Morgan's Rescue Read online

  Pilar had lain on her side, facing her daughter’s back. She vaguely remembered Culver lying down on the opposite side of the hut, but that was all. She looked slowly around the place now. How had she managed to get over here, to his sleeping mat? Stymied and a little frightened of the evident strength of her own subconscious, she realized Culver had remained where he’d slept. At some point, she knew, Rane had awakened and left the hut, but Rane had had the benefit of a much better night’s sleep than they, since she’d slept in the car all the way from Lima. Looking down at her watch, Pilar saw it was nearly ten in the morning already. Her heart ached with longing for Culver. She had to apologize to him. At least if he had been the one to come to her side of the hut…But no. It wasn’t his fault. It was hers—again.

  She heard the sound of Rane’s laughter, once more, this time mingled with the deep rumbles of Grandfather Alvaro’s somewhere nearby. Rousing herself, Pilar knew she had much to do today. First, she would go for a swim in the small, beautiful pond ringed by rushes where the villagers sometimes bathed. Being in her mother’s village always made her feel safe. Pilar knew she wasn’t—not with Ramirez’s fortress a mere twenty-five miles away—but the serenity of her people still created that sense of security, deserved or not.

  Easing to her bare feet, she stretched fitfully. She picked up all blankets they’d used, folded them carefully and stacked them in a corner. She savored the familiar scent of woodsmoke as she left the hut. Blinking in the strong sunlight cascading down through the trees, she looked around and spotted Grandmother Aurelia leaning over a tripod cooking pot, stirring the contents. Dogs and children were playing here and there throughout the tiny village of barely a hundred people. The elderly remained close to their huts, the women working on llama-wool weavings and the old men sitting and talking nearby.

  The air was fresh and clean here, the humidity high. Touching her usually straight hair, Pilar smiled, knowing it would soon become wavier in the damp air from the nearby jungle. The village was situated just above the jungle, on the slope of a mountain. Below them a thick, dark green canopy stretched to the horizon. Down there, Pilar thought with a shiver, lay Ramirez’s fortress. Down there, too, somewhere beneath the shining foliage, Morgan Trayhern waited for his rescuers.

  Abruptly, Pilar blocked the automatic images of Morgan being tortured. Thinking about it wouldn’t help Morgan, it would only weaken her with fear. She saw Aurelia straighten and look over at her. Her grandmother’s dark brown face was lined with age, but the kindness of her smile and the love shining from her eyes soothed Pilar’s battered heart. She lifted her hand in greeting, then hurried toward the edge of the village to prepare herself for the day.

  Culver sliced through the pond’s icy water, each stroke like an explosion, releasing a little more of his anger and hurt. He swam naked, rinsing away the grime of the past forty-eight hours. His feet touched the pebbled bottom and he stood. Closer to shore, sand lined the floor of this oval-shaped pond, fed by icy streams from the craggy Andean mountains that towered over the village. Culver’s skin roughened with goose bumps as he walked to the edge of the pond. Though it was midmorning and summer, the air was still cool at this elevation. Scooping up a handful of sand, he scrubbed his body with it. Nothing cleaned like sand, and as he washed, unbidden thoughts sprang to mind of that other pool—one he and Pilar had discovered somewhere deep in the jungle northeast of Lima. They had scrubbed each other’s backs with sand much like this.

  Muttering a curse, Culver wondered why he couldn’t staunch the relentless cascade of memories about Pilar and himself. Leaning down, he sluiced off the sand, his skin feeling vibrant, warm and tight from the scrubbing. To get at his feet and legs with the refreshing sand, Culver took a seat on the grassy bank, noting the herd of llamas, in all colors and sizes, feeding below on one of the verdant hillsides. The village was perfectly situated between the mighty Andes, their snow-covered, granite peaks thrusting to the heavens above, and the humid jungle, close enough for the villagers to gather its rich array of fruit and nuts.

