Sultry waves of ever-hotter air swept in that afternoon; even the animals and insects stayed eerily quiet, and there was a feeling of anticipation in every breath we took. The children entertained themselves somberly at the bank, the boys playing a desultory game of soccer with a deflated rubber ball, the girls quietly building little huts for their rag dolls with clay and palm fronds. No one talked about the hunters, as if to talk about their absence would extend it even further. We were a village of women and children who watched; watched for the men to come sweeping around the bend, watched the banks of the river for jaguar tracks, watched the food supplies dwindle, the balance of everything off at a profound level.

Anna and Doña Antonia looked up from their work, eyes widening. Then I heard it, too. Metal on rusted metal; the grind of a motor close by. The stench of diesel. A dredge chugged around the bend in the river, the Mad-Max-on-the-Amazon contraption that was Fat Carlos’s boat. It swung wide, carving a perfect V in the thick brown water of its wake. Seven men draped themselves at various aspects of the boat. Three hunched over the side, carbines held loosely in their arms. On the roof, two men leaned against a ragtag stovepipe, ratty baseball hats pulled low over their eyes. At the bow, Fat Carlos and Dutchie sat side by side in lawn chairs wired to the cabin, stogies in one hand, flasks in the other.

I’d barely rinsed the scales off my hands when the clanking rig rammed aground, motor running full speed into the red clay bank, the thick mud churning. I gathered up a few pieces of fish with a banana leaf and handed it to Paco. “Why don’t you take this up, throw these on the fire for the Frannies. I bet they could use some lunch.” Clutching the leaf, he reluctantly made his way up the hill.

The women swiftly gathered their own children, ordering them to drop their toys and stop their games, and herded them up the hill toward the longhouse.

The men grinned, clearly amused at the reaction their arrival had caused. The ones on the roof dropped down to the deck, eyeing the women as they lifted their skirts above their knees to move faster up the bank. Muscles pumped from working the logging camps, they shared a squinty-eyed malignance, like a pack of dogs goaded by cane alcohol. All except Fat Carlos and Dutchie leapt onto the damp sand. They swaggered up the hill toward the longhouse, their attitudes relaxed, celebratory, dangerous; their acrid sweat filling my nose as they passed by.

Doña Antonia pushed herself to her feet, hands trembling slightly as she pushed her braids back. Alberto stood his ground next to us, doing his best to push out his bony chest.

From his lawn-chair post, Carlos tipped the brim of his disintegrating sisal hat, its vestiges held tight to one of his chins by a rawhide strap. “Ladies. Gentlemen. How are you this fine afternoon?”