Franz nudged Omar; they consulted briefly. “They want you to shoot it, Lily,” Omar said.

“Me? Why?”

“Because you say you’re a hunter. Do it, Lily. It’s suffering.”

The monkey lunged again, the ring of metal cutting deeper into its neck; black blood coursing onto waxy green leaves. Up on one elbow like a man in bed, it looked at me, its big, noble head and thick black ruff shuddering as it opened its mouth again, letting loose a weak, guttural moan. Okay, I said silently to the creature, I’m coming. My limbs moved as if underwater. I took a step toward it, shifting the stock down and the muzzle forward, its coldness, heaviness still foreign to me as I lifted it toward the ridge of flesh between the creature’s eyes.

I can’t do this, I thought. There is just no way . . .

Omar fell to one knee, pulling me down next to him and encircling my hands with his, wedging the barrel under the monkey’s chin and forcing his head back.

“Now, Lily.”

I looked for the pain in the monkey’s eyes, pictured it gone, and pulled the trigger.

The shot traveled up through the monkey’s jaw and out the top of his cranium in a fountain of pink. With badly shaking hands, I slid the gun back into the leather holster at my waist. Forgive yourself, I thought, he was going to die anyway. You are only following the rules in this wild place.

“Good,” Omar said, briefly kissing my forehead. “You freed him.”

The rest of the men dropped down over the creature, cutting it free from the poacher’s trap. Franz flung it over his back, holding it by its yard-long tail.

In less than an hour, light poked through the jungle and we burst through to another tributary, this one twenty or so feet across. The tightly coiled river had doubled back on itself. The men groaned, annoyed to be slowed down by this impasse. The water was murky toward the shore, but black at the middle, much slower moving than the water we had just left, its depth impossible to gauge. The dogs paced at the bank, noses twitching toward the other side; I caught a whiff of something skunky: the herd was close.

“Let’s cross,” Franz said, standing ankle-deep in the tannin water. The other men mumbled in agreement. Omar squatted just where the water touched the sand, dipped in his finger, tasted it, peered into its opaque depths. He looked up at Franz and said, “Give me the monkey.”

Franz snorted and shook his head. “Why?”

Omar got to his feet, tension vibrating his limbs. He was so much smaller than Franz, but so agile he could have probably leapt over him cold from the ground. “Come on, Franz, give me the fucking monkey.”

Franz shifted his weight; as he did so black blood rained down from the creature’s wounds and sizzled into the sand. The monkey’s head hung heavily down, hands at the ends of furred arms almost touching, as if he were diving toward the center of the earth. Across the short stretch of water, a flicker of movement through dense green; shadows passing quickly.