GOLD RIVER (Book 1)

Chapter 13

The adrenaline charged look on Tom's face changed to bewilderment and then to something unexpected. A quirky grin.

He hauled himself up and extended a hand to Kate. "Come on, shortcake."

She accepted his hand and used him to pull herself up. "Would you dispense with the pet names?" she said, wiping her clothes off. "I'm not short and, more importantly, my shirt is ruined."

"What'd you expect? This is the Amazon."

"So," she said with a clever grin, "you know where we are?"

Tom leaned close and lowered his voice. "It doesn't take a librarian slash archeologist from England to figure that out."

"I'm not a librarian, you big brute. I'm a historian and museum curator."

"Same thing in my book."

Embers of anger smoldered within Kate. "If you read, it'd be nursery rhymes."

Tom wagged his head. "Keep your voice down. Do you want Godzilla to come stomping after us?"

Kate hushed, probing the entanglement of fauna and flora, and the red-peeling bark of a tree with twisted limbs and tiny leaves.

"I'm playing you. The caiman probably gave up ten feet into the jungle."

"Probably?"

Tom suppressed a chuckle and pulled Kate by the arm deeper into the rainforest. As they moved on, he favored his injured shoulder, leading the way with his good one, creating his own path through the wilderness. Kate paused to get a directional bearing, preferring not to get slapped on her sweaty and flustered cheeks by giant leaves and branches as she looked down at the compass needle.

Tom continued onward, realized she halted, and stopped in his tracks. "Are we off course?"

"Slightly." She moved her hand left of his position. "But nothing I can't correct."

Kate marched past him and assumed the lead.

"Alright then. Have it your way."

As she slipped through the foliage, she felt a deep-seated hatred for this place. It entrapped and closed in on her. Her skin was moist from sweat. Bugs flew in her face as she went. She spat bits and pieces of debris from her lips. She felt like she was in the bowels of hell, figuratively speaking, of course.

The machete Tom originally wanted now seemed like a good idea.

Then, after an arduous trek of at least a mile, the shadows slinked away, and sunlight brightened the path ahead.

Kate stepped into the biggest clearing they had seen thus far, save the river. "We're here," she announced. "Only an hour. Not bad, if I say so myself."

"Could've made it in thirty minutes with a machete," Tom said.

Kate fell silent at the sight before them. To the uneducated eye, it might look like a rocky mountainside. But she saw beneath the surface, beneath the trees, foliage and rocks. Stones were imbedded on the hillside in too much order for it to be a natural rock formation.

"What do you think of the ruins now?" she asked Tom.

The whites of his eyes grew large, and his voice lowered in reverence. "I think I see a pyramid."