The Last Eden

Taylor Lindsay

© copyright November 1999 Linda Taylor

Cover art by Judith Huey

New Concepts Publishing

http://www.newconceptspublishing.com

Part One

1979, The Amazon Rain Forest, Brazil, South America

chapter 1

The red feather clutched in her fist, McKay cast a wary glance up to the tree tops. Leaves rustled in a phantom breeze, leaves that hid the many faces of the Others from her sight. A shiver slid up McKay's spine. She could sense them; ever-vigilant eyes narrowed in the search, ears that missed nothing strained to hear the thunder of her heart.

Fighting off a wave of dizziness, McKay clung to the mossy pupugna trunk, crushing the feather. Her toes curled around the slender limb on which she balanced as it swayed beneath her bare feet. Breath catching in her throat, she watched her sudden movement break a beam of green sunlight into a dappled shadow so far below.

McKay heard a muffled whimper. Eyes tracking every sound, at last she spotted the tips of Willy's fingers, wrapped around another tree. Tucking the feather behind one ear, McKay shimmied down the trunk onto a thicker limb. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, shutting the falling dream from her mind. Invincible once more, McKay opened her eyes. Grappling at woody vines, she leaped from limb to limb as surefootedly as if she had sprouted magic wings. She turned once just to check, a flush of embarrassment warming her face.

McKay stood beside him, panting. Trying to hide a grimace as he hopped from one foot to the next, Willy managed a crooked smile. McKay gasped, mute, pointing a shaking finger at an army of angry ants.

Cupim, the natives called the nests, home of kuna kuna, and they warned the Americans away from the ants on the day they arrived in the Unghatti forest. Before this moment McKay hadn't actually understood why.

Nestled in the fork of the tree, ants built their fortress of wood they'd gnawed to a powdery fineness then mixed with their own saliva. This concoction was then sculpted into turrets and arches and moats by ten thousand tiny legs, trampled to a hardness by ten thousand tiny feet. It might have been a beautiful thing, McKay decided, if Willy hadn't gone and jammed his foot inside. Ants marched up both his legs, droning like a machine. Unwittingly, Willy had become the hostage, poor unsuspecting Gulliver, the ants, the Lilliputians, inflicting their fiery bites and leaving welts the size of silver dollars on every inch of Willy's legs.

He bit down on his quivering lower lip, squeezing his eyes shut, refusing to cry out. McKay set her jaw and with one enormous effort, pressed both hands into Willy's behind, heaving him out of the nest and farther up the tree trunk, his feet scrambling for the next branch. Unleashing her fury on the ants that had dared attack her Willy, McKay kicked with all her might at the nest, sending it and the stunned colony of ants tumbling through the air.

The nest fell to the mossy forest floor with a soft thud and promptly split in two. McKay fancied she could see the panicked ants scatter in every direction. "Stupid kuna kuna," she whispered to the ground, "worthless, stupid ants."

Ominously out of place, she heard the crackle of a twig someplace behind her, and McKay jumped, tottering for one split second on the branch. The Others. Hairs on her arms prickling, heart pounding, she turned her head inch by cautious inch. McKay sighed, enormously relieved.

It was only Tikitu. She seemed to have grown much smaller than she already was, the tiny Unghatti native girl, her arms tucked tight against her sides, huge brown eyes rolling anxiously first one way, then the other.

Dad and Uncle Max told McKay that as far as they could tell, the girl was probably eleven, or maybe somewhere near McKay's own age: the ripe old age of twelve. Yet Tikitu didn't even clear the top of McKay's shoulder. In this one instance, she thought, being small was a definite advantage. Tikitu could almost disappear in the shifting shadow and light, unlike McKay, who aside from being taller than most of her friends back home, had wild red hair like a bush sprouting from her head and was covered with freckles all the way to her toes.

McKay took the feather from behind her ear and Tikitu cautiously reached forward. At that moment the forest came alive with the whoops and hollers of the Others. Leaves shook as if a raging herd of wild boars had somehow learned to climb.

Willy screamed, stuck up in the tree, helpless to get either up or down. "The rock!" he cried, pointing to the great stone in the middle of the clearing.

Tikitu snatched the feather from McKay and dropped the whole distance to the ground, gathering herself into a little rolling ball then unfolding and springing to her feet. Branch by branch, McKay carefully picked her way downward, but the moment her feet hit the ground she was running for Tikitu. She heard them drop from the trees behind her, the Others, their feet pounding the earth.

Pumping her long legs, McKay closed the gap and was soon running alongside Tikitu. She drew in ragged breaths, the rock in the clearing now so tantalizingly close she could almost feel its pulsing heat. Mid-stride, Tikitu passed the feather back to McKay and fell behind while McKay raced forward, the red feather clutched to her breast.

Bristling with nervous excitement, McKay heard the footsteps draw closer, imagined she felt the sear of hot breaths against the back of her neck. Still, she was confident she would escape, for she'd proven she could outrun any of them. Even Luta.

Well, one time, anyway.

Luta grunted as he launched himself into the air and dove at McKay's legs, clawing at her ankles before he ever hit the ground. McKay fell three steps from the stone, the breath knocked from her lungs. Luta's steely fingers welded themselves around her ankles like a shackle, and at least for the moment, McKay was undeniably his prisoner.

Panting, Luta pushed McKay to her back, enclosing her neck in his strong fingers, pressing against her windpipe until she could barely draw breath.

"Please," she squeaked. Then, with a contrived smile plastered on her face--partly because Luta did not understand a single word of English, but mostly because McKay hated him more than she'd ever hated another human being--she said, "You filthy, disgusting pig, you."

Luta's arrogant smile severed his face like a knife. Sun glinted behind his head, outlining the spikes of his hair in a halo of light. McKay fastened her eyes on the livid white scar zig-zagging its way across Luta's cheek. Peccary teeth, Tikitu said, mark of the vicious peccary, Luta's totem. His flinty eyes lingered on the fist she held to her breast. Gritting her teeth, McKay held the feather tighter still. She'd never give up this feather to Luta. No, she'd rather die at the hands of the beast than loose the game to him.

Straddling her, Luta released his death-grip on her neck, his breaths still coming fast and hard. McKay wriggled free of his grasp for an instant, flipping over to her stomach before Luta leaned into her again, imprisoning her with his weight and his powerful hands.

She uncurled her stiff, cramped fingers, and, as if blowing a kiss goodbye, puffed the red feather into the air. It floated for a moment as Luta swiped at the breeze, missing once, then twice, then three times. McKay felt time itself pause to watch as the feather swirled upward, then came to rest on the rock in the clearing. Victory hers at last, McKay's laughter chimed through the wooded land.

The late afternoon sky, pregnant with rain, hung hot and heavy and wet, and made her hair stick to her face like a fever. The thick rotten-ripe smell of decay seeped from the ground and filled the air, crowding out the oxygen, making it almost too difficult to draw breath. It was this smell, McKay knew, she'd always think of first when she remembered her summer in Brazil.

Nothing her dad, Peter Fine, said could have adequately prepared her for the miserable realities of life in the rain forest, but he had been right about one thing; her summer would be memorable. At nine weeks, three days, eleven hours and counting, it had turned out to be hotter, wetter, and longer than she could ever have imagined. She would never forget this, not even if she tried.

McKay used the hem of her shirt to twist off the cap of an orange soda that'd been hauled into the Unghatti village from Three Falls, a few miles up the Bindadnay River. She took a long gulp. What she wouldn't give to trade places with any one of her friends back home about now. . .

"Why can't we just be like everyone else?" she had shouted, months ago.

Peter Fine looked shocked, as if the thought had never occurred to him before. "You would pass up this chance to travel to the Amazon? Think of it, McKay. You could share in the glory of discovering the cure for cancer. Your name would go down in history--"

"This is my summer vacation. I want to see my friends. I want to go to the movies and eat pizza and hang out at the mall. I want to lie around all day and watch t.v.."

He looked at her like an experiment gone bad. "This trip will expand your mind. You'll meet new people, see how the rest of the world lives."

"But Dad, I don't want to expand anything at all! Why can't I just stay home like everyone else? Mom!"

"Because you'd be stuck here all summer long with nothing to do, that's why," Nancy Fine said. "Your father will be off halfway around the world, and with my thesis taking up every spare minute of my time--"

McKay didn't easily give up. "Granny will be here."

"Absolutely not!" her parents said in unison, without missing a beat. Granny McKay, the grandmother for whom she'd been named, had recently moved into the guest bedroom in their rambling old home in the walnut orchard. Dad said that gave an entirely new meaning to the name, the Fine Nut Farm.

Together Mom and Dad were an immovable force. McKay soon realized she had no choice but to go along with what they'd planned for her. She had to admit she'd had worse vacations, and this wasn't so awful, really. It was simply so hot, so wet, and so terribly long.

McKay sat on the sagging wooden step just outside the makeshift lab. She rolled the bottle of orange soda across her forehead, alternately watching sweat trickle down the backs of her knees and slapping at mosquitos when she heard Willy's secret call.

"Cuckaroo, chick-chick-chick, cuckaroo!"

Willy had really taken this whole native living-on-the-edge thing to the extreme, she thought. Still, she was fond of him, in the way that a mother dog is sometimes fondest of the runt of her litter, the weakest, littlest, slowest pup. Some kind of an instinct, she supposed. A mothering instinct, Uncle Max would say. She could almost hear her dad's rebuttal. "Mothers in the wild eat their young!"

"It'll be good for McKay, to have someone her own age along."

She remembered the other half of that family discussion. They had talked right over her head, as if she were too young to understand.

"I see." Nancy paced the kitchen floor. "You're telling me you'll be responsible for the welfare of two children?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I've seen the results of you trying to keep an eye on McKay, let alone someone else's child."

McKay shuddered--images of the great Mexico City fiasco flashing through her mind: a herd of wild goats and one very angry shopkeeper making a bee line through the central plaza.

Peter said, "Max will be there."

"That's no great comfort. What does a confirmed bachelor know about children?"

"Come on, Nancy." He nuzzled up close to her neck.

"You'll be responsible for the well being of Dwight Alexander's only son? In the jungle?" She was growing weaker by the second.

"Look, Nancy," he said, half-whispering. "I owe him, you know that. When Alexander says jump, I ask how high."

"Willy's a good boy. I suppose he'll keep McKay out of your hair while you're doing your research."

"I knew you'd come around."

"But if either one of them gets hurt--"

"Relax, Nancy. They'll be as safe as if they'd stayed at home."

"And that," she sighed, "is exactly what I am afraid of."

Willy had been her best friend for as long as she could remember, from the time they were both little kids. Though Willy Alexander was one month older than McKay, no one ever would have guessed. Like Tikitu, he too was smaller than she, and prettier, she decided. Blue eyes like a doll, and silky brown hair that after nine weeks, fell over his eyes. He was also a world class sissy. But he was, after all, not quite twelve. There was hope for him yet.

She followed the 'Number One Priority Call' to the side of the lab, where McKay discovered Willy peering through the window. His thin legs were now a crackled reddish-brown from the mud poultices one of the tribal women had laid upon his welts. Moving in a funny, stiff-legged way, he pressed a finger to his lips and motioned her down, and so she played along, creeping up next to him, rising above the window ledge just far enough to see.

Wearing his ever-present pith helmet, even indoors, Uncle Max sat hunkered over a microscope, sliding the glass plate back and forth. Peter Fine paced the warped plank floor, working his jaw, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Uncle Max sighed, switching plates, and Peter raised his clenched fist to the sky.

"Ten weeks! Is that too much to ask, ten lousy, rotten weeks?"

"No, Pete," Uncle Max said, but Peter continued his tirade as if Uncle Max hadn't said anything at all.

"Damn him!" Peter shouted. "Damn that Dwight Alexander!" he screamed and he spat clear across the room and out the window, barely missing Willy and McKay.

They slid down the wall and McKay touched the back of Willy's hand. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know why he does that."

Willy shrugged. "It's okay. I can't stand him either," he said, and then he grinned.

"You don't mean that."

"You don't know." He picked up a small stick and rammed it in the soft earth, and with a flick of his wrist, sent black, wet dirt flying through the air. A leathery beetle, disturbed by the excavation, tramped forward as if to single-handedly defend his territory from Willy. Willy hobbled to his feet, afraid of a bug no bigger than his toe. McKay grabbed the stick from Willy, poking the beetle away, dropping a clod of dirt on it and settling back beside Willy.

"Is he really so awful to you?"

Willy nodded.

"Because I think it's just on account of he's Dad's boss. Uncle Max says Dad has a real problem with authority figures. That means bosses, you know."

"I know what that means, and it's not your dad," Willy said, and he inched back up the wall.

The two men were arguing now, and Uncle Max said, "Maybe he's right."

"Right? Right my ass. The answer's right there, in that salubristatin, but we need more time to prove it. What does he think, we can snap our fingers and finish all the prelims in less than ten weeks? My God, discover the cure for leukemia in eleven?"

"Maybe we can come back."

"Come back! Without more money? You're dreaming, Maxwell. This all takes money, money we ain't got and money Dwight Alexander--" He spat again, and Willy and McKay jumped away from the window as a cannonball of saliva flew through, and Peter Fine's voice was lost to a kind of wild ranting.

A pair of startled toucans squawked and swooped away as McKay poked her head above the crowns of green. She swallowed hard, looking down, then quickly up, her heart leaping in her chest. It wasn't getting any better no matter what she tried. And it wasn't so much a fear of being up, she decided, as it was a fear of everything else being so far below. If she could only keep from looking down. Look outward, she reasoned, willing her knees to stop shaking. Look only out.

As far as the eye could see, this land was a wonder. No National Geographic she studied in preparation for this trip had even come close to doing it justice. From here she glimpsed the scoured canyon walls, womb of the Unghattis, the great Bindadnay River cutting her ancient pathway through the rock.

Unghattis called the river 'her,' this roiling, raging river of brown, and when McKay first arrived, she demanded an explanation.

"Like woman," Uncle Max said, "the river creates both life and death."

Peter added, "And it's capable of getting really pissed off on a whim."

At the feet of the village, the river slowed and fanned over a shallow, sandy beach, hardly Uncle Max's creator of death, if that was the farthest one could see. But from the tops of these trees, looking north and south where the canyon narrowed, the Bindadnay tore at the banks. Sometimes, McKay heard the people say, the river swallowed whole trees during the night, and over the years had stolen a number of the Unghatti themselves. It was the sacrifice they made to the river, the Unghattis explained, the price they willingly paid to the lifegiver.

For when the rains came, the Bindadnay swelled and overflowed her banks, racing through the village. She toppled stilted huts and took with her the meager possessions of the tribe. In their places she left something more highly valued than their homes, more cherished than their best canoes; the Bindadnay deposited a new layer of silt over the leached earth, rich enough in nutrients to grow all the manioc the Unghattis needed to survive another year. And so they gave what they had year after year, decade after decade after century, eking out their simple lives at the edge of the Bindadnay River.

Across the river, clinging to an outcropping at the base of the canyon wall, two white buildings perched, one large, one small, surrounded by a tumbling wall of white. This was the convent of the Carmelite Sisters of Mercy, a group of twenty nuns rumored to be almost as resilient as the Unghattis themselves. Tough old birds, Uncle Max called them, without further explanation.

Like clockwork, just as the sun began to slip below the western canyon wall, the convent bell tolled sweetly. McKay watched as the nuns filed toward their little whitewashed chapel, two perfect rows of tiny black ants from so high above.

McKay sighed, working her way back down the tree, but before she'd even reached the ground, she heard the drums. McKay shivered. Already the magic had begun.

Thump thud, thump thud.

The wavering voices of the nuns echoed off the canyon walls and floated across the river, hymns as old, she supposed, as God Himself. McKay crept forward beneath the trees, the vibrations of the drums growing stronger, coming faster, rising up through the soles of her feet, as if the sound were born of earth itself. She drew near the sacred Unghatti circle, the one place in all the village forbidden to all nappe, the outsiders.

This was their one demand, the one rule the Unghattis imposed upon the Americans. It was no surprise to McKay that this should also be the one place to which she was irresistibly drawn, night after night. Peter and Uncle Max never knew, their minds forever on a dozen little cages of cancer-stricken mice, and Willy--well, Willy was just too scared. She imagined him as she'd found him on any other night, balled up in his hammock, a sheet pulled over his head, the trembling yellow beam of a flashlight tracking every sound.

Quietly, the women and the children of the village came, voices hushed, footsteps falling quick and soft across the jungle floor. Avo, the eldest tribal matriarch came forward with a torch, lighting the fire in an enormous pit lined with blackened river rocks. She took her place of honor, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

McKay watched from behind a tree as flames licked and lunged, straining for the outer limits, yet always falling back to earth. Children fed the flame and soon the fire grew strong, casting golden light over the faces in the circle. Sap snapped and crackled, sparks flung themselves loose and whirled upward until they disappeared from sight.

Drums pulsed, keeping time with the throb of her heart. Another shiver clattered through her bones as she watched the men wind their way through the forest, bronze bodies glistening in the golden light. Men of the Unghatti formed an inner circle, chanting, pounding their drums to some ancestral rhythm that beat within them all. The double circle parted, the women and children, the men, to let the old one through.

He was Hekura, the shaman, a thin, bent twig of a man, his wispy beard of white nearly reaching to his knees. On one cheek he wore his totem, a scar in the shape of a 'Y,' the forked prong of an antelope.

It was hard to imagine Hekura in his youth, at a time when tribal elders considered every boy's totem. Long ago, Hekura had climbed to the tops of the trees and swam the raging river, like other Unghatti boys. Once he had been fleet, he had been strong. Once he had been the antelope. But no more.

In ceremonial gown of red, a tiger skin draped across his chest, Hekura shook his tortoise shell rattles and chanted. He spoke unlike the rest of the Unghattis, in a tongue Tikitu said was so old, all its words had been forgotten. Only Hekura remembered. Soft and welling from deep within his throat, words came like liquid velvet, quickly swallowed by the night. He moved around the circle, shuffle hop, shuffle hop, the stiff, slow dance of a very old man.

Rattle-shaking, shuffle-hopping, and chanting came to a sudden halt. Before the golden motes of dust settled at Hekura's feet, all was silent within the circle. All men fell in beside the women and children, all but one.

That one was Luta.

The pish, pish, pish of the rattles began again slowly, and Hekura moved his feet to the sound of his own quavering voice.

Pish, pish, pish.

"Yah-ey, yah-ey!"

Pish, pish, pish.

Luta stood before the old one, legs straddled, arms crossed over his heaving chest. With furled brow and brooding face, Luta's flinty eyes never left the old man. The shaman danced forward, not in one straight line, but weaving back and forth in the space between him and Luta. At last the two stood toe-to-toe, face-to-face, their profiles sharply defined before the blazing fire; the old one shrunken and bent, the young one, straight and tall. McKay felt herself drawn into their trance.

The shaman crouched in front of the man-child, Luta. He lay his rattles to one side, and from a place beneath the tiger pelt withdrew a knife, fire glinting off its jagged blade. Not a single person breathed, no one moved. Even the forest was silent.

McKay felt the prickle of danger.

And for the smallest second she also felt sympathy for Luta. What had he done to warrant this punishment? What strange Unghatti rite was this, of a people who only fought when they were threatened with death, people who she'd come to know in nine and a half weeks only as kind and gentle?

With the speed of a striking snake, Hekura sliced the ragged cord of Luta's red guayuco and the loincloth fell to his feet. Arms crossed defiantly about his chest, Luta stood before his people, naked, and for all his stony demeanor, breathing fast and hard.

McKay gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. She'd never seen a grown penis before, only baby versions, like on the very youngest of the tribe, and once on her cousin Denny when he was two. That was nothing like this. She could not wrench her eyes away.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion.

She stared. . . as the shaman grasped Luta's penis in his gnarled hand. . . as the blade flashed against the night. . . as the shaman held up the quivering slice of flesh from the end of Luta's penis for everyone to see. . . as Luta did not move a muscle, did not scream. . . as a dark, glistening line of blood trickled down his leg.

And then McKay fainted, crashing to the ground.

chapter 2

A pink fan of light crept over the eastern sky, a joyful reveille that brought the sleeping half of the forest back to life and banished dark, slinking prowlers to their gloomy dens. A choir of red monkeys howled, their vast, strange song filling the forest. Parrots quibbled back and forth. The air grew steadily thicker with the whine of mosquito wings, insects driven by some frantic need to gorge themselves and then to procreate before their lives were snatched.

The Carmelite Sisters of Mercy were already caught up in the ritual of another day in the rain forest. They gathered for Mass before dawn, and afterward the sisters ate their usual breakfast; gruel and hot tea. Now each was already hard at work, assigned to some duty or another that kept their convent going in the smooth way that it had gone for many, many years. Every woman was already busily tending to her own set of tasks, pulling her share of the load.

With the exception of Theresa Bonaparte, that was. She fingered her tea cup, bone china so fine and so translucent, she could see through it to the flowers painted on the opposite side. This cup was out of place. In a world where, at the end of the day, only survival really mattered, it seemed frivolous, even to Theresa. Yet she held it near, this, the only visible remnant of her other life. . . a life she'd left too far behind.

"Idle hands, devil's play."

Theresa smiled wryly at Sister Basil, who was rinsing wild onions beneath the pump at the convent kitchen sink. "I couldn't get to sleep. Some sort of a commotion last night across the river."

"Unghattis?"

Theresa nodded. "I think so, though it was too dark to see much of anything." She stood before the screen door, sipping bitter black tea, gazing out across the river. "Looks like business as usual this morning. I suppose it was nothing to be concerned about after all."

Sister Basil stood beside her, drying her hands on her apron. "They're quiet neighbors, we hardly ever know they're there. Usually any commotion comes from up the river," she motioned with a chapped, red hand, "the Benjis, you know."

"You didn't hear anything?"

Basil shook her head. "After a while, you'll get used to it all."

"Get used to it? You must be joking. I won't be here nearly that long."

An unexpected sharpness tinged Sister Basil's voice. "You might as well accept your cross, Theresa."

Theresa leaned against the door frame. She leveled her chin and gazed unflinchingly into Sister Basil's eyes. "I'm accepting no part of this. . . this purgatory, dreamed up for wayward nuns. Look, I don't know what the rest of you did to deserve this, but I'll tell you one thing. The first chance I get, I'm leaving."

"The order?" Basil gasped.

Theresa shrugged, nonchalantly sipping her tea.

Sister Basil sealed her lips into a thin white line, dropping her eyes to the onions, busily patting them dry with a dish rag. When she spoke again, it was a whisper. "A good sister goes where she is told, without ever questioning why. It's likely that defiant attitude got you here in the first place, Sister."

"No," Theresa said calmly. "It's a stinking old goat of a priest who couldn't keep his hands to himself that got me here."

"Sacrilege!" Basil hissed, and Theresa turned to look out the screen door again, shaking in a fit of silent giggles, but also narrowing her eyes, staring at a speck making its way downriver.

Mother Mary Francis breezed into the room, her jolly laughter ringing through the convent, the string of wooden rosary beads she wore around her ample waist clicking their applause.

"Keep your eyes open for the barge, would you be so kind, Sister Theresa? We're expecting a shipment at any time, perhaps today."

Theresa squinted at the small dark dot, growing larger by the second. "A barge, you say?"

"Crates of antibiotics, praise Jesus. I cannot say I'm proud of what our modern world has given to the natives."

Disease, Theresa knew, and precious little else. How difficult would it be, she wondered, to stow herself away upon a barge? She bit her lower lip and blushed a shade of crimson as Mother Mary Francis turned to face her squarely. The elder woman's lips curved up into a smile, her wide, plain face capable of hiding nothing.

She threw her arms around Theresa, and Theresa fumbled to set her china cup aside. "I'm so happy you have come to us, Theresa, you're a gift from God. We're all so glad to have you, aren't we, Sister Basil?"

"So glad," echoed Basil, hacking onions into tiny pieces.

Theresa's pulse quickened. "I'm going--fishing," she murmured, her eyes transfixed upon the object floating down the river.
"Fishing, you say?" said Mother Mary. "I'll help you bring them in."

Theresa turned toward her, swallowing hard. She'd beg a ride downriver. She was a captive, she would say to whomever drove the barge, held here against her will. The convent? No, not here, but a few miles down the river. But Mother Mary must not know, and she must go alone.

"Alone," Theresa said, finding her voice, "I'd like to go alone."

"But then who will gather the fish?"

"Gather the fish?"

"That's right," said Mother Mary, and she took out an enormous basket from one cupboard, and. . . a quarter stick of dynamite from another.

Theresa gasped, making the Sign of the Cross.

Mother Mary laughed, her belly shaking with her mirth. "Not what Jesus had in mind when he called us to be fishers of men? Come, let me show you how this is done, Benji style!" Mother Mary grasped Theresa by one hand, and Theresa found she had no choice but to follow, her veil flapping behind her. Theresa cast a despairing glance toward the river. She saw it clearly now; a canoe.

Mother Mary stood at the water's edge, unaware, perhaps just unconcerned with the canoe wending its way slowly down the river. She produced a wooden match, and striking it on the back of the cross that dangled from her waist, lit the fuse of the dynamite. Or rather, she tried, as the match spluttered valiantly before the small flame died. A second match she lit in this same way, but this time, a gust of wind came out of nowhere, and this match too went out. Smiling at Theresa, Mother Mary lit another, cupping her hands about the tiny blue flame.

"Third time's a charm." She winked at Theresa, and apparently it was, for the flame latched on to the short fuse.

"Throw it! Throw it!" Theresa cried.

Mother Mary pulled her arm back and lobbed the quarter stick of dynamite nearly to the center of the river.

The explosion rocked the ground beneath their feet, and great bubbles issued forth from the belly of the river. Fish floated like a miracle to the top.

"Then we do this, see," Mother Mary said. She grasped the back of her long black robe between her legs and with an expert twist, tucked the neat bundle into the front of her rosary-belt. It made a sort of pantaloon, Yul Brynner in The King and I, thought Theresa.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

"What?"

"Nothing, Mother," Theresa mumbled. She bent over, hiding her smile. Grasping the back of her robe, Theresa clumsily tucked a crumpled fistful of black material into the rosary at her own waist.

Mother Mary waddled out knee-deep into the current, dragging the huge basket behind her. She picked up the unconscious fish, one, two, three at a time and tossed them in. Across the river, a dozen Unghatti women appeared at the shoreline, fishing nets slung over their shoulders. The women threw their nets onto the water in wide arcs, snagging fish as they floated to the Unghatti side of the river. Mother Mary gave a perky wave hello. Sister Theresa let out a little scream.

"Not to worry, they're harmless," Mother Mary said, still scooping fish, but she did not see what Theresa saw.

A dugout canoe slid quietly toward them, rocking gently to and fro in the muddied waters of the Bindadnay. Inside, a man and woman lay face-to-face, toe-to-toe, bones protruding from their sides like ribs of umbrellas, their dark skin, taught and rigid. Flies lighted on their open eyes and in their open mouths.

Theresa waded out waist high, struggling against the current, and with all her might pulled the canoe aground. Mother Mary threshed through the water, panting. Abandoned and already half-submerged, the basket of fish floated away.

"Are they dead?"

Theresa nodded, but both women started as they heard a mewing sound. Theresa gingerly pulled the dead woman toward one side, Mother Mary eased the dead man toward the other. And in between they found an infant boy, still suckling at his mother's breast, the last fruit clinging to a shriveled vine.

***

"What do you think they'll do?" McKay looked up at Uncle Max, placing one shaking hand in his and wiping away hot salty tears with the other.

He pushed his pith helmet back and scratched his sweaty forehead, the way he considered her hardest questions. "You shouldn't have been there, Kay-kay. That was inexcusable."

"Would it help if I said I was sorry?"

"I don't think so, not this time," he said, and a low moan rose up in her throat.

Both Max Fine and McKay looked toward the shaman's hut. The Unghatti men, all thirty of them, had cloistered themselves inside since McKay had been discovered at their circle. They hadn't come out all night, and not since the sun had risen, already hours ago. Even the explosion across the river failed to drive the men out.

Their voices rose and fell, rose and fell as they argued her fate, indeed the fate of all four of the Americans, and all foreigners that should ever venture down the Bindadnay into their territory again. McKay knew she deserved it, whatever the punishment, for she had broken the rule. A day of slavery, carrying wood, cleaning fish, scrubbing the great cooking pot? She heard Luta's voice rise above the others, and a new fear overtook her. Or would her punishment come at the hands of Luta, and would he wear the smile that she had come to hate?

The grass curtain over the doorway of the shaman's hut was lifted. The men marched out single file. Uncle Max squeezed her hand, and McKay looked for Peter and Willy. How like them both to hide when she needed them most, she thought. How very much like them both.

The Unghatti language was a curious one. The natives still spoke a smattering of their ancient tongue, lingua geral, but with a good amount of Spanish and Portuguese mixed in. And perhaps because it wasn't already confusing enough, they peppered their speech with English. Even for Uncle Max, who spoke both fluent English and Spanish and acceptable Portuguese, translating wasn't easy.

"Napagnuma," Tushaua, chief of the Unghattis, said, pointing at McKay. He was flanked on one side by the shaman, on the other, by his nephew, Luta.

"Foreign woman," Uncle Max whispered.

Some signal given, the women and the children gathered in a large half circle about the doorway of the shaman's hut. They were silent, and no one, not even Tikitu, would look her in the eye. The native girl stared at her feet, drawing lines in the dirt with her toes.

"Irma," McKay said softly. A sacred word, irma, the Unghatti word for sister. The two had made a blood pact, pricking their fingers on a monkey bone fishing hook, mixing their blood together. They were sisters--for life. Tikitu's forehead crumpled; she had heard her, unquestionably. But she did not look up.

"Aldeia sair!" said Chief Tushaua, and Uncle Max whispered, "He says you must leave."

McKay dropped her hand from his, watching intently as Luta slipped a hollow bamboo tube from the cord of his guayuco and produced a tiny sheathed arrow that he kept tucked behind his ear. A poisoned dart, Tikitu had told her, fear in her eyes; curare. Luta was rarely without one. His grin grew wide, his teeth flashed bright.

"McKay," Uncle Max said, frowning, but she took one step away. "McKay! What are you doing? Where are you--?"

She turned and ran into the forest.

McKay ran, stumbling over roots that crept along the ground. She bounded over fallen trees, soft with moss and ferns and she ran into the deepest shadows, hiding from the light. She ran until the pupugna trees grew farther and farther apart, until the undergrowth grew thick, branches lashing at her arms and legs, whipping at her face. And still she ran, breaths raking at her throat.

The sounds of the village were far behind her now, and only the distant rush of the river sounded at all familiar. She stopped momentarily, listening for the thud of Luta's footsteps. Somewhere, a single monkey howled, his cry unanswered. But no Luta.

McKay knew she must follow the river. She heard Uncle Max's voice echo in her mind. "Lose the river, and you will never be found."

Lost. A new panic rose inside her.

Relieved, she spied the river through the underbrush, its surface glittering like broken glass beneath the afternoon sun. Like a bad omen, a dark and angry cloud passed overhead, between the sun and McKay, and the river's surface turned a leaden gray. Mosquitos swung low and clung to her arms and legs, biting again and again. The ever-present squawking of the parrots came to an abrupt end.

McKay turned slowly in a circle, the hairs at the base of her neck prickling with a danger she knew but could not see.

"No!" McKay screamed as Luta stepped out from the underbrush, breathing hard but smiling his cruel smile. She walked backward a few steps, stumbling and falling. Luta laughed and walked toward her at a casual pace as she scrambled to her feet.

"Luta, please--"

He moved faster, at a trot, as McKay turned to run toward the river. She looked once back over her shoulder. He was gaining. She pressed ahead still harder, her heart pounding against her ribs, making her head whirl. At last, she'd nearly reached the shores of the Bindadnay.

She would swim.

McKay looked at the fast-moving current.

Or she would drown. Either way, it would be better than to be Luta's prisoner. This time, it wasn't a game.

The whistle of Luta's blow gun broke the eerie silence of the forest, and then McKay heard his poisoned dart slicing through the air. She could not think. The simple truth did not register in her mind. McKay felt the bite of a snake on her calf, too late to realize that it was no snake; Luta's dart had pierced her skin.

In seconds, a bitter taste came to her mouth, so bitter, yet she could not spit it out. McKay ran as the ground beneath her feet tilted and whirled, finally turning completely upside down. Still, McKay was not defeated. On hands and knees she crawled through the red forest, through the red mist, to the red water. Her arms had become the trunks of a tree, her legs, the red, red roots. Finally, McKay could not move at all. She lay on her back, looking up at the red, spinning sky, and she saw Luta's face. He ripped his guayuco away, and she glanced once at his naked body, red too. He tore at her shorts and her shirt. Paralyzed, she could not move away. She only saw the movement in the branches above Luta as light began to fade at its red edges.

She watched a shadow leap from the tree and land on Luta's back. The shadow's scream echoed in McKay's ears. Luta reared up for an instant, his eyes wild, and he came down hard on top of her again. With her last drop of strength, McKay raised her wooden arm and raked her fingernails down one side of Luta's face, his totem side. Warmth and wetness poured from the peccary teeth and onto her face, covering her eyes. Her last thought came.

This time, he'd won.

chapter 3

Astonished, Theresa could not tear her eyes from the tiny native girl. Squirrel-like, the child hunkered over her bowl, shoveling leftover corn meal mush as fast as she could into her mouth, storing it in her already too-full cheeks. River water continued to drip from the girl's shining black hair onto the towel wrapped around her shoulders.

If Theresa hadn't seen the feat with her own eyes, she'd not have believed that such a little thing had managed to swim the river with another girl, half again as big as her, in tow. And if anyone would have told her that this same child had then hoisted the unconscious girl over one of these small shoulders and then lugged her up the pathway to the convent, she'd have said they were lying. But every bit of it was true; she'd witnessed the amazing rescue for herself.

"Unghatti?" Theresa said, pointing to the little waterlogged stranger.

The girl nodded, licking the last of the mush from the bowl. Her shining black eyes darted around the kitchen, as if in search of more food.

Theresa made elaborate signs with her fingers, gesturing to the room where the other child lay. She held one hand out, approximately as tall as the unconscious child, and one hand just above the native girl's head. Then Theresa drew imaginary dots on her own face to symbolize the other child's freckles. Surely, this bright-eyed child would understand. . . ?

The girl watched the show, expressionless, and when Theresa at last rested her hands in her lap, she said, "Nappe, 'Merican."

"You speak English?"

The girl shrugged, holding out the empty bowl to Theresa.

Theresa scraped the last congealed bits of cold mush into her bowl and rushed back to the table. When the last morsel disappeared, Theresa spoke again.

"What happened to her?"

"Luta."

Theresa wracked her brain for the meaning. "Luta happened to her?"

A slow smile spread across the young girl's face, and she used Theresa's own pantomime game. She held one hand to her mouth, her fingers curled in a tight circle, and she puffed a huge breath through the hole. Then the girl wiggled in her seat, as if in the throes of a seizure and fell to the ground. Theresa jumped to her feet in alarm, standing over the child, who lay still on the floor.

The girl frowned, perplexed, her face mirroring Theresa's own puzzlement. The child then pulled the unused spoon that Theresa set by her bowl down to the floor. She went through the same pantomime again, but this time using both her hands as if clenching something long and thin. She blew through her imaginary tube, then thrust the spoon toward her leg and cried, "Ai! Ai! Ai!"

"She was stabbed?"

"Yes," said the girl.

Theresa held out one hand and pulled her, impatiently, up to the chair again. "Then you can speak English."

"Un pequena."

"She must have a father, a mother who has come with her? Surely, she's not here alone?"

The girl answered in an uncertain sing-song voice. "She is nappe, with the others."

Theresa put her hands on the girl's shoulders. "We must bring the others here. She is very, very ill. Do you understand that?" She gave the girl a little shake, but the girl looked away. "What is your name?"

"Tikitu," she said in a sulky voice.

"Look at me. Tikitu. . ." but the girl walked away, toward the screened kitchen door. Theresa dashed ahead and wedged herself in the doorway, blocking the girl's exit. She was breathing hard. "You must help us! You must help your friend!"

The girl, Tikitu, glared at Theresa, and then a ghostly moan floated from behind the closed door of the room across the hall. Tikitu cocked her head to listen, her black eyes growing large.

"You will help us?"

"Tikitu help," she said at last.

Theresa rapped softly at the door and entered, dragging Tikitu by one hand. Mother Mary and another sister, Emmanuel, were hovering over the bed. On a table between them laid a silver tray, and upon it, many shining medical instruments, lined up like little soldiers. Theresa crept closer, peering over Mother Mary's shoulder at the form of the red-haired girl.

She lay on her stomach, her eyes closed, breathing shallow, weak breaths. The girl was unconscious, yet mumbling incoherently beneath her breath, as if fighting her way out of a bad dream. A white sheet covered her in such a way that only the girl's freckled face and the back of her wounded leg showed.

And the leg looked worse than ever. It had been swollen and purple when she arrived, three times the size her other leg, but now, there was a gaping, pulsating wound in the back of her calf. Theresa drew in a sharp breath and stepped back from the bed, black spots dancing before her eyes. The air was suddenly too thick to breathe. Theresa eased herself to the floor.

"The native girl claims she was stabbed," she managed.

"Ah, there you are, Theresa. How is the foundling?"

"Sleeping, finally. Is it a stab wound, as she says?"

"Oh, no, no, no," said Mother Mary, grabbing at a long thin pair of scissors with a gloved hand. She hunched over the unconscious body of the girl again, and Sister Emmanuel handed her one white square of gauze after another. Mother Mary returned those same squares to a corner of the table in a bloody wad. "This is no stab wound," she said, clucking her tongue. "This is curare. She's been shot with a poisoned dart." With a clattering, Mary tossed the broken dart tip onto the silver tray. "All right, now the packing gauze," she said to Emmanuel, and both women leaned over their patient.

"A poisoned dart?" Theresa's head spun. She was trapped in some kind of prehistoric time warp where savages hid in the trees and shot strangers on sight. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe this wasn't purgatory after all, but actually hell. . .

"They're always shooting at each other, Benji against Unghatti, Benji against Yanoama, Yanoama against Benji and Unghatti. But this," she said, pausing for a long moment as her rounded elbows moved busily back and forth, "this surprised me. This was an Unghatti dart. You can tell by the three long grooves in the tip. It's their design. Look for yourself, see?"

"I can't." Theresa's voice was just above a whisper. "You mean to say they shot a little girl?"

Mother Mary answered, "That must be some story."

Emmanuel said, "Tape?" and Mother Mary nodded.

"We'll give her a dose of penicillin to start with while we try to locate someone who knows who she is."

"We've only a little left--"

"Use it," Mother Mary snapped. "God will provide."

Emmanuel nodded obediently and unsheathed a long, silver needle.

Theresa cringed, holding her hands over her eyes. "This girl, Tikitu--?" She glanced from behind her fingers over to the native girl, who nodded. "Tikitu says she came with others."

Mother Mary sighed.

"Should I take the boat across the river, Mother Mary?"

"There is great danger."

"But then how will we--?"

"You are right, of course. It must be done."

