Free Flame of Diablo by Sara Craven

knew
    exactly whom she had to blame for
    affecting her peace of mind like this.
    They stopped on a small plateau where a
    trickle of a waterfall emptied itself
    endlessly into a small dark pool, and
    there they rested and watered the horses,
    and Carlos made a fire and heated their
    midday meal, a tin of vegetable stew
    followed by a tin of rice pudding.
    Judging by the contents of the food pack,
    Rachel realised ruefully that the majority
    of their meals would probably follow
    this pattern, and leave her with a chronic
    digestive problem for the rest of her life.
    But not all their meals would be camp
    meals, she remembered. When she had
    discussed the trip with Carlos in
    Asuncion, he had assured her they would
    use any facilities available along the
    way. It had been a straw Rachel had
    grasped at with open relief. She might
    not know a great deal about South
    America, but one aspect she was well
    aware of was that it harboured several
    varieties of snakes, all of them deadly,
    and even the remotest prospect of an
    encounter with one of them made her
    flesh crawl.
    The coffee which followed the meal was
    palatable enough if rather too strong for
    Rachel's taste. When she had finished
    her tin mugful, she emptied the dregs and
    lay back, her head pillowed on her
    denim jacket, staring up at the hazy blue
    of the sky, and the harsh sharply defined
    lines of the great cordillera, its peaks
    wreathed in cloud. It looked like the
    lavish backdrop for some extravagantly
    mounted fairytale, she decided, although
    no stage designer of her acquaintance
    would have dared incorporate such
    exquisitely subtle shades of colouring
    into what purported to be solid rock.
    Against the sky, a bird was circling
    slowly and purposefully, with deep
    sweeps of its powerful wings. A condor,
    she thought, the vulture of the Andes. She
    had read once that that great wing span
    was strong enough to sweep a horse and
    rider from a rock ledge, and she
    shivered at the thought, sitting up
    abruptly. There was no fairytale about
    those faraway heights, after all. There
    was battle and murder and sudden death,
    and all the things she least wanted to
    think about.
    It was almost a relief to be back in the
    saddle once more, and heading down
    into the valley. It was getting warmer all
    the time, the air more humid, and the
    landscape seemed to be changing before
    her eyes, rocks and dust giving way to
    lush undergrowth. Trees and ferns
    reared on each side of the track, forming
    almost solid walls of greenery on each
    side which Rachel was glad they did not
    have to penetrate. Flies buzzed and
    lunged at her unprotected face, and she
    brushed them away irritably with her
    hand. In places the track became so
    narrow that there was barely room even
    for the horses to pass along it in single
    file.
    Rachel thought that there had to be a
    better way to reach Diablo. She felt as if
    she was being trapped in an everlasting
    green tunnel. The quiet too was
    oppressive. Apart from the muffled
    sound of their horses' hooves on the
    trodden floor, there was only the
    occasional harsh cry of an unknown bird
    or vague rustlings in the undergrowth,
    revealing the presence of some unseen
    animal, to break the silence.
    Her only consolation was that Carlos
    seemed to be finding the journey equally
    trying. His plump form swayed from
    side to side as his horse plodded ahead,
    and his shoulders looked bowed with
    weariness.
    Rachel wished she had insisted that they
    travelled by whatever passed for a road
    in this region, even if it had meant the
    trip would take longer, and that she had
    not stipulated that she needed to reach
    Diablo urgently.
    She moved her shoulders wearily under
    her thin shirt, feeling a trickle of sweat
    run down between her shoulder blades
    as she did so. She was looking forward
    to reaching the finca where they would
    spend the night. From what she had
    heard, she gathered that the sanitary
    arrangements at such places could be
    primitive, but