I got Beggar’s body back to the campsite by gripping her ankle and dragging, never looking back. I knew if I left the corpse in the clearing, more scavengers would come. Which would not be good for Drummer and Mango, huddled above in the Okoumé.

I had to have been making quite a racket as I passed through the jungle. The campsite was barely in sight when I heard Prof call out, “Stop, Luc!”

There, hanging from a snare at the edge of our campsite, was a man. The hunter. He pinwheeled his arms, trying to reach the ground. But he couldn’t manage it, and each flailing movement set him rocking. He streamed out curses in his native language. Prof was calmly seated before him, hands on the galabia fabric pooled in his lap.

Seeing me, Prof stood and shifted around to the rear of the hunter, out of his view. He grimaced when he saw what I’d hauled in. “Is that Beggar’s body?”

I nodded, eyes still fixed on the dangling man.

“You had a good idea,” Prof said. “The hide might be useful. Bring it over.”

My eyes never left the hunter. “Prof, did you set that trap?”

“You weren’t the only one studying the snare you brought back,” Prof said. “Come on; I’ve nearly got him there already. A little more terror.”

Stunned, I emptied my hands and followed Prof nearer to the man. “Stay back,” Prof warned. “You’ll know if I need you.” He took the knife from where I’d had it sheathed.

I did as I was told, and watched as Prof waved the knife in the hunter’s face and began yelling. The man started sobbing, reaching out for Prof and failing each time. But Prof was getting more and more enraged, his air-slashes increasingly wild, nearly connecting with the man’s flailing arms.

“Let him go!” I yelled. “He understands!”

Prof took a moment and then, breathing heavily, held the knife out to me, handle-first. “Can you cut him down?” he asked.

I took the knife between my teeth and climbed the nearest tree. The hunter peered up fearfully as I sawed away at the liana. His weight shredded the vine sooner than I’d have thought, and he fell against Beggar’s body. Shrieking in horror, he pushed back from the dead chimp and sped from the clearing, plucking his bow from the ground as he went. Prof and I stared at each other, stunned, as the hunter’s screams gradually receded.

Prof smiled triumphantly. “That should be the last time we see him. There are limits to what humans are allowed to do to survive. He crossed them.”

I didn’t agree that survival ever had limits, but for Prof’s sake, I stayed quiet. I wanted to say that he had been very foolish, that the hunter might one day get his revenge, using that swift and silent bow. Prof had gambled both of our lives to save chimps. We could be the hunted ones now.

Prof looked down at Beggar’s body and sighed with a sadness that seemed centuries old.

When Prof came out of our tent the next morning, I shook the empty gas canister at him accusingly. “We’re out. It’s fire or nothing now.”

He smiled kindly at me, like I was being a silly child.

“When was the last time you had a home?” he asked.

“Why are you asking this now?” I snapped. Having to depend on fire for our cooking wouldn’t be funny at all when it rained.

Prof stared into his tea. It steamed his cheeks, giving him a ghostly sheen. “I suppose because Mango and Drummer have lost the final piece of their home. And your cooking made me feel for a moment that this campsite was a home.” He chortled. “A strange one, of course.”

I took a moment before answering. “I’m not exactly sure when I last had a home. A few years ago. I was nine when we had to sell our house and come to Franceville. Not since then.”

“Would you like one?”

I couldn’t stop my irritation. “What are you talking about? Of course I’d like one!”

“What if I could help you with that?” Prof asked, slowly and calmly.

I concentrated on the tea. Green flecks swirled down and rose up as they got hotter and hotter. Maybe I wasn’t actually irritated. “What do you mean?” I asked cautiously.

“You agreed to come here with me, and I couldn’t do my study without you. But I am not a slave master. If you stay here with me for a year, then I will give you some money that you could use to buy a small house and a farm. Would you like that?”

“Fake money, you mean,” I scoffed.

Prof laughed. “Yes, fake money. But you’re a smart boy. You could change it in one city and then settle somewhere else. Have you ever imagined what you would do with money?”

