Royal Ransom (16 page)

We started out to walk backwards across the soft sand and mud. We certainly couldn't move as fast that way, and it left us visible for a little bit longer to anybody who rounded the bend, but I figured it might just be worth the risk. At the edge of the river we left very visible, very clear footprints. They certainly looked to me like we'd been walking into the water. We kept moving backwards until my feet no longer left impressions on the ground.

“We can turn around now,” I said as I spun around.

Both Victoria and Andrew followed my lead. As I looked back at them over my shoulder I stumbled over a rock and
almost tumbled to the ground. Victoria reached out and steadied me.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine … thanks … just tired.”

“My legs feel as though they're filled with lead,” she said. “Each step is becoming terribly, terribly difficult.”

“I know. But you don't have many more steps to take.”

The open ground had given way to waist-high bushes that were becoming more and more frequent. Just beyond that was the edge of the forest.

Suddenly Andrew tripped and fell to the ground. Victoria rushed to his side.

“Let me help you, Andrew, we're almost—”

“I cannot take another step. I need to rest,” he said, his voice just above a whisper.

This wasn't where I'd wanted to stop—I'd figured we needed to get into the trees. But then again, we were in cover. As long as we were sitting down, nobody could see us. This wouldn't be the worst place to take a break for a few minutes. Besides, I was too tired to argue with him. Too tired even to think about physically dragging him.

“Let's take a twenty-minute break,” I said.

I sat down in the dirt. Victoria took a patch of ground right beside her brother. She pulled out a couple of pieces of root from her pocket.

“Would anybody like some?” she asked.

Andrew took one of the pieces and started to gnaw away at it.

“Jamie?” she asked, offering me the second piece.

I shook my head.

“I washed it off in the water when we were wading along. At least I can assure you that it's free of dirt. And I really think you need to eat.”

“Why me?”

“You need to keep your wits about you to continue to lead us,” she explained.

“What about you?” I asked. “That's your last piece.”

“I can share.” She tried to break it in two. It bent, but didn't tear apart.

“Do you want me to try?”

She shook her head. “I know what to do.” She took the piece of root and placed one end in her mouth. She then bent it over until it broke in two. She offered me the half that hadn't been between her teeth.

“Thanks,” I said as I reached out to take it from her.

As I grabbed it our hands touched and she smiled at me … what a wonderful smile … soft lush lips and … Snap out of it! Quickly, embarrassed, I looked away. With all that had gone on, all that was still going on, how could I even be thinking about stuff like that? There was too much danger. Too much that still had to be done to get us to safety.

We had at least three, probably four days of walking ahead of us. Four days with only berries and some roots to eat. We could do it, but it wasn't going to be easy. Boy, was I going to eat when we finally reached my village. My village … that thought gave me a warm feeling. I closed my eyes and thought about what it was going to be like to be home. That would be something, to walk into my village, Victoria and Andrew right there with me. I could just picture my mother and father and grandmother and
all my family rushing up to me, giving me hugs and slaps on the back and shaking hands. I'd be like a hero, and everybody would be so grateful for what I did. Victoria would be so grateful that she might even throw her arms around me and give me a big hug and—

“Jamie?”

Startled out of my thoughts, I looked up at Victoria.

“I'm sorry. Were you asleep?” she asked.

“No, just thinking.” I was very thankful that she couldn't know what I'd been thinking about.

“Andrew is asleep,” she said.

He was lying on the ground, his head in her lap, mouth wide open, eyes closed.

“I was wondering, are you positive it is best for us to backtrack along our route?”

“Definitely.”

“But to retrace our steps will take us two days,” she said. “How many days farther is your village from that point?”

“If we move quickly it's another two days.”

“We're not able to move very quickly though, are we?”

“We'll do okay,” I offered.

“But what if they're waiting there for us?” she asked.

“At my village?”

She nodded.

“They'd have to be crazy to do that,” I said.

“They would?”

“Think about it. Everybody in the whole village, and I mean
everybody
, is related to me. Do you think that my grandmother is going to let anything happen to me … or to you?”

“I am certain she would try to stop them, but she is an elderly woman, and they have weapons, and—”

“Those guys aren't the only ones with guns. There's nobody over the age of fourteen in my whole village who doesn't own a hunting rifle.”

“Even your grandmother?”

“
Especially
my grandmother. She could shoot a playing card out of your hand at twenty metres.”

“She must be a fine shot.”

“She is, and so is my mother.” And then I started thinking about something I'd said and what I wanted to say about it. I took a deep breath.

“Victoria, I just wanted to say I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking about what I said, about the Lotex and the plane crash. … I didn't mean anything.”

“That's all right, Jamie.”

“I've never had anybody close to me die. It must have been hard to lose your mother.”

“It was very difficult. It remains difficult,” she said. “When most people have a parent die it is a private tragedy and then life goes on. For me, I get almost daily reminders about my mother. People are always asking me questions or they have pictures of her or—”

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up.”

“You had reason to bring it up. Others do not, although I know they mean no harm. Her death touched so many people. Did you know she was the most photographed person in the world?”

“She was?”

“Definitely. And she will always be remembered as one of the most beautiful women in the world. Do you
know how hard it is to be the daughter of someone that beautiful? No matter what you do, you can never live up to that.”

I wanted to say something to her, to tell her that I thought she was really good-looking, but the words stayed in my head and wouldn't come out.

“And just my luck, I have two parents and I have to look like my father instead of my mother. Believe me, I love my father dearly, but one has to admit that he is not the most handsome man in the world. Thank goodness, at least I don't have his ears.”

