It was almost two when Welly heard them coming. Jevy parked on the bank, his huge truck scattering rocks and waking fishermen as it roared to a stop. There was no sign of the American.

Then a head slowly lifted itself from somewhere in the cab. The eyes were covered with thick shades, and a cap was pulled as low as possible. Jevy opened the passenger door and helped Mr. O'Riley onto the rocks. Welly walked to the truck and grabbed Nate's bag and briefcase from the back. He wanted to meet Mr. O'Riley, but the timing was bad. He was quite ill, with bleached skin that was soaked with sweat, and he was too weak to walk on his own. Welly followed them to the edge of the water and helped guide them along the rickety plywood walkway onto the boat. Jevy practically carried Mr. O'Riley up the steps to the bridge, then along the catwalk to the small deck, where the hammock was waiting. He shoveled him into it.

When they returned to the deck, Jevy started the engine and Welly pulled the ropes. “What's wrong with him?” Welly asked.

“He's drunk.”

“But it's only two o'clock.”

“He's been drunk for a long time.”

The Santa Loura eased away from the shore, and, moving upriver, slowly made its way past Corumba.

NATE WATCHED the city go by. The roof above him was a thick, green worn canvas stretched over a metal frame anchored to the deck by four poles. Two of these supported his hammock, which had rocked a bit just after the launch. The nausea crept back. He tried not to move. He wanted everything to be perfectly still. The boat moved gently upstream. The river was smooth.

There was no wind at the moment, so Nate was able to lie deep in his hammock and stare at the dark green canvas above him and try to ponder things. The pondering was difficult, though, because his head spun and ached. Concentration was a challenge.

He had called Josh from his room just before checking out. With ice packs on his neck and a wastebasket between his feet he had dialed the number and tried mightily to sound normal. Jevy hadn't told Valdir. Valdir hadn't told Josh. No one knew but Nate and Jevy, and they had agreed to keep it that way. There was no alcohol on the boat, and Nate had promised sobriety until they returned. How was he supposed to find a drink in the Pantanal?

If Josh was worried, his voice didn't convey it. The firm was still closed for Christmas, et cetera, but he was busy as hell. The usual.

Nate said that he was doing just fine. The boat was adequate and now properly repaired. They were anxious to set sail. When he hung up he vomited again. And then he showered again. Then Jevy helped him to the elevator and through the lobby.

The river bent slightly and turned again, and Corumba disappeared. The boat traffic around the city thinned as their journey gained momentum. Nate's vantage point gave him a view of the wake and of the muddy brown water bubbling behind them. The Paraguay was less than a hundred yards wide and narrowed quickly around the bends. They passed a rickety boat laden with green bananas, and two small boys waved.

The steady knock of the diesel failed to stop, as Nate had hoped, but it became a low hum, a constant vibration throughout the entire vessel. There was no choice but to accept it. He tried swinging in the hammock, a gentle swing as a breeze crept through. The nausea was gone.

Don't think about Christmas, and home and children and broken memories, and don't think about your addictions. The crash is over, he told himself. The boat was his treatment center. Jevy was his counselor. Welly was his nurse. He'd dry out in the Pantanal, then never drink again.

How many times could he lie to himself?

The aspirin Jevy had given him wore off, and his head pounded again. He lapsed into a near-sleep, and awoke when Welly appeared-with a bottle of water and a bowl of rice. He ate it with a spoon, his hands shaking so badly he spilled the rice on his shirt and in the hammock. It was warm and salty, and he ate every grain.

“Mats?” Welly asked.

Nate shook his head no, then sipped the water. He sank into the hammock and tried to nap.

SEVENTEEN.

ATER A FEW false starts, the jet lag and fatigue and the aftereffects of the vodka caught up with him. The rice helped too, and Nate fell into a hard deep sleep. Welly checked on him every hour. “He's snoring,” he reported to Jevy in the wheelhouse.

The sleep was dreamless. His nap lasted four hours as the Santa Loura inched ahead in the general direction of north, against the current and the wind. Nate awoke to the steady beat of the diesel and the sensation that the boat was not really moving. He rose gently in the hammock and peeked over the edge and studied the river-bank for signs of progress. The vegetation was dense. The river appeared completely uninhabited. There was a wake behind the boat and by staring at a tree he could tell that, yes, they were in fact going somewhere. But very slowly. The water was up because of the rains; navigation was easier but traffic upstream was not as fast.

The nausea and headaches were gone, but movements were still delicate. He began the challenge of removing himself from the hammock, primarily because he needed to urinate. He managed to safely place his feet on the deck without incident, and as he paused for a moment Welly appeared like a mouse and handed him a small cup of coffee.

Nate took the warm cup, cradled it and sniffed it. Nothing had ever smelled better. “Obrigado,” he said. Thanks.

“Sim,” Welly said with an even brighter smile.

Nate sipped the precious sweet coffee and tried not to return Welly's stare. The kid was dressed in the standard river garb; old gym shorts, old tee shirt, and cheap rubber sandals that protected the soles of scarred and hardened feet. Like Jevy and Valdir, and most of the Brazilians he'd met so far, Welly had black hair and dark eyes, semi-Caucasian features, and a shade of brown skin that was lighter than some, darker than others, but a shade all his own.

I'm alive and sober, Nate thought, sipping. I have once again touched briefly the edge of hell and survived. I've bottomed, I've crashed, I've stared at the blurred image of my face and welcomed death, yet here I am sitting and breathing. Twice in three days I have uttered my last words. Maybe it's not my time.

“Mais?” Welly asked, nodding at the empty cup.