I stopped stirring and looked into his small brown eyes. “Of course I have. I’d invite the orphan boys to settle with me. No one should have to live with Monsieur Tatagani. We would find a place to live far from Franceville. We’d buy an ox. We would plant peanuts and peppers and grain for chickens.”

“A year, then,” Prof said. He sounded almost wistful. “Stay with me for a year, through one dry and one rainy season, and it’s yours.”

I examined his expression to see if he was tricking me, but he was serious. A grin spread over my face, so wide it almost hurt. “Okay. Yes.”

I wouldn’t have to deceive Prof to get what I needed. Even though I didn’t think I’d have betrayed him, I was surprised by how good it felt to know so for sure. I hummed as I stirred the teakettle.

“This is good,” Prof said as I served him more tea. “I will be very glad to have you here with me.”

“What about you?” I asked. “When was the last time that you had a home?”

Prof looked shocked. “What makes you think I don’t have a home?”

“You are here with me in the jungle. You don’t have a wife, or a job to go to. I thought . . . I thought we were the same that way.”

“I suppose you’re right. I’m homeless, too.” Prof sighed, as if he’d just discovered something about himself. “I am much older than you. My first family rejected me, and that weighed down my heart. And the new family I tried to create for myself couldn’t handle that weight. So I’ve had no choice but to give up on people. We’ve both been let down by humans, Luc. That’s one way we’re the same.”

“I haven’t given up hope on people,” I said quietly. “So we’re not the same that way.”

Prof gulped his tea — it had to have burned his throat as it went down — and started stuffing papers and notes into his bag. I stood, surprised that I mattered enough to be able to hurt him. “Why did your family —”

“You’ve given me plenty to think about today, Luc, while I watch the chimpanzees. Let’s continue this conversation later. I’m going to try to find the other group, the one led by that male with the silver stripes. Would you check on Drummer and Mango?”

I nodded, stunned, as Prof hobbled out of the campsite. As he departed, it hit me — what he’d promised to give me, the home he’d offered. “Thank you! Thank you!” I yelled after him, repeating it well after he’d disappeared into the tree line.

Drummer and Mango remained in the nest that day, and I spent every hour I could spare sitting below them. Sometimes Omar was around to distract me, and other times I’d find ways to keep my hands busy, more often than not by slicing off hard manioc skins with our dulling knife, stopping to peer up at the nest if I heard any rustle from above. Otherwise I had my new dreams to occupy me. I pictured a garden, rows of sweet potato and maize sprouting thick green leaves during my first rainy season; a pretty young wife drawn to my prosperous farm.

While Drummer and Mango were laid up, Prof began adventuring farther afield, getting up at dawn to search for the males I’d seen, returning to pick me up from the chimp clearing before night fell. Each evening he was full of stories — of a group of mongooses he surprised as they rooted for insects, a troop of red-tailed monkeys that rained him with nuts, and a tree that had the precise odor of rotting meat.

He also found more chimpanzees.

He’d creep up on three or four at a time, taking a few notes before they scattered. All told, he thought he’d seen ten or twenty different chimps, among them Silver Stripes. He was surprised that our trio had been so easy to meet, when the others were so fast and suspicious, but I suspected Beggar’s injury might have had a lot to do with it.

Omar was turning into a great help in my foraging — he was getting more courageous about the jungle, wandering from the campsite for many hours at a time before returning with a rounded belly and a satisfied expression. Only a few yards from the clearing I discovered him eating a broad and spiny green fruit that, once opened, revealed sweet-sour flesh. I’d only started collecting pieces of that fruit when he left the clearing in the other direction and returned munching broad leaves. Lettuce! From then on, Prof and I began every meal with salad and finished with tart fruit.

I cleaned Beggar’s hide as best I could, then draped it to dry on a mangrove island in the center of the river. Weeks from now, when flies had picked it clean and the rainy season was upon us, I could retrieve the hide and use it for warmth.

