Lindsay McKenna - Morgan's Mercenaries - Heart of the Warrior

“Will she listen to me, though? When it counts?”

Shrugging, Mike said, “If you gain her respect and trust, the answer is yes. But you don’t have much time to do either.”

“Where am I to meet her? Hopefully, it will be without Marcellino and his company.”

“On the riverfront, near Manaus, where the two great rivers combine to create the Amazon.”

“How will you get in touch with her?”

Houston gave him a lazy smile. “I’ll touch base with her in my dream state.”

Roan stood there for a second absorbing Houston’s statement. “You’re a member of the Jaguar Clan, too?”

“Yes, I am.”

Roan nodded. He vividly recalled the experience he’d had earlier—the dream of the woman with willow-green eyes. “What color are Inca’s eyes?” he asked.

Mike gave him a probing look. He opened his mouth to inquire why Roan was asking such a question, and then decided against it. “Green.”

“What shade?”

“Ever seen a willow tree in the spring just after the leaves have popped out?”

“Many times.”

“That color of green. A very beautiful, unique color. That’s the color of Inca’s eyes.”

“I thought so….” Roan said, his own eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he realized he and Inca might have already met….

Inca was lonely. Frowning, she shifted on the large stack of wooden crates where she sat, her booted feet dangling and barely touching the dry red soil of the Amazon’s bank. Her fine, delicately arched brows knitted as she studied the ground. In Peru, they called the earth Pachamama, or Mother Earth. Stretching slightly, she gently patted the surface with the sole of her military boot. The dirt was Mother Earth’s skin, and in her own way, Inca was giving her real and only mother a gentle pat of love.

Sighing, she looked around at the humid mid-afternoon haze that hung above the wide, muddy river. The sun was behind the ever-present hazy clouds that hugged the land like a lover. Making a strangled sound, Inca admitted sourly to herself she didn’t know what it was to feel like a lover. The only thing she knew of romantic love was what she’d read about it from the great poets while growing up under Father Titus’s tutelage.

Did she want a lover? Was that why she was feeling lonely? Ordinarily, Inca didn’t have to deal with such an odd assortment of unusual emotions. She was so busy that she could block out the tender feelers that wound through the heart like a vine, and ignore them completely. Not today. No, she had to rendezvous with this man that her blood brother, Michael Houston, had asked her to meet. Not only that, but she had to work with him! Michael had visited her in the dream state several nights earlier and had carefully gone over everything with her. In the end, he’d left it up to Inca as to whether or not she would work as a guide for Colonel Marcellino—the man who wanted to kill her.

Her lips, full and soft, moved into a grimace. Always alert, with her invisible jaguar spirit guide always on guard, she felt no danger nearby. Her rifle was leaning against the crates, which were stacked and ready to take down the Amazon, part of the supplies Colonel Marcellino would utilize once they met up with him and his company downriver.

She was about to take on a mission, so why was she feeling so alone? So lonely? Rubbing her chest, the olive-green, sleeveless tank top soaked with her perspiration from the high humidity and temperature, Inca lifted her stubborn chin.

She had a mild curiosity about this man called Roan Storm Walker. For one thing, he possessed an interesting name. The fact that he was part Indian made her feel better about this upcoming mission. Indians shared a common blood, a common heritage here in South America. Inca wondered if the blood that pumped through Walker’s veins was similar to hers, to the Indians who called the Amazon basin home. She hoped so.

Her hair, wrapped in one thick, long braid, hung limply across her right shoulder with tendrils curling about her face. Inca looked up expectantly toward the asphalt road to Manaus. From the wooden wharves around her, tugs and scows ceaselessly took cargo up and down the Amazon. Right now, at midday, it was siesta time, and no one was in the wharf area, which was lined with rickety wooden docks that stuck fifty or so feet off the red soil bank into the turbid, muddy Amazon. Everyone was asleep now, and that was good. For Inca, it meant less chance of being attacked. She was always mindful of the bounty on her head. Wanted dead or alive by the Brazilian government, she rarely came this close to any city. Only because she was to meet this man, at Michael’s request, had she left her rain forest home, where she was relatively safe.

Bored by sitting so long, Inca lifted her right arm and unsnapped one of the small pouches from the dark green nylon web belt she always wore around her slender waist. On the other side hung a large canteen filled with water and a knife in a black leather sheath. On the right, next to the pouch, was a black leather holster with a pistol in it. In her business, in her life, she was at war all the time. And even though she possessed the skills of the Jaguar Clan, good old guns, pistols and knives were part and parcel of her trade as well.

Easing a plastic bag out of the pouch, Inca gently opened it. Inside was a color photo of Michael and Ann Houston. In Ann’s arms was six-month-old Catherine. Inca hungrily studied the photo, its edges frayed and well worn from being lovingly looked at so many times, in moments of quiet. She was godmother to Catherine Inca Houston. She finally had a family. Pain throbbed briefly through her heart. Abandoned at birth, unwanted, Inca had bits and pieces of memories of being passed from village to village, from one jaguar priestess to another. In the first sixteen years of her life, she’d had many mothers and fathers. Why had her real parents abandoned her? Had she cried a lot? Been a bad baby? What had she done to be discarded? Looking at the photo of Catherine, who was a chubby-cheeked, wide-eyed, happy little tyke, Inca wondered if she’d been ugly at birth, and if that was why her parents had left her out in the rain forest to die of starvation.

The pain of abandonment was always with her. Wiping her damp fingers on the material of the brown-green-and-tan military fatigues she wore, she skimmed the photo lightly with her index finger. She must have been ugly and noisy for her mother and father to throw her away. Eyes blurring with the tears of old pain, Inca absorbed the smiling faces of Michael and Ann. Oh, how happy they were! When Inca saw Mike and Ann together she got some idea of what real love was. She’d been privileged to be around these two courageous people. She’d seen them hold hands, give each other soft, tender looks, and had even seen them kissing heatedly once, when she’d unexpectedly showed up at their camp.

He’s coming.

Instantly, Inca placed the photo back into the protective plastic covering and into the pouch at her side, snapping it shut. Her guardian, a normally invisible male jaguar called Topazio, had sent her a mental warning that the man known as Storm Walker was arriving shortly. Standing, Inca felt her heart pound a little in anticipation. Michael had assured her that she would get along with Roan. Inca rarely got along with anyone, so when her blood brother had said that she had eyed him skeptically. Her role in the world was acting as a catalyst, and few people liked a catalyst throwing chaos into their lives. Inca could count on one hand the people who genuinely liked her.

The slight rise of the hill above her blocked her view, so she couldn’t see the approach of the taxi that would drop this stranger off in her care. Michael had given her a physical description of him, saying that Roan was tall with black hair, blue eyes and a build like a swimmer. Mike had described his face as square with some lines in it, as if he’d been carved out of the rocks of the Andes. Inca had smiled at that. To say that Roan’s face was rough-hewn like the craggy, towering mountains that formed the backbone of South America was an interesting metaphor. She was curious to see if this man indeed had a rugged face.