***

Tikitu looked anxiously toward the shore. In the heat of the early afternoon, it was nearly always quiet in the village. By this time, the game was snared and cleaned, salted and wrapped in large banana leaves. Pupugna berries were long since picked and washed, manioc bread was shaped in loaves and set upon the coals. Tikitu watched one soft curl of smoke float up to the sky. She sniffed the air and felt her stomach growl. The Unghattis would eat roast fish tonight.

Behind her the nappe steered the little boat. This boat was not like a canoe, no, but made of metal, like the containers the 'Mericans had brought the gifts of corn and peas in. Attached to the rear of the boat was an automatic boat-pusher; motor, the nappe said. She knew the oily biting smell of the smoke from the motor. It was not totally foreign, yet not pleasant either. It made her wrinkle her nose to push the smell away, in the way that um peido, the wind that came from the stomach after too many bananas were eaten, always did.

The front of the boat scraped the sandy river bottom, and Tikitu hopped out of the boat.

"Wait! Tikitu, wait!" the nappe said, but Tikitu left her there tying up her shiny metal boat to a tree trunk that reached out toward the Bindadnay.

Tikitu ran silently through the forest, slipping in and out of shadows until she could see the clearing. She climbed the pupugna, settling into the cradle of a branch, as motionless as the tree itself.

Luta stood in the clearing, his chest thrust out in the proud way he had. He was breathing hard, his voice so high and clear and loud that the Unghattis left their hammocks to see for themselves what had happened. Though Luta could not see her, Tikitu could see him. The blood on Luta's face was dried, nearly black, his mark from McKay. But he wore Tikitu's mark as well. . .

. . . She'd vaulted from the high branch to Luta's back, knocking him off of McKay. When Luta turned to look, Tikitu clubbed him with a stick, and she saw now the great purple bruise left in the center of his forehead. His eyes rolled up in his head and Luta fell to the ground. And then Tikitu dragged McKay into the water, swimming as fast and as hard as she could to reach the other shore. . .

The villagers gathered around Luta. Even old Hekura crawled from his hammock and came forward.

"I chased her. I killed the napagnuma, she who came into the circle."

The voices of the villagers rose up in alarm.

"But then," Luta said, still gasping, and the villagers quieted. "But then, she turned into a tiger, attacked me and ran away!"

"Tiger!" they said between themselves.

"See!" he said, pointing to his totem, "See the four long claw marks on my face? Napagnuma has tried to steal my spirit from me! She tried to kill the peccary!"

"It is true!" some said. "She has tried to steal his spirit!"

Hekura stood before Luta, frowning, rubbing his finger across his bearded chin. "If this is true," said Hekura, and the village people fell silent, "if this is true, then the napagnuma is Kumareme!"

"Kumareme!" they whispered.

"She is the female spirit of the forest, the tiger-goddess."

"No!" said Luta. "She cannot be Kumareme, for she has broken the great law. She has been to the sacred circle--"

"The circle is hers," Hekura intoned, "every tree is hers, even the river is hers."

"No!" Luta folded his arms across his chest and stuck his chin out in defiance. He stood very near to Hekura, his face twisted in his rage, and he shouted, "No!"

His voice echoed through the forest.

***

"Now what is this about?"

McKay, still groggy, sipped at her cup of tea. Grimacing, she swallowed the strange bitter-sweet brew. Orange pekoe and. . . she couldn't quite place it. "What is what?" she asked, only half-interested. Was it something in this tea that made her head feel so large, both heavy and light at once? Fleetingly, McKay thought about the sweet little old ladies in one of Granny's favorite books, Arsenic and Old Lace.

Mother Mary Francis peered out the window, hands on her hips. McKay was too tired to worry herself with whatever was outside that window, and too sore. Her leg throbbed beneath the cool, white sheet. Propped up on several pillows, she took another sip of tea.

For the moment, McKay was safe inside the convent. If Luta dared to come at her again, he'd have to go through Mother Mary Francis first. The nun would protect her. Would she wring his scrawny neck? Or maybe finish what the shaman started and hack the rest of Luta's penis off? McKay was safe, right here, right now. But a tiny voice inside her head told her that she could not stay forever. She'd have to go back to the village eventually, and somehow she would have to face Luta. Besides, Dad was probably worried half out of his head by now.

"It's Theresa."

"Theresa?" She rolled the name sluggishly around in her mind. What had she said about Theresa?

"Yes," Mother Mary said, "Theresa, and about a dozen Unghatti canoes."

Suddenly wide awake, McKay sat straight up. A trembling overtook her hands and hot tea splattered everywhere. McKay struggled to get out of bed. The weight and the pain of her left leg kept her from moving, and she wrestled with the sheet. "You said she was bringing my dad! You promised she'd bring back my dad!" McKay lifted her bandaged leg over the edge of the bed with both hands, a panicky sweat breaking out across her face. "They'll kill me! Luta's coming back to kill me--"

"No one's going to kill you, child, especially since your father is in the first canoe."

"Dad!"

The kindly nun lifted McKay's wounded leg up on the bed again, and McKay slumped back weakly onto the pillows.

"You see now? I told you there's been some terrible misunderstanding."

"Are you sure it's him?"

"Two white men, one wearing a helmet, the other with red hair like yours, and glasses--"

"That's him! That's my dad!"

"Now, I'll see to your visitors. You lie still, do you hear me? Not one toe out of this bed."

"Not one toe," McKay said, teeth chattering, the wetness of her skin causing a violent shiver. She closed her eyes, listening to the canoes scrape against the shallow shore. She heard feet splashing in the river, and far-away voices. And Dad. She heard Dad.

"Where is she? Where've you got her hidden?"

"You are the child's father?"

"Out of my way! Where is she?"

"Now, Pete. . ." she heard Uncle Max say.

"McKay!" Peter bellowed. A door slammed shut somewhere, and she heard the rapid fall of his footsteps, and then the bedroom door burst wide open.

The canoe slipped through the last golden rays of sunlight on the Unghatti side of the river. Peter and Uncle Max dipped their paddles in unison and pulled, leaving tiny whirlpools in the water. Behind them, the chapel bells chimed, and before them, the Unghatti villagers stood, silent, at the shoreline. McKay wanted to turn away, to rush back to the safety of the convent and the nuns.

Peter grunted from the rear of the canoe. "I swear to God, they lay one hand on her, I'll kill them."

"They won't, Pete," Uncle Max said over his shoulder. "It was the boy, Luta. It wasn't them."

"Where is that kid? I'll kill him with my bare hands--"

"Best to let them deal with him in their own way. I heard the old one talking--"

"So help me, if they harm another hair on her head--!"

"They won't," Max said. "The kid told a hell of a whopper, and now they think McKay's the tiger-goddess. She's the guest of honor at the ceremonial circle tonight."

"That's what they think. You know what her mother's going to say when she finds out about all of this?"

"Best not to insult them, Pete. This is a pretty big deal. No white man's ever been the guest of honor at the circle before, certainly never a white woman."

McKay shook away and shook away again the worry that settled like dust in her mind. For the benefit of Dad and Uncle Max, she smirked. "A goddess? Let's hope the Unghattis aren't expecting any magic tricks tonight." But the thought of the circle made her insides tremble. Luta taught her a lesson she would never forget. This wasn't child's play any more, if it ever was. And this wasn't exactly a birthday party she would attend tonight. She ran her eyes along the line of waiting Unghattis. Willy waved from the shore. "You left Willy there by himself?"

Peter said, "He's fine. He stayed with the women."

McKay searched the line once more. Luta wasn't anywhere that she could see. But Tikitu was there, looking shyly away. She whispered, "I thought you were my irma!"

Uncle Max lifted his paddle out of the water and turned around, setting his paddle between them. "The sisters said Tikitu brought you to them, you know."

McKay's eyes locked on her uncle. "They said that?"

"How did you think you got across the river, Kay-kay?"

Her voice was small. "I thought I must have swam."

"Curare attacks the central nervous system. Paralyzes you. You couldn't swim, McKay. You were lucky you could breathe."

"Tikitu saved me?"

Uncle Max nodded. "And you ought to see the number she did on your old friend, Luta. He's got a huge knot in the middle of his forehead. Kid'll be too embarrassed to show his face around these parts for a while, I'm sure."

"Did. . ." The memory was there, of warmth and wetness flowing from the peccary teeth. "Did anything else happen to his face, Uncle Max?"

"You bet it did. He's got these four long gashes down one cheek. . ."

McKay studied the dried blood beneath her fingernails. When she glanced up, Uncle Max was frowning.

"Is that blood, Kay-kay?"

Peter Fine whistled softly. "You did that, didn't you. Damn near tore the bastard's face off."

"I guess I did."

"Well you little tiger-goddess, you."

McKay gazed upon the shore, as if seeing clearly for the first time. A weight she could not explain settled on her shoulders, and her heart raced. 'Chin up,' Mom would have said. McKay braced herself.

chapter 4

Like the nave of a cathedral, branches closed in over McKay's head, blocking out the stars. How many times over the past nine and a half weeks had she imagined herself in this very spot in the sacred circle, mingling with the Unghatti women and the children? Too many to count. Now, here she was, their honored guest, and she'd changed her mind about wanting to be here at all. Strange, McKay thought, how quickly things could change.

From the corner of her eye McKay thought she glimpsed the icy flash of Uncle Max's revolver. "Please don't!" she begged before she left the hut, but stubbornly, he tucked the gun into his belt and followed her to hide among the trees.

"You get nervous about anything," he said, "you give a little signal. Rub your nose like this," and because McKay was too tired to argue, she agreed.

She became part of the Unghatti circle, Tikitu to her left, the glowing faces of the women and the children all around. Fire leaped from the pit, reflecting in their black, black eyes.

From the darkness, spluttering resin torches lighted the way of the Unghatti men. She heard the drum song, the thud of their heels on the soft earth, beating out their primal rhythm. Chanting, the men wove their way through the forest. The circle of women parted the let them through.

Hekura appeared, seemingly out of the air, in all his ancient regalia. His words scattered like a flock of birds into the night. McKay felt their weight, their strength, yet as hard as she tried she could not grasp their meaning.

Luta stood off to one side, observing the ceremony in aggrieved silence, his mouth set in a straight line. By the light of the fire McKay saw the bruise bulging cyclops-like from the center of his forehead, and the slashes. . . She looked quickly away as his eyes met hers.

Tikitu clenched her hand, glancing up at her from time to time. Worry lines creased her elfin face, but she smiled when she became aware that McKay was watching.

"Irma," Tikitu whispered, kissing the palm of McKay's hand.

The drum beat ceased, and only the thud of the men's heels broke the hush. They danced an intricate pattern around the fire, planets revolving around a blazing sun.

Thud, thud, pause, thud, thud, thud, pause, thud, pause, thud, pause, thud, thud, thud.

McKay listened to the crackle of the fire, the sigh of the leaves. Hekura held his arms outstretched, embracing the moon. He threw his head back and he howled, a sound that rose from deep inside him and made McKay shiver in spite of the sultry night air. His arms fell to his sides as if every bit of his strength had been dredged and spent on the howling.

Tikitu nudged McKay from her trance. Only then did she realize that every Unghatti eye was turned upon her. McKay glanced quickly to the place she knew Uncle Max was hidden. All was blackness. She saw nothing that told her he was still there, waiting.

McKay rose unsteadily to her feet, the wound on the back of her leg hot and throbbing, as if it had a heart of its own. Her entire left leg was stiff and sore in spite of all the medicine the nuns had given her. Tikitu rose beside her, clutching at her hand. Did McKay detect the slightest tremble?

"Napagnuma," said Hekura, and McKay limped forward, her eyes darting through the shadowy undergrowth.

Men of the inner circle genuflected to one knee, their lips barely moving, a strange, low humming sound vibrating through the air. She entered the inner circle, and dreamlike, McKay walked toward Hekura, toward the singing fire.

The old man laid his hands on both her shoulders and she gazed into his clouded eyes.

What intent was there?

His face betrayed no clue.

"Kumareme," he said at last.

Two men stood beside her and grasped her wrists, gently, firmly. McKay tried to loose their hands from hers but their grips tightened with the hint of a struggle. Her heart hammered in her chest. She could not give the signal now.

McKay's mouth flew open. If she screamed his name, Uncle Max would burst forth from the darkness, gun in hand. Unghattis would die at his hands. He'd killed a man once before; didn't the Unghattis realize that? And McKay knew he'd do it again, in a heartbeat, if he thought he must.

Her mouth snapped shut and she searched the old man's eyes again, pleading for a mercy.

By the light of the fire she saw the white powder glisten in his hand, magic fairy dust. Epena, Uncle Max called it, and she'd seen its effects on the Unghatti men of the circle before. After inhaling epena their bodies loosened at the joints, and they swayed and walked in drunken circles until they fell into their hammocks.

Old Hekura blew a cloud of powder in her face. At once, her head began to swim. The flames, she noticed, licked in slow motion. Curiously, McKay watched him draw the jagged knife from the folds of his tiger pelt. Old knife, bone handle. . .

She lost all track of time. How long had she stood there before she was aware of the warm, sticky blood running down one side of her face, the raw sting of open flesh? She put her hand against her cheek and felt the blood ooze between her fingers.

"Kumareme," the men of the inner circle chanted, still kneeling. "Kumareme, Kumareme."

Hekura loosed the tiger pelt from around his shoulders and placed it around McKay. She buckled beneath its weight.

"No!" The single word was spoken, and every eye turned to Luta. He glared directly at McKay, long and hard, his face a mask of stone, and then he simply turned and disappeared.

***

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Theresa sobbed.

"Got it," Mother Mary announced, holding the enormous barbed stinger up with a pair of forceps. "Better watch out for those ray fish in the future, little one."

"Ray fish! God in heaven, now I'm sure this is hell!" Weak and shaking from the loss of blood, Theresa raised herself up to one elbow. She barely recognized her own foot, mottled gray and bloated, as if gangrene had settled in, yet she knew that half an hour hadn't passed since she'd taken a moonlight walk along the river's edge. Cicadas sang, and she strolled with her shoes in one hand, the earth beneath her feet so deliciously cool.

The shock coursed through her body as she replayed that instant in her mind: the one missed step, cold water, the searing pain shooting up her leg as she grappled for the bank. Theresa bent her knee to examine the bottom of her foot.

"Ah, ah, ah!" Sister Basil warned, wagging her gloved finger in the air. "We're not finished yet."

"Scalpel," Mother Mary said.

Theresa bristled. "Scalpel?"

"Morphine!" Mother Mary's voice cracked like a whip, and Sister Basil jumped to action, gently pushing the needle into Theresa's hip.

Theresa sank back on the infirmary bed, a new wave of tears spilling onto her cheeks. She wailed, "You didn't tell me there were ray fish!"

"There, there," Mother Mary said, a patient smile crossing her lips, as if consoling a fretful child. "We didn't specifically mention the piranhas either, or the anacondas. Perhaps we should have. In the rain forest, you must be wary of every step you take."

Sister Basil grasped her firmly by the ankle, and Mother Mary bent over Theresa's foot. Theresa screamed once again, but only because she thought she ought to. Already there was so much agony, a little more made no difference at all.

"I cannot lose my foot. I shall die without my foot!"

"Then all of your sisters will pray that you don't lose your foot," said Mother Mary Francis, "for we most certainly can't allow you to die on us now."

Her heart lurched to her throat. "You mean to say that it's possible?"

Sister Basil said, "Ray fish are common below Three Falls and for a hundred miles along this river, though usually only in the muddy shallows. I was stung once myself, you know. I survived. You will, too."

"Packing gauze," Mother Mary said to Basil, "and then let's wrap her up." She smiled at Theresa. "You'll be off your feet for a while, I'm afraid."

"Piranhas and anacondas?"

"We'll keep you busy with the foundling. By the time you're well, you'll hardly realize that so much time has passed."

"Wonderful," Theresa moaned. "Exactly what I want to hear. I could be stuck here for an eternity."

Theresa listened to the hesitant knock upon her door. It must have been near midnight, but she could only guess. The one clock inside the convent was an old wind-up in the sitting room, one that suffered a broken main spring in the weeks before. Mother Mary tinkered with each piece then pronounced it 'fixed'. Theresa had her doubts; the hands seemed to move more slowly than ever before. At any rate, it was the thick of the night. And if it weren't for the full moon Theresa wouldn't have been able to see her hand before her face. The shy knock came again. Go away, she wanted to say, but instead she said, "Come in." She struck a match and lit the oil lamp beside her bed.

"You're still awake? What a relief."

Sister Basil's face was a series of worried wrinkles; wrinkles on her forehead, at the corners of her eyes, even around her mouth. The ever-present worries that pulled at her face made her look much older than she actually was, when in truth, she was Theresa's age. Theresa fixed her eyes on the tiny bundle over Basil's shoulder.

"I don't know what to do. He won't eat." Sister Basil sat at the edge of Theresa's bed, gently bouncing the baby up and down. "Look at him, Theresa. What are we going to do?"

Theresa sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth, the sole of her foot going into a spasm as Basil jostled her bed. "Can't you give him to someone? How about the Unghattis? They'll know what to feed him."

Sister Basil shook her head, her lips pressed in a line. "We mustn't risk infecting them with whatever disease killed this baby's parents. Theirs was not a natural death, you know, and the Unghattis, like many of the other natives, have no resistance."

"They were starved--"

"Bananas fall from trees in this forest. Cassava grows wild, and fish literally jump out of the Bindadnay and into canoes. This is a land of plenty. No one ever starves in these parts."

"You could make a sort of formula--"

"From canned milk?"

"Yes!" Theresa said.

"He threw it up. Every single drop."

"He needs a wet nurse then."

"My thoughts exactly," Basil said with a curt nod of her head.

Theresa's eyes were large and round. "But where would we get one of those? It's a rather stupid idea, I suppose."

"No," Basil said, dropping her eyes to the tiny baby in her arms. "Almost any woman can become a wet nurse, with the proper stimulation."

"What do you. . ." Theresa frowned. "Oh no. You're not thinking--?"

"Yes," Sister Basil said, glancing quickly at Theresa's breasts then back to the baby.

Theresa pulled the sheet tight beneath her chin. "You're crazy, that's what you are. You are insane."

"It's all perfectly natural. What do you think they're for anyway, Sister Theresa? Decoration?"

"I'll have none of this. Why don't you use your own?"

Sister Basil rose from the bed, then leaned over Theresa, laying the restless child in her lap. Theresa had no choice but to take him in her arms.

"I have work to do. You, on the other hand--"

"I can't," Theresa panted.

"He's partial to the name 'Moses', I think," Basil said before she shut the door.

chapter 5

McKay watched the storm build in her father's eyes.

"Well, that does it. That really does it."

She'd done her best to scrub her face clean of the blood as soon as the sun had risen. Tikitu and some of the women packed the wounds with a mixture of ashes and salt, then laid a numbing poultice over her cheek, a poultice that Peter now peeled away.

"What in the hell?" he whispered.

"It's my totem." Her voice was filled with a bravery she did not feel. "The tiger totem, Dad." Four exquisitely tender stripes marred her cheek, as if she were an Unghatti boy, coming of age.

Willy stared, his eyes so big and blue. "They did that to you? On purpose?"

He wasn't helping much and she ignored him. "It's supposed to be an honor, Dad."

"I don't care who the Unghattis think they are," he said, raising his fist to the sky. "They can't just go around mutilating people."

McKay fingered the marks. "Mutilating?"

"Of course," he said. "That's going to leave a scar, like on the others. What did you think?"

"Maybe just a light scar--"

"No," Peter said. "It'll be a regular scar, all right. I shouldn't have let you stay here, damn it!" He took up pacing the floor. "If it weren't for this damned research, we'd have been on the very next damned plane out of here after that damned curare incident. But no, they'd deal with the kid, they said. It was an accident, they said! But this, now they've gone over the line this time. Damn, damn, damn!" He stopped before her, gesturing wildly with his hands. "Do you have any idea what your mother's going to say?"

"I don't think they realized--"

"They're going to get what they deserve," he muttered, jamming his hands deep in his pockets. He returned to pacing the floor of the lab, back and forth before the row of cages. "I was feeling kind of sorry for them. But now I don't. Hell, no. They'll get what they deserve."

"Dad, what do you mean?"

"Where was your Uncle Max while all this was going on? Huh? He said he'd keep a close eye--"

"Dad, you said, 'they'll get what they deserve'. What did you mean?"

"You never mind, you understand?"

"Not really. . ."

"Go wash all this garbage off your face, then you and Willy get your things ready to go for this afternoon, do you hear me?"

"But Dad--"

"This is not a request, McKay. Go!" He pointed to the door, and obediently, McKay limped away with Willy close behind.

Willy shoved his extra clothes inside his duffel bag: a pair of khaki pants, two shirts, and his heavy boots. He wadded up the mosquito netting over his hammock and jammed that inside, too. He didn't look up when McKay came into the little hut.

"Hey," she said, but he did not 'hey' her back. "Willy? You mad at someone?"

"Big surprise there," he said, and McKay flung herself into his hammock, but he turned away, pulling the drawstring on his bag.

McKay clambered to her feet and limped around to face him. "What's the deal here?" She slugged him playfully in the arm.

"The deal is," he slugged her back harder than she'd hit him, "I don't want to go. And it's your fault we're leaving early."

She grabbed her aching shoulder. "My fault!"

"Why can't you just be like everyone else, McKay? Do you always have to look for trouble?"

"I can't believe you're blaming me for any of this, Willy!"

"You were the one who snuck off to the circle. No one else would have done that, especially if they'd been told not to. You started all this trouble."

"I was shot, Willy, with a--"

He held up one hand. "I know, I know, a poisoned dart. And I guess I'll hear about this forever, too. Brave, wonderful McKay, awful things always happening to her, and always coming through, tougher than ever!"

"Shut up!"

"You shut up!" he said.

Though her leg was still stiff and sore, she lunged at Willy, pushing him back onto his hammock. She threw herself on top of him and grabbed him around his neck, her fury at him boiling out her fingertips. She was always saving his skinny butt, from the first moment she'd met him when they were six years old. This was how he acted the one time she'd needed a little sympathy from him?

Willy pushed her away, one hand against her forehead, the other yanking at her hair. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled, while the hammock swung crazily back and forth.

"Stop it!" McKay screamed. "Do you give? Let go if you give! Ow! Ow! Ow!" She tried to hold her face straight, and she almost did until a smile wobbled across Willy's face. She burst out laughing, collapsing beside Willy in his hammock.

He laughed so hard his arms fell weak at his sides. "You look so stupid," he said, still giggling, mocking her, pulling at the skin on his face until his eyes were slits. He made his voice squeaky high. "Do you give? Do you give?"

"I'm sorry," she said, trying hard to hang on to her dignity. "It is my fault. You have every right to be mad."

"I'm maddest at me, I guess. I'd do about anything not to have to go back."

"You mean to your dad?"

Willy nodded. "I'm just in his way. Worse, I can't be the way he wants me to be. I'm not big and tough, and I'm not smart like him, either."

"But Willy, you get straight 'A's'."

"Not that kind of smart. People smart, Father calls it. He says you should use people like money, bank them till you need them, and then use them to get ahead in life."

McKay said, "Do you really believe that?"

"Do you?"

"Nah."

"Me neither," Willy said, and he pushed her out of his hammock.

Peter Fine loaded the back of the Jeep he'd rented in Three Falls. The electric generator went in first, and then his crates of books and the journals that both he and his brother, Max, kept faithfully. Next came his gun, now woefully rusted, and his still-sealed box of ammunition. Last came the duffel bags. He grunted, wiping his hands on his pants. Leaning against the Jeep, he took a long look around.

Willy, McKay and Tikitu watched silently from above, their legs dangling from the branch on which they sat. McKay peeked at her father from behind pupugna leaves, hiding from the inevitable. She knew what the other two knew; the end had come.

"Pete, what are you doing?" Uncle Max pulled a box out of the back out the Jeep.

"The gig is up, Max."

"But we have three more days!"

"Three more days isn't going to make any difference. We can't do what Neotech wants in three more days."

"But we can come closer."

"Sure, if we want to wake up dead tomorrow morning."

"Wake up dead?"

"I take it you didn't stick around to see what happened to McKay."

"What do you mean? I was right there."

"If you were really there, you'd know what happened to her."

"This is bull. Nothing happened, I tell you. We had a signal all worked out. . . They danced and they painted her face, Pete."

"Ah, paint."

"And then she and that girl, that Tikitu, walked back to the hut and were both sound asleep by the time I--"

"Did you see her face? Actually see it, up close?"

Uncle Max put his hands on his hips. "What are you getting at?"

"They cut her face into ribbons."

"Cut her face!"

"She calls it her 'totem,' four big gashes--"

"You're serious? They gave her a totem?"

"They injured my kid, Max, they didn't award her the Nobel Peace Prize. They could've just as easily slit her throat."

"They wouldn't have, not the Unghattis--"

Peter stood nose-to-nose, forehead-to-pith helmet with his brother. "And who would've stopped them, huh?"

"Is she all right?"

"She'll live."

"So that's it? You're just going to pack it all in?"

"I called Alexander when I went into Three Falls this morning."

Max grabbed Peter's collar. "What have you done?"

"Neotech's sending in choppers to harvest the pupugna so we can continue the tests from the states."

Max let go of his collar, as if he was dirtying his hands. "Alexander's going to harvest entire trees?"

Peter nodded. "The whole damned forest, if he has to."

"Do you know what you've done?"

"I've turned the crazy bastard loose on them, but it's no less than they deserve, brother. You remember that," he said, jabbing his finger in the air. "It's no less than they deserve."

Max paused a long moment. "When are you leaving?"

"As soon as I can find the kids."

"Pete."

"Yeah."

"I'll catch up to you in Three Falls."

"Have you lost your mind?"

"I want to make sure the Unghattis are okay."

"What are you talking about? They'll be fine. They'll move on down the river, they'll adapt. This is just another run-of-the-mill harvesting operation, Max."

"You don't understand them at all."

"And you do?"

"When is Neotech coming?"

"Max, are you completely nuts?"

"When?"

Peter Fine looked at his watch and he hesitated. McKay could almost hear him swallow. "An hour, maybe."

"Goodbye, Pete. I'll see you in Three Falls. Maybe."

Peter cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. "McKay! Willy!"

McKay seethed inside, like a nest of kuna kuna. Some of that anger was directed at Dad, for always exploding and leaving Uncle Max to pick up the mess. She wondered how Uncle Max put up with his psycho brother all these years. But mostly, she was angry at herself. Willy was right. This was her fault. She'd gone and done it again.

Dark clouds gathered in the eastern sky and roiled across the horizon. Jagged lightning tore through the clouds, then thunder rumbled. Soon thereafter came the rain. Enormous drops pummeled the hot earth and at once evaporated, rising up in a blood-red steam to the darkened sky.

The Jeep bounced in and out of muddied ruts. McKay clutched at the dashboard, her knuckles gleaming white. She'd fastened the tiger pelt Hekura had given her the night before beneath her chin, and now the rain rolled off its surface like a regular raincoat. She glanced back at Willy, wedged between two creaking crates of books. Hair plastered to his face, he shivered in his misery, a half-drowned pup. It was his own fault; she'd offered him the pelt, but he'd refused and now there was nothing she could do for him.

The road to Three Falls was barely as wide as the Jeep. Built years ago by a German expedition seeking rubber, the road was now only rarely used. Undergrowth threatened to reclaim the road, and might have if the occasional foreign pilgrims hadn't come to the Unghattis. Branches lashed at the windshield and scraped at the sides of the Jeep as Peter Fine stomped the accelerator, urging the old Jeep forward.

Suddenly the road lurched sharply upward, and one side of the forest, the side next to McKay, dropped away, as if it'd simply been erased from a picture. McKay glanced downward, her stomach turning queasy flip-flops. The waters of the Bindadnay boiled against sheer canyon walls. Her eyes traveled farther upward to the falls, and McKay squeezed her eyes shut amidst a wave of syncope.

Brakes smoking, the old Jeep shuddered to a halt.

"Damnation!" Peter said, pounding the steering wheel.

McKay slowly opened her eyes, first one, then the other. Before them, planted squarely in the center of the road was a gigantic yellow bulldozer, its scoop dangling high above the road like one enormous fist. It could fall and squash them as easily as a bug, McKay thought. All that would be left of them would be a grease spot on the road.

Peter stood on the seat of the Jeep, flailing his arms. "Get out of my way! Do you hear me? Get out of my way!"

Of course, little could be heard above the throttling, rattling bulldozer engine. She could barely hear him herself, and she was sitting right next to him. McKay searched the mud-smeared window of the bulldozer for any sign of intelligent human life. The cab was dark and empty. It was a demon-dozer, she finally decided, with a mind all its own.

"Scram! Get off the road! Shoo!"

The bulldozer replied with a rev of its engine.

Peter pounded on the horn, and then the big machine began to move.

Forward.

The bulldozer inched toward them, quickly closing the gap between itself and the Jeep.

"Hey! Hey!" Peter yelled, and from the back seat Willy whimpered.

McKay gasped as the dozer tapped the front bumper of the Jeep. Peter yanked at the hand brake, but the bulldozer continued forward, tap, tap, tap, and the Jeep, all wheels locked, bucked backward down the road.

"Dad," she screamed, "bail out!"

His face was red, his lips drawn back like a madman. "Don't you dare!" he screamed back, but by then it was too late.

From the corner of her eye, McKay saw Willy leap from the back seat and tumble over the side of the cliff. The dozer continued forward, bumping the Jeep backward down the road, making McKay's head whip back and forth. McKay looked anxiously over the side of the cliff. She saw the top of Willy's head, then his hand as he waved, and then his crooked grin.

Without another thought, McKay dove over the side of the Jeep, her pelt trailing like a comic book hero's cape. She heard Peter scream again as she grappled for a foothold. Slipping and sliding, she felt rocks and thorns dig into her hands and knees. Down, down, down she slid until she stopped, legs splayed around a thin tree trunk.

"I didn't think you'd ever quit falling."

McKay groaned, wondering if a person could actually be split in two and survive. She looked down the ravine, then quickly up. "You know how much I hate heights, don't you, Willy?"

"I know," he said.

The bulldozer, a flash of yellow through the trees, continued on its evil mission, viciously ramming at the Jeep. Metal ground against metal and trees crashed as their trunks were splintered in the wake of the big bulldozer. A parade of rumbling, smoking trucks crept behind it down the road.

"Willy, we've got to save Dad!"

Willy said, "I watched him jump, just seconds after you," and then as if on cue, an eerie moan rose behind them.

"My leg! I think I've broken my leg!"

"Dad," McKay called, but she didn't hear his reply as the sounds of the Jeep crashing into trees and scraping over the side of the narrow road reached their ears. Metal creaked and crumpled, glass shattered, and the Jeep cartwheeled down the face of the cliff.

"I suppose this means I won't be getting my security deposit back." Peter crept up the steep incline between Willy and McKay, dragging one leg.

McKay's voice shook. "You're hurt."

"Nah," he said, "it's just a little sprain, a muscle tear at most." He flopped down on the ground between them, panting.

"Maybe we shouldn't have jumped," McKay said, and Peter glowered at his daughter.

Willy said, "Who were those people, and why did they want to kill us?"

"Oh, I don't think killing us was ever their intention. We were only in the way of what they wanted."

"You know who they were, don't you, Dad."

He waited a long second. "Neotech."

Willy and McKay exchanged a shocked glance.

"My father?" Willy squeaked, and no one answered.

"Yup, it looks like nine weeks of research has just gone down the crapper," Peter said, rain cutting channels down the sides of his face and dripping off the end of his nose. He took his glasses off, the lenses steamed and useless.

All three of them stared mutely down at the ravine. McKay could hardly believe it. All that was left of the Jeep was a pair of tire tracks at the edge of the road, a few broken branches. Already the jungle had swallowed the Jeep without a trace.

"We best get to Three Falls."

"How much farther, Dad?"

"About a mile, I guess," he said, and they looked up to the sky as three helicopters flew over their heads in perfect formation.

The rain ended as suddenly as it began, and the sun came out from behind the clouds. At the edge of Three Falls, McKay rolled her pelt beneath one arm. She had the strangest sensation she was stepping out of one world and entering another, one only dimly recollected after nine and one half weeks of a primitive existence.

Carved cleanly out of the forest, the main street was a packed dirt road, lined on either side with huts made of neatly latched logs and woven palms. Unlike the Unghatti village, there was a sense of permanence here, as if the huts had been here for years. They might have sprung out of the earth itself, their roots dug deep in the soil.

There were real windows and doors on the huts in Three Falls, made of modern day screens, probably once even shiny and bright, she supposed. But now they were rusted a uniform orange, all up and down the street. Hand-painted signs hung over each doorway: Three Falls General Store, Cloft's Hardware-Knife Sharpening Service, Gas and Motor Repair. Further down the street she saw Marguerita's Bar, and across from that, Three Falls Caf‚-Ice Cold Coca Cola Served Here, boasted the sign. McKay tugged at her father's sleeve.

"I'd kill for a Coke."

Willy said, "Do you suppose they'll have Pepsi, too?"

"Look," Peter said, pointing.

Two women and a man came out of the general store. They were dressed in modern clothes, khaki pants and shirts, and even shoes. Their skin was dark, but not Unghatti dark, and they laughed between themselves. Each woman balanced a bulky gunny sack over one shoulder. The man tugged at a long rope, which was tied to a big brass ring threaded through the nose of a squealing pig.

Several men stumbled out of Marguerita's Bar, already drunk at midday, and meandered down the street toward Willy, Peter and McKay. In the opposite direction came an upside-down canoe, four khaki covered legs protruding from beneath, a wild-looking native following behind with a suitcase beneath each arm.

"He's buck naked," hissed McKay, in case either of the others hadn't noticed.

"Is that an Unghatti?" Willy said, and Peter nodded.

He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "That must be a Benji. See the sticks in the lobes of his ears and through his nose? And look at his hair!"

McKay said, "How do they get it like that?" though she really wasn't looking at his hair.
"They shave it in a circle on the top, then cut the rest off with a bowl."

"But why is he--"

"They must come across the river to work in Three Falls."

"That's very strange," said Willy.

"Yes it is," Peter said, scratching his head. "We've heard they were a warrior tribe. Servitude is the last thing I'd expect out of a Benji."

Willy said, "No, I didn't mean--" but McKay interrupted.

"Don't be so sure they're not warriors. I don't trust his shifty eyes."

"This from the young lady who trusted the Unghattis?"

"Dad--"

"Fire!" someone in the settlement yelled, and in seconds, the main street was filled with people. They came from every door, from between every building, gazing at the sky, pointing in the direction from which the three Americans had come.

The hairs on McKay's arms prickled. She saw a blanket of haze far off in the distance. "Dad, that's not what I think it is?"

He stared at the sky, silently confirming her suspicion.

"Uncle Max," she panted, suddenly aware of the smell of smoke barely tinging the air.

"It had to be done to clear the road. You saw for yourself how narrow it is in places; we could barely get through ourselves in the Jeep. How do you expect those big log trucks get through?"

"Log trucks! Is that what they're doing?"

"Look, McKay, I don't have time to explain everything to you. . ." His face softened, and he laid one hand on her shoulder. "But you have to know your Uncle Max is fine."

"You couldn't possibly know that for sure, Dad!"

Peter limped down the street, dragging his injured leg, swiveling his head from one side to the other. "Where is our chopper? It was supposed to be waiting for us, before any clearing took place. That was part of the deal."

The people of Three Falls raced past her in the opposite direction, jostling and bumping and nearly knocking her to the ground. McKay fought her way through the crowded street, hanging on to Willy's wrist, craning her neck, losing sight of her father in the swelling mob.

chapter 6

Glistening droplets gathered in the hollow of a leaf until the leaf was heavy with the weight. It dropped its nodding head, and the rain trickled out below onto a bigger leaf. From every leaf on every tree in this forest, the last of the rainwater fell, working its way down to the ground. The earth swallowed the water up with a sigh, as if already so wet it could not drink in another drop. Yet in spite of this, somewhere in their forest an old enemy had taken hold. Sky Fire had come to battle with the earth.

From the corner of her eye, Tikitu watched a wisp of smoke float above a distant ridge of trees. Absently, she crushed the manioc with her grinding stone, blending in a little hot water at a time until the mixture formed a soft dough. Waikuri entered into the clearing, carrying a bundle of soiled clothing to the shore. She and Tikitu exchanged a nervous glance. Waikuri went off to the river, and Tikitu patiently worked the manioc, sprinkling a little more water, plunging her hands in the dough.

Smoke after the rain could only mean one thing. Gnaru, the Sky Fire god, was angry, which also meant that Unghattis would very likely lose. Gnaru not only took their trees, but also often took the Unghattis' biggest game, killing off huge numbers of the deer and boars and monkeys. Sometimes Gnaru took their manioc crops, and on more than one occasion had taken their village as well. Gnaru was a greedy, thoughtless god.

Tikitu shaped the loaves of manioc and set them on banana leaves over the dying coals. Tushaua and the men were only just now returning, carrying an ocelot and many fish in slings upon their backs. At first glance she saw that Luta was not among the men, but Tikitu did not risk staring. She dropped her eyes to her hands, busying them, rearranging the manioc loaves.

For the second time in one day she heard the whip, whip, whip of the nappe-birds, as did the others. Even the 'Merican who stayed behind came out to have a look. Children cowered behind their mother's legs, and the Unghatti men ran for their bows and arrows, aiming them toward the sound.

Nappe-birds rarely crossed Unghatti skies, but each time they did trouble always followed, if not for the Unghattis, then for other tribes along the river. Old women whispered that the nappe-birds came on this day because Kumareme was gone and could no longer protect the Unghattis. Only Tikitu knew this was not so. McKay was not the tiger goddess any more than she was, and Kumareme was still prowling the forest, watching over them with her yellow eyes; Tikitu could not tell her people this truth. It was only because the tribe mistook McKay as their goddess that her irma had escaped further harm. In exchange, Tikitu knew she must let them go on believing that Kumareme, great protector, had abandoned the Unghattis.

Nappe-birds skimmed low over the horizon. Their bodies gleamed like enormous dragon flies, but they were ugly creatures. They had big bulging eyes and carried with them the acrid smell of the boat-pushers.

Men stood bravely in the clearing, their arms pulled back and tense, their bowstrings taught, following the flight of the nappe-birds with the steady points of their arrows. The nappe-birds flew past, the whip, whip, whip of their wings quickly disappearing down the river. Only then did they hear the other sound.

A buzzing. Now what strange god was this?

The people of the tribe turned to the new sound and drew in faltering breaths, a great black mushroom of smoke filling up the sky. Gnaru, it seemed, was coming straight for the Unghattis, marching down the road to Three Falls. Had he ever taken the road before? Tikitu did not think so. And with the Sky Fire god came some other loud buzzing god who had not come before.

The Unghatti men hurried for the ceremonial circle, Hekura in the lead, probably to call upon friendly gods for help: water god, sun god, and Amahini, the good spirits of the forest. Tikitu wished she could slip anyway and hide among the trees to listen to the men like she'd done when she was young. But that was forbidden now that she was an Unghatti woman. Her place was with the other women, mixing up the ochre war paint. And when the men came back from their circle, she would be expected to help paint them from their faces to their feet.

