“Now!” Omar grunted, the knife still a breath away from the pilot’s throat.

Grim faced, never meeting Omar’s furious stare, he began our descent toward the river.

SEVEN

We dropped down from the sky tilted sideways, clipping off tree branches with a series of violent thwaps, until the left edge of the plane’s landing gear sliced into the brown water once, then twice; only when Omar flung his weight against the right side of the plane did we level out. For a few beats we skipped across the surface like a stone before smacking down hard. Chocolate-colored water sent up white foaming waves. We hurtled toward a stretch of silt—a sandbar—that ran parallel to a mildly sloping mud beach, the thick water steadily checking our speed.

No one spoke for several seconds. Shoulders and neck rigid, arms out straight, palms flat against the bug-smashed window, the reality that we were no longer airborne filtered into my consciousness a bit more with every breath.

We had landed headlong into the current, which without delay began to nudge us back and away from the narrow cut in the jungle; the huts already disappearing from view. The pilot, his mouth a sullen line, revved the engine against the braiding water; cargo and canisters rolling and banging drunkenly until they found their new equilibrium. The propeller, late to stop as well as start, finally began to slow, taking dull slices at the still air. We coasted into a cathedral of green.

Four hours of engine roar had deafened me; my ears buzzed. I dropped my head into my hands, seeking stasis, replaying Omar holding a knife to the little pilot’s throat. Who is this man? I thought, gripping my thighs, forcing breath back into my body, forcing myself to recall his words of love, the cherished way he made me feel, all the reasons I pushed him to bring me here. Soon, I heard the slap of the water against the floats, my own breathing rough in my lungs, the muffled sound of people talking and babies crying. The mournful whistle of a bird from one side of the river was answered by another of its kind on the opposite bank, like lovers in search of but never finding each other.

Omar stepped out onto one of the floats, a couple of paddles under one arm, a rope looped over his shoulder. As soon as the nose of the plane carved into dark wet sand, he drove the paddles deep into it, lassoing the rope around the handles and securing the plane at both ends. Head down, the pilot opened his own small, creaking door and leapt through it; wasting no time, he turned to the task of emptying the plane’s cargo onto the sandbar as Panchito gathered his belongings in the back.

Lined up along the shore, a silent wall of several dozen people stood staring at us, their faces hard, eyes beetle dark. The women were in rough dress: peasant shirts and skirts or brown sack-like dresses, babies strapped across their breasts and shielded from the sun by banana leaves tied loosely over their shoulders. The men were mostly bare chested or in ragged shirts, including an occasional pajama top, and sweatpants, cutoffs, or sun-bleached polyester gym shorts and flip-flops, hair worn short and greased back and parted in the middle; long or in braids for the women.