One thing I have learned from many years of watching my father is that some people, the best ones, are motivated more by the chance to prove themselves than by a command to serve. It is the work itself that calls them onward, especially if they believe they are the only ones who can do it.

“Zito, you’re the smartest man I know. I need your help with this.”

His eyes narrow with suspicion, but even he is not immune to such persuasion. “Just a quick look,” he says.

I have won. Grinning, I turn and hike into the jungle, following the faint deer trail an animal might take if it landed on the ground at this spot.

“Let’s go this way,” he says as he catches up with me, but I see the direction he is pointing and will have none of it.

“That would take us down toward the river and the village. Jaguars are creatures that retreat upward, into the mountains, into the trees.”

His answering sigh makes me laugh. “It was worth a try.”

Hours later, I’m beginning to recognize this trek as foolhardiness. I hate giving up on anything, but we’ve seen no sign of the cat, and my ankle is swelling. I’m about to suggest we turn back when we come face-to-face with a steep slope of loose rock, marked by dark spots that might be caves or shadows or pockets of vegetation. The air is still—too still. No birds sing, even though the sun now edges the eastern horizon.

“A good hiding place for a shadow cat, wouldn’t you say?” I whisper.

“Maybe,” he answers, his voice wary.

“We should look for scat or prints, then report back to—”

The jaguar’s cry, right on top of us, freezes me to the bone. A black shadow separates from an overhead branch and leaps. Zito crashes to the ground.

Chapter 7

7

ZITO rolls with the jaguar, striking it with his spear. “Run, Alodia!”

I spin. My ankle catches in a root, and I hear a great crack like splintering wood. I scream, falling to my knees. Through a haze of tears and a red curtain of pain, I see death leaping toward me. The jaguar has abandoned Zito to attack me.

I fumble for the knife. I pull it from my belt and yank off the sheath, which I fling at the jaguar with a cry of fury. It bats aside the piece of leather with a giant paw the way a man swats a harmless mosquito. It leaps, but I roll, and the snapping jaws barely miss my neck; the raking claws slide off my leather vest.

The cat lands behind me, and I barely have time to twist on the ground to face it before it is on me again, forcing the air from my lungs with the weight of its body.