  Yes, this village was a virtual Shangri-La, in Culver’s opinion. The only fly in the ointment, he thought as he sat on the bank, scrubbing his feet, was Ramirez’s fortress in the lush jungle below. He looked up into the deep blue sky, accented with long strands of thin, white gossamer clouds. More than once he’d entertained the thought of living here—but that had been eight years ago, with Pilar the woman he would have shared this tranquil farm life with. He knew some of his friends might think him crazy, but others, like Jake Randolph and Wolf Harding, understood his need to sink his roots deep into the earth and revel in a simpler, more natural existence. The sun warmed his damp back, and he smiled. It was a perfect day. Well, almost.

  Sighing, he rinsed off his legs and got out of the water. Shaking his arms and hands, he allowed the slight, playful breeze and the sunlight to dry him. He knew he’d miss this coolness once they entered the jungle. Frowning, he retrieved his jeans, sat on a fallen log and pulled them on. His hair dripped with water and he pushed the damp strands back off his brow.

  A sound caught his attention, and he snapped his head toward the well-worn path the villagers took to the pond. His heart thudded. Pilar stood uncertainly, a towel in her hand. The expression on her face told him she was as surprised as he was. Scowling, he said, “Come on, I won’t bite.”

  He reached for his shirt and shrugged it over his shoulders as he watched her walk hesitantly toward him. The path ended at the pond, near the log where he had left his socks and boots. Pilar looked so soft and innocent as she picked her way delicately along the trail. Culver wanted to look away, to ignore her. Impossible. She was barefoot! He allowed the corners of his mouth to lift momentarily. Here, she was free to be her natural self. The villagers never wore shoes unless they had to, and he knew Pilar disliked them. It was her Incan blood longing to be free of such civilized confinement.

  As she drew near, he saw the wariness in her eyes. Could he blame her? No. Feeling foolish, Culver hurriedly tugged on his boots and tied the leather laces into double knots.

  “The water’s cold but fine,” he said gruffly, looking up as she halted in front of him.

  Pilar nodded. “Culver, I owe you an apology—”

  “You owe me nothing,” he snarled, getting to his feet. He shoved the tails of his cotton shirt into his Levi’s, with angry movements.

  “I do. Please,” she begged softly, holding out her hand, “hear me out.”

  He glared at her. “Why should I?”

  Pilar held his glare. “Have we moved so far apart that we can no longer talk? I remember—”

  “That’s the past,” he snapped. Putting his hands on his hips, he said in a low, vibrating voice, “It’s the past, and that’s where you want to keep it, isn’t it, Pilar? God help me, but I don’t have the control I wish to hell I did when it comes to you. This morning was a mistake.” A terrible mistake. His mouth flattened as he saw his words landing like fists, their impact clear on her vulnerable features. Angry at his lack of control, he snarled, “Let’s just make the best of this, okay? I don’t like it any more than you do, Pilar. I’m human, too, dammit, in case you don’t remember.”

  Pilar stepped forward, touching his arm. As her fingers curved around Culver’s powerful bicep, she felt a vibration go through him and saw the shock register in his eyes at her unexpected gesture. For a moment, the hardness and anger in them dissolved. “Please,” she begged in a raw voice, “I know I’m hurting you by being around you. I don’t mean to, Culver. Dios, if there was anything I could do to stop the pain I give you, I would… .”

  Helplessly, she held his narrowed gaze. He stood like a magnificent bronze statue of a hero, proud, wounded, yet holding his head high, tolerating her hand on him. It took everything Pilar had to keep tears from streaming down her face, but she couldn’t keep the sound of them out of her voice as she spoke.

  “It was my fault back at the hut. I—somehow, I rolled over after Rane go
t up. I should have stayed on my own side, Culver. Please, forgive me. I don’t blame you for what happened this morning. It was my fault. Do you hear me?” Trying to steel herself against the suffering that had come into his eyes, Pilar forced herself to release his arm. When she did, it was almost as if Culver suddenly sagged before her. The rigidity went out of him, like a punctured balloon deflating.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said hoarsely after a moment of tense silence. “I shouldn’t have touched you, even if you touched me.”

  Pilar’s eyes widened. “I touched you? In my sleep?”

