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Deep in the La Montana region of Peru lies a little Chopec village cut off from the rest of the civilized world. Well, except for the BBC Radio cricket matches faithfully followed every Sunday morning on an old two-way salvaged from a plane wreck. And the inexplicable annual arrival of the Christmas Neiman-Marcus catalog addressed to the village shaman. (Fred and Julie Shamanson of New York City are similarly puzzled by the annual arrival of a battered package containing shell nose-ornaments, tobacco, and dead howler monkeys.)

Into this peaceful jungle community came a white child whose arrival from the heavens one morning early in the rainy season stunned the little village and would change its destiny forever.

THIRTY YEARS LATER

"Are we there yet?" Dr Eli Stoddard whined from his swaying perch on a gasping alpaca.

Dr Stoddard's personal assistant gritted his teeth on the reply he wanted to make. "One more day, Dr. Stoddard," was all he finally said, mopping a sweat trickle from the side of his face as he slogged up the creeper-choked path on foot with the rest of the party. "One more day, and we'll be in the cleft of La Montana."

"I'm thirsty. I'm tired. When do we break camp for the night?" Stoddard clapped his hands. "Agua! Pronto!" he snapped to the sullen man leading his alpaca.

For the thousandth time that hour, Blair Sandburg wondered why his mentor had bothered to come along on this expedition if he was so spectacularly unsuited for anthropological field work. The uneasy feeling that Blair was the catspaw in Stoddard's research on Peruvian cultures was looming larger and larger in his mind. Eli just wanted someone who could speak fluent Quechua, handle the hired help, carry supplies, collect data from the villagers, write up the reports, then stand aside with a fixed smile as Professor Stoddard presented his findings on his travel to Peru at the next conference. Also for the thousandth time that hour, Sandburg chanted his mantra to himself: You need the money...you need the money...you need the money...

"Blair, the guide's making faces at me again!" Stoddard snapped. "Discipline him now, or these people will take advantage of us right and left!"

(I agree with you, Carlos,) Blair snapped in Quechua to the guide. (Unfortunately, he's the one paying you, not I. Act as if I've scolded you.) Stoddard, who knew only rudimentary Spanish, smiled grimly at the hangdog body language of the secretly-grinning Carlos.

(This doctor is like a spoiled child, Blair,) Yoti said, leading one of the alpacas loaded with their tent and goods. (You would do well to find a better chief.)

(Still, he is my leader and I must obey him,) Blair answered. (When I get my doctorate,) he added proudly, altering the English word in Quechua fashion, (I shall be the one they call 'Chief'!) He slapped a hungry bug on his neck. (Stupid mosquito -- how dare you bite Dr Sandburg!) The guides laughed with him.

"Blair, I wish you wouldn't fraternize with these people," Stoddard growled. "You're compromising your scientific detatchment."

"Dr. Stoddard, there's no such thing in anthropology," Blair retorted blithely, huffing his way along and sympathizing with the alpaca gangpressed into hauling Stoddard. "I would much rather be a man of a hundred countries and tribes than a man between worlds, belonging to no one." He laughed. "And I have to practice the dialects. How else can I ask the villagers about the rik'karu?"

"You're not still looking for Burton's 'sentinels,' are you?" Stoddard's tone let Blair know exactly what he thought of his assistant's thesis subject. "Sandburg, you might as well look for El Dorado! Sentinels are a myth -- Burton wrote them down as fact only because of his bias."

"His bias?" Blair said smoothly.

"Guy was a queer. Of course he wanted to believe those Sentinel- Companion stories, the same reason he made up those gay-porn Arabian Nights tales."

That's right, Eli, only straight white American male explorers are non-biased -- everyone else talks to the unimportant village members like women and queers, and speaks in gibberish. Blair kept his words behind his closed teeth -- he still had to share a tent with the man for a few more weeks, and the last thing he needed was Eli going hysterical-het on him. His grant depende on Stoddard's report on how well his assistant did on this village-contact expedition.

Eventually the day ended and the bearers set up camp. Stoddard dismounted with the aid of several bearers; the alpaca looked distinctly relieved as it moved away to start grazing.

(Blair, you are looking for the watchers)?" Carlos said as the anthropologist helped him set up a tent. (But they are only stories told by villagers, like the ones about Jaguar and Rabbit.)

(I believe there is truth in those stories, and that is why I have come here.) Blair bent to hammer the pegs home that would hold the tent upright. (There are also white-men's tales about village-protectors and their friends, and many other people around the world have similar stories. So many stories from so many different people must have truth behind them.)

Carlos shrugged at this further proof that all white men were crazy, and lit a cigarette off the one perpetually burning in the corner of his mouth. (The truth I know is that money buys good things.)

Sandburg shared a laugh with the pragmatic man. (Still, I would like to talk to the villagers here. Is there a Chopec tribe near this area?)

Carlos went silent. He looked troubled.

(There is a village not a day's travel from here, Blair,) Yoti said, coming over to bum a cigarette off of Carlos and overhearing the conversation. (The Chopec here live deep in the bush, away from the tree-cutters.) He went silent, also looking worried.

(Is there something wrong?) Blair asked. (Are we breaking tabu by staying here?)

Carlos shrugged in a negative, but frowned.

(It is said that this tribe, the one that lives here at the cleft at the mountain-top,) Yoti said slowly, (is guarded by a fierce warrior's spirit called Enqueri. That he came from the sky, as big and white as Quetzlcoatl himself, and now he keeps them safe. They say Enqueri is as tall and wide as a tree, that he seizes intruders and steals their souls.)

Blair nodded. There was a grain of truth in every fairy tale. This Enqueri couldn't be a god or supernatural hero, but might very well be a large hunter who didn't like trespassers. (Are we safe from him here?)

(It would be best if we stayed in camp tonight and did not stay here long,) Carlos said evasively, dragging hard on his cigarette. He might not believe in the watchers, the rik'karu, but this Enqueri seemed plenty real to him.

Something for the journal, maybe a footnote if he got enough info about this legend. But at the moment all Blair wanted was to sit where he was, put up his aching feet on a handy rock, fish a lukewarm beer out of the saddle-bag --

((Water! Hurry up!)) Stoddard snapped in Spanish once again to the stone-faced Peruvians, holding up an empty plastic water canister and slapping its side loudly.

Snap.

Weary as he was, Blair strode over to his mentor. "Eli, where did you get your people skills, from a box of Cracker-Jacks?" He snatched the plastic jug from Stoddard before anyone else reacted. "You've got two legs, you saw that river we crossed. You've had your ass parked on an alpaca all the way up this hill. What's wrong with filling the damn jug yourself?" He glared at the startled, furious Stoddard. "Or, at the very least, learning how to add por favor to the end of your orders?" He turned his back on his mentor and headed toward the river, almost leaving a trail of smoke.

"Blair, stop! They won't respect you! If you give them any slack, they'll walk all over -- "

He didn't even look behind him. He'd been putting up with Stoddard for his own purposes, but he'd vote for Nixon before he'd let Eli spew any more of that Great White Explorer shit on people who lived here.

(Blair, be careful. The water is powerful and wild this high up.)

(I will, Carlos,) he called. (And thank you.) He knew Carlos would have been obediently silent had Eli chosen to fill the jug himself, and let the man walk right into something dangerous.

"Blair, tell them to obey my orders!" Stoddard shouted after him.

(All of you, feel free to drink Stoddard's beer.) Blair grinned evilly as he vanished into the undergrowth.

The sun was setting, darkening the sky almost immediately this close to the equator. Blair followed the sound of the chuckling freshet bounding its way down the mountain, and smiled at the lovely sight.

Blair was a veteran of numerous trips to tropical and sub-tropical lands. He knew what to watch for at an innocent-looking river; he knew to avoid going under low-hanging branches and near thick underbrush, to watch his step, not to bend too far forward over the water, not to hang around too long to tempt the mosquitos and tsetse flies. As he filled the jug, Blair stayed alert for the dangers which he knew lurked around equatorial mountain streams.

Which was why Blair Sandburg was completely unprepared when the crocodile shot past him on its way down the mountainside, its mouth wide open and roaring in exhilaration. The huge reptile's tail, which had just swung around to shift the croc's angle of descent down the cascade, hit Blair's forearm so powerfully that it, combined with the shock of seeing a crocodile in white water, served to tumble the young anthropology student into the cold wild water with one yell of terror, leaving the half-filled jug spinning slowly in the shallows.

Blair was pushed under and shoved up out of the icy water, gasping for air and in shock as he was tumbled and bounced off the water-smoothed boulders. The natural currents of the water swept him through the worst parts without actually hitting the rocks. But he couldn't fight the force of this mountain stream, and the growing roar told him a waterfall lay ahead -- a waterfall with a long, long drop to the valley floor, onto the rocks he would not be able to avoid even if by some miracle he survived the drop. He tried clutching at the boulders he passed, but he was moving too fast and the stones were too slick for a purchase.

Inanely, Blair's last thought as he was swept over the precipice was not about the expedition, his mother or his reincarnation possibilities, but on wondering how a crocodile had wound up in a mountain river.

The chasm opened below him. He screamed in raw terror.

Another yell like a deep roar joined his own at that very moment, just as a strong arm caught Blair around the waist and yanked him sideways and up, away from the cascade. Shock made him yell again.

"It's okay, fella!" a deep voice from just above his head shouted over the water's roar. "Jim have you safe!"

Blair looked up.

A big muscular white man decked out in khaki fatigues, his face marked with black stripes, grinned down at him -- a stunningly beautiful grin in a stunningly handsome face. The arm not holding Blair like a restraining harness was wrapped around a creeper vine that was currently swinging back up toward a tree growing at the cliff's edge. "Hi, new fella," the man said. "Shouldn't belly-surf this high up stream. Only crocodile do it without breaking head."

It was a nice dream, a kind dream for his last seconds of life, being rescued by a gorgeous jungle man instead of staring in horror at the rocks he would hit any moment now...

The big handsome apparition stared ahead, and the grin vanished. "Uh oh."

Blair turned to look just as they both slammed into the tree.

It was a miracle. He'd fallen down the waterfall, landed in the rocks, and he was still alive. Everything hurt.

"You okay, new fella?"

Blair tried to open his eyes so he could find and kill the woodpecker ventilating his skull, but found the way obscured by a wet compress on his eyes and forehead. He sniffed, and decided that was a bad move -- not only did it add to the pain in his sinuses, but he smelled blood -- his own. "Oh." Must have landed on his head in the rocks -- he still thought some big Peruvian Tarzan wannabe had swooped in to save him from falling, instead of what had actually happened.