No matter what I was doing, though, my thoughts weren’t ever far from Mango and Drummer. It was hard to get a good view of the high nest through the tree’s thick foliage, and sometimes I could see no signs of life from it at all. Each time that happened I feared Drummer had died and Mango had left. But then the next day I’d relax when I saw an outflung limb or a tuft of hair as Drummer rolled into a more comfortable position.

Drummer could survive a few days without food so long as his wounds didn’t kill him. Mango, though, hadn’t been getting much milk from Beggar for a while, and now was getting none. I had no idea how young chimps worked, if she would be able to eat solid food at her age. But it was her only hope.

I arranged a chimp meal in the center of the clearing, right below the nest. Laying flat a lettuce leaf, I placed three bananas at the center, two mangoes on top, and beside them a half shell from one of the new fruits, which I’d filled with pulpy juice. Something there would have to tempt Mango.

For two days, nothing did. What my delicious meal did do, though, was attract every other creature in Gabon. Almost immediately I was waving away flies, then using a stick to churn up streams of determined ants. I fended off spiny caterpillars, mantises, small green snakes, even a trio of parrots. The pretty bushbuck with the starburst on her forehead even visited once — she licked the fruit shell, spotted me, froze, then scampered off, little white tail bobbing. By day three, the beautiful meal I’d laid out was crawling with flies, even though I’d replaced the fruit and juice.

Omar came with me as I replaced the juice a third time, and while I squeezed the fruit between my fingers he leaped off my shoulder and went exploring again. He found a stick bug and soon had it crackling between his jaws, swallowing only with some work, brittle legs flailing against his black lips. I guessed he liked the taste of it, since he was soon off searching for another. His hunt brought him alongside the chimp nest, and he unwarily began picking through the ferns and bent branches at its edge. I watched, worried but curious, as Mango popped her head out from the foliage and shrieked. Omar tittered hysterically and ran a few tight circles on the branch before hurtling down the tree and onto my shoulder.

Mango watched Omar flee her. Then her focus wandered and she finally noticed me and my chimp picnic. I made soothing sounds I remembered from Beggar — a sort of drawn-out breathy panting — and laid my chest toward the ground, palms upturned. After a few minutes I was satisfied to hear a scrambling from above, then a plop and a grunt. I confirmed Mango was approaching when Omar promptly ran away with his arms flailing, yelling his head off in outrage as he disappeared from the clearing.

I risked looking up. Mango was circling me and the food, making a mournful hooting sound. Eventually she selected a banana, chewed thoughtfully on one end, and put it down. She’d neglected to peel the fruit, and I would have done it myself if I hadn’t been afraid she’d run away when I moved. Mango got interested in the giant lettuce leaf, bouncing her palms against the edge. Then she yanked it and the fruit went rolling away. The juice that I’d portioned into the half shell spilled, most seeping into the soil and the rest collecting along the valley of the leaf. Mango tasted the sweet liquid, then started lapping furiously. Once it was gone she ate the leaf, barely chewing as she scarfed it down.

I guessed I’d found my answer for whether she could eat real food. I cut away the peel of a mango and offered the flesh to her. She watched curiously, waiting for it to do something. Realizing it was juice that had attracted her more than solid food, I pinned the mango between my palms and squeezed. Goo appeared along the seams of my fingers and dribbled off my pinkies. Mango was instantly there, sucking the sugary fluid away, her teeth sharp against my finger. When I opened my hands she squished the remaining pulp into her mouth, yellow-orange smearing her cheeks and neck.

I sliced open another mango and she ate it the same way, scarfing it the moment I’d lowered it to her level. Then she downed the last one. She slowed by the end, resting back and farting long and loud. I was tempted to try to play with her, but before I could I heard stirring in the nest above. Drummer rolled over conspicuously, two times in a row, and I thought I saw his black eyes open and peer down at us. Mango bounded back up the tree, taking a flying leap onto her brother’s belly like it was a soft bed and not the body of a suffering sibling.

By the time I was back to camp I had just enough time to prepare dinner before Prof returned. He bubbled about every detail of his day as he ate, ending with the chance sighting of a forest elephant — he was excited to have seen it uprooting soil with its tusks and chewing down the onion bulbs it had unearthed. Prof didn’t ask what had happened in my day, maybe because he assumed there had been nothing but cleaning and cooking. I didn’t tell him about feeding Mango because I didn’t want him to tell me I couldn’t do it again.