  Culver grimaced and looked above Pilar’s head, studying the Andes’s snowy peaks. “I made the mistake of touching your hair, that was all. You turned toward me and your hand fell against my chest.”

  Pilar dragged in a breath. “I see… .”

  He gave her a sad smile, the anger bleeding out of him. “I’m sure you do. You always did, Pilar. Maybe it’s that jaguar blood of yours trying to entrap me—mesmerize me like before. I don’t know.”

  Pilar’s hand went to the small medicine bag that hung around her neck. “Do you think I did it on purpose?”

  “No, of course not. You were asleep.” Culver raked his fingers through his drying hair. “I don’t blame you, Pilar. You’re looking at me like some lost lamb. Stop it! I can’t roll back the past, and neither can you.” Frustration tinged his voice as he gazed at her. “The past is the past. It’s over and done. Destroyed.”

  “Yes,” she whispered faintly, closing her eyes, unable to stand the terrible grief shining in Culver’s eyes.

  “Hell,” he muttered, “take your bath and meet me back in the village. We’ve got a lot of planning to do before we head into that jungle.” Turning on his booted heel, he strode down the path.

  Breathing raggedly, Pilar opened her eyes and watched Culver stalk off. Even wounded as he was by her decision, he treated her with respect. A South American man would not have tolerated her behavior as he had, though a Quechua man would. Culver was a good man. An honest one. A man with a large and forgiving heart. Much like Fernando. Pushing her hair back from her face, she sat down on the log to undress.

  The day was exquisite, but Pilar felt raw. Her heart was weeping. She could feel it pounding in her chest as she removed her blouse with trembling hands. As she closed her eyes to her feelings, she saw Culver’s face—proud, fierce and defiant, yet with a tenderness burning in his eyes that made her want to weep for what they had lost. And it had all been her fault. Hers alone.

  Chapter 6

  Culver was busy setting their army-issue, two-way radios onto a special frequency when Pilar came back to the village. It had been brought in by a CIA helicopter from Lima—one that Hector did not know about. Rane, curious seven-year-old that she was, sat companionably near him in the dirt, watching him solemnly. She was a living, breathing miniature of Pilar, as far as Culver was concerned.

  In front of him, on a clean blanket, was spread the array of state-of-the-art equipment they would take into the jungle with them. Don Alvaro, Pilar’s grandfather and village shaman, well into his nineties, sat opposite them on a wooden chair, rocking slowly back and forth, his dark brown eyes flicking from Culver to the equipment and back to his great-granddaughter.

  “You need these machines?” Don Alvaro finally asked in broken English.

  Culver looked up. “Yes.” The tall, thin old man was weather-beaten, his tobacco-brown skin, stretched tight across high cheekbones, and deep lines at the corners of his eyes attesting to his time working the corn and potato crops on the terraced hillsides. Yet he emanated the aura of power befitting his role as leader of the village.

  “You challenge Don Ramirez, eh?”

  Culver’s hands stilled over the radio he was holding. How much had Pilar told her grandparents? Very little, he hoped. He wondered if she’d told him they were going to try to rescue Morgan. She must have. He chose his words carefully as he continued to assemble the radio.

  “We’re here on a secret mission, so I can’t say much.”

  “Ahh,” Don Alvaro murmured. His face stretched into a shining smile as he caught sight of Pilar walking toward him. “She walks like the jaguar she was born to become, does she not?”

  Culver scowled, barely glancing in Pilar’s direction. She was drying her hair with a thin white towel, the long black strands shining in sunlight dappled by the trees among which the village had been erected, to provide a modicum of summer shade, as well as protection against the winter’s rainy weather.

  “Yes, she’s a jaguar all right,” he muttered.

  “You know,” Don Alvaro continued pleasantly, gesturing toward Pilar, “that my wife, Aurelia, performed a special ceremony for Pilar’s parents in order to bring her spirit into being.” He beamed. “Once in every generation, if you are from a jaguar medicine clan, a special spirit child is brought forth to carry into the future all our knowledge, experience and ceremonies.” His smile grew tender. “Pilar is our great hope.”

