but pretty different in other ways. The Nez Perce are thousands of miles away from your tribe in Brazil.”
“But they’re still alive, right? Lucky’s tribe.”
“Yes, they are. Many of them still live in this region, I’m sure.”
“What’s my tribe again?”
“The Cinta Larga. It means ‘broad belt.’ ”
Teddy made a face. “It’s a weird name.”
“Well, I guess that’s what they liked to wear. But I doubt they had a choice in the matter of what outsiders called them. I don’t really know what they called themselves. Like Nez Perce means ‘pierced nose.’ Don’t you think that’s because they liked to decorate their faces with jewelry?”
“Are my people still alive?”
“There are still some scattered around the jungles of Brazil. I don’t know how many there are. Would you like to go back someday and meet them?”
“That’s what you told Mom, right? You said they all died, and I was the only one left.”
“She told you that?”
Teddy nodded.
“I think she meant that the people in your little village died. Not the whole tribe. It was a disease they had.”
“And you couldn’t save them.”
Henry started to speak, but his voice failed him. He began to whittle another stick.
* * *
—
HE JERKED AWAKE as if he had picked up a burning coal.
“What’s wrong?” Jill whispered urgently.
“Nothing,” he said. “Bad dream.”
“You’re soaking in sweat.”
“Go back to sleep,” he said. “It’s okay.”
She knew it wasn’t okay. In the early years of their marriage, Henry had trouble sleeping, often shaken by powerful nightmares, but they had succumbed to the gravity of normal life. Now he rolled over and pretended to fall asleep, and eventually Jill drifted off.
As Henry lay there, listening to his family breathing, which settled into unison, he realized that something else had driven him into the wilderness, something that had nothing to do with his wife or children. He still fought against the unwanted memories that threatened to drag him back into the moments of his greatest fears. He refused to be incapacitated by the traumas of his past—and yet, why had he dragged his family into a journey that was really about facing his own fears and failures? Jill had cautioned him from the start. How many conversations had they had about why he was doing this? He had said that adventure would toughen up the children and strengthen family bonds. He had told himself that it was about preparing Jill and the children to face the unexpected tribulations that awaited them—eventually, without him—just as his grandfather had taught him. They didn’t have the skills or instincts to protect themselves from unanticipated dangers. In their nice brick home in Atlanta, they were safe and coddled. But Henry hadn’t been honest with Jill, or with himself. He was here for his own reasons. Returning to the wilderness was bound to trigger memories that were full of horror.
Jill lay in the tent until the smell of coffee brought her around. As much as she had dreaded being cut off from civilization so completely, she had to credit Henry for making it happen. She felt somehow new. The family had never been closer. Each had grown in confidence. As she lingered in the sleeping bag, she had to admit that Henry’s plan had achieved its goal. In the mornings, they went on hikes or fished, and each afternoon everyone took a book and sat alone for a couple of hours. Teddy, a precocious reader, was on the second volume of the Harry Potter series, Helen was deep into The Hunger Games, and Henry had brought along a new biography of Marie and Pierre Curie. As for Jill, she had already gulped down the two Iris Murdoch novels she had thought would last the trip, so she spent delicious hours sketching wildflowers. She thought about how the Nez Perce Indians would go on vision quests in these mountains, alone, seeking a guardian in the form of an animal or bird that would protect them for the rest of their lives. She wondered if that still happened. She wondered if Lucky had brought them here for a reason.
Finally she emerged from the tent, appealingly bedraggled in Henry’s eyes, with a towel over her shoulder. She was insistent on staying clean, so each morning before the children arose she braved the chill and plunged into the creek, washing her hair with eco-friendly shampoo and brushing it out beside the fire.