He reached for the handle of the case and the line edged forward, picking up speed, and when they got to the tree, Chris and George heaved the boat over with such ease that it was hard to guess what the problem had been.

Tom climbed up after them and looked along the trunk to the spot where he’d seen the jaguar, and he stared beyond, into the odd aquatic light beneath the canopy, thinking he might see it there, that if he stared long enough it might appear like things did in those books of magic pictures.

But there was nothing to see, so he jumped off the far side of the fallen trunk and followed the others. That seemed to be the nature of the jungle anyway, that most of its secrets were hidden from them, that Tom and the others were both there and not there, and every trace of their presence these last two days would soon be lost.

They walked on for over an hour with no further stops, their pace slow and steady. It wasn’t difficult walking but the heat and the humidity and the relentless harassment from insects made it uncomfortable. It wasn’t long before the conversations started to dry up, with only occasional strings of words drifting back along the line.

As they reached the hour mark, Chris said, “What if this path doesn’t go to the river?”

George answered, “These paths are made by animals, so chances are they’ll lead to water. But we’re heading in the right direction anyway.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, and Shen knows what he’s doing.”

“Joel’s leading,” said Chris, and it sounded like he was aiming to set George straight, but in Tom’s mind it also sounded like a word of caution, that they couldn’t rely on Shen’s good sense alone, because Shen wasn’t in charge.

George didn’t reply and they walked on in silence before the column started to slow again and then word came back along the line. They were stopping for a break up ahead, in a small clearing. It became obvious it wasn’t much of a clearing, though, because there was some congestion, the people ahead slowing to a crawl as they waited to get into the resting place.

When Tom finally reached it, they looked like the stragglers of a defeated army, sitting around on a couple of boulders or on their backpacks. Chris dropped his end of the carrying case and immediately sat on it.

There was a small creek that had been running alongside their path but turned here and headed in the direction of the river. It had obviously flooded enough in the past that the vegetation had been pegged back from its banks. A few of the natural paths that threaded the jungle seemed to converge on this spot too.