High-pitched chittering cries grew piercingly loud until dozens of monkeys exploded into view, swinging and leaping over our heads, slender branches bending and swaying, some snapping under their weight. Small fruits and nuts rained down. Screaming in panic as they searched for their imperiled infants, they vaulted from perch to perch above us, long muscular torsos stretched out in the air, faces distorted with terror. Just under their calls, a subtler sound, like puffs of air. A dozen two-foot-long blowgun darts shot up into the canopy; the monkeys screeched and soared in search of cover. One of them catapulted over us, acrobatic, its tail twice, three times as long as its body, an arrow impaled just at the center of its taut red chest; yet it kept flying, arms still reaching for a branch it would never grasp—so graceful I thought it might outwit its own death—until gravity caught it and sent it crashing to the forest floor. The sounds of the monkeys echoed beyond us now, retreating.

A rustling just beyond where we stood. A presence. Omar clutched my arm with a death grip.

I gazed into the green puzzle before me. Patterns of colors: bright orange, yellow, black. I don’t know how long I stared before I finally understood that I was looking at a human face.

THIRTY-SIX

Six men, none over five feet tall, melted into view all around us. Blowguns—held ramrod straight and perfectly still by their sides—towered a foot or more above each of their heads. Bright red tattooed lines zigzagged from mouths to earlobes; six-inch porcupine quills bristled on either side of their full lips; macaw-feather earrings dashed back from stretched earlobes. Six flat, wide, staring faces scanned us from head to toe, blue-black bowl-cut hair stark against the gleaming foliage behind them. They were naked except for braided fibers wrapped around their waist.

The first impression was of sinewy muscle tensed and ready, of violence only casually held back, perhaps by curiosity alone.

One of them stepped forward. A squat man with a powerful head and jaw, his calves bulging from the strain of the ligatures of palm fiber tied just under his knees. Twin quivers holding smaller blowgun darts crossed his chest. Over his shoulder, the slain spider monkey hung limp, its hands and feet already trussed. Another man—slightly taller than the rest—carried a giant tortoise on his back, held in place by a leather strap across his forehead, its prehistoric head and neck stretching down past his knees.

They gaped at us, at me especially, with an unguarded mix of fascination, lust, and revulsion. A wave of language rippled through the group.

Face lit by an eerie column of yellowish-green light that seeped through the canopy, the squat man took another step toward Omar, chest puffed out, tightly sprung. A bone curled through his septum; in his left earlobe he wore a 35mm film canister. Fierce brown eyes peered out from under a heavy brow. In the middle of his forehead was a depression as big as a small saucer, as if someone or something had bashed in his skull and he had lived.