I gripped my armrests, leaned forward, breath steaming the pocked windshield. It felt like my prayers alone kept us aloft. My terror reflected back at me in the pilot’s mirror shades; he smirked, his gold incisor flashing. Later I would learn that the banging noise had been improperly secured gasoline canisters in the cargo hold—the extra fuel the only way the plane could return from our destination to Cochabamba or anywhere else, for that matter. We had nine hours of fuel and a four-hour journey. Not a lot of play. The pilot slipped on his headphones and switched on or off a series of dials and knobs, ignoring all of us.

Below, the city’s bright puzzle of streets under a greenish-yellow bowl of pollution swiftly fell away. Molly, Britta, the Versailles; all literally now in the rearview mirror. The plane struggled to rise above the first snow-crested mountain ridge. I craned my neck skyward, as if to achieve altitude with my will. We chugged over the first craggy peak—ponds beneath us glittered like dropped jewels—then the crests stretched out endlessly before us, valleys dropping into ominous shadow.

A meaty thump behind me. Panchito had crumpled to the floor of the plane. Rumbling around on the ripped canvas in search of comfort, he pillowed his arms under his head, false leg resting at an odd angle, the gears and straps loosened. In seconds he was snoring.

“Is he okay?” I called back.

“He’s fine,” Omar said, chewing on a toothpick as he watched the mountains parade beneath us.

A flush of something like shame washed over me, I wasn’t sure why. How little I knew this man, really. “How did he lose his leg?”

Omar slipped the toothpick out the cracked open window; the wind snapped it away. He leaned toward me so I could hear him over the engine. “He was young. Twelve, maybe. He went off to hunt by himself. Stupid plan. You never go into the jungle by yourself. Never, okay? You’re with me or someone who knows what they’re doing. Understand?” His voice rose a little as if I’d already made such a featherbrained mistake.

I nodded tightly, still clutching my armrests, shoulders tensed.

“Anyway, he was drunk, I’m pretty sure. Chicha. Like a corn beer. He had a fight with our father. My dad hated him. I don’t know why. It’s like he had to pick one of us, and he chose Panchito. He beat him, told him he’d never be a hunter, which is like saying he’d never be a man. So Panchito ran off to hunt. He was determined to come back with something. I know he had his heart set on a big anta, a male tapir. They can get to four, five hundred pounds. Feed the village for a couple weeks. One had been seen near the village, but no one had been able to track it down.” Omar shook his head. “I should have gone with him.”

“Why did Panchito come to tell us about what happened to Benicio? Why didn’t Franz do it?”