The intruders would die. Jabuti-toro was getting old; he was more concerned about his wife and his four daughters than he was about protecting the village. His arutam – the soul that sustained and protected him and gave him the courage to fight – was leaving him; everyone could see that. He no longer had the stomach for killing. But Matsiguenga did. It would be up to Matsiguenga to teach the young ones how a man should act.

With the ayahuasca still coursing through his body, he could distinguish the future as if it were the present. Behind the lids of his closed eyes he saw how it would be. He would take the heads from the fallen whites, each with a single, slashing stroke of his machete. If Jabuti-toro wanted none, Matsiguenga would take all three, why not? He would run pieces of cincipi vine through their mouths and out their throats, and sling two of them over his back. The third he would allow young Shako to carry. Shako was impatient to take a head of his own, but he was still too young, too reckless, too out of control for that. Perhaps the honor of carrying a head would slake his thirst for blood for a while.

At the crossing of the River Yapo, where they had cached pottery jars, the shrinking process would begin. He would have Shako assist him. Shako was his sister’s son; Matsiguenga was responsible for his learning. Among the Chayacuro, it was the maternal uncle, not the father, who was responsible for the education of a boy. They would slit the skin on the backs of the heads, then slip out the skulls and put them in the river as gifts for pani, the anaconda. They would boil the skins in river water, dry them, and then turn them inside out to scrape away the “They are moving,” Jabuti-toro said. “They are leaving. We will follow them.” His voice hardened. “If they do not approach the hayo, we will let them go, do you understand?”

“And if they do?”

“Then they must be killed. But wait. Watch. They may not be what they seem.”