The line of men moved through the shadowy darkness of triple-canopy rain forest. Above them, the tops of hundred-foot-tall trees shadowed a second layer of smaller trees. Below the lowest branches of the two levels of tree foliage, the ferns and vines and flowering plants blocked the last specks of direct sunlight.
As the men left the river miles behind, the heat became total. No leaf or frond moved unless they touched it, no wind stirred the heavy, dank air. Lyons sweated like never before in his life. Sweat completely soaked his faded gray fatigues before he had walked the first mile. Soon, sweat ran from the cuffs of his shirt. He felt sweat flowing down his legs. Sweat trickling from his close-cut hair stung his eyes.
Insects found his sweat. Flies wandered on his face until he wiped them away. Small beetles clung like multicolored buttons on his gray uniform. He heard a droning. He searched for the insect making the sound, looking above him, behind him. Finally he saw it: a wasp the size of a small bird. He flinched away, horrified, blundered into a fern silky with spiderwebs. An orange-and-violet-and-red spider tried to capture him. Lyons thrashed free. The Indian point men glanced back laughed.
In the distance, they heard a cacophony of bird songs and screeches. But when the men neared, despite their stealth, the birds went quiet. Only the insect sounds continued.
After an hour or more of walking, one of the point men came back to Lyons and motioned for him to pause. The Indian squatted. Lyons looked up the trail, couldn't see the first man. Lyons squatted, his knees almost touching the Indian, waited. Lyons took a squeeze bottle of insect repellent out of his thigh pocket and smeared it on his face and neck.