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He addressed the last bit to Adam.

Adam’s gaze moved from Flowers’ rifle to the man’s face, and then shifted over to where the other fellow—Mendez—stood behind Ellie’s shoulder. With a smooth, resigned movement, Adam swung the Winchester off his back and handed it over.

“The bag and the knife, too,” Mendez ordered.

Adam handed over his pack and—with an obviously pained look of regret—parted with his blade.

“This is a nice machete,” Flowers commented appreciatively as he accepted it. He pronounced the word the Kriol way, leaving off the final ‘e.’

“Thanks,” Adam replied grimly.

“We were just passing through…” Ellie began lamely.

“Well, now you are passing through to the boss,” Mendez cut in.

He prodded her again with his gun.

Ellie’s temper blazed with an abrupt, volatile heat. She whirled in place and found herself glaring at a fortyish man of roughly her own height. He had sun-weathered olive skin and a thick black mustache.

“If you touch me with that rifle again, I will rip it from your hands and knock you soundly with it,” she seethed.

Mendez’s eyes widened a bit with surprise. Flowers chuckled.

“This one got a little pepa,” he noted.

“Princess…” Adam warned from behind her.

Ellie gritted her teeth as she fought back the ferocious urge to throw something at the man in front of her, knowing it would be utterly foolish.

He was lucky she didn’t have a towel rack.

“Walk,” Mendez ordered.

Ellie flashed him a glare, but stalked the way he indicated.

“Mind your step!” Flowers extended an arm to catch her elbow as she started down the trail. “The rocks are slippery.”

Startled, Ellie glanced up at the big man—but he had already moved on with a smile.

The path led down a steep slope. Ellie’s view of the way forward was blocked by both Flowers’ broad back and the slick green leaves that slapped at her arms and face.

Adam’s grim silence gave her a clear, unpleasant sense of just how serious their situation must be.

The path opened onto a broad, flat bank beside the river where it calmed below the cataracts. The area would be flooded during the rainy season, but for now, it was a relatively dry plateau of packed earth and scraggly grass… all seething with activity.

Ellie counted three steam barges floating on the calm brown water. Each of them was easily four times as big as theMary Lee.

The shore itself was a hive of tents, hammocks, and piles of crates. Roughly two dozen mules brayed from within a rigged-up corral under the ceiba trees. Men shouted to each other across the camp.

Ellie counted at least thirty of them.

“I thought you said nobody mounted expeditions this close to the rains,” she muttered to Adam as Flowers moved a few steps ahead of her.

“They don’t,” Adam countered.

“Then who are they?” she demanded.

“Guess we’ll find out,” Adam returned grimly.