"You safe now, new fella. Jim take you to Chopec village. Just got little bang on head."

The gods preserve him from a big bang... Blair refrained from rolling his eyes because it hurt too much. "You?" he rasped. The hallucination was polite, he could at least ask how it was.

"No worries. Jim hit tree all the time," was the cheerful reply. "New friend get used to it."

Now that was an ominous phrase. "Get 'used' to it?"

"New friend looking for Chopec. Found Chopec. Stay here and learn."

Blair pulled the compress from his head and looked. Judging from the closeness he'd sensed, and the combination of smells, he found he was indeed in a hut, lying in a hammock that just cleared the ground and which swayed with his movements. The hut was close and dark, but at the doorway he saw murky daylight -- as much as ever escaped the tall trees in this part of La Montana. The people he saw outside were adorned and dressed like tribal people who had little contact with the outside world; the little conversation he heard was Quechua, but in a dialect that he could not immediately translate through his pounding head.

He could just see his clothes hanging by a fire outside, drying. Well, that would explain why he was naked.

Looks like the Chopec had found him.

Blair shifted his eyes to look at the hallucination that had saved his life. He still looked like a big muscular white man, buzz-cut and clean-shaven, in fatigues and stripes like a guerrilla fighter -- and one who could give Adonis a run for his money. But no guerrilla fighter had a grin that could light up a hut like this.

Blair found himself smiling back. This fellow didn't steal souls. Break hearts, maybe, but not steal souls. "You must be the one the Chopec call 'Enqueri,'" he said. "The one they say came from the sky."

"Enqueri" nodded vigorously. "Me just Jim. Jim come here when just a little boy. Came down from the sky all right."

"I beg your pardon?" Blair asked. "You...came here when you were a boy?"

"Uh huh," Jim said, nodding. "Jim wearing parachute. Come down here. Shaman say white boy from sky good omen for tribe. Let Jim stay here."

Blair sat up with a bit of pain and accepting the hand under his elbow. >From the sky, a parachute. Poor kid's plane must have crashed, and he was the only survivor. "Jim . . . do you remember anything that happened before you came down from the sky?"

Jim nodded, and for the first time he looked sad. "Jim with father and brother on airplane. Going on vacation. Father said only one boy go on vacation with him. Said Jim's hair too long, brother's looked nicer. Put parachute on Jim and push out door."

Blair blinked and sat back. Okay. That would explain a white boy falling from the sky -- and maybe also why a jungle man was cropped like a Marine. "And now you are a member of this tribe."

The big man nodded and smiled. "So, what new friend's name?"

"Oh, I'm Blair."

"Ohwaimblair," Jim repeated with a big grin. "Hi, Ohwaimblair."

"No, no, no," Blair said laughing. "Just Blair."

Jim nodded industriously. "Justblair."

"No no no! Blair. Sandburg."

Jim made a face. "Sandburrs! Nasty things, always getting in clothes."

"Sand. Bur. Guh!" Blair enunciated, like Thumper explaining "Bir-d" to Bambi.

"Sand Burgaa. Sand Burgaa Justblair." Jim cocked his head. "New friend have funny name. It keep getting longer."

Blair pinched his eyes shut, feeling very much like Maureen O'Sullivan. He stopped himself just before he started doing the "You Jim, Me Blair" routine, knowing he'd only be called Sand Burgaa Justblair Yujimeeblair. And if he fell into a well like poor Tikki Tikki Tembo...

He remembered the conversation with Carlos, and the title he wanted for himself one day --

He exhaled sharply, catching Jim's puzzled eye. Blair thumped his own chest. "Chief," he said simply, and thumped his chest again. "Chief!"

Jim beamed, and thumped Blair's chest, nearly toppling the smaller man. "Chief!"

Finally.

"Chief want go outside, meet Chopec?"

The Chopec he said...

"Jim, how did you know I was looking for the Chopec?"

"Jim hear you say to friends. Friends sad now. Say you died in waterfall. Jim not tell them you not dead, too busy taking you to village."

Oh, of course they would, they'd think he'd drowned or smashed to pieces on the rocks. Eli would be upset, of course, now that he'd have to take the notes himself and get Carlos to translate for --

The first part of Jim's speech hit Blair. He stared at Jim. "You heard us in camp?"

Jim nodded.

This village might not be that far from the camp, but even so no man could hear at that distance...

No ordinary man.

Damping down his rising excitement, Blair casually asked, "Jim, how did you save me so quickly?"

Jim shrugged. "Jim up tree looking for eggs when hear Chief yell. Saw Chief in water, going to waterfall."

He had heard Blair's cry over the roar of the mountain river and the booming of an excited belly-surfing crocodile. And he saw someone tumbling amid the rocks and white water, and was able to react quickly enough to literally snatch Blair away from the brink of death --

"Jim, how far can you see?" Blair hadn't realized he was now sitting up, trying to stand, completely disregarding his throbbing head and sore nose.

Jim helped him up. "Jim see good, hear good, sharpest nose in village," he said proudly.

Oh man, oh man, oh man --

"So you might say that you are a rik'karu?" Blair asked casually.

"That Jim's job all right," Jim said. "Jim village lookout. Chief hungry?"

Blair whooped and leaped into Jim's arms, locking his arms around the startled man's neck and his legs around Jim's hips. "My dissertation!" he sang, hugging the big man.

The doorway darkened.

Both Blair and Jim turned their heads to look at a painted and decorated Chopec man who leaned one shoulder in the doorway of his hut and regarded the entangled men with an amused smile. Belatedly, Blair remembered that he was naked.

[Shaman Incacha,] Jim said cheerfully, in a dialectical form of Quechua. [this one ... friend ... better.]

[Yes, I see,] Incacha said, still grinning.

As casually as he could, Blair slid to his feet, releasing Jim, and stood at parade rest before one of the most important people in the village, both hands crossed before him at groin level. (Shaman Incacha,) he said formally. (Thank you for your hospitality.)

Still grinning, Incacha said [... .. ...] to Jim, and left the doorway.

Blair slumped. Maybe he should go back and let the waterfall finish the job.

"Chief want eat something now?" Jim asked, still smiling as if nothing untoward had happened. "We not have dessert 'aishun' you ask for. Maybe potato instead?"

"Potato?" Blair looked around the hut and found a man's kilt, which he wrapped around his middle. "Sure. Why not?"

That meant eating outside, under the twinkling eyes and toothy grin of Incacha, and the giggles of Chopec women and children. Still, it was the best potato Blair had ever eaten. Maybe it was his reawakened, ravenous appetite -- or maybe it was the company he kept, Jim sitting next to him and staring as if making sure "Chief" got fed was the most important thing in his life.

I am really ready to wake up now. Blair smiled at his new friend as he finished a dried fish and reached for another potato. I mean, come on -- a jungle-man built like a Tom of Finland pictorial who treats me like royalty and just happens to be the living embodiment of my dissertation? Jeez. Only one thing's missing that would turn this into my perfect little anthro-geek fantasy --

"Chief want to be Jim's new lookout-buddy?"

Blair did a spit-take (as he was still eating potato, this was singularly unattractive). When he staggered off to find a swatch of cloth to use as a napkin he noticed that Jim had followed him. "This is a joke, right?" he gasped when he had gotten most of the potato off him.

Jim shook his head, looking bewildered. "Jim not tell joke. If Jim want tell joke, Jim tell Chief one about three hunters and armadillo." He snickered a little.

No joke. No dream -- he didn't fantasize about spitting half-eaten potato all over himself.

"Jim need lookout-buddy. Sometimes Jim forget to see when hear something too good, hit tree. Jim smell something nice, Jim there all day. Lookout-buddy hit Jim with big stick, stop Jim doing that."

The Sentinel's companion, the one who watched his back -- Burton was right! The Sentinel protected the village, but the Companion protected the Sentinel. A sensory zone-out would explain why Jim talked about 'getting used' to running into trees. Maybe there were better ways to free a Sentinel of tunnel-sensing than hitting him with a big stick.

"Jim have lookout-buddies before," the jungle man continued. "But Jim keep running them into trees when go swinging. All stop being Jim's buddies." The look of bewildered hurt on Jim's face was heart-aching.

Blair nodded, looking at the man. Both stood at the edge of the village, where the jungle met the human settlement. It seemed an appropriately symbolic place for Blair to make a big decision.

He was being offered a choice here -- break Jim's heart, or break his own head regularly by agreeing to be his "lookout-buddy," and just coincidentally spending every waking moment with a living study subject.

His still-throbbing head was telling him emphatically that no dissertation was worth being stranded in the middle of Peru with an inept vine-swinger. Even then, his head was divided -- the right side was whooping still at the appearance of a genuine Sentinel, and blowing raspberries at the spoilsport left side who didn't want to meet any more trees the way it just had.

Blair's heart, alas, was equally divided -- between longing to stay and get closer to Jim, and telling Blair that this guy was straighter than Eli and twice as clueless (but in a far more charming way). It, too, didn't want to get regularly broken.

Pain, both ways. But which way led to more knowledge, a richer life and a swifter end to his dissertation? Besides, a gay guy lusting after a hopeless straight was par for the course anyway...

He smiled at Jim. "Yes, Jim. Chief will be your new watchman-buddy." He felt something unfurl inside him at the other man's sweet and happy smile. Built like a linebacker, but sensitive as a Method actor.

Eli --

"I, I have to tell my friends. Get my things." He sat up, then sat back down blinking and rubbing his spinning head.

"Tell friends Chief alive, stay here? But Chief's head still hurt, shouldn't move much." The big man beamed. "Jim send message to friends. Get faithful doggy to carry it."

Blair stared. "You have a dog?" Did Jim's S.O.B. father chuck out the family mutt at the same time he was ditching the less-favored son?

Jim nodded, then turned and looked up into the trees, whistling loudly between his fingers. "Gus! Here, boy! Here, boy!" he shouted, and whistled again. "Come on!"

Blair stared up. A dog that climbed trees --

A big black form hit Jim and smashed him to the jungle floor, snarling like tearing cloth, its long black tail lashing. Jim was pinned under a huge black panther, yelling.

Horrified at the sudden attack, Blair looked around for a big branch to hit the creature with and distract it away from the man who'd saved his life ... when he realized that the sounds coming from Jim were not screams of pain or fear.

