The sun was up. He was awake in a shack in Honduras in the jungle staring at a children’s poster hung haphazardly on the wall. There was a spider, a scorpion, a crocodile, a jaguar, a cobra, a lion, a hawk, and a wolf. Above the illustrations it said Animales Salvajes. There were two wolves. It was the only one that had two. Two wolves with heads joined in a stream, one nuzzling the other with its nose. He decided he would point it out to her when she woke up. But then again it might seem to her that he was trying to be metaphorical.
She was laying on the floor on her belly, because she had malaria and she was hot. She’d said that the couch felt like a motel couch and he’d slept on the floor and been cold because maybe she would be cold later on. The way she’d curled up and sweat. Kept her bra on all night. Funny thing. Women that way. White and padded. Now it was soiled and beige. Cold sweat or warm? What kind of dreams are you? Maybe she was better. Wake her up to see. Oh but the leg was looking worse. She would see. It was malaria. Had to be. There had been the rain. Made good sense. They had to get out of there. He went over to the window.
In the tall grass outside there was dew and birds. Not hummingbirds, but small birds that landed nimbly on the grass. Never seen that before. Looking for the bugs with the dew-wings. Hiding until the sun dried them they were. She moved. Her arm was over her face. Ants marching in a line on the window frame. Nearly put his hand there. The bright feelers on the bright red ants. Always working. Follow this one. Oops lost him. That one now. Carrying something. So’s this one. Oops lost him too. Maybe he should wake her and say, “If we’re going to leave today, we should leave now.” It would be better, with how the sun would be hot later, and causing all their problems, to hike out at once. There were two towns. Totzal and Xitilicalpa. No. Zitili-calpa is how they say it. X’s from the Mayans. Pronounced like z’s they are. Xitilicalpa was four miles away, but smaller. Totzal was eight, but bigger. They could do the eight miles. Why risk it? Imagine finding no help in Xitilicalpa. Then the trip is 16 miles. What would he say then. He packed her bags and woke her with a smile.
The green mountains lit behind the backside of the leaves, and the sun dropped behind the black tops of the ones beyond, and in some spots the grasses shimmered where light fell through. They were on the trail by the river.
“Damn. Oh, Damn,” she said.
“What?”
“Oh!”
“Is it happening again?"
“I think so. I can't stand."
“Don’t sit down. Don’t sit down. Oh, honey.”
“I need water.”
“You can’t. It’s not clean,” he said. “God. I shouldn’t have drank the water. That was a stupid thing for me to do.”
“It’s OK. You were thirsty.
“That was a stupid thing for me to do.”
“It's done. Come here and look at my leg.”
“OK, but I can hardly see.”
“Touch it.”
He put his hand down.
“We should keep walking.” He took several steps and stopped. “We’re halfway there. Don’t you want to see a doctor? Don’t sit down. I may need a doctor too.”
“I don’t think you need a doctor. And I’m not sick. I'm just tired and I hate these bugs."
“Can’t you stand up?”
“We’d be there already if we’d gone the other way.”
“What other way?”
“The smaller town. I don’t know the name of it.”
"Ziti...Xiticaca. It's from the Mayan."
"That one."
“Yes, but maybe they don’t have a doctor, so I thought we should come this way.”
“Maybe there’s nobody to see us where we’re going and maybe we’re not halfway there.”
“Maybe not, but don't lay down."
“We should float back.”
“Float? Back where?”
“Home. It would be quicker.”
“That isn’t a Montana stream, Honey. There are piranhas, snakes, crocodiles, and jaguars and bacteria and amoebas that eat your brain. And we would drown.”
“Still it would be quicker.”
