“The Tatinga are here!” he said, his face tight with dread.

Carlos shifted Anna to his other knee, knocking back a glass of brandy as he did so. “What the fuck are you saying?”

“There’s a pile of guts on the ground!” the man said, breathless.

“So we cleaned a few jungle turkeys, so what?”

“We threw those guts in the river. These are fresh! These weren’t here a few minutes ago, boss, I swear to God.”

Fat Carlos pushed Anna off his lap. She stumbled away, a sharp cry escaping her throat. I wondered where her infant was, where Claudia was, then pushed the thought away. “This better be worth my time.”

“I swear—”

“Show me.”

Cursing, Carlos began to stroll across the shadowy hill, led by the clearly rattled poacher as well as a couple of his men; the rest of his gang kept watch over the terrified villagers.

I crept onto the first rung of the rope ladder, which creaked as it swayed, the sound muffled by the jangling radio. Pain bit through the flesh of my shoulders and back, my illness still alive in me apparently, but shooting cramps in my pelvis made each step a little journey through hell. My breath ragged in my lungs, I pictured myself on the top of the platform, telling myself I would not stop. I pushed myself up a few more rungs, praying for the strength to climb the twenty-five feet that remained.

Fat Carlos stopped dead just where I had dropped the pile of paca innards.

“It’s the Tatinga,” the poacher said, hand on his gun, bronze face shining with sweat. “It’s a warning, boss. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Tatinga, my ass,” Carlos said, turning in a slow circle as he addressed the gaping jungle. “Dutchie! You stupid little traitorous bastard!” He fired a shot into the treetops. “I’ll fuck you up, do you hear me?”

The jungle answered with the sonorous buzz of night insects.

“I know you’re out there, you little prick, so just come on out and show yourself. Nobody buys your asinine tricks.”

The high-pitched scream of a night bird rent the air. Afterward, silence.

Carlos shook his head and looked down, jowls shuddering, then raised his head in resolve. “You,” he said, jabbing his finger toward the three men who stood over the pile of guts. “Check the longhouse, tear apart this whole shithole town. Find him.”

One man took off for the longhouse while the other two—though they seemed to be following orders—were clearly spooked by the poacher’s fear, and scattered helter-skelter in the village, a whiff of mutiny in the air. I was two-thirds up the ladder when Carlos turned back toward the Anaconda Bar. I simply couldn’t climb any faster, I was so depleted.

As if enduring a change of heart, Carlos suddenly turned and yelled back. “I skim off a little ear. What’s the big deal? Just trying to scare some balls in you.” He blinked his one good eye into the velvet blackness. “Twenty years I’ve been keeping your skinny ass fed, keeping you in pussy, cutting snakebites outta you, dragging you down this godforsaken river—and you betray me like this?”