Jacob dragged his fingers through his dark hair and met Amelia’s gaze. “We can’t dig a deep grave, not without shovels. The small ax will have to be enough. It has a sharp-edged scoop on the other end.”
Amelia had no words. It was an unspeakable tragedy to leave their pilot’s body to the elements and wild animals, but what choice did they have?
She reached out and clasped her husband’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, Jacob.” She could see the pain in his eyes. He was a man with a heart deeper than the ocean. He loved all living things and valued all life.
Jacob led her away from Charlie’s body back to the plane. They stopped just outside the cabin, listening to the cadence of the jungle, the hum and chirp of insects, the blend of wild, exotic birds and monkeys, oblivious to the disaster that had just happened. Jacob and Amelia exchanged a long, meaningful glance. It was as if the jungle was beginning to swallow the plane and the three surviving passengers whole.
Jacob gently gripped her hips, pulling her to him, and she wound her arms around his neck. He embraced her, hugging her to him, and brushed his hand up and down her back.
“We’re going to get through this. Cameron knows were alive. He won’t stop looking for us. Until then, we can have a proper family adventure. Just think: Lofty and Cameron would have a good laugh if they were here with us.”
Amelia chuckled shakily. “Lofty thinks everything is an adventure.” She thought of Jacob’s old schoolmate, the Earl of Lofthouse, whom everyone called Lofty, and the idea did give her a bit of spark back. Lofty was a delightful man with a sense of humor and a taste for expensive brandy. He, Cameron, and Jacob had been thick as thieves as boys.
She nodded. He was trying to keep things light, but emotions rolled through her like a building storm. Her husband and child were in an ancient forest, possibly unreachable for any rescue, and she didn’t know how to protect them. Danger was everywhere.
The next two weeks of living in the downed plane were not easy. Jacob Haywood kept a close eye on his wife and child, making sure they were safe at all times.
He also purified their water from a nearby river by mixing it with a solution that contained iodine and chlorine dioxide tablets, which killed off some giardia parasites. Thorne always made a face when he had to drink the tablet-treated water, but he would look at Jacob, and with a little weary sigh he would drink the water. The boy never complained, even when his small belly grumbled with hunger. Most days Jacob felt like a failure. He and Amelia both had staved off eating whenever possible to give more food to their son, but it was time he started trying to hunt. Uganda had an antelope species called the kob, which lived in these forests. With any luck he could find some, or fish in the river that he’d found not too far from them.
“Darling?” Jacob retrieved his gun from the case inside the cockpit where he’d hidden it out of Thorne’s sight for safety.
Amelia was sitting in one of the seats with Thorne, reading the jungle alphabet book to him. “Yes?”
“I’m going to go hunting, and maybe I’ll fish in the river. Stay here with Thorne. I should be back in a few hours.”
She stood and lifted Thorne into her arms. “Jacob, I don’t know if that’s safe.”
He was almost too big to hold like that, but Jacob had the sudden urge to have his child in his arms. He held out his hands, and Amelia passed him the toddler. Thorne rested his cheek on Jacob’s shoulder as he cradled the boy, pressing his own cheek on the child’s head.
A realization dawned on him as he swayed the little boy in his arms. Someday he would be holding Thorne for the last time. At some point the boy would be too big, too old for this. Was this the last time? Would Jacob even be aware of it when that last time he held his son came and went? A chill crept along his arms and the back of his neck. It felt like someone had stepped over his grave.
He held Thorne a moment longer before he gave him back to his wife. Amelia offered him a wistful smile, but her eyes were heavy with concern.
“I’ll be back soon,” he promised and kissed her quick and hard.
“Be careful,” Amelia warned as he stepped into the jungle that awaited him outside the security of the downed Cessna.
The trek into the jungle took nearly an hour. He glimpsed a few simian-shaped shadows above him, swinging or jumping between the trees. But he didn’t aim his gun at them. He knew the dangers of ingesting monkey meat, so he would only kill them as a last resort. He climbed over the rocks, wound his way through tightly growing moss-covered trees, and chopped down thick vegetation with a machete they had brought along on the plane.
He was nearly at the river—it was only another quarter of a mile—when he heard something moving through the brush. There were some low-level foothills that had caves nearby. He had discovered a cave a week ago but hadn’t gone too far in. Ebola was often found in African caves. He didn’t want to risk contracting that virus.
Whatever was heading toward the cave was definitely big. It might be a kob. He abandoned his path toward the river and followed the sound at a safe distance.
When the sounds ahead of him stopped near the black cavernous entrance to the cave, he halted, holding his breath, but a second later, he exhaled in a rush as he heard human voices.
“This is the one, Holt,” a man said. “I saw the gold myself.”
Gold? Jacob wondered how they had found gold here.
“Bloody natives,” one man grumbled. “Burying gold in a bleedin’ cave. What’s the point of it? Well, get to work. I want to see it.”
Jacob peeled a branch out of the way of his face and saw a group of men entering the cave. They didn’t look friendly. The guns they were carrying and their general unkempt appearance, added to their talk of hidden gold, made them dangerous. They were not the sort of men Jacob could ask for help.
He slowly backed away, but not before he saw one man emerge from the cave carrying a crate. A dozen golden objects—from plates and cups to other unidentifiable items—were visible as they jutted out of the top of the wooden crate. The man set the crate down nearby, and when he left, Jacob crept closer and grasped the nearest object he could find and ducked back into the shelter of the bushes and examined it. It was an uncut diamond as big as his fist.
Good God.
Whoever these men were, they had stumbled upon an archaeological find of great importance, and they were looting it dry. The items they were stealing belonged with the descendants of the people who had put them there or, if such people no longer existed, in a museum.
I should leave now, Jacob’s inner voice warned him. But the thought of such injustice . . . no. He had to leave. He couldn’t put his wife and child at risk. Not for this. He was about to put the diamond back into the crate when he felt it go warm beneath his palm, and a strange humming filled his head. Flashes of light, whispering . . . voices he couldn’t quite understand, but he sensed what they wanted.
Keep the diamond. Run now!
He sank back into the foliage, tucked the diamond in a pocket of his cargo pants, and turned to run, only to barrel straight into a man. They both stumbled back. Jacob saw the man loosely clutching a rifle, and he acted fast. He threw a punch that would have made his boxing days at Cambridge look tame. The man hit the ground, out cold, and thankfully not having attracted any attention.