Pearls (27 page)

Manuel obviously heard the collision, too, because he turned around and shouted to her from his
bongo
a few lengths ahead of hers. “Watch it, Isabel. You’re supposed to be steering around those things.”

“I know that, Manuel, but thanks for the reminder.” She couldn’t help the peevish tone of her voice. While the first day on the river had seemed like an adventure, by the third, a mind-numbing boredom and foul temper settled over her. Rowing alone proved much harder than she expected, and the effort made her grouchy, changing her outlook considerably.

The foliage that had looked so exotic at the onset of their journey now aggravated her with its unvaried sameness. The hum of the rain forest had changed from harmonic to irritating, reminding her of the incessant buzzing of a swarm of gnats. Isabel chafed at the uncomfortable feel of her clothes sticking to her skin caused by the damp rain forest climate. Even her feet felt wet.

She glanced down and noticed with some concern that an inch of water swirled around the bottom of the boat. How long had that been there? She watched as the water rose an inch in just a few seconds. Panic seized her.

“Uh, Manuel, I think I might have a problem,” she shouted.

He turned. “What?”

She jabbed her finger toward her feet. “Water.” The cool water spilled over the tops of her shoes and gurgled around her ankles. A glance over the side showed the boat was riding dangerously low in the water and sinking fast. A few more inches and the river would spill over the edge and suck her under. Panic rose as she remembered the brutality of the hungry piranhas the first day of their trip.

“Steer toward shore!” Manuel yelled.

She dipped her paddle and rowed with fierce determination, but her efforts seemed futile at best. She stared at the rising water in wide-eyed disbelief, her pulse thundering in her ears.

“Manuel, help me!” With the scream, bile rose into her throat and tainted her mouth with its bitterness. Manuel had turned his boat and was trying to row to her, but Isabel didn’t see how he could reach her in time. She stood with water halfway up her shins and watched in horror as a crocodile slid off the riverbank and disappeared into the murky depths.

“God, I don’t want to die like this!”

“Isabel, can you climb into my boat?” Manuel’s
bongo
slid alongside hers, creating a small wake that threatened to capsize her boat. She bent and gripped the sides to keep from falling, and momentum carried him past before she could make a move.

“No!” she screamed, reaching out with a desperate, helpless hand to grasp at her lost chance at rescue.

As he shot past the tip of her
bongo
, he snagged her boat’s mooring line and wrapped it around a cleat on his boat. His muscles rippling with effort, he rowed his boat toward shore and towed hers along behind him. “Hold on, Isabel!”

Interminable seconds passed, every slow moving meter of water threatening to be her last. Too panicked to pray, all her mind could conjure was a one-word cry of desperation.
God!

With painful persistence, the water climbed toward the edge. Two inches. One inch. Half an inch. Water poured over the back of the
bongo
, the lowest point of the boat. She screamed and stumbled over equipment and supplies, trying to reach the front to gain a few seconds’ reprieve from the fate that now seemed inevitable.

The water chased at her heels, swallowing up the length of the boat with a voracious appetite.

“Jump, Isabel! Jump!”

She saw the front of Manuel’s
bongo
buried in the riverbank, while he scrambled across his cargo. With the docking rope wrapped around the taught muscles of his forearm, he tried to pull her close enough to his boat to leap to safety.

The tip of her
bongo
dipped under the water.

She leaped with all her might.

The distance spanned further than Isabel could hope to clear, but she managed to connect one arm and shoulder painfully against his boat. Not stopping to think about the pain of the impact, she hoisted herself up and rolled into his
bongo
, hearing the thrash of predators splashing in the water she’d just vacated.

“Isabel, can you help me?”

The edge in Manuel’s voice alarmed her, and she turned to see him still straining at the rope.

“What are you doing?” Clutching her throbbing shoulder, she made an effort to rise.

“The supplies and equipment. We have to try and salvage them if we can.”

Realizing the predicament they’d be in if they lost even a portion of their gear, her system flooded with adrenaline again. Forgetting her injury, she grasped the rope and pulled with all her might. They made enough progress to step off the boat and onto the mucky shore. Digging their heels into the bank, they leaned their weight into the struggle, and the tip of the
bongo
soon appeared in the shallows along the water’s edge.

“That’s probably far enough for now.” He relaxed his grip on the rope and reached out to pull her against him. His chest heaved with the exertion as he held her tight in his arms. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “Shaken but intact.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same for the gear stored in your boat. I bet we lost most of it.”

The burning heat of embarrassment flooded her face and chest. “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. If I’d been watching where I was going, I wouldn’t have hit that submerged branch.”

Manuel studied her for a moment in silence. “You didn’t do it on purpose. Accidents happen.”

His understanding attitude only increased Isabel’s guilt, and she compensated by talking too much. “I don’t know how you can be so calm. I’ve probably done irreparable damage to our trip. If we don’t have the supplies we need, how will we continue? Can we even get back to civilization? And how much is the lost equipment going to cost? We rented that stuff.”

Manuel silenced her with a finger to her lips. “We can’t change what’s done. Let’s focus on salvaging the situation. Help me tie the boats to that tree. We need to move away from the waterline before some crocodile decides we’re offering him lunch.”

Isabel gathered the mooring lines, scurried up the slight rise to the tree, and tied off the boats. When she looked back, she caught Manuel’s unguarded expression, and her heart withered. He was more disappointed than he’d let on, and she felt terrible about her blunder. In a careless moment, she had jeopardized an already crippled mission.

