“Okay.”

Vern and Andy helped Thomas to his feet. He was lean and muscular, and his skin was hot to the touch. Even though Darnell had assured Andy that dengue wasn’t contagious, Andy would normally have avoided touching someone so sick at all costs. But possibly because he liked Thomas, or more likely, because Farah was watching, he didn’t hesitate to help carry the man back to camp.

Once they got Thomas covered up, Andy took his temperature—104.4.

“We have to get him to a hospital,” Andy said. “His brain is frying.”

Vern shook his head. “I promised him I wouldn’t let them take him out.”

“He could die.”

“Naw, he’s tough.”

“No, seriously, he could die.” Andy was aghast. The last time Andy’s temperature had gotten over one hundred degrees—100.2, to be exact—he drove to the emergency room. He spent three hours at a busy Chicago ER, just to hear a doctor say, “Go home. You’re fine.”

Five minutes later, Holland and Rix returned, and Holland took over what Andy had come to think of as “hospice care.”

Checking Thomas’s temperature himself—now 104.6—Holland told Vern, “I don’t give a shit what he told you. If his fever gets up to one-oh-five, I’m calling for the chopper.”

Vern mulled this over. “That’s fair.”

Crashing foliage snapped Andy’s attention away from Thomas. It was the Bolivian soldiers. Two of them were holding a large bamboo pole and hanging from it was a giant wild boar.

The Bolivian soldier in the front yelled, “¡Comemos bien esta noche!” We eat good tonight!

≈

After consuming freeze-dried meals for the past week, the fresh wild boar was one of the most delicious meals Andy had ever eaten.

“Holy moly, that’s good!” he said, giving Darnell a nudge with his elbow.

Darnell nodded. “As someone who grew up on barbecue and who will have barbecue for his last meal, I can honestly say this is the best damn pig I ever tasted.”

Between the twenty-four of them—twelve from the expedition team, Vern, Juan Pablo, Carlos, Diego, plus Lieutenant Goytia and his seven soldiers—they’d nearly finished off the entire boar.

Andy pulled a piece of meat, dripping with fat, off his paper plate with his fingers and took a large bite. Once he swallowed it down, he said, “My last meal would be a grilled cheese sandwich, but this is giving it a run for its money.”

“A grilled cheese sandwich?” Darnell said with a violent shake of his head. “This isn’t fifth grade and you just got home from band practice, or whatever it is pale white boys do after school. This is your last meal.”

“Okay, okay,” Andy said with a laugh. “A grilled cheese sandwich, but get this, I dip it in tomato soup.”

Darnell laughed, then said, “I got to get some more of this pig before it’s all gone.”