Overhead, monkeys chattered noisily, like old wives leaning over their backyard fences and exchanging gossip about their visitors.
Brightly colored birds swooped low, cawing and screeching as they darted through the foliage.
It was hot. The sun beat down with an intolerable intensity that abated only when they passed under the sheltering leaves of a tree.
Wild fruit spread overhead in lush abundance.
“I would like to find water,” Erik said at last.
“There must be water,” Neil said. “All this growth…”
A faint rustling ahead brought the trio to a dead stop. Olaf’s hand tightened on his ax, as Erik raised his over his head, ready to deliver a blow. Cautiously, they tiptoed forward.
With a loud cracking of twigs and branches, the leaves ahead of them parted violently. A startled deer, its eyes wild in fright, burst into view, turned a hurried glance on his visitors, and then darted away into the forest.
Erik stood looking after the deer, his ax poised overhead. Suddenly, Neil began laughing.
“Only a deer,” he choked. “Only a little deer.”
Erik became gruff all at once. “Quiet, boy,” he barked, sliding his ax into his belt. And then, as the foolishness of the situation became clear to him, a smile broke over his face. White teeth gleamed against the brown ruggedness of his face, against the blazing, reddish-blond of his beard. The smile burst into a slight laugh which immediately erupted into an uncontrollable bellow.
He put his arm around Neil’s shoulder and, laughing wildly, they stumbled ahead through the undergrowth.
Only Olaf was sullen, his mouth grim.
They traveled for a half-hour with the sun beating down on their heads, and still they found no water.
“Can it be there are no rivers in this land?” Erik asked.
“There are rivers,” Olaf said. “But we will find none while the Devil follows in our tracks.” He looked meaningfully at Neil.
“Was not one Devil enough for you today?” Erik asked.
“Let’s go a little farther,” Neil suggested, tactfully.
They chopped their way through more light growth, seeing a jaguar leap to the ground once and rush away between the trees.
“Plenty of meat,” Erik commented. “We need not worry about that.”
They rested, then, on a broad, flat, yellow rock between two low bushes. Neil glanced at his wrist watch. They’d left the beach more than forty-five minutes ago.
Neil got to his feet, not fully rested yet, and feeling a little lazy.
“We’d better move on,” he said.
Erik and Olaf followed Neil as he took the lead into the forest. They moved on, slowly, relentlessly, the insects buzzing around them, and the monkeys raising an infernal din.
After fifteen minutes of back-breaking marching, they broke into a little clearing.
At the far end of the clearing, between two low bushes, was a broad, flat, yellow rock. Neil looked at the rock, and his eyes clouded. Erik had noticed it, too, and Olaf’s eyes widened now in recognition.
“That rock,” he said. “It is the very one we rested on. We have been walking in a circle. The Devil has led us in a circle.”
“Quiet,” Erik said tensely. He was serious as he spoke to Neil. “We should have marked a trail.”
“Yes. But we didn’t.”
“What now?” Olaf demanded. “What do we do now?”
Neil thought of the jaguar they’d seen, and wondered how many other dangerous animals were in the forest.
“We shall have to find our way back to the beach,” Erik said. His voice softened. “Would you like to lead, Neil?”
“I’ll try,” Neil replied. He thought again of the jaguar.
They started off between the trees again, Erik following Neil, and Olaf bringing up a quiet, scowling rear.
Overhead, the monkeys chattered foolishly.
Heat, intolerable, blazing down through the treetops, scorching the forest. Sound. A medley of sounds that rose in cacophony to greet the eardrums. The ceaseless shrieking of the monkeys, the droning of the insects, the chirrup, chirrup, chirrup of an industrious cricket in the tall grass.
And over all this, a wearisome fatigue that pulled at the leg muscles and worked its way across your back and your shoulders. Sweat oozed from every pore in your body, and your shirt clung to your back, hugging your skin. You felt hot and thirsty and you wanted to lie down and rest-but you had to find your way back to the beach and back to the machine that would take you home one day.
And so you pushed the tall grass aside, pulling your hand back occasionally when you ripped the skin on a jagged, saw-toothed blade. And you tripped every now and then, scraping your elbows, your head buried in the tall grass, with the smell of the earth deep in your nostrils, and the animal smell, and the smell of green things growing in a vast wilderness, a wilderness a little too awesome to comprehend.