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hunter, from the pistols at his waist to his heavy boots and Aussie hat decorated with bright feathers. Kate muttered quietly that all Leblanc needed was a dead tiger to put his foot on. In his youth, Leblanc had spent a brief time in the Amazon and then had written a voluminous study on the Indians that had caused a sensation in academic circles. Their Brazilian guide, César Santos, who was supposed to meet them in Manaus, could not get there because his plane had broken down, so he planned to wait for them in Santa María de la Lluvia, where the group was to transfer to a boat.
    Alex found that Manaus, located at the confluence of the Amazon and the Río Negro, was a large, modern city with tall buildings and crushing traffic, though his grandmother assured him that nature could not be tamed there and in times of floods, caimans and snakes appeared in patios and elevator shafts. It was also a city of traffickers, where the law was fragile and easily broken: drugs, diamonds, gold, precious woods, weapons. Only two weeks before, authorities had intercepted a boatload of fish… each stuffed with cocaine!
    For the young American, who had been outside his country only once—that time to go to Italy, the land of his mother's family—it was a surprise to see the contrast between the wealth of some and the extreme poverty of others, all mixed together. The
campesinos
who had no land and the workers who had no jobs came to the city in droves, looking for new horizons, but many ended up living in shacks, with no income and no hope. That day a fiesta was being celebrated and people were happy, as they are at a circus or a carnival. Bands of musicians strolled through the streets, and everybody was dancing and drinking, many wearing costumes. Their group was put up in a modern hotel, but they couldn't sleep for the noise of the music and fireworks and rockets. The next day, Professor Leblanc got up in a very bad mood. He had not slept well and he demanded that they get started as soon as possible because he didn't want to spend a minute longer than necessary in that "godforsaken city," as he called it.
    The
International Geographic
group started upriver on the Río Negro—called the "black river" because of the sediment it carried in its waters—toward Santa María de la Lluvia, a village in the heart of Indian territory. Their boat was quite large, with an ancient motor that emitted both noise and smoke and a roof improvised of plastic to protect them from the sun and the rain, which fell like a warm shower several times a day. The boat was stuffed with people, bundles, sacks, hands of bananas, and a few domesticated animals in cages or simply tied by the foot. There were a few tables, some long benches to sit on, and a series of hammocks strung from poles, one atop another.
    The crew, and most of the passengers, were
caboclos
, as the people of the Amazon are called, a mixture of several races: White, Indian, and Black. There were a few soldiers, a pair of young Americans—Mormon missionaries—and Omayra Torres, a Venezuelan doctor who was along for the purpose of vaccinating the Indians. She was a beautiful mulatto, about thirty-five years old, with black hair, amber-colored skin, and the green almond-shaped eyes of a cat. She moved with grace, as if dancing to the sound of a secret rhythm. Men followed her with their eyes, but she seemed not to be aware of the reaction her beauty provoked.
    "We must be prepared," said Leblanc, showing off his weapons. Everyone could hear him, but it was evident that he meant his comments for Dr. Torres alone. "Finding the Beast is the least of our worries. Worse will be the Indians. They are brutal warriors, cruel and treacherous. Just as I described in my book, they kill to prove their courage, and the more murders they commit, the higher their place in the hierarchy of the tribe."
    "Can you explain why that is so, Professor?" asked Kate, not trying to hide her sarcasm.
    "It is very simple,