If We Survive

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I moved as quickly as I could in that crouching run. I felt Palmer rushing along just behind me. Up ahead, I saw the others—Meredith, Nicki, Jim—still squatting miserably in the rain, waiting for us, watching for us, their eyes large, their mouths open.

As we reached them, Palmer brushed past me. I heard him whisper to the others, “They’re coming after us. Move fast and low. Follow me.”

He took the lead and the others were up and after him at once.

We rushed down the trail, brushing past the jungle leaves, squelching through the mud, gasping through the rain. The thunder rolled and the rain was loud, but when I listened, I could hear the rebels right behind us. I could hear them crashing through the branches. I could hear Mendoza calling to them, “Vamanos.” Let’s go.

I glanced back over my shoulder. Their fatigues were hard to see amid the green leaves, but I caught glimpses of them. I wondered if they could see us too, but it didn’t seem that they had yet.

They would soon, though. We were moving fast, but they were moving faster. Of course they were. They didn’t have to keep their knees bent and their heads down like we did. If they spotted us, they would open fire and almost surely wipe us out in an instant, so we kind of had to run and hide at the same time. There was no way to do that and outstrip them as they just came marching on, relentless.

In my growing fear, I thought of calling up to Palmer: They’re gaining on us! But how could I? If Mendoza heard us, it would all be over. Anyway, I had faith that Palmer knew the rebels were catching up. It was the sort of thing he would know. And I told myself he must have some kind of plan. He must have.

Funny. A few hours ago I’d really disliked this guy. His arrogant attitude. His mocking glances. His ironic drawl. He really rubbed me the wrong way. Now my life was in his hands and I was glad—glad, I mean, that he was the one who was leading us. As jealous as it made me feel, I understood now what Meredith had meant when she said he was exceptional— a hero. She was obviously right. That’s obviously exactly what he was—or, at least, what he was meant to be. Fearless, tough, decisive, and ready to risk his life for us—a bunch of kids he hardly knew. I guess you don’t always have to be a nice guy to be a good man.

Anyway, like I said, I figured he must have a plan—and sure enough, he did.

Rushing down the trail, I glanced back over my shoulder again. What I saw made my heart clutch in my chest. The rebels were close. Really close. Any minute now they were going to spot us and riddle the jungle—and us—with bullets.

I turned back, feeling I really had to say something now, to warn the others—and the others were gone!

I had a second of real panic. Where were they? Then I saw them. They had followed Palmer off the trail to the left. They had plunged into the depths of the jungle and were now disappearing and reappearing into view as they pushed their way through the heavy leaf covering.

I went after them. I felt the roots and bushes close over my legs. I felt wet fronds slapping at my already soaking face and clothes. I felt the uneven ground under my feet and when I looked down, I couldn’t see where I was stepping. And, yes, that made me worry about snakes—about stepping on some gigantic jungle snake I’d never heard of that could take off a man’s entire leg with a single bite. Or something.

But Palmer was moving so quickly—and the others were keeping pace. There was no time to think about it. So I didn’t think about it. I just charged on.

This time when Palmer vanished, he vanished right before my eyes. I could see him up ahead through the jungle foliage, moving fast, bent low. Then he seemed to stoop even lower. Then he was gone.

The others went after him—down, down, and gone. And as I caught up I saw what was happening.

There was a ravine here: a steep-sided groove running along the ground, with a stream burbling along rapidly at the bottom of it. Palmer had dropped over the ravine’s side. He was leaning against the dirt wall, his feet and ankles braced against rocks in the running water. He gestured to us and we got down too, leaning in a line against the wall. Down there, I realized, we would be hidden from the sight of anyone above us standing more than a yard or two away.

I looked along the line. Palmer was down at the other end. Then Jim next to him. Then Nicki, then Meredith, then me. Each of us was pressed against the mud of the wall. Each of us had our feet down in the stream at the bottom of the ravine. We all had dirt splattering our faces. Our clothes and hair were soaked. The cold water of the stream was running through our shoes.

We waited. It was noisy here—really noisy. The rain on the forest roof and the sound of the rushing water covered up every other noise. The air was getting darker by the second. Colder too, it felt like.

