Drummer’s gaze didn’t waver for many seconds. At first I feared he was dead, that fate had taken my revenge for me. But then his eyes stopped gleaming for a moment as he blinked. His chest rose and fell while he took a deep breath, staring at me the whole time. His fingers twitched. So did mine.

I held the knife out in front of me, but otherwise remained still atop the fallen tree. There was no rush — this mock man wasn’t going anywhere.

Before, Drummer had seemed all bulk and black hair. Now, with him on his back, I was seeing his vulnerable parts, the ones his body usually worked so hard to keep hidden: surprisingly long legs with delicate ankles and knees, toes pointed gracefully, like a heeled lady’s; belly muscular but soft, too; skin glowing white wherever the hair parted.

I eased off the tree, dropping into a crouch. When the chimp still didn’t react, I stepped nearer.

Drummer tried to prop himself up on his elbows. But he didn’t have the energy for even that; his head lolled back to the ground. He looked away from me and made soft panting sounds, his muddy hair quivering.

A half-moon of rusty teeth had bitten into Drummer’s leg, right under the kneecap. The line of metal clenched the limb with enough strength that the trap’s smile joined at the corners. In the middle, the fat teeth had embedded deep enough to disappear entirely.

Drummer watched me as I crept closer. I stood beside his head, knife still tight in my hand. He appeared to have dragged half the jungle with him; mud caked his hair, pasting leaves and twigs. A network of scratches overlaid his tan face.

Blood pulsed beneath the skin of his neck. His mouth gaped, exposing his teeth, a maize mix of black and yellow and white. I couldn’t help but imagine those same teeth biting into Prof’s belly.

The knife shook as I aimed it, point down.

Drummer turned his face away so he didn’t have to watch his punishment, like the boy thief in Franceville had when Monsieur Tatagani had come for his hands.

I kneeled and brought the knife to Drummer’s throat. His blood was pulsing so intensely — if I held the knife there, it seemed the artery would open itself against the blade and he would kill himself.

Drummer let out a long sigh, either giving up or passing out. His eyes didn’t have any white to them anymore, just glistening black. But I saw the pupils widen and narrow, his focus darting as tension coursed through him. Despite my best efforts, my thoughts went from revenge to what this mighty creature must have been through. Who knew how far he’d dragged this jaw trap before arriving at our tent. He’d hauled it over two fallen trees, at least, as he tried to outrun his mysterious and merciless predator.

I squatted so I could examine the trap more closely. Its grin was forced shut by heavy bolted springs at each joint. There had to be some release, I realized, so the hunters could remove their meat and reuse the trap. Drummer panted and shivered as I cautiously ran a hand over the edges of the metal, looking for a trip. I wasn’t able to find anything, and my hand came back shiny with the chimp’s blood.

I rocked back on my heels and squatted heavily, head in my hands. What was I doing? Why figure out how to release Drummer if what I wanted most in the world was for him to die?

I looked into the eyes of the monster my childhood self had feared so much. Tan ears stuck out far from his head, making him look almost comical. His brow was heavy over his eyes, slick with perspiration.

I put the knife down to free my hand and continued investigating the trap. After fumbling for a while, I found what I was looking for — latches entwined within the coils of the springs. They didn’t have much give, but I hoped that if I managed to trip them both at once, the jaw would release. In order to get a thumb against each at the same time, I had to lift Drummer’s good leg onto my shoulder. He watched me take his ankle in my hands and rest it against my neck. His leg was solid with muscle and loose with exhaustion. I teased my thumbs against the trap’s mechanism, debating what to do with the creature Prof wanted so much to protect. The creature that might have killed him.

There was a rustle in a nearby thicket and I whirled to my feet, Drummer groaning as his leg dropped to the ground. I brandished the knife.

Ferns parted and a small figure emerged, her little hands curled nervously around two fronds.

“Oh.” I sighed. “Oh, no.”

Mango squeaked and managed a step forward before her courage failed and sent her scurrying back into the thicket. Her face emerged from between two fronds, only her sunken eyes and patchy forehead visible as she peered at her brother and me.

Oh, little sister.