Wearing war paint, every child was taught from the time he could understand, confused any enemy who came looking for the Unghattis. But it also had another purpose. Secret ingredients in the war paint gave Unghatti men mysterious powers. It changed the Unghattis, great hunters, into Unghattis, the fiercest warriors on the earth. With war paint, the Unghattis would be safe.

Men stood in the clearing, paint covering their bodies. They clutched their bows beside them, waiting, sheaths of arrows full and ready. If they were frightened, their faces did not show it. The 'Merican stood beside them, holding his small, shining gun. It would not protect the Unghattis as the bows and arrows would, Tikitu knew, but at least he was trying to help. Behind the men, the women stood, including Tikitu, sharp machetes in their hands. Children were hidden safely away inside the huts nearest to the river, along with the old women. The Unghattis were ready for war.

Smoke crept down the road, drawing closer and closer with each heartbeat, finally billowing out into the village clearing, pushing out the good air. Hot smoke reached out to burn their eyes, to singe their nostrils and their throats. The Unghattis swallowed back the choking tears, doggedly standing their ground. If they could see Gnaru through the thick, black smoke, they would slay him as he came into the clearing. But if he remained hidden, as he so often did, they would have to flee. Their canoes waited in readiness at the shores of the Bindadnay.

The strange buzzing grew louder and louder, nearly deafening the Unghattis. Soon orange flames followed the smoke, licking at the outer reaches of the village, leaving blackness in their wake. Behind the flames, Unghattis glimpsed metallic flashes through the forest, smelled the oily fumes beneath the smoke. Only then did they realize this war was with an enemy far more savage than Gnaru.

"Nappe."

The word float from their lips, as if they were one warrior. Men stood silent and grim, their weapons ready.

Suddenly three nappe-birds swooped overhead, like angry hornets, bending the branches of the highest trees with their mighty breath, whirling the smoke in the clearing. The Unghatti warriors pulled their bows back tight. Arrows flew into the sky, some hitting the sides of the nappe-birds, some not, but all clattering feebly back to earth. The nappe-birds had invisible darts, and they shot them into the clearing. Tikitu listened to the zip, zip, zip of the nappe darts as they sliced through the air. Some darts missed their marks, leaving tiny splatters in the mud, but others did not miss. All around Tikitu, Unghattis fell to the ground without a whimper, their eyes and mouths wide open, like startled children.

From the forest, terrible nappe-monsters broke into the clearing, their great jaws snapping at trees and dropping them to the ground as easily as dead branches. The buzzing and the rumbling numbed Tikitu, and the machete fell from her hand. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

The 'Merican ran towards her, a wailing Unghatti child tucked beneath his arm. "Come, Tikitu!" he called, but she could not move.

Not wanting to believe, she stared at her village, at smouldering trees surrounding her village like so many wounded warriors. A burning tree fell as she watched, catching the roofs of several huts on fire. No one screamed or ran in fear, for her people lay still and silent at her feet.

"Come!" The 'Merican pulled her by one arm, and she ran behind him, between a tangle of fallen Unghattis, invisible darts still splashing through the mud. He ran into the forest, but Tikitu could not follow him. Her people were here.

At the edge of the clearing she stood, watching the nappe come. White men marched through the sacred circle, kicking rocks out of their way. She stumbled toward them, falling to her knees. Another nappe-bird flew overhead. Tikitu watched its twisting shadow dash across the clearing and she closed her eyes, waiting for the darts. When they did not come, she looked up. She saw McKay.

She saw her face thorough the nappe-bird's shining eye, her fingers outstretched, as if reaching for Tikitu. Tikitu raised her hands.

"Irma!" she cried, and the great bird flew away.

Part Two

1999

chapter 7

Portland, Oregon, USA

McKay stared straight ahead, waiting for the traffic light to change. That was precisely the moment she saw Eric, her Eric, holding one of Carrie Bartolli's dainty little hands in both of his. It was bound to happen sooner or later, she supposed. No matter how big Portland was, no matter how careful she was to avoid him and to lose herself in the crowd, McKay knew she would see Eric sooner or later. It was inevitable. And here they were, both of them, Eric and Carrie.

Carrie Bartolli. The name stuck in her throat. Carrie, maid-of-honor at their wedding almost exactly four years ago. Her best friend. Ex-best friend, she reminded herself, as of two weeks ago. Had it only been two weeks since she'd walked in on them, boinking their brains out in the middle of her kitchen floor?

Neither of them seemed to notice her as they lunched at McKay's favorite caf‚, Nutley's, beneath a brightly striped umbrella. Eric would have the Reuben on rye, two pickle spears, not one, and what would Carrie have? Would Eric recommend the Greek salad? "It was my wife's favorite," he would say, "my soon-to-be-ex-wife's," and they would both laugh hysterically. Ugh. She'd never eat at Nutley's again, and she'd never order another Greek salad as long as she lived. Unconsciously, her foot pressed the accelerator down to the floor, and the engine of Granny's baby blue Cadillac roared.

A horn blared behind her, and she let off of the brake, going halfway into the crosswalk before realizing the light was still red. McKay slammed on her brakes, a hair's breadth away from hitting a pedestrian, an old woman, bundled in layers of ragged clothes in spite of the warm spring day. The woman marched around the front of the car, pushing a shopping cart filled to the rim with all her precious belongings. She smiled a toothless grin and she nodded, apparently unrankled by the fact that she'd come within an inch of losing her life. McKay glared into the rear view mirror through a cloud of black exhaust. The woman in the car behind her gave her the one-fingered Portland salute, which McKay was only too happy to return.

Her mind wandered backward again.

"Don't be silly," kindly old Doctor Lowenstein said. "This is nothing more than a combination of your raging hormones and the Madonna syndrome, very common. In three months, as soon as this baby is born, things between you and Eric will go back to normal again." The doctor handed her a tissue and said, "Treat yourself to a new hairdo, McKay, some new maternity clothes. I never met a woman that didn't help."

Was he in on the conspiracy, too? That Eric had been having an affair with Carrie for months now came as no surprise to any of her friends. Even Mom and Dad, though upset, were not shocked at the news. Did Doctor Lowenstein know, too? Was he trying to convince her those sneaking suspicions were just in her head when he knew the truth all along? A new hairdo. Right.

Again, the horn blared behind her, and McKay saw that this time the light was green. The Cadillac roared and lurched forward, and in that split second McKay became a woman possessed.

She swerved over to the curb, bouncing the old tank of a car up on the sidewalk. Eric did not look her way until McKay was almost upon them. Carrie jumped to her feet and shrieked as McKay heard the little table for two scrape and felt it crunch against the front bumper. The gay umbrella toppled over onto her windshield, blocking her view, and in spite of the fifteen pounds she'd gained in six months, McKay flew out of the car.

"Eric! Oh my God, Eric, did I hurt you?"

He moaned, pinned beneath the crumpled little table. "McKay! McKay!" he wailed. "Are you trying to kill me?"

Carrie got right in her face, screeching, her jugulars distended like two purple garden hoses. "You're insane, you know that McKay? You're plain crazy!"

McKay pushed Carrie aside, all ninety pounds of her, and leaned over Eric. His face had gone sheet white, and he clutched at his right ankle and moaned. The seriousness of what she'd done began to sink in and she started to shake.

"Oh, Eric, I can't believe this! The accelerator stuck and I couldn't make it stop! Are you hurt, Eric darling, are you terribly hurt?" She nearly gagged on the word, but throwing in a 'darling' was pure genius, she thought later on, considering. She even managed to squeeze out a tear. Nice touch.

He bit his lower lip, as if forcing back a scream of pain. "Don't go all to pieces. I don't want you to do anything to hurt the kid. Besides, I think maybe it's just bruised, babe."

She narrowed her eyes to slits. Babe. He called her 'babe'. For more than a year now, he had taken to crying out "oh, babe!" during lovemaking. Not "McKay", not even "McKay babe", but generic old "babe." She should have known then. Did he call Carrie 'babe' during their nasty little rendezvouses, too? 'Babe' was easier, she supposed, so that he'd never slip and use the wrong name. Just a bruise, he said?

McKay straightened, hands on her ever-widening hips. "Too bad. Maybe next time," she said and she jumped in Granny's Cadillac and slammed it into reverse.

"What were you thinking?" Willy groaned and paced back and forth.

McKay stared at the brass name plate on his desk, too embarrassed to look up into his face. William Alexander, Esquire, it said. "I wasn't thinking at all. That's the trouble."

"You'll be lucky if he doesn't sue, McKay."

"Know any good lawyers?" she asked, grinning then blowing her nose.

"You drive me crazy."

"What should I do?"

Willy picked up his phone. "We'll have the car towed in to this mechanic I know--"

"But there's not a scratch on Old Blue."

"The accelerator," he said, scowling and shaking his head. "Remember? And then we'll report the accident. We've got to make certain all bases are covered."

McKay slumped in the chair, cradling her pounding head in her hands. Willy came around to the other side of his desk and sat facing her.

"This was really foolish, McKay, maybe the most foolish thing you've ever done."

"Do you think I'm insane?"

"What if you'd have killed him?"

"I'm a pretty good driver, you know that. I was only going to shake him up a little, but the umbrella got in the way--"

"You could have hurt the baby, not to mention yourself."

McKay noticed he'd avoided answering the insane question. "I know exactly what you're thinking."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Hm. I seriously doubt that."

"You're thinking I've gone and done it again. I've gotten us both into trouble."

"Well, something like that."

"More mashed potatoes, please."

Granny pinched McKay's cheek, giving it a vigorous shake. "Our tootsie," she said, "eating for two!"

Willy held a napkin over his mouth. "Two heifers," he whispered, and McKay elbowed him in the ribs. He stifled a grunt and McKay laughed out her nose. Peter Fine peered over the edge of his newspaper, sighing and rolling his eyes.

"Peter. Put that down!" McKay's mother, Nancy Fine, said, pulling the sports section away. "It's bad enough you do that at all, but in front of company? Tsk!"

Peter shrugged. "In front of company, all right, I won't do it. But since when is the pip-squeak company?"

"Atrocious!" Nancy said, knitting her brows together in feigned shock. "No wonder you don't come so often any more, Willy. How long has it been?"

McKay felt her blood pressure rise a degree.

Willy hurriedly swallowed a chunk of roast beef. "Four years, I guess." He gulped a mouthful of water. His eyes danced as he looked at McKay over the rim of his glass.

"That's right. Not since our tootsie married that horse's ass."

"Granny!" shouted Nancy and Peter.

The headache started with the tiniest twinge behind McKay's right eye . . .

"Well," Granny said, shrugging. "The truth is the truth." She leaned close to Willy's ear, taking him into her confidences and patting his hand. "I never liked him much, you know."

McKay wailed, "Could we please not talk about him just for one night?"

"Let it alone, Granny," said Peter.

"Closed subject, Mother," Nancy said, scooping green beans onto McKay's empty plate.

Granny pursed her wrinkled lips, twisted an imaginary key, and tossed it over her shoulder.

Nancy said, "So tell us, how is your father?"

"He's dead," said Granny, shaking her head sadly. "Died in sixty-six. Poor Mother was beside herself with grief. . . "

"Mother," Nancy said softly.

Granny cackled. "You people are so gullible!" She threw her head back and laughed again.

Peter glowered, then stabbed another slice of roast beef with his knife.

"Father is fine," Willy said. "The company is strong, stock options are through the roof."

"And you're their big shot lawyer now, aren't you, Willy boy?" Granny patted his head, like a very good dog.

Willy blushed and laughed.

Peter said, "I imagine Neotech needs an army of good lawyers."

"Dad," McKay warned, pressure rising, headache growing. But Peter went on.

"Yep. Big drug companies, they aren't what they used to be, that's for sure."

"What do you mean, sir?"

"What's this 'sir' business, eh, pip-squeak? I meant all the new drugs, government regulations, FDA approvals, lawsuits up to ying-yang . . . "

"Ying-yang," echoed Granny. "So, why didn't you ask our McKay to marry you first, Willy boy? Such a handsome fella'!" She pinched his cheek, hard, leaving red marks. "Almost as cute as John Travolta. You know John Travolta?"

"Granny!" McKay scowled, and Willy laughed, holding his cheek.

Granny looked over the top of her half-moon glasses. "Don't understand it all. Unless, of course, you're one of them homosapiens. Is that the problem, Willy boy?"

"Mother!" Nancy shot to her feet. "To your room!" she shouted, pointing her finger.

"I am not a child," Granny said, as if she'd been deeply offended.

"Then stop acting like one! And just look what you've done to McKay!"

All eyes turned to McKay, pitiful tears spilling over and dropping into her forkful of green beans. She knew she looked wretched. She bawled out loud.

"I didn't mean anything by it, you know, and it's nothing to be ashamed of these days. Everyone's coming out of the water closet. Heck, I just might do it myself. Free love, whee!" Granny fluttered her hands in the air, the loose skin beneath her arms jiggling.

McKay drew in a shaking breath.

Nancy sagged into her chair. "Medication. Either she gets some or I do."

"Nah," Peter said. "McKay's just upset about the accident, that's all. After all, it's her second in a week."

"No, I meant Granny--"

"Accident?" said Granny. "You're not going to call backing into you-know-who's car in an empty parking lot an accident, are you?"

"Sure," Peter said. "It was an accident. Besides, the car is half hers. She only hit her half."

Granny shook her finger. "Hitting it once would be an accident, Peter. But ramming it six times?"

McKay jumped up from the table and ran sobbing into her old bedroom.

"Now see what you've done, Mother?" she heard Nancy say.

"What did I do? No sense in telling a lie--"

Willy knocked lightly on her bedroom door. "It's only me."

"I need a minute."

"For what?" He threw open the door.

"Shut it! Shut it!" McKay waved cigarette smoke toward the open window, and Willy quickly closed the door behind himself.

He furled his brow and stood before her, his arms crossed over his chest.

"I know what you're thinking. But it's my first one in months. I need this--"

He reached for the lighted cigarette, drowning the ember in an old cup of tea.

"You're trying to kill yourself, aren't you."

"Shit. It was one cigarette."

"Not that. Did you forget to mention a little something?"

She couldn't look him in the eyes. "What."

"Your second accident in one week, McKay?"

"Oh, that." McKay threw herself backward on the bed. "No, I wasn't trying to kill myself. But then again, maybe I was. Or maybe I should." She squeezed her eyes shut, working up more tears.

"I'm not going to stand around and watch you feel sorry for yourself another minute."

McKay sat straight up on the bed and swallowed hard. "Please don't leave me."

"Wash your face, put on some makeup, and for God's sake, McKay, change your clothes."

She looked down at her shirt. "Oh. Gravy."

"Right. And you can't get in to Rose's on a Friday night wearing gravy."

"Oh, no. Not Rose's."

"And wear comfortable shoes. We're going dancing. Get moving. I'll be back in five minutes."

This bathroom, McKay thought, hadn't changed once in all the years since the Fines had bought the walnut orchard and moved into this old farm house. Situated between her old room and the guest bedroom, it was still painted bubblegum pink, with a pink vinyl shower curtain and bath towels to match. The poodle toilet paper cover that Granny crocheted one Christmas still sat on the toilet tank, a little worse for the wear, but it did match the toilet seat cover, her tenth birthday present from Granny McKay. Mom never wanted to hurt Granny's feelings and throw them away, not even once McKay had gone off to college and refused to take them with her. Like Granny, who had moved into the guest bedroom in the house on the Fine Nut Farm--temporarily--years ago, she supposed the poodle would be staying forever, too. No, not much around here had changed. But had she?

In many ways. She'd gotten older, and hopefully wiser. She had her own life, separate from theirs. Yet it had been all too easy to come back here, to fall into the old patterns, into the same roles with Dad and Mom and Granny.

"You should come back home, at least until after the baby is born, until you can get back on your feet," Nancy Fine said.

"You know I love you, all of you. I just don't think I can move back home, not any more."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can't not move back. With a new baby coming along, you can't possibly make it entirely on your own. It's nothing to be ashamed of, McKay, but it is a fact of life."

"This is something I've got to figure out on my own, Mom."

"Nonsense. What's the point of being a family if you're not going to be there for each other? Besides, you'll always be my little girl."

"Mom--"

"I know, I know," she said. "When do you want me to send your dad for your things?"

McKay spit out a mouthful of toothpaste, accidentally glimpsing herself in the mirror over the sink. She winced, certain she'd never looked worse. Sallow skin, shadows beneath her eyes, and her hair stuck out in every direction, like it'd been caught in a piece of high-powered machinery. Why was Willy doing this, insisting on dragging her out when she looked worse than death? She turned on the cold water, splashing it over her face and she grabbed for the face towel, pink, and crocheted at one end.

McKay opened the medicine cabinet to the one shelf she'd cleared out for herself. She didn't need much space for her things, but now Granny's ointments and creams and powders and pills were crammed on the two other shelves.

There were all sorts of concoctions. Eleven bottles of prescribed medications were bunched together, but most of them, McKay noticed, were completely full. Probably sugar pills anyway, she thought. Lady Godiva Face Cream. Doctor Johnson's Depilatory Lotion. Nature's Own Cellulite Melt-Away. Swan Song Antifungal. Egyptian Henna Hair Color. A crumpled tube of hemorrhoidal ointment fell into the sink, and McKay gingerly picked it up and put it away.

She wore a little mascara, a smudge of apricot lipstick, and the concealer, of course, for the light scars on her cheek. McKay blotted her lips on a piece of pink toilet paper, inspecting herself. Okay, better. Not great, but better.

Now then, what did dancing whales wear? McKay surveyed the meager contents of her closet. She'd taken most her clothes that still fit when she left Eric naturally, but she and Eric hadn't been out anyplace nice in such a long time. She had absolutely nothing to wear.

She had the clothes she wore to work, but business suits were out of the question, especially maternity business suits. No matter which way the pinstripes went, she looked like a two-car garage. No one could tell her otherwise.

His knock came again.

"Come in. Hey, what do you think? The blue dress? Or this pantsuit?" She held them alternately beneath her chin.

"Actually, I like 'em both."

"But which one the most?"

"You know I've always liked you in blue."

"Okay," she said, and she tossed the dress on her old twin bed. McKay crossed her arms and pulled her shirt off over her head.

"Hey!" Willy spun around to face the wall.

"What the heck?"

"You should have warned me!"

McKay glared at the back of his head. What was the matter with him, anyway? He'd been acting downright weird since she'd shown up at his office the day before. "I've changed clothes lots of times in front of you, and it never bothered you before. And you've done it in front of me, too. In fact, I've snapped your naked butt with a towel so many times--"

"Don't you see? Everything has changed."

"Sorry," she mumbled. She hurriedly slid the dress on over her head and slipped off her jeans, kicking them under the bed. McKay took a deep breath. "So I was right all along. You've grown up and left me behind."

He turned around carefully. "What are you talking about, McKay?"

"Your engagement to Zoe--"

"Don't bring that up, okay? That's in the past. And it had nothing to do with us."

"Yes, yes it did, Willy. Whatever it was happened the day you told me you were marrying Zoe." McKay remembered the strain in his voice, a hardness in his eyes that she'd never seen before.

He jammed his hands in his pockets and paced the floor of her bedroom.

"Did she do something to you, Willy? Did she do something that made you think twice about us?"

"Look, I said she had nothing to do with this, all right?"

"This? What is 'this'?"

His eyebrows formed a burl in the center of his forehead. "Truth is, I don't really know."

"I don't blame you, Willy."

"Don't blame me for what?"

"Look at me! I'm thirty--"

He raised an eyebrow.

"--I'm pregnant and I've just filed for divorce from my cheating husband. I've been reporting the same boring news for the same boring television station for five years. I now live with my parents and my crazy grandmother. All I have is your friendship, Willy. And right now I don't have a lot to offer in return."

"Just finish getting dressed, will you?"

"I will not."

"Don't go and get all temperamental on me, okay?"

"I know why you're doing this. You feel sorry for me. Well, I'll tell you what. That's not good enough, Willy Alexander. I don't want your sympathy. I want us to be friends, just like we used to be. Buddies. Best pals. That's all I ask."

"That's what you want?"

"That's it. And I know what you're thinking."

"Do you." He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled in that maddeningly cocky way he had.

"That you don't need another buddy, especially not one with all this baggage."

"Yeah, you're right, McKay. I don't need another buddy."

"I think you should leave."

"I think you should put on your shoes."

"I'm not going to Rose's with you, tonight or ever."

"And run a brush through your hair."

"Because that's where we used to go, when we were--"

"Best friends?"

"Goodbye, Willy."

chapter 8

"Take a left, right here, tootsie."

McKay swung the huge old Cadillac around the corner. "What number did you say?"

"Twenty five, twelve, twenty five, fourteen. There! See? Twenty five, sixteen! Doctor Frenchie's Office, third floor, same building as that crazy optometrist with the television commercials. The huge dancing glasses, you know?"

"Shoot! I missed it. We'll have to double around."

Granny said, "Don't worry, we're plenty early." She patted McKay's knee.

They rode in insulated silence for minutes, the noise of the busy street at one o'clock in the afternoon muffled behind the Cadillac windows. Another doctor, Doctor Frenchie. She'd never heard of him before. Of course, she hadn't heard of half of the others either, before Granny recounted her 'war stories'. McKay pondered all the doctors Granny'd gone through in a year.

The last one had dismissed Granny's concerns a bit too hastily, she said. He didn't care a wit that she had pains, such pains in her stomach that came on at the church picnic, right after eating a plate of cole slaw and boiled weiners. He didn't check for food poisoning, didn't bother to check her appendix. Gas, her left foot! Gas, she knew. Why, she'd been dealing with gas long before he was ever born, and so good riddance to him.

Another doctor before 'the gas man' had written "mildly obese" on Granny's chart. She knew it for a fact; she'd read it over his shoulder and she was not, for his information, obese--just big boned, like her mother had been.

And then there was Doctor Brown, the podiatrist. He was wall-eyed, one eye looking straight at you and your aching foot, the other wandering over all of creation. Granny felt sorry for him, sure, but who in their right mind would let a wall-eyed doctor whittle off their corns?

Granny was full of excuses, but McKay was slowly catching on to the pathetic truth. Flitting from one doctor's office to the next satisfied a need in Granny. The longer the delay in the waiting room, the more thoroughly Granny appeared to enjoy her visit. Conversely, the more punctual and efficient the doctor, the less Granny McKay seemed to like him or her. Coincidence? McKay didn't think so.

People Granny hadn't seen in years came to the offices clustered in mid-town Portland, all of them with troubles, none so bad as hers. Funerals, Granny had to admit, were good for catching up, too, but in her mind, nothing could compare to a good hour, hour and a half delay in a doctor's waiting room. The bonus was that you then had a doctor all to yourself for another five or ten minutes, fifteen depending on the nature of your complaint and if there were specimens that needed to be taken.

This time McKay knew exactly where to stop. She eased the car to the side of the street, double parking, peering up at the third level of windows. "Sure you don't want me to go in there with you?"

Granny clutched the handle of her purse with both hands. "I'm a big girl, remember?"

"But you've never laid eyes on the man before. He could be a serial rapist for all you know."

"For all I know, you could be a granny-killer."

"Granny."

"He'll see me today, that's all I care about. You know how hard it is to get someone to see you on a Saturday? What he does on his own time is none of my business."

"I don't know. I don't like the looks of this place. It looks. . . seamy."

"You've been watching too many movies, tootsie. Besides, this is an emergency."

"A freckle is not an emergency, Granny."

"You call this a freckle?" She tugged up the bottom of her sweater and popped out one breast from the cup of her brassiere. The breast flumped down, nearly to her navel. "This a mole," Granny said proudly, pointing to one infinitesimal fleck of brown.

McKay squeezed her eyes shut at the frightening sight. Swing low, sweet chariot, were those things genetic? Maybe that's what happened when you breastfed a couple of kids. . . "Okay, a mole then." McKay looked anxiously to the right and to the left. No one appeared to have noticed her bare-breasted grandmother.

"It triples in size overnight, it's an emergency."

McKay sighed, and Granny smoothed her sweater back into place.

"You're double parked. Be sure to come get me in an hour, okay, tootsie? Not a minute sooner." She pinched McKay on the cheek, then huffed and puffed herself out of the car.

"Okay, Granny," she said weakly. "One hour."

McKay glanced at her watch, then out of the telephone booth door. Leaves on the elms were only just beginning to unfold, and primroses poked their cheery heads up everywhere along the wide park pathway. A stand of daffodils that had bloomed a bit too early and then died in last week's freak freezing rainstorm lay flat on the ground, battered harbingers of spring.

Two kids were pumping themselves higher and higher on the creaking swings, and a squadron of nine year olds roared down the sidewalk on bicycles. An odd little terrier mix relieved himself on the leg of a rusted park bench, while his owner turned and looked the other way.

The secretary's voice startled her, almost making her forget why she called. "Mister Alexander, please. Could you tell him this is McKay?" She waited another long minute. Neil Diamond sang "Chelsea Morning" in the background, and she hummed along.

"McKay?"

"Willy?"

A pause, then confident laughter. She could envision Dwight Alexander leaning back in his chair, feet up on his desk, puffing away at a soggy cigar. "Will isn't in, McKay doll. You need something?"

"I just. . . do you know where he is?"

"No."

The answer came too fast. "If you see him--"

"I won't."

"Oh."

"What I meant, McKay doll, is that he's a big boy now. Doesn't check in and out with me, that sort of thing."

"Right. I'll just try him later. And Dwight, if you see him--"

"Which I very much doubt."

"Okay. Maybe I'll try him at home tonight."

"Atta' girl."

He hung up the phone, and McKay looked into the buzzing ear piece. If she could only take back everything she'd said the night before. What was the matter with her anyway? She didn't want their friendship to end, only to be what it once was. But she'd take any crumb Willy would give her. Why couldn't she have said that instead? Why? Gently she placed the receiver back on its hook.

It would be a warm spring, a sizzling summer, she could tell already. The air conditioner in Old Blue blasted nothing but heat, and she rolled down her window. McKay wondered how it would feel to be nine months pregnant in July. Maybe she'd go somewhere else, like Montana. She heard that even in July, it sometimes snowed in Montana.

Traffic was crawling as she turned off onto the side street. She squinted. Was that Granny already? McKay checked her watch. Fifty eight minutes had passed. Granny ran out into the traffic, frantically waving her down, her purse flapping at her elbow. Granny's face was cherry red, and the awful thought struck McKay.

Maybe Granny was right. Maybe this was more serious than a mole after all. What else would cause her to charge out into the street like this?

Granny flung open the car door and plopped into the front seat, panting as if she'd run all the way down from Doctor Frenchie's office on the third floor.

"You okay, Granny?"

The old woman faced straight ahead, her hands clasped in her lap. She didn't answer.

"Granny, you're worrying me."

"The mole? It was nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Go, McKay, they're getting impatient with you back there."

Only then did McKay hear the symphony of beeps behind her. She eased the big car forward. "Then what, Granny?"

Granny shook her head.

"You don't tell me, I'll have to call the doctor myself. You want me to do that?"

"You know what kind of a doctor Doctor Frenchie is?"

Here we go again. What objectionable thing had this one said or done? "Um, a skin doctor, I guess. A breast doctor?"

Granny shook her head, still looking forward. "He's an oncologist. Fancy-shmancy name for a cancer doctor."

"Granny, what did he say about your mole?"

"Said it was a freckle."

"And you disagree?"

"I say no sense in making a mountain out of a mole, hell."

McKay remained silent, readying herself. Granny always made jokes before dropping the bomb.

"You know who I saw in there?"

"Who?"

"I saw Willy boy."

***

The leukemic cell lay dormant, and for so many years that Willy's immune system had nearly forgotten. Quite suddenly, the cell divided. And then there were two.

An alarm jangled throughout the entire system. White blood cells, lymphocytes, were summoned to action. Somewhere the enemy lurked, a deadly intruder the white blood cells fought once before. Systematically the lymphocytes assembled. If they could locate this foreign organism, they would surround it and swallow it whole. The hunt was on.

But their numbers were small. A single lymphocyte existed for every thousand red blood cells coursing through the blood stream, and the leukemic cell was the master of disguise. Cellular memories stimulated, white blood cells divided and multiplied in an orderly manner. More lymphocytes poured from bone marrow, from the spleen and from the lymph nodes, increasing the numbers in their microscopic army. But not nearly fast enough.

Leukemic cells blatantly disobeyed the rules of nature by which every other living cell complied. They failed to return communications and ignored the warnings of the immune system.

The cancerous cells multiplied with the speed of lightning. Their genetic composition was unlike any others within the entire system; they were aberrations. Leukemic cells divided and doubled, passing their deformities to their daughter cells. Quickly they evolved into aggressors. Invading the leukocyte reservoirs, enemy cells permeated rigid walls of bone, forced their way inside the fragile spleen, spilled over and swam freely through the wide lymphatic passages. . .

"I don't know what's the matter with me." Willy cut his sandwich in two with a sterling silver knife. He and his father sat alone at the table in the private dining room in the penthouse of the Neotech Building. "I'm free and McKay's suddenly free, and every time I open my mouth, I put my foot in it."

Dwight rubbed his temple and stirred his Bloody Mary, playing with the celery stick.

"Do you think I should call her? Tell her I'm sorry?"
"That's a terrible idea, any way you look at it."
"Then flowers? I mean, she's been through a lot."

"No."

"I must have sounded like an idiot. I think I'll--"

Dwight slapped his open hand hard on the table, spilling part of his Bloody Mary. Willy held his sandwich in one hand. His mouth was frozen open.

"You're not listening to me, boy. You know the implications."

Willy slowly set his sandwich down. He opened his linen napkin, wiping imaginary crumbs from his lips. "This is never going to end."

"There's too much at stake. It's best to distance ourselves from that whole unfortunate incident."

"Father, everything happened nearly twenty years ago. Besides, this is between you and Peter Fine."

Dwight cleared his throat. "Peter Fine and Neotech. And as much as you hate to hear it, you are a part of Neotech."

"You've got one thing right. I hate that you dragged me into this whole mess."

"Willy," he said softly, "there are other fish in the sea." And then he smiled.

Willy was not taken in by his father's disarming smile.

Dwight Alexander was a big bear of a man who used everything he had to get everything he wanted. Willy was sure that most of the unattached women in the city of Portland had probably succumbed to that smile at one time or another. Even attached women pined for him in ways that often embarrassed Willy, but never Dwight. In fact, Willy's father had long been considered one of the most eligible bachelors in the entire state. That same smile won Dwight Alexander countless favors in the highest courts in the land, and charmed CEO's of the largest corporations in America senseless.

Dwight was a collegiate football player once upon a time, a quarterback, of course. He'd graduated in the top five percent of his class at Yale, and made his first million by the time he was twenty three years old. Admirers said he was the perfect combination of looks, brawn and brains; detractors grudgingly agreed. Unfortunately, blue eyes and a nasty allergy to cow's milk were the only traits Willy inherited from his father.

Those who claimed to know said Willy resembled his Parisian-born mother, who'd died when he was six. Dwight thought so too, and said that Willy inherited her personality as well. Dwight considered that a grave defect, which he was determined to fix if it was the last thing he ever did.

"Hm, other fish in the sea. I'll take that under advisement, Father."

"You're not going to listen to me about this, are you."

"What happens between McKay and me will have absolutely no effect on Neotech."

Dwight sipped at his drink. "Oh, is that what you think."

"I don't think, I know."

"I don't think you know, either, son."

Willy yanked off the tape and the cotton ball from the crook of his arm without wincing. He glanced at the dot of dried blood, fleetingly thinking that would be the last blood test for another whole year. After thirteen years of checking, it was only a formality at this point. Even so, he was always glad to have it over with. He tossed the cotton ball into the trash can beneath his kitchen sink.

Willy opened the freezer compartment and pulled out a single TV dinner from the top of a tall stack. He zipped open the carton and lifted the plastic covering off little triangular bricks of food, carefully picking off frozen cheese sauce from the broccoli. Willy slid the paper dish into the microwave and settled against the kitchen counter.

He held the thin file in his hands. Fine, Peter E. was typed neatly at the top. Willy opened the file. "I, Peter E. Fine. . ." Willy's eyes scanned the yellowed sheet, and he ran his finger over the ragged signature at the bottom of the page. For the umpteenth time he flipped the page up, staring at the blank backside of the file.

After seventeen illustrious years as the chief scientist in charge of new development, there was no other information about Peter Fine. No further notations, no patent credits, no evaluations, no clue as to what kind of an employee, what kind of a scientist, what kind of a man Peter Fine really was. According to this single document, the weight of the Unghatti affair rested entirely on his stooped shoulders. And except for this one piece of paper, seventeen years of the man's life had simply vanished. Father was a careful man; he kept three other copies of this signed confession, in three separate safes, far away from the Neotech Building.

His words echoed in Willy's head. "I'm so sick of that whole nasty mess. It'll never be completely behind us until Peter Fine and his brother are both cold in their graves." Willy Alexander shivered.

Willy laid the file aside for the moment and glanced in at his dinner. He sorted absently through a stack of mail, and went to check his message machine in the living room.

"Will, this is Ed. You interested in a game of racquet ball at the club tomorrow afternoon? You know the number. Give me a call."

Actually, he was feeling a little run down of late. Maybe he'd skip the game. Willy turned on his stereo and popped in a tape, Kenny G. He gazed out the window, the lights of Portland burning like a million stars.

"Hi, sorry I missed you at your office. This is Candice Gordon from Brackenworth and Fielding's. Mr. Fielding wants to know if we can reschedule the Medcorp meeting for one hour earlier on Monday morning. . ."

Willy unknotted his tie and flipped it over the back of a chair.

"Will? Are you there? I've made a terrible mistake. I need to talk to you. Will? Will. . ." Her voice trailed off in a series of sobs.

Jesus. Zoe. He turned Kenny G. up a notch and slipped out his gold cuff links, then untucked his shirt.

"Mister Alexander? This is Chris from Birdsong's Vinyl Siding. Are you a homeowner, Mister Alexander? Mister Alexander? Hello?"

Willy stepped out of his tasseled loafers, sighing. The microwave beeped, and on his way back to the kitchen, the doorbell rang. Odd, he thought. No forewarning from security, which could only mean one thing. Someone had slipped Johnson a twenty.

The shriveled old guard had literally come with the building. At one time Johnson was a bulldog of a man; he would have laid his own life on the line to protect the people who lived inside. That was then. Of late he'd become forgetful, and he'd also developed a fondness for twenty dollar bills.

The chain still in place, Willy cracked open the door. He grinned, shut the door, unhooked the chain, then threw the door wide open.

"I've been trying to get you all day." McKay stepped inside and gave him a sisterly peck on the cheek. "I wanted to tell you that I was sorry, but first I need to use your bathroom. Really, really badly. Is that okay?"

Willy watched her run down the hall and smiled to himself. Before the next message was over, a courtesy call from the dry cleaners--his shirts had been ready for a week and would he please pick them up--McKay was back.

"I hate to be rude, you know that. My bladder's just not what it used to be, I guess." McKay sniffed the air. "Smells a little like. . . burnt chicken. Yes, that's it."

"Dinner!" said Willy, hurrying for the microwave, McKay at his heels. Then a huge, queasy knot grew in Willy's stomach. The file. He'd left Peter's file out in plain sight. He had to create a diversion. "Could you hand me a potholder, quick!"

McKay plowed through his towel drawer while Willy shoved Peter's file in with the silverware. When he looked up, she was frowning. He tried to make light of it and laughed. "Client confidentiality, you know. Whatever you do, don't ever go near my sock drawer!"

McKay did not laugh. She did not smile. Had she seen the name at the top of the file?

The answering machine was still droning in the background. ". . .there's a small problem with your bloodwork, and Doctor Chevellier would like to run another test as soon as possible. We'll be in first thing Monday morning, call us back then, would you, Mr. Alexander?"

McKay's face turned ashen white and she whispered, "Chevellier?"

Willy was relieved. Somehow, she hadn't seen the file. She was listening to the woman on the answering machine, as the good doctor's receptionist continued with her incessant line of chatter. ". . . probably, nothing to be overly concerned about, but be sure to call us first thing Monday morning. . ."

"Doctor Chevellier."

"You know I have annual bloodwork." Willy juggled the TV dinner, chicken dark and smoking, broccoli singed black. He blew and fanned the paper plate, as if that would somehow undo the damage.

"She said there's a problem."

"Right. This isn't the first time they've lost my results."

"But he's not the only doctor, is he, Willy. Granny mentioned she saw you in her doctor's office today, too. Doctor Frenchie, another oncologist."

"Doctor Frenchie? Never heard of him, I swear."

"You're going to stand here and deny it?"

"Hey. What are you so worked up about?"

"Well, were you there or not?"

"At Doctor Frenchie's? No. At Doctor Chevellier's, yes, for routine bloodwork, like I told you already."

"I see." She crossed her arms over her rounded belly. "All right, I guess if you're not going to be straight with me."

"I wasn't at any Doctor Frenchie's office, today or ever."

"You calling Granny a liar?"

"You calling me a liar?"

She lifted her stubborn chin. "I guess I am."

"Is that why you came here? To pick a fight, McKay?"

McKay didn't say another word. She ran straight out the front door, slamming it behind her.

Willy jerked it back open. "You drive me crazy, you know that?"

"Quiet!" yelled someone from behind a closed door down the long hallway.

Brazil, South America

chapter 9

The electric generator on the other side of the wall clattered to a stop. Lights overhead flickered twice, then died. Max groaned.

"I'll get it," he said.

Fiona called out from the kitchen, "Don't bother just yet. Poor old thing needs a minute or two."

An oil lamp, fashioned from an old beer bottle, smoked in the farthest corner of the Three Falls Caf‚. Mosquitoes and a variety of other flying insects had managed to find a torn corner in the rusty screen door, and they circled around the spluttering yellow flame. Max Fine sighed and looked out the door, hands clasped behind his back.

Rain pummeled the earth. It came down in such torrents that Max had to strain to see more than a few paces down the main street. Light that managed to filter through the rain was a dismal gray. Ah well, he thought, looking up at the sky. It very likely wouldn't last through dinner. He would still have time to go back to his laboratory for a little while, then return to his snug little hut on the edge of the Unghatti village on schedule, long before dark. He sensed Fiona moving in the shadows behind him. Max heard one of the small tables creak as she leaned over it, wiping sticky rings away with a rag.

"Have you heard how the old shaman is doing, Max?" she said, her German accent still detectable after all these years.

He watched Fiona as she worked. Even in the dim yellow light, she was pretty, her long dark hair done up in a braid on her head, her eyes sparkling, cheeks round and rosy red. "Why do you ask?"

Fiona stopped scrubbing, examining the rag in her hand. "I'd heard. . ."

"That he's been ill?"

"Yes. That he's been very ill. Naturally, that concerns us in the settlement."

"I stopped at his hut to see him right before I came to see you."

"And is he as sick as they say?" Fiona handed Max two knives, two forks and two spoons, and she hurried back out to the kitchen.

"He's got a slight fever but no specific complaints just yet. I'll check in on him again tonight when I get back. Tikitu will bring him to the sisters if I'm gone and she feels he is worse."