I shivered. My teeth chattered. I clamped my jaw tight to get them to stop. I glanced down the line and saw Meredith with her arm around Nicki, holding her close, keeping her warm. But Meredith herself, always pale-skinned, was incredibly white under the mud that splotched her cheeks. She always reminded me a little of a statue and now, in the freezing cold, she really did look like she was turning to white marble.

After a while, Palmer moved. He edged up the wall of the ravine until he could just peek over the top. I watched him as he watched the jungle. Then he turned to me. Pointed at me. Pointed at his eyes. Pointed at the wall.

I got it. He wanted me to look too. He wanted me to be ready for whatever happened, because I had the other gun.

I did what he did. I edged up the side of the wall. It was slippery and cold, the mud scraping against me. I got my eyes up over the side of the ravine and looked into the jungle.

I caught my breath. There they were, the rebels. I could make them out through the jungle foliage. They were marching over the trail. They were right alongside us, going steadily by. They thought we must be still on the trail up ahead of them. Another minute and they would go right past us.

I smiled grimly. I began to have some hope again. I began to think, Hey, maybe we could get around behind these guys, sneak back to the airstrip and steal one of their trucks and make a run for it…

The rebels went marching by on the trail—and then they were past.

All except one of them.

All except Mendoza.

Wouldn’t you know it? Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, I saw that the rebel leader had not joined the others as they marched on. He had stopped. I peered through the trees, trying to see exactly what he was up to. After a moment, I understood: he was looking around him. He was studying the ground and the leaves to either side of him.

He knows we’ve left the trail! I thought.

Mendoza had been paying more attention to his surroundings than his rebels had. Sure, I thought. He’s their Palmer. He’s the one they counted on to think and plan and keep them alive—and to track us down and kill us.

Even over the pounding rain and the rushing stream, I heard him shout an order to his gunmen—who were still marching forward on the trail.

“Alto!”

I guessed it meant stop, because they all stopped. Then Mendoza said something else—and the rebels started coming back toward him.

I lay against the mud wall, peeking over the top. My teeth had started chattering again and I couldn’t stop them now. I was just too cold. I watched as the rebels gathered around their leader. I heard the low murmur of Mendoza’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. I could pretty well guess what they meant, though.

I glanced over at Palmer. He was already looking my way, as if he’d been waiting for me to turn to him. He gestured to me with his open hand: Stay cool.

Good advice.

I looked out over the top of the ravine again. What I saw made my heart sink.

Mendoza was coming our way, pushing off the trail into the jungle just as we had, following the path we had taken through the trees. The other rebels followed him, pushing the big leaves and branches aside with the butts of their rifles.

There was a loud crash of thunder. That made the rebels pause a moment. Even Mendoza. They all looked up into the rain.

The darkness seemed to be gathering around us quickly. I couldn’t tell if it was nightfall or simply the storm. The rain fell more heavily, the leaves around us bending and dripping. The mud of the jungle floor churned up and spattered as the water struck.

Still, Mendoza came on, came closer, studying the ground, waving the rebels to follow. They followed. Closer.

“Sst!”

That was Palmer, hissing to me. I glanced his way. He gestured for me to get down, to hide. Mendoza was almost close enough to see us.

I slid back down the side of the wall.

I saw Palmer slide down too. He leaned close to Jim and whispered in his ear. I got it. I leaned close to Meredith and she leaned close to me so she could hear.

“They’re coming,” I whispered to her in the quietest voice I could. “Keep down, keep quiet.”

Meredith nodded. She leaned away from me and leaned close to Nicki and passed the message on.

We lay pressed tight against the mud wall as the rebels kept coming toward us. I knew they were getting close because I could hear their footsteps over the sound of the rainfall and the running stream. I could hear Mendoza speaking to the others in a low, gruff voice. He was close enough now so I could make out the words, but I didn’t understand them.

Meredith caught my eye, motioned to me. I leaned close to her. She whispered in my ear: “He’s cursing the rain because it’s washed out our tracks.”

