Darkness falls, but we don’t break off our march. Kidah leads the way through the forest, carrying a torch. It’s just a tree branch that was soaked in some potion he concocted, and then set alight. As it flames, it casts a wide circle of silvery radiance, and it never seems to burn down. He holds the torch high over his head, and we stream after him through the darkness, the way the Israelites must have stayed close to Moses after he used his staff to part the Red Sea.

The rain forest has always been threatening to me at night, but as I follow behind that old wizard, with three hundred Indian warriors marching by my side, the beasts that scream and growl no longer feel like my enemies. I’ve joined cause with them, and even the darkness that shrouds us so completely seems somehow to be trying to protect us.

Now and then helicopters drone overhead, searching the rivers in vain for us. I’m certain we will soon burst out of the sheltering trees and find ourselves right in the colonel’s fortified backyard. The final round of this fight is coming very soon.

I keep flashing back to the young soldier I stabbed. I recall the shock in his eyes, his desperate attempts to repair the damage my blade inflicted, and then how quickly he toppled and bled out. He had such a wild look in his eyes. Was it fear, or did he flash to his mother, or a girlfriend, or to some cherished future plans that would now never be realized?

Was he planning to marry? Did he think about the children he would never have? Did he call on his God to save him?

You were heroic to volunteer for that sneak attack, Gisco tells me, sensing my somber mood. Did something happen back there, old fellow?

Yes, I tell him. But I don’t want to talk about it.

We’ll respect your silence, Eko promises from my other side, and for a few steps I feel the reassuring touch of her hand on my shoulder.

The trees whisper in the night wind and I find myself remembering the woman who raised me. I picture her kneeling, weeding her garden, and glancing up with a smile to watch me sink baskets in the hoop over our driveway. I recall Dad throwing footballs to me in Hadley Park, and reading me Treasure Island with all the different pirate voices. How strange to think that they were both living out a lie, and that they’re gone now. I wonder if I’ll be seeing them soon, and how they’ll explain themselves.