Jim was laughing, tussling with the big black cat, whose snarls and growls sounded like gigantic purrs as it rolled on top of Jim, pawing at him. Jim looked exactly like a man roughhousing on the lawn with his dog. "Good boy! Good boy, Gus!" he crooned as he scrambled to his feet, scratching the big cat behind its ears. The panther stroked its back against Jim's hip, its long pink tongue lolling and a look of silly bliss on its face as its long black tail waved back and forth.

Blair stared at the grinning man and the grovelling predator. "This...is your 'doggy?'"

"Uh huh." Jim patted the big panther under its jaw. "Gus Jim's big black long-tailed puppy dog!"

On further reflection, Blair realized that the only surprise he felt was that he wasn't more surprised. The beast must be a black jaguar.

"Gus take note to friends, come right back." Jim smiled. "Doggy-gram. Best way to send message in jungle."

Blair nodded, and went over to where his warm damp clothing was still drying; he began to fumble around in the pockets. "I have to write a note. Don't think I had any paper on me, maybe my pen's still in there. Can I get hold of some paper-thin bark, or a cornhusk, maybe a piece of animal hide--"

He straightened, to find Jim handing him an order card from a NeimanMarcus catalog and a handsome gold-etched ballpoint pen with the store's logo. "Free gift."

((Stoddard --
Rescued by Chopec. Injury.
Will remain in village for now.
Soon return for personal items.
Stay put.

Sandburg

))

Carlos nodded and smiled in relief at the message, printed across a slightly chewed and slobbery mail-order card in Spanish (to ensure that it would be understood by anyone from the camp). He scrawled ((Understood, will wait)) in Spanish on the reverse, signed his name and gave it back to the panther, along with a strip of dried meat. The big black cat accepted the tip and bounded off as swiftly as it had appeared, holding the card in its mouth.

"Did you drive that thing off?" Stoddard's quavering voice called from halfway up a thornbark tree. The man's eyes were tightly closed.

"The panther is gone, Senor." Carlos recited the panther-gram in Quechua to the other bearers, who smiled at the news that Blair had escaped death at the river. "We should stay here a few nights more; the rains will swell the rivers and make the bridges dangerous to cross."

Stoddard eased himself out of the tree the panther's appearance had driven him up, squawking at the pain as the thorns spattering the bark made their presence known. "You mean stay here one more night? This expedition is cursed! First the beer disappears, then that idiot Sandburg gets himself drowned, and now I can't go forward, and I can't go home! What are we going to do?"

"We stay here, Senor. Until the weather clears in a few days."

Stoddard's complaint was mercifully drowned out by the downpour.

Carlos lit a cigarette and stared into the jungle shrouded by mist and tobacco smoke. He had no desire to interfere with Chopec protected by powerful warrior spirits, and if he told Dr Stoddard the contents of the message he'd insist on heading to the village to retrieve Sandburg. Blair didn't seem to be in any danger from Enqueri -- all white men seemed to have the fool's protection. It was better to stay here and coddle Stoddard until Blair returned to deal with the man. In the meantime he and the other bearers were getting fed and paid for doing no work at all.

Carlos turned back to the tent where Yoti was pulling out a greasy pack of cards, and helped himself to one of the confiscated beers as he was dealt in. Life was good sometimes.

Blair looked around the shaman's tiny hut that had been his sickroom, under the wary eye of Incacha. Jim had said the shaman was "worried" about Blair, and he hoped nothing bad had happened; there was a distant look on the shaman's face. The hut was crowded with Incacha, Blair and Jim in it. The hut itself was uncluttered, holding only a few basics for Incacha's living: a hammock, some ayahuasca vines, bundles of sage for purification, hunting weapons neatly stacked against the wall, a well-thumbed stack of Neiman-Marcus catalogs against one corner, and what looked like part of a cockpit fuselage propped under the hammock. Blair had returned Incacha's spare kilt with many thanks, and was once again in his warm, slightly damp clothing.

Blair looked at his new friend, who seemed completely at ease in the little sacred place. "You live here, Jim?"

Jim shook his head and laughed. "Jim live in jungle now. Jim live with Incacha's family when both little boys. Incacha Jim's first lookout-buddy, then have shaman-dream and go back to village. Jim sleep here when come into village. Not sleep here much. Once Chief's head all better, Jim go back out into jungle."

Blair nodded; his head only throbbed a little now. "That won't be long, Jim. Once I get my stuff from my old camp, I can send a message with Stoddard to take back home." He could think of this as an extended sabbatical -- and an exercise in survival in the Peruvian bush. Now that the proof of his research stood within arm's reach, he could theoretically tell Stoddard what to go do with himself.

[No more idle-talk,] Incacha said sternly, staring intently at Blair. [Tell me, Enqueri.]

[Shaman Incacha,] said Jim, [I choose this one ... ... new Watcher- friend.]

[This one ... ... three days, Enqueri,] Incacha replied, the wary look still on his face. [White man ... ... world outside ... You make ... good choice ... only three days?]

[Shaman Incacha,] Blair said, and smiled to see a startled look on the shaman's face; his facility for picking up languages and dialects was an absolute necessity in his field of study, and his three days of recovery in the village had given him enough time to learn some of the basics. [I understand Watcher-friend job. I Enqueri's new Watcher- friend, do good job.]

Incacha eyed Blair steadily, though less warily with this proof of his sincerity. [White man ... can live ... jungle ... away from village?]

[I live in jungle many times. I live good with Enqueri in jungle.]

Incacha gave Blair a steady stare. [White man ... Watcher-friend job good. Know ... job? Know Watcher-friend ... Watcher?]

Blair had been getting along swimmingly by following the Quechua sentence structure logic, but that last uncertain word wasn't "befriend," "remain with" or "protect," and he couldn't tell what it was by Jim's unchanging serious expression. It was some specific verb. "Jim, what does the word [...] mean?"

"That mean lie down together, stick dick in wet place," Jim said.

Blair knew how to comport himself in situations requiring dignity and respect for authority. He was therefore able to turn and respond to Incacha without turning handsprings across the tiny hut and whooping like a crane -- as much for having Burton's theory about Sentinel- Companion ties proved right as for more personal reasons. [Shaman Incacha. I know Watcher-friend duties. I know Watcher-friend protect Watcher, Watcher-friend fuck Watcher. I do good job for Enqueri.]

[Important ... Watcher-friend fuck Watcher,] Incacha insisted, glaring as if seeking any squeamishness on Blair's part. [Watcher away ... village, not ... wife, not ... children. I know ... white man hate man-fuck-man.]

[I not hate!] Blair said indignantly. "For God's sake," he muttered to himself in English, "no one who studies Sir Richard Burton can be a hater of --"

Incacha started and said "Burton!" He began to talk fast to Jim, his face alight. When the shaman turned back to Blair, he was actually smiling, eyes crinkling, his wary air completely gone.

Completely confused, Blair looked at Jim, who was smiling happily. "What is it?"

"Long ago, man in Incacha's family fuck Sir Richard Burton when come here looking for Watchers," Jim said. "Incacha not worried any more. Anybody friend of Great-Great-Uncle Dick okay with him."

"Cool," Blair said, grinning in delight at having found one of Burton's tribes. And he was now kosher in Incacha's eyes. Naomi was right -- a little free love did wonders for breaking down social barriers.

[New Watcher-friend,] Incacha said, facing Blair; his smile was gone, but so was his wary air. [Go with Enqueri. When he watches the village, you watch him. If he ... ..., you ... him with a big stick. He will fuck you, and you will fuck him.]

[I will.] Blair almost expected Incacha to ask for the rings.

Incacha grunted in approval and sat down. That seemed to be the signal that the meeting was over. Blair followed his new test-subject and responsibility out of the hut.

"When Chief ready for jungle?"

"Let me go to my camp and get my things," Blair said.

"Jim go with you." It was not a request.

Blair looked at the big man, standing with his arms crossed and a stubborn look on his face; Jim looked exactly like a bodyguard. "All right. But stay out of sight of the camp. Some of my friends might be afraid of you."

Blair stared down at the camp from his perch in the tree overhead. This trip had been considerably safer than the last time Jim had swung him through the creepers; an occasional yell and a cuff to the side of Jim's head had snapped the man out of a couple of sense-induced zone- outs and prevented any more collisions with trees. "Here we are, Jim. You can let me go now."

Jim did just that. Fortunately, they weren't very high off the ground, and the thick undergrowth broke most of Blair's fall.

The crackling sounds and yelps of pain alerted the camp. When Blair fought his way out of the last bush, cursing heatlessly, the first person he saw was Carlos, staring at him the way a drowning man stares at an outstretched hand and grinning around his cigarette. Yoti and the other two bearers, Santo and Rique (not even the twins' mother could tell them apart) were headed in their direction.

((What passes? Is problem?)) Eli's voice called from a tent.

"Blair!" yelled Carlos and Yoti. Blair grinned and limped forward, pulling a clump of leaves from his hair.

(Thank God you're back!) Carlos said as he embraced the wayward anthropologist. Yoti clapped him on the back, his own eager asides echoing Carlos' words. (We got the panther-gram. We've stayed here waiting for you. Stoddard has been worse than ever. You're the only one who can handle him --)

"What the hell's going on? Carlos, come back here and finish polishing my--"

Eli Stoddard stood still and looked at the grinning Blair still hugging the overjoyed Peruvians. His eyes widened with shock. Then they narrowed. "Where the hell have you been, Blair?"

"Recuperating." Blair parted his hair to show the sizable lump in midforehead. "Some of the locals found me and took care of me."

(You smell of sage, Blair,) Yoti said; Carlos, who could smell nothing but his cigarettes, blinked. (You've been in a holy man's hut. You found the Chopec!)

(And you did not get torn apart by Enqueri!) Carlos added, clapping Blair's arms as if to reassure himself of Blair's solidity.

Blair laughed. (No, I didn't get torn apart by Enqueri!)

"In English, Blair, in English!" Eli snapped, shoving the Peruvians aside. "Don't forget who you are, for God's sake, or what you're doing here."

"I know what I'm doing here, Eli," Blair said calmly. "That's why I'm leaving. I just want my notes, my laptop and my bedroll." (And a couple of beers.)

(I'm afraid we drank them all.) "Like hell you're leaving," Eli said, interrupting Carlos. "This is my expedition, and you're not bailing out on me. Just show me where the natives found you, and we can track back to their village. We'll establish contact, get the data, and get out of here."

"Um, Eli...I've already 'established contact.' " Three days of recovering from his head-bang, eating Chopec food, learning Chopec language (to the amusement of the women chatting with him as they worked), playing with Chopec children. Finding the proof of a 150- year-old theory in the living, gorgeous flesh, who even now was looking down at Blair from the trees like a guardian angel designed by Michelangelo... Blair clamped his legs together and thought unerotic thoughts.

