Alice laughed too, but then Joel said, “Maybe not. Look over there.” He pointed away from the river, to the left, where a narrow trail of smoke was rising up out of the blanket of trees.

For a moment, and only a moment, Tom felt his heartbeat kick up a notch, thinking maybe it was a village. Then the doubts started to creep in. He searched the landscape around the fire for the telltale line that suggested another river, but there was none.

It definitely looked like a managed fire, not some accidental bushfire or natural phenomenon, but he was full of misgivings about who might be responsible for a fire in a location like that. It would probably take a good couple of hours to walk there too, in the wrong direction.

Alice was apparently thinking along the same lines, because she sounded less than enthusiastic as she said, “It looks… remote. You know, it could be some tribe that’s never had contact with the outside world before.”

Joel looked dismissive. “This isn’t one of your novels, Alice, it’s the twenty-first century.”

“You should try reading a bit more yourself—you wouldn’t be such a jerk.” He tried to laugh in mock outrage, but her ire was up. “Take a look at this jungle! Where do you think we are?”

“Well, I’m guessing the Amazon.”

“Exactly. The Amazon, where there are still tribes that live in isolation, who probably don’t like people crashing into their territory.”

“It could be worse,” said Tom. “We could at least try to persuade a tribe that we mean no harm. They could be rebels, drug gangs, who knows, and I couldn’t see that ending well.”

Joel looked exasperated. “Unbelievable! We have the first sign of other people, and you want to turn your back on it and sail down a river that might lead us nowhere.” He pointed at the trail of smoke again. “These people will have food, maybe medical supplies, maybe a radio.” Neither of them responded, though Alice continued to shake her head gravely. “Look, I’m making an executive decision, and I intend to find out whose fire that is, but I’ll make a compromise with you. Chloe can’t be moved today anyway, so I suggest a small group of us goes and investigates the fire. We check it out, and if it looks unsafe, we back away unseen and return to the original plan.”

Alice didn’t look in the mood to compromise and said, “If it’s a native tribe, I doubt we’d stand much chance of getting in there unseen.”

“I’ll grant that, but I still think it’s a risk worth taking, and I think it’s wrong to just assume that anyone who’s out here automatically means us harm. But I have to tell you, Alice, I’ve decided, I’m going anyway.”