“Not more than five or ten more minutes,” she guessed, since they’d already passed the butterfly mound and the patch of dead vegetation.
He nodded quickly, scanning the jungle on both sides of the path. “Bueno. I don’t like the feel of this place.”
“What’s the holdup?” Angélica’s dad called from about twenty feet behind them.
Raul jogged up to where they were congregated. “Everyone okay?”
“They heard something in the brush,” Esteban explained. “Something big. Probably with sharp teeth and spiky claws.”
Angélica turned away so he didn’t see her scowl. The last thing any of their imaginations needed after the king vulture show was a wild notion about a jungle terror.
“Was it a jaguar?” Raul’s face lit up. “I’ve been watching for signs of them.”
“What signs?” Esteban asked, chewing on his knuckle.
“Clawed tree trunks, bits of chewed-up prey, and scat.”
Scanning the surrounding trees, Bronko sniffed a few times. “Have you seen any?”
Raul shook his head.
Daisy caught up. “Did I hear you say you saw a jaguar?”
“No,” Esteban said. “But they heard one.”
Angélica swallowed a groan of frustration. This tale was growingtaller by the second. She took back the reins. “We don’t know what we heard. Only that there was the sound of something decent-sized moving through the brush over there.”
“Define ‘decent-sized,’gatita,” her dad said, his cane creaking as he closed the distance between them.
“I don’t know, maybe …” She turned to Quint, grimacing. “It could have been something as large as a jaguar, I guess.”
He swiped at a fly circling, trying to join the conversation. “I’m leaning more toward something smaller with the way we scared it off so easily.”
“Did it make any sound?” Raul asked.
Angélica shook her head.
“Maybe we should go back to the wall,” Esteban whispered, fidgeting with his backpack strap. “Let Bronko and Raul hunt and kill it.”
“I don’t want to kill anything,” Raul shot back.
“I might,” Bronko said.
“We’re not going back.” Angélica looked beyond her father. “Where’s KuTu?”
The others turned to check.
“He was lagging behind some after we passed the butterfly mound,” her father answered.
Raul nodded. “I heard him say something in Mayan that sounded like he was going to talk to the butterflies, but I figured that was his way of saying he needed to … ah …” He frowned sheepishly at Daisy and then Angélica. “To urinate.”
“Should we wait for him?” Quint asked, thumbing further up the path. “Or trust that he’ll catch up and meet us at the ruins?”
Angélica used the collar of her shirt to wipe at the sweat rolling down toward her eye. “Let’s keep going. If he doesn’t show up in the next half hour, then maybe Bronko and Raul can try to track him down.” She looked at the two guards in turn. “Does that sound okay to you?”
They both nodded, but Bronko continued to frown in the direction from which they’d come. “How about I lead the rest of the way, Dr. García?” he said. “Just to be safe. And we all stay close together.”
She nodded. “That’s fine. It’s not much farther.”
