In Too Deep by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online

skeptically.
    â€œHe’s a little on the temperamental side. He’s also your transportation.”
    It was an incredibly effective exit line. Cara almost choked on the vitamin she’d just put in her mouth. She took a quick swallow of bottled water and hurried after Rod.
    â€œWhat are you talking about? Transportation to where?”
    â€œYou want to see the site. Diablo’s going to take you.”
    â€œI am not getting on that beast.”
    â€œDon’t you ride?” He made it sound like a challenge.
    â€œHorses. I ride horses.” She decided not to mention that awful camel Scottie had insisted she ride to a site outside Cairo. It had been a once-in-a-lifetime experience—she hoped. She could still remember the nip that vile creature had tried to take out of her rear end.
    â€œBesides,” she reminded Rod, “I thought we were hiking.”
    â€œI am. You’ll ride.”
    She took another long look at Diablo and felt her stomach flip over. “If you can walk, I can.”
    He surveyed her from head to toe as if determining her stamina, then shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
    An hour later, Cara decided she might have made just the tiniest miscalculation. The one-hundred-percent cotton shirt, which had promised to be cool, clung to her back. The long, loose pants chosen to protect her legs were plastered to them instead. The safari hat meant to shade her head felt as though it weighed half a ton. The mud sucked at her boots. The energy-sapping heat dragged at her. She was beginning to sincerely regret having left Diablo tethered at camp where he could munch leaves all day.
    Rod, on the other hand, looked disgustingly unfazed by the temperature, the humidity or the terrain. Cara wanted to punch him.
    She tried concentrating on the water instead. The surface of the river was still and smooth and gray in the morning light. It captured the reflection of the surrounding trees as effectively as a mirror. Shrouded by a pale, silvery mist that was just beginning to lift, the setting was hauntingly beautiful and mysterious, unlike anyplace she’d ever seen before.
    Then, when she estimated they had gone no more than a couple of miles farther, they suddenly came upon an area of destruction. The green undergrowth gave way to barren land darkened by fire. The towering mahogany trees had been felled, and only charred stumps remained. She felt as though she’d stumbled into the aftermath of a particularly violent war. A chill swept through her.
    â€œWhat happened?” she asked, a note of horror in her voice.
    â€œCivilization,” Rod said cryptically. “Everyone wants a piece of it. There’s only half the virgin rain forest now that there was in 1940.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œThe trees were very valuable. Oil was discovered. The military claims it needs the area to protect the border with Guatemala. Now the national power company comes along and wants to flood huge regions for a whole series of dams.”
    â€œBut the land, it looks as though it’s been through a forest fire.”
    â€œThat’s one way of describing it. Actually, there’s a method of fanning used by those who immigrated to this part of Mexico at the urging of the government. It’s called slash and burn. They strip a section by burning it off, then use it until the soil is robbed of any nutrients. When they can’t grow the vegetables, cotton or tobacco on it any longer, they abandon it and move on. I’m surprised you didn’t notice it on the drive from San Cristobal to Palenque.”
    â€œI did. I wondered about it then, but I’d assumed there had been some sort of forest fire there. I didn’t expect to find the same thing here. The mention of a tropical rain forest conjures up images of unspoiled land with all sorts of lush foliage, not this.”
    â€œThese people have to eat. They’re not concerned about