I nodded. Well, that was something, anyway. But the rebels were still coming. I could still hear their footsteps in the mud, the wet sounds getting closer. Mendoza’s voice grew steadily louder. They must be right above us, I thought. I figured it would be a matter of seconds before they took the fatal step and saw the ravine and looked down into it and found us.

A flash of lightning—the brightness muted by the leaf cover. A guttural roll of thunder like a great beast growling for its food.

A tremor went through my entire body. I was so cold I could no longer keep myself still. I lay there shivering and listened.

The rebels’ footsteps had stopped. Had they seen us? No, it couldn’t have been that. There would have been shouting— and shooting—if they had. They must be standing still, looking around, taking stock. They must be right above us, a step or two away.

Mendoza started talking again. I could tell he was just above me. I couldn’t understand his low, swift Spanish, but the tone of his voice had changed. He sounded discouraged now—even disgusted—as if he couldn’t believe he had been foiled in his hunt by the rain and the gathering darkness.

That’s what I hoped his tone meant, anyway. I thought— I hoped—I prayed with all my might—that they were about to give up, about to turn around, about to go.

And I think they were planning to do just that—right up until the moment Nicki gasped.

It was a short sound but sharp and clear. Meredith moved fast and clamped her hand over Nicki’s mouth, holding her tight. Nicki’s eyes stared over Meredith’s hand and they looked about as large and bright as two of those big spotlights they use to announce a new movie.

I followed her terrified gaze and felt my belly fill with a blackness of terror and disgust.

A snake. Slithering up out of the stream. Twisting up over the mud. Coming right toward us. Right toward Nicki.

It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough, maybe four feet long and as thick around as a hot dog. It wasn’t the size that bothered me, though. It was the colors on its scaly skin. Bands of black and yellow and red. I didn’t know much about snakes, but I knew a little because there are some in California and you just hear about them from hikers and so on. And what I remembered was that there were two kinds of snakes with those sorts of colors: a harmless milk snake and a coral snake, one of the most deadly snakes alive. I remembered a little rhyme a science teacher, Mr. Larue, taught us once so we could tell the difference:

Red touches yellow kills a fellow. Red touches black, you’re all right, Jack.

I peered down narrow-eyed through the rain and saw that the bands of red on the twining creature’s scales touched the bands of yellow. It was a coral snake, all right. One bite from one of those and you were history. A lousy way to die.

In a panic now, Nicki was trying to draw her feet up away from the oncoming thing, but that just made her lose her footing so that her body slid down the mud wall toward it. I could hear her whimpering under Meredith’s hand as she realized she had to let her feet down into the mud to stop her fall. She planted her feet right next to the snake—and the snake didn’t like that. He lifted his head as if he were ready to strike, his tongue darting out of his mouth as his cold, blank, unfeeling eyes stared at Nicki’s sneakers.

Nicki, wide-eyed with terror, somehow managed to keep still. Finally, I guess the snake decided the danger had passed. He lowered his head to the ground again and went on slithering toward her.

Meanwhile, above us, I heard Mendoza speak again. I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but his tone of voice had definitely changed. He sounded discouraged before. Now he whispered harshly. An order, I thought. Then silence. Of course. Mendoza thought he had heard something—Nicki’s gasp. But he couldn’t be sure in all this hammering rain. And he still couldn’t see us, still didn’t know we were right beneath him. He was telling his men to listen. They were listening—in case the sound came again.

Shivering, I held my breath. I looked at Nicki. Meredith still had her hand clamped over Nicki’s mouth and Nicki’s eyes still beamed out over it, their brightness dimming as they filled with tears. I looked down and saw the coral snake. It was slithering now right over Nicki’s sneaker. I saw Nicki’s whole body give a huge, disgusted shudder. I saw the tears spill from her eyes. But somehow she managed to stay quiet, stay still.

There was quiet above me too as the rebels listened, waiting for us to make another noise so they could find us, kill us.