“Sim,” Nate replied, and handed it to him. Two steps and he was gone.

Stiff from the plane wreck and shaky from the vodka, Nate pulled himself up and stood unaided in the center of the deck, wobbly and bent at the knees. But he was able to stand, and this alone meant everything. Recovery was nothing but a series of small steps, small victories. String them together with no stumbles and no defeats and you're treated. Never cured, just treated or rehab-bed or sanitized for a while. He'd done the puzzle before; celebrate every little piece.

Then the flat bottom of the boat brushed a sandbar, jolting it, and Nate fell hard against the hammock. It flipped him onto the deck, where his head cracked on a wooden plank. He scrambled to his feet and clutched the railing with one hand while rubbing his skull with the other. No blood, just a small knot, just another little wound to the flesh. But the blow woke him, and when his eyes cleared, he moved slowly along the railing to the small cramped bridge, where Jevy sat on a stool, one hand draped over the wheel.

The quick Brazilian smile, then, “How do you feel?”

“Much better,” Nate said, almost ashamed. But shame was an emotion Nate had abandoned years earlier. Addicts know no shame. You disgrace yourself so many times you become immune to it.

Welly bounced up the steps with coffee in both hands. He gave one to Nate and the other to Jevy, then took his perch on a narrow bench next to the captain.

The sun was beginning to fall behind the distant mountains of Bolivia, and clouds were forming to the north, directly in front of them. The air was light and much cooler. Jevy found his tee shirt and put it on. Nate feared another storm, but the river wasn't wide. Surely they could land the damned boat and tie it to a tree.

They approached a little square house, the first dwelling Nate had seen since Corumba. There were signs of life: a horse and a cow, wash on the line, a canoe near the water. A man with a straw hat, a bona fide pantaneiro, stepped onto the porch and gave them a lazy wave.

Past the house, Welly pointed to a spot where thick undergrowth spilled into the river. “Jacares,” he said. Jevy looked but seemed not to care. He'd seen a million alligators. Nate had seen only one, from the back of a horse, and as he gazed at the slimy reptiles watching them from the mud he was struck by how much smaller they appeared from the deck of a boat. He preferred the distance.

Something told him, though, that before his journey was over he would once again get too close for comfort. The johnboat trailing behind the Santa Loura would have to be used in their search for Rachel Lane. He and Jevy would navigate small rivers, dodge undergrowth, wade through dark and weedy waters. Surely there would be jacares and other species of vicious reptiles waiting for lunch.

But, oddly, Nate didn't care at the moment. So far in Brazil he'd proved himself quite resistant. It was an adventure, and his guide seemed fearless.

Grasping the handrail, he managed the steps down with great care, then shuffled along the narrow walkway past the cabin and the kitchen, where Welly had a pot on the propane stove. The diesel roared in the engine room. The last stop was the rest room, a small closet with a toilet, a dirty sink in a corner, and a flimsy showerhead swinging back and forth inches above his head. He relieved himself while studying the cord for the shower. He backed away and pulled it. Warm water with a slight brownish tint came down with sufficient force. It was obviously river water, scooped from an unlimited supply and presumably unfiltered. There was a wire basket above the door for a towel and a change of clothes, so you had to strip and somehow straddle the toilet while pulling the shower rope with one hand and bathing with the other.

What the hell, thought Nate. There simply wouldn't be many showers.

He looked in the pot on the stove and found it filled with rice and black beans and wondered if every meal would be the same. But he didn't really care. Food was not an issue with him. At Walnut Hill they dried you out while gently starving you. His appetite had shrunk months earlier.

He sat on the steps to the bridge, his back to the captain and Welly, and watched the river grow dark. In the dusk the wildlife prepared itself for the night. Birds flew low over the water, moving from tree to tree, looking for one last minnow or fish for the night. They called to each other as the boat passed, their chants and shrieks rising well above the steady drone of the diesel. Water splashed along the banks as alligators moved about. Perhaps there were snakes in there too, large anacondas bedding down, but Nate preferred not to think about them. He felt quite safe on the Santa Loura. The breeze was slight and warmer now, and blowing at them. The storm had not materialized.

Time was racing somewhere else, but in the Pantanal time was of no consequence. He was slowly adjusting to it. He thought of Rachel Lane. What would the money do to her? No one, regardless of his level of faith and commitment, could remain the same. Would she leave with him, and go to the States to tend to her father's estate? She could always return to her Indians. How would she greet the news? How would she react to the sight of an American lawyer who'd tracked her down?

Welly strummed an old guitar and Jevy added some low and unrefined vocals. Their duet was pleasant, almost soothing; the song of simple men who lived by the day and not by the minute. Men who gave little thought to tomorrow and none for what may or may not happen next year. He envied them, at least while they were singing.

It was quite a comeback for a man who'd tried to drink himself to death a day earlier. He was enjoying the moment, happy to be alive, looking forward to the rest of his adventure. His past was truly in another world, light years away, in the cold wet streets of Washington.

Nothing good could happen there. He'd proved clearly that he could not stay clean living there, knowing the same people, doing the same work, ignoring the same old habits until he crashed. He would always crash.

Welly started a solo that snapped Nate away from his past. It was a slow mournful ballad that lasted until the river was completely dark. Jevy switched on two small floodlights, one on each side of the bow. The river was easy to navigate. It rose and fell with the seasons and never attained much depth. The boats were shallow and flat on the bottom, and built to take sandbars that sometimes got in the way. Jevy hit one just after dark, and the Santa Loura stopped moving. He reversed the engine, then thrust it forward, and after five minutes of this maneuvering they were free again. The boat was unsinkable.