Fiona reappeared with two plates in her hands. "Tell me he's going to be all right." She set the plates on the little round table, and took the silverware back from Max, arranging it neatly beside the plates.

"Today I'd say yes. But even Hekura can't live forever, Fi."

"I hate to think of life without him. Because of Hekura, we have managed to live in relative harmony with the natives. Extraordinary, don't you think, considering the history of the Benjis? If Hekura should die, who's to stop an all-out war from breaking out among the tribes? My orchid business and my restaurant, the safety of the settlement, even our lives may be placed in jeopardy."

"The Benjis aren't fool enough to bite the hand that feeds them."

"I'd agree with you, Max, if I was sure Alto could continue to hold onto his power."

Max pressed the reset button on the generator. The lights overhead flickered, then came on, but at only half their usual brightness. "What makes you think he won't?"

"Don't you listen to the talk? Behind Alto's back, Luta is quietly gaining support among the Benjis. Because Luta still fears Hekura's magic, he is held in check, but once Hekura is dead. . ." She shook her head. "Maybe we are all wrong. Maybe it is just talk." She lit a candle in the center of the table and flashed a smile at Max. "I know how you hate village gossip."

She lay a dinner of roast pork, potato and cabbage soup, and pudding on the table. Max thought for a moment about Luta and the Benjis, about the tenuous nature of life in general, living in the rain forest. But thinking serious thoughts wasn't always so easy. Fiona had a way of making Max forget about everything but her.

As a teenaged bride, Fiona Gearhardt accompanied her much older husband, Sigmund, into the rain forest. Fifteen years after his strange disappearance, she continued to stay, never explaining her reasons. Perhaps she was waiting for Sigmund to return. Or perhaps not. Max supposed he'd never really know the truth about Fiona.

It was Christmas Day, 1979, his first Christmas in the rain forest. Max had just finished stringing red berries on a fig tree branch that he propped in one corner of his hut. Beneath his breath he hummed "Noel" and lay back in his hammock.

The green-eyed stranger cleared his throat. Max looked up to the imposing figure of the man, filling his doorway. Max jumped to his feet in alarm.

"Sigmund Gearhardt." The man held out his meaty hand.

"How do you do. Gearhardt. Gearhardt?" Max pushed up his pith helmet and scratched his sweaty head.

"Perhaps you've heard of me already. Gearhardt Rubber?"

"Ah, now that rings a bell." A warning bell. Hadn't there been some sort of trouble once the rubber had run out? "What brings you back to these parts, Gearhardt?"

"Orchids," he said.

"Orchids?"

"There is a fortune to be made in orchids, Doctor Fine, a veritable fortune."

Only then did Max notice the small, shy girl, his bride, Fiona, at his side. Max smiled and nodded; Fiona looked at her feet. Max motioned Sigmund Gearhardt inside his hut, though there was no place to sit, and barely room enough for all three to stand. Max's Christmas tree toppled over.

"You must have your reasons for venturing out of Three Falls," he said. "But I'm afraid you are mistaken if you think the Unghattis would ever give permission to start any sort of a commercial business here."

The man smiled, his straight, white teeth flashing bright. "All things in good time. I've been told if anyone could help move things along, it would be you."

"Then I'm afraid you have wasted your time, Mr. Gearhardt."

Sigmund Gearhardt clapped Max on the back, as if they were two old friends. "I had hoped you could speak out on my behalf."

"Speak on your behalf to whom? Why, I don't know you from the man in the moon." Gearhardt's face darkened, but Max noticed a hint of a smile turn up the corner of Fiona's mouth, gone as quickly as it came.

"I've already bought two Cessna 180's on floats, equipped with specially designed refrigerated cargo sections to transport the orchids."

Max shook his head. "I still don't understand what I have to do with any of this."

"The governing body of Brazil is hesitant to allow me start up another business. It seems that Gearhardt Rubber left a bad taste in someone's mouth, so to speak. You, Maxwell Fine, are apparently the only neckee that they trust."

"Nappe," Max corrected. It was slowly coming back to him. Gearhardt, slave labor. . . "Tell me, Gearhardt, are you planning to hire the natives?"

He laughed. "That's the real beauty of the thing," Gearhardt said, and he withdrew a box of cigarettes from his pocket. "See these?"

"Cigarettes?"

"Red Jims. The aborigines can't seem to get enough of them. Of course, they roll their own clumsy version of cigarettes with wild tobacco, but Red Jims are a luxury. They'd gladly work a week for a pack of imported cigarettes." He opened the box and offered one to Max.

"Ah, now I understand. I think you'd better leave, Gearhardt."

Gearhardt shoved the pack back into his pocket. "A lot of people put their reputations on the line so that you could stay in this country, Doctor Fine. I think they'd be very interested to know that you are unwilling to return the favor," the big man said in tones of icy indignation.

"A lot of people--? Who told you such a thing?"

"Let's just call him a mutual acquaintance. An old college friend of yours, I believe."

A band of fear tightened around Max's chest. "Good day, Mr. Gearhardt, madam," he said with a curt nod of his head.

The man turned on one heel and walked out of Max's hut. Fiona meekly followed.

Sigmund eventually got his approval, and without Max's blessing. And his orchid operation thrived. Gearhardt Enterprises employed every Benji who wanted to work; some harvested the orchids, others wrapped the stems with florist's tape and then pierced the stem with a long synthetic pearl-topped pin. Still others sealed the flowers into small plastic boxes and packed them neatly into crates. And all for one pack of Red Jims a week.

Fiona seemed a reasonably contented wife those first few years of her husband's success. . . until word of the strange Benji babies was whispered around Three Falls. These babies were not dark, like other children born into the tribes. Some were even said to have light green eyes. Word in the settlement was that Fiona had threatened Sigmund with a divorce.

One day Max passed by the Gearhardt's home; he'd come to Three Falls for supplies. Fiona's anguished cries pierced the air.

No, Sigmund shouted, he would not stop sleeping with Benji women, not until Fiona could give him a son, as any wife worth keeping would do. She was trying, she wailed.

Max was too embarrassed to eavesdrop, and he hurried away. That very next day, Fiona reported her husband missing. He'd gone for a walk, she said, and simply hadn't come back. Another woman in the settlement of Three Falls said she'd watched Fiona tracking something late the night before, her husband's rifle tucked beneath one arm. Fiona denied this, and said in fact that her husband's rifle was missing as well. No one in the settlement heard from Sigmund Gearhardt again, and not a single trace of him was ever found.

The orchid enterprise continued to grow under Fiona's capable direction, still using specially equipped float planes that came and went from the forest every day of the year. Only one thing had changed; Fiona paid the natives with real money, money the Benjis used to buy staples in Three Falls, or used to trade with other tribes for knives and various other weaponry which they were too inept to make for themselves. She bought the Three Falls Caf‚ with some of her orchid profits and ran it all by herself, never once missing a day in the years Max had known her. Fiona was one determined lady.

"The rain has stopped."

"What's that?"
"The rain," she said, pointing to the screen door.

"Ah, yes," he said. "That was a fine dinner, Fiona. "I'll do the dishes." He rose to his feet, gathering up his own silverware.

Fiona put her hand in his wrist. "You'd better go while there's a break in the weather. It looks as if more rain is on the way."

"So it does."

"Don't look so sad, Max. You must come for dinner again tomorrow, for the Benji women have promised me a little chicha."

"Ah, chicha!" he said, clapping his hands like a boy.

"And you will bring good news of Hekura."

"Good evening, dearest Fi." Max winked and gathered his pith helmet from a hook inside Fiona's front door.

The convent was already dark, but he still had plenty of work to do. Max closed the door quietly behind himself and he unlaced his boots, slipping them off. He crept past a whole row of tiny, empty rooms that were, more often than not, overflowing with the sick and the wounded.

Aside from the infirmary wing, this floor of the convent contained the enormous kitchen and an equally spacious parlor room. Upstairs were the sister's quarters; 'cells', they called their rooms, as if this were a prison. Prison, indeed. Max would rather be here at the convent in the Unghatti forest than anyplace else in the world. He suspected that each of the sisters felt the same way, though it seemed part of their religion to never admit that. The sisters were, after all, trying to emulate saints, and as everyone was well aware, saints appeared to do a great deal of suffering in order to get to heaven. But Max knew the truth, even if none of the sisters chose to confess. Together they were the fortunate few, the inhabitants of the last Eden.

His laboratory occupied one room at the very end of the long infirmary hallway, directly across from Moses's room. It was a gift from the generous nuns partially because, he supposed, they felt a little sorry for him. He'd lost all his journals one year that the flooding Bindadnay caught him by surprise. The river devastated the Unghatti village, but never made it even half way up the hill to the convent.

He didn't need a second invitation to move everything of importance to safer ground. This was where he stored his notes on every experiment he'd done since his brother had left. Most of Max's equipment was here, his trusty microscope, and the notes and the statistics he rescued from the wrecked Jeep he'd accidentally discovered at the bottom of the ravine. Wire cages and the current generation of mice were the only things still kept in his Unghatti hut, and only because Theresa Bonaparte abhorred mice. Funny thing, Max thought. She claimed to love all God's creatures. The one exception was mice.

No sooner had he shut the laboratory door than he heard a timid knock.

"It's only me, Doctor Fine."

"Moses, come in." Max swiveled on his stool to face the door.

"I thought if you didn't mind I'd have my blood checked tonight. Tomorrow I'll be in Three Falls with Sister Benedict-Claire."

"Very well," Max said, taking out a rubber tourniquet and opening up a new needle and syringe. He carefully slid on a pair of disposable gloves, the same pair he'd used many times already on Moses--disposable gloves were hard to come by in the rain forest. "Make a fist a few times, now relax, ah, that's the ticket." The syringe immediately filled with dark red blood.

Max adjusted his microscope lenses. "And how are you feeling?"

"Never better!" Moses thumped his chest, and Max smiled without looking up. He knew it was so. The magazines Max still subscribed to said Moses and a few others like him were beyond the realms of scientific explanation.

"Well, Doctor Fine?"

He slid the glass plate from beneath his microscope and tossed it into his trash. "White blood cells are in great shape, once again." Max felt the glands in Moses's neck and made him stick out his tongue for good measure. Not that any of that was necessary. After this many years, Moses had simply come to expect it.

"Get out of here, kid," he said, and Moses chuckled all the way down the hall. The moment his footsteps disappeared, another knock came. Max sighed, shutting his notebook. So little time, so many distractions.

"It's only me." Theresa poked her head in the door. "Are you busy?"

"Not any more."

"You," said Theresa as she threw herself into a chair, "are the most stubborn man who has ever walked the face of the earth."

"And how so?"

"It's the ants, I tell you."

"Forget it!"

"Then how do you explain Moses's complete recovery?"

"Ants," he said, rubbing his hands together gleefully, "are biologically inert. Why can't you be like the other good sisters and just call it a miracle from God?" Twenty years had taught Max that there was nothing this woman loved more than a lively argument.

"Maxwell. You are sitting on a discovery that could stamp out this virus once and for all."

"I am doing no such thing, madam. I am simply not ready to state my opinion one way or another in regard to ant venom. Do you know what the scientific community would say if I told them that I discovered the cure for all cancers and AIDS and every chronic immunological disorder known to mankind in one fell swoop? And that the secret was ant venom? Ha! I'd find myself in the same category as every charlatan pedaling snake oil, and rightly so."

"But Maxwell, if Moses's illness and your research have taught us anything, it's that many diseases may actually be only one basic cancer cell capable of taking many forms."

"And you think this would interest the scientific community because. . . ?"

"Because then they'd realize that we'd only need one key to unlock the great mystery."

"That one key is, naturally, ant venom?"

"See, you've come around to my way of thinking," she teased, wagging her finger at him.

"Then please tell me, oh wise one, why the venom from every ant in this forest does not produce the desired result? Why not even every ant belonging to this particular family cannot seemingly produce the correct venom?"

"You are an arrogant man, do you know that, Maxwell Fine?"

"I've been called worse."

"No, I cannot tell you why. Perhaps it is a miracle from God."

Max chuckled and dug the recently discarded slide out of the trash can. He placed it back beneath his microscope and gazed through the lens, sighing.

"In all seriousness, Maxwell, what do you think?"

"I think you are right about all cancers being connected. After all, the same cancerous cell in a laboratory mouse can cause a brain tumor in one and lung cancer in another and on and on. Taking that one step further, I believe that all forms of cancer are one disease, as you have suggested, and that the disease is very likely caused by one built-in mechanism gone astray. I think that someone coming after me will find a single gene common to all cancerous cells that is, under normal circumstances, held in check in the healthy cell, but which overcomes the weakened cell and leads to cancer. This particular gene might be similar to those genes human embryos utilize during their earliest development, when swift cell production is necessary, but then is repressed by the cells when the growth is completed.

Max hopped from his stool and began to pace the floor of his laboratory, hands clasped behind his back. He stared intently at first one wall, then the other as he turned to retrace his steps, his eyes never meeting Theresa's. "Research supports this theory, though even the researchers themselves don't realize it yet. Viruses that cause cancer in animals carry genes identical to those responsible for rapid human fetal cell growth. If a true cure for cancer is ever to be found, its action will most likely eradicate the mechanism that causes the wild growth of the cancerous cell.

"Our immune system is the greatest naturally occurring defense the body can use against the cancerous cell. This might explain why seventy-five percent of us never get any form of cancer, while twenty-five percent of us, those with faulty immune systems, do. My theory is that those of us with the superior immune systems are forever identifying cancer cells and eliminating them, while those of us who are weakened. . . well, you can guess the outcome.

"And then there are people like Moses. Cases like his are documented more and more frequently. The patient is found to be in the late stages of cancer. In Moses's particular case, the virus had completely taken over his body and converted his white blood cells into virus-producing machines. These renegade cells rendered him defenseless against any number of illnesses and cancerous cells.

"Doctors who see patients like Moses throw up their hands in despair. They send the patient home to die. But on occasion, that patient returns to the doctor ten or twenty years later with no sign of the cancer. What happens there? Does the person's immune system finally kick in and devour the cancer? No one can say for certain, but I suspect that it is so." Maxwell stopped directly in front of Theresa, searching her face. She sat stone silent in the chair. "So, did I bore you with my theories?"

"Moses's illness did not disappear by itself, Maxwell. You've managed to create an invincible legion of white blood cells in Moses. What are you afraid of?"

Max smiled ruefully. "I'll tell you the truth, Theresa. I know why only certain ant's venom has seemed to help Moses. I knew it all along, my dear friend. Now, would you like to hear my confession?"

She did not encourage or object.

"We came here in search of the miracle cure for cancer so many years ago, my brother and I. Call it a gut feeling or whatever you will, we'd always suspected we'd find the cure here. We were certain we'd finally found it, at least in its raw form, in the pupugna tree. We called it 'salubristatin'; salubrious, as you may know, means to favor well-being. It ought to have worked. Yet we could never entirely prove our supposition. The salubristatin, you see, was far too fragile. No matter how careful we were, we destroyed its essence whenever we tried to remove it from the tree.

"Using ant venom was not my idea, but an idea borrowed from our aboriginal neighbors. Call to mind that test of manhood, where the women tightly weave great numbers of ants into a roiling mat. The men of the tribe press the mat of furious ants on the faces and arms and backs of the candidates for manhood. Those particularly vicious ants, you see, are taken directly from their nests, which they build high up in the pupugnas.

"Their nests are made from the tree itself. They gnaw the wood and build fantastic castle-like creations; you've seen them, I'm sure. The salubristatin inside the wood courses through their bodies, some of it invariably finding its way into the venom. And, Eureka! Once I ran a chemical analysis of the venom, I found the salubristatin, untainted and in a form that could easily be used by the human body. The ants had, in effect, become little salubristatin factories."

The color had returned to her face. "You still haven't told me what it is that you are afraid of, Maxwell."

He laughed, though without a trace of humor. "I have managed to escape the clutches of a world filled with greed, and I don't wish to ever return."

She jumped to her feet. "You speak of greed? You want to keep this miracle all to yourself, don't you."

"Theresa. My perfect, innocent Theresa. Can it be that you've already forgotten?"

chapter 10

Max hung up his wet slicker and his pith helmet on a peg inside Fiona's restaurant, a peg she'd put there especially for him. It was his reminder to take off his helmet. Fiona was fussy about such things.

She called from the kitchen. "I'll be there in just a minute, Maxwell. Oh, and Maxwell?" Her smiling face appeared around the corner. "Wipe those muddy boots."

Max grumbled but did as she asked. The fact that she'd promised him chicha had nothing to do with it, he told himself. He ran his fingers through his hat-crushed hair.

Rain, blasted rain! He should have been used to it by now, he supposed, for it came as predictably as the sun afterward did. Still, there was something sad about rain.

"Hi." Max leaned against the frame of the kitchen doorway.

"Hi yourself. Drain the noodles, would you, while I make the sauce?" She pointed with a wooden spoon.

"You made noodles?"

"Ask my sore wrists, they'll tell you I made noodles."

Max grinned and grabbed the pot, straining out boiling water with the lid. He scalded his hand with the steam and dropped the clattering lid into the kitchen sink.

Fiona only shook her head. "Men, what good are they really?"

"You couldn't get along without us, you know that."

"Hmph! So tell me how he is."

"Hekura?" Max tossed a pat of butter in with the noodles. "He gets better, he gets worse. It's a come and go type of thing."

"What about the sisters? Have they seen him yet?"

"He refuses. If Tikitu can get him talked into it, I'll take him over first thing tomorrow morning."

"And if not?"

"Hekura does what he wants."

"Come, bring the noodles, Max. Everything is ready."

"And the chicha?"

Fiona smiled. On the rare occasion that the Benji women had any extra chicha, they sold it to Fiona, and she always saved a pitcher of two for Max. She filled his cuia cup with the syrupy liquid, the color of coffee and cream. The bitter sweet smell of the fermented cassava juice floated toward him. In twenty years, he'd acquired quite a taste for the Benji ceremonial brew. "Ah," he said, letting a little slide down his throat. "You know how they make this?"

"No, and neither do you," she said. "They guard the secret with their lives."

"What if I told you I'd seen them make it?"

"I'd say you've already had too much to drink."

He winked and wagged his finger in the air. "But I did see them, from the tops of the trees."

"Tell me what you were doing in the trees. No, no," she said, holding up one hand. "On second thought, I don't think I want to know."

Max laughed. "The women spend all day digging up wild cassava roots. They bring them home in stolen Unghatti baskets, but for obvious reasons, I couldn't confront them about this. Then the women peel and shred and dry and boil the roots, and spend all that night making dozens and dozens of loaves of cassava bread. The next day--"

"You were up in a tree for two days?"

"The next day, a couple of boys drag a canoe up into their village clearing. Then the women fill the canoe up with river water, bugs and all."

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Bugs?"

"The women crumble those loves of cassava bread they baked the day before into the water, then they stir it all up, until it's thick as gravy. Next they cover the whole mish-mash with monkey hides and leave it to bubble and ferment. Three days later, just like magic, they have chicha."

In so many ways, Max thought, Benjis were inferior to the Unghattis; they lived savage, barbarous, violent lives, and if not for the charity of the people of Three Falls, their whole tribe would most certainly have perished a dozen times over in the last twenty years. They were a scavenging lot, Brazilian vultures of the great forest. On the other hand, Unghattis did not have chicha.

"As God is my witness, I will never drink this vile concoction again. How can you stand the thought, Maxwell?"

He raised his cuia to her and took an extra long gulp. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Max considered her round, frowning face. "What's really on your mind, Fi?"

"It's nothing." She poured him a little more of the brew. "No, that's not entirely true. I just think you're taking Hekura's illness too lightly, Max. You of all people should be worried."

"After living this long with the natives, I guess that's precisely why I'm not worried. Unghattis, you see, don't really die. At least that's what they believe. Their spirits abandon the old worn out body, and then they either slip into another body, another human or an animal they particularly admire, or they float around in the mist for eternity, doing good deeds for the Unghattis who come afterward. Unghattis believe Hekura will always be with them. The power of suggestion alone is enough to keep those superstitious Benji's in line."

"Let's hope you're right. The people are talking."

"Fiona, Fiona, Fiona. Haven't you learned yet not to listen to anything you hear in Three Falls?"

She gave her head a little shake. "You haven't said anything about the noodles. What's the matter? You don't like the noodles?"

Max filled his mouth with the pale, wiggling delights. "Mmm!" He said, shaking his head and raising his eyebrows. He spoke with his mouth full. "Most delicious! Extraordinary! These are superb!"

Fiona clucked and filled his cup with the last of the chicha. Sipping at his drink, Max pushed himself back from the table. By the dim light, he squinted and fiddled with the dial of his radio, a permanent fixture in Fiona's caf‚. Aside from Max, no one else touched the radio. Even after all these years, the natives seemed in awe of the box that could sing. Through a wall of static, strains of Glen Miller's version of "That Old Black Magic" drifted into the caf‚.

In his early years in the rain forest Max took a correspondence course in radio engineering. Once a month, he slipped a thin envelope and a few American dollars into the hands of one of Fiona's float plane pilots, Big Lou. Like clockwork, two weeks later a bulging envelope from Chicago Correspondence Trade School appeared from the hold of Lou's plane.

He built the crystal radio from scratch, wire by wire. It was a labor of love, but in this remote region, had proven impractical. For a while, Max had been considering ordering himself a brand new ham radio, one with the capability of getting signals from as far away as Bogata, which meant he could get the news before it was one month old. But for now, this radio would just have to do.

"Dance?" he said, holding his arms open to Fiona.

She smiled and shook her head.

"Come on, Fi," he whispered, "no one will see."

"Max Fine," she said, "you are no better than the old anaconda in the lagoon, always waiting to squeeze the life out of me--"

"That's right," he said, sweeping her into his arms, whirling her around across the wooden plank floor. She shrieked her laughter, her cheeks coloring up, and the two lonely hearts spun around and around the room until the music stopped.

Fiona clapped one hand over her mouth, and Max looked across the room in alarm. A dozen Benji warriors stood with their fierce faces pressed against the screen door, lined up along the windows. They were silent, and Fiona melted back into the shadows.

Benjis marched through the rain, half of them in front of Max, leading the way, half in back, just in case--he suspected--he was tempted to bolt. Max fumed. Rain did not bother the Benjis; they were naked. However, Max's clothes were so saturated, they weighed him down into the mud. Rainwater sloshed in his boots. Water poured off his pith helmet and ran down his arms and legs in rivulets. He felt the beginnings of a fungus growing in the darkest crevices of his body.

The small, solemn troop crossed the bridge, a makeshift rope affair that swung crazily beneath Max's feet. It was the only practical means across the river between Three Falls and the Benji village. Strung precariously over the third and steepest waterfall along the entire Bindadnay, this bridge also served as the official boundary marker between Benji territory and the Unghatti forest.

Hemmed between two sheer walls of rock, the river raged toward the little bridge. Directly below his feet, water plunged fifty feet straight down. In the ever-present mist, a thin coating of algae grew over the ropes. Made everything slicker than snot, Max grumbled beneath his breath. He clenched the knotted handrails on either side, inching tightrope-style across the bridge, placing one foot barely in front of the other. One warrior pushed him impatiently from behind.

"Get your hands off of me!" Max bellowed, his voice lost to the roar of the water. He twisted and glared at the man. The warrior casually brushed his fingers over a knife he wore tied at his thigh. Max scowled and turned forward again, creeping across the bridge.

Once beneath the trees on the Benji side, the rain was not so bad, and when they reached the village clearing, Max could see bright blue patches of sky above.

The men led him to a small, flimsy hut, poles leaning one against the other, no latchings, big leaves layered over the lopsided roof. Max entered the hut. It was dark, nearly too dark to see. Yet he could make out the dim form of a woman huddled on the dirt floor, obviously pregnant. A moan slipped from her lips as if she were dying. Two men squatting beside her sprang to their feet, and Max fell backward in surprise, tumbling out of the hut.

One man stood in the doorway, glaring down at Max, his arms crossed over his chest. It was Luta. There could be no mistaking this.

The jagged peccary teeth totem remained on his cheek, four long claw marks indelibly superimposed. The Benjis did not believe in totems, and this made Luta stand out from every other man in the village. Like the others, he was naked and sported the characteristic Benji bowl-haircut, and he wore thin sticks skewered through the lobes of his ears. But there was no mistaking Luta.

His lip curled back in a sneer as he recognized Max.

"Ela dor?" Max pointed to the hut and patted his own stomach.

Luta nodded.

Another man said, "Dos dias," and held up two fingers.

Max shook his head. "I cannot help her."

Max watched Luta's fingers ripple over his knife. His voice was strangely soft. "Tu arranjar."

Beads of sweat popped out on Max's forehead. "I cannot fix her, Luta. She must go to the mission."

"Mission. Mission," the men murmured between themselves.

"Eles vir aqui." Luta stomped his foot on the ground.

"Eles medo. Las irmas are afraid of the Benji, Luta. The sisters will not come here." Max shook his head and stamped his foot on the ground.

Luta slowly withdrew his knife from the cord at his thigh. He casually touched the edge, a large bead of dark blood appearing on the tip of his finger, and he glanced at Max, smiling. Luta squeezed the flesh of his finger, spilling his own blood onto the ground.

"Put that damned thing back where it belongs." Max turned away from Luta, gulping back his fear. He marched toward the river's edge, listening for footsteps.

***

Tikitu opened the heavy back door of the chapel, just a crack, peering through the dimness. The last honeyed rays of daylight poured through the windows, bending the shadows. On the alter in front stood a plain wooden cross, and two slender beeswax candles, their soft perfume scenting the evening air.

The sisters were lined in front of rough hewn benches on either side of the chapel, holding hands across the narrow aisle. Their heads were thrown back in song, and their voices rang off the rafters and through the forest.

Ave, Ave, Ave, Maria

Ave, Ave, Maria!

Tikitu waited until the last echoes of the hymn faded away. With a rustle of long skirts, the sisters filed out of the tiny chapel.

Theresa's face shone. "Finally you've come! I haven't seen you in two days. I was beginning to worry. . ." A wrinkle of uneasiness passed over her smooth brow.

"It's Hekura."

"He is ill?"

Tikitu nodded. "Moses helped me to lay Hekura inside."

Theresa grasped Tikitu's hand, and together they hurried toward the infirmary.

Hekura lay curled in a fetal position, his knees drawn up nearly to his chest, unconscious. His wrists were crossed over his fluttering heart. Hekura's shoulders rose and fell with each breath, and he shivered, sweat gleaming on his skin.

"Where is it?"

Tikitu pointed to the old man's right groin. "Here. He stepped on a thorn a few days ago. Doctor Fine got it out of his foot, but I think something evil is at work on the inside."

Theresa slowly straightened his leg, gently, as the old man moaned. She whispered, "You are absolutely right. It's an abscess."

Both women turned as Mother Mary bustled into the room. She smiled at them both, but narrowed her eyes as she studied the red bulge in the crease of Hekura's leg.

Theresa said, "A sulfamide compress?"

She nodded. "But after we first draw out the pus."

Tikitu shivered as the nun moved quickly towards the silver medicine chest in one corner of the infirmary and withdrew a jar of black salve. The pungent smell wafted upward, and Tikitu crinkled her nose. "Resin?"

Mother Mary pulled on a rubber glove and scooped a generous dollop of the thick stuff out, plastering it over the abscess. She straightened and sighed. "This won't take very long. We shall sit with him until the poison begins to come out."

"Does he suffer, Mother Mary?"

"I wish we could give him something for the pain, Tikitu, but I'm afraid."

"Afraid?"

"Afraid that he wouldn't wake up."

Tikitu swallowed her sadness and pulled the white sheet beneath Hekura's chin, folding it neatly. She sank into the chair beside the infirmary bed and laid her hand on his bony shoulder. "He must not die."

Theresa placed one arm around Tikitu. She whispered, "He is a brave Unghatti warrior, and a good man. He will fight to live."

Tikitu laid her head against his chest, listening as life flowed and ebbed inside Hekura.

She could not bear the thought of losing him. He was more than 'shaman'. Hekura had been her world since she was very small, the only father, the only mother she remembered. She owed her life to him.

Almost every Unghatti couple had one child, and if the spirits of the forest were pleased, then a second. But if a third one came along, it was taken from the mother and immediately killed, its skull crushed against a rock, for a third baby was always a curse.

There were never any tears shed for that baby, not even from his or her mother. There was never a death ceremony to honor the child's spirit. The tiny body was simply dumped in the river and never spoken of again. It was as if the baby had never been born. That was one of the practicalities of their lives in the rain forest; if the Unghattis were attacked and had to flee, each adult could carry only one child to safety. A third child would have meant certain death for any adult that stayed behind to help.

Like that third child, Tikitu presented a serious problem to the tribe. Her mother and father both dead, she was not nearly old enough to care for herself, for she had only seen five rainy seasons. She needed to be fed and nurtured, she needed to be protected from the dangers all around. Tikitu was not still a baby, yet she was far from a young woman. And at five rainy seasons, she would be difficult to kill.

Unlike the infants, Tikitu was old enough to recognize and fear her own approaching death, and few of the men had the courage to do what was best for the tribe. They argued all day and half into the night, but still no consensus was reached. No one wanted her blood on their hands.

Tushaua decreed that the great spirit, Kumareme, therefore, must decide her fate. Hiding in the undergrowth beside the ceremonial circle, Tikitu listened to their plan. The men would bind Tikitu to a tree somewhere far out into the forest. If Tikitu survived one night alone, then she would prove her worth; she would earn the right to live among the Unghattis. On the other hand, if she did not survive, then that also would be a sign from Kumareme.

The only objection came from Hekura. "It is cruel," he said. "Do we not care for one of our own, when both of her parents died protecting the tribe?" Then he spat in the dirt. "We are no better than the Benjis," he said.

"Sit down, old man," they told him.

"I will take the child," Hekura said.

"You will take care of the child? Ha!" said Tushaua. "You are a very old man," and Tikitu recalled that even then, Hekura was ancient. "The Unghattis take care of you, Hekura. How can you take care of a child?"

Hekura left the circle in anger. The men did not wait long to begin their search for her.

They carried her, kicking and screaming, into the forest. The men tied one end of a rope around a tree trunk, the other end, around her neck. Tikitu dug her fingernails into the choking rope, but the knots were so tight that even her nimble fingers could not loosen them. As the men left she ran after them, pleading, but only a few steps, for she quickly reached the end of the length of rope. She tried again, running a few paces, then falling back onto the ground, the rope cinching more tightly about her neck.

Night soon came to the forest. Off in the distance, she heard the thud of drums, and from farther away, the voices of the sisters floating on the wind. The ground beneath her came alive with wriggling, creeping things, and she huddled against the tree trunk.

She heard the purr, purr, purr of a tiger. Was that Kumareme, great protector of the Unghatti? Tikitu searched the darkness for her yellow eyes. The animal snarled. Tikitu cringed. The undergrowth crackled, and as quickly as it had come, the unseen animal was gone. That night she cried herself to sleep. Why did her people not want her? What had she done to deserve banishment from the tribe?

Tikitu awoke to the sound of the men's voices, and she sat up, rubbing her eyes.

"She is still here."

"And look," said another. "She has managed to kill a tiger with her bare hands!"

It was true. Or so she thought for many years. The tiger lay dead, off to one side in the bushes, not an arrow mark upon its sleek body.

"Tikitu? Darling?"

Tikitu sat up with a start, holding in her breath until she saw the rhythmic rise and fall of Hekura's chest. She exhaled, relieved.

Theresa said, "The abscess has broken, and we've already begun the medicine and the hot compresses."

Hope rose inside her, spilling out her eyes. "He will live?"

"Hekura's spirit is strong. Mother Mary will watch him for a while."

"But I cannot leave--"

"Come with me, Tikitu. You need rest."

The night was cool, and a soft breeze sighed through the trees. Tikitu sat on the porch, in a creaking old rocking chair. The screen door slammed shut behind Sister Theresa as she walked toward Tikitu, balancing two steaming cups of tea. She handed Tikitu one cup and sat down beside her.

Though it was dark outside, Tikitu knew this was Theresa's favorite cuia, so favored she had given it a name. Her 'Auld Lang Syne' cuia, Theresa called it, and Tikitu thought it was the most beautiful name she'd ever heard. If she ever had a daughter, she decided long ago, she would name her Auld Lang Syne. Flowers were painted on one side, the likes of which Tikitu had never seen, but Theresa said they grew in the village where she was born. Tikitu grazed her fingers over the faint brush marks, imagining the roses, red and pink and yellow, and the magical village where they grew, behind her closed eyes.

"A heavenly night."

"Yes," Tikitu whispered, weariness all at once settling into her bones.

"You will stay with Hekura, with us? He would want that. Besides, it's too dangerous to cross at night." Theresa gestured toward the river.

Tikitu swallowed hard. "He is all that I have. What will I do if he--?"

"You have your people, Tikitu."

"Sister." She rocked back and forth. "Do you think anyone has ever outwitted Porre before?"

Theresa paused for a long moment. "Death?"

"Yes, the death spirit."

Theresa sipped at her tea. "Is the death spirit always bad?"

"I only know that he always brings great sadness."

"To the dead, Tikitu, or to those he has left behind?"

"You think that Hekura will be happy to die?"

"I don't know that answer. I only know that we all must leave our old, tired bodies some day, Tikitu. You know that Hekura will never be truly dead, though, don't you? A part of him will live on for as long as even one member of the tribe survives."

Tikitu was strangely comforted by her words. "Hekura has seen the Unghattis nearly destroyed many times over. Illness, brought in from outsiders--"

"The flu' virus a dozen years ago."

"Yes. And war. And the nappe fire."

Theresa whispered, "The fire."

"Though he has grown so old that he can no longer see or hear, somehow I think he knows that we will survive."

"He knows," Theresa said, nodding. "You have brought him great joy, Tikitu."

"I regret that he will probably never know my children."

Theresa's cup clattered in her saucer. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

A small laugh escaped Tikitu's lips. "No. No, I think it's too late for that. I am old, too many moons. No man wants a woman who has seen too many moons."

"You speak as if there is someone special, someone you. . . love?"

Tikitu drew in a large breath of the cool night air. "Love? It is a strange idea for Unghattis. But yes, I think that I did love him, once. He did not love me back."

"Did he know how you felt?"

"Oh, yes. But he told me he loved me as a daughter, nothing more, for I was too young."

"Too young! What an odd thing for an Unghatti to say."

"He loved another, you see."

"Did he tell you this?"

"He didn't need to."

"Who was this man, Tikitu?"

She swayed back and forth in the rocking chair, listening to the song of the cicadas. "Doctor Fine," she said at last.

"Maxwell? You loved Maxwell Fine?"

Tikitu shrugged. "But he loves another."

"Who?"

"Can it be that you never guessed? He loves only you, Sister Theresa."

chapter 11

"Theresa! Theresa Bonaparte!"

"Yes, Maxwell!" Theresa cupped her hands around her mouth and called across the courtyard. She and Tikitu had watched the party wrestle their way through the dark forest, a string of slowly moving lights snaking along the river from so far away.

"Get help and come quickly," he called from behind the white rock wall. "We have a serious problem here."

A line of nuns trickled out the front door, moving like shadows beneath the porch lights. All fifteen of the Carmelite Sisters of Mercy waited for Max's 'problem' to come into view. As a swarm of Benjis, led by one Maxwell Fine, burst through the heavy iron gates, the sisters drew a collective gasp.

Mother Mary Francis stepped forward. "Halt!" she said, holding up one hand as if it were an impenetrable holy shield. "Maxwell Fine! Please tell the Benjis they are not welcome to come one step closer!"

Maxwell took off his pith helmet and held it in his hands. He turned to the men and spoke in low, serious tones, his words unrecognizable to Theresa. Agitated, the Benji warriors spoke back, gesturing wildly with their hands, and the exchange went on for several minutes. Finally, Maxwell turned back toward the convent.

"We've a sick woman, here, ladies. She's in desperate need of your help."

"Has she got something contagious?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that--"

"Then ask the Benjis why their own medicine man cannot help her."

Maxwell translated this to the men, and again there was a lengthy discussion, some men shouting and stamping their feet, others waving rudimentary arrows, which were really only sharpened bamboo spears. "Ah, Mother Mary?"

"I'm listening, Maxwell."

"The medicine man, it seems, has done all he could." Maxwell scratched his head. "Now, I'm no expert where these matters are concerned, but by the looks of it, I'd say she was having trouble delivering a baby."

"Very well," Mother Mary sighed. "Where is she?" Experience had taught the sisters to be leery of placing their trust in an unruly mob of Benjis.

Maxwell turned and snapped a command. Two shadowy figures stepped through the iron gate, carrying an indistinguishable shape cocooned in a litter made of one long pole and a hammock. They stopped beside Maxwell, uncharacteristically meek--for Benjis--presumably awaiting further orders.

Sister Emmanuel stepped forward to receive the patient, but Mother Mary stood between her and the uninvited guests, fists on her hips and her legs wide apart, an immovable roadblock.

"Maxwell!"

"Yes, Mother Mary?"

"Who are these two men?"

"One is the man they call Rei, the youngest brother of their leader, Alto."

"And the other?"

"Luta, Mother Mary."

"I thought as much."

"He is the woman's spouse."

Mother Mary paused a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was steel hard, ever the fierce protector of her daughters. "See that neither man brings any sort of weaponry into the convent. I am holding you personally responsible, do you understand this, Maxwell? Tell Luta he may stay beside his wife, as long as you are here, until we see if we can help her. But all these other men," she made a sweeping motion with her hand, "must leave. And they must not come back under any circumstances. It that clearly understood, Maxwell?"

For the third time, he turned to the men. Again, the discussion grew louder and louder, with many theatrics on the Benjis' part. "Understood," he said as soon as the men quieted.

"Very well. You may tell the two men to bring the woman forward."

Theresa turned, searching for Tikitu. She was gone.

At one time, Emmanuel had been a midwife, a vocation all the other nuns were thankful for on more than one occasion. She recently confided in Theresa that she was afraid she'd gotten awfully rusty over the years. Looking on, Theresa was not inclined to agree.

Sister Emmanuel took immediate charge of the situation, rearranging furnishings in the little sick room, barking orders to Maxwell as he carried the moaning patient to her bed. Mother Mary stood to one side, setting up a shining silver tray for Emmanuel, taking an uncustomary second-in-command position to the resident midwife.

Emmanuel called for Sister Basil, but Basil suddenly remembered a thousand other pressing tasks. Emmanuel crooked her finger at Theresa.

"Me?" Theresa looked to her right and to her left, as if there had been some mistake.

"I'll need another set of hands, sister."

Theresa stepped inside the sickroom. Lights flickered and returned. An unsettling pall fell over the room and Theresa shuddered, glancing quickly at Maxwell.

The 'woman' was a girl of no more than fourteen or fifteen, by Theresa's estimation, and a diminutive girl at that. She was a pixie, with close-cropped hair and big flashing black eyes that dominated her face. At each earlobe she wore a puff of green parrot down, her only ornamentation. Her legs and arms were thin, emaciated, which made her swollen womb seem that much larger.

The girl clutched at her belly and moaned, an eerie low moan that sent chills pattering up and down Theresa's spine.

