So call me Katherine Hepburn and marry me of to Humphrey Bogart ....

Margo would have settled for Malcolm Moore's strong arms in a flash. She missed him desperately, particularly at night like this when the screams of hunting leopards and dying animals drifted on the wind like clouds of enveloping mosquitoes. Every time she heard another wild scream on the night air she wanted to grab her rifle, but tonight Margo was so tired she could scarcely pick up the M-1 carbine.

I'm sorry, Malcolm, she found herself thinking again and again, I was rotten and selfish and I didn't mean it ....

Another drenching summer storm broke over them near midnight, jolting Margo from fitful sleep. Kynan stood watch, a ghostly figure in the flash and flare of African lightning. Koot van Beek, bedded down in his sleeping bag, stirred briefly then went back to sleep.

How could anyone sleep through this?

Lightning screamed through the clouds, slashed downward into trees and the river, dancing and splashing insanely across jagged, arc-lit boulders. Margo was too tired to flinch every time it struck, but fear jolted her with every bolt, nonetheless. Don't let it strike us ....

Then the rain struck, a solid mass of black, stinging water. Margo coughed and rolled onto her tummy, pulling the sleeping bag right over her head. Water roared louder than ever down the swollen Limpopo.

I'll hear that sound in my grave, Margo moaned Why'd we have to arrive in the rainy season? Then, because she was no longer able to hide from her own folly and its cost, Good thing it is or we'd really be in a jam. Rafting out two-hundred-fifty miles still beat walking it. Which they'd have had to do, lugging gear every step of the way, if this had been the dry season.

Oh, Malcolm, I really screwed up .... She had to get back, not just to prove she could scout and survive it, but to apologize to Malcolm for the cruel thing she'd done to him. It was too late to pursue what might have been the most wonderful relationship in her life, but she could at least apologize.

When, at some later, miserable point in the night, water lapped against Margo's cheek, Margo thought groggily the rain must've seeped into her sleeping bag. Then Kynan Rhys Gower appeared in a strobe-flash of lightning, drenched and white-faced. "Margo!" he cried, -pointing toward the nearest edge of the raft. "River!"

The raft was bobbing madly against its moorings.

Huh?

She wriggled free of her sodden sleeping bag. The river had risen swiftly-and rose visibly higher over the next few lightning flashes.

"Koot! Koot, wake up!"

He reacted sluggishly, fighting his way toward consciousness while she shook him. One good look at the rising river brought him to his feet, swearing in Afrikaans.

"Drag her higher!" Margo shouted

"No use! Look!" He pointed inland.

Lightning revealed a tangle of impenetrable forest. At the rate the water was rising, the whole tangle would be multiple feet deep in flood waters at least five hundred yards inland from where they floated, probably within another hour.

"Can we ride this out where we are?" Margo called above the sound of river, rain, and thunder.

"Don't know. Rapids downstream looked bad!

A terrifying crack nearly on top of them jolted the raft. Margo screamed. One whole end of the raft disappeared underwater. Kynan scrambled across the tilted deck, knife in hand. The raft jerked, thrashed under the tug of something monstrous. Lightning showed them why: one of their anchor trees had come down.

"Cut the cable! Cut it!" Koot van Beek screamed.

Kynan was already sawing at the taut cable where it vanished underwater. It parted strand by strand, then snapped. The raft lurched and spun sideways. Kynan went overboard with a hoarse yell. Margo lunged forward. Lightning revealed him clinging to a broken PVC pipe with one hand.

"Koot!"

The Afrikaner didn't answer. Margo wrapped both hands around Kynan's wrist. He flailed and caught her arm with his other hand. She lost him in the darkness between flashes, aware of him only through the tenuous contact of hand on wrist. Margo pulled, but her upper body strength was a pitiful match for the tug of the river.

"KOOT!"

The raft slammed around into something hard. Kynan yelled and barely hung onto her arm. Margo sobbed for breath and used toes to dig for the severed cable behind her. She found it and scooted one knee forward until the broken end was under her cheek.

"Kynan! Hold on!"

She drew a breath for courage -then let go with one hand and snatched the cable. Kynan yelled

Margo flung the cable around him.

He grabbed for it as his grip on the raft broke loose.

Margo hung onto one end and Kynan clung to the other. Please... Margo sobbed under her breath. She rolled over and scooted backwards, hauling with the leverage of arms and legs this time. Kynan's arms appeared over the edge. Then his head and back appeared. He slithered forward, clutching at the cable, the PVC, anything he could grasp Margo pulled until Kynan had wriggled completely onto the raft. Then she fell backwards, panting.

Grimly, Margo tied herself to a lifeline and tied one around the gasping Welshman. Koot was fighting to secure the raft to another tree, braced on one foot and one knee while he struggled with coiled cable and vicious wind and current.

"KOOT! TIE A LIFELINE!"

Before he could respond, another tree went CRACK! The raft lurched underfoot. Margo fell flat. She caught a glimpse of Koot in a strobe-flare of lightning. He was sawing frantically at the other cable with his own knife. Then they spun free. The river sucked them downstream. Margo whimpered, but forced herself to crawl forward.

"Get a lifeline on!" she shouted at him.

Koot, looking numb and shaken, fumbled for a rope.

Then lightning flared and Margo caught sight of the rapids.

"Oh, God ... Oh, GOD..."

Margo groped blindly for a paddle, a pole, anything she could use to shove off those looming rocks. The river spat them at those rapids like a watermelon seed in a millrace. Margo found breath to scream just once. Then she was fighting for survival in the strobe-lit night. Every time lightning flared, she shoved the paddle at anything that looked dark. Usually the paddle connected sickeningly with solid stone, jarring her whole body with bruising force. The raft spun, lurched, plunged through the darkness. Spray and rain battered them. Margo couldn't hear anything but the roar of water. If anyone yelled for help, she'd never hear them.

Another shock shook them. A rock nobody'd seen. The whole raft shuddered, bounced off, rocked sideways over a lip of water, dropped sickeningly. The impact jarred her breath out, then they plunged on. She had no idea half the time if she faced upriver or down. Another jolt shook the raft It can't take much more of this, it'll come apart on us ...

The raft lurched-then either it or Margo was abruptly airborne. Margo screamed. She came down in the water. The muddy Limpopo closed over her head. Margo fought to find her lifeline. The current was savage. She couldn't move against it She swallowed water, strangled, knew that if she hit a submerged rock, she would die.

Her face broke the surface. She was moving...

Kynan Rhys Gower grabbed her hair and pulled. Margo groped for his arm, his waist. She slithered forward into his lap. The raft rocked violently, spun in a new direction ...

Then quieted.

They still raced through the darkness like a cork over Niagara Falls, but they'd made it alive through the rapids.

Margo quietly threw up in Kynan's lap, disgorging the water she'd swallowed. He pounded her back, helping her cough it out. Then he helped her sit up and made sure she'd suffered no broken bones. Margo winced a few times, but the worst she'd endured was bruises. Koot watched silently.