GOLD RIVER (Book 1)

Chapter 8

The branch crashed down on top of Tom, knocked the wind from his lungs and smacked the jaguar's backside as it tried to leap out of the way. He threw the limb off and stood as tall as he could. Tension filled every muscle and tendon in his body, parachute straps still connected to his harness pack.

The feline whirled to face him and roared with an angry hiss.

With trembling, fast moving fingers, Tom undid the chute straps, picked up a dead limb and held it high above his head, daring the animal to attack while secretly hoping it wouldn't.

The jaguar hissed once more, less intense, and took a step toward him. Tom reared back, ready to swing away. The cat halted, glaring at him, mouth parted. It seemed to analyze the threat he represented. Then, unexpectedly, it turned away and scurried off, disappearing into the thickness of the jungle.

Tom breathed a sigh of relief.

Four basic instincts drove any wild animal: hunger, territorial defense, curiosity, and mating. The latter wasn't applicable in this situation, but judging by how easily the cat fled, it wasn't hungry or territorial about this part of the jungle, either. The encounter proved it was only curious, although irritated, that he brought a branch down on its rear end.

Tom glanced around, dumbfounded to find himself neck deep in the bush. One day he was on his ranch in Texas, a couple of days later he was in Ecuador supposedly meeting Eddie, and then he was here... in a godforsaken wilderness, miles from civilization. Of course, he and Eddie had worked together on countless hunts, as Tom called his quests for treasure. They had a history, and now this...

Something about the rendezvous at the cafe didn't sit right. It got up in his craw and buried its critter teeth in the back of his mind. Had Eddie double crossed him? Or had the drug lord killed him? And besides that, Tom still couldn't make sense of Kate Lockhart's involvement in this enormous pile of horse dung.

Regardless, he needed to find out where he was.

The city of Banos and the cafe rested due southwest of the Llanganates National Park. The last thing he remembered was skimming over the menu, and everything was fuzzy after that. But the view he had on the free fall led him to believe that he was somewhere in the Andes Mountains, likely the far western corner of the Amazon Jungle, possibly still in Ecuador.

Tom removed his leather jacket and did the best he could to brush off his clothes and survey the surrounding area. Different shades of green and brown spread out in all directions. The rainforest was densely packed. Thick leaves crowded around him at ground level and above his head, preventing most of the sunlight from reaching the ground. His surroundings had an eerie twilight feel about them. He wouldn't be able to walk three steps without dodging a tree or a slew of pesky limbs.

He winced, woozy, on his feet.

Tom's kidnappers had drugged him because his vision was blurry, and he still felt groggy. But the real question was, who would do this to him and why? What made him madder than anything was the fact that he couldn't remember anyone to be mad at, except the guy with the raspy voice. And at this point, he couldn't pin anything on Eddie either, because he hadn't heard a peep from him on the plane before getting tossed.

Tom searched his jacket pockets and found several items that would come in handy: a small flask of water, a compass, a Zippo lighter, and a large pocketknife. Immediately, he thought of his six-inch blade that he usually kept in a sheath on his waist. It was gone. Now that really burned him up. That knife had got him through some tough times. Whoever nabbed him must've taken it as a safety precaution in case he woke up too soon.

One thing was certain though... whoever dropped him from the sky wanted him alive. If they wanted him dead, they wouldn't have given him a parachute or the other necessities. Still, it would've been nice if they at least inspected the main chute before they kicked him out of the plane.

A woman's scream cut through the jungle. Not just any woman.

Tom wagged his head. Kate.

Ms. Lockhart must've found the big cat.