"Now, I'll have to examine her," Emmanuel said.

Theresa held the poor girl's hand, and placing all her trust in a stranger, the girl held on to Theresa's hand for all she was worth. Emmanuel parted the Benji girl's legs.

His face a mask of stone, Luta leaned slightly forward in his assigned chair, his only indication of interest.

Emmanuel slipped a rubber glove on one hand, snapping it and wiggling her fingers. The gloved hand disappeared from sight, while Emmanuel's other hand rested lightly on top of the girl's belly.

The little girl closed her eyes and sealed her lips.

"Well?" Mother Mary demanded.

"Bag of water's intact. She's fifty percent effaced and one centimeter, make that two centimeters dilated."

Emmanuel withdrew her gloved hand, smeared with blood. "The question is, how long has she been at this? She looks exhausted."

"Two days," said Maxwell from his corner of the room.

"Two days!"

"That's what they told me."

"Poor little dear," said Mother Mary.

"Well," Emmanuel said, "she's got to deliver this baby. A Cesarean is risky, even under the best of conditions."

"Besides. . ." said Mother Mary, casting her eyes quickly toward Luta and then back, an unspoken code not wasted on Theresa.

"Right," said Emmanuel with a heavy sigh. "I think it best to stop her labor for a while, if we can, and let her rest. She can't make any progress this way. This two-days business has worn her out, not to mention, stressed the baby."

"Fine," said Mother Mary. "What do you suggest?"

"Do we still have some of that raspberry tea?"

"Ah," said Mother Mary, rushing out of the room and toward the kitchen.

"Raspberry tea?" Theresa and Maxwell harmonized. Theresa thought it an odd time for a tea party.

"It's a uterine relaxant," explained Emmanuel. "Not guaranteed to work one hundred percent of the time, but we'll see what we can do."

Emmanuel had propped the girl's hips up on pillows, and even from that awkward position, the girl obediently swallowed her tea. With Maxwell's coaxing, Luta snarled her name. Clearly, Icana was used to unquestioning submission. Her contractions came farther and farther apart and finally stopped, and when her second cup of tea was down, Icana fell into a deep sleep. Emmanuel rushed about the room, preparing herself for the imminent delivery of a new Benji baby into the world.

Even in her unconscious state, the girl would not let loose of Theresa's hand, and so Theresa felt she had no choice but to sit beside Icana as she slept. She watched Luta from one corner of her eye, remembering the last time he'd been inside the convent, almost ten years ago.

A dozen Benji warriors had accompanied him. Luta was in so much pain that he could barely stand, yet he refused to be carried. He'd crawled most of the way through the jungle on his hands and knees, both of which were raw by the time he arrived. He collapsed in a pool of his own vomit and sweat on their front porch.

His appendix had become gangrenous, Mother Mary pronounced. She explained to the Benji chief that without removing the appendix, Luta would most certainly die. And so they agreed that Luta's appendix must come out.

Luta attached one stipulation. He would remain awake at all times, for he did not trust what might happen if he were to fall sleep. Mother Mary explained in the kindest way that there would be great pain. Luta stood firm on his demands, and so the operation began, with Luta wide awake on the table and the walls lined with edgy Benji warriors.

It was a fluke that Theresa was there in the operating room to begin with, for surgery never was her forte. Luta's appendix had become inflamed on a day that half of the sisters were gone from the convent, having traveled to the Yanoama village with a crateload of medications to treat a threatened outbreak of tuberculosis. Several of the remaining sisters had been stricken with some sort of a virus, and had been ordered upstairs to their cells, under quarantine. A virus on the loose meant certain death to the tribes.

That left Sister Benedict-Claire, an ex-army nurse, to assist with the surgery. But who would actually monitor the patient's condition? To Mother Mary, Theresa was the only logical choice.

"He's very sick," said Mother Mary. "And you are quite capable of checking his blood pressure."

Capable or not, Theresa's stomach turned. Surgery with no anesthetic? Was he naive, or was he insane?

Mother Mary's hand shook as she raised her scalpel for the first incision.

Luta clenched his teeth together, sucking in air, his eyes wild and bugging nearly out of his head. Theresa prayed that he'd pass out from the pain, but this was not to be. He stayed conscious, and if such a possibility existed, at a higher consciousness than was normal for any human being. He noticed every movement in the operating room, every glance exchanged between the nuns, even a lone fly upon one wall.

Theresa blamed herself for the entire calamity. She had watched Luta's fingers ripple over the knife he wore tied to one thigh. She watched, but did nothing.

Through a slit in Luta's abdomen, Mother Mary extracted the flaming red thing she called his appendix. In a matter of seconds the offending organ was gone. Benedict-Claire had just handed her the curved needle already threaded with a length of cat gut when Luta sat straight up in the bed, his eyes burning like two coals.

"Lie down," Theresa said, resting her shaking hand on Luta's shoulder.

Luta threw off her hand, and he leaped from the bed, brandishing his knife as he backed away. Blood flowed from his wound as he inched toward the door.

"Luta, please--" said Mother Mary.

The other warriors each drew their knives in synchrony. Mother Mary, Benedict-Claire and Theresa stood frozen in place, surrounded by Benjis, too frightened to scream. One by one, the men filed out of the operating room, never making a sound until they were well beyond the walls of the convent.

Theresa stared at the wide pinkish scar on Luta's stomach.

***

Max sipped freshly brewed coffee alone at the long kitchen table. Tikitu wandered out, still rubbing sleep from her eyes. "How is Hekura?"

"Where's Luta?"

"He left during the night for his village. I'll tell you as soon as I see him coming back." Max watched the muscles in Tikitu's face visibly relax.

"Hekura slept, but he's not awake yet. I thought he'd be better by now."

"You know of the Yanoama 'bone-pointing' ceremony, don't you, Tikitu?"

She shivered but did not speak.

"The shaman points the bone at an unfortunate person, then the person mysteriously dies before the next full moon."

She pumped herself a cuia of water. "What has that to do with Hekura?"

"There isn't any magic in an old bone, Tikitu. Like the poor guy who gets the hex put on him, human beings sometimes give up and die when they believe all hope is gone. The opposite is also true. Giving hope to a person, even in the direst of circumstances often helps them to overcome the sickness."

She swallowed water slowly, as if she were mulling this over. "Where is everyone?"

"The sisters are already out mucking around in their garden." He peered out the window. "And some are on top of the chapel, patching the roof."

Tikitu stood beside him, gazing through a fine morning mist that would burn off in an hour. "So I wake him and try to tell him he's getting much better?"

Max nodded, watching Mother Mary, perched on a rickety ladder, fling down her hammer in disgust. The chapel's old tin roof had become a never-ending source of despair for the sisters. "I'll be here if you need anything. . ." His voice trailed off as he realized that Tikitu was already gone.

chapter 12

Without warning, Icana howled, an unearthly howl, and Sister Emmanuel raced down the hallway, Theresa close at her heels. Luta was there in the room, as was Maxwell, both asleep in hard backed chairs. The men woke with a start in the same instant.

The Benji girl crawled out of the bed, holding her huge belly and hunching, walking with a wide-legged straddle that made Theresa believe she could not walk any other way. Icana took a few steps and squatted to the floor. Her moan stirred at something primal buried deep inside of Theresa.

The girl stood and took a few more steps, squatting and howling again.

"Good heavens!" said Emmanuel. "She's going to drop that baby onto the floor!" She ran after Icana, stopping when she stopped, walking when she walked, and Theresa could only follow.

Like a line of ducklings, they waddled out the screen door and onto the porch, and then out into the courtyard, stopping every few feet. The other sisters stopped what they were doing, all eyes fixed on the trio of women.

Theresa could barely believe what she was seeing. Icana hunched down to the ground, grunted, and out popped the baby's head, a mass of black matted curls between Icana's legs. She stood and waddled a few more steps, the baby's head bouncing back and forth between her legs. She squatted again, and this time Emmanuel held her skirts beneath Icana. Icana's scream echoed off the canyon walls, and the baby nearly flew out with a loud, wet whoosh, landing in Emmanuel's full skirts. Out slid the afterbirth with another great groan.

Icana did not stop to admire her new baby, rather she stood, walked a few more steps, lowered herself and cried out once again. Out popped a second baby, this one into the dirt, followed quickly by the thick purple placenta.

"Get it!" called Emmanuel, and Theresa ran to the limp, blue baby, fearfully taking it into the folds of her own skirts. Attached firmly to the baby by a ropy cord, the placenta hung off to one side of Theresa's skirt like a collapsed eggplant. The baby's tiny, black eyes were half open, staring into nothingness, its arms and legs limp. Theresa prayed like she hadn't prayed in a very long time. "Suck!" shouted Emmanuel, the child in her arms squealing like a piglet.

"Suck?"

"I said suck! Put your mouth over the baby's nose and mouth, and suck."

She would have thought to blow, but Theresa was too frightened to argue. She sucked, a mouthful of hot thick, salty slime hitting the back of her throat like a rocket. Before she could stop herself, Theresa turned her head to one side and vomited it out.

Please, God! Please, God!

She touched the tiny baby's chest, frantically feeling for a heart beat. Her fingers tapped the lifeless chest, then with one hand, shook gently, then urgently, seconds ticking off like hours.

Please, Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, have mercy. Have Mercy!

Seconds dragged by.

The baby shuddered, and drew its first breath of life. Fluttering its little black eyes and drawing both up legs and arms next to its body, it bellowed a furious cry.

Pink fingers. Pink toes. Perfect little mouth and tongue and head and chin. Racing heart, air moving in and out so fast, so full of life. . .

Thank you, mother of Jesus.

"Icana?" Suddenly weak and shaking, Theresa turned to call again, but Icana was already there, panting, kneeling in the dirt beside Theresa. She held out her arms to the baby.

Words caught in her throat. "Filha," Theresa said thickly, handing the baby girl to its young mother. "You have a filha!"

"And a filho." Emmanuel kneeled beside them, cradling the tiny infant boy in her arms.

***

Tikitu learned the truth about death when she was five rainy seasons old, on the day Porre took her own mother and father away. She watched their bodies burn, their spirits float into the forest. Avo had taken her that next morning deep into the woods. She wanted Tikitu to see the swirling mist for herself, to feel its coolness against her skin. Her mother and father would always be with her, Avo explained. They'd become Amahini, the good spirits of the forest. Mist.

And that was the way it was for the Unghatti. Only the strongest Unghatti spirits would not become Amahini, only the mightiest could dare to inhabit another body. Only if they were willing to risk everything. And only if the timing was exactly right.

As it had been for Kumareme.

Kumareme was once a very brave woman, an Unghatti warrior queen who died, as it turned out, the very moment a newborn tiger came into the world. In the space of one breath, her last and the tiger's first, she had to choose. Amahini, or risk leaping into that tiger body. If she missed, she would fall, and she could not become Amahini. Her spirit would have no place to go, and would be doomed to wander forever, banished from the Unghatti forest. But if she succeeded, then she would receive the gift of eternal life inside the body she had chosen.

Hekura lay sleeping, drawing in shallow, slow breaths, his chest barely rising and falling at all. Tikitu watched from behind the curtain. Out in the courtyard, the sisters sank to the ground, holding not one of Luta's children, but two. The one Theresa held was stillborn; she felt its tiny spirit hover, watching, waiting. From the window of Hekura's sickroom, Tikitu saw the baby's darkened skin, its lifeless limbs.

"Tikitu." The word slipped from his lips. Heat rose from Hekura's body like a stifling blanket, evaporating the feverish sweat that moistened his skin almost as quickly as it appeared. His eyes remained half-closed, dimmed and sunken into his withered face.

Tikitu kissed the palm of his hand and lowered it back onto the bed. And in that instant, Hekura's noble spirit slipped from his tired body. A shock wave went through Tikitu as she heard the baby cry. With his strong, antelope totem to give him strength, Hekura had taken the chance. He had left the body she had known, the place where his dreams and memories were stored, and his spirit leaped into a new body, the body of Luta's infant daughter.

There was much to be done.

Tikitu carried Hekura's lifeless body onto the shore of the Unghatti village. With the heaviness of his spirit gone, he was nearly weightless, light as a few dry sticks of wood. Tikitu laid him on his hammock inside his own hut. Quick footsteps fell outside as several of the Unghatti men came in. They stood in silence, waiting for the rise and fall of Hekura's chest, which never came. As if a voiceless message had been passed, more Unghattis arrived, men, women and children. Her people gathered around Hekura, cupped hands around a guttering flame. Too late, his light was gone.

In the heat of the rain forest, waiting was a luxury they could ill afford. Women began the bodily preparations at once, washing Hekura, painting his skin with ochre paint, wrapping him in his own cotton hammock. Words were not exchanged, and each woman kept her eyes downcast.

Men built an enormous fire in the pit and collected all Hekura's worldly possessions, piling them to one side of the fire.

Girls who were not yet women broke off as many large bunches of bananas as they could carry from the trees and dragged them back into the clearing. There they began to mash bananas and prepare the pap in the great cooking pot.

And then the men returned for Hekura. No time to say 'adeus'. The Unghatti tribe formed one long, trailing line and they carried his body from the clearing to the ceremonial circle. One man at his feet, one at his head, they tossed Hekura on top of the blazing fire.

Tikitu closed her eyes, gritting her teeth and shivering in the sweltering heat. Fire crackled hungrily. She heard Hekura's belongings land on top of him with a great clattering. When she opened her eyes, her beloved Hekura was engulfed in flame. One white feather of smoke drifted upward to the sky. Only his bow and arrows were left. Tikitu broke them in half one by one and laid them in the hole the men had already dug off to one side. She pushed dirt over the hole, bitter tears of sorrow stinging her eyes.

Their music made the forest tremble. The deep throb of the wooden flutes, used only for this ceremony of the dead, stirred at Tikitu's insides. Both hard and soft at once, it was a strange harmony they played, but one as much a part of the Unghattis as each breath they drew. Men danced in a circle around the fire, sweat gleaming off their brown backs. Sound collected in the circle, weighing down like smoke, making the air nearly too thick to swallow. It was a joyless ceremony, one that seemed to stretch miserably on forever for Tikitu.

They drifted off in small clusters until only Tikitu remained. She waited throughout the night, until every ember was dead. By the earliest rays of morning light, she gathered up the ashes of his bones and carried them to the pap the girls had made the day before. One handful at a time, she stirred Hekura's ashes into the cooking pot. Then she sank into a sobbing, weary heap.

Mutum touched her on the shoulder and handed her a bowl of the pap. "Don't worry," her cousin said. "Hekura is not dead. He is Amahini."

Tikitu sat staring at the contents of the bowl. She would keep his secret. Hekura lived, but not in the morning mists. He dwelt in Luta's newborn daughter.

***

Candles glowed inside the chapel, casting great bent shadows of the crucifix onto the beams overhead. Sitting quietly on the rough wooden bench, Theresa listened to her heart.

The elation of having witnessed the first breath of new life, the birth of Icana's children, hadn't left her yet. The joyful noise of the babies's lusty cries still seemed to ring in the air, two perfect, God-given bodies. Two beating hearts. Two miracles. From the seed of one as flawed as Luta, goodness had come. There was hope for them all.

And Hekura had died. An exchange had been made; two lived, one died. Had God been there to greet him, the man who had saved Tikitu, raised her like his own daughter, the man who taught Tikitu to believe in something greater than herself?

Her heart ached for Tikitu, but Tikitu had grown to be a fine, strong woman. Eventually she would come to see that even Hekura could not live forever. Once the lost little girl, Tikitu had become queen of all she surveyed, the forest, the river, the sky. A spirituality was passed down to her from Hekura, a godliness, of sorts; it was in the inflection in her voice, in the flash of her dark eyes, they way her hands moved like music. Tikitu embodied the female spirit of the forest, the great Kumareme. Her own people held her in awe. Theresa saw this in their faces, but Tikitu was blind to it all.

Tikitu's words echoed in her mind. "He loves only you, Sister Theresa."

Phenomenal as she was, Tikitu still made occasional mistakes, often misinterpreting the words or actions of the nappe. He'd probably said, "I love that about Theresa," or some other such nonsense. He did not say that he loved her. Loving a nun was taboo, even for a man like Maxwell Fine.

Of course, she did love him, in a strictly Christian way. Also as a friend of nearly twenty years, and as someone who'd been able to save her beloved son, Moses, from the ravages of a disease so terrible that his life was in peril.

A tiny thought nagged at her mind. What if Tikitu was right, what if she'd heard correctly? What if Maxwell told Tikitu, in a moment of weakness, that he loved her, as a man loves a woman? How would she feel then? Was she opposed to the idea of him loving her? And after nearly two decades, did she. . . could she possibly love him back? Theresa listened to her heart.

The door at the back of the chapel squeaked, and a sliver of sunlight cut through the dusk. Staring at the crucifix on the altar in front of the chapel, Theresa remained seated. She glimpsed Sister Basil from the corner of her eye.

Sister Basil sat far enough away so that another body could sit comfortably between them, the customary distance the sisters of the convent allowed one another. "Sister," Basil whispered, her voice carrying in the empty church.

Theresa laid one hand, palm upward, between them, and Basil took Theresa's hand in hers. They remained silent for a long while, each sister lost in her own meditation.

After a while, Basil cleared her throat. "Mother Mary is with Icana now."

Trepidation flitting across her brow, Theresa turned to face Basil.

"They say she's taken a downturn. She's got a slow hemorrhage."

"Where is Emmanuel?"

"Luta won't allow her back inside with his woman. He says it is Emmanuel's fault to begin with."

Theresa felt her heart lurch. "Luta is still here?"

Deep shadows furrowing her face, Basil nodded. "He's holed up in Icana's room."

Theresa sprang to her feet. "Mother Mary is his hostage?"

"No, no," she said, pulling Theresa back down beside her. "Everything is well under control. Doctor Fine is in there with them--"

"Maxwell."

"Doctor Fine says we shouldn't worry."

"Does he now."

"And he says that undo alarm will only make the situation worse."

"Then we do have a situation."

Basil faced forward again, gazing at the altar, her profile the picture of trust. "We do."

Mother Mary glanced up from the gauge of the blood pressure cuff, removing the stethoscope from her ears. "Fifty eight over thirty four." A frown creased her wide, smooth forehead. "This is not good. No improvement in over an hour."

"But no worse?"

Mother Mary shook her head.

Theresa glared down at two recumbent lumps on the floor of Icana's sickroom, Luta and Maxwell. "How could they possibly sleep at a time like this?"

Mother Mary's voice rose barely above a whisper. "Let's just count our blessings, shall we? Besides, by the looks of the black shadows beneath Luta's eyes, I'd say it is probably very easy for him to sleep through this. If my guess is right, he hasn't slept an hour in several days."

Theresa studied Luta's face. Her eyes fell to the red band at his thigh, the place Benji warriors traditionally carried their knives. Maxwell confiscated the weapon before Luta was ever allowed inside. Yet even in his sleep, his hand rested on the place, fingers curled around an imaginary handle.

"And Maxwell, goodness, you know Maxwell. He may sleep through the second coming of Jesus Christ."

Theresa returned her gaze to the patient. "Is there nothing more we can do for her?"

Icana tossed restlessly, slipping in and out of consciousness through the night. Bone thin, more excruciatingly than ever since delivering the twins, she shivered beneath the white blanket. Her face was pinched and pale, her lips ever so slightly tinged blue.

"We've done all we can possibly do with our limited supplies. The rest is up to Icana. Her body will simply have to stop bleeding. . ." She sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the pulse in Icana's wrist.

Theresa sat on the other side of the bed. Her thoughts wandered to the two small babies, each snugly swaddled in a soft blanket, each asleep in an Unghatti basket beside the bed. "What do you suppose will happen to them if--"

"I want to believe the Benjis will take good care of them."

"But what if--"

"Trust, Theresa. Things would have turned out much worse, I fear, if she'd remained in the village. Luta cared enough to bring her here. We have to give him that credit."

"But Mother." She licked her lips. "If she, that is to say, if she doesn't. . ."

"Yes?"

"What will Luta's reaction be then?"

"I cannot say." Her face was serene. "It was the hand of God that brought Icana here. There must be a reason for that."

"The hand of God," mused Theresa.

A smile turned up the corners of Mother Mary's mouth. "The same hand that brought you here to us."

"I was thinking the same."

"And see how wonderfully that has turned out?"

Silent laughter shook Theresa's body, and Mother Mary's eyes twinkled.

"Come on, Theresa. This hasn't been such a bad life."

"Barely tolerable."

"You mean to say you would have preferred to live out your days cloistered in some pampered and very rich convent in Pennsylvania and missed out on all this?" She waved her hand grandly at the contents of the shabby room.

Theresa arched one eyebrow.

"You know, don't you, you've made living here tolerable for the rest of us. How would we have survived, I wonder, without your unseemly humor, your astonishing dramatics? You'd have been completely out of place in some stuffy old New England convent, you know that. And no one else could have been the mother to Moses that you've been all these years. Whether you admit it or not, you belong here right with us, Theresa."

A tremor ran through Icana's hand, and Theresa glanced down. Mother Mary noticed as well. Swiftly she placed the stethoscope ends in her ears and pumped up the blood pressure cuff on Icana's arm. Her fingers deftly twisted the screw to let air out of the cuff. Deep wrinkles reappeared on her forehead. She pumped the cuff up again, slowly letting out the air, cocking her head to hear, a bird listening for a worm slithering beneath the surface of the ground.

"I think we'd better wake the men."

"Is it bad?"

Mother Mary's answer, if she did answer at all, was lost to the confusion of the next few seconds. The trembling in Icana's hand suddenly overtook her entire body, and she was caught up in a massive convulsion. A shriek flew from Theresa's throat, and both men awoke, Maxwell tottering half-dazed to his feet, Luta lunging, strangely, not for Icana's side but for something beneath the bed. Theresa saw the gleam of his knife as he slipped it from his hiding place under the mattress.

Mother Mary's eyes grew wide. "Maxwell, how could you allow this?"

"That's a bloody kitchen knife," Maxwell panted in defense.

Theresa whispered, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph." Sister Basil took great pride in keeping her kitchen knives razor sharp.

In the course of a few numbing seconds, Luta shackled Mother Mary's wrists behind her and forced her to her feet. With a brilliant flash of silver, he whipped the knife to her throat, placing the blade against the beating vein in her neck.

"Mercy," gasped Mother Mary. "Show me mercy, Luta."

"Luta!" shouted Maxwell, inching toward the warrior, one arm outstretched. "Give me the knife, man. Give me the knife."

"No!" He pressed the tip of the blade against Mother Mary's skin, and a trickle of blood slid down her pale throat.

Mother Mary whispered, "Please. I must help Icana. She is--oh, God in heaven!"

Theresa could not tear her eyes from the knife. Her own throat constricted in a knot so large she could barely swallow. Her eyes darted Icana's way, then quickly back.

Luta shouted hysterical commands to Maxwell, spraying saliva as he screamed, his knuckles gleaming white as they gripped the knife handle.

Maxwell stood still, as if frozen in time.

"What does he say?" Theresa panted.

"He says he saw you bring the girl-child back to life, and now you must do the same for Icana."

"Bring her back to life? But I--" Mother Mary's eyes slid over to Icana, who now lay still on the bed, her lips a deep shade of blue. She waited for the blanket to move as Icana drew her next breath. The blanket was still. Icana was dead.

"Gad," said Maxwell. "You'd better make this good."

"Mouth to mouth," Mother Mary squeaked.

Theresa's brain scrambled to remember. One breath every five seconds? She took a steadying breath. Breathe, rest, rest, rest, rest, breathe. . .

Not a word was uttered. After many minutes, Theresa stood, shaking, at Icana's side, drenched in sweat. When she licked her swollen mouth, she tasted her own blood.

Luta pulled back his lips in a snarl and pressed the knife against Mother Mary's throat. She whimpered and closed her eyes.

"Make a show of it," Maxwell said, "while I tell him you are bargaining with Porre."

"A show."

"Dance around. Wave your arms."

Exhausted, Theresa did as she was told while Maxwell's voice droned softly in the background. She did a wild, frantic dance, muttering nonsensical incantations, conjuring up spirits who did not exist. Finally, just when Theresa realized that every bit of her was spent, she felt his hand upon her shoulder.

"Enough," he said.

Theresa turned slowly toward Luta. "I'm so sorry. . ."

Luta's shoulders sagged, and he let out a great sigh, dropping his arms to his sides. Mother Mary's mouth moved in silent prayer, and Theresa made the Sign of the Cross.

Maxwell said, "She is with Porre--"

The whites of Luta's eyes flashed in a surge of rage. In the next instant, he slashed at Mother Mary's throat and flung the knife at Theresa, pinning her sleeve to the wall. Luta grabbed the two baskets beside Icana's bed. Leaving the door gaping wide open behind him, he ran from the sickroom.

Mother Mary held both hands to her neck. Scarlet blood oozed through her fingers and she moaned softly, wind sighing through the forest. She eased herself down to her knees and drew her final breath.

Portland, Oregon

chapter 13

"How much do you know about why your father left Neotech?" Willy leaned across the booth, glancing nervously about as people came and went from the restaurant.

McKay swallowed her own anxiety. "Why are we really here?"

"I told you, McKay. Something's fishy. You want more pie?"

McKay sighed and took a compact out of her purse, dabbing powder onto her left cheek. She blotted her lips, then inspected her teeth in the little round mirror. "I don't see why any of this matters now, Willy. It's been, what? Twenty years?" She snapped the compact shut.

"Nineteen."

"Okay, nineteen." She glanced at her watch. "Now if there's nothing else, I've got to get back to the news room."

He put one hand over hers. "There's plenty more."

McKay sighed, leaning back in the booth. "You know, I just don't get you, Willy. You push me away, make crazy excuses to see me, then clam up and push me away again. And now you want to talk. What kind of a game are you playing here?"

A frown flitted across his face. He shook his head, as if to dispel the notion. "Listen. Remember the file I, ah, tried to hide from you last night?" He took a thin manila folder from his briefcase and laid it between them. McKay glanced quickly down, then back to Willy. "Open it," he said, and so she did, without comment, and she took her time reading the letter inside. Slowly she closed the file and pushed it back across the table. "Well?" Willy said softly.

"Well, what? What do you want me to say, Willy?"

"Don't you find anything strange about that? Don't you think it's. . . oh, I don't know. . . overkill?"

"So it's overkill. Your father hates my father, and the feeling, I can assure you, is mutual. There never was any love lost between the two of them, that's no secret."

He smiled that familiar crooked smile. "Got it all figured out, don't you, McKay."

"There never was anything to figure out. Dad took the fall for what happened in Brazil. End of story."

"Why was he so willing to do that, do you suppose?" He scraped the last of his cherry pie up with his fork, then licked his fork thoughtfully. "I mean, he was relatively young, had a promising future before him. He led the field in cancer research, not just in America, but in the world. This happens, and nobody hears from him again. It's as if all of the sudden, he's gone dry. Hasn't got another idea left in his head."

"Don't forget that nice little bundle of cash. The severance package made it so Dad didn't ever have to worry--"

"Don't be stupid, McKay. He didn't care about the money. Did you ever know your father to do anything strictly for the money?"

"Where are you going with this?"

"Here's the thing. It disturbs me that your father takes the fall for an incident with international implications. A tribe of people who never bothered anyone and who can, incidentally, trace their roots back to the beginnings of time, gets all but wiped from the face of the earth, caught between a commercially-funded experiment and a few lousy trees. It's that whole hot-button 'modern civilization-versus-nature' issue. And I'm not saying he did, but maybe my father gets the best lawyers money can buy, and maybe he even buys a few jurors--"

A waitress appeared and splashed more coffee into Willy's cup. When she left, he began again.

"Anyway, both sides argue back and forth until everyone is so confused, no one can be sure enough about what happened out there to point the finger of blame directly at your father. They say he probably made a mistake. They call him a bumbling fool and maybe even a little naive, but when all is said and done, Peter Fine walks and one Dwight Alexander comes out smelling like a rose. In the end, no one pays the consequence for all those lost lives.

He steepled his fingers in thought. "Something's not right. I think to myself, since when did anyone but Dwight Alexander make the kinds of decisions for Neotech Peter Fine is supposed to have made? Hell, McKay, Father's a control freak. The man decides what plants to put in the lobby, for cryin' out loud. He allowed Peter Fine the freedom to do as he wished in Brazil, and he never knew until it was over? In my mind, it's only logical that he coerced your father into taking the blame for the whole botched mission. And he's obviously got one hell of a hammer to hold over his head."

McKay smirked. "So what is it, Dick Tracey?"

He ignored her. "So I think to myself, what information could Father have that might convince the next Einstein to drop out of sight?"

McKay eyed his coffee cup suspiciously. "What's in that stuff, anyway?"

"What terrible secret from Peter Fine's past did he not want out? What exactly did Dwight Alexander have on your father?"

"That's a huge leap, Willy."

"No, McKay, that's the only plausible explanation. I looked for some other connection, anything. Nothing came up."

McKay struggled to conceal her relief. "So now will you just drop the whole thing?"

"There was no outside connection between your father and mine. But there was a connection between Father and your Uncle Maxwell."

Her breath caught in her throat. "Uncle Max?"

"They both graduated from college at the top of their class, and in the same year, did you know that?"

"Uncle Max is brilliant. Everyone knows that."

"Here's the thing. Same year, same school. They were both a couple of Yalies."

McKay whispered. "Did they know each other then, do you suppose?"

Willy shrugged. "Father says no. Seems odd though, doesn't it."

McKay shrugged, exaggerated nonchalance. "It could happen."

"Yale." He said the word slowly, enunciating every letter.

"You know something."

"I think I do."

McKay jumped to her feet and fled from the restaurant before her face could betray her.

McKay watched Willy turn down the long driveway that meandered through the nut orchard. She closed her eyes for a moment, rehearsing what she would say.

'There is more to this story. . .'

His black BMW swung into the loop in front of the old farmhouse. He emerged from behind darkened windows, fresh and crisp and clean in a white shirt and a worn pair of blue jeans. Wedging his key into his pocket, Willy grinned. Her heart quickened. His smile had always affected her, from the time they were both small.

"Come on up," she said. "I have lemonade waiting." She rocked back and forth on the porch swing. Willy took the steps two at a time and fell into the swing beside her.

"Wow," he said. "It's already hot."

McKay smiled and handed him a drink.

"So." He took a long swallow. "What's this about?"

"About?"

"Come on. I've known you too long."

"No 'hello, how are you's'?"

"How is the baby?" He patted her stomach and grinned.

"Twenty five weeks, today."

"So that means--?"

"Fifteen more to go, so the doctor says. And speaking of doctors--"

He held up one hand, laughing. "You'll be the first to know."

"Promise?"

"Pinkie swear. You said you had some 'splainin' to do, Lucy."

McKay lowered her voice and shot a glance through the windows. "Remember when I told you, I guess we were already in high school--"

"Yeah, I remember."

"You remember what?"

"About your Uncle Max. He spent months in a mental institution."

"How did you know. . . ?"

"See, there was this accident. A man died as a result, and Max, he couldn't get over the guilt."

"I wasn't going to say that, Mister Wise Guy."

"Yeah? Then what?"

"Okay, that was part of it, but only a small part. It happened right before his last year at Yale. And it wasn't an accident."

A stunned look crossed Willy's face, quickly erased. He took another drink, his eyes lingering a moment too long on the bottom of the glass. "Yeah?" he said, a little too casually, as if he heard murderous confessions every day of the week.

"Yeah. See, Dad was still living at home at the time, with his mother, the grandmother I never knew, and his step-dad. Dad was, oh, I guess fifteen. Things were bad, Willy, really bad."

"For your dad?"

"And for my grandmother. Oscar Bruce was a mean son of a bitch, I guess."

"Hey, watch your language in front of the kid," Willy said, frowning, pointing to her swollen stomach.

"Okay then, he was a real monster. There were beatings and things, and Dad wasn't ever physically big. Anyway, he was much smaller than Bruce."

"So did Max find out?"

"He came home on the summer break, and he brought a friend who didn't have another place to go. They wanted work, and were looking--"

"Who did he bring home, McKay?"

Willy leaned forward, but McKay held up one hand. "I'll get there. He walked in the front door, and sure enough, Bruce was wailing on Dad with the butt of a pistol. Grandmother was lying on the floor, crying and bleeding. And Uncle Max went a little crazy."

"He killed him?"

McKay nodded. "With Bruce's own gun. Shot him till he ran out of bullets, and then he went to get more."

"Rage."

"Yeah, rage."

"But you said he accidentally drowned. How could anyone possibly hide all those bullet holes?"

"The guy who came home with Uncle Max, the friend, got rid of the body. Took what was left of old Bruce out into the bay and dumped him. He used Bruce's own fishing boat to do it, too. And his body was never found. His death certificate said, 'presumed drowned'."

"Who was his friend?"

McKay saw it in his eyes. "You already know, don't you."

"A man by the name of Dwight Alexander?"

"Yes."

"You found the hammer."

His words rang in her ears long after Willy was gone.

"The hammer, the hammer. . ."

Sitting on the porch steps, McKay wrapped a sweater around herself. It was chilly as soon as the sun set, though the days had been almost too warm. Cool evenings like these made the night sky seem that much clearer, the stars a little brighter. How long had it been since she'd taken time to look at the sky?

Mom and Granny still puttered in the kitchen, and she heard the soft whooshings and cracklings as Dad turned the pages of his daily Oregonian.

"There you are." The door creaked shut behind Granny and she clomped across the front porch. She struggled with the sleeves of her sweater, and finally satisfied, sat on the step beside McKay. "Ever wondered who might be looking at the same star?"

McKay smiled to herself and put one arm around Granny's waist.

Nancy called through the open kitchen window, "Mom, want a brewsky?" She used Peter's name for the beer they brewed in their own still in the basement.

"You having one, too?" Granny called back to her daughter.

"You need to ask? How about some warm milk for you, McKay?"

"Thanks, Mom, but I think I'll pass."

"Too late, I've already got it warming. It's good for the baby," she said, and her footsteps disappeared for the moment.

"So's beer," Granny said behind a cupped hand, "but she'd have a conniption if I said that out loud."

McKay did not respond, just stared out into the starry sky.

"A penny for your thoughts."

"I don't know, Granny. I'm thirty years old--"

"Thirty one."

"Thanks. Thirty one, then. At this point in my life, I always imagined I'd be settled, have a couple of kids, a husband, a mortgage, the whole American dream. Look at me."

"You don't look so bad to me."

"My life is a wreck."

"Sometimes," Granny said, "you have to try so hard for a thing, and then when you get it, it brings you nothing but sadness. That means the thing was never meant for you in the first place."

"So you're saying that for me, marriage and a family--"

"No. Marriage to the horse's ass, McKay. You knew from the beginning it would be difficult. You went into that marriage thinking you could change him. That was a big mistake."

"What should I do now?"

"Find someone better. An old shoe."

"An old shoe?"

Granny slipped off one shoe from her size five foot. "I have these old shoes, not much to look at, it's true, but they fit my foot like a second skin. I've had them resoled twice. On someone else, they might pinch at the toes or rub in all the wrong places, but for me, they are a perfect fit."

"It's hard to find perfection out there, Granny."

"Only because you are looking for someone else's idea of perfection. Look here. Are these shoes perfect?"

"For you, I guess they are."

"That's right, tootsie." She patted McKay's hand.

In the same instant they heard Nancy's rapid footsteps, followed by the basement door swinging shut and the clink of ceramic mugs. The telephone on the kitchen wall rang, and Nancy mumbled her annoyance.

"Just a minute," they heard her say. "Peter. Peter!"

"What's that?"

"Phone."

"What'd you say?"

More annoyed mutterings. "Didn't you hear the telephone, Peter? It's for you, Dwight Alexander." She handed them each a mug and sat down beside Granny and McKay. "Selective hearing," she huffed. "That's his problem, and it's getting worse every day."

"Mom, did you say Dwight Alexander?"

"Umhm." She sipped at her mug of beer.

"Why would he be. . . I mean, with their history--"

"Oh, that," Nancy said. "Your father makes more of their differences than he should."

"Does Dwight Alexander call Dad often?"

"Often enough," she said.

"Too often, if you ask me." Granny chimed in.

McKay heard Peter exclaim, "No shit?"

Nancy frowned and shook her head. "He's got to clean up that foul mouth of his before we have a little grandbaby running around this house."

Peter's voice floated through the kitchen window. "You've got to be kidding. What makes you think Maxwell will give me the fucking time of the day after this long?"

Nancy jumped to her feet and hurried back inside to the kitchen. In seconds, the window slid shut with a resounding thud.

Granny clutched McKay's hand. "It's good to be home, eh?"

McKay groaned.

***

The telephone rang, five times, six times, seven, and Willy almost hung up.

Her voice was sleepy. "Hello?"

"McKay?"

"Willy?"

He swallowed hard. "I need to see you."

"What time is it?"

"Six-fifteen."

"In the morning?"

He did his best to keep it upbeat. "Let's see, the sun rises in the east. . . Yeah, the morning."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. Are you free for lunch?"

"I know that funny sound in your voice."

"You're imagining things."

"I'm not. You heard from your doctor, didn't you."

He paused a long second. "That's a real leap, McKay."

"Well?"

Willy sighed. "You were right. It's back." He hung up the phone, words catching in his throat. Willy pressed the replay button on his answering machine.

"Doctor Chevellier here," the tape said, "I need you to come in sometime today or tomorrow, Will, just tell my secretary I said to schedule you in. I hope you'll invite your significant other, too, or your father. We need to discuss the results of your recent labwork--"

Willy hit the replay button again.

Part Three

chapter 14

"Don't cry, please."

"How can I not cry, Willy? After everything you've been through. . ." The words would not come, and she sank into the big leather chair in Willy's office, burying her face in her hands.

Willy sat facing McKay and he handed her the handkerchief from his pocket. "I've fought leukemia and won once before. I can do this again."

McKay blew her nose. "You're not fighting this alone, I swear to you."

Willy smiled softly. "See there? With you in my corner, how can I possibly lose?"

McKay rummaged through her bag to one side of the chair, pulled out a magazine, then straightened her shoulders and leveled her chin. She took a deep breath. "I want you to see this." She handed him the magazine, clipped open to one glossy page.

Willy looked at the small article pushed to one corner and he frowned. "Revisiting Salubristatin. What do you want me to say?"

"Don't you see? He's found it, Willy!"

"It?"

"The cure, Willy! Uncle Max has finally found the cure he's been looking for after all these years!"

"Come on, McKay. If that were true, don't you think we'd have heard about it? Do you suppose this story would be buried in some obscure little--what is this magazine, anyway?"

"World Science Journal."

"Right. It'd be all over the news."

"I'm just asking you to read the article."

Willy shook his head, the corners of his mouth drooping, his brave mask falling away for an instant. "I'm afraid. You know me, I'd get my hopes up for what is probably nothing--"

"I overheard Dad on the phone last night. He was talking to your father. And they were both talking about Uncle Max. They're taking this seriously." She grasped both of his hands in hers. "Willy, let's just go. Let's talk to Uncle Max. What do we have to we lose?"

"We could waste valuable time, that's what. Look, we haven't seen him in twenty years. How would we find him? And what if he doesn't want to talk?"

