Ten minutes later, the trail skirted around a small rise and they got a glimpse of the hills ahead of them and what looked like the cleft that they were aiming for. It encouraged them, even though for the next half hour they heard nothing from the group they were pursuing.

But then they heard Joel again and, soon after, a few laughs and shouts. There was water flowing somewhere behind to the right too, the sound of rapids, but they focused instead on the noise ahead, because this time it did not fade back into the hum and whirr of the jungle.

They saw the other survivors before the group saw them. Kate and Tom crested a small rise and stopped, looking at the sight below. It was the point just before the river entered the gorge that split the range of hills, and the others were spread out across a rocky horseshoe beach that looked like it had been scooped out by the torrents coming downriver and hitting the narrow waters that entered the gorge.

Even from their vantage point, Tom could see that the river was running much faster here than they’d seen the previous day, but the eroded banks and wide beach suggested this was nothing compared with the way it was when the rains came.

Kate was clearly thinking along the same lines, because she said, “Not a bad place to camp, I guess. As long as it doesn’t rain.”

The people below were just starting to build a fire, so he guessed they hadn’t been there long themselves. Maybe that’s why they’d heard laughter, the joy of reaching any kind of destination after two days of hiking.

Tom noticed a huddle of people on one side of the beach and when someone stepped aside he could see Barney putting the finishing touches to what looked like a small improvised shelter with one of the mosquito nets hanging down over it. Maybe someone had been hurt or taken ill.

He glanced briefly around, trying to see who might be missing, and smiled involuntarily when he saw Alice crossing the beach carrying a couple of branches for the fire.

“Ready?” Kate asked.

He nodded, but said, “Before we go down there, you asked if we could be friends, and the answer obviously is yes, but I want you to know, I’ll never ever forget what you did for me yesterday.”

Sounding self-conscious, she replied, “You would’ve made it back on your own. And you would’ve done the same.”

“Maybe.”

Together, they started down the trail toward the new camp.

CHAPTER 33

Jess saw them first. She ran over to Tom and hugged him, and George and some of the others quickly followed, almost knocking him over. When he glanced off to one side he saw Kate in the middle of a similar huddle.