She made my decision for me. I pressed the latches at the same time and, with a grinding of tired metal, the mechanism clicked. The trap didn’t spring open, but the jaws now had some give. I gripped the bloody metal, then thought better of it — who knew what would happen to me if I cut myself and my blood mingled with a mock man’s. Mango was all serious attention as I pulled down a branch and wedged it between the trap’s jaws.

When I stepped on the branch, the trap quivered and eased open. It made a sucking, wet noise as it parted from around Drummer’s leg.

As I forced the branch closer to the earth, the trap finally clicked open and held. Without meaning to, I’d reset it. Very carefully, I took Drummer’s leg in my hands, lacing my fingers into his bloodslick hair to get the best grip. He watched with an intense expression combining fear and hatred, staring me down like I was an extension of the trap.

Taking a deep breath and holding it, I tried to lift Drummer’s leg free of the teeth. Ignoring as best I could the blood that flowed out around my fingers, I focused on getting the leg clear of the trap without dropping it back onto the trigger.

Soon after I’d freed him, Drummer began to scream. It was a high-pitched and shattering sound, as familiar and alien as a shrieking parrot. The chimp’s arms thrashed, and I had to tumble backward to avoid getting struck. He screamed so much that his throat cramped, his mouth open but only strangled sounds coming out.

Dodging the chimp’s flailing arms, I lined his gouged leg up along the ground. Then I dragged the trap off to one side. I was barely able to budge the contraption, and marveled at Drummer’s strength to have heaved it through the jungle. I wanted to hang the evil device from a tree so that Mango wouldn’t accidentally step on it, but I realized I didn’t need to worry; she had attention only for her brother. She barely blinked as she watched him from the security of the bushes.

Drummer had gone into a fetal position, pressing his eyes shut as blood welled from his leg. He was pumping a fresh pool of it onto the ground, overlaying the blood that had already clotted on the leaves. I couldn’t imagine he had that much more left. I ripped a large frond from a waxy yam plant and pressed it against his wound. Blood soon seeped between its edges, so I added another and then another. I yanked a vine down from a tree, careful to choose a young one whose thorns were soft, and tied it tightly around the fronds. It wasn’t as good as a real bandage, but it might help stem the blood flow.

My anger at Drummer was becoming confusion. I was saving him. I kicked at his good leg. It jerked, but he didn’t otherwise react.

Infection was what crept in and stole a life. Especially Inside, any wound could fester, and the rot would spread to the rest of the body. Drummer was already filthy with mud. He’d have been better off recuperating in a nest, but I had no way to get him up to one. I could bathe him as best I could, but his wounds were already filthy, brown swirling with the red.

I didn’t have any rubbing alcohol left, any useful medicines, anything.

Except. There was one thing I could rig up, something my mother had once done for my father.

Mango had crept forward to sit at her brother’s side. She wrapped around his arm, looking at his face and making her mournful sounds. “Mango, I’ll be back,” I said. Her attention didn’t leave her brother for even a moment. I might as well not have existed.

I started scaling the fallen tree to get back to camp, then stopped. The steel trap was still nearby, and the thought of Mango’s little body crushed within its jaws was too much to bear. I gripped the trap’s chain, took a moment to collect my strength, and began to drag, relieved when it knocked a branch and snapped tight as it went. Taking pains to keep clear of the rusty hinges, I managed to maneuver it through the ferns, taking the long way to the other side of the fallen tree. After a moment’s rest, I heaved it the remaining yards to the river. I tugged it into the water and watched it sink into the depths.

As I climbed the hill to the campsite, a wave of fatigue came over me. It had been a long day after a sleepless night, and would grow far longer before it was over.

And here I was, back at the campsite.

Our belongings were neatly stacked beside the sitting log, right where I’d left them. Before my heart failed me, I rummaged through the valise until I’d located our cylinder of precious salt and Prof’s teakettle. I took them under my arm, as well as my food bag full of fruit, and sped away.

Drummer had passed out right where I’d left him. Mango was sitting on his chest, anxiously plucking at her brother’s hair. When she saw me she made a fearful grin that looked like a gash spread across her face, but she didn’t run away. She stayed near when I kneeled beside Drummer, and studied me as I shook salt into the water. Already chunked by the humidity, the salt instantly vanished. I peeled a stick until it was clean and green, then stirred the water until I felt nothing solid. After untying and parting the yam fronds, I held the kettle over Drummer’s wound. Then, slowly, I began to drip.

