LITMIR.BIZ

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it, and lived to tell the tale.

      What time was it now? Her watch, which seemed to be working fine, said almost four. They didn’t do daylight savings in Chiapas, and she’d reset it to San Cristóbal time when they left Nuevo Laredo. When would dark come? She said a little prayer of thanks for Dax’s preparedness. For the box bolted in the bulkhead, with the lanterns and the flashlights and everything else.

      When Dax woke up, they would figure out what to do next. Until then, she would simply sit here, safe in the battered plane, and wait.

      Except that, all of a sudden, she really, really had to pee.

      Which meant she would have to go outside while Dax slept after all.

      Hey, at least she had toilet paper.

      And a little foray into the clearing wouldn’t hurt. She wouldn’t go far. She’d take care of business, have a quick look around and duck back inside.

      She got the shovel and a roll of paper and set about getting out of the plane, which entailed pushing the back of the passenger seat forward—but not far enough to disturb Dax’s propped-up ankle. She held the seat out of the way with one hand and turned the latch to the door with the other.

      Wonder of wonders, with only slight resistance, the door went up.

      A wall of sticky air came in and wrapped around her—not to mention all the weird jungle sounds: insects buzzing and whirring, birds whose calls she didn’t recognize crying in the distance. Rustling noises that instantly brought mental images of scary creatures slithering through the underbrush. She stuck her head out and made the mistake of looking down first.

      Only a jagged stump remained where the wing should have been. It must have broken off when the propeller dug in and spun them around like a carnival ride.

      Well, all right, then. Even if somehow Dax could manage to get the engine going, they would not be flying out of here in this plane. Yet one more faint hope shattered.

      Not that she was going to let negativity take over. She straightened her shoulders and looked around.

      Bits of the lost wing littered the area. And without the barrier of the window glass, the jungle only looked darker, denser. If someone was out there, watching from the trees, she would never see them unless they wanted her to.

      An image of a group of Zapatista types, in berets and military clothing, armed to the teeth, with great chains of ammo wrapped crossways around their chests, popped into her mind.

      But it was only an image. No one emerged to wave an AK-47 at her.

      Some small insect buzzed near her ear and she gave it a slap.

      Maybe she should put on a shirt.

      Another tiny bug attacked. She felt a sting on the side of her neck. She smacked it and then ducked back into the cabin, shutting the door behind her, hauling out her suitcase from the baggage area and grabbing a lightweight shirt with long sleeves and pulling it on. Her legs, in the shorts, would still be vulnerable to bites. But she couldn’t cover everything.

      There was bug repellent in the back, but her bladder wouldn’t wait for that.

      Again, she eased the seat forward, swung the door up and tossed the shovel out. Gripping the roll of toilet paper, she dropped down after it, being careful to clear the jagged stub of the wing. The landing gear was gone, too, snapped clean off during the spinning that had ripped away the wing. The belly of the plane rested on the ground. She could easily reach the open door to swing it shut.

      For a few seconds, she stood there, swatting at insects, looking around at the small, flat, clear space in the middle of who-knew-where. The tall trees were way, way up there, their wide, thick crowns swaying in a wind that didn’t reach the ground. She gazed up, watched a bird sail across the clear blue. It let out a long, fading cry as it went by, a prehistoric sound, the kind the pterodactyls made in Jurassic Park. When the ancient cry bled off into nothing, the pressure in her bladder reminded her why she’d come out here in the first place.

      No time like the present. She grabbed the shovel and figured out how to extend the handle. There were pegs that popped out along the sides. She stuck the shovel head into the wet ground and hung the paper on a peg.

      And then quickly, she took care of business. When that was done, she buried the paper she’d used and then decided on one quick look around before going back inside.

      The clearing was a little smaller and narrower than a football field and the plane lay approximately in the center of it. She walked straight out from the passenger door to the edge of the trees, counting off the steps: sixty-five of them. The jungle really was like a wall of living green. She wouldn’t try to go in there—not without at least a compass, a knife and the hatchet from that box in the plane.

      Instead, she walked the perimeter of the clear space. She found five narrow trails leading off into the undergrowth at various, random-seeming places along the clearing’s rim. Made by animals or humans? She had no idea which. All five trails looked well-worn, the thick roots of the trees snaking across them, ready to trip the unwary hiker.

      She shivered at the thought that she would probably be going in there, most likely by herself—not yet, though. She would wait until tomorrow morning, when Dax was awake and could advise her on jungle safety. And maybe, if they were very lucky and rescue came quickly, she would never have to go in there at all.

      Another of those prehistoric-sounding birds went by overhead. And the cries and rustlings continued from deep in the trees. She went back to the plane and felt only relief to hoist the door and climb to safety within.

      Dax was still out cold. And a few of those tiny biting fly-like creatures had joined them inside. She got bug repellent from her suitcase and rubbed it on herself and then on him.

      Did he seem too warm? She laid her palm against the side of his face. Maybe a little. But surely not more than a degree or two above normal.

      “Water?” he muttered, coming half-awake.

      She gave him some. He drank and sank right back into oblivion.

      Oh, how she wished she could go there with him. She remembered the bottle of codeine tucked into the first aid kit and thought of taking one herself, of the blessed relief of surrendering to drugged slumber.

      She did no such thing. But just the fact that she thought of it brought home, yet again, the deep trouble they were in. She tried to look on the bright side, go over all the things that had actually gone right, beginning with how they weren’t dead or critically injured.

      How Dax had remembered their location as recently as a minute or two before he tried to land.

      The bright side somehow, didn’t seem all that bright.

      She changed the cold pack on Dax’s ankle and then busied herself straightening up the cabin as best she could, gathering the two bloody shirts, stuffing them in an old canvas tote she’d brought along. Maybe later she could wash them, if she could find a stream. They would never be white again, but in the jungle, who was going to care? If nothing else, they would do as cloths for washing, for drying their few dishes and cups.

      In the box with the camping gear, she found flares. They would be at least as good as a signal fire, should a plane go by overhead. She took them out and put them on the floor of the rear seat, close at hand.

      It had been hours since she’d eaten—since her early breakfast of a protein drink and toast. Her stomach seemed to have shut down, probably some natural reaction to the shock of what had happened.

      But she knew that she needed to eat to keep up her strength. So she got a bag of freeze-dried beef stew and poured some water in it. It was not delicious. She gagged it down anyway and found she felt marginally better afterward, stronger.

      Dax should probably try to eat something, too. She found a bag of maple sugar oatmeal, added water and tried to feed it to him. He woke up, ate a few bites, and then mumbled, “No. No more … water?”

      She

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