"We'll tell him that neither your father nor Dad knows we've come, and it'd be true."

He sighed, a sigh McKay recognized as one of resignation. "You mean, we'd sneak off to Brazil without telling anyone?"

"We'd be gone a week, tops."

"So--what? We'd tell everyone we were leaving on some little vacation, to some quiet little place, out of reach, communing with nature?"

"Hey, you're good."

He winked. "I learned from the best."

"See, you've always thought you could hide things from me, tootsie, but you never could."

"Hide what?" McKay scooped her makeup off of the bathroom shelf and into her bag.

Granny followed McKay into her bedroom. "Your diary, for one."

"You read my diary?"

She was right on McKay's heels. "Where is this place?"

"Away. I've already arranged everything with the newsroom, and Willy--" She unzipped a small suitcase.

"Who I saw in my doctor's office, with my own eyes."

McKay opened a dresser drawer and began riffling through clothes. "Which he flatly denies, Granny."

"I never lie."

"Mistaken identity, then."

"He was there."

"He says he's never even heard of Doctor Frenchie. Frankly, I believe him."

"Doctor who?"

McKay turned to face her grandmother. "You specifically said that you saw him in Doctor Frenchie's office."

Granny dismissed the words with a flip of her hand. "He's French, all right? I call him Frenchie. You'd think I was the first to ever call him that."

"Frenchie is your nickname for him?"

"His real name is Chevrolet, like the car. Now do you blame me?"

"You mean Chevellier?"

"Close enough."

"Why am I having this conversation with you? He'll be here to pick me up at any minute."

"Because I don't believe you, that's why."

"Look Granny, whether you believe me or not--"

"Which I don't. Let's get that straight."

"--it's none of your business. We're both adults. Willy and I can pretty much do what we want."

"So if I were to have a stroke--"

"Granny, please."

"--and die, how would you know in time to come to the funeral?"

McKay straightened and sighed. "All right. But you've got to keep this to yourself."

Granny twisted her imaginary key at her lips, then tossed it over her shoulder. "Tick-a-lock."

"We're going to see Uncle Max."

"In the jungle?"

McKay nodded. "In Brazil."

Granny's breaths came in short gasps. "I want to go with you."

"Never. This won't be a social visit. And no sightseeing."

"You have to take me." She grabbed McKay's arm with both of her hands, squeezing.

"Granny, I love you, but there is nothing you can say to make me take you with us. This is the rain forest of Brazil we're talking about, and it's dangerous, every step of the way."

"You're afraid that I'll slow you down? I may be old, tootsie," she waved a finger in McKay's face, "but I can keep up with the best of them!"

"I have no doubt about that--"

"Then let me go with you," she whined.

"Never, Granny." McKay kissed her on the forehead. "Tell Mom and Dad that Willy and I left on a whim, that we went camping, or to Reno, or whatever you want. We'll be back in a week."

A strange smile crossed Granny's face, and McKay did a double-take. By the time she looked back, the smile was gone. "One week," Granny said.

"I love you."

Willy's car swung into the driveway, and McKay rushed out the door.

"You're sure we're doing the right thing?" Willy clicked his seatbelt and cinched it tight.

"I've got a good feeling." McKay studied the pamphlet from the pouch on the seat in front of her, memorizing the safety procedures. Two exits in the front of the plane, two in the back, the seat cushion floated, and the oxygen mask came out from the panel above.

"Then why do you look so uptight?"

McKay shrugged. "You know how I feel about heights." But it was much more than her fear of heights.

"Are you worried about what might happen once we land?"

"That was years ago, Willy." She yawned and tried to look bored, drumming her fingers on the arm rests. "None of the same Brazilian officials will even be in office. Who could connect us to something that happened that long ago?"

"I'm wondering if Max and the natives will still be right where we left them."

"Those people have lived there for generations. Nothing could have stopped them from rebuilding, not a fire--"

"And if we do find your uncle, could the article be true?"

McKay winced inwardly. "Of course it's true, Willy."

"Why do I get the feeling you're pretending to be brave just for me?"

"I gave up pretending to be anything a long time ago." McKay snatched a travel magazine up to her face and elbowed Willy in the ribs. "Did you see that? That woman, there she goes, back there. No, don't look yet! She gave me the evil eye."

"What woman?" Willy made a production of stretching and turning in his seat. He muttered without moving his lips, "Which one?"

"Don't stare, okay? The one wearing the bedsheet."

Willy glanced back. "That Muslim woman? You're imagining things."

"I swear to you. She gave me the eye." McKay shivered. "She squeezed one eye shut, and the other--"

Willy snickered. "You're nuts-o. Maybe she's a burn victim hiding under her bandages. Maybe she only has one eye."

"And maybe she's just jinxed this flight."

Willy groaned. "This is going to be a long day, isn't it."

***

The palm of Willy's hand bore her finger nail marks. "We're above the clouds, McKay. Nothing but clear skies ahead."

"I wasn't afraid," she said, a little indignantly, brushing back her soft red hair.

"Did I say you were afraid?" Willy couldn't help but to smile. He liked playing the role of her protector for a change. Subconsciously, his smile faded. Would he be clutching at her hand like this sometime soon, hanging on for the fight of his life? Or would something happen in Brazil that would make that unnecessary? Willy sighed.

God, how he loved this woman. It wasn't a slow realization, like one would expect. He simply woke up one morning and knew. "Why'd you do it?"

She looked up from a crossword puzzle book, scowling. "A five letter word for 'provokes'?"

"Riles. Why did you marry him, anyway?"

"Four letter word for 'bacteriologist's wire'?"

"Oese. I mean, you met this guy at your gym, and ran off to marry him a month later at drive-through wedding chapel in Reno. For cryin' out loud, McKay, how much could you have known about him? How much could you have loved him?"

"How do you know all this stuff?"

He shrugged. "It's obvious."

"No, how do you know what to call a bacteriologist's wire?"

"As much as I wanted you to be happy, I knew that wouldn't work out, not with him. Didn't I tell you?"

"Five letter word for 'chief artery'?"

"Aorta."

"You're a smart man, Willy."

"Yeah, well, I read a lot."

"No, I mean the other." She closed her crossword puzzle book. "If you didn't think I should marry him, why didn't you just come right out and say it?"

"Saying 'I think you've made a mistake, McKay,' wasn't enough?"

"That was after the fact."

"You'd have listened if I said it before?"

Her lower lip protruded almost imperceptibly. "Maybe."

Willy threw up his hands. "Well, see there!"

"Would you have listened if I told you that I thought you were making a mistake by moving in with Zoe?"

"We're not talking about me."

"Sure we are."

"That's a whole different story. That was. . . that was love on the rebound."

McKay cocked one eyebrow.

"The moment I realized what I was doing, I told her. And then I broke the engagement off."

"You broke her heart, too."

"I'll live with that shame for a long time, McKay, believe me. But we were talking about you."

"You and she weren't compatible. I told you that."

"Yeah, well I guess you are the only one who is compatible with me." McKay fit him like his favorite pair of blue jeans. . .

"Like that would ever work out."

"Right," Willy said softly. "Like that would ever work out." He remembered the summer he'd spent with McKay out on the farm, the tent they'd pitched under a particularly old nut tree in her parents' orchard. They read The Wizard of Oz together that summer. Dorothy discovered that what she'd been looking for was in her own back yard all along.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts," said an ominous voice over the intercom. "We'll be experiencing some minor turbulence."

Willy checked the lock of McKay's seat belt, then his own. He shivered and looked back once over his shoulder. The Muslim woman quickly looked away.

chapter 15

McKay traced her finger over the route they'd carefully highlighted on the map. This busy airport in Bogata would be the last stop before landing in Manaus, Brazil. From there she and Willy would switch over to the chartered private plane, and they'd follow the Amazon River until they came to the mouth of the Bindadnay. They would fly in over the Unghatti forest and land on the paved strip in Three Falls, before hiring someone else to drive them as close as they could get back down to the Unghatti village. So far, so good, McKay thought, a little smile playing on her lips. The trip had gone off without a hitch.

Willy turned from the counter, gray faced. He was worn completely out. "They want to see your passport again."

"You're serious?"

Willy nodded. He whispered, "I told you using your maiden name might be a problem."

The man at the counter spoke broken English. "Ah, Senorita Fine. We have a small problema."

Willy raised his eyebrows as if to say 'I told you so.'

McKay sat her carry-on bag at her feet and stood as tall as she could, pulling her shoulders back.

His shiny gold name tag said 'Pinza' and he wore a sweaty khaki uniform with so many medals on his collar and his chest, his intention was clear. Pinza would be a bit intimidating to the ordinary person. What he could not know was that McKay was not an ordinary person.

"The lady es embarazada?" Grinning like a fool, he made a large rounding motion over his own stomach.

"What makes you think that?" McKay said, angry color rising in her face. The baby kicked, objecting to her lie.

Pinza bowed his head, obviously embarrassed.

Willy said, "I don't want to rush you, pal, but our plane is loading--"

McKay tapped her passport with a finger and she raised her voice a decibel or two. "Look, I don't see a problem. Everything's been fine up to this point."

"McKay."

She frowned at Willy. He wasn't helping one bit.

"Senorita--"

"I don't want to miss my plane. I'm sure whatever this is about--"

"Senorita Fine, have you ever traveled to Brazil before?"

"To Brazil? To Brazil in South America?"

"Senorita, there is only one Brazil that I know of."

"Do I look like I've ever been to Brazil before?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm following orders, senorita."

"Look, Pinza, you know I've been to Brazil before. You must have my name there somewhere, on one of those papers you're hiding under that book--"

"McKay," Willy warned.

"--and I'm coming back to see my uncle, Maxwell Fine. Is that so terrible?"

"Then I am afraid, senorita, that you must be detained."

"Detained? What is that supposed to mean? If you make me miss my plane--!"

"Senorita Fine." A tall dark man in a blue suit stepped around the corner and took her firmly by the elbow. "Right this way please, Senorita Fine."

***

Max heard the Cessna swoop low once overhead, then circle around for the landing. From beneath the boughs of a tree, he cast his line in to the shady pocket of river. Max reeled the line slowly, casting again.

Fiona ran out the back door of her restaurant, wiping her hands on her apron. Her voice carried across the distance. "Come quickly, Ativana, Chimiree," she called, "Lou is here!"

Several Benji men and women, each carrying a wooden crate upon one shoulder, hurried behind her. They stacked their crates at the end of the dock and went back for more. Fiona smoothed her hands over her hair, then untied her apron and folded it. Shading her eyes from the glare, Fiona watched the plane as it landed.

Twin arcs of water flying into the air, Big Lou's Cessna hit the river and coasted, as it had done thousands of times before, at the edge of the settlement of Three Falls. Cutting the engine, Lou floated the plane gracefully up to the dock. He threw a rope to Chimiree and hopped out of the plane.

"Fiona!" the big man's voice boomed.

She ran to greet the visitor, and Max reeled his line in for the day, watching them from the corner of his eye. He slung his creel over one shoulder and hurried toward Fiona's.

Max gutted the fish behind the restaurant, for it was a thing Fiona preferred not to do. He sliced a dozen silver bellies open on a gouged board specifically for that purpose. With one finger Max scooped out the still-warm insides of the fish, then he hacked off their heads. He would take these fish back to the convent. Who knew how many extra mouths the sisters would have to feed after the funeral this evening?

"What is this?" Max heard Fiona ask, and Big Lou replied, "It's from that bastard, Alexander."

Max pressed his face to the screened window. He watched Fiona's profile as she held an envelope in one trembling hand, the other hand over her mouth.

"I wondered when this day would come," she said.

Big Lou grunted. "Maybe it's just a friendly hello."

A look of bewilderment crossed her face. "I must be a fool. I thought after this long, he might have forgotten."

"He must think it's time to repay the favor, with interest, if I know Alexander."

"Fi?" Max clomped through the back door, carrying his dressed catch in the creel. "Fi, has something happened? Lou, glad to see you." Max held out his hand to shake, but his eyes were glued to Fiona.

She shivered like a ghost conjured out of the dark. "Max Fine, I didn't know you were here."

"Has something happened?" He gestured to the letter she still held in her hand. "Bad news?"

Fiona pressed her lips into a straight white line, and then she buried the unopened envelope in a drawer. "It's nothing, Max, really."

Lou clapped Max on the back. "Are they bitin' today?" He pointed at Max's basket of fish.

"They're always biting," Max said, his eyes resting on the back of Fiona's head.

***

"I haven't any idea what you mean."

"Senorita Fine, let me take a moment to explain."

"You can't just make me stay here. I have rights, you know. I am an American--"

"But you are not in America now, are you, senorita?" His eyes were wide, honest eyes. He held his back arrow straight in the chair. His teeth were white and even, and his fingernails, McKay noticed, looked as if they had been professionally buffed and manicured. The man folded his hands neatly on top of his spotless desk. Over his shoulder, McKay saw the waiting plane, her plane. The one that ought to have left for Manaus ten minutes ago. Willy hurried past the window at the man's back, and a breath caught in her throat.

"Are you all right, senorita?"

"I am perfectly well, and please stop it with the 'senorita' business. My name is McKay, McKay Fine." She let out another tiny gasp. The woman in the bedsheet passed the window. There was something oddly familiar. . .

"Very well, McKay Fine. I am General Esperanza." He extended one hand to shake. When McKay did not take it in her own, he folded his hands together again. "Your father, Peter Fine, has been restricted from ever entering this country again. Were you aware of that?"

"And this means that I am automatically restricted from seeing my only uncle, who lives in Brazil, ever again?"

"What is the true nature of your visit?"

"I've already told you, twice."

Esperanza looked incredibly cool in this ninety nine degree heat, ninety nine percent humidity. "Have you not come to finish the job your father started?"

"Finish the job?" She angrily jumped to her feet, but Esperanza motioned her down again. Reluctantly, she complied.

"Have you not come to bring examples of your uncle's research back into your country, back to your father in America?"

"I'm not a scientist, Esperanza. I've come for strictly personal reasons. I want to see my uncle again. It's been almost twenty years--"

"Since your father slaughtered fifty-seven of Brazil's own children, all in the name of scientific research?"

McKay sighed, exasperated. "I don't know what happened then. I don't think anyone really does."

"We know what happened, without any doubt. But that is not the question. The question, senorita, is a matter of your intention. Has you father sent you here?"

"He doesn't even know I've come."

He leaned back in his chair. "Your tale grows more and more difficult to believe, senorita."

Willy ran by in the opposite direction this time, his wild eyes meeting hers for a second before he disappeared from view. McKay squeezed her eyes shut. What was he doing? What did he want her to do? She tried to compose herself--

General Esperanza turned to look over his shoulder.

"Oh no!" she cried, clutching at her stomach.

"Senorita Fine?" He jumped catlike to his feet and took two long strides around his desk and toward McKay.

In that second, the veiled woman scuttled past the window, obviously following Willy. Now McKay knew exactly what was so familiar about that woman. "Geez!" She grabbed her forehead.

"What is the matter?" Esperanza's eyes grew wider, and he glanced out the window again, then quickly back to McKay, a confused frown knotting up his forehead. "Have you become ill?"

"Ill, yes, I'm feeling rather faint. I am expecting a baby, as you can see." She rested her hand on her six-months pregnant belly. "Is there a ladies room, a washroom here?"

The man narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"I swear to God, I'll puke on this desk--"

"Follow me, senorita," he said, showing her the way out the door. He motioned to a closed door beside his office. "I'll be waiting right here for you, in case you are thinking of leaving us just yet."

McKay shut the door behind her and slumped gratefully against it, turning the flimsy lock on the knob and taking quick inventory of the small bathroom. There was one pitiful little window above the toilet, impossibly high, and with no real foothold.

Nonetheless, McKay clambered up onto the toilet, balancing on the rim of the seat. She tip-toed to open the latch. The window swung outward from the bottom, squeaking. McKay stood frozen in place, holding her breath. When she did not hear anything from the other side of the door she jumped, catching both hands on the window sill. Splinters the size of toothpicks gouged into her hands. Cringing in pain, she let go, one foot landing back on the rim, the other splashing into the toilet, a perfect bull's eye. Panting, sweat breaking out across her face, McKay wrapped toilet paper around her hands like thick white mittens.

She heard the engine of the small plane cough to a start, smelled diesel gasoline burn and drift through the window. Again, she jumped, catching both hands on the window sill.

"Senorita Fine?"

"Just a minute," she called indignantly, dangling from the window.

Her feet spun circles against the slick wall. At last she hooked one elbow, then two over the sill of the window.
"Senorita Fine!" he demanded.

"I said just a minute! Can't a girl get a little privacy around here?"

"You have one more minute, then I'm coming in there after you."

McKay panted, gathering her strength. With one Herculean effort, she heaved herself up, the wood of the sill digging now into her armpits. She steeled herself against the pain.

At last! She could see freedom through the opening of the small window. "Willy?" she whispered. Where are you?" Inch by painful inch, McKay pulled herself up, wedging one knee in the crowded window. There was precious little room left. She'd just have to think small.

McKay heard a loud banging, then a crash as the wooden door disintegrated. Esperanza burst into the room . . . the second McKay disappeared through the window.

At her feet on the ground laid the dark veil. Muslim woman, her ass. She whipped the sheet over her head and ran for the plane, one arm wrapped protectively around her womb.

chapter 16

McKay took the steps to the plane two at a time, just as another man in a khaki uniform pulled a cord to draw up the stairs.

"Wait, she gasped, "please wait for me!"

An iron hard frown pulled down his bushy gray brows. "You are lucky," he said. "You almost didn't make it."

McKay took the only empty seat in the middle of the plane, 8-B, hiding her face from the other passengers. She felt the airplane vibrate into gear then circle slowly. At last it began to roll straight down the runway. Nothing could stop her now.

McKay's eyes darted back and forth from one aisle to the next, searching for the back of Willy's head. He wasn't in front of her. No matter. He was probably sitting right behind her. She would turn around and make eye contact, she decided, when the plane lifted off the ground, when she was sure they were safely on their way, with Pinza and Esperanza far behind them. As the plane gained speed, McKay dug her fingernails into the armrests on either side.

I wish you were right here beside me, Willy, I wish, I wish, I wish. . .

With a sickening lurch, the ground fell away from beneath airplane wheels. Finally, she caught her breath. The plane climbed into the sky, and as if someone had clapped their hands over her ears, all sound from the plane and from the other passengers was strangely muffled. On the other hand, her own breaths sounded like crashing ocean waves.

Holding the sheet so that only her eyes showed, McKay casually turned to search the faces of the passengers. She whipped back around to stare in disbelief at the front of the plane. A panic washed over her.

***

"Peter?"

He looked up from his daily Oregonian. Nancy stood before him, frowning, smoothing a folded piece of paper in her hands.

"Something's definitely wrong here."

"What is that?" He stared over the edge of his newspaper for the briefest second, then returned his attention to the stocks. Neotech was up two and a quarter. He recrossed his ankles on his hassock, doing quick calculations in his head.

"It's from Mother," Nancy said, interrupting again. "She says McKay and Willy have gone off camping."

"They're two consenting adults."

She put the note down on the table between them. "Camping, Peter? Out of the blue like this?"

"They used to do that all the time when they were kids, remember? Used to pitch a tent in the orchard and sleep in it all summer long."

"Still, this isn't like either of them."

"Okay Nancy, what do you think they're really doing? Robbing a bank or planning a coup to overthrow a third world government?"

"Don't be facetious, Peter."

"You worry too much."

"Wait, there's more."

He laid the paper in his lap, sighing. "Well, what is it my beautiful bride?"

She looked puzzled but did not speak as she reread the note.

Peter shrugged, raising his hands in an exaggerated motion.

"Mother says she's hocked the silverware she intended to leave us when she died, and says not to worry, she'll replace it when she gets back."

"Huh. And I kind of liked that silver."

"She says she needed the money to buy a plane ticket. To visit her sister, Elaine, in Seattle."

"Well, see there." Peter raised his newspaper again. "It'll be just us again, like it used to be, once upon a time. In fact, you can run around naked all day if you want to, and I won't tell a soul."

"Peter."

"What is it now, Nancy?"

"Aunt Elaine has been dead for fifteen years."

***

Basil said, "God will open the gates of paradise to His faithful servant, our mother, Mary Francis Stevens. He will carry her to her home, where there is no death, only everlasting joy."

"Amen," the sisters said, and Moses and Max lowered Mother Mary's enshrouded body into the grave.

Each sister in turn shoveled dirt in the hole. When it was Theresa's turn, her hands shook, but she did her part and passed the shovel to Emmanuel. At the end of the line, Max took the shovel in his hands. He filled Mother Mary's grave in while the rest of the mourners waited silently in the shadow of the chapel.

Sister Benedict-Claire set a basket of yellow orchids on top of the grave, and Moses hammered a small white cross into the dirt. 'Mother' it simply said. As solemnly as they had come, the Sisters of Mercy and a few others filed into the convent. Except for Tikitu, the remainder of the Unghattis quickly left. No Benjis had come. They had been wise. Max felt the cool hardness of his pistol in his pocket.

He sat on the porch steps sipping cool tea as thunder rolled across the sky. A jag of lightning shattered the thick air, and rain began to pour from the skies. If Max had been naive enough to believe in God, he would also have believed God was grieving right along with the rest of them.

The kitchen door fell shut with a loud squeak, and Fiona sat on the step beside him. She was silent for a long while.

"Everything's falling apart."

Max sighed. "We'll pick up the pieces and go on."

"No," Fiona said. "This is the beginning of the end for us all."

"Fi." Max shook his head.

"The Unghatti wise man is dead. The Mother Superior is dead. And Luta is missing."

"He's hiding. He's nothing but a coward at heart. But he'll have to come out sometime, if I have to flush him out myself."

Fiona put one hand on his knee. "Promise me you'll be careful."

Max stared out into the dismal gray rain. "I can't promise you anything, Fi. I'm going to get him this time if it kills me."

"Your death won't help anything, Max Fine. We need you more than ever."

"Is that so?"

Fiona nodded. "Your work is important. The rest of us outsiders are taking our livelihoods from the rain forest. You are the only one among us who is giving something back, in the form of your research."

"Research," he said with a flip of his hand, pushing the thought away. He wanted to wallow in his grief and blister in his anger. Why was she talking like this, of all times?

"If you die, Max Fine, all your years of research die with you."

"It's all written down."

"It is?" She seemed to perk up a little bit.

"Don't worry, Fi, I won't do anything stupid."

"You've written everything down?"

"Standard scientific protocol." Max watched her face carefully, then he laughed at himself. Lack of sleep had made him paranoid. "Besides, Tikitu became the Unghatti medicine woman when Hekura began to fail. She and her cousin Mutum will lead the Unghattis. They are both more than capable. Sister Theresa will lead this convent--"

"Theresa?"

Max grinned. "And the Benji won't allow Luta to take over the tribe, so don't worry your pretty little head. They see him for who he really is; a loose cannon. He will likely be forced from the Benji village in the same way that he was once forced from the Unghatti village. He'll drift somewhere else, like an ill wind."

***

For McKay, ten minutes became an eternity. It had been ten minutes since the garbled message had passed through the intercom system, ten minutes since the plane had abruptly swung back around toward Bogata. Ten minutes since her heart had fallen out through the bottom of the airplane.

Unquestionably, they all knew, from the cockpit crew to the last passenger seated nearest the tail. She saw the suspicion in their eyes. She, the woman with the bedsheet over her head, was none other than the escaped detainee.

Without speaking more than five words of Spanish, McKay clearly understood the message. No, they weren't lucky enough to have engine trouble. Nor weather trouble. Nor landing gear trouble. It was simply a matter of a fugitive from the law, on this very plane. How would she ever get herself out of this mess?

McKay felt the sickening drag of the plane as it slowed, saw the blur of the runway as the black asphalt rushed below the oval window. Would she be killed the moment she stepped out, or would she be given a chance to explain before they blindfolded her and shot her dead?

She would find out all too soon. The wheels hit the runway with a rubbery squeal and a jolt that nearly took her breath away. Down, down, down the runway the plane rolled until it came to a stop. The man in the khaki uniform dropped the door open. Just as she imagined, two men, armed with machine guns no less, flew through the opening and appeared in the front of the plane. They spotted her immediately.

No formalities at all. No, 'Miss Fine, you are under arrest.' The two men simply snatched her out of her seat and marched her out of the airplane.

"Please," she wailed.

"You are lucky we don't kill you, senorita," one of the men growled, pulling his lips back in a snarl over stained yellow teeth, teeth that reminded McKay of a pet rat she had when she was eight. "You are lucky you have friends in high places."

Her knees turned to Jell-O. "You're not going to kill me?"

"You get into that plane which your friend has chartered, and you return to your home." He pointed his fat finger to a small, single engine plane that had obviously seen better days, maybe one hundred yards away. Great sheets of white paint peeled off the sides of the plane, exposing the shiny silver metal underneath. Her heart lurched. It was a plane, wasn't it, and not just a huge bomb on wheels? She searched hopefully for Willy's face. He would have plenty to say to her, but this time she didn't mind. The sound of his voice would be music.

"You must never return to Columbia, nor to Brazil, senorita. To do so would be to ask for unimaginable trouble."

"Never," she gasped. And she truly meant it. At least for the moment.

Willy ducked through the doorway of the small plane and waved. The men on either side of McKay released her arms, and she walked as confidently as she could toward the plane. Her knees knocked so hard she seriously thought she might fall.

Willy didn't speak until they were airborne. "What the hell were you thinking?" He said 'hell' like he wished he could send her straight there, and McKay cringed.

"I thought you were already on the plane--"

His face had gone tomato red. "Are you crazy?"

"We're giving up? After all of this, we're turning around?"

"No, of course not."

The pilot interrupted. "I haven't seen a cent of your money, amigo."

McKay could only see the back of the pilot's balding head. Greasy black hair hung in strings to his shoulders.

Willy passed a wad of cash over to the man, who took the money without comment.

"We're not?"

"We've just had a slightly inconvenient change of plans, that's all."

"I'm sorry, Willy. I didn't know."

He sank his head back onto the filthy headrest. "I though you were dead," he said, and his voice shook near the end.

"I thought I was dead, too."

"The baby," he said, sitting bolt upright, his face pinched in worry.

McKay took his hand in both of hers, then laid it on her stomach. "See? She's kicking like crazy. She's fine."

"Wow," he said, his eyes growing big.

"How did you get them talked into letting me go?"

Willy shook his head. "I still can't figure it out."

There was a huge rattling, crashing sound from the tail section of the plane, and McKay shrieked, "We're going down!"

The trap door of the cargo section flew open, and out tumbled Granny McKay into the back seat. She patted down a few stray hairs, then opened the red purse at her hip, producing a tube of lipstick.

McKay was stunned speechless, but Willy shouted, "Granny!"

The pilot looked back and forth, then back and forth again. "You know this woman? That'll be two thousand more, amigo."

***

"How can you be sure they're gone?"

Dwight Alexander paced like a caged tiger behind his desk, sucking on the end of a Cuban cigar. "How can I be sure? What d'ya take me for, Pete?"

"I wouldn't consider this for a second if there was even a slim chance they were still in South America."

"McKay and Will are long gone, Pete. Didn't I just say that?"

"You don't know McKay like I do."

"But I do know my boy." Dwight spat into an ashtray and picked off tiny pieces of wet cigar from his tongue. "He's as yellow as they come. I say 'boo,' he still jumps. And you know for yourself how intimidating Esperanza can be. Poor Will probably won't stop shaking for a whole God damned month." He laughed, puffing out a haze of blue cigar smoke.

Peter Fine slumped into a chair opposite Dwight's desk. "I don't know."

"What is this? You've suddenly developed a conscience? Don't tell me you've gone saintly on me, Pete."

"No, but what in God's name were they doing there?"

"Seen this?" Dwight flipped a magazine upon his desk, the World Science Journal, and Peter groaned, cradling his forehead in his hand. Dwight sucked in a huge breath through the cigar, then blew out smoke in a cloud over his head. "Has to be it. The little devils are trying to beat us to the punch."

"You're suggesting--?"

Dwight shrugged. "And why not? They've both heard about this, the elusive cure for cancer, all their lives. Why shouldn't they want this as badly as we do?"

"Tell me, Dwight, do you know either one of them?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying neither of them, thankfully, has been afflicted with our insanity. Neither of them gives a rat's ass about salubristatin."

"Yeah? Then you explain it, Pete. You explain why this article appears and suddenly Will and McKay feel a burning need to see a long-lost relative in Brazil, who also just happens to be the author of this article. You explain why they lied about where they were going." He waved two airline computer-generated itineraries in front of Peter's face. "Give me the answers, Pete."

Peter's voice was low and calm. "Okay. Let's just say you're right. Let's just say, for the sake of argument that they were trying to ply the information from Maxwell. And let's just say that Esperanza made enough of an impression to scare them away. How can you be so certain that Maxwell is ready to give up the goods?"

Dwight smiled, clutching the cigar between his teeth. "I've already got that covered."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's time to call an old favor due." Dwight slid open a desk drawer and tossed several Polaroid Instamatics on the desk.

Peter winced at the gruesome pictures of Oscar Bruce, his dead body Swiss-cheezed with bullet holes.

"Does that answer your question?"

"You don't know my brother, Dwight. Not even the proof of his crime would convince Maxwell to pass the secret on to us, not if he believes the natives will be in danger again."

Dwight Alexander leaned forward on the desk, his eyes nearly level with Peter's. "Would he do it, you think, if he knew how much pain and suffering I could cause his family to endure?"

chapter 17

"Fiona Gearhardt only has to convince one of the natives," Dwight waved a finger in front of Peter's nose, "just one, that what happened before will happen again, if they don't get the papers from Max."

"Okay." Max stood and began pacing. "How will they know where the papers are? He very likely has them hidden, you know."

"Ah, you underestimate me, Pete."

"Oh?"

"Why do you think I've monitored how things were going between Max and Fiona all these years? Do you think I was really interested in their love life, or the lack thereof?"

"Does Fiona know?"

"Does Fiona know. How could she ever forget? That's the whole purpose for her remaining there all of these years, to keep track of his doings, to locate those papers in a moment's notice. She always knew it would eventually come to this."

Peter felt his face burn.

"Oh, now, don't feel so bad. You're not betraying your brother. Fiona is. And in exchange, she gets what she wants most in this world, which is the promise of complete silence concerning her husband's disappearance. After this, she is free to leave Brazil if she so desires. I'm a man of my word, if nothing else. I'll have no further dealings with her."

"And what about Max?"

Dwight shrugged. "Depends."

"Depends on what?"

Dwight leveled his eyes against Peter. "That's where you come into the picture. Deliver up exactly what I want, Pete. I can't make any promises until I have what I've wanted for twenty five years, here in my hands."

"But how--"

"And if you can't deliver, you lose everything you've ever cared about."

***

"Where are we?" Willy asked as the pilot circled the plane over an empty field.

The man McKay had come to know as 'Rico" said, "This is the best place for landing, amigo."

Willy pointed his thumb in the opposite direction. "But isn't Three Falls that way?"

"Si, it's six, seven miles at the most. Just follow the river."

"I paid you good money to take us to Three Falls."

"I can do it for two thousand more, amigo, no less."

"That's preposterous! I insist that you take us to Three Falls at once."

The pilot shook his head. "Too much danger, too close to the village. You have to be loco to go there in the first place, man. Those Benjis are crazy. You look sideways at them, they shoot you.

"You listen here, Rico--"

"The Benjis know Rico, I am sorry to say." He pointed to a column of smoke. "See, they already know I am coming. They will throw poor Rico into a cooking pot and gobble me up, them beat their drums with my bones. You wouldn't want that for your old amigo, would you?"

Rico landed the airplane with such a hard thud that McKay bit halfway through her tongue. He nearly pushed them out of the plane, then tossed their backpacks out behind them. In the next moment Rico taxied across the field and was airborne air in seconds.

"Well," Granny said, wiping her hands together, "good riddance to him, I say."

Willy just stood there, astonished, his hands on his hips.

"We'd better get moving," McKay said. "Seven miles is a long way to go, amigos."

The big man loaded wooden crates into the plane at the dock. "Who are you?" he said.

"My name is McKay Fine, and I'm looking for my uncle, Doctor Maxwell Fine. Do you know of him?"

"Doctor Fine?" The man straightened and pushed his baseball cap back on his head. "Doc Fine? You're his niece?"
"Then you do know him!"

"Yes ma'am," he said. "He know you're coming?

"I don't think so. I mean, I guess not, how could he?"

"You came here by yourself?"

She opened her mouth to explain, but he went on.

The big man whistled softly. "You're lucky you made it this far safely, missy. These are dangerous parts. What with the Benjis an eyelash away from declaring an all-out war. . . Yes ma'am, you're lucky you made it at all."

"Do you know where I can find my uncle?"

"I know who could tell you where to find him, ordinarily, that is. But she doesn't seem to be here, though she ought to be. I can't find her anywhere. Like I say, she could tell you, ordinarily."

The three held their hands over their heads.

"I told you we shouldn't cross the bridge," Willy said. "You never listen to me."

McKay looked hopefully from one face to the next. "I'm looking for my uncle, Doctor Maxwell Fine." Nine Benji men, stark naked, surrounded them. The men wore identical bowl haircuts, and thin sticks skewered through their earlobes. They might have been deaf for the impression her words seemed to make on them.

Granny cleared her throat, and McKay groaned. "We-o are-o looking-o for Doctor-o Fine-o. You understand-o?"

Miraculously, McKay detected a glimmer of reason in their eyes, but that look was swiftly replaced by nine masks of stone.

"I don't trust them, McKay," Willy said half beneath his breath.

"Okay, so maybe they're not so trustworthy," said Granny. "But would you look at the size of their family jewels? Must be the warm weather that makes them grow that big."

One man grunted and gestured toward McKay with his long bamboo spear. The other men soon joined in the chorus, shaking spears, grunting like a herd of wild pigs. The leader of the group stepped forward and inspected McKay from head to toe with his black, vacant eyes, looking at her like he could taste her. A shiver of fear went through McKay. The warrior grabbed McKay by her arm and began to lead her down a worn path.

Willy jumped in front of them, blocking the trail.

"It's okay," McKay said calmly. "I don't think, I mean I think he's taking us to see Uncle Max." Willy stepped aside, allowing her and the warrior to pass. He joined in behind, with Granny, like sheep being led to the slaughter, McKay thought. She quickly banished the image from her mind.

"Duct tape," Willy said in disgust. "These people haven't changed the way they live since they descended from apes, yet they have duct tape."

McKay struggled with the bonds at her wrists, watching Granny from the corner of her eye.

Granny writhed about the dirt floor, spilling the contents of her purse. She twisted and grunted until she managed to grab hold of metal nail file. Then she began the tedious task of sawing herself free. Eventually she let out a small victory whoop. Free at last! Her nimble fingers flew to loosen the tape at McKay's wrists. McKay in turn released Willy, while Granny swiftly gathered her belongings and jammed them back into her purse.

Dusk fell, and Granny, Willy and McKay peered out the doorway of the hut. A bonfire burned in the distance, orange flames barely visible through the trees. Not twenty feet away, an old man stood with his back partially to them, swaying drunkenly. He watched a fist fight break out between two women and chuckled aloud.

"Do you think he's supposed to be guarding us?" Granny whispered and McKay held a finger to her lips.

"I can take him."

McKay looked at Willy in surprise. When had he changed? She touched his arm. "Let's wait until dark," she whispered. "Remember, they drink themselves stupid every night of the week."

And so they waited.

The Benjis danced and sang, not beautifully, like the Unghattis, but more like a frat party, McKay decided. They drank to the setting sun and to the moon, to the river, to the trees. They drank to everything and to nothing, scooping liquid from a canoe, drinking it so fast it ran down their chests in streams. Men drank. Women drank. Even the smallest children of the tribe drank. They drank until Benji laughter grew louder and more obnoxious, they drank until they vomited, they drank until they fought, one fight breaking out before another was even properly completed.

An old woman brought the guard one drink, then another, and then a third. Just when McKay was sure he would doze off to sleep, the old one scrambled to his feet.

McKay, Willy and Granny hurriedly sat on the floor, their hands hidden behind their backs. The old man looked into the dim hut, nodded, apparently satisfied, then staggered back to his post.

"Now?" Willy said

"Now."

They crept up behind the old guard, and Willy clasped his hand around the man's mouth. He let out a muffled yell, but in the blink of an eye, Willy dragged him inside the hut.

"Now what do we do with him?" Willy asked, his eyes growing enormous.

McKay was on the verge of a panic. Cries from the old man would alert the others, and certain trouble would follow. They would be hunted down like animals, then either shot or tortured to death. . .

Once more, Granny came to the rescue. She wound up her pitching arm and walloped the old man squarely in the forehead with her purse. The Benji sat there, looking at first livid, as if he could kill. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped to the ground, unconscious. Granny took the bamboo-sheathed dart from behind the old man's ear.

"Granny, don't you dare!" McKay said. "That's poisoned!"

"Don't argue with me, tootsie. This is my souvenir. I earned this. Why, if it weren't for me--"

McKay grabbed Granny's wrist and the three crept out of the hut and into the night, their way lighted by the full white moon.

The Benji party was still in full swing. McKay watched for a moment from beneath the trees. "Animals," Willy said in disgust, and grabbing McKay's hand, he led her away.

"Cuckaroo, chick-chick-chick, cuckaroo!"

"Cuckaroo, chick-chick-chick, cuckaroo," came the echo.

"Isn't it lovely?" Granny said.

"Wait." Willy stopped, and McKay stepped on his heels, then Granny stepped on hers. "Shh."

Granny whispered, "What is it, Willy boy?"

"That noise."

"I don't hear anything but birds."

Willy cupped his hands around his mouth. "Cuckaroo, chick-chick-chick, cuckaroo!"

The answer came immediately. "Cuckaroo, chick-chick-chick, cuckaroo!"

"Come on!" Willy said.

"But--"

"Don't argue, McKay! Those aren't birds! See?" He pointed to a large dark shape, stooped on the branch of a tree. "Guards!" He snatched McKay's hand again, and McKay grabbed onto Granny.

But it was already too late. They'd been spotted.

The warrior in the tree was perfectly outlined by the moon. He extracted something from behind his ear.

"He's got an arrow! Run for your life!" McKay cried, and she heard the zip of a dart as it sliced through the air. She prepared herself for the bite of the tip in her flesh.

With a loud crash, a Benji warrior lay at their feet.

McKay was stunned. "What in the--?"

Willy finished, "--hell?"

Granny just stood there, looking sheepish, the hollow tube in her hand. "It really works, I guess," she said.

McKay's voice cracked like ice. "You've killed him, Granny."

"Let's get out of this place," Willy said, and McKay felt his hand tremble in hers.

With a velvety thud, another young Benji warrior dropped to the ground before them, landing like a cat on his feet. He slipped a knife from the band at his thigh, his small white teeth glistening by the moonlight.

"Let's get out of here!" Willy called.

***

"Peter, sweetheart?"

Peter held Nancy's hand in his own, glad it was so dark; she could not see his eyes.