"I mean official contact, Blair, with the head of the expedition very much in charge," Eli explained in the same tone he'd use to explain multiplication to a football scholarship. "Not a student in need of rescuing because of carelessness. I'm sure you made a great first impression on them."

Blair stared at this man, born 150 years too late to play Great White Hunter among the ignorant savages as he clearly longed to do. "Fine. Let's do the official contact. Let me take you to meet their leader." As he turned to collect his gear, he said very softly, [I take friend see Incacha. Friend not stay long, go home. I stay with you.]

It was harder and took longer to walk all the way to the Chopec village, Eli cursing and stumbling and complaining all the way because an alpaca couldn't get through the growth and he had to walk. Blair caught glimpses of the presence above him that followed both men -- until he heard a slamming sound and an "Oof!" and saw a heavy body thudding to the ground just in front of them.

"Jesus Christ!" Eli yelped, leaping back about a foot as Jim got to his feet, brushing himself off unconcernedly. Blair's sudden fear for Jim was tempered by swift amusement; he wasn't the only one who had trouble making good first impressions.

"Hi, new fella!" Jim said to Eli, and grinned at him. "New fella Chief's friend?"

Eli stared at the man before him in disbelief. "What the hell is this?"

"Me the hell Jim," the jungle man responded cheerfully. "You go Chopec village, I come with."

"Blair, there's a gun in my satchel, get it out," Eli hissed.

"Jim is a member of the village, they adopted him when he was a kid lost in the jungle," Blair growled.

Eli glared at the big man who seized a vine with a whoop and continued on ahead. "Ever since he was a kid? He looks more like an AWOL than an adoptee, Sandburg. He probably survived some CIA operation here, and now he's holed up unable to go home -- "

"Eli, get a grip. That is the dumbest explanation I've ever heard."

After another half-hour of slogging (and two more falls from Jim), they reached the village. "Thank God," Eli muttered, stopping to comb his hair and brush the dirt and branches from his clothes. "Let's just go in, take a few notes, and get out." ((Is there a king here?)) he shouted in Spanish.

The rest of the visit went as badly as Blair had feared, and his dissembling ability stood him in good stead when he played interpreter for Eli. "We came here to check you out" became (We wished to visit you); a catty aside of "Love the skirt, fella" became (My friend admires your wrap very much); "What's with the big ape?" became (Stoddard also greets the village Sentinel); "Let's get out of here before they make us sleep over" became (We would be honored to sleep in your hut, but Stoddard needs to return to his men in our camp). Even then he could do nothing about Eli's expressions or voice-tone, and often they cut through Blair's words to the stone-faced Incacha; Jim, confused but angry, stood by the shaman with arms folded and head cocked. As there were no apes in South America, Jim didn't take offense at Stoddard's remark because he didn't understand it.

To the offer of food and drink Eli muttered, "Oh, good, I always wanted a bout of dysentery," and Blair had to explain that Eli was ill and couldn't eat much at the moment; he himself sat and ate with Incacha, ignoring the muttered "Big mistake," from Eli beside him. Seething with anger, Blair concentrated on his food and ate for two.

"Chief want yam?" Jim offered the roasted tuber to Blair, and smiled.

Blair basked in that smile and smiled back as he accepted the gift. He could see Incacha smiling at the two of them as well. But as he turned back to his plate, he saw Eli staring at the two of them too, and he was not smiling. From then on, Stoddard stared at Blair as if he was a cockroach crawling up his leg. Oh God, trust Eli to be on the ball about this.

As Blair was escorting Eli from the village, both men saw some mothers slicking down their children's bowl-cut hair with some greasy black residue. Some men also wore greasy black stripes on their arms or faces. The compound they used was lying in a wooden bowl, black and viscous and shiny. It smelled like crude oil.

"What an interesting paint!" Eli said, in the first friendly tone of voice he'd had all day. "How do you make it?"

"That black-water," Jim said before Blair could stop him, and shrugged. "Jim find it one day hunting, bring gourd full of it back. Come out of ground somewhere. Good for starting fires, painting hair and face -- can't drink it. Yeech."

Blair's heart dropped like a stone when he saw the look on Eli's face. This scenario had been played out too many places in too many ways, and it always started like this. It always ended with beautiful places turned into ugly scars pumping out money for a few wealthy white men, irreparable environmental damage, and the people who lived here dead or gone. "Eli, this is their home, their country. We are anthropologists, we came here to establish contact with the people-- "

"And didn't you succeed, honey," Eli lisped viciously. "No wonder you were gone for three days, you were off getting humped by your new butt-buddy."

Blair counted to ten, backwards, in Hovito. "Dr Stoddard, the fact remains that this land is theirs, it has been theirs for centuries, millennia. You know what happens when developers show up -- fortune- hunters will wipe these people off the map if it'll put money in their pockets. We are here to study, not to interfere, we don't have that right--"

"Don't tell me what I can do, faggot!" Eli snarled and took a step toward Blair, ugliness contorting his face, hands reaching out to Sandburg's throat. "Filthy perv--" Suddenly his face became a sickly, pale blank. He raised his open hands and backed off.

Blair turned around to see what Eli was looking at and bumped into a brick wall. Jim was standing immediately behind Blair and staring at Stoddard, just staring, his hands open and at his sides; but that stare was enough to send Eli crawling away, terrified. Clumsy as he was, Jim knew his own strength -- and he knew that a warrior does not battle gnats.

Eli laughed a little, covering his fury at being made to back down, and headed back toward the camp. "Well, this has been fun but I really have to get back to civilization now. Don't even think of following me, faggot, I've got the gun and I'll use it on you. When I think about you sleeping in my tent all this time, probably slobbering over me, whacking off about me..."

Blair made his face as stony as Jim's, hiding his own fury. Fucking conceited het-boys always assumed gay men couldn't resist them.

"Go ahead and stay here, dear. Have fun playing Indian with your new -- friend," the last word sneered with homophobic vitriol. "But if you really like these people, you'll tell them to move now, before things have to get ugly. Don't cry over them, Sandburg -- this would have happened eventually." And Eli was gone.

Oh God. Oh God. This village was doomed.

"Why Chief look so sad?" Jim asked, turning to Blair and looking bewildered. "Crazy fella gone."

"Eli will come back with greedy men and lots of guns," Blair said bitterly. If he hadn't led Eli to this village... "That 'black-water' is oil -- he'll come back with an army to chase you off this land and dig it up. You'll be lucky if they don't shoot you, or force you to work here digging it up. The only thing the village can do is move, now, before Eli comes back."

Jim laughed. "Him have to get out of jungle first." He threw back his head and snarled like a jaguar, loud and long. Instantly Gus dropped from the trees and sat alertly before Jim, tongue lolling. "Gus make sure crazy fella not get out of La Montana," Jim said. "That right, boy?" he crooned, scratching the panther's ears.

Blair was appalled at the implication. "Jim, you can't be serious!"

"Jim's job protect village," Jim said stubbornly. He fixed Blair with a piercing ice-blue stare, and for the first time Blair saw the ruthlessness in that playful countenance. "Chief, we work fast, save village. Yes?"

He was an accessory to murder if he did this. And if he did nothing, he was an accessory to genocide. He was Arjuna, the arrow was in his bow -- Oh sweet Krishna, which fate is worse for my karma?

"Yes," Blair blurted out. "Yes, I'll help you save the village."

"Good." Jim held out a slobbery Neiman-Marcus subscription card. "Write fast, Chief."

Thus it was that while Eli slogged his way through brush and bramble, greedy thoughts of Dallas-like wealth seething through his brain, an emergency panther-gram bounded past him overhead, and beat him back to camp. The card Carlos, Yoti and the other bearers took from Gus read:

Los indios Chopecos estan enojado.
Enqueri esta muy enojado.
Vueltan al su pueblo muy pronto --
No buscan para nosotros!

((The Chopec are angry. Enqueri is very angry. Go home, fast -- don't look for us!))

They didn't even stop long enough to take down the tents.

So when Eli Stoddard finally huffed and gasped his way back to the campsite, he found it a ghost-tent bereft of men and alpacas. After three hours of screaming, cursing the bearers and their ancestry, shouting about lawyers, and howling about the wealth just out of his reach, he calmed down enough to take stock of what he had. The food was still there, as was the clothing and shelter. But since he'd spent most of his journey on an alpaca complaining instead of observing, Eli was stuck there until he learned to read the trail maps left behind and somehow make his way out of the jungle on foot, without a guide or a pack-animal.

Of course, he could always return to the Chopec village. If he dared.

"Good doggie, good boy, Gus!" Jim looked up from tussling with his faithful panther, beaming. "Crazy fella not get out of La Montana now."

Blair sat under a tree, nearly flattened with relief, watching Jim hug and croon to Gus. "For a minute there, I thought -- " He faded off and shrugged. "You know."

"Not know. What thought?" Jim asked, puzzled. Gus looked puzzled too -- and looking very much like a big silly black dog with Jim's arms locked around his neck. Blair couldn't imagine this particular panther attacking or killing anybody.

"It's not important." Leaving Eli an abandoned camp was a drastic step -- but it would work splendidly as a form of solitary confinement. Maybe the poor schmuck would even learn to fill his own water jugs and make his own bedroll. They could always drop by, unseen and unheard, to see how he was doing.

Jim stood up, and Gus bounded away into the trees again. "We go in morning, Chief."

Incacha came by, and smiled when he saw that Eli was gone. To Blair he said, [You have what you need?]

His equipment, his bedroll... Blair hoisted his satchel. [Yes. I help Watcher, I learn Watcher ways.]

[No soul-stealers!] Incacha said sternly, glaring at some of the heavy things festooning Blair.

Blair knew better than that, and firmly denied having cameras. [I only use words.] He held up his laptop.

Incacha looked at the device carefully, running his hand over the textured surface, then over the compact keyboard, fingering the letters. [Does this ... have ... ... ?]

Blair looked at Jim and shrugged.

"Incacha ask if magic writing-box have Pentium processor."

Blair booted up his machine from the battery so Incacha could see the screen. The shaman nodded approvingly when he saw the logo, and said [Powerful medicine].

"Yeah," Blair said, grinning. It was like recognizing a shaman by the condor painted at his throat.

