitted, alien eyes. Pit viper. The kind of venomous snake whose head would chase you after you’d severed it from the body. Low words, words I didn’t understand but whose meaning I knew instantly, told me to leave this place. What waited for me in the trees was hissing death.
Abruptly, the vision disappeared.
The empty cargo-bay door yawned. Outside, trees and undergrowth lurked behind the sagging shed. The shaman—if that’s what he was—had disappeared.
Once the Evil Eye has its grip, you’re lost. The open