Free Her Last Defense by Vickie Taylor Page B

meticulous care through the gauntlet of thorns and trip vines, knowing their furry little friend could be waiting for them on the next tree limb or behind the next tangle of scrub.
    “How much farther to the next trap?” he asked, wishing he could mop the sweat off his forehead. With the clouds had come an almost stifling rise in the humidity.
    He settled for sliding the CDC supply pack that carried the basics—water, first-aid kit, flashlights—off his back and rolling his neck to work the kinks out.
    Macy frowned at her GPS. “About three hundred yards.”
    He suppressed a groan. Might as well have been three hundred miles, as thick as it was out here. They’d set out shortly after eight this morning, yet it had been nearly noon before they’d reached their first set of assigned coordinates to find an empty trap. After that they’d hit about one an hour. Of the four they’d checked, two had been empty. One contained a seriously pissed-off possum and the last was in several mangled pieces. Clint wasn’t sure if it had been broken when it was dropped from the helicopter, or some critter had smashed it for the food inside.
    A javelina could do that. The wild pigs had been known to raid campgrounds and leave nothing behind in one piece, including the campers.
    Macy peered upward through the boughs overhead. “It’s going to rain, isn’t it?”
    “Yep.”
    Her sigh cut straight through him. “José was raised in captivity. I don’t know what he’ll do if he’s caught out in a storm.”
    “You’re worried about the monkey? ”
    “I’m worried about catching the monkey. Whether he decides to hole up and ride it out, or panics and makes a mad dash for who-knows-where, it makes it harder for us to find him.”
    Of course. He should have realized that.
    “We’d best get back at it, then.” He hefted the machete over his shoulder and made a hacking cut at the wall of growth before them. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find him before we all get drenched.”
    They didn’t.
    The thunder rolled in first, then the wind turnedaround out of the north, bringing a chill and kicking up bits of leaves and dirt. When the rain finally came, it came in sheets. The pitiful ponchos included in their supply packs did little to protect them. They were soaked to the skin and shivering within seconds.
    Reaching back to help Macy over a rotted tree trunk downed in their path, Clint thought he felt her shiver. It was hard to tell for sure, since he couldn’t see anything of her except a blurry swash of color. Apparently they didn’t make gas masks with windshield wipers.
    “We need to find some cover,” he shouted over the drumming rain.
    She shook her head and passed him by. “We need to keep going.”
    But even as she said it, she stopped. She swayed slightly, then took a step back. Clint leaned around her shoulder to see a twenty-foot ravine so steep it might have been the edge of the world. A rush of runoff water careened through the bottom of the gorge, twirling broken limbs and clumps of debris in its currents.
    “Great,” he said.
    “How do we get across that?”
    He wished he had an answer for her. “You wait here. I’ll scout out a crossing.”
    “No, wait.” He had already turned to leave. She reached out for his arm. “We should stay togeth—”
    She tripped over a low vine and the ground beneath her feet gave way. As if it was happening in slow motion, Clint saw her arms flail, her legs shoot out from under her.
    Then a flash of lightning blinded him. He yelled, but the thunder obliterated the sound.
    Wildly, he grabbed for her. Caught a bit of cloth, then lost it. Felt an elbow scrape by his palm. And finally latched on to one thin wrist.
    Concentrating on the feel of each fragile bone crushed in his grip and not letting go, he opened his eyes and found that some time in the last half second, he had landed on his belly in the mud. He lay at an angle toward the ravine, his legs pointed more or less toward