He returned to the village that night and entered the shaman's hut without noise and found the pinig bowl from which he drank his bikut. He held the snake's mouth to the rim of the bowl and milked forth the waxy yellow venom. He took the snake back into the forest and asked its forgiveness for stealing from it and released it.

The next night the shaman mixed his bikut and drank it to have a vision of what had become of the girl, Chipa. He began to gasp and shudder and cry out. The tribe thought he was having a great vision, and would not approach him as he lay writhing on the ground by the fire.

Only Eladio approached. For this he was thought very brave.

He leaned over the shaman's ear and whispered, "It is my iwanch that kills you, old man." The shaman died. Eladio became headman of the tribe.

Now he watched the shaman drink from his bowl and shout at the lifeless stone. He signaled Zacari to walk with him down to the river. They sat in the branches of a wampusb tree, out of reach of crocodiles. Eladio had many wives and sons, but he loved Zacari best because he was the oldest.

"Tell me," he said, "why do you think the life has gone out of the stone?"

Zacari answered all his father's questions with questions, out of respect.

"Because the tsugki inside has fled?" He smiled at his father. "Because the tsugki feeds on the gold-and-black things the kurinku pataa tied to the side of it before he gave it to us?"

Eladio was pleased. "The gold-and-black things are empty."

Zacari leaned over the bough they were sitting on and spat into the water. A piranha dimpled the surface where it landed. "The shaman will tell us a vision."

"Trust only your own visions." Eladio stood. "They have these gold-and-black things at Yenan. I have seen them. Go there and tell El Niño we need some. Tell him the white men were not pistacos."

"With respect, Papi, how do you know?"

"Pistaco carries a knife, not guns, and a lasso made of human skin. He wears hair on his face. Tell El Niño that we killed most of them out of respect. Tell him to give us gold-and-black things. Take Kipu with you."

"Yes, Papi. What will you do?"

"I will stay here and watch the shaman. His vision may tell him to sacrifice Inancia's baby."

"What will you do if that is his vision?"

"As Tsewa tells me," said Eladio.

40

Diatri watched the oil streak along the window. He leaned forward and shouted at the Marine pilot, "What's with the oil?"

The pilot shouted back, "These planes are pieces of shit."

"How come we're in them?"

"Realism. It's what they fly. Reason they got such fuckin' long noses on them is they're always crapping out and the long noses gives you extended glide ratio so you can land on the fuckin' water, if you can find it."

There were three Pilatus Porter seaplanes. The SEALs were in the first. Diatri was in the second with the SOLIC commander and the JUNC leader. The third plane, fifty miles behind, would extract the SEALs after they had planted their mines on the yacht.

"You mean we're going all the way down there and we're not bringing him back with us?" Diatri had said at the mission briefing aboard the Air Force C-141 on the way down. It was a crowded flight for some reason, people from State, DOD, CIA, a Coast Guard medic-what was the Coast Guard doing here?-Marine pilots, Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and the Joint Unified Narcotics Command people.

"That's right," the JUNC leader replied. "Our mission is to disable the boat and get out."

"Whose plan was this?" Diatri asked. "Is this a JUNC plan?"

"That's all I can say, Diatri."

"Yeah, but it just doesn't make sense. The guy's an American citizen. We're just going to blow up his boat and leave him?"

"This is a JUNC op, Diatri. You're here as an observer. Observe."

Diatri leaned over and said to the SOLIC commander, "Am I missing something here?"

The commander said quietly, "I understand there's a political dimension."

The JUNC leader was in front with the pilot. He tapped the satellite surveillance photo on his lap and looked down at the river and shouted over the roar of the Pilatus' loud propeller, "We shoulda seen it already."

They followed the river. Diatri let the others do the surveilling. He was intent on the mountains to the west, huge, incredible mountains all blue and white. One towered over the others. He found it on his map. Huascaran, over 20,000 feet up, so high you had to gulp for your air. He had read somewhere that Hitler killed the King of Bulgaria that way. The King was being difficult. He wouldn't kill Jews; what's more, he told Hitler that if Jews were going to have to wear yellow stars, then he was going to start wearing a yellow star.

Hitler summoned him to Berlin to make him change his mind, but he wouldn't. Hitler knew the King had a weak heart, so Hitler flew him back to Bulgaria in an unpressurized plane at high altitudes, and the King died a few days later. Diatri told this story to the SOLIC commander. He thought about it and nodded in a professional sort of way as if to say: Yeah, that would do it. He didn't say much, this commander.

The JUNC leader said, "Hey, Diatri, I hear you're going to Congressional Relations after this."

"What?"

"Congratulations."

"Who told you that?"

"You know, on the topo map this valley looks just like a pussy."

"Who told you that?"

"I don't know. Something I heard. We shoulda passed it by now-there it is, up ahead. This is Cowpuncher One Actual, we got it."

Diatri looked down. He wouldn't have recognized it from the photographs. It looked like something abandoned on the Brooklyn waterfront. As they circled, he saw that some of her yacht whiteness remained along the hull. She was half up on a mudbank. There were people aboard her, a dozen or more dugout canoes tied to her. The JUNC leader took pictures with a video camcorder. The natives, seeing the military markings on the planes, began to scatter into their canoes. The JUNC leader laughed and shouted, "Didi mau len! Didi man len!" The Marine pilot asked what it meant. "Vietnamese," said the JUNC leader, "for 'Get the fuck out of here.'"

Zacari and Kipu followed the path of cashew trees through the booby-trapped perimeter and stepped out of the forest into the compound.

They stood for a moment surveying the damage. Smoke rose lazily from many places. The fire had been a great one. Kipu pointed to the burned-out Range Rover and the blackened human legs sticking out from underneath.

They crossed the large field toward the white house and came upon a dead guariba. Its flesh had been disturbed, Zacari saw, leaning over to inspect it. Kipu licked his lips and said they should take it back with them.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the veranda, Zacari heard the sound of his sister crying.

A moment later, El Niño appeared on the porch. He looked very bad. Some of his hair was burned away and there was dried blood from his ears and nose. He stared at them with a fierce look. He held a pistol.

Zacari held up a hand in greeting and said, "My father sends you his respect."

El Niño did not answer.

Zacari said, "He says to tell you that the kurinku in the great canoe was not pistaco."

El Niño stared as though the fire was still burning within him.

Zacari held out his upturned palm, revealing one of the gold-and-black things. "He sends me to ask you for more of these. They are good for the tsugki who lives in the stone the kurinku gave to us."

El Niño stared at the battery in Zacari's palm. He raised his pistol and shot Zacari in the face.