Little Tiny Teeth

already dim rain forest was growing rapidly darker. Then came a sound he couldn’t place at first, a deep, resonant thrumming from above, like thousands—millions—of wingbeats, that made him look up apprehensively, with thoughts of giant flying cockroaches. But after a moment he realized it was the sound of heavy rain hitting the canopy. Despite the volume, it seemed a mere sprinkling at first, barely getting him wet, but that was only because it was working its way down through the foliage. When it finally hit with all its force, it pelted him in huge, warm drops, and then in streams, as if a thousand faucets had been turned on, and then in choking sheets. Most of the others ran for the boat, but Gideon just stood there, arms and face held up to the sky, coughing as the clean, fresh water filled his mouth and nose, but letting it soak him through. It was like a baptism, a wonderful break from the unrelenting closeness and humidity of the jungle.

AFTER dinner, Gideon found his mood depressed. Unlike John and Phil, he still hadn’t adjusted to the temperature, and especially not to the strangling humidity. He’d been in climates with 100 percent relative humidity before, so, technically speaking, it was impossible for this to be any worse. Except that it was. The air was more like damp wool than air, lying heavy and hot on the skin and making

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breathing a struggle. He was listless and restless at the same time. And Lord, he missed Julie. Not feeling very social, he lasted only a few minutes at the by-now de rigueur night session on the roof, before saying good night. Back in his cabin, although he’d been told his cell phone wouldn’t work, he tried calling her. Nothing, not even static.

At nine o’clock he slid open his window to let in the river’s night breeze—after dark, it made things cooler than the air-conditioner did—and went to bed, hoping that a long night’s sleep would pep him up. It had been a mistake not to bring any work with him. The idea had been that this was to be a genuine vacation for a change, an opportunity to relax in an interesting locale with nothing pressing on his mind to interfere with the enjoyment of the experience. It had worked for a little while, but now he had gotten fidgety. How many days were left? Two? It seemed like a long time still to go.

He needed something to do.

HISopportunity wasn’t long in coming.

It was the stifled, piercing cry—“Ai!”—that broke through to his webbed, sleeping mind, but even as he swam unwillingly to the surface, he thought he remembered that it had been preceded by some kind of distant thumping or scraping. (He’d incorporated it into a nonsensical dream, something to do with a dying horse trying to stomp its way into its locked stall.) With his head still on the pillow, he looked at the softly glowing dial of his watch: 1:45. It was perfectly quiet now, with no sound but the hissing of the water along the side of the ship below his cabin window. Had there really been a cry, or had he been— The hollow, ponderous pa-loosh of something substantial plunging into the river dissolved the last shreds of sleep.

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“Somebody’s overboard! Stop the ship!” he yelled instinctively, jumping out of bed and springing for the cabin door. Before he reached it there was another cry, this one shrill with panic: “Help me, somebody! I can’t swim! I can’t swim!”

Maggie?

Then, with his hand on the door handle, there was yet another resounding pa-loosh. Two people overboard? Good God—

In another second he had yanked the door open and was on the deck, leaning over the railing and peering into the darkness. After a moment he was able to make out Maggie, thrashing and gasping in the black water about twenty yards behind the slowing Adelita.

“Hang on!” he called. “I’m coming!” He jerked an orange M/V Adelita life preserver from its clasp, hooked it over his arm, and vaulted feet-first over the railing, trying not to think about the fact that the last lifesaving instruction he’d had had been in junior high school. Or about little tiny teeth and the fact that his toes were bare.

He panicked slightly himself as the warm, rank-smelling water closed over his head—Gideon had never been altogether at home in the water and especially not under it—pulled himself to the surface, grabbed the life preserver, which had been plucked from his grasp by the impact, and sidestroked toward the struggling Maggie, who was beating her arms against the surface to keep from going down. When he reached her and touched her shoulder she fought him blindly, catching him painfully in the mouth with her fist, but then she saw who it was and calmed down enough for him to get the ring over her head and under one of her arms.

“Thank you!” she gasped. “I thought it was— Thank you!” He hardly recognized this wild-eyed woman as the formidable person of the last few days. Her face was bunchy with distress, and her hair,

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ordinarily so neatly arranged, was plastered over her face in limp, black strands that looked like seaweed. And she was weeping frenziedly, a sloppy, snuffly, child’s sobbing that convulsed her body, or at least the little of it that Gideon could see.

“You’re okay, Maggie,” he said, his hand comfortingly on her shoulder. “I’ve got you, you’re safe. Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m—I don’t think so, no.”

“What happened?” he asked. “Is there someone else in the water? I heard two splashes.”

“Yes—uck—” Choking on swallowed water, unable to speak, she turned her head away from him, coughing and spluttering.

The Adelita had swung around now and was turning to get back to them. Some of the others were out on deck in their underwear or pajamas, gesticulating and calling encouragement. Maggie, held by Gideon and supported by the life preserver, had sighed shakily a couple of times and begun to relax, when suddenly she went rigid. Her hand clamped on his forearm. “You have to get him!” she shouted, her face only inches from his. “He’s going to get away!”

“Who’s going to get away? Maggie, what happened?”

“No, you have to get him! He grabbed me! He threw me over!” She was crying again, and shoving against him.