Restless Soul - Alex Archer [45]
And get a film crew, she thought.
The trail was narrow and well traveled, as evidenced by the utter lack of vegetation on it. But it was also slick with mud, and the still-pounding rain had created a gully stretching roughly down the center of it. The depression was caused by a vehicle, she decided after a quick look, most likely a motorcycle—and that meant the possibility of fast transportation. With a fifty-fifty chance on picking the right direction, Annja chose to follow the trail east, away from the main river and the gunmen. The insects were thick and formed a cloud around her head; she gave up on batting them away.
If the gunmen found this trail, they would also see her tracks, as she had little choice but to slog through the mud if she wanted to follow it. The trees and bushes that grew along the sides were too thick to walk through, and so it was either the trail or look for another route entirely. She hoped that if the gunmen did find this trail, they would be so many minutes behind her that it would not matter, that she and Zakkarat and Luartaro would be safely ensconced in a village.
Annja looked at her watch, curious how much time they’d spent in the mountain. But the crystal had cracked and it was water filled. It had stopped at 11:10 a.m. She paused and turned to ask Luartaro if his watch had fared better, instead deciding that just like the lyrics to an old Chicago song, it didn’t really matter what time it was. She knew it wasn’t yet evening; despite the dark gray clouds, there was too much light for that.
“You all right, Annja?”
“Fine, Lu,” she answered after a moment, and resumed her slogging trek, straddling the gulley as she went. She was fine, but she was also tired and her muscles burned from the day’s ordeal, and so she knew her companions were not faring any better. “I’m fine.”
It didn’t take them long to reach the end of the trail, which opened onto a small village. The trio breathed a collective sigh of relief. The village consisted mostly of bamboo and thatch-woven buildings, with a few made of sheet-metal panels. Most of them were small with open doorways. But two of the structures were long and shaped like shoe boxes, as if they might serve as a community meeting house and a school. These two had several windows, all with shutters closed against the still-driving rain.
Benches and stools stretched along the outer walls and near some of the muddy paths that wound around the buildings and rain-battered flower and herb gardens. There were no signs of modern amenities, such as power lines or electric lights or—to Annja’s dismay—vehicles. Still, to Annja’s eyes the village seemed beautiful—primitive and peaceful, almost magical, as if such a village might have looked just like this a thousand years ago. It was as if time had stood still in this part of the Thailand jungle, and the residents had happily allowed the world to advance elsewhere.
She wished she had come here under different circumstances so she could enjoy it.
She saw several villagers crowded on a bench beneath the awning of one of the large buildings. Under another overhang, children played with a small white dog. She watched as a few youths darted out into the rain in a game of tag. Near them, a boy floated a wooden toy boat in a big puddle.
The people wore simple clothes—sleeveless shirts and straight pants without pockets. The colors were mostly green and pink pastels, with a smattering of khaki. The children were dressed mostly in robin’s-egg blue, a few of them with bright red shorts that stood out.
Annja tugged her shirt out of her waistband and covered the gun stuck there. As she brushed aside a large fern leaf and edged into the village, the people saw her and came out from under their shelters to meet them, a dozen voices