“Veeve Clipot?”

He pronounced it correctly and added, “It means the Widow Clicquot. Interesting you read theq as ap. Do you always do that?”

Embarrassed, she admitted, “Yeah, I don’t read all that good.”

“And no wonder. You’re dyslexic.” He explained what that was and added, “You’re in good company. Sir Richard Branson is, and any number of other billionaires. Plus Cher, I believe. And my mother, who was a quite well-known anthropologist. It’s a bit of a bother but by no means the end of the world. No one’s ever told you this before?”

“No. They just thought I was, like, retarded.”

“Retarded? Odd word. Well, you were, I suppose. But now you’re apparently advancing once more. I’ll help you if you like. More wine?”

She held out her glass, speechless, thinking of Cher.

He lifted his glass and held the golden contents up to the fading light from the window. “I always imagine brain cells winking out under the influence of this, like tiny bubbles. Charming. Now, intelligence is rather more complex than people imagine. With us, it’s the ability to manipulate abstract symbols. That’s what we prize above all else, nearly to the exclusion of all else, with the result that we often put in charge of our civilization people who have absolutely no concrete intelligence at all, who are in fact entirely cut off from real life-economists and such. The greatest virtue of real science, in contrast, is that it constantly throws nature into your face, messy, solid, and complex nature, which often makes a nonsense of all one’s airy-fairy abstractions. Obviously, real education would draw out the particular intelligence of every individual, but we don’t do that. We think we need abstract symbol manipulators, and so we try to produce them en masse, and fail, and toss the failures into the dustbin. Like you, for example. And of course there are modes of intelligence, broadly defined, of which our culture knows absolutely nothing. My mum was always going on about that, the truly remarkable range of what different peoples choose to do with their brains. I wonder what she would have made of Moie.”

“Oh, Moie!” she said. “God, I wonder what happened to him. Do you think he’s okay?”

“Perfectly fine, I should think. Aren’t you, Moie?” As he said this, he looked over his shoulder into the shadows in the corner of the room by the door. She followed his glance and saw the Indian squatting there. The sight startled her, and she spilled some of her champagne.

“Jesus! Where didhe come from? I didn’t even hear the door open.”

“No. Moie is only seen when he wants to be. One example of his particular mode of intelligence, perhaps.” In Quechua, Cooksey said, “I’m happy to see you. How are you getting on in your tree?”

“Well. It’s a good tree, although no one has spoken to it in a long time. And are you well, and her?”

“We are both exceedingly fine. Would you care for some champagne?” He dangled the bottle, and Moie stood and came closer. “What is this?” he asked, sniffing it.

“It’s similar to pisco, but with water added to it, and also air.”

“Then thank you, but I must not. Jaguar is back in the sky tonight.”

“And can you not take pisco when the moon is full?”

“No. He doesn’t like it, and he may need me tonight or the next day or the next. After that I will be happy to drink your pisco with you.”

“What will he do with you? If he comes.”

“Anything he wishes to do, of course. You shouldn’t ask foolish questions, for you are not entirely a fool.” He turned his attention to Jenny, who smiled at him and said, “Hey, Moie, what’s up?”

He ignored this and said to Cooksey, “The Firehair Girl seems happier than she was before. I see she has drunk a lot of your pisco-with-air, but also there is something else. She’s found something she lost, I think.”

“Yes, that’s a way to say it.”

“Yes, and I can see the shadow of her death, almost as if she were a live person. She wishes to dopuwis with you, Cooksey.”

“Surely not!”

“Yes, because I have seen it in her dreams. And also in your dreams. Will you take her into your hammock?”

“It’s not our custom, Moie.”

“I believe you, for I see the women come to take their children from under my tree, and they all have only one child, or sometimes two. Yet you have so much food. Each should have ten, and all fat ones, too. Thewai’ichuranan have forgotten how to do it, I think.”

“No, it’s all they think about. A great deal ofpuwis is done among thewai’ichuranan, I can assure you.”

“No, I meant they have forgotten how to draw the spirits of children from the sun into the bodies of their women. Anyway, you will pull her into your hammock, or perhaps she will pull you into hers, as I have heard is also done among you. She has broad hips and heavy breasts and will bear many healthy sons for the clan of Cooksey. But I came to ask you if you have heard anything about the Puxto, if they have stopped the cutting and the road.”

“They have not stopped, Moie. They will not, I fear.”

Moie was silent for a while, then made a peculiar gesture that was like a shrug and also like a despairing slump. “That’s too bad,” he said in Quechua and then added something in his own language that Cooksey didn’t understand. Without another word he went out the door. Cooksey and Jennifer followed him into the garden. Moie had his head back, staring at the full moon, now tangled in the upper boughs of one of the tall casuarinas that edged the property.

“What will you do now, Moie?” Cooksey asked.

“I will go back to my tree and wait,” said the Indian, and he turned away to go. But then he paused and addressed Cooksey again. “There is one thing I have discovered. There arewai’ichuranan who can calltichiri. Did you know that?”

“I don’t know whattichiri is, Moie.”

“I will explain. There is the world below the moon and the world above the moon. Below the moon we men have our lives, and above the moon are the dead ones and the spirits and demons, and so on. Wejampirinan can travel between these worlds, and also theaysiri, the sorcerers, and when you sleep the paths are open, too, and from that comes dreaming. Everyone knows this. But what only a few know is that a guardian can be called, and tied into at’naicu ”-here he touched the little bundle that hung from his neck-“so that the dreams of the one who wears it can’t be entered, or not entered easily. This guardian is called thetichiri. ”

“And you found one of these guarding one of us?”

“I did. A little girl. We would think it was a waste to guard a little girl so strongly. Who cares what a girl dreams? But this is an unusual girl, I think. Jaguar has her in his mind for some reason. So, tell me, can you call atichiri and make at’naicu in this way?”

“I can’t,” said Cooksey. “But many parents pray that their children will have sweet dreams. Perhaps that’s what you found.”

“Pray? You mean to Jan’ichupitaolik? No, this was something else. I will have to think about this more.” With that he trotted silently into the shadows.

“What was allthat about?” Jenny asked.

“Oh, you know, just a chat,” said Cooksey lightly.

“It didn’t sound like a chat,” said Jennifer. The champagne had made her bold. “It sounded serious. Where’s he been living since he ran off?”

“In a tree. He seems very content. And yes, it was serious. I think he’s going to kill someone tonight.”

“Oh, God! Who is he going to?”

“I imagine one of the men he thinks is responsible for cutting down his forest.”

“Can’t you stop him?”

“Not I. In any case, he doesn’t think he’s doing it himself. He thinks the man in the moon does it, or Jaguar, as he calls his god.” Cooksey looked up at the sky. “I suppose it does look rather like a jaguar, depending on what you bring to it. Some people say it’s an old woman with a sack on her back. In some parts of Europe it’s a loaded wagon, Charles’s Wain, the treasure of Charlemagne.”