MiddleEye whooped his encouragement, spinning around Omar and clacking his teeth like a Halloween skull. The shaman watched from his rusted throne with a sort of rapture like, He may be crazy, but he’s my only son.

“You owe this to me,” Omar sputtered. “This small thing.”

The chieftain smiled; a hundred lines gathered at his mouth and eyes. “Why?” His hunters, sensing tension, took their places around him.

“We were like family once.”

“She is one white woman. She means nothing to me.”

Omar reached out to strike him. Lightning fast, the hunters grabbed his arms and smacked him to the ground. He fell down on all fours, breathing hard.

Splitfoot screeched his wheelchair toward him and dropped his head close to Omar’s. “Beya does not answer when I shine to her. This is an unforgiveable insult.” He glanced around, as if to see who was listening, some element of his pride on the line. “She was our most powerful shaman, and she chooses to stay in Ayachero. This has weakened us. We have not recovered.”

“She wants to come back.”

Splitfoot lifted his chin. “My sister can speak for herself. I hear only the wind when I call to her.”

“She will come—”

“Your father settled Ayachero,” he hissed. “Too many people came. We were forced deeper into the jungle, farther and farther from game. Now poachers—white poachers—come looking for mahogany, now come roads, planes. The spirits leave when the land is cleared. The trees are crying, just as we cry. Can you hear them anymore? You used to.”

Omar pushed himself to his feet, the warriors eyeing his every move. “When I was a boy, we walked together. I helped you gather the sacred plants. Do you remember, Splitfoot?”

The chief waved him away with a smirk. “That was before you became a white man, as far as I can tell. Listen to me: we can feel the change coming. If we don’t move soon, from this camp, we’ll all die here. And there will never be any rest. We need to keep moving, until we have fallen off the edge of the earth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry—”

“My wife has done nothing wrong.”

“You ask me to save this white woman?” Splitfoot said with an exasperated sigh. “Why? How will she help us?”

“She will—”

“I have suffered, Omar. The Tatinga have suffered. Our sister tribes have all suffered. How will you suffer for me, Omar?”

Omar dropped his head in what I read as shame; perhaps it was only respect.

“Answer me!” he roared. “How will you suffer for me? What will you give me?”

Omar gestured at me. “Here is my suffering, in the body of my wife.”

Splitfoot’s chair squealed as he whipped around toward me, glowering with rage. “How have you suffered?”

“I—”

“Don’t show me the wounds on your body. I am not interested. Show me your dead babies, your family starving because there is no game. Show me your empty forests, your poisoned rivers. Your dead spirit.”