I looked down at Andrew and his jumbo-sized ears.

“Yes, Andrew inherited the family curse,” she chuckled. “Look at me now, looking like a complete mess!”

She still looked pretty to me.

“How could I ever compete with the title of most photographed, most beautiful woman in the world? I remember once when she—”

“Over here!” a voice hollered, and we both froze.

Chapter Sixteen

I
STARED WIDE-EYED AT VICTORIA
. She looked panicked … scared … petrified. Andrew slept on, unaware.

“Slowly … quietly,” I whispered, “flatten yourself to the ground.”

She slid down farther, lower, while still keeping Andrew's head on her lap. His eyes remained closed. Maybe it was a good thing he was still asleep.

Just as slowly, I dropped to my belly and began to slither forward.

“What are you doing?” Victoria questioned.

“I have to take a look.”

I crawled toward the wall of bushes that was shielding us from the river, protecting us from being seen. Still hidden, I started to poke my head through the branches and leaves until I could just peek out. They were no more than twenty metres away! Involuntarily I ducked back down. They were right there! Silently I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. My heart was racing like I'd just run up a long flight of stairs. Slowly, deliberately, against every instinct yelling out that I should just stay hidden, I started to peek out at them again.

There were two men. They wore outdoor clothing and carried big backpacks. Each held a rifle. One was standing
while the other was on his knees. They were right where we'd gone into—and come back out of—the river. I knew that the man on his knees was examining our tracks.

“Come!” he yelled out, and then I caught sight of the third man, on the far side of the river. I watched, trans-fixed, as he started across the water and came right toward them—right toward me! He was looking straight at me, looking at him. Had he seen me? He stopped beside the other two and dropped to his knees to look at the tracks. I felt a rush of relief.

I tried to think what would happen next. There were only two possibilities. One was that they'd be fooled and they'd start going back upstream, looking for the place where we'd left the water. If they did that, we'd be safe, not just for now but maybe altogether. Then I thought about the other possibility. What if they came this way? We were no more than twenty metres from them and there wasn't enough cover to hide us if they got close. We could try to make a break for it, but how far could we possibly get? They had guns, and even if they didn't they could still run us down. Those backpacks were probably filled with food. They'd been eating and keeping strong while we'd been getting weaker and weaker. There was no way we could outrun them. On the bright side, if they caught us they'd probably give us some food.

Suddenly the two men who had been bent over rose to their feet. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen right now. One man splashed back into the water and the other two started to move upriver. They were moving away! They weren't coming for us!

I dropped back down to my belly and scurried over to Victoria and Andrew.

“Well?” Victoria whispered.

“They're there. All three of them. By the river.”

“And? Are they coming?” Her voice was barely audible.

I shook my head. “They're going upriver like I thought they—”

Without warning she reached over and threw her arms around me. She pressed her face into my shoulder and … what was she doing? And then I felt her shaking and could make out the very faint sound of her sobbing.

“It's okay … it's okay,” I whispered. Awkwardly I patted her back. “It's okay.”

She released her grip on me, and I felt both relieved and disappointed all at once. She used the back of her hand to wipe at her eyes and her nose.

“I am so sorry,” she sniffled.

“That's okay.”

“I know I have to be strong. I was just so afraid … I'm still afraid.”

“There's no reason to be afraid now,” I said, and then I realized that was a lie. “There isn't
as much
reason to be afraid. They're going away. They're working their way upriver and away from us.”

“Oh, Jamie, thank you so much for everything. What do we do now?”

“We let them get farther away. We'll stay here until I see them climb up that cliff and disappear into the forest.”

“And then?” she asked.

“And then we crawl to the forest and put some distance between us and them.”

“But what will happen when they realize that the trail ends at the forest's edge?” she asked.

“They'll figure that we went that way and they'll start in looking for more tracks.”

“And when they don't find any?” she asked.

“Then they'll figure that we're still aiming for the fishing lodge, and that's where they'll go.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I'm sure. Now you just rest. I'll watch them move upriver, and as soon as it's clear we'll start walking.”

“Will we go very much farther tonight?” she asked.

“Can't. It'll be dark in less than an hour. I can't risk us losing our trail, so we'll stop for the night shortly. I just need us to get into the forest.”

“I don't think that Andrew can go much farther tonight,” she said.

“I don't think any of us has much left. You close your eyes, get some rest. I'll tell you when it's time to move.”

T
HE SUN WAS STILL LOW
. Once we'd made it into the forest we'd stopped for the night. Victoria had been too tired even to ask about starting a fire. That was good. Even though I'd wanted one, it would have been too risky. It was better to stay hidden and cold, than warm and exposed. After that I'd slept fitfully, closing my eyes enough to rest, but still aware of all the sounds in the forest around us.

Now it was time to go. Every minute that we waited was one more minute before we got to safety. One more minute before we could send back somebody to help Ray and Albert. With everything that had happened my thoughts had been on us and not on them. I could only hope that they were still okay. They had to be okay. There was no reason to hurt either of them. It wasn't like they
were still protecting Victoria and Andrew or stopping them from being captured. That was me doing that. Me standing in their way.

I got up and stretched. Instinctively and anxiously I looked down the path in the direction we'd just come. There was, of course, nothing to see but trees. Ahead of us was the path we had travelled once before. I'd been nervous that I'd have trouble retracing our steps. I didn't need to be. The men, in their haste to chase us, had left the vegetation beaten down by their big boots, branches broken off by their clumsy bodies. I think even Andrew could have followed this trail.