She slid back down the bank and laid her hand on his arm. “If it makes you feel better, yell at me or something. I’d swear this trip is cursed.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You ready to give up yet?”

She thought about returning to Caracas and saying goodbye to him. Determination shot through her. “No. I’m ready to pull that boat out of the water and see if we can repair it.” She grabbed the line and pulled, making little impact on the submerged boat with her attempt.

Sighing, he grabbed the line and added his strength to hers.

After twenty minutes of tug-of-war with the river, they managed to reclaim the boat and its remaining contents. Isabel stared with dismay at the paltry leftovers of her cargo. “We’re not going to make it, are we?”

April 27, 1515

A bend in the river turned us toward the eastern horizon. We traveled east for several hours when a grand and glorious mountain filled the sky ahead of us. Unlike the jagged peaks of our last home, this mountain’s top has been sheared away, leaving a uniquely flattened summit. Fascinated, I followed a branch off the main river until we arrived at its base. There we discovered a small clearing surrounded by fruit trees, and a sparkling waterfall flows nearby. I sense that God himself has prepared this place for us. Here in the protective shadow of this great rock tower, we will make our dwelling.

Manuel knelt by the bow of Isabel’s
bongo
, finding it difficult to believe what he was seeing. Isabel thought her carelessness had caused the damage to her boat, but he could no longer blame her.

“Look at this.” He beckoned her to his side and pointed at the cleanly cut lines around the hole. “Someone used a knife or saw to cut almost through the boat. The damage is low enough that a person wouldn’t notice it while the boat was in the water.”

“You’re saying this is sabotage?”

“Afraid so.”

She shuddered. “Why is someone trying to kill me, Manuel?”

“I wish I knew.” He took her hand in his and tried to reassure her with his touch.

“Can you fix it?”

“Even if I could fix the boat—and I don’t think I can—the trip is hopeless. Half the equipment we need sank into the river, and we can’t retrieve it because of the crocs and piranhas. We might as well go home.”

“Please, Manuel, can’t we even try?”

The muscles in his jaw tightened. “We knew the Amazon was the least likely location of the three. That’s why we put it at the end of the list.”

“But we’re so close. The waterfall we’re looking for couldn’t be more than a few hours upriver.” She stared up at him, a desperate look in her blue eyes.

He couldn’t resist her when she turned those eyes on him. He looked away.

Isabel persisted. “Whoever is orchestrating these accidents wants us to give up and go home. I don’t intend to give them the satisfaction. Let’s go on.”

He shook his head. “You’re being unreasonable. We can’t haul all this gear and two people in one
bongo
. We’d have to set up camp here and paddle upriver each morning, then return by nightfall. It’d make for long, exhausting days.”

Isabel moved closer to him and slid her arms around his waist. “We can do it, Manuel. We should do it. We’d never forgive ourselves if we didn’t at least try.”

He sighed, knowing she was using her feminine wiles against him and not caring in the least. He’d do almost anything to prolong their trip together. She’d become precious to him. Her sleepy morning smiles. Her enthusiasm. Her support and admiration of his work.

“All right. Tomorrow morning after breakfast we’ll make a trip upriver and see what we can find. But I’m only committing to one day at a time. We lost half our fresh water and some of our food when the
bongo
sank. We can only stay as long as our supplies hold out.”

She grinned, looking triumphant at her victory. Funny, he didn’t mind falling victim to her at all. Making her happy or gaining one of those brilliant smiles left him feeling slightly intoxicated. She was addictive, and he didn’t mind being under her power. Could he say goodbye to her once the trip ended?

“We’ve reached another fork in the river. Which way now?" Isabel let the paddle droop across her lap and dug her fingers into her stiff shoulder muscles. Each morning for a week, they’d risen early and paddled up river, systematically searching the waterways for a sign of the location Rodrigo had mentioned. Though they had the
corro
in their sights, finding Rodrigo’s former camp had proved difficult. Because of the tremendous rainfall in the region—nearly 200 inches a year—a labyrinth of streams, creeks, and rivers criss-crossed the region. Rodrigo could have followed any one of them.

Manuel lifted the map and studied the maze of blue waterways. “I don’t know. At this point I’m just glad we’re not completely lost.”

“You sound discouraged.”

He sighed. “We hired the guides for a reason. These waterways are impossible to navigate from a map. Who’s to say the map is even right? The land floods yearly, and the waterways may emerge from the wet season in completely different patterns than the year before.”

Isabel refused to be discouraged. “We’ve narrowed the search area to a few square miles. It’s just a matter of persistence.”

Manuel sighed. “Your optimism is admirable, but you know that’s not exactly true. We might paddle right past Rodrigo’s village and never know it. The building materials they used back then would have decomposed centuries ago, and the jungle would have reclaimed the land. Unless someone is still living there, it’s probably gone.”

Isabel turned and studied the majestic outline of the
corro
. Blue sky outlined the russet tower of stone. The view inspired her with confidence, and she understood why Rodrigo would want to live in its shadow. “We have a few hours of daylight left. Let’s search a while longer.”

Manuel sat in a canvas chair and watched Isabel move around the camp, tidying up after their meal. Just before dinner, she’d washed her hair in a small stream nearby. Afterward, she let it hang loose around her shoulders to dry. When she knelt to return the dishes to their storage space, her hair slid across her face. Lifting a delicate hand, she smoothed the strands behind her ear in a gesture both feminine and alluring. His breath snagged in his chest. He enjoyed watching her. Her natural grace and womanly softness appealed to him.