It took all five of us to deadlift the sewing machine desk onto Perla’s back and strap it on tight. We tried to balance out the weight by loading a bag of books and magazines on her other flank. She didn’t seem to mind the clumsy, heavy load at first, but when we got walking, she began to snort and whinny, especially as she navigated under, around, and over the drooping vines. All three of us worked our machetes hard to make the path wider for her; my hands chafed and bled with the effort. When we saw that her fur was being rubbed off in places by the machine, Omar took off his shirt and tucked it between her and the sharp-cornered desk. Mosquitos and flies swarmed him, but he brushed them off and kept going, his face steadfast.

As we made our way through the choking green, I couldn’t help recalling Doña Antonia’s threats to kill Perla for meat. She really was achingly slow, and ate a lot for her size, and tended to get in trouble: sticking her big nose into people’s stores of corn or rice, knocking over piles of wood, braying in the middle of the night just to hear her own voice. I’d lay there smiling as I listened to her, happy to hear a friend in the darkness. But the truth was, I badly needed her to carry the wet laundry up the hill, which she did without complaint; I was lost without her. After my close call, I’d begun washing clothes in a big shallow tin pan Anna lent me; still, I couldn’t keep Perla from lollygagging in the shallows nearby, cooling off, grinning with pleasure. I was terrified the eels would get her, or piranha. I loved that fucking donkey.

The sewing machine clanking and squeaking, we slogged another hour on the narrow path until pale stabs of evening light cut through the dense green: we were almost to the village. Perla stopped short, her wide body swaying before it stilled. For God’s Sake landed his machete in the base of a tree with a sharp crack before racing past me. Ahead of us on the trail tumbled a mass of fur, fluff, and feathers, a muffled, high-pitched screaming coming from it. It looked like two puppies rolling around in a ball, playing, but there are no puppies in the jungle.

“What is that?”

“It’s okay, Lily, stay calm,” Omar said.

“A wolf spider,” For God’s Sake said. “Eating a chicken baby, over.”

The pitiful keening stopped, the chicken’s life over, but the frantic rolling continued, now with a snapping and hissing. “I was wrong. Two wolf spiders, fighting for the chicken baby, over.”

Perla whinnied, wagging her head in fear, the whites of her eyes big, mouth frothing as she attempted to rear back on her hind legs, but the weight of the sewing machine kept her solidly on the ground. I stroked her tangled, rough mane and cooed to her, but she was shaking and refused to take another step forward. The three of us spoke to her in low tones as the ball of furry legs and bobbing abdomens as big as fists entwined, eventually rolling off the path into the forest. In moments Perla settled, perhaps forgetting she’d seen anything at all, and followed her nose to the light.