They’d met at a cocktail-party-themed party at Montana State and he had been studying American History and he’d dressed as Woodrow Wilson, and when she approached him with a cigarette in a long cigarette holder and asked his name he said something about isolationism, and she said something about F. Scott Fitzgerald, and then they both got particularly drunk, their friends had said (and then all become friends) and then he kissed her full, red lips through her veil and his mustache got stuck, and she wore it the rest of the night, and when they went to bed together he took it off, and she asked where did he get that come from, and he said he’d been wondering the same, and she called him a bastard, and then she asked him his name and he put the mustache on and said F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Then that cool night in October when they’d sat together on the screened porch and found they could spend long periods of time together without alcohol. They watched the trail of ants surround the candy the children had come and received and dropped, and then later, when they were drunk, he’d stood above the line of ants, and said watch this, and she’d said not to, and he didn’t.
“Where are you?” she said.
He put his hand out.
“Can you see the water? I’m right in front of it.”
“Aren’t there animals?”
“Yes, but they aren’t so big as I said they were. Get in."
“And the bacteria and amoebas?”
“We’ll just wash off and get away from the bugs and freshen up and wake up a little. I really can’t stand the bugs. And neither can you.”
“I am feeling better. Look at my leg. I don’t want to look at my leg.”
“I’ll hold it above the water and you don’t look.”
“How does it feel.”
“It’s not so deep.”
“Is it cold?”
“It’s not so cold. It’s warm, but not in the bad way.”
“Oh, God. They’re at me again. I can’t stand it.”
“I can't stand it either. Come here."
“We're going to float back, aren't we?"
“Why do you keep saying that?"
She was on the bank.
"Because that's the only way we're staying together."
"Because of your leg."
"Right."
Then that time at Grand Tetons National Park she’d spat over a precipice and hit the wing of a hawk. They’d stood there a moment. Both let out a small laugh. It flew off toward a two-pronged peak above a river in a valley with wide white pools, straight blue channels, clots of pine and rocks and snow. A line of distant mountains higher with snow. Another range all white. All white in the distance. At the same time they started laughing very loud and could not stop. This was the story where she’d loogied a hawk.
“What a strange place to be,” she said suddenly and sharply into the leafy blackness of the banks of the river and it was true. The moving water black and gurgling. The river ran white against a large rock in the middle of the river and pushed the current to the the right where there was a smooth and deep channel. He had been asleep and he spoke without thinking.
“After a minute we are going to the city of doctors.”
“My leg is better.“
”“Honey, it’s not good to have it in the water.”
“But it doesn’t hurt me anymore.”
“It’s better then. You’re feeling better.”
“Sure.”
“It isn’t so bad after all, is it?”
“No. And there’s no amoebas.”
“Listen, I wanted to tell you something.”
“Tell me.”
“There was this poster where we stayed last night. I don’t know if you saw it."
"Can we call it something so you don’t have to call it the place we stayed last night?”
He pulled her close and kissed her ear.
“Home.”
“I love your sense of irony. Home," she said. "Home. Home."
He coughed.
"Right, well there was this poster. Did you see it? It had a drawing of a lion, a crocodile, a jaguar, a bear, a snake, a wolf, and some other animals. But the picture of the wolf had two wolves.”
“What were they doing?”
“They were nuzzling each other in the stream. They loved each other. I could tell they loved each other because of the picture. I wanted to show you this morning.”
“You should have showed me, now I’ll never see it.”
“Can you picture it? It says Savage Animals at the top.”
“Yes I can picture it. Two wolves loving each other in a stream. They’re not savage at all no matter where they are because they’re together. That’s what you want to say.”
“Exactly.”
“They love each other forever and always.”
“Yes. It’s lovely and I’m so glad you think it is lovely too.”
“Picture something for me”
“Of course.”
“Picture us floating back where we came from.” He did.
“But not on our bellies,” he said.
“No, we’re not on our bellies. We’re just like this.”
Like that time he’d sat against the wall in the living room in their first apartment and she’d said they should try and read each others minds to pass the time until the exterminator came, and she’d gone into the kitchen and laid down on her belly, he’d imagined, and then he’d fallen asleep and had terrible dreams. She woke him up and in that moment he smelled her loveliness that was his, and she was so beautiful he pulled her down and held her and thought very precise things until he was sure what was real and what was not. Then he let her go and said, "We made the right decision."
She looked surprised.
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