Jim spent the night with Incacha; Blair spent the night in another hut. Jim and Incacha were old friends -- and, judging from the laughs and playful growls and scuffling sounds from the shaman's hut that night, they were really, really good friends. Blair felt left out, but wouldn't begrudge Jim one night with the shaman.

The next morning Jim met Blair at the morning cookfire, ate with him, then simply said, "We go, Chief."

[Goodbye,] Blair said to the shaman, shouldered his goods, and trotted after the big jungle man. The rest of the village called out to them to travel safely and keep the Chopec safe; women loaded them down with baskets of yams, potatoes and dried fish. Blair also observed that some women, stocky towheaded children clinging to their skirts, called soft endearments to Jim as he left, and Jim responded in the same way to all of them.

When both Sentinel and his new friend had vanished into the brush, the villagers headed to the shaman's fire, and Incacha turned on the cricket match. Soon the Peruvian jungle echoed to Chopec cries of "Howzat!"

"How far can you see, Jim?"

Both men stood on a cliff that overlooked a wide, deep valley, beside a tumbling mountain river that sprayed over the edge into a waterfall The mountains across the gorge were as thickly covered in undergrowth as was the cliff they stood upon. The morning sun had not touched the bottom of the valley yet, and the day was already steaming.

"See monkey in that tree over there." Jim pointed.

Blair looked through his binoculars across the crevasse to the jagged peak on the opposite side, easily a couple of miles away. "What tree?"

"Big one, top one. Ewwww." Jim made a face. "Why monkey do that in public?"

Blair didn't ask what Jim saw. "What about your sense of smell? How far does it range?"

Jim looked away from the gorge, disgusted. "Can smell what monkey doing."

"Hearing?"

"Hear Chopec back in village, yelling." Jim grinned widely. "Manchester just bowl a century!"

Blair pursed his lips and nodded, making notes. "Sight, hearing, smell," he murmured aloud. "Taste?"

Jim leaned over and licked Blair's forehead.

Blair nearly jumped out of his skin -- then had to keep himself from jumping Jim.

"Chief brush against yellowberry plant, creeper, and thornbark branch. Like Blue Elephant beer, put too much pepper on yam yesterday. Not fuck in a long time."

Blair finally had to shake himself from a near zone-out, gaping like a guppy at the grinning man. "That's good," he managed at just above a whisper. "Very good." He turned aside, hunching over to keep his cock from strangling in his heavy jeans.

"Chief want fuck Jim?" Jim could have been asking if "Chief" wanted another yam.

Blair blinked hard and shook his head, trying to clear it. His cock was begging and pleading, reminding him of that third part of the job description... But their first duty was to protect the village. "Yes, Jim, very much," he managed to whimper. But not right now, we both have work to do. Tonight we can do that."

Jim beamed and thumped Blair on shoulder. "Chief good lookout-buddy. Smart fella." Without further words the big jungle man picked up Blair, marched over to a rushing river, and plonked both of them down up to the waist. Blair screeched at the impact of day-old mountain runoff on his nether regions, causing a responding cacophony from the howlers and birds. He scrambled out of the river and glared up at the dripping, grinning man hauling himself out of the cataract.

"Now dicks not bother us," Jim said simply, and shook himself. "Chief want to know more?"

Judging from the way the icy water had sent it hiding, he'd be lucky if he ever found it again... The study, the study. "So, Jim," Blair cleared his throat and took up his notepad again, finding that he could think with his big head again. "What were your other lookout-buddies like?"

Jim led both men on a hike through the trees. "Sometimes Jim's lookout-buddies women, sometimes men. Men stop when run into tree too much. Women stop when get pregnant or run into tree too much. All go back to village, get married."

"But you yourself don't get married?" Blair scribbled away in his notebook.

"Lookout stay away from village." Jim smiled with nothing lecherous in it at all. "Jim make three, four kids. Maybe good lookouts someday."

That would explain those burly little Chopecs who all looked like they should be nicknamed Butch... So the Sentinel remained apart from village life, not allowed the static life of marriage. But the Companion could be female or male, any Sentinel-sired children raised by others; this ensured that the vital gene was continued despite the hazardous duty of the Watcher.

"Did you like your other lookout-buddies, Jim?"

"Jim like them all. They not like Jim so much -- hit too many trees. All back in village, but one."

"One?"

"Incacha Jim's first lookout-buddy. One night Incacha walk Snake Path in dream; go back to village next day, start shaman training. Next one Achuni. Achuni special friend; Jim like him since teenager. Achuni like Jim too. Good lookout-buddy, fuck Jim sweet. Not mind hitting trees." Jim looked very sad and angry.

"What happened to Achuni, Jim?" Blair asked gently.

"One day Jim see tree-cutters with guns, go back with Achuni to warn village. Achuni shot by tree-cutter, shot dead. Jim stuck there smelling blood two whole days before new buddy come and hit Jim with big stick. Jim not save Achuni, tree-cutters keep working. Village move deeper into jungle. After that, Jim swear village never go without lookout again."

Blair frowned, his own righteous anger rising. They'd taken care of Eli for the time being, but the damn loggers and ranchers were moving in here, too; he'd seen the signs on his way up the mountain. "Jim, that won't happen again. I promise to be a good buddy for you," he found himself saying. "We'll keep the Chopec safe together."

Whoa there, wunderkind, some small sane part of his brain was snapping, I thought we were looking for a dissertation, not a commitment! But he countered, One and the same. My dissertation stands at my side.

Jim smiled again. "Jim like Chief a lot. Chief like Jim?"

Blair beamed and rested a hand on a shoulder like a flying buttress. He'd itched to see this gorgeous man naked since he'd first seen him, but Jim's sweet temperament and strong sense of duty touched him even more profoundly. "Yes, Jim. Chief like Jim a lot." He was swept up into a hug that made his ribs creak.

Blair spent the rest of the day asking questions, running tests of Jim's abilities and filling an entire notebook with tiny scribbling, typing as much into the laptop as he could before the battery expired. He'd gotten more Sentinel information in one day than he'd acquired in two years of interviews and study. By nightfall he was exhausted, mosquito-bitten, bramble-scratched, ravenous, and happy as a clam at low tide. After a shared meal of dried fish and potatoes at the foot of a tall sturdy tree Blair went to the river for a drink and wash, and found Jim halfway up the tree when he returned. "Chief come up, sleep with Jim!" the jungle man called.

Blair nodded. It made sense -- high up was better for a Sentinel. Shouldering his gear, he scrambled up after Jim through the thick branches and dense foliage. He could probably tie together a respectable makeshift hammock out of all this greenery, the branches were thick enough that he shouldn't fear falling.

He pushed through the last clump of vegetation, and stared.

The thick tree had been cut flat and level at a height of about 30 feet off the ground, leaving outlying branches growing up and around a space in the middle, and rough boards laid across the leveled trunk supported a small neat little hut hidden by the dense greenery around it. Woven reed mats covered the hut's floor; a roof thatched with broad leaves stretched past the board walls to mingle with the growing branches and form a covered lanai all around. A big hammock swayed lightly within, its support ropes extending out opposing windows to terminate around sturdy growing branches. There wasn't much else in the little hut.

Jim stood on the wooden platform just beside the hut's entrance, looking proud and shy at the same time, and gave Blair a hand up to stand beside him.

Blair looked out through the branches. What a view -- and he didn't even have Sentinel vision. The tree was situated on a rise just at the crest of the mountain, and the entire valley was visible from here. The hut creaked and swayed a little, and he accepted Jim's hand as he adjusted to the wind's tree-tossing antics. "You live here?"

The Sentinel nodded. "Good for keeping eye on things, keeping village safe. Jim like sleeping up high."

Blair smiled. "A loft apartment. I love it."

Jim smiled back. "Good. Jim hungry."

"But we just ate -- "

Jim pounced.

It wasn't the wind that made the tree sway violently half the night; not Gus who produced the snarling animal sounds that rent the jungle night, nor howler monkeys who screamed an echoing reply.

As the torrid sun pushed through the branches to warm the hut the following morning, Blair oozed out of the hammock and from under Jim's arm and tottered to the lanai to relieve himself, somewhat stunned to waken and find himself a mortal man still. Only felt like he'd died and gone to heaven -- a Muslim paradise, full of happy muscular angels with buzz-cuts bending themselves double and yelling with joy at every thrust...

Jim emerged from the hut. Blair looked his fill as the big man yawned and stretched mightily, a fatuous smile spreading over his face at the splendid sight. It was such a fucking relief not to constantly rein in his natural roving eye around other men. And Jim in his natural state was definitely worthy of a roving eye.

Jim looked over at Blair and flashed the same sweet smile that had plucked at Blair's heart from the moment he'd been saved from the waterfall. "Chief fuck Jim sweet." He strode over, gave the anthropologist a one-armed squeeze, and jumped off the platform still holding on to Blair.

Blair yelled in terror as they plummeted to the ground -- till Jim's free hand caught a branch that bowed nearly double, slowing their fall till they bobbed a foot off the ground. Jim let go of the whipping branch and both men landed lightly on the jungle floor. Jim rubbed his ear and looked reproachfully at Blair as he let go and padded off to the rushing river nearby for a drink and quick wash. Blair shook his head ruefully, and followed his test subject's lead. This time Blair only leaned back when a crocodile came shooting past, bellowing in excitement as it belly-shot the rapids on its way down the mountain. "So, what do we do today, Jim?"

The man looked thoughtful, scratching his rough chin. "What Chief like for dinner? Water-snake, or monkey?"

They were hunting today? "Aren't we supposed to watch the village?"

Jim gave Blair a surprised look, as if he'd asked a stupid question. "Jim and Chief watch village from river or jungle today, while hunting. Still have to eat."

Blair had eaten both species as a cultural anthropologist minding his manners in someone else's home. He was no vegetarian like his mother, but monkey was just a little too close to his own DNA for comfort. "Snake."

Jim nodded and smiled. "Not too big. Can't eat it all. Gus not like snake." Blair supposed the leftovers would be a bit of a problem in a place with no coolers.

Water-python hunting was simple enough; one stood beneath a likely tree by the river's edge with a crude net of woven branches, and the other shinnied up the tree shaking limbs. They took turns climbing, and by the end of the day Sandburg was making his way up trees that wouldn't bear Jim's weight with as much ease as Gus bounding from branch to branch 30 feet off the ground.

Jim's superb senses were actually a drawback as often as they were a help -- he'd fixate on a beautifully-plumed bird or his hearing would get locked into the rushing tumble of the mountain cascade. Blair soon learned the warning signs of Jim zoning out on him, and would call the man back from his dazed reverie with his hands and his voice. "Because Chief doesn't want to hit Jim with a big stick," he explained to Jim's puzzled query about the change in watchman-buddy procedure.

