Contents ( 49)
- PROLOGUE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I looked at him. “I’ve been busy with you.”
“Is Ayachero still there?”
“Not like when I was there. The grove was found, a road was built.” I’d been following this for years on the internet. It felt devastating, yet inevitable. “Ayachero looks a lot like San Solidad now. The Tatinga have moved even deeper into the jungle.”
“Tell me about my dad’s letter to me again.”
Countless times I’d recited to him the parts I could remember. He leaned into me and closed his eyes. “The other tribes cannot kill you, because you are high up in the trees as they pass under. You hide in holes only you know exist. Your arrows fly sooner than theirs. The anaconda—he dies from your machete before he can close his jaws on your flesh, and always, dear one, your stomach is full from your own cleverness. Hold on to your little flame of self, because the world wants to blow it out, my beloved son.”
“So he was badass, huh.”
“Yes. Like you.”
He turned to look up at me, took my hand, and traced a scar on my forearm. “Do they still hurt?”
“Not anymore.”
Worry lines creased his brow. “So what’s my ca’ah, Mom? I don’t think I want to be a hunter.”
“You have plenty of time to figure that out.”
He jumped to his feet, excited now. “Maybe there’s something we can do together. We could, you know, put our ca’ahs together.”
“Okay, how?”
“Try to save the jungle like Dad wanted to. Save the animals and birds and land. Help the Tatinga. I want to meet Beya and see a jaguar. Drink a beer at the Anaconda Bar. We can wait till when I’m older. Do you want to go back there with me?”
I laughed. “Yes, honey.” I stroked his shining black hair, hot in the sunshine. “I do.”
That evening, I sat by candlelight at the window of our small but cozy third-floor walk-up, closing for the moment my college textbook on invertebrate zoology. Thrillingly, I was just one semester from my undergraduate degree in biology.
I let my robe slip from my thighs. Pushed up my sleeves. The scars looked like shallow pocked lakes where the parasites had eaten their fill, or smooth and taut, like a burn. I hadn’t been quite truthful with Omar: the scars still ached, as if the muscles beneath held tight to the memories, the loss. But there was a sweetness in the pain: a reminder of a world that felt not of this one in its astounding beauty and strangeness.
I understand now that I will always be creating and re-creating my family; actually, I prefer it that way. Omar is keen eyed, sharp eared, curious, and kind; ready to spring forward into the future and explore all of life’s steaming jungles. We’re both determined to do something good for the world.
And we’re just getting started.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to the entire team at Simon & Schuster for making Into the Jungle a reality, especially to Jennifer Bergstrom for believing in me once again, and to my gifted, cheerful, and unbelievably patient editor, Kate Dresser, who with her unerring editorial eye macheted her way through some pretty gnarly early drafts. You slapped me silly but scared me straight. I owe you a thousand drinks. To my wonderful agent and champion, Erin Harris at Folio Literary Management, immense gratitude for your dedication to the success of this book: I am so lucky I found you.