  “She doesn’t live with you. How can she help your people?” Culver thought of her job at the horse farm and wondered how often she came back to the village, and if she was aware of her responsibility.

  Chuckling, Don Alvaro slapped his knee. “You have lived among us many years, my friend. Surely you know that we are shamans?”

  Culver placed the radio headset before him on the blanket, and Rane handed him the plastic bag containing the second unit. She smiled brightly up at him, and he couldn’t help but smile a little in return. The child was innocent, and she came from Pilar’s body—a body he had once loved.

  “I know among the Indians you have medicine people,” he answered slowly, again glancing to check Pilar’s continued approach. She had draped the towel around her shoulders, the white creating a dramatic contrast with her dusky, golden skin and black hair. Culver knew she wasn’t even aware of her ethereal beauty, which must have any number of men falling at her feet in adoring admiration. And her lack of vanity only added to the depth of his unwanted feelings for her.

  “We are not ordinary people,” Don Alvaro corrected, rocking in the chair. “Shamans are different. We travel to the other worlds. We fly to the past, work with the present and can see into the future. Medicine people heal with herbs, ceremony and songs. We do a great deal more.” He lifted his hand. “Pilar possesses such skills. She can fly because she is a priestess to the jaguar.”

  “Really?” Culver looked up at the old man, not certain how to take his confidently spoken statement.

  “Mmm, but my granddaughter is afraid to embrace her power. Aurelia tells me to be patient with her—that in time she will become one with her gifts.”

  “And when she does, what will happen?” Culver attached the mike to the headset.

  “She will be able to move at will into the other worlds and help others. She will become a healer, which is her true calling in this lifetime.”

  “Not a horse manager?”

  Chuckling indulgently, Don Alvaro said, “My son, her destiny was decided long ago.” He gestured to the sky. “The moon and stars were right. The energy came, and life was breathed into my daughter’s womb. Pilar was sent to us with a purpose. She rides horses and works at a rancho, but it is temporary.” He frowned. “I am afraid there is great danger ahead of her, though. She is coming to a fork in her life path. If she chooses wrongly, she will leave us forever.”

  The calmly spoken words got Culver’s instant attention. He stopped assembling the second radio, and narrowed his eyes speculatively on the old man. Don Alvaro had sunk back into the creaking old rocker, a sad look on his face as he studied Pilar. Culver believed that shamans possessed magical, inexplicable qualities. As a CIA agent stationed in Lima, he’d met such a shaman once, who had taken him to a jungle clearing and given him a drink called ayahuasca—the vision vine. He remembered heaving his guts out, time after time, while the shaman whistled and sang for hours on end. Finally, Culver had lain on the damp jungle floor, caug
ht up in a series of vivid images… .

  Culver sat apprehensively with a group of six other CIA agents in an oddly open area in the middle of the jungle. Don Gonzalez, the shaman who had promised to induce a vision of the future, had given him a blanket to sit or lie on. The moon was full, and it was near midnight, the jungle producing a virtual symphony of sounds around them. Because he’d experienced many things and had traveled the world in his twenty-four years, Culver treated this ceremony with deference, willing to approach it with an open mind. Don Gonzalez squatted in the middle of the circle of men mixing the “vision vine” herb in a bowl, whistling and singing.

  The other agents, all Peruvians, sat solemnly, their legs crossed, their attention on the old shaman. Don Gonzalez’s white hair shone like a startling halo around his head, the luminescence of the moon powerful in this meadow in the midst of the moist, fragrant jungle.

  To Culver’s surprise, the old shaman brought the ayahuasca first to him. His bony hands thrust the nondescript wooden cup toward Culver.

  “Drink, my son,” he urged.

  Taking the cup, Culver stared down into the dark brown liquid.

  “All of it,” the shaman commanded with a flourish of his hand.

  Without hesitation, but with some misgivings, Culver pressed the rim of the cup to his lips and drank. Surprisingly, the liquid was sweetish tasting and thick. As he finished gulping it, he saw the shaman’s black eyes sparkle.

  “Tonight you will meet your destiny,” was all Don Gonzalez said as he moved away to refill the cup for the next recipient.