At one time early in the afternoon, Blair looked up at the rustling branches and saw what looked like half the tree coming down on him, a mountain of coiled body. He yelled and ran like hell; the anaconda that hit the ground with a thud he could feel just missed him. Jim hit the ground almost at the same time, yelling "Chief! Chief!"

"I'm fine, Jim," Blair said nearby, gasping at the close call. He was caught up in strong arms and squeezed hard. "Jim, Jim I'm fine, I got out of its way."

"Jim not see, Jim looking for smaller snake! Chief could have been crushed!" Beside the two men the world's biggest snake shifted its barrel-thick body sprawled all over the ground, gave them an evil look for dislodging its perch, and began the long, arduous climb back into the branches to wait for an unlucky pig or calf once again.

Jim hung his head. "Jim not good protector for Chief."

Blair looked at the hangdog expression that fit poorly on that heroic profile. "What are you talking about, Jim? That's your job, to keep the village safe. You're doing it well."

"Not for village! For Chief." Jim stared into the confused eyes. "Jim save Chief's life. Jim responsible for Chief now. Protect Chief. Go where Chief go."

The Chinese believed that, too, as did many other human cultures. Preventing someone's death meant you'd become part of their destiny, and had to continue your responsibility for that person's extended life...

Oh, man, what had he taken on? What about when he had to leave?

Blair consigned his thoughts to later, and rested a hand on Jim's shoulder. "It's all right, Jim. I didn't get half a ton of anaconda on my head, I'm fine." He smiled. "That one was definitely too big for us to eat."

It worked. Jim laughed and thumped Blair on the back. "Chief funny fella."

By nightfall their hunt had been successful, and they were back under Jim's tree having a Chopec-style weenie roast. The python was stringy and tough, and a welcome respite from fish and yams; Blair politely declined his host's offer of the snake's brain and let Jim have the treat.

This time, once they'd bathed at the river and doused the cookfire, it was Blair who led the climb into the tree-hut.

They fell into a routine. By day they patrolled a distance from the village, methodically quartering the area; Blair asked questions and conducted experiments on Jim's abilities, besides observing them in action. They hunted or fished or foraged for their meals. And when the dark fell upon them they returned to the tree-hut to eat, and their nighttimes were spent in wild abandon as they learned each other's abilities in another forum.

Sometimes Gus came at Jim's call to take a panther-gram back to the village, informing everyone about game movements and how the birds were flying, warning about visible cook-fire smoke, asking Incacha to turn down the cricket match. Sometimes Gus came and the two men just tusselled with the black jaguar exactly as if with a big powerful dog. We must look like Siegfried and Roy, Blair thought, laughing as he tried to pull his forearm from Gus' gentle but unbreakable mouth grip even as Gus batted him with his big sheathed paws and Jim tried to pull Gus away from behind.

Several weeks passed in this fashion. They returned to the village once, the morning when Jim smelled rain coming, to tell the women to begin the fall planting; both came away laden with fresh yucca-flour bread and fish. To Blair's astonishment, they spent the afternoon swimming in the bustling mountain river; here again, Jim could see, hear or smell trouble coming and get both of them out of it. But when Jim interrupted their ducking game to dive and emerge grinning, holding a writhing snake which he promptly tossed further downstream, saying "Heard poison snake coming," Blair decided he'd had enough swimming. They dried off at their campfire, dozed, eaten their evening meal and turned in for the night -- just as the first fat raindrops pattered on the leaves of the hut's roof. They spent the night riding out the storm, snug and dry, the hammock swaying with the wind-jostled branches as well as with passion. Jim's one blanket was a touch threadbare, but Jim himself was built like a brick furnace; both were warm enough.

Jim's sweetness was evident in Blair's arms too; this big bruiser, who looked like the roughest trade of all, had not a single inhibition about what men were supposed to do to each other in bed -- or what noises men were supposed to make, or what positions they had to assume. Blair had never before had such a playful or responsive male lover.

"What Chief's home like?"

Blair, pulling a fishbone from his mouth, looked across the cookfire to see Jim's direct gaze, his back to the tree, his arms around his knees. "The city I come from?"

Jim nodded. "Jim not so dumb. Know about big cities. Don't remember them."

That's right, that wonderful father of his and his favored brother...

"Cities are like very, very big villages with very tall huts, packed full of many people living together like bees in a tree. But they don't get along like bees do -- they fight among themselves too, like warring tribes that have to live in the same hut."

Jim made a face. "Why Chief live like bee?"

"Because cities can be wonderful too, like a big feast that goes on around you, even around the warring people. I've lived in both, but I was born in a city, and I know how to get along in one.

"I think everywhere is pretty much the same. There are tradeoffs. Cities don't have tsetse flies, but they do have toxic spills, which can be just as deadly to people. No crocodiles, but lots and lots of cars -- a lot faster than those machines the oil-men use, and a lot of them are even bigger and heavier. Lots of people who don't get enough to eat, who can't get what they need because they're poor."

Jim nodded. "People in place with bad hunting, no good for planting, other tribes not want to trade with them."

"Exactly. City-life is a trade with jungle-life. People don't hunt or fish, but they have to find work to do so they can get money to trade for what they need." Blair scratched his chin, now well-covered with a dark bristly beard; Jim was fascinated with the growth, something unseen in Chopec males.

"Like matching turbo-powered cigarette boats, candy-apple red," Jim said. "Designer cars. Pentium processors. See what city like in Incacha's books."

"And catalogs like that make city people think they need more stuff than they really do," Blair said. "Those kind of things are like...like a bird with too many tailfeathers. It's a different kind of jungle, that's all. Very different." He reached over to break off more catfish from the specimen roasting over the coals. "But it can be beautiful, and a wonderful place to live and work."

"Chief miss city?"

A pang went straight through Blair. "Yes," he said simply. "But I have an important job to do here now, Jim. I'm your watchman-buddy. And I'm learning about your abilities. For now, this is my home."

Jim nodded; but he looked troubled and distracted.

That night Blair lay in Jim's arms, not sleeping, his mind going over and over everything. The expedition was way off schedule by now. What horror stories were Carlos and the other bearers spreading? Were he and Eli declared missing, presumed dead? If Jim felt obligated as he'd said, how could he tear the man between his duty as village watchman and following "Chief"? Was his only option to stay here forever?

Blair missed the accoutrements of high life he'd grown accustomed to on previous expeditions -- toilet paper, food besides fish and starchy tubers, a lukewarm beer, a glowing laptop (his own having finally finished out the battery, stuffed full of his new Sentinel notes). He declined shaving with Jim's big hunting knife, and he felt shaggy and unkempt as he always did when he let his facial hair grow.

Jim sighed in his sleep and tightened his secure hold on Blair in the cozy hammock. Well, granted, there were advantages to this situation...

But Blair couldn't help thinking of the life waiting for him outside of La Montana; his dissertation, his mother, friends, colleagues,books (reading-withdrawal ached in his body like a smoker's nicotine-fit -- he'd finished all six he'd brought with him on the expedition and was starting to reread them), 16-ounce double-latte espressos, hot showers, cold beer...

He firmly and deliberately stopped the parade of self-pity and settled back in Jim's arms, in this hut that was his home for now (his gear had certainly made a clutter of Jim's pristine little sleeping-place). He was here now -- here was where he had to be, for now -- and tomorrow would worry about itself.

One day not long afterward, the two men ventured out to the very edge of the cleared jungle that overlooked a rusty drill-rig at the bottom of the valley. "That's where you get the 'black-water,' isn't it?" Blair asked.

Jim nodded. Then he frowned. "People moving down there."

Blair cursed -- had those oil-baron dicks dived through the loopholes to start up again, or were those wildcatters down there? "All right, see if you can tell me what you can about them."

Jim settled into concentration, Blair keeping a hand on his shoulder. "Men with guns, talking, smoking. Say estamos ricos."

((We're rich.)) Damn wildcatters -- they didn't care what or who they destroyed as long as they escaped with fat wallets. "How many men?"

"See four down there. Hear two, three more." Jim shook his head. "One speak English." He frowned in anger. "Crazy fella down there."

Eli. Oh fuck -- they hadn't checked in on him for a few days, he must have gone out looking for soldiers or intercepted them here. "Are you sure, Jim?"

"See him. Crazy fella all right. Talking to soldiers. Looking up here. Pointing at us. Soldiers pointing guns--"

Blair yanked Jim backwards with him just as the bullets stang past, inches from where they'd dived. "The village!" he yelled, shaking Jim a little to dispel the rest of the zone. "We have to get back and get them to hide!" Poor bastards would lose everything -- except their lives.

"Chief right," Jim said grimly, and whipped around to slither through the long grass back to the jungle. Blair crawled beside him, trying not to notice the bullets pinging from behind them.

Once in the jungle proper, Jim caught Blair up in one arm and took a running leap at a vine, grunting once as he swung into the trees. Blair turned and saw the reason for the grunt; blood was running down Jim's swinging arm. "You've been shot!"

"Bullet sting arm. Just hurt very much," Jim said matter-of-factly. "Jim get worse hurt playing with Gus." His holding arm tightened around Blair. "Chief save Jim's life now."

So now he had to go where Jim went, just as Jim had to go where Blair went. Oy vey. What did the flow-chart on that responsibility meter look like?

[Soldiers coming! Take everything and hide!] Jim roared even before they approached the village. Women gathering roots and seeds cried out, snatched up their children and fled to the village for the other children and a few belongings. Men ran back from the dense jungle, blow-pipes and crossbows swinging from their hands, some clutching felled birds or monkeys.

[Go deep in jungle, go up!] Blair shouted. [Go high in mountain!]

Once at the village, Jim and Blair became two more sets of arms, loading baskets, grabbing frightened toddlers, dousing fires. Incacha emerged from his hut, wearing all his weapons, catalogs bulging out of a rattan sack over his shoulder. [Enqueri, you will lead us into the mountains?] he asked.

"Jim, we need to send a message down into the city about Eli, and get the authorities up here to stop him." For all the good that would do -- and good luck finding cops or soldiers down there who wouldn't join Eli in pillaging the valley. But something official had to be done. Eli and those soldiers knew that Blair and this village were the only things between him and an unexploited oil-field. "What about Gus?"

"No doggy-gram to city!" Jim snapped. "City people kill Gus, make fur coat out of him!"