The following dawn I found it hard to get out of my bedroll. I listened to Prof scraping the remains of last night’s dinner out of the pot, smacking the morsels down and gulping his river-water mint tea before setting off to make his observations. I listened for the sounds of his slow limping exit to fade, then rolled out of the tent.

Unhitching the food-bag line, I lowered it to the ground, Omar leaping out of the plastic basin. I’d rummage out some more mangoes, I figured, then go about replenishing our stock this afternoon. The ones that remained at the bottom were bruised and mushy, but I figured that was good, since what Mango seemed to like most was juice. I arranged the mangoes in the crook of my arm as best I could —

I saw movement at the edge of my vision and raised my head, terrified the hunter had sneaked in, that the next thing I’d hear would be the creak of a drawing bow.

There, on the other side of the campfire, was Mango.

She was frozen on all fours, watching me nervously, mouth opening and closing. I immediately squatted, making myself as small as possible. Mango’s shoulders slackened, but otherwise she stayed still. She made more of her mournful hoo-hoo sounds, scanning for her mother.

I carved deep into a mango. The leathery shell came away in two halves, and I held the fragrant, gooey core out in my open palm. Mango watched me intently, her eyes never leaving the bruised golden sludge in my fingers.

I lowered my hand and waited for long moments, neck beginning to ache. Finally Mango came forward and delicately placed her fingertips, one by one, over the slick fruit flesh. She was careful not to touch my fingers where they held the fruit — but she clearly wasn’t aware of what she was doing with the other hand, which she was using to grip my thigh for balance. Once she’d eaten all the peeled mango, she plucked a second fruit I’d peeled and scampered away to the edge of the site, where Drummer was waiting.

I’d had no idea he’d been there, watching us.

The chimp looked terrible; his face, usually a deep leathery tan, was delicate white, almost as colorless as the Europeans at the Franceville bar. Three wide scabs banded his torso, and the wound on his arm still glistened. He cradled it in the other limb and idly sucked at the bleeding wrist. Swaying on two feet, he watched Mango and me with eyes that shone with alertness. Mango scampered to her brother, food in hand. As soon as she was within arm’s reach, he gave a fierce bark and cuffed her hard on the head, enough to send her sprawling into the dirt. Mango squealed and pulled herself up the nearest tree.

Drummer plucked the peeled mango, now covered in a layer of dirt, and swallowed the flesh. He looked at me, as if waiting for me to provide another, while Mango cried pitifully from the tree above.

I knew animals were more dangerous when wounded, but Drummer still seemed very weak, and I wasn’t about to flee my own campsite. Drawing the knife, I shouted, “That food was for your sister! Get out of here! I’ll kill you!”

I kept yelling, to keep noise coming out. It was having an effect: Drummer reared, repulsed, like I was spraying him with water. He started backing from the clearing, still barking, but more quietly now. Then, with a crashing of foliage, he disappeared into a thicket and was gone.

Mango squeaked in panic and fear. Again I lay low, palms upturned, a piece of fruit in hand. But when Mango descended, she turned not toward me, but toward her brother. She bounded into the thicket after him, making little chirping cries.

I lobbed two mangoes and a banana deep into the brush, hoping she would pick them up on her way. I had no way of knowing if she stopped to eat them, and I certainly wasn’t going to head into the thick underbrush to find out.

“Kor-kor,” I whispered, a Fang expression meaning may your days be long. My mother used to say it to our cousins whenever they left our house.

Prof looked even more drawn and ancient when he returned that evening. Broad patches of his blue galabia were purple with sweat. When he reached the top of our hill, he slumped on the sitting log. I brewed a tea and served him sliced banana and snails, boiled after I discovered them lined up on the trunk of a nearby tree.