Nancy rolled up on her elbow beside him in the bed. "Peter, I know there's something more besides Granny on your mind. Tell me, then maybe we'll both get some sleep."

"It's nothing," he said, turning away from her. Nancy flicked on the small light on her bedstand, and now, Peter knew, he'd be caught.

"You lie like a dog, Peter Fine."

Peter rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. "All right. There's this thing going down."

"Thing?"

"A thing with Alexander."

"Oh no." Nancy flopped back on the bed, also staring up at the ceiling.

"But then, Nancy, it's all over."

"With Alexander?"

Peter nodded. "No more threats, no more blackmailing Max or this family. And I don't ever have to see Dwight Alexander's face again."

"You've said that before."

"This time I mean it. I've got it in writing."

"What's going to happen?"

"You're better off not knowing."

"Oh no you don't. Not after this many years of living under that man's thumb. I deserve to know the truth, Peter."

He swallowed hard, fear crushing his chest like a heart attack. "Someone's going to steal Max's notes on the salubristatin, that's all."

Nancy was silent for a long while. "No one will be hurt?"

"No one. That was the deal."

"Does Max know?"

Peter sighed. "Worrying about it won't do him any good. So, no, I'm not going to tell him. It'll be over, boom, the end, before he ever realizes what's happening."

"So that explains it."

Peter looked toward his wife of thirty nine years. "Explains what?"

"This strange feeling I've had all day. Like I had when Denny was hurt in the accident, before the phone call, and like I had when I knew McKay was pregnant, before she even knew."

"I swear to you, Nancy, McKay is fine."

Nancy frowned. "How would you know? She's gone camping with Willy. Hasn't she, Peter?"

chapter 18

McKay, Granny and Willy had wandered for hours, losing the young warrior in his own backyard before they'd found themselves at the edge of the village again. Willy had seen the Benjis with his own eyes, hung over and fast asleep, some of them snoring loud enough to scare away the birds. All of the Benjis, big and small, lay scattered throughout the village in reckless abandon while he and McKay and Granny slipped silently away in a stolen canoe. He wasn't worried they'd followed, yet some unnamed danger made every hair on his arms stand on end.

One leaning against the other, the two exhausted women slept as Willy dipped and pulled his oar through the water. Day and night hung in perfect balance; the indigo sky faded quickly at its edges, yet still shimmered by the light of a few last stars. The white disc of the moon reflected against the rippled river, shattering into a thousand pieces.

On either side of the Bindadnay, vines trailed into the water, Rapunzel-like, perhaps more like Medusa. Some swayed with the current like gigantic snakes, and indeed, Willy thought with a shiver, they might well be. He steered the dugout canoe clear of the vines.

Willy noticed the subtle changes by dawn's earliest light. The moment the canoe passed the crooked dock and several dwellings half-buried in tentacled vines, the shoreline began to grow steeper on either side of the river. The glassy surface of the water ahead broke over a few jagged black rocks, but the canoe glided silently by, unscathed.

Willy strained to listen to the quavering air. He tried to shake his uneasiness away. The little party would soon arrive in Three Falls, and all of his paranoia would disappear, he knew, at the sight of friendly faces. His stomach growled. Make that friendly faces and a cup of hot coffee, a couple of eggs. The canoe seemed to instinctively slow and swing around a bend in the great river. Perhaps then the town was just around this corner. . .

Or perhaps not. Gone was the benevolent river that had delivered them from the Benjis; what lay ahead was a fury of churning, heaving water. With one twist in its path, the river had become possessed of a different spirit, hurling its way through an avenue of jumbled rocks with a roar so fierce it shook Willy's insides. He scrambled for the map in his pocket, the map that hadn't warned them about these rapids, only about the ones after Three Falls and just before the--

Realization of his mistake froze the blood in his veins. Willy glanced up. Suddenly, the forest seemed to have fallen away, and the shore became nothing more than the great chasm through which the even greater river flowed. The canoe shot forward like an arrow. Willy spied a rope bridge tied at either end of the sheer banks, swinging low but just out of reach across the river. Frantically, Willy attempted to hook his paddle into the ropes, but the speed of the canoe yanked the oar from his hands and sent it flying into the water. The canoe gunnelled from end to end, at once becoming drenched in an icy froth of water. Willy gasped and both McKay and Granny sat up in the canoe with a start.

"Willy!" McKay shouted, and Granny screamed, "Waterfall!"

He could not move. He could not speak. Willy could only cling to both sides of the canoe for his own life. He saw the white cascade open below as the canoe slowed and spun sideways, tottering precariously at the edge of the cliff. As if in a dream, Willy felt both the canoe and the river fall beneath his feet and plunge into the great gash of a mortally wounded earth. A thundering surge of water crashed down on his head and tore Willy out of the canoe. He glimpsed the last flash of McKay, flailing her arms. Willy reached in vain toward her before he went under.

Helplessly trapped in an eddy, Willy was spun in circles, holding his breath until his lungs were on the verge of collapse. Tossed once up into the air, he drew in a huge gulp before he was sucked mercilessly under again. Weight of the water crushing his chest like a house, his body rocketed beneath the water. His head rose above the surface and he gasped for breath, hope flaring then dimming as once more, he went under.

His lungs bursting, Willy prepared in that moment for his own death. He opened his mouth in defeat, swallowing water, and felt his body rush forward, the gates of death opening before him.

A changing current sent Willy bobbing back to the surface. In what seemed like the next instant, morning sun warmed his back. Dazed, he sat up. A little further on down the shore, there was Granny, her red vinyl purse still hooked over one shoulder, clutching a rock as if she would never let go. Flung up on the beach like a broken doll laid McKay.

"What have I done?" Willy said, patting McKay's cold cheek. He laid his ear on her chest, listening for her heartbeat.

Granny groaned. "Don't worry, you haven't killed her."

He panted, "Are you sure? I think she's hurt bad, Granny."

"She's comes from tough stock. You can't kill one of us that easily, you know."

McKay groaned, "Willy? Are you there?"

"Thank God," Willy choked. McKay's eyes flickered open, and Willy touched her brow and her hair, then the soft little indentation between her nose and her lip. He dropped his hand away, biting his trembling lip.

"Look at you," she said. "You've a cut on your forehead--"

"It's nothing," he said, shrugging. "A little bump, that's all. It's you I'm worried about."

"I think you need stitches."

"I will never forgive myself--"

"Come to think of it, neither will I." McKay winced as she moved her arms and her legs. "But nothing's broken."

Willy licked his lips. "McKay, the baby?"

"She's mad at you, too," McKay said, and Willy touched her stomach.

"I'll say," he said, allowing himself one small smile as the baby kicked against his hand.

"Thanks very much, you two, for asking about how the little old lady made it through."

"Granny," McKay said, sitting up, "you've already fixed your hair. You can't be that bad off."

"Hmph," Granny said. "Tell that to my legs and my arms and my poor bruised tookus. You want me to show you my bruises?"

Willy helped Granny up to her feet, one arm around her waist. "Not so fast, okay Granny? You might have a concussion or something."

"Oy," Granny said, "my hip and my knee. Oy, not too much pressure on that wrist, Willy boy. Oy! Oy! Oy!" but soon she was walking on her own.

"The village shouldn't be too far from here, if I remember right."

"You're trusting your memory to this one?" McKay said with a grimace.

"I'll go for help. I want you two to stay put until I get back."

"Not a chance! Not on your life!" and "No way!" they said. McKay scrambled to her feet and the two women stood before him, their arms crossed over their chests. He would not be winning this argument, he knew.

McKay sank to the ground, her face chalky white, and Willy knelt beside her. "Is it the baby?"

"It's my ankle. I must have twisted it. I can't imagine how on earth that could have happened."

"Here," Willy said, taking off her shoe, pretending deafness to her sarcasm. He touched her swollen ankle and she winced. "Well, that settles it."

"Willy Alexander, if you leave us here, I swear I will never forgive you."

"Don't you see, I'll bring back help--"

"You'll fish my backpack out of the river." She pointed to a dark blue object snagged between two rocks.

Willy splashed into the water, obediently hauling her wet backpack in. "It'll take me an hour, then we'll bring you and Granny safely to the village--"

"It's only a sprain, it's nothing serious."

"You still shouldn't walk on it--"

"There's our canoe." She motioned to the dugout, upside-down, whirling around in an eddy. "Get it Willy," she commanded and he did, wading out into the water then dragging it safely ashore. By the time he made his way back up to the spot on the beach, she'd emptied her backpack. Limping, she laid the striped tiger skin she insisted on bringing, plus a few delicate underthings on the warm rocks to dry. Willy diverted his eyes.

"Anyway--"

"No, Willy, it's settled."

"I can't even finish a sentence, can I."

"We'll dry out, we'll rest, and then we will go down the river. Together. It can't be more than a few miles or so to the village. There won't be any need for us to separate."

There might have been six or eight or ten men. Willy didn't know, he knew only that there appeared to be many, and that they seemed to have come from nowhere. They were white men, like him, but different. One thing was certain; they had lived in the jungle long enough, they'd forgotten what a bar of soap and a razor looked like.

These men surrounded Granny, McKay and Willy, stared at them down the barrels of shotguns. The rancid smell of their skin, their foul breath, the oily filth of their hair assaulted Willy's delicate nose. Their clothes were strictly army surplus, worn threadbare in spots.

The obvious leader, a man who stood well over six feet tall with a full head of matted white hair, nudged Willy with the end of his gun.

"You."

Willy raised his hands over his head. "What do you want?"

"You the three who killed the Benji?"

"No, no sir, you have the wrong people. My name's Alexander, Will Alexander. Don't hurt the women, one is pregnant, the other old and frail--"

"Hmph," Granny said, and Willy shot her a glance.

"Well, now." Another man, gaunt faced and with long spidery legs stepped forward. He chewed on a wad of black leaves, and brown juice dribbled down his chin. "Ain't you the mister."

Other men in the ever-tightening circle cackled and snorted and tossed the words back and forth. "Ain't he the mister. Ain't he the mister."

McKay spoke. "We are Americans, and we are looking for my uncle, Doctor Maxwell Fine. Do you know of him?"

"Well la-ti-da! Doctor Maxwell Fine! Doctor Maxwell Fine!" Every man but the big white-haired leader curtseyed and bowed to one another, squawking like parrots and whirling shotguns like walking sticks and umbrellas. "Doctor Maxwell Fine! Doctor Maxwell Fine! Do you know of him?"

"Please," Willy said, "we mean you no harm."

At this the men laughed so hard they doubled over. Some even fell to the ground, and it might have been easy to outrun them had the three not just tumbled down a waterfall.

Willy glanced at McKay. "Are they insane?" her eyes said, and he nodded.

"There's a bounty on your heads," said the leader.

"A bounty?"

He swung his shotgun casually over one shoulder. "Five hun'ert dollar a head."

You expect us to believe the Benjis have fifteen hundred dollars to spend?" McKay said, and Willy bumped her with his elbow.

"How much will it take," Willy said, "for you to look the other way while we leave?"

"How much you got?"

Willy licked his lips. "Twelve hundred dollars."

"Gimme," said the old man, holding out one grubby hand, and suddenly every shotgun was turned upon Willy.

"Look, I'll give you the money, you'll give me your three best guns."

"I got a deal for you," said the thin one, spitting a large black lump of sludge on Willy's left foot. "We shoot you dead then take all your money."

"All right, I'll tell you what. I give you the twelve hundred, with the promise of more if you let us go, unharmed. When I get back to Three Falls, I can have more money wired. In return, you give me one gun, your best."

The old man still held out his hand, and Willy unbuttoned his pocket and pulled out a roll of wet bills. He placed them in the old man's hand. The men gathered around, shuffling nervously from one foot to the next, exchanging whispers, pretending to count money.

Granny shrieked, "There it is!" and she pointed to a place upriver.

Arms tensed as the men raised their guns to their shoulders, fingers twitched over triggers.

"Granny," McKay said through gritted teeth.

"There it is! Don't you see it? Your backpack, Willy, the one with the rest of our money inside!"

The men narrowed their eyes, every muscle in every arm quivering. Only their eyes moved as they followed Willy's burgundy backpack, cheerfully bobbing in the current.

Purse slapping at her side, Granny raced toward the river, ploughed into the water.

A yelp rose up from the men. All but the old one ran after Granny. He scowled, reluctantly laid his gun at Willy's feet, then ran after his men.

The mangy band thrashed through the water, knocking Granny to her knees, nearly trampling her in the frenzy to be the first to latch onto the backpack. But the backpack continued merrily on its way downstream. Guns held high over heads, the men waded into the river, dog-paddling in hot pursuit. Their voices faded and at last disappeared.

"What will they find?" Granny panted, soaking wet and disheveled all over again.

"Mosquito repellant and six pairs of boxer shorts."

"I knew it," she cackled. "Boxer shorts, just like John Travolta. You know John Travolta, Willy boy?"

"We'll have to hide ourselves and the canoe, at least for a while."

"Then you think they'll come back?" McKay said.

Willy nodded and grasped her hand.

***

Unghattis lined the shore; men knelt in front, bow strings drawn tight, each with a deadly arrow aimed directly at the dugout canoe. Women and children stood behind the men, flaunting hatchets and spears.

"Not again," Willy groaned. Laying aside the thick limb he'd had to use in place of the lost oar, he raised his hands above his head--a gesture of goodwill, a universally accepted sign that the pitiful little party of three bore no weapons.

Granny muttered, "Something told me I should have packed my own heat," and she rummaged through her purse, as if a gun would somehow miraculously appear. "Filthy animals, gyped us out of the bullets. If I ever lay eyes on them, why, I'll give them a piece of my mind. . ."

A thousand times, a hundred thousand times, McKay had rehearsed this moment in her mind. But suddenly, everything was gone. Why had she come all this way? Hadn't these people suffered enough, and hadn't she been the cause? Shivering, McKay wrapped her tiger skin pelt around her shoulders and she rose to her feet, balancing in the rocking canoe. I am the one, she wanted to shout, I have your people's blood on my hands. I wear the guilt, as heavy as this sacred cloak. Here I am.

McKay watched, mesmerized, as the line of Unghattis parted. Like a queen, a woman appeared at the shore. Her great brown eyes shone, her burnished skin glowed in the slant of the setting sun, and her black hair was braided upon her head like a crown. Half wild, half divine, she belonged to different world. Yet McKay recognized her as easily as she did her own face in the mirror.

Tikitu.

Hesitating at the water's edge, Tikitu fixed her infinite gaze upon McKay. Tikitu stepped gracefully into the water, and like an unspoken command, the men at the shoreline lowered their bows. Her eyes never leaving McKay's, she waded knee-high, then waist-high, then she stopped.

McKay's heart pounded. She slipped into the water, so afraid, and in the next heartbeat, wanting to run to this woman she called 'sister,' wanting to throw herself into her arms.

Each met the other halfway.

Moving her willowy arms like a dance, Tikitu cradled McKay's face in her hands, smoothing away troubled wrinkles in McKay's forehead, lifting the corners of her mouth in a shaking smile, erasing a teardrop. Her soulful eyes searched McKay's. She ran her thumb along the four faint scars marring McKay's cheek, one at a time. "So it is you," she whispered. "My irma. I knew you'd come back some day."

Brushing the lustrous fur one last time, McKay handed the folded pelt to Tikitu. "I always intended to bring this back. I know Hekura would want you to have it."

Tikitu held it to her face, inhaling, the shadow of loss darkening her face for an instant.

"Tikitu, do you know the real reason I've come?"

McKay and Tikitu sat quietly at the shoreline, alone, the last glimmer of sunlight disappearing over the western ridge of trees. Lightning bugs swung in circles around them. Bells tolled softly across the river, and the thud of drums pulsed through the forest.

"You have come to see your uncle."

McKay studied Tikitu's regal profile by the fading light. Was she bitter and angry beneath her calm facade? McKay's voice was a whisper. "Can you help me find him?"

Tikitu nodded. "But not until tomorrow."

Tomorrow? McKay's heart pounded. This was more than she dared hope for. And if she could find Uncle Max, Willy would be given the greatest gift of all. She said, "Will we travel far?"

Tikitu smiled, her eyes wide and clear, even in the dim light. "Do you not know? He lives in the hut at the edge of the village, where he always has lived."

"Here?" McKay's breaths came in gasps.

"But tonight he is there." She pointed across the river.

"At the missionary?"

"His work is there, but he lives here. Doctor Fine will return at sunrise tomorrow."

McKay leaped to her feet. "I could cross tonight. I could take the canoe--"

Tikitu stood beside McKay, grasping her hand. "Tomorrow, irma. You will see him tomorrow."

Darkness cloaked the forest, and the branches overhead creaked and moaned as a whispered breeze passed above. The light of the fire encircled the women and the children like great, loving arms.

Drumbeats rose up from the ground, the air vibrated in a familiar cadence. Unghatti heels pounded the earth, a rhythm that matched McKay's own pulse, kept time with the quick rise and fall of her breaths. Low voices wove eerily in and out of the song.

Like shadows, Unghatti men slipped from the darkness. Black eyes reflected the light of the fire. Muscles rippled beneath glistening skin as the men broke through the waiting circle and formed their own ring around the fire, orbiting like planets around a sun. They danced until they reached exhaustion, then retreated back into the shadows.

Long, uncomfortable seconds passed. Children whined, mothers shushed. McKay waited, wondering, watching. At last Tikitu rose from her place beside McKay. She stood alone before the council, Hekura's tiger skin wrapped about her shoulders. Her face glowed with a mysterious inner light, casting out the darkness. The lifeforce of her ancestors dancing in her blood,

Tikitu swayed to the beat of her own inner drum.

Her face untroubled and childlike, Tikitu looked directly at McKay, and she held out her hands. Come, her eyes said. McKay rose, her heart thundering, and the two women joined hands, entwining fingers.

They danced. Around and around and around they went, circling the fire, circling each other. McKay searched Tikitu's face; lines of laughter, tracks of tears. So different, yet so much the same. In that one precious moment in time, their joys mingled, their sorrows were one.

Fierce and beautiful and wild, Tikitu was the shaman, the magician, the goddess, and these Unghattis gathered at her feet were her faithful. Tikitu threw her head back and laughed, a silvery laugh that scattered in the night like a thousand stars. Her voice reached deep down inside of McKay, striking a joyous chord. They laughed as one woman, the river of their voices rilling and running together.

chapter 19

"Send her away!"

"But Maxwell--"

"I mean it, Theresa. Tell her I'm gone, and you don't know when I'll be back."

"You're asking me to lie?"

"I'm asking you to discourage her from staying in this bloody forest for one minute longer."

"Shame on you, Maxwell. She's come halfway across the world to see you, her own flesh and blood."

"She doesn't know the danger she's in, the danger she's putting everyone else in simply by being here."

"You're exaggerating, Maxwell."

"Am I? Luta has threatened to make war. Do you think he was joking? And are you so certain that this will not be the incident that finally sets Luta into motion?"

"But the Unghattis--"

"--Are readying themselves for war as we speak. No, Theresa, you tell her I'm gone."

Theresa dropped her eyes to her folded hands. "Where will you go?"

"To Three Falls. But don't tell her that, Theresa."

"Then what will I tell her?"

"Tell her she should be on the next plane back to the states." He tipped his pith helmet, then ducked out the back door of the convent.

***

Willy cleared his throat at the doorway of the hut. Tikitu's cousin, Mutum, scrambled out of his hammock and picked up his bow from the dirt floor. The dark squatty man held out one hand to shake. Willy pumped his hand up and down, thinking was no family resemblance whatsoever between the beautiful woman Tikitu had become, and this man. "You know the American custom of shaking hands?"

"This be not only 'Merican," Mutum said, sniffing indignantly. "Unghattis know many nappe, many nappe shake hands."

"And you speak English?"

Mutum laughed. "You think Unghatti much like Benjis, like other animals who live in forest?"

"I wanted to introduce myself. I am--"

"Yes, Mutum remembers. Both boys, we. You small and afraid."

The tight belt of fear around Willy's chest eased open a notch. "The name's Will, Will Alexander."

The man jerked his head toward Granny McKay, who was standing in the clearing. She was surrounded by a dozen or more children who were touching her clothes, her glasses, even pulling at her hair. "Who be old woman?"

"That," Willy explained, though he suspected Mutum already knew, "is McKay's grandmother."

"Mother of Kumareme?"

Willy hesitated a moment, quickly remembering where he'd heard that name before. "Something like that."

"Why have you come to see Mutum?"

"You are the chief of the Unghattis."

"This be true."

"I have come to show respect to you."

"Kumareme not come?" He craned his short neck to see out the doorway.

"She and Tikitu went across the river, to try to find Doctor Fine."

A ripple of anger passed over his brow. "She not come to respect Unghatti chief?"

Willy's eyes took in the bow, then the quiver of arrows propped against the wall. "She said it was proper for the man to come first."

"This also be true. She will come later?"

Willy nodded. "If the chief wishes it."

"Chief wishes it," he said.

His bow slung over one shoulder, Mutum led Willy to the largest hut in the circle, the one Willy remembered as belonging to the old medicine man. As a boy, his curiosity had gotten the better of him and he'd peeked inside the grass-covered doorway, but only briefly before someone had chased him away. He and McKay watched from the boughs of a nearby tree as only men came and went from this mysterious place, day and night. Now the chief of the Unghattis invited him inside.

Willy prepared himself for the murky recesses of the inner sanctum, but he soon discovered that no such preparation was necessary. Light flooded the hut through a large opening in the center of the steeply slanted roof. His eyes swept the room.

Piles of ashes dotted the floor, and burnt strings of varying lengths hung from the rafters above. The smell inside the hut was odd, like incense, and it clung to Willy's skin. Neat piles of leaves were stacked on either side of the door, some leaves dried and dusty, others still green.

In the center of the room was a pit lined with blackened stones. Directly above, the skylight. Willy struck the thought; this was a chimney. He gazed up at a swiftly moving cloud. A chimney, all right, for whatever God-awful things they were burning in here. It seemed a sort of holy place, burnt offerings, and the low-throated animal skin drums he remembered as a child, lined up on one side of the hut. And bundle after bundle after bundle of small black-tipped darts on the other.

"Is this a holy place, Mutum?"

Mutum measured him with his dark eyes for a long while. Finally he spoke. "This be a worrying place."

"The Unghattis worry?"

"Outside this place, Unghattis be brave, for women and children. Here Unghattis talk many talks which not be heard."

Willy stooped next to the bundles of arrows.

"Don't touch!" said Mutum, and Willy stood, hands in his pockets.

"You must be worried about a great many things."

"Those," said Mutum, "be for Unghatti worries with Benjis."

"You will fight them?"

"Unghattis worry because Luta be second chief. Second chief be like first chief, only younger."

"This Luta--"

"--was Unghatti, many seasons before. This you know."

"Oh, yes." Willy touched his cheek. "He wears the mark--"

Mutum nodded. "Peccary, stolen by Kumareme."

***

"I'm sorry," Theresa said, "he isn't here." She motioned McKay and Tikitu to the kitchen chairs.

"What happened?"

The corners of McKay's mouth drooped in her disappointment, and Theresa could not lie. "He left, child. I can't explain his reasons, except to say that he was worried you'd be in danger."

Tikitu covered McKay's hand with her own. "Give him time. I know Doctor Fine. He'll come back."

Theresa nodded. "Yes, he'll come to his senses." She poured tea into her guest's cups: the one she always reserved for Tikitu, and Maxwell's favorite, a dingy chipped old cup he never let Theresa bleach, for McKay. Theresa was ashamed as she looked at it now.

McKay seemed not to notice and sipped at her tea. "I hope so. I'm pinning all my hopes on him, you know."

Theresa spooned sugar into her own cup. "You sound desperate."

"I am desperate. I guess you could say it's a matter of life and death."

"Death?"

"It's Willy," McKay said, "Willy Alexander."

Theresa murmured, "Ah yes, I remember him well."

"He had leukemia, long ago. We thought it was behind him, but it's come back."

Theresa set her cup in the saucer. "Then you've no doubt heard of your uncle's latest research."

McKay nodded.

"Willy has decided not to seek conventional treatment?"

McKay sighed. "I think he will, when we get back, if. . ." She left the thought to finish itself in their minds.

"Well then. It seems imperative Maxwell sees you. In fact, it seems a most urgent matter."

"You will help us, Sister Theresa?"

Theresa patted her hand. "I'll do what I can."

"Tell me what Uncle Max was afraid of."

Theresa and Tikitu exchanged secretive glances. Tikitu spoke. "There have been bad feelings between the Unghattis and the Benjis lately."

"Has something happened?"

Theresa and Tikitu traded another quick glance.

"What are you not telling me?"

"Recently," Theresa said, "our dear Mother Mary was killed."

"She is dead?"

"She was murdered--"

"Murdered!"

"By a Benji warrior."

"But," said Tikitu, "he was not always a Benji. Long ago, he was an Unghatti. He hoped to one day lead our tribe."

McKay touched the faint scars on her cheek. "Luta." Theresa and Tikitu nodded. McKay's hand shook as she raised the cup to her lips.

Tikitu's voice was soft. "And now the women are whispering that Luta is ready to go to war against the Unghattis."

"All by himself, Tikitu?"

"There are some Benjis who would follow him, a group of men who wish to see their first chief gone. First Chief is an old man, with old ways of thinking."

"But why would anyone want to kill Mother Mary?"

Tikitu shrugged. "Luta cannot answer you for himself, but I know how he thinks." She tapped her forehead. "In a way that a nappe cannot understand, Luta blamed Mother Mary for. . . for many things."

Theresa said, "He's always been a bit unstable, but it was Icana's death that pushed him over the edge."

"Icana?"

"Yes," Tikitu said. "Luta's--what is the nappe word?-- wife, died shortly after she gave birth to twins. The girl-child was the last to be born, and she is the one Luta blames for Icana's death. This girl-child has disappeared, and Luta believes he has been robbed of his revenge."

"Did Mother Mary steal the child?" McKay asked.

"No, nothing like that," Tikitu said, shaking her head. "She was killed before--"

Theresa cleared her throat. "Now do you understand your uncle's thinking? Because of this unsettled state of affairs, and for only this reason, Maxwell wishes you were not here, McKay. I think he's afraid that the mere sight of you--"

"Well, I'm afraid it's too late for that."

"What do you mean, too late?"

"Yesterday we were held captive in the Benji village, for no reason we could understand. Last night there was an accident. . . the truth is, we killed a warrior in self defense. Although I didn't see Luta, I'm sure this news will reach him eventually."

"Undoubtedly," said Theresa.

"You are right," Tikitu echoed.

McKay leaned forward in her chair toward the other two women. "If Luta is such an evil person, couldn't we just get rid of him?"

"I suppose--oh!" Theresa made the Sign of the Cross. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive others. . .

It was as ingrained in Theresa's mind as the swirls of her fingerprints were to her fingers. Yet she hesitated for the briefest second, a second that was lost on McKay, but not on Tikitu. Tikitu's brown eyes challenged, then looked inside her soul.

"Get rid of Luta, McKay? Jesus said, I tell you now to love thine enemies, to do good to those who hate you."

McKay raised one fine brow. "God said, an eye for an eye, Sister Theresa."

Theresa leveled her chin. "Second great commandment. Love thy neighbor. Love, love, love."

"He's not your neighbor, like the Unghattis, not even like the Benjis. He isn't even really human, Sister Theresa, he couldn't be, to do a thing like that. He's nothing but a savage."

"If we were to kill him, McKay, we become the savages."

Tikitu did not speak.

"Where is my Uncle Max, Sister Theresa?"

Theresa licked her dry lips.

"Tikitu?"

Tikitu dropped her eyes to her lap.

"Three Falls," Theresa whispered. "Maxwell has gone to Three Falls."

chapter 20

Willy said, "We've come to find Doctor Fine's medicine. Do you know of his medicine, Mutum?"

"Unghatti have many medicine, too."

"Like Doctor Fine's?"

Mutum nodded, throwing his shoulders back. "Better. Doctor's medicine fight only one bad spirit, Unghatti medicine fights many."

Willy touched one burned string, hanging from a rafter. "This is your medicine?"

Mutum smiled a rare smile and sat his bow down. "This burns, then epena. Epena helps Unghatti men talk to spirits."

"Was it the spirits who told you that you should worry about the Benjis, Mutum?"

Mutum nodded. "It be old spirit Mother Mamocori herself."

"She told you to kill the Benjis?"

"She told Unghatti one day soon have to fight Benjis."

"But this," he knelt down again, "this is poison, isn't it Mutum. And with so many darts, you must want to kill them all."

"Mamocori gives Unghattis poison, curare. Curare be firstborn child of Mamocori," Mutum said, holding a piece of a large vine up for Willy to see. "Unghattis scrape sharp Mamocori branches with edge of knife, then put bark pieces in banana leaves." He pointed at the cold black sticks in the pit. "Banana packets go over embers until dry, cooking bark like cooking meat, all day. Packets not to get wet in rain. No woman with child in belly can come near. Poison grows weak. Children cannot touch bark. Even to touch this much," he pinched his fingers in the air, "will kill."

"Men not eat on the next day, day curare be made, not even drink water, and not bathe, for spirit of Bindadnay also will weaken strength of poison. Unghatti bring gifts to old Mamocori." Mutum held up a fistful of long, pointy leaves. "Ashukamakei," he said, "to make the poison sticky. Unghattis mix with dried Mamocori over fire, and mix and mix until becomes only black ash. Then ready."

"Then it will kill?" Willy said.

"No, then ready to brew. Use more banana leaves, only this time to make. . . like this." He lapped one side of a leaf over the other.

"Oh, a funnel."

"Like this. Ash be pushed in. Then pour clean, boiling water over black ash, but only small much. Out comes dark water from bottom of. . ."

"The funnel."

Mutum nodded. "Dark water Unghattis paint on arrows, each time cooking over fire, until it be much dark, like resin from trees, and bubbling. Paint and paint again, until ready."

"Ready for what?"

"To test strength of curare."

"You shoot someone?"

"Unghattis shoot monkey who be sent by old mother of poison. If monkey falls dead from tree, curare be ready. If not, warriors find stronger Mamocori."

"And then you are ready for war?"

"Then Unghatti be ready to fight enemies with medicine from Mother Mamocori." Mutum's fingers twitched over the string of his bow.

***

Max turned away from McKay to stare out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. McKay watched what he watched; the dark haired woman stacking wooden crates at the dock. She was pretty, all red-cheeked and sturdy. The edge of the woman's apron lifted in a hint of a breeze, and she tucked a stray tendril of hair behind one ear. McKay wondered if this could be the woman who'd kept her uncle here all these years.

"You shouldn't have come back here, McKay. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

"What happened to you?"

"Why have you come? No, don't tell me. You've come on behalf of your father to see about that damned article, haven't you. I should have known something like this would happen."

"Dad didn't--it's not what you think, Uncle Max."

"No? Tell me salubristatin hasn't anything to do with why you've come to Brazil."

"I've come to see you."

He turned, his censoring eyes fixed on her face. "Go ahead. Tell me this has nothing to do with salubristatin, McKay."

She hesitated a long moment. "I can't."

He laughed without mirth, shaking his head. "Haven't you learned by now not to get involved with things you know nothing of?"

"I'm a slow learner."

His face softened in a smile. "My precious Kay-kay. I can hardly believe you're standing right here." He opened his arms, and McKay rushed into his embrace, inhaling the remembered smell of him like a perfume.

They walked down the main street of Three Falls, hand in hand. McKay said, "Why didn't you ever come back? I missed you."

Max didn't answer for a long while. Finally he spoke. "I've been happy. I've built a new life for myself. I found that I didn't need anything I left behind."

"But I needed you, Uncle Max."

"No, you had your mother, your father. You seem to have fared quite well, McKay."

"It was never the same again."

"How is your dad?"

"Do you miss him?"

"Oh, some things about him I miss. Your mom?"

"They're both doing well. Mom's on the faculty of the university. She finally got that PhD she was always talking about."

"And your dad?"

"He runs the orchard." McKay laughed. "We'll break even this year if we're lucky. He left Neotech, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"But he and Dwight Alexander still stay in touch."

"That figures," Max said, snapping off a small twig of a tree and chewing the broken end. "One never severs ties with Dwight Alexander, not entirely."

McKay sighed. "I know."

"Do you?"

"Willy finally got to the bottom of the whole story."

"Then you understand why I'd rather not go back."

"Uncle Max, you can't run away forever. In the end, you always have to face up to things."

"Prophetic words from one so young."

"I'm not exactly young anymore, Uncle Max. I'm thirty now."

"Thirty one," he said quickly, his eyes lighting up. "I've kept track of your birthdays."

"I've brought him with me."

"Brought who?"

"Willy."

"When did we start talking about Willy?"

"And my Granny McKay. But Willy is the real reason I've come, Uncle Max."

"Are you and he. . . ?" He gestured to her rounded stomach.

"The baby? Oh, no." McKay shook her head. "That's one long, ugly story. I'll tell you about it some time."

"Then why?" He stopped dead in his tracks. "You're not sick are you?"

"No."

"Ah. Then it's Willy."

McKay nodded, a huge lump in her throat stopping the words.

Max sighed. "I hate to disappoint you." He dropped his eyes to the ground and shoved his hands deep in his pockets.

"Then the article you wrote was a lie?"

"It's not ready yet, McKay. I've experimented on one person. One. Do you hear me? I have no idea what reaction the salubristatin will have on anyone else. It could be a fluke. Nothing might happen this time. Or the venom might kill him."

"Uncle Max," McKay whispered, "can't you help us?"

***

Fiona steadied her breathing, then walked into the Benji camp, Ativana trailing her by a few steps. Women and children stared up from what they were doing, mute. Men glared, thumping the ends of their spears on the ground. Fiona lifted her chin and marched straight through the camp.

She stood before Chief Alto's hut, four poles dug into the earth, so many layers of old palm leaves on the roof, the poles tilted inward and the roof sagged in its middle. Chief Alto was there, his younger brother Rei stood beside him, and the scarred one, Second Chief, Luta, looked on.

The chief squatted on the dirt floor, gutting a small decapitated bird with his hands on a stump of wood. Imbedded in the stump was a hatchet, and the yellow-beaked head of the bird rolled off to one side.

Fiona bowed. "This woman wishes to pay respect to Chief Alto and his brother Rei, and to Second Chief, Luta."

Ativana interpreted, while Fiona cautiously looked up into the men's faces. The men spoke, their faces angry, their voices harsh.

Ativana turned to Fiona. "They say, you have brought gifts to pay respect?"

Fiona looked directly into the eyes of Alto, then at Luta. "Tell them I have come to bargain, Ativana."

Again, another animated exchange. Ativana said, "They say, you have nothing of value to offer the Benjis."

"Tell them, Ativana, that I can help find what they are looking for, if they can help me to find what I am looking for."

The men grunted and gestured and threw Fiona wrathful looks.

"Second Chief Luta say, you know of the stolen girl-child?"

"Tell him yes."

Ativana nodded. "Second Chief say, you have girl-child?"

"No, I do not have the girl-child. I believe I know where she is. But the chiefs must first promise to help me find books, very important books."

Luta swaggered over to the stump in the center of the hut and jerked the hatchet out of the wood. He ran his finger along the bloodied blade. Luta contemplated the blood on his fingers, then looked at Fiona, smiling. In a flash, Luta had one strong hand clasped around her neck, brought her down to her knees, forced her head sideways on the stump. He raised the hatchet high.

"Please!" Fiona screamed, looking into the beady black eyes of the dead bird's head. "Please Luta, I will help you to find the girl-child!"

Ativana's voice was panicky. "First Chief say, maybe you took girl-child to get help finding these books."

"Tell him no, Ativana, tell him no!"

"He say, what books?"

"Doctor Fine's books," Fiona squeaked.

"He say, why you not get them yourself?"

"Tell him it is because I am afraid." Fiona's body shook in convulsions of hysterical sobs. "Tell him I am afraid." From the corner of her eye, she saw the hatchet fall. All was blackness.

Fiona awoke to a cold dash of water in her face. She sucked in a huge gurgling breath and opened her eyes. Lifting her head from the stump, Fiona stared in horror at the hatchet, sunk deep in the wood, her long braid of hair on one side of the blade.

Ativana's voice was soft, and she held an empty wooden bowl in her hands. Her face was furrowed in lines of worry. "First Chief and Second Chief say they will help you to get Doctor Fine's books."

chapter 21

Willy hated the smell of rubbing alcohol, but he never realized precisely how much until that very moment. With McKay in tow, he walked down the long convent hallway that led to Max Fine's laboratory.

Wearing the same pith helmet Willy remembered as a boy, Max stood as they knocked on the open door, and he held out his hand to shake. Willy opened his arms to hug a rather stiff Doctor Fine.

"Max."

"I hope you aren't about to be disappointed, my boy." He patted Willy awkwardly on the back.

"I hope not, too."

"There are great risks," he said, as if the two had been carrying on this discussion for days. "You could have an anaphalactic reaction to the venom. You could easily die."

"Or this could be the cure I've been hoping for. It worked once before, right, Max?"

Max sighed. "But who is to say it will work again?"

Willy shrugged in pretended nonchalance. "What do we do now?"

"Are you sure about this, my boy?"

"I believe in you." He said it with such conviction, a red coloring rose in Max's face.

"All right. We'll preform preliminary testing to make sure you don't have a serious reaction to the venom, or to the pupugna." Without ceremony, Max grabbed Willy's arm and scratched the underside twice with a small knife. He swabbed the contents of one vial onto the first scratch, the last drop of a second vial on to the other.

"Now what?"

"Now we wait and watch."

***

Big Lou sauntered out of the hardware store, pushing a small metal part and a fistful of loose change into his pocket. He stopped next door at the knife sharpener's shop, probably just to chat, Fiona thought, as she watched him emerge moments later, headed directly for the restaurant.

The screen door slammed behind him. "Fiona!" he called.

She stuck her head around the corner. "You're early," she said.

For some strange reason, he wasted no time with the usual small talk. Maybe he already knew what she'd say. "Better get on those workers," he said. "Got to load up. We're running late."

"I can't explain this to you now, but I don't want you to load any flowers today. I have a few boxes for you instead. Come here. Come help me, Lou, please."

Lou hurried around the corner to the kitchen. He pushed the baseball cap back on his head and frowned. "Boxes?" Then his face fell. "You've cut off your beautiful hair."

Fiona tried to compose herself. She'd been such a wreck. She folded her hands together to help hide the trembling. "I'm leaving with you," she said. "This will be your last trip in to Three Falls for orchids, Lou. I'm leaving the jungle, and I'm leaving everything behind."
Big Lou knew. She could see it in his face. "It's that bastard, Alexander, isn't it?" he said.

Fiona nodded. "My debt is about to be paid off. As soon as the Benjis arrive with Maxwell's journals, I'm leaving, Lou."

***

"There is little to be done," McKay said as she followed Sister Basil up the convent stairs to Theresa's room. "Uncle Max said that if a reaction were to happen, it would most likely have happened right away. But he said we still need to wait."

"Then wait you must," said Basil. "Doctor Fine is a very smart man."

They stood before the closed door, the first door at the top of the stairs.

Sister Basil knocked lightly. "Sister?"

"Come in."