Damn, he was right...Blair had been wandering through the Chopec world a little too long or he'd have thought of that for himself.

[The world outside must not hear about us,] Incacha said sternly. [That will only bring more soldiers, more guns, and the death of all the Chopec. It is better to fight and die this way, than watch everything here destroyed.]

"Jim, how many people were in that valley altogether?"

"Seven. Crazy fella, six soldiers."

Six soldiers. Probably mercenaries looking for wildcatters who needed personal guards, or who'd broken off from another army. "Then we have seven people to stop," Blair said grimly. And he knew what "stop" meant this time -- the soldiers must not escape to bring reinforcements. And Blair would take Eli back to the States under citizen's arrest.

Jim shook his head. "Jim and Chopec have seven people to stop. Chief leave mountain, get away from crazy fella."

It was like a physical blow. "Jim, I have to go where you--"

"Crazy fella hate Chief. Jim see." Jim's arms folded and his face set into a mulish obstinacy. "Jim not want any more watchman-buddies killed, ever. Chief go away, not come back."

"But, Jim, your abilities -- you need me, how will you --?"

[Enqueri is right,] Incacha said. [We need him here. I will be his watchman-friend until a new one is found for him. Go.]

And every second he delayed endangered everyone. God, not even enough time to say goodbye... [I know the way. I am going.] And he would find a way to get that son of a bitch arrested for this.

"Chief be careful," Jim said stoutly, but his lower lip quivered. He turned and melted into the jungle growth, along with the rest of the village, heading up the mountain peak.

"Jim be careful," Blair replied in a Sentinel-soft whisper, his own eyes hurting. He headed down the mountain, his pack thumping on his back, going down toward the path he and the expedition had taken up here; he moved fast, trying to outrun his grief at this hasty parting, the sense of loss deeper than the regret of losing an anthropological find.

If he hurried, he could make the three-day uphill hike last less than a day downhill. Then send the word out about Eli Stoddard on line -- maybe via someone from the University of Lima, if he could access a modem and log on from a city outlet -- warn the right people about Dr Stoddard's methods and his attitudes about local indigenous cultures.

Blair made good time straight down the mountain, half running, half creeper-swinging with all the nonchalance of a gibbon; something else he'd learned here. In less than an hour he'd intersected the path that had brought him up the mountain. Now he would really make tracks down La Montana.

That was, as soon as he got away from the unsmiling man in khaki who stepped away from the underbrush to point a rifle at him. And the smugly-grinning Eli who emerged to stand beside the gunman, waving his own pistol at Blair. "Hello, faggot," Eli said.

The attack on the mountain Indians had started out well, with five men with guns hunting people armed only with dart-blowers and primitive crossbows. It was an inevitable end the five had worked toward; men with guns were the common currency of so many little jungles.

Pausing only to set fire to the village, the five men chased the Indians up into the mountains where they could be easily cornered and shot -- the men, at least; Stoddard wanted the women and children unharmed to do the unskilled heavy work required to produce oil from the pump they'd found.

But something kept going wrong. For one thing, the paths up the mountain were strewn with glossy pages displaying magnificent and expensive items for sale; they skidded and slipped on the slick pages and had to resort to machete-ing new paths through the brush, which slowed them down.

Then the second attack came. From out of nowhere came a yell, a a great thudding sound and a muffled scream from Jesu`s at the back. The other four whipped around and saw a tall white man yelling as he swung into the trees from a creeper vine, Jesu`s tucked under one arm. Then they heard Jesu`s scream again, and the unmistakeable sound of two bodies hitting a tree head-on, and the thud of two bodies hitting the ground.

When they started to go over to the tree, a hail of arrows and huntingdarts peppered them from the other direction, spiced with a few flung stone axes. One axe succeeded in flattening Henrique. There was nothing to shoot at. The thick growth in the mountainside hid everyone; they could only fire their rifles in the general direction of the arrows.

There was another yell, a thud, a scream from Marti`n, and another rapidly-vanishing sight of a tall white man swinging into the trees. This time they fired after both of them -- and from the scream and long string of profanity, they hit Marti`n.

"Enqueri," whispered Mario. He had heard the stories too.

Jose crossed himself. "Let's shoot that fucker next time he shows." The two set up back to back, guns at the ready to fire at the next sound or movement.

[Enqueri, the madman is not here with these soldiers,] Incacha said in a Sentinel-whisper. [I think he is hunting Chief.] Beside him were the two unconscious men, securely trussed and gagged; Jesu`s' nose still trickled a little blood.

[Chief will be safe all the way down the mountain,] Jim responded nearly soundlessly.

"I don't think you realize how much trouble you're in, Eli," Blair said coolly. The fear he felt at being at gunpoint was nearly swamped by the rage and contempt he felt for his erstwhile employer.

"Silencio, mariposa," snapped the gunman, who looked as if he wanted to empty his rifle into Blair and then spit on the corpse. ((Quiet, fairy.)) Eli had obviously told this guy what kind of man they were hunting, using that brutal Latino machismo as a weapon against him.

"Not yet, Juan," Eli snapped at the man, who subsided, though keeping the sneer on his face. So Eli had a new interpreter. "Now, Blair, you should really show me a little more respect. After all, I survived on my own for three weeks, because those stinking porters you hired deserted me. I ran into Juan and his boys when I went for water, and I convinced them that I had something better than coca leaves to pay them with. Juan used to work security for Cyclops before they were shut down by tree-huggers -- he knows what kind of money comes in that way. Once his boys take care of the locals this area is ours.

"It's progress, Sandburg," Eli continued reasonably, his face displaying the trademark expressionlessness of the sociopath justifying self-benefitting atrocities. Juan's face had the hard look of a soldier who enjoyed his work too much. "The Chopec were doomed the moment we discovered them."

"Eli, do you think I came by myself?" Blair said scornfully. "Jim's heading here even now with reinforcements. You were right, you know. He is a CIA plant -- they dropped him here to drill the tribesmen and teach them how to use rifles to defend this pass. You won't get far."

"Funny thing, Blair. I didn't see a single gun in the village when I was there. Nice lie." Eli flashed a grin. "That always was a specialty of yours -- must be why your initials are B.S. No, your pet buttfucker may put up a decent fight but not against my army. If he's smart he'll run and keep running."

"I noticed you didn't exactly look in the huts when you visited last time. You just stayed long enough to insult everyone." Including me, Blair did not add. "So what's your plan? You change your name to William Walker, make yourself emperor here, bully and browbeat everyone poorer than you and kiss the asses of everyone richer than you? Not a big change from before --"

"Marico`n!" Juan snarled ((Faggot!)), reversed his rifle and pulled it back to smash Blair with the butt-end. He knew better English than Eli did Spanish.

"Halt!" Eli shouted, and Juan froze in the act. "I don't want to drag him anywhere. Let him dig his own grave and save us the trouble." Juan nodded and laughed in an ugly fashion. "Nothing personal, you understand, Blair. I just don't need witnesses."

"You'll have international law on you so fast --"

"Not when they find the traces of badly-cut cocaine buried with you. They'll just think you were a dealer who tried to burn a few people and got executed. Especially with that hair and beard." Eli smiled. "I, of course, will be horrified to find out I went into the jungle with a drug dealer, thinking he was a fellow academic."

It would be believed by most people, including the drug-paranoid administration; they'd hush up his murder. Only Naomi and a handful of others would protest for years, demanding the truth about his death. By then Eli would be too rich to touch -- and probably in the pockets of a few dozen senators and congressmen.

If Jim survived this he might hunt Eli down like a mad dog and kill him personally, in some idiotic interpretation of "protecting" him. Then he'd be executed by Stoddard's private guns if not the law. If Blair died, so would Jim -- a waste of a true Sentinel.

There was only one solution. It wouldn't happen. He just wouldn't die like that.

Keep him talking, stall him. "I suppose you and your hired guns can start up the equipment and make it pay all by yourselves?" Blair said skeptically.

"Most of Juan's boys worked for Cyclops, they know the work. I'll have no trouble keeping this quiet. I'm sure Chopec women and children will be happy to work hard if they have guns aimed at them, and the women will come in handy in other ways. Come on, Blair, let's go dig a little hole."

Juan prodded Sandburg with the rifle muzzle, and Blair turned around to let them march him up the path toward a place where the land was flatter and barer, easier to dig a shallow grave in. Juan was obviously an old hand at this.

Options. Options. Cut and run, get shot. Jump off the mountainside and tumble down, get shot or die on the rocks. Jump in the river, go over the waterfall, drown or die on the rocks. Attack Eli, get shot, extremely slim possibility of taking out Eli too. Yell for help, get shot, and get Jim shot dead when he responded. Pray, meditate, sing --

Sing. Oh, of course! That was worth a try. He'd always been an excellent mimic -- it was an important tool in learning dialects. And there was no way Jim would leave him completely unchaperoned through the jungle. Blair hung his head and began a quiet mournful tune.

"Following the drinking gourd, Blair?" Eli said; Juan snickered. "Sing all the spirituals you want. You're not getting out of La Montana."

Blair continued, still singing in a voice full of grief and despair. It was an old and beautiful Mexican song about a mountain lion hunting:

Caminando puma via los arboles

Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr
Buscando puma para los conejos

Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr
Cantando puma a el estomago

Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr
Vivendo puma en el archipelago

Hrrr, hrrr, hrrr

The complete translation, in both Spanish and Jaguar:

((Puma is stalking through the jungle))

//Here, Gus, here boy//
((Puma is looking for rabbits))

//I need your help//
((Puma is singing to his empty stomach))

//Jump down from the trees//
((Puma lives in the archipelago))

//Ungawa!//

A jaguar's hearing is sharper than a Sentinel's.

Seconds later a big black thundercloud struck Juan from above and behind, silent as a lightning bolt. Juan screamed in terror as the snarling, tail-lashing Gus pinned him to the ground, his rifle flying from his hands. Eli screamed too. Blair yelped in startlement, but three seconds later Eli was disarmed and clutching a numbed wrist where Blair had chopped him, and Juan's rifle was in Blair's hands pointed squarely at Dr Stoddard to discourage him from picking up his pistol. Juan, immobile under the big stocky snarling cat, whispered an entire rosary at the speed of light.

"Good doggy," Blair said to Gus, picking up Eli's gun. "Now let's go call off your coup, Eli."

Gus stepped off Juan. "Juan," Blair said, turning to the soldier, "no va a correr, por favor. Es muy peligroso circa de las pantheras." ((Please don't run. It's very dangerous around panthers.)) Juan stayed put and didn't run.