Before he’d left to pave a distant road and never returned, my father had once come home injured. A truck had taken a corner too wide while he was walking beside it, and a scrap of metal had sliced open his arm. I was only small at the time, but remembered following as my mother helped him to the village doctor, who smoked the wound with burning grass. But my mother had her own techniques, which she had learned from her mother. I had stood on a chair to get a better view as she laid my father flat on the table and dribbled salt water into his wound. She had done so tirelessly for two days. After she’d finished, though the wound was deep and ragged, it did not become infected and my father did not die.

So I did the same now for Drummer. I even made the same cooing sounds, though those were for the sake of Mango, who was shaking with nerves as she watched me attend to her brother.

It was for the best that Drummer was passed out, as I remembered well my father’s groans from the stinging salt water.

Mango poked at the kettle, then stopped after I repeatedly batted her hand away. Shooting me cautious glances, she eased into my lap. She was light on my thighs, smelled like damp hair and wild animal. With my free hand, I gave her wet little head a pat and said, “Settle in, Mango. This is going to take a while.”

For the first few hours I was on edge, waiting for Drummer to regain consciousness and wondering what he — or I — might do once he did. Gradually I calmed: His good leg would sometimes twitch, but otherwise there was little sign of activity. He was deep in slumber, maybe even a coma.

I continued the salt drip all that day, switching arms whenever one got tired, only occasionally taking a break to forage or pee or check on Omar, and drenching the wound with extra salt water when I returned.

As the afternoon wore dim, I considered what I’d do come evening. The idea of making a solitary trek to the tent made me sick with lonely sadness. Once there I’d . . . what? Do a quick rice boil if I had the energy, another session of that chemical cleaning of my teeth that felt like a conversation with Prof . . . but then? Say good night to Omar and settle in to that tent alone, take in the lingering scent of blood and moonsickness? I couldn’t imagine it. More than anything, I feared having enough free space for my thoughts to stay on Prof.

Mango relaxed more and more into my lap, reveling in our closeness. Sometimes she would raise her long arms and loop them around my neck, still facing her brother. She’d idly tug on my hair, hoping to improvise a game. Whenever I was still for too long while operating the drip, she would bounce in my lap to get my attention, amused when the salt water sloshed onto her brother. At least I assumed it was amusement; only her bottom teeth showed, and she made raspy sounds as she pouted.

I decided to gather what belongings I could in one trip to the campsite, including Omar’s basin so I could tempt him to relocate, and then spend the night with Drummer and Mango. When I put the kettle down and stood up, Mango tumbled out of my lap and stared up at me in shock. She promptly climbed up to ride on my back, her legs a tight hoop around my waist. She was a lot heavier than Omar, who was so light that I could sometimes forget he was even on me.

As I started to climb the fallen tree, Mango scrambled down from my back and returned to her brother, draping herself over his chest. She glared at me, reproachful that I would dare leave her again. “Stay here; that’s fine,” I said. “I’ll be back soon. Guard your brother for a few minutes, okay?”

When I returned with the tent and food, I found Drummer in the same position, Mango wrapped tight around his shoulders as she dozed. I cleared enough ground to pitch the tent in the lee of the fallen tree. I couldn’t get the structure to its full length, but I got enough of it stretched over the roots for its sides to rise and serve as protection for us all. Omar perched on the fallen log, nervously flicking his gaze from Drummer to Mango while I looped a sturdy branch through the handles of the plastic basin. He then took his usual spot inside and soon fell asleep.

I had enough time left to speed back to the old campsite one last time, racing against the failing twilight while I fetched the metal briefcase and valise. It didn’t feel as heavy as it once had, both because we’d used up so many of the supplies and because the muscles of my arms and shoulders had thickened. Before I left the campsite for the last time, I gave it a long look.

Good night, Prof. The light’s gone out.

Then it was back to the chimps.

This spot was much more thickly shaded by trees than the previous campsite had been, and once night fell the dark was nearly absolute. As I sat there in the off-blackness, listening to crashing sounds and