Sister Basil turned the door knob, and the door swung open. Three women looked up. Theresa stood while the other two sat on a narrow bed. One of those women seated was Tikitu, the other, another Unghatti, nursing a tiny infant at her breast.

McKay said, "I'm sorry," and turned half away.

"Don't be silly," Theresa said. "Please come in."

"She's lovely." McKay leaned near the baby, watching as it nursed, eyes half-closed in a milky dream. A small brown hand curled around McKay's finger.

"You have guessed where this baby has come from, haven't you," Tikitu said.

"Is this the baby?"

Tikitu nodded and motioned to the other Unghatti woman. "This is my cousin Mutum's wife, Chuva, whose own baby is now Amahini. She still has a little milk left."

"I'm very sorry," McKay murmured, stroking the baby's soft cheek, and the woman gave a nod of acknowledgment. McKay straightened. "Do you understand the danger this puts all of you in?"

Tikitu smiled gently. "We know. For this we must go to the Yamoama village, Chuva's people, at once. Chuva's cousin is married to a high-ranking Yanoama. We must ask the Yanoama for protection for this baby."

"Then this means--?"

Tikitu arose, her face crumpling. "Yes. I must tell you goodbye. And then we must leave."

"Please!" McKay put her hand on Tikitu's wrist. "I'll walk with you there--"

Tikitu shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. "We cannot scatter our goodbye."

"I will always love you."

"My irma," she said, kissing the palm of McKay's hand.

"This is the best we can do, on such short notice," said Max. "If I'd had time to prepare, I could have at least extracted a little venom."

McKay's heart very nearly lept out of her chest as she watched Max roll out the first grassy woven mat, alive with an army of imprisoned ants.

"That's okay," Willy said, his blue eyes enormous. "Courtesy of the Unghatti women. Now if you could just follow me across the hall, here, to Moses's room. He has an easy chair in here. This is where he always took his treatments when he was sick." Uncle Max carried the two grass mats carefully by their corners.

McKay could hardly believe her eyes. Row after row after row of ants writhed in the mats, their pincers furiously opening and snapping shut, their heads swiveling madly from side to side. Their little black bodies were trapped half in front, half out the back of the mats.

Willy peeled off his shirt. "I appreciate anything. . ."

His face had gone white, and McKay turned away as Max laid the first mat on Willy's chest. Willy sucked in air through his teeth, gasping in pain, yet refusing to scream.

"All right?" Max said, and Willy didn't answer. McKay turned to look. Max pressed the second mat against Willy's back, and Willy sagged into the easy chair.

McKay felt the ants as surely as if they'd been laid on her own skin. They bit and bit again, the searing pain of their bites penetrating to her own bones. She felt the venom burn through Willy's system, electrifying his arms and his legs, his fingers and his toes.

chapter 22

"Thank you," Fiona said, accepting the thick stack of paper, Maxwell's journals, breathing a sigh of relief. She flipped through the notebook on top, recognizing Maxwell's childish scrawl. "Did you get all of them?"

"Every one from the mission," Ativana said. "Benji men can not enter the Unghatti village until after dark."

"No one saw the men take these?"

Ativana interpreted. Rei, First Chief's brother, vehemently shook his head, explaining in his native tongue. Ativana said, "Rei say, door broken, but no one hear."

"Very good."

"And he say, now time for your end of the bargain."

"I want you to tell him," Fiona swallowed hard, "I want you to tell him that Sister Theresa Bonaparte has the baby."

"Sister Theresa!"

The Benji warriors shook spears and shifted uneasily, murmuring between themselves.

"That is the only possible explanation. Remember that she has stolen a baby once long ago, the man they call Moses, the man with no tribe. It is the only way to explain why I saw her at the general store, only a short while ago, buying tinned milk."

"Where did she go?" Ativana asked, breathless.

"She has gone back to the mission, or else back to the Unghatti village, I think. Where else could she possibly go to hide a baby?"

Ativana conferred with the men, who grew louder. She turned to Fiona. "When did she leave?"

"Not long ago, Ativana. If she isn't already back at the mission, my guess is she soon will be."

The crowd parted, and Luta appeared from nowhere. Fiona trembled as he strode forward, and she flinched as Luta raised his hand. Delicately, he touched her hair, then he smiled, his teeth gleaming like a perfect string of pearls. Luta turned away, and one by one, the men followed him back into the jungle.

Only Ativana remained.

"Where will Luta go, Ativana?"

"To claim what is his."

"Quickly, Lou, quickly," Fiona said.

Lou hauled the last of the boxes out, one beneath each arm. Fiona carried the stack of journals, her ticket to freedom, her deliverance from Dwight Alexander's version of hell.

"You sure this is the right thing to do?"

"It's the only thing, Lou." She sat next to him in his plane, numb.

Lou started the engine. "Damn."

Fiona's eyes were glued to the red blinking light on the control panel.

"Friggin' gage," Lou said, popping off the round glass face with a screwdriver.

"Lou?"

"I don't dare risk flying without it," he said, and he twisted himself upside-down in the seat.

It was beginning to rain, Fiona saw. She closed her eyes, groaning.

***

Rain swept in sheets across the landing strip, yet the three hesitated to shelter beneath nearby trees. Willy, Granny and McKay decided to make themselves visible. To take cover, they knew, would be to risk missing the only passenger plane they would be able to get for days. McKay and Willy held wet newspapers over their heads, newspapers that were soon soaked through and did little good, if any. But Granny, as usual, had come prepared.

"Let this be a lesson to both of you," Granny said, shaking a finger. "You never know when a shower cap will come in handy, and they take almost no room to store."

"Thanks," Willy said, grinning miserably, "I'll try to remember that."

"And they make such a fashion statement besides," McKay said, laughing.

Granny seemed contented, in high spirits, no less, pink ruffled shower cap on her head, a fresh coat of lipstick, and jaunty red purse at her side. McKay glanced at Willy. It would take more than a torrential downpour to wipe that smile from his face. All would be right with the world. McKay felt it in her bones.

In the same instant, the three heard the pop, pop, pop, of far-off explosions. McKay watched in amusement as Granny's lips formed a perfect red 'o'.

"What was that?"

"Relax," McKay said. "That's the way the Benji fish, with dynamite. That's all that is, dynamite. Isn't that right?" McKay looked to Willy and he nodded.

"Well, if you're sure."

"Sure I'm sure."

McKay squeezed Willy's hand. "Hey, you feeling all right?"

He shrugged. "I'm not going to complain."

"Let me see the welts again."

"Nah. They're still there, probably will be for a while. But I don't want you to worry about that, McKay. I know Max said it'd be too early to tell for a while, but this salubristatin stuff is working. I can feel it already."

"Seriously?"

Willy nodded. "Max said he'd send a weekly shipment of the venom, on the plane that carries the orchids."

"Do you think we can beat this?"

"Oh, I know we can." He squeezed her hand back. Then he whispered, so low, Granny didn't hear. "I love you," he said.

And McKay just stood there, mute.

"What's that?" Granny cupped one hand to her ear, then pointing and hopping from one foot to the next, she shouted, "De plane! De plane!"

The three trained their eyes on the little white dot as it buzzed overhead, circled twice then came in low.

McKay let out a huge involuntary groan as she saw the white peeling paint on the sides of the plane. "You hired Rico?"

"Didn't I tell you that?" Willy said, his blue eyes sparkling with silent laughter.

They watched in amazement as the plane taxied down the paved strip, bumping in and out of potholes the size Volkzwagen Bugs. The airplane swung around, and the door flew open with a loud crash, built-in steps bouncing against the ground.

"Ey, mi Amigos!"

"No way."

Willy said, "Come on McKay. It'll be better this time, I promise."

"Besides," Granny added, "I think it's high time we blew this pop stand." She pointed to the line of trees at the edge of the strip. Willy, Granny and McKay watched a line of Benji warriors advance, stark naked, red paint on their faces like great bleeding wounds.

***

The Cessna engine turned over once, then twice, then hiccoughed to a start. The propeller whirred, and the body of the plane shuddered. And this time, nothing blinked red on the control panel. Fiona breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

Two hours she'd been waiting, wondering why she'd gone through with it, arguing to herself that she'd had no other choice. Fiona had been preparing for many years for the day she would be called upon to repay her debt to Dwight Alexander. And now, that day had simply come.

Yet Fiona felt the pangs of guilt. She'd stolen twenty years worth of Maxwell's labors right out from under him. And that wasn't all. She'd placed Sister Theresa in an awkward predicament. But by the time Theresa explained to the Benjis that she didn't have the baby, Fiona would be long gone. The Benjis would realize that she, Fiona Gearhardt, had led them on a wild goose-chase.

Fiona didn't care how angry the Benjis were with her. She touched the jagged edges of her hair. Besides Ativana and Chimiree, her faithful orchid pluckers, Fiona believed the Benjis were no better than a mangy pack of wild dogs.

War in retribution for the lost baby, indeed! When it came to so-called 'war,' they were a bumbling bunch of monkeys; their last skirmish with the Yanoama had proven that beyond all doubt. And Fiona knew about the Unghattis's stockpiled weapons. Everybody aside from the Benjis knew. If the Benjis dared to lift one finger against them, the Unghattis would kill the fools before they knew what'd hit them. The Benjis were, on the whole, worthless, the laughingstocks of the rain forest. They weren't, in fact, worthy of another single thought.

Big Lou eased the plane away from the dock, in the same way she'd watched him do thousands of times before over the years. But this time, she was on the inside looking out.

"No!"

Ativana and Chimiree emerged from the forest, a crate balanced one on each woman's shoulder. Fiona looked away quickly, but not before she saw the shocked expressions on their brown faces.

"What should we do?"

"Go, Lou!" she cried, watching from the corners of her eyes as the women dropped the crates and came running toward the plane. "I said go!"

Fiona clenched her eyes shut and sank her head back into the seat as the plane strained against the water and finally lifted off. Only then did she breathe with relative ease. And only for a few minutes, before the Cessna flew over the mission, over the smouldering remains of the Unghatti village.

***

The whooping line of Benjis charged.

"Help me, please!" Granny stumbled and fell to her knees on the runway.

"Willy!" McKay cried as she raced back down the shaking airplane steps.

She heard Rico yell over the roar of the engine, "I can't wait no more, amigos!" and the plane began to roll, stairs scraping and rattling against the pavement.

Willy appeared beside her, and between them, they dragged Granny toward the moving plane as fast as they could run.

"My God, stop!" McKay screamed at Rico, and Willy panted back, "Don't waste your breath!" He grabbed onto the steps with one hand, pulling Granny and McKay along with him. In the last possible second, both of Granny's knees were balanced on the bottom of the shaking stairs. McKay watched Willy lug her limp body up into the plane.

"McKay! Come on! Jump, damn it!"

The Benjis were almost upon her, and in the lead, McKay saw the unmistakable face of Luta. In a heartbeat, the awful truth dawned on McKay; she was going to die at Luta's hands. She'd outrun the inevitable once before. But she could not cheat death again; no, not again.

Willy screamed words she did not understand. And then, McKay felt the unborn baby stir within her womb. With one superhuman effort, she galloped toward the plane. As if she'd sprouted magical wings, her feet landed on the stairs, and she grabbed on to Willy's outstretched hand.

Pulled safely inside, McKay sank into Willy's arms, and she wept as she had never wept before. He patted her head and whispered in her ear, "I knew you could do it."

The plane swooped up into the air. "You okay, amiga?" Rico glanced quickly back.

Granny groaned, and McKay leaned in close to her face. Granny whispered, "You know I've had the best time ever, don't you, tootsie? This has been the adventure of a life."

"Shh, Granny. You should rest. You're exhausted."

"Yes, exhausted." Granny closed her eyes, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

"I love you," McKay whispered in her ear, and then she laid back in her own seat.

"I thought you'd given up," Willy said. "I don't think I've ever been so scared."

McKay dismissed him with the flick of her wrist. "You always were a little chicken shit."

"Hey," he said.

"I know, I know, 'watch your language,' right Willy?"

"I think we should talk."

The plane flew from the heart of the Unghatti forest, following the rippling brown ribbon of the Bindadnay River. Ahead, the great Brazilian savannah stretched across the face of the earth. McKay craned her neck to take her last glimpse of the Unghatti village, but the plane flew in the opposite direction and already, it was too far away to see.

"Talk?"

"About," Willy said, stopping to lick his lips, "us. You need a stable environment for your baby, and I need. . ."

"You need?"

"You know what I'm going to say."

McKay frowned. "Don't say it. My life's on hold, Willy. I've got to concentrate on this baby. And you've got to concentrate on getting well."

"Do I look sick to you?" he said, grinning.

"I don't want to talk about this any more."

"Okay. When? And don't say the day hell freezes over."

McKay laughed softly, so she wouldn't wake Granny. "You never give up, do you?"

"No, and I promised myself I never would, either, from the day Booger-Nose Nelson kicked sand in my face and you knocked him flat on his back."

"He was arrested a few years ago for exposing himself to a couple of little kids in a movie theater, did you know that? Willy?"

A strange look passed over his face. He was staring at Granny.

"Granny? Granny!" McKay shook her by the arm, and Granny's head rolled over to one side. "Willy, what's wrong with her?"

"I don't know, I, oh Jesus!" He pointed to a green feather-topped dart sticking out of her side.

"Granny!"

Willy and McKay lapsed into a knowing silence.

chapter 23

As quickly as it had begun, the rain stopped. Theresa hurried alongside Tikitu, back down the muddy road to the Unghatti village. "This is all Luta's fault. May he burn in the hottest corner of hell!""

"You cannot blame Luta for the Yanoama's decision, Theresa."

"I certainly can! The Yanoamas were afraid to help, afraid to offer protection, for fear that Luta would kill them all to get at the baby."

"Chuva said--"

"And Chuva! Thank God we hadn't already entrusted the baby to her care, that's all I can say! She'd have probably handed the baby right over to Luta--"

"You don't understand her thinking."

"I understand, all right," Theresa shot back.

"Those are her people. She was afraid that if she came back with us, with or without the baby, Luta--"

"It always boils down to Luta, doesn't it Tikitu."

"You don't understand."

"About Luta? Oh, I understand Luta perfectly well. It's you I don't understand, Tikitu, I don't understand why you continue to protect such an evil human being."

"He is not evil. You are still an outsider, Theresa, no matter how long you have lived in this forest. You cannot know."

"Then teach me, Tikitu, teach me about Luta."

Tikitu stopped for a moment, shifting Auld Lang Syne, fussing but still sleeping, in the sling at her breast. How the baby slept through the thunder and rain and now the sticky heat, Tikitu did not know. She brushed her hand over Auld Lang Syne's soft black hair, and the baby quieted. Off came the hot, heavy tiger skin Tikitu wore around her shoulders.

"Here," said Theresa, taking the cloak and carefully rolling it beneath her own arm.

Tikitu began her march toward the village again, Theresa keeping pace right beside her. Tikitu's watchful eyes rested on the thin blanket of smoke that drifted toward the swollen river. She hated Gnaru like she hated no other, but the Bindadnay would stop Gnaru before he ever reached the village, she was certain.

"When Luta was Unghatti, yet still very young," she said, "he wanted to know the ways of the shaman. His father, the brother of Tushaua, asked Hekura to teach Luta all that he knew. Hekura said 'No.' Hekura said that shaman knowledge must only be passed to the next shaman, and that Hekura alone must do the choosing of his own successor. That was the way it had been done since earliest tribal memory, and Hekura would not listen to the. . . the argument in favor of Luta.

"Luta was angry at Hekura for his decision and he felt humilihante. . . disgraced in the eyes of his people. Then McKay, a napagnuma, broke the great rule and came inside the circle. Luta saw what he thought was his chance to prove his worth to all of us, and especially to Hekura. He tried to kill McKay. Luta did not know that McKay was at least as brave as he, and that she would fight back. Then Luta made a mistake. He told a lie.

"From the time he was a small boy, even before he was given his totem, Luta bragged that he would one day be the greatest warrior among the Unghattis. To explain his wounds and to explain how an unarmed outsider had managed to escape from him alive, Luta said that McKay had magically become a tiger. Only he and I ever knew this was not so.

"Except for me, the whole tribe believed Luta. Unghattis who had not seen had no reason to doubt him, and the mark of the tiger was there on his face. After hearing Luta's story, Hekura said McKay had done no wrong and that she had proven she was our great protector, Kumareme. Then Hekura gave McKay his sacred tiger skin. Luta could not speak out, he could not say, 'She is not Kumareme,' for to do so would have been to admit he had lied. Passing the skin on to McKay was an insult too great for Luta to bear, and so he did a thing which has never been done before. He left the Unghatti tribe for the Benjis."

Theresa worked hard to keep up with Tikitu. Her words came between gusts of breath. "So Luta didn't get. . . exactly what he wanted. Is that any reason. . . to cause. . . this much terror?"

"That was only the beginning, Theresa. Many rainy seasons later, something else happened, something so terrible, it changed Luta forever.

"The Unghattis believe that one cannot pass into the spirit world without a whole body. For this reason the Unghatti women busy themselves with cutting off fingers and toes of dead enemy warriors, even as they lie on the battlefield; to make sure the enemy cannot follow us into the afterlife and become our tormentors for eternity. On that day Luta came to the convent with the sickness--"

"Appendicitis."

Tikitu nodded. "--He did not know that a part of him would have to be removed to cure the sickness. Though he had abandoned us many rainy seasons before, his heart still beat with Unghatti blood. He knew. When he saw that a part of him was gone, Luta realized that he could never get into the afterlife. His spirit was condemned from that moment on to wander the earth, alone for all of eternity. He could not change the most terrible fate that any Unghatti can imagine; to be separated forever from his family and from his tribe. In saving his life, his spirit had been destroyed."

Theresa stopped suddenly. Tikitu saw that her eyes were closed. "He didn't know."

"Luta believed Mother Mary would open a hole in his stomach to let the bad spirits out, but he never understood that she would have to take a part of him out to make him well again."

Theresa did not move from her place in the middle of the road. "Go on," she said, all color leaving her face. "I'll catch up to you later."

Determined, Tikitu continued on toward her village, the smell of burnt wood growing stronger.

Tikitu's agonies settled, like the smoke over her village. She bent down to pick up a dart, a puff of soft green parrot down glued at one end, the tip broken off of the other. Tikitu's eyes traveled slowly around the village. Her people lay scattered at her feet, blank stares frozen on their faces. She stood over her cousin, Mutum. So many Benji spears pierced his chest they looked like branches of trees sticking out of him. Everywhere she looked, there was only death.

Tikitu cupped her hands around her mouth and called to her people, the sound of her voice ringing through the forest. She called until Auld Lang Syne awoke and cried. She called until her breaths raked across her raw throat. No one answered. If any Unghattis had survived this attack, they were gone. Tikitu closed her eyes, swallowing back bitter tears. Had she the strength to survive this again?

Theresa's voice came from behind her. "What devil has done this?"

Tikitu clung to the whimpering baby. She could not answer.

Theresa's face was white. Her lips were white. She shook Tikitu by the shoulders. "Who has done this, Tikitu?"

Tikitu opened her hand. The broken dart fell to the ground. "Benjis," she said.

"Oh my God!" Theresa covered her eyes and sank to her knees. She hit the ground with her fist again and again. "Why? Why? Why?" she cried over and over. The forest had grown still; birds stopped singing to hear. Finally, Theresa raised her face to Tikitu. "Now will you listen to me? The Benjis are evil, Tikitu. They must be driven away before--"

"Before what? What more could they do to us?"

Theresa's eyes took on a very strange light and she stood to her feet, wiping dirt from her hands. Grunting, Theresa pulled a single spear out of Mutum's chest. She ran to the burnt edges of the village, to where black skeletons of the huts remained, the only witnesses left standing. Theresa was suddenly transformed. She clutched the bloody spear like a warrior, and she hunched over as she padded softly over the ground, not making a sound. Before Tikitu's eyes, she disappeared into the undergrowth. She'd become what she swore she would never be. In that instant, Theresa became one with the forest.

Tikitu felt her heart thunder in her chest, felt her mouth go dry. Her knees shook, and though she imagined herself running from this place, she sank to her knees, all strength draining out through her fingertips. She had been this afraid only once before, on the night she'd been tied to the tree, banished from her tribe. Yet even then, Hekura had not been far away. She looked down at Auld Lang Syne. Strong as Hekura's spirit was, he could not protect her now. She was more alone than she'd ever been before. And the feeling would not leave in a day or a moon or even by the next rainy season. Except for Auld Lang Syne, she would still be alone.

An unseen fear gripped her. She shivered. Her eyes missed nothing, not the last feather of smoke from a red ember, not the quiver of a leaf--

Luta stepped into the clearing, his eyes gleaming black, fists on his hips, a bone handled knife tied to his thigh. Sun behind him outlined the spikes of his stiff black hair.

Tikitu's heart pounded and she held the baby close. "No, Luta, she is not yours!" she said in their native tongue. Tikitu clamored to her feet and walked backward as Luta continued his advance. "Your baby was born dead. She gave her body willingly to Hekura! She is an Unghatti now!"

A predatory growl gathered deep inside his throat, and his face twisted in his rage. "She stole the life of her mother, Icana. For this, she must die. Give me the child."

He was now so close that she felt the heat of Luta's breath on her face. Tikitu held the baby close to her breast. "Never."

His lips curled away from his teeth, in what may have passed for a smile. Tikitu knew better. He drew back his arm and struck Tikitu in the face. The force of the blow wrenched her neck to one side. She was thrown off balance and she fell to the ground. The baby rolled out of her arms, squalling. Tikitu crawled quickly to the baby, shielding her tiny body with that of her own.

Luta's great shadow loomed over Tikitu like an eclipse. "Give the girl-child to me."

"Never! I will die before I give her to you."

"As you wish."

"Luta, please--"

He took his bamboo-sheathed dart from behind one ear.

***

Theresa silently admonished herself for wasting the spear on a lone, fleeing Benji. She hadn't one chance in a million to hit him, yet she'd launched the spear anyway, and then she'd lost both the Benji and the spear. Curse it all. She could have used that spear right about now.

Luta's hand in midair, Theresa raced into the clearing and latched onto Luta's arm with both of her hands. Luta batted at her with his free hand, as if trying to rid himself of some pesky fly, but Theresa clung and squeezed with all of her might.

"Tikitu, run!" she screamed, digging her finger nails into Luta's wrist. "Take the baby to the mission!"

His hand opened clawlike, in a spasm. A look of incredulous shock crossed Luta's face and his blowgun fell to his feet. The green-feathered dart bounced out of one end of the bamboo tube, landing on a spot halfway between them. For a long second, Theresa and Luta stared at the dart.

Coming to his senses, Luta dove to the ground, but Theresa, one split second faster, kicked the dart with her shoe, sending it into the undergrowth. Luta pulled his lips back in a hideous snarl that made Theresa shrink away, and he plunged in after the dart.

The oldest human instinct abruptly reawakened in her, Theresa understood with all certainty that if Luta discovered the dart before she did, she would be his next victim. In one beat of a heart, this had become a case of survival of the fittest; either Luta would live through this battle, or she would, but not both. Theresa crashed into the undergrowth after him.

They fought like two wild cats. His hands found Theresa's face and her arms and her stomach. Her habit fell off, and branches tore at her hair and gouged at her eyes. Theresa stumbled over a dead log and fell backward onto the ground. In seconds, Luta was leering down at her. A menacing smile nearly split his face in two, and Theresa tried to protect herself as Luta raised his foot. She rolled herself into a tight little ball. Luta kicked her directly in the ribs once, then again, then three times before all her breath went from her.

Black spots danced before her eyes, and the whole world seemed to tilt and whirl. She gasped for breath, raising herself up onto her hands and her knees, just in time to see Luta bend to the ground and rise, the green-feathered dart in his hand. His blowgun lost in the scuffle, Luta raised the dart over his head and came screaming and lunging towards her.

Rolling over branches and thorns and crawling insects Theresa plowed into Luta, bowling him over backwards. As he lay sprawled over a log, still clinging to his dart with one hand, grimacing and holding the back of his head with the other, Theresa climbed onto his chest. She doubled her fist and slammed it into his nose, which erupted in a great spurt of blood. She jumped to her feet, shaking, gasping to catch her breath. Luta laid terribly still, stunned senseless. Perhaps, she thought without a trace of remorse, she'd finished him off. She had killed Luta with her bare hands.

Theresa took one step backward. Still, dazed, Luta hauled himself up on top of the log, blood gushing from his nose. Snorting and shaking his head, Luta swiped at Theresa, hooking one arm around her waist and pulling her over the log and on top of him. In one fluid motion, he flipped her to her back, yowling and grunting, slamming her head against the ground. He drew his arm back and blindly slashed at her, barely missing her face with the sharp tip of the dart as Theresa writhed away from beneath him. She scrambled clumsily to her feet. Wiping blood from his eyes, Luta was after her in seconds, slashing at her, catching her full skirts and tearing them. But he missed her each time, his balance slightly off kilter.

For the briefest moment, Theresa realized that she had the advantage. She whipped around to face Luta squarely, and she screamed an abbreviated prayer like a war cry. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

She lowered her head and she charged him, her head making contact with Luta's ribs. She heard the sharp crack, and listened as the air left his lungs with a great grunt.

Luta went down to his knees, and the dart flew up into the air. Theresa watched as the dart fell into the dirt one more time. On his hands and knees, Luta crawled, then scrambled back into the race. Theresa yelled like a banshee, charging Luta again. He fell straight backwards this time, moaning, hitting the earth with a horrid sodden thud. Theresa plucked the dart deftly from the dirt, and she stood directly over Luta, one foot on his chest. He moaned again, but softly, clutching at broken ribs. He opened his eyes, a great smile turning up the corners of his mouth, daring Theresa to use the dart.

Theresa swallowed hard. Curare paralyzed the diaphragm in large enough doses. He would stop breathing. Once she dropped the dart, there could be no turning back.

Luta laughed at her, his chest shaking beneath her foot. He drew in a sharp breath and grabbed at his ribs again, the mocking smile never leaving his lips in spite of his obvious pain.

Theresa narrowed her eyes, swallowed once more, then let the dart go, tip down, directly over his heart.

Like lightning, Luta caught the dart in midair, one breath away from his own death, and he held it there, laughing softly. Too late, Theresa realized her fatal mistake. With his free hand, Luta grabbed her around one ankle. In seconds, she would feel the bite of the dart, and the curare would spill into her bloodstream. . .

She heard the dart before she ever felt it, the zing as it sliced through the air. She shuddered and closed her eyes. Perhaps she was dead already. Mercifully, she'd felt nothing. Throwing caution aside, Theresa opened her eyes.

Luta's mouth gaped wide open in surprise. Another small dart, unadorned, unlike his, stuck straight out of the side of his neck. He let go of her ankle and yanked the dart out. She saw the unmistakable black coating of curare. A tiny trickle of blood leaked out the hole in his skin as he tossed the foreign dart into the tangle of undergrowth. His gaze returned to hers.

She waited for the curare to work. Seconds ticked by, and Luta missed not one single breath. His eyes traveled every inch of her face, gauging her reaction, and he smiled. But the great warrior, Luta, had forgotten one thing. He held his own dart directly over his heart, as if his arm were paralyzed.

Theresa smiled sadly, sealing a silent communion between them. Then she raised her foot and placed it on Luta's closed fist. His eyes lingered on hers, challenging. Thou shalt not kill, his eyes said, thou shalt not kill. The smile never left Luta's face, even as Theresa drove the dart straight into his heart. Luta sighed once, deeply as the river.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Theresa became aware of the whimperings of a baby. She felt the light touch of a familiar hand on her shoulder.

"Theresa? Theresa."

She turned woodenly to the sound of Tikitu's voice. Tikitu's face was streaked with dirt and sweat, but the baby girl was safe, back in the sling at Tikitu's breast. With one finger, Theresa stroked the crying baby's cheek.

Tikitu's eyes were enormous brown pools of light. "You are a great warrior. We owe our lives to you."

"I wish you wouldn't have seen this. Why didn't you go to the mission?" Theresa's teeth chattered, and she clutched her arms to her sides, shivering.

Tikitu smiled gently and bent to pick up something from the ground, the striped tiger pelt. She placed it around Theresa's shoulders. "I couldn't leave you, not yet."

Theresa looked back over her shoulder at the body of Luta. "What have I done?" She embraced Tikitu, burying her face in Tikitu's black hair. "What have I done?"

After a long moment, Tikitu unwound Theresa's arms from her neck, held Theresa's face in her warm brown hands. "We must go now, the baby and I."

"Will you ever come back?"

Tikitu shook her head. Theresa followed her eyes, from burned huts where Tikitu had lived all of her life, to the smouldering ashes in the distant circle, to the silent village clearing. Her eyes rested longest there. "Nothing is left here for us. Even the spirits are gone."

"Then I shall never see you again."

Tikitu raised her chin and nodded toward the Bindadnay. "You have your own people, Theresa. Your place is with them." Tikitu turned away, following a worn trail into the forest. In a minute's time, she disappeared from sight.

chapter 24

A knot of terror tightened about her heart. Pulling the canoe aground, Theresa mumbled anguished prayers. It was much worse than she could ever have believed; the old mission, she saw, lay nearly in ruin.

The sharp, acid smell of dynamite still hung in the air, and she saw bits of red confetti scattered here and there. Theresa fingered twisted metal, the iron gate torn from its hinges, as if by the hand of some malevolent Unghatti god. White stone fortress walls, built by the Jesuits two hundred years before were reduced to piles of rubble. She lifted her skirts and picked her way through a gaping hole.

A breath caught in her throat. Once containing eight exquisite stained glass windows, the chapel walls were now nothing more than heaps of smouldering ash. The tin roof, black and warped, had collapsed onto the ground. Seven neat white crosses once planted behind the chapel were nowhere to be seen; only seven seared mounds remained.

From her vantage point, the convent itself seemed to have fared much better, and she drew a relieved breath. The building stood nearly unscathed, its white rock face blackened by smoke, but still standing, undaunted vines still clinging to its walls. A few windows had been broken by the heat, she noticed. Singed lace curtains rippled in a hint of an evening breeze. The porch, however, was charred beyond repair. Like the chapel, this would have to be rebuilt. She hoped Maxwell could manage to get them enough lumber. The kitchen door hung on by just one hinge, and open, like a screaming mouth. Attempts to burn this building to the ground had failed; perhaps they had been saved by the afternoon rain, perhaps by a miracle.

Theresa called to them as she gingerly crossed the burned porch.

"Basil! Clair! Mo-ses!"

Had they been frightened and fled to safety in the woods?

"Emmanuel? Maxwell? Moses, can you hear me?"

She stepped through the kitchen door, her heart hammering. The long table was toppled. Flour and sugar and cornmeal covered the kitchen floor, as if the convent had been stricken by a mob of youthful pranksters. She hurried through the kitchen. Likewise, every chair in the sitting room was overturned. The upholstery had been viciously slashed, stuffing spilling out like. . . The tick of the clock on the mantle shattered the ominous silence in the room. She closed her eyes against a spasm of fear.

Had the Benjis, wielding knives, terrorized everyone inside the convent and taken them prisoner?

No. Maxwell and Moses had seen them coming and had led her sisters into the woods to safety, naturally. The convent temporarily abandoned, the Benjis had decided to ransack the place. There could be no other explanation. There was no time for them to leave her a note upon the mantel. She ran her hand along the flat, stone surface, just to be certain.

A pang of fear struck her squarely in the chest. Could the pranksters still be inside the convent? She grabbed a pewter candle stick holder from the mantel, just in case, and crept out of the sitting room.

The candle stick holder clattered to the floor. Theresa stood at the bottom of the staircase, her heart falling to terrifying depths. Red stains and smeared footprints led both up and down. Theresa knelt, touching, rubbing her moist fingers together. She broke out in a cold, cold sweat.

"Moses? Basil?" Her voice was barely audible.

Theresa gathered her skirts and climbed the stairs, her knees shaking, threatening collapse. At the top of the staircase, Theresa beheld the face of death. She turned away, hiding her eyes for a minute. A wave of grief nearly drowned her. Slowly, she turned back around. Basil laid before her, arms flung wide to her sides, her eyelids half open. She must have known what was coming. How else to explain the horrified stare? A hatchet laid buried deep in Basil's skull, her stomach cleaved down the middle, like a gutted deer.

Theresa wanted to run. Some force more powerful than she made her stay.

With a sickening surety, Theresa stood before the first door at the top of the stairs, her own cell. She nudged the door open with one foot. Relief washed over her. The window was broken, shards of glass gleaming like sharp teeth on the floor, but the room itself was untouched by Benji hands. Gathering courage, Theresa ran out into the common hallway again, pushing open one door after another, following red footprints on the floor, finding nothing but a few emptied drawers, a few rumpled bedsheets.

She stood before the last door, Mother Mary's room, preparing herself. Telltale footprints; the intruders had checked that room as well. Did they dare to desecrate the memory of their beloved mother? The sisters had made a sort of shrine of her room, with candles and flowers. . . Theresa stood with her hand on the door knob.

Her breath left her in a loud moan that rose from her stomach and flew from her mouth like a bird. They laid face forward on the ground, execution style, each one of her sisters, and Maxwell, hands tied behind their backs with the crudest of ropes, the fibers cutting into their flesh. The floor was awash in their blood.

One by one, she turned them to their sides, searching for the smallest sign of life. But they were all dead, undeniably dead, their throats slit in the same manner Mother Mary had died. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And Maxwell. And Sister Basil, who they'd caught in the hall. Theresa collapsed in a heap. She counted again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and Maxwell. And Basil. And no Moses.

Her heart bounded. He'd escaped!

Theresa ran down the stairs, shouting his name. She ran through the parlor room and through the kitchen and flew out the screen door, calling, "Moses! Moses!" His name echoed off the canyon walls.

He, of all of them, would have left her some kind of a message, a sign that he was safe. What would it be? A rag tied to the low branch of a tree? A few torn leaves? A dropped bauble of some sort, that only she would recognize as his? She saw nothing that shouted 'Moses!', but he was a clever boy. He'd figure a way.

Theresa ran back through house, calling his name, her voice by this time hoarse, her throat raw. She ran past empty sickrooms, each in disarray, furniture upset, medical equipment all over the floor. Her steps slowed as she reached the end of the corridor. Maxwell's door, which he usually kept locked, had been splintered. She pushed the door open, noticing immediately. All the notebooks from his shelf were gone. She turned slowly to face Moses's room, the hairs at the base of her neck prickling.

Light flooded in through the broken window, and Moses. . .

Moses lay peacefully sleeping in his easy chair, his back to her, looking out the window, as he so often did. "Oh, Moses." She could breathe again. She crept forward. It would be a difficult thing to tell him, an awful shock--

"Moses!" she shrieked. One Benji arrow, a cane of devilishly sharpened bamboo, stuck out from his chest. Theresa crumpled beside the chair, cradling his head to her breast. Blood had congealed in a great pool behind him, and as she rocked him back and forth, cold blood soaked through her sleeves. "How could they do this to my baby? Oh, Moses, how could they do this to you?"

She pulled at the arrow, rage building inside her. She pulled and pulled again, unable to dislodge it from his chest. Finally, the arrow splintered and broke off in her hands. She stared at the broken pieces for many long minutes. A murderous howl rose up inside her.

Gently, she rearranged his arms as if he were merely sleeping, and she closed his half-open eyes. She kissed his cold forehead, and staggered to her feet.

Desperate for air, she ran through the rooms of the convent once again. Repulsion overcame her, doubling her over, and almost too late, she leaned over the kitchen sink, vomiting until nothing remained. She pumped cold water into the sink, then over her face. Gasping for breath, she dried her face with her bloodied skirt, but she didn't notice.

Something else caught her eye. It was her cup, her beautiful cup, crushed in one corner like an egg. Theresa felt something inside her begin to crack, fine lines, opening up into great chasms. Her heart? Her mind? She studied her hands. What was happening to her?

She knew the lessons on the practicalities of living in a tropical jungle so well, they'd become automatic. Never walk in the dark without shoes. Never trust a Benji. That which is dead quickly decomposes in the heat. And she could not dig thirteen proper graves by herself in a week, most certainly not by the next sunrise.

Full of determination and grim purpose, Theresa built herself a fire on top of the garden plot. Gathering more wood, she fed the flame until the fire grew, making the skin on her arms red with its heat. She dragged their bodies out, one by one, and she threw them onto the flames. Eleven of her sisters, and Maxwell. And then her beloved son. Thoughts of Amahini flashed through her mind, but she pushed them away. Amahini could not console her. No god who would allow such agony could.

The river ran, as it always had. Birds sang. And the earth continued to spin. Their passing had gone unnoticed to the world. She'd long suspected the truth, but now Theresa knew with all certainty. Suffering was just suffering after all, without purpose, without redemption. Fire consumed everything that she had loved, and the smoke of her despair spiraled upward. Blackness descended upon the forest like a curtain.

She trudged back up the stairs to her cell, collapsing upon the bed. A weariness overcame her; she fell into a strange, leaden slumber.

Theresa reeled up to consciousness. An eternity had passed, or perhaps a minute. Eastern sun flared through the broken window. Her arms and legs were stiff and sore, and painted red, she found. War paint, she thought absently. How long had she laid in that bed, and who had taken her hammock? Her mind emerged half-way from a pleasant fog, a soft, thick haze that protected her from. . . from what, again? An unremembered nightmare, best forgotten. Theresa retreated back into the fog.

She yawned and stretched, in that moment, leaving everything behind. Off came the choking, heavy cross around her neck, off came every piece of clothing she wore. A faint tremor of recognition stirred at her. She cautiously touched the tiger pelt, draped at the bottom of the bed. Where it came from, she did not know, perhaps a gift exchanged for her hammock? She wrapped the supple skin around her body. Theresa crept from the room, unsure of the way. Jumping at the sound of her own feet on creaking stairs, she hurriedly left the place.

Caught up in a breeze like a sigh, a single red feather swirled to the ground. Lifting her face to the green crown of trees, Theresa watched as a scarlet Macaw flew away, listened to the sound of velvet on velvet as wings passed over his feathered body. Somewhere off in the distance, a lone monkey howled.

Theresa waded into the cool waters of the Bindadnay. She sank to her knees, washing every trace of the war paint away. A perfect orchid floated downstream. Cupping her hands, she scooped out the flower and tucked it behind one ear.

Humming beneath her breath, Theresa pushed the dugout canoe. It scraped along the sandy shoreline, but soon she had it far enough out into the water so that it floated freely. The canoe rocked unsteadily back and forth as she clamored inside. Theresa took up a paddle and pushed herself out into the current. Looking once back over her shoulder, Theresa faced resolutely forward, shielding her eyes from the blazing sun. The great Bindadnay River, the giver of all life, carried her away.

For my husband, Jim,

and for our children, Chris and Beth.

Thank you for you love and patience.

For the best teachers in the world,

Kara Neilson and Dorothy Ezell

who taught me to create.

And mostly for

Charlotte, Georgia and Elaine,

the other mothers of this work.

I love you all.

L.

Special acknowledgment to Lewis Thomas, for your theories and for writing the book, The Youngest Science. Any errors in 'scientific research' in The Last Eden are not Mr. Thomas's, but my own.