Eli, however, who still did not understand much Spanish, cut loose and ran into the jungle the instant the gun was not pointed at him, terrified at both the sudden upset and the man who commanded wild beasts. If he had any idea about rejoining his soldiers, getting backup, or just hiding out in the trees, he soon had something else to think about.

It is never a good idea to run away from predators, hard-wired as they are to chase anything that runs away from them and grab it with their teeth and claws. Gus was after Eli before Blair could make the growl Jim used to stop the panther's rough play.

Soon Eli was running and screaming, Gus bounding effortlessly after him, heading for the river. He flung himself into the cascade just before the playful panther could pin him. (Blair, distracted by everything going down at once, had forgotten to tell Eli that Gus had never harmed a human being in his life.) Less than a minute later Eli Stoddard tumbled past the last water-slick rocks and over the edge of the waterfall. Now there was no Jim swinging down on a vine to pull the luckless swimmer back from the brink of death. It was a very long way to the bottom, and Eli screamed until some rocks halfway down shut him up.

"No muy mal para un marico`n, verdad?" Blair said venomously to the shaking, bulging-eyed Juan. ((Not too bad for a faggot, eh?)) He supposed he ought to feel sick or horrified about someone he knew getting killed before his eyes; Blair decided he'd think about it once he didn't have so much else to worry about.

If Juan had had any ideas about trying to wrest his gun back, the sudden swift return of the big black jungle cat who paced at Blair's side like a bad-tempered mastiff, snarling and waving his tail, put him off it at once. Gus kept an attentive eye on Juan as Blair set the gun down and bound Juan's hands behind his back with one of his hair- thongs. Then he fished a pen and tattered scrap of paper from his pocket and began scribbling, absently scratching the big cat's ears while he composed a quick note; the gesture was not lost on his shaking, praying captive. "Jim, Gus, take this to Jim." The panther bounded away, the note in his teeth.

"Y ahora buscamos para sus amigos," Blair said to Juan, taking up the gun again. ((And now we look for your friends.))

When Jim received the panther-gram -- Eli dead, I have other man prisoner, coming back -- Chief -- he showed it to Incacha, who read it carefully. [I will send Achunya to guide him,] Incacha said in a near- soundless voice.

Jim smiled broadly.

Without raising his voice one iota Incacha said [Achunya, find Enqueri's Chief and bring him here.]

Only Jim heard the soft rustle of long grass that was the only reply.

[Chief, Enqueri's friend, do not be afraid of me,] a soft voice came from out of the grass before the two men.

Blair started from his rest on the rock, still holding the gun on the bound and sullen Juan.

They had made a good clip up the mountain side and through the brush, retracing Blair's path from the village site, stopping to rest as often as Blair needed it. Juan had fallen a few times, but when he stumbled rather too obviously, Blair offered to tie him to a tree and leave him there; the soldier regained his sure-footedness after that incident. They were now about a third of the way up the mountainside.

[Who are you?] Blair called.

A solemn-eyed ten-year-old Chopec girl appeared from the grass before both men, unarmed and seemingly unharmed. She was more solidly built than most other Chopec girls, a little paler-skinned, her hair a lighter shade of dark brown. [I am Achunya, Nolowa's daughter.]

Nolowa, one of the laughing women who'd loaded Jim and Blair down with food as they'd left the village. What was her daughter doing here alone? Blair's heart rose in his throat at the thought of what she must have escaped, what the soldiers -- [The others, the village, how are they?]

[We are all alive and safe in the mountain. The village is burnt to the ground. I could see and hear it from the mountain. So did Enqueri. Everyone can smell it.]

Their homes and possessions, burnt. Those sons of bitches...

As the rest of her words registered Blair looked at the uncharacteristic stockiness of the girl and put two and two together.

[Incacha sent me to bring you back to our place in the mountain,] Achunya said. [Two soldiers remain.]

Blair smiled. The genetic-advantage baton had been passed. [I will handle those soldiers, Watcher. And I will be honored to hit you with a big stick if you have a problem. I am a good Watchman-friend; I know how to help you.]

Achunya smiled with shy pride, covering her face with both hands, very much a 10-year-old girl at that moment.

[But I will not fuck you,] Blair said mock-sternly.

Achunya laughed hard and Blair laughed too. [Enqueri's-friend Chief, I have not shed my first woman's-blood yet! Only adult Watchers fuck, not children! You are funny!]

But as the three of them headed up the mountain together, Blair thought of what soldiers were capable of doing to captive women and children -- a fate averted by the genetically-advantaged like Achunya and her biological father. It was glorious that this child could laugh about such a thing, untainted by the horrors visited upon so many others like her.

May you always be able to laugh about it, little Sentinel.

Blair's return was anticlimactic. A savagely-whispered order and a poking gun-muzzle opened Juan's mouth to order the last two soldiers to drop their weapons lest the squad of gunmen hiding in the grass shoot them to pieces. Five minutes later all six soldiers were trussed on the ground, the people were streaming out of hiding, laughing and talking, and Jim was hugging the stuffing out of Sandburg while Nolowa laughed and cried and embraced her daughter.

"Jim so glad to see Chief," the big man whispered. "Thought Chief gone forever."

Blair squeezed back. "I won't leave you again, Jim," he said softly. "Not ever." And if that meant consigning himself to jungle-life until his own death, so be it. He'd felt the wrongness of their division every second of their separation. They needed to be together now. Burton had never talked about the deep need of the Companion to remain with the Sentinel as well. This wasn't a dissertation any more; this was a calling, something he needed to be for his own well-being.

Gus dropped from a nearby tree, and Blair let go of Jim long enough to squeeze and tussle with the panther. "Good doggy, good doggy! Gus saved my life, Jim." Which meant that Gus had to stay with Blair and keep an eye out for him too, if that duty extended to panthers as well as to people. He was well and truly enmeshed with these two now.

"Crazy fella dead." Jim was matter-of-fact.

"Yes." If there was anything left of Eli at the bottom of the falls, a few belly-surfing crocs would take care of the evidence. Not even now could Blair bring himself to feel bad about that choice he'd made. If Eli had lived, this village would have died; it was that simple. Burnt huts could and would be rebuilt in a day or two, burnt crops replanted on ash-enriched soil, destroyed tools and toys recreated -- but an entire population wiped out by guns, slave labor, torture and gang-rape to make one white man a millionaire was a crime against humanity. "The soldiers?"

"Chopec take care of them." Jim's face was expressionless. "Soldiers disappear in jungle all the time."

Reminded once again of Jim's necessary cold-blooded ruthlessness, Blair decided that he too would officially not know what was going to happen.

There were a few other bullet wounds among the Chopec which Incacha was now treating, none of them fatal; judging from old scars some villagers bore, it wasn' the first time Incacha had nursed them through a spate of unfriendly gunfire.

The migration back to the burnt village took place without incident, the six bound soldiers under their own guns wielded by unsmiling Chopec warriors. Everything was burnt to the ground; some men drew their knives and began hacking down stout saplings at once, beginning the rebuilding even before everyone had returned to the site.

Everyone slept on boughs in lieu of the burnt hammocks that night, Jim and Blair taking the first watch over the captives. But sometime during the deepest part of the night, while Incacha had the watch and as the Sentinel and his friend slept curled tightly together, the six soldiers disappeared. The lack of concern showed by Incacha and four other Chopec males cleaning their axes and knives the next morning put everyone at ease. Blair reminded himself that he didn't know what had truly happened to the soldiers, and turned a cold blind eye to the evidence. Soldiers disappeared in the jungle all the time.

Blair asked for help in transporting the expedition's tents to the village site until all the huts were rebuilt; he soon had more than enough hands and headed back to the camp.

The campsite hit Blair hard with homesickness; he tried to quell the longing for return to the halls of academia, the streets of his urban jungle. This partial return to civilization pulled hard at him. Without a word he and Jim set to work breaking down the tents.

"Jim like fighting bad men," the jungle man said, only slightly favoring his bandaged arm. "More fun than water-snake hunting."

Blair smiled a little. "You'd make a hell of a cop."

"Cop? What cop?"

"Oh, cops are kind of the watchmen for big cities, like the one I came from." Blair sharply quelled the yearning again.

"Chief go back to city now?" Jim could have been asking if Blair was going to the river for a drink.

Blair covered his pain. "Of course not, Jim. I'm staying with you, and you belong here."

Jim looked puzzled and hurt. "Why Chief say that? Chief not want Jim to come with him?"

This idea hit Blair like lightning from a clear blue sky. It was the last thing he'd expected to hear. He turned and looked at Jim. "You...want to come with me to the city?"

Jim nodded. "Jim want see Chief's jungle. Wander around there a few years. Maybe Jim make hell of a cop."

Blair blinked at this thought. Jim wanted to travel as much as Blair did. He wanted to see the city too. To be home, and still be with Jim -- "But the village, your duty --"

"Achunya good Watcher now. Her mother Nolowa old watchman-buddy of Jim's, know what to do. Nolowa go with her, first watchman-buddy. Gus take care of Achunya too."

So much for his nightmare image of a panther roaming the streets of Cascade... Blair shook his head at what Jim was proposing. "That's a lot for a little kid to handle."

"Jim start when ten. Achunya do good job, know just what to do." Jim smiled. "Jim knows. It take a village to raise a Sentinel."

And being a Sentinel probably looked a lot more inviting to a Chopec girl than marriage at puberty and nonstop childbearing and subsistence farming...

Home. He could go home now, to his studies and his classes, to work on his dissertation with this new astonishing data -- and he was bringing a genuine full-sensed Sentinel with him. He could test a Sentinel's effectiveness in a modern society, explore similarities and differences between sentinels and police...

Home. And what would Naomi think of his new friend? He grinned in anticipation.

"I have a -- place in the city, Jim," he said, thinking of his warehouse. "You can live there with me. It's high off the ground too."

"First we set up tents at village," Jim said practically. "Then say goodbye to everybody and go to city."

Laden with tentpoles, Blair smiled happily at his companion. "You know, Jim. This Sentinel thing I've been studying. It's not just about us fucking each other. It's about friendship. I hadn't realized it before."

Jim grinned and gave Blair a friendly backslap that nearly sent him sprawling. "Chief, this look like beginning of beautiful friendship."

As they trudged back to the village Blair thought about a jungle-raised man -- a fully-fledged modern Sentinel -- turned loose in the streets of Cascade.

This, thought Blair Sandburg, was going to be very, very interesting.

-- MAYBE THE END, MAYBE NOT --