“Can I rest my hands on a tree stump or something so I can aim a little better?”

“Will a tree stump be ready and waiting for you when a jaguar is coming at you, over?”

“Okay, okay.” I took a wider stance, aimed a little higher than the target as instructed, and fired, the gun knocking back hard into my bruised hand. The orchid trembled but remained pristine.

“Are you exhaling before you pull the trigger? Or are you holding your breath? We talked about this, over.”

“I’m exhaling, I’m telling you,” I said, frustrated.

“I don’t know, Lily my friend. I think you are maybe a little afraid to be good at firing a gun. Maybe you don’t really want to hunt down the animals.” He leaned thoughtfully on his cane. “There are three more bullets only, over.”

Fuck afraid. I turned back to the target—determined—and fired. The cluster of flowers exploded into a purple cloud.

For God’s Sake pointed to a clump of white mushrooms at the base of a rotting log—I missed them entirely—then a paprika plant, its fist-sized fruit dotting the tree. I took a bead on a big fat one and pulled the trigger. Its rich red seeds plumed over the lush green leaves.

“All right, Miss Lily. Excellent work, and it is only your first time trying this difficult thing. Now come with me to the longhouse where I must prepare for my trip to San Solidad, over.”

On the way back to the village, we discussed the kind of suit I was to make for him someday: dark purple silk with black velvet collar and cuffs. He’d seen it worn by a man named Prince in an old American magazine.

We settled in the storeroom next to a towering pile of empty burlap sacks.

“One more very important thing. You must show me how you load the bullets. We have to pretend, because we don’t have any more of them, but show me, over.”

I took off my new backpack, one I’d sewn out of old farina bags with woven sisal straps, and took out a short length of bamboo.

“I’ll keep my bullets in this tube, and load the gun like this.” I unlocked the chamber of the gun, pretended to load in the bullets, then snapped it shut.

“Where did you get this, your bamboo, over?”

“The men tore down that bamboo hut Omar and I stayed in when we first got here. Everybody was taking pieces of it.”

“Did you check for tarantulas, over?” He laughed and took the gun from me, storing it in a side holster he wore loosely around his waist, the whole setup invisible under his capacious Hawaiian shirt. “You will be the best hunter of all. The jungle should be very afraid of you, Miss Lily. I wish I could go with you, over.”

“When will you be back?”

Suddenly looking older, more fragile, he rested his cane against one wall and took a seat on the bench between the rubberized sacks of grain and salt, a place I’d found solace for hundreds of hours by now. “The most important question is, will I be back, over?” His hands fell loosely in his lap, fingers like knotted leather. Big smile gone, his face turned ashen, slack and defeated looking.