“I got so very near them today,” he said, panting. His eyes gleamed in an oily way that made me nervous for his health. “I have found a hill from which I can watch the chimpanzees in peace. They can see me, but they don’t seem to mind! I think they have become more habituated to my presence. Perhaps in a day or two you will come with me to watch. They split into small groups during the day and begin to come together in the evening. Perhaps for safety. That is my theory.”

“I would like that. To go with you there . . .” I said. My voice trailed off.

“What is it?” Prof asked.

“Drummer and Mango appeared in the camp today,” I said. “I think they’re hungry. It makes me worried.”

“How did they seem?” Prof asked, surprised. “Did you feel like you were in danger?”

I shook my head. “Drummer seems too weak to be a threat. And Mango wants to eat something, but I think her brother is taking all the food they come across.”

Prof rubbed his hands in excitement. “Male chimpanzees are very dominant. I’ve seen them beat the females. Mango is lucky not to have been hurt — perhaps she is too young for Drummer to use his full force on her, and he knows that.”

“I think she might not survive without a mother,” I said glumly.

Prof took a long sip of mint tea.

I got worried he was about to tell me never to feed Mango, so I found something to ask. “What happened to Omar’s hands?”

“His what?” Prof asked.

“His hands,” I said. “They have scars up and down them.”

“I adopted Omar when I was in South Africa,” Prof said. “From a rescue sanctuary. Vervets treat utility poles like trees, jumping between them. Omar’s mother must have jumped on one with exposed wire. She died, and they found Omar holding on to her charred body. He’d gotten terribly burned; they were worried they’d have to take off his hands. But he recovered. And I adopted him.”

We looked at Omar, the back of his head just visible over the edge of his basin as he dozed. “Poor Omar,” I said.

Prof nodded.

“They should put something on top of the wires,” I ventured, “so that monkeys don’t get electrocuted.”

Prof sucked in his breath, which made his eyes crinkle. “Yes! That’s precisely right, Luc. And it’s what they’re actually doing! A cheap and very effective corrective. I bet that if you’d continued in school, you’d have been top of your class.”

I didn’t like that last part — I had scored very well on my primaries before leaving the village, and being reminded of it was like learning a stolen treasure had been more valuable than I’d thought. But I mouthed Prof’s compliment to myself as I cleared up the dinner bowl and straightened the campsite.

As I was falling asleep that night I decided I’d set a fish head aside for Omar after I made breakfast the next morning.

The next day I told Prof that I wouldn’t go see the new chimpanzees because I was guarding the campsite, but I was really hoping to see Mango again. I didn’t stray far from the tent that morning, just refilling our water and cutting a red-flecked wild pineapple from the center of a sharp bush to serve after dinner. As I was carrying it back to camp, I saw one tree after another shake, nuts and twigs and insects falling, until the one with our food bag was trembling. Two branches parted, and Mango emerged. She made panting hoots, then descended the food-bag rope and dropped to the ground near me.

In doing so, she startled Omar, who had been sunning himself on the tent fabric. He shrieked; she shrieked. She soon stopped, but Omar kept screaming as he ran a complete circuit around the site, stopping only after he’d run up my back and onto the top of my head. Mango stared at him, a finger in her mouth and love on her face.

After taking a good look around and seeing no sign of Drummer, I pulled Omar from my back and set him down. He squawked and cringed, but all Mango did was turn around and crouch, presenting herself to him. Confused, Omar reached forward and gave Mango’s bottom a hesitant tap. She wiggled in response. Then Omar gave it a slap, and Mango turned around, grinning as she reached out and clasped Omar’s tail. He wrenched it free, shrieked, and ran up a nearby tree, scolding. Once he’d calmed down, he pretended to fall asleep, but I saw him cut glances at Mango. In no time he couldn’t resist going back down and the two were playing.

Once they’d tired out, I got Mango to eat a leaf and some of the wild pineapple, followed by a banana. After she’d eaten she was back into the trees, bounding after Omar. When she’d tired of playing she headed out, staring back mournfully every few paces.

