Rick shrugged. “Just don’t let him hit the ground.” He briefly wondered if he should have consulted with Cynthia before agreeing to let Sanders walk. He eyed his friend as he took a very slow and cautious step. After three steps, Sanders stopped, sweat pouring down his face. He put a hand on his chest and took another step, and another.

McBride walked half a pace behind him. As Rick passed them on the riverbank, he said in an amused voice, “Looks like he can walk.”

Peña and Fisher had Ozzy between them. Hours ago, his medic had tried to walk, had made jokes, had been strong. Now his head lolled back, and Rick could see that he stayed upright only because the two men holding him had interlocked their arms to support him. Cynthia’s warning reverberated in his mind.

He made it down to the boat as Swanson jogged up. They unloaded all their gear, then Swanson pulled out his knife. “Sure you don’t want to try to hide it?”

Rick put his hands on his hips and looked around. “It’s three hundred pounds and fifteen feet long. Given all the constraints, I honestly don’t see how.”

“It was a yes or no question, Daddy,” Swanson said.

They rolled rocks into the boat, then drove their knives into the chambers near the bow. They cut and sliced until no air remained. The cricket sank nicely to the bottom of the river.

“Maybe they’ll find it and think we got attacked by a crocodile,” Rick joked.

“Yeah.”

Rick requested a check-in of the entire team over the radio, then he and Swanson double-timed it to the campsite.

Ozzy lay on a tarp, using a rucksack as a pillow. He had his eyes closed, and his chest moved in a rapid rhythm. Cynthia knelt over him, using a blood pressure cuff. When Rick squatted down beside her, she looked at him but didn’t speak until she released the cuff and slipped the stethoscope out of her ears. “BP is falling. I think he’s going septic.”

Not what he wanted to hear in the jungle. “What do you need?”

She looked up at the sky. “Some way to hang an IV. I’m going to push another bag of antibiotics while we’re stopped.”

He glanced at McBride. “Can you rig something?”

“Sure. How tall?”

“Not tall,” Cynthia said. “Just elevated above him.”

“On it.”

Rick went over to where Sanders sat propped up on a rucksack. He lowered himself to the ground, and his muscles started hurting. “I’m beat.”

Sanders nodded. “No doubt. As for me, I’d have to feel better to die,” he said. “I remember being this tired one other time in my life.” He watched Cynthia walk by. “Man, she’s something, huh?”

The word “something” definitely described her. “And then some.”