They had come back.
Not to save him.
Not even to check if he was alive.
To cover themselves.
To take whatever evidence he still had on him before the forest or morning patrol found the rest.
The jaguar stood perfectly still in front of him.
Ricardo realized then that the animal was not protecting him the way people protect one another.
It was protecting the clearing.
Its place.
Its line.
Its silence.
And somehow, at least for this moment, Ricardo had become part of that space.
Leaves shifted.
A flashlight beam sliced weakly through the brush.
Then a curse.
The beam jerked away, then returned, trembling.
“Jaguar,” someone whispered.
Another man muttered something Ricardo couldn’t catch.
A third voice, the cold one from before, tried to sound braver than he felt.
“It’ll move.”
Continued on the next page