Prof returned earlier than usual, looking even more tired than the day before. As I started making dinner, he mopped his brow sluggishly and let out a low, long sigh. When he brought the rag away from his face, something struck him and his features lit up. “I haven’t told you the day’s news yet: They’re nearer!” he said. “The chimps are foraging closer and closer. Our campsite wasn’t a bad choice after all — I knew it! The chimpanzees wander according to which trees are fruiting, and the coming rainy season must be tempting them to pass near. They’re under a half hour’s walk away. You know the high hill, away from the river? You can see them well from there.” He got to his feet. “Come and look. It will take only a minute.”

I wanted him to rest, but Prof insisted. We had to clamber over ground that was slick with mud and tangled with vines, and Prof needed frequent breaks. Once we were on the hilltop he pointed to the next forested valley over.

I watched a muscular chimp pass through the canopy. With short legs and a broad back, she gracefully swung hand over hand between trees. I watched her approach a clearing where, thanks to a tree that had recently fallen and ripped down much of the canopy, I could see all the way to the jungle floor. A cluster of chimps was squatting around a termite mound. “They’re eating them,” Prof explained, “by using grass!”

But I wasn’t interested in the group, because I’d spied Mango. Many feet away from the other chimps, she sat with her foot in her hand, kissing her toes one by one. Her eyes drooped, her lips full and sad. I watched her pluck up her courage and work her way over to a chimp with an infant suckling at her breast, slinking sideways, as if moving strangely would prevent her from being recognized. She squatted next to the mother, watching the grass blade dip in and emerge from the mound and disappear into her mouth, I guessed with succulent termites wriggling along it. The mother resolutely ignored Mango, concentrating on her work. Mango lay out on the ground, hand upturned, in a now-familiar begging pose. When the mother continued to ignore her, Mango inched forward, waving her fingertips.

As the mother ate strand after strand of termites, licking them off the grass with her bright pink tongue, Mango wriggled ever closer. Finally she dared tug on the mother’s arm to get her attention. The big female whirled and barked, hair standing on end. Mango scurried away, flailing her arms in fear. She hunched over at a distance from the group, feet clutched in her hands, rolling herself small. She looked as miserable as a creature could be.

She must have sat in the path of the riled termites, though, because suddenly she howled and jumped, swatting at her butt. Having experienced firsthand the termites’ powerful jaws, I knew what pain Mango was in. Softly panting, she dusted herself off and slinked away. For as long as I could, I tracked her movements from the hilltop. Trees quivered as she climbed and jumped from branch to branch, heading in our direction. Eventually she appeared at the base of our hill, no more than fifty feet away.

I couldn’t resist. I waved.

She saw me but didn’t react, her eyes moving right past me. Whatever she was looking for, I wasn’t it.

Mango wove between the trees, cheeping. Then she squealed in glee and was back in view, her arms held out wide as she ran toward a distant black shape.

Drummer. He’d been so still that again I hadn’t noticed him hunched at the base of a tree, not a hundred feet from our position, coolly monitoring us. Mango tried to climb his legs to rest on his back, but he pushed her off and bared his teeth. She panted in submission and moved away, hunching down. Drummer had no focus to spare for her.

I nudged Prof and pointed at the chimp. Prof shook his head in incomprehension; didn’t he understand we could be in danger? “Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “Don’t worry about Drummer — he still looks very weak. And don’t worry about me, either — I just need to rest a little. I do think I’ll skip dinner tonight, though. I don’t feel very well. But we should head back so you can eat.”

Prof leaned heavily on my arm as we shuffled back to camp. I had a moment’s memory of my mom in the same position during her last week alive, of supporting her as she floated to the clinic window. A crepey, dusty hand on my arm. I looked down at Prof’s hand and was relieved to see it brown and shining with health, even though covered in bites and rashes.

As we headed home, I kept us as far as I could from Drummer. When we were forced to come within a dozen feet of him I trained my eyes on the chimp, alert to any sign of attack. But he still looked exhausted, slumped at the base of a tree. The scabs on his torso must have kept reopening; their edges were slick. No wonder he wasn’t foraging with the rest of the group. His ravaged body told me he was no threat. But the cool eyes that watched us so intently said he was.