The snake slid slowly over Nicki’s sneaker, slanting upward toward Meredith’s leg. It paused to explore Meredith’s muddy slacks and then slid on over them at the shin. I looked up at Meredith. The sight of her shocked me. Up until now, even facing death before the firing squad, I don’t think I had seen the slightest trace of fear in her. Her courage, her steadiness were almost uncanny. But everyone’s afraid of something— that’s the truth. Everyone has something that they fear. And clearly, Meredith was terrified of snakes.

If she had seemed pale before—and, like I said, the cold and damp had turned her as white as marble—she now seemed gray and colorless as a corpse. A tinge of horrible zombie green had even entered her cheeks. And her eyes—they were red-rimmed and seemed almost lifeless with disgust.

But for all that, like Nicki, she didn’t move, she didn’t budge, as the snake made its slow, slithering way across her shin. She simply stared down at it with her dead eyes and her deathly pallor, giving one enormous shudder as the thing passed over first one of her legs and then the other.

Then it moved toward me.

A knot of disgust and fear rose in my throat—but before the snake got to me, it turned and headed back down the muddy slope toward the running water below.

At the same moment I heard Mendoza speak decisively.

“Vamanos.” Let’s go.

As I watched the coral snake nose its way back down into the stream, I heard the footsteps start up again above my head—the sharp, determined footsteps of the rebels moving away from us, moving back through the jungle toward the trail. Quickly, the sound of them faded. I heard Mendoza shout one more string of orders, his voice growing farther away with every word. I could tell the rebels were already back on the trail, already marching back toward the airstrip.

Cautiously, Palmer rose up again to peek over the top of the ravine. I watched him, waiting for him to give the signal that it was clear.

I saw him nod to himself and let out a breath, the tension flowing out of him.

He lowered himself until he was in the stream and came walking toward us along the ravine wall.

“They’re gone,” he said, still keeping his voice low.

With that, Meredith let Nicki go. Nicki immediately rolled away from her, sobbing violently. And for once, Meredith didn’t comfort her. She just bent forward and covered her own face with her hands. I heard her make a noise and I knew that she was crying too.

I reached out to her. I wanted to touch her shoulder, to comfort her, but somehow I didn’t have the nerve. I hated to see her so upset—but I couldn’t work up the courage to put my hand on her. I glanced up at Palmer. I saw him look down toward the water. He saw the coral snake moving away on the opposite bank of the stream. He nodded once, as he understood what had happened.

“Hey. You. Girl.” He nudged Nicki’s shoulder with his knuckle.

She gasped out of her sobs and stared up at him as if he were some fresh danger.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Nicki,” she managed to say in a trembling voice.

“Good job keeping quiet, Nicki. Saved our lives. Personally, those snakes always make me shriek like a banshee.”

Nicki went on staring up at him as if she couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Then she did comprehend. Almost at once, her sobs subsided to a series of smaller sniffles. She nodded her thanks. She was proud of herself.

Then Palmer looked up at me—and with one swift smooth motion, he pulled that giant hunting knife of his out of his belt.

“Hold still a second, kid,” he said.

Before I could even react—before I even understood what he was saying—his hand flicked like a bullwhip and the knife came flying toward me, flying straight at my face.

I didn’t have time to flinch. I didn’t have time for anything. The knife struck—plunged into the mud of the ravine wall—right next to me, right next to my head, maybe an inch or two away, no more.

I turned to look at it. And—I couldn’t help myself—I let out a sharp cry and scrambled away from the spot, slipping and splashing in the mud.

There on the mud wall, pinioned by Palmer’s knife, thrashing in its hideous death throes, was a spider the size of a loaf of bread. Really. I’m not exaggerating. The size of one of those big, round loaves of sourdough bread.

I gagged as I watched it die. I had to fight the urge to throw up. I guess my reaction must have looked pretty amusing because Nicki said, “Ew, gross!” and then covered her mouth to hide a laugh. Even Meredith, the tears still on her cheeks, smiled quietly.

“Ha ha,” I said as I tried to recover a little dignity. “Laugh riot.”

Palmer gave one of his wry, sardonic smiles. “Those things’ll kill ya, kid,” he drawled. Then, all business again, he tilted his head toward the ravine wall. “Vamanos,” he said.