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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  63. Author’s Note

I’m still in Bolivia. Las Piedras, a small town not too far from Riberalta. I’m headed into a pretty isolated part of the jungle tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Pretty excited about this one. Hopefully, I can get ten or twenty good soil samples. I’ll talk to you in about a month. Love ya.

D

A month?

The longest Daniel had gone without checking in before had been two weeks. That had been in Colombia. But Daniel was as tough as they came, a wizard when it came to the outdoors: Eagle Scout as a kid, Outward Bound in Argentina at fifteen, and nearly six weeks in the Mosquitia jungles of Honduras the summer before college.

Patrick wasn’t worried.

≈

Patrick sat at an outside table at the county club. He’d just played twenty-seven holes of golf, and he was considering playing another nine.

At fifty-seven years old, he felt better than he had in his forties. The best thing he could have done was step down as CEO of Belippa after Trisha died. Instead of working seventy-hour weeks, trying to keep the shareholders appeased, he could relax a bit.

A waitress came by and took his order. She was in her midtwenties, with a tight tan skirt and a white button-up shirt that accentuated her assets. After taking his order, she gave him a poke on the shoulder and said, “When are you going to buy me a drink?”

“Sometime soon,” he said, which was his default response.

While he waited for his club sandwich to arrive, Patrick picked up his phone. He checked the Belippa stock. It was holding steady at $66 a share.

Four years earlier, it had been double that, trading at above a $123 a share.

Patrick typed a quick text to Bill Wyeth. Bill had been his closest friend going back forty years and had been CEO of Belippa for the past three years. Belippa’s quarterly earnings were due out next week, and Patrick was curious how they were going to look.

After sending the text, he checked his email. Still nothing from Daniel.

It was only June 6, not quite a full month since he last heard from him.

“He’ll check in tomorrow,” he told himself.

A few minutes later, his club sandwich arrived.

≈

“Thirty-four days,” Patrick said to Bill. “It’s been thirty-four days.”

“He’s fine,” Bill said. “He probably met some villagers and lost track of the time. He’ll check in sometime in the next couple of days. Trust me.”

Patrick sat at the kitchen table of Bill’s Silicon Valley high-rise—or what Bill referred to as his “palatial bachelor pad.”

“Hopefully,” Patrick said, “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him.”

“Hey,” Bill said. “Don’t think like that. He’s my godson, remember? I love that kid like my own, and I’m not worried.”

Patrick tried to smile but couldn’t.