One Grave Less

the jungle with people he didn’t understand and didn’t want to understand, afraid to go home and face his family. She wanted to roll her eyes, tell him to grow up, or grow a pair. Instead she tried another tack.
    “If you have a big find, you can go home a hero in the academic world. That’s what your family wants. One big find and you can write your own ticket.” Not true, but she could sell it.
    “I told you, I don’t know anything about these people. There isn’t anything special about them,” he said. “They are like every other damn dirty tribe out here.”
    “I’m not talking about anthropology. I’m talking about archaeology. On the way here I found an undiscovered Inca site. It’s probably the largest ever discovered, over eighty hectares.”
    Kyle wrinkled his brow. But Maria was on a roll now.
    “Over two hundred acres, maybe more. That’s bigger than any of the known sites.”
    “You’re lying,” he said.
    “No, I’m not. We camped there last night. I picked up a couple of potsherds to send to someone at the University of Brazil. They’re in my bag. The pottery is Incan, I’m sure, but I’m not familiar with ceramics well enough to know the chronology.”
    “I’m not an archaeologist,” he said.
    “You don’t have to be, you only have to be the discoverer. Everyone loves an explorer.”
    “The Brazilian government would just take it over,” he said.
    God, what a whiner . She was giving him a huge gift on a silver platter and here he was figuring out ways it wouldn’t work.
    “What do you intend to do? Kill me? Is that easier than taking credit for a huge discovery and going home?”
    “I’m just going to hold you here, tie you up, and let them come get you.”
    “Who?” Maria felt a sick knot forming in her stomach.
    “Some men I know. They come through sometimes, looking for animals and things. I told them you had escaped from somewhere south of here. I thought they would know. They are plugged in to what goes on around here.”
    The son of a bitch .
    “Your phone works, after all, I see,” she said.
    Maria was going to have to take him now. There was no choice. She wasn’t going to allow them to recapture her and Rosetta. She reached behind her and pushed Rosetta down, hoping she would understand and hit the ground and roll under the truck and away. She felt the little girl slide quietly to the ground, holding on to her leg too tightly. At the same time, Kyle fell to the ground with a thump.

Chapter 38
    Maria stared at Kyle on the ground. His eyes were rolled back in his head, his rifle lay under him. She thought he’d had a seizure—a very fortuitous seizure—until she saw the young man in the tree with a blowgun. He climbed down with astonishing speed and agility and ran toward them.
    Rosetta stood up and clung to Maria’s side. A woman, the mother of the child that looked like Kyle, also came toward them, her grassy skirt swaying with her quick steps. The others, including all the children, hurried toward their houses. The young man picked up the rifle and shook it in the air above his head.
    The woman began yelling at Kyle. She kicked him a couple of times with her bare feet.
    “No good. No good,” she said. “Stupid. Stupid.”
    She looked up at Maria and continued her rant. What English she used gave way to her own language. Maria looked to Rosetta.
    “She says he’s no good,” said Rosetta. Maria had gotten that part. “She says when he came they thought he would protect them from the bad men who came and hurt the forest and stole the birds out of the trees, beat the men and women of their village. They did this for fun. He didn’t protect them. He was afraid of the bad men.”
    The woman looked down at Kyle again. His eyes were not rolled back in his head now, but he looked dazed and was unmoving.
    The woman continued her tirade, half at Kyle, half at them. Her dark eyes sparkled with her anger. Rosetta translated. Maria thought she recognized some of the words as Portuguese.
    “He knows how to do nothing—he can’t hunt, he can’t help us build our homes, he can’t even hunt for grubs. Useless. Useless.” She looked at Maria. “He is useless. We try to move away and leave him, but he follows us. We go with him to trade. We need tools, plates, big handle pots for carrying—we need metal things. He gets only things for himself, for his far-talk box, he forgets to trade for things we need. He asks stupid questions—why we decorate