stood behind the trunk of a palm and thick vegetation rose almost to my chin.
The airplane stopped, the engines were cut, and gradually the two propellers lost their momentum. A door cracked open, hinged down, and a flight of steps unfolded.
The first man to clatter down the steps wore a gray cowboy hat and blue jeans, though he was approaching middle age. His face was worn, and his eyes darted about warily.
He was followed by the white-bearded man with the black hat I had seen through the porthole window of the Cessna. He was dressed in a black cassock cinched by a rope belt. Priest or rabbi, I thought, calm and curious.
The two men waited while the pilot took off his headphones. As he turned, I saw only the sleeve and shoulder of a distinctly European gray tweed jacket with black suede patches at the elbows. Through the narrow window of the cockpit, the pilot appeared to be straightening the knot of his tie. I had forgotten men did that. His gesture spoke of manners and civilization. As he appeared in the open door of the airplane, I was thinking no one but an Englishman would straighten his tie before greeting the jungle, and then I shrieked in recognition. “Gabriel!” I charged out of the clearing onto the asphalt.
His body jerked to attention, his face opened in joyful disbelief as he descended the stairs and ran toward me, a laptop computer case in one hand. The other arm flung open wide as a door. The asphalt surprised the soles of my bare feet, but I ran hard across the surface. The other two men drew back and turned their shoulders as though bracing against an assault. From my old friend of the proper British tweed, I had never received such a welcoming and joyful smile.
Could it be? Could it be? My arms were around his neck; he was saying, “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,” and I inhaled the wool of his jacket. I could not restrain myself from sobbing. Here he was. He had come after me. A sane and capable man. An old friend, the essence of civilization. I was saved. How soothing the words he spoke, but I could not understand their meaning. His presence, his solid, well-clothed body. These were reality.
To the other men, Gabriel said casually, “You can get back into the plane.” I understood that much from his utterances. To me, he looked down and smiled. “Let’s get out of the sun.” With his fingers lightly on my shoulder, he steered me across the tarmac toward the edge of the jungle, into the shade.
“Now let me look at you,” he said, placing both hands on my shoulders. “You’ve made yourself something quite different to wear,” he teased. “And what’s this familiar cord?” He fingered the narrow black silk around my neck as he continued speaking. “Thom’s old flash drive worn like a millstone. I should have known. Didn’t you miss me a bit, Lucy, here in the wilderness?”
I laughed, tried to steady myself, and replied in a mirroring, somewhat British manner, “Gabriel, I simply can’t say how glad I am to see you. And very surprised. And thoroughly, completely, overwhelmingly grateful.”
His blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. He looked younger. There was nothing cynical in his face.
“Thank you,” I added. “Thank you very, very much.”
“I say, don’t I rate a kiss?”
I kissed him immediately and fully on the lips, and he kissed me back. A thoroughly satisfactory kiss for a daytime greeting. Appropriate. Reassuring. Nothing like Adam’s tender, lingering nighttime passion.
“I suppose I should do this more often,” he said, grinning. “But I am surprised—the way you just popped out of the greenery, orange as a pumpkin, onto the runway. To tell you the truth, I thought we’d have to hack through a bit of brush to get to you.”
“I saw the plane come in for a landing. A runway! In the middle of the jungle.”
“A bumpy one, to be sure. Don’t you have any luggage, my lady?”
“Luggage? How did you find me?” In my mind’s eye, I saw the French horn case, but how would Gabriel know of that? “You’ve come with a strange pair of fellow travelers,” I said with sudden caution. “Who in the world?”
“They are an odd duo, aren’t they? You can get acquainted as we fly back. A cowboy, American, of course. Actually he’s a broker. An ultra-Orthodox Jew of some sort.”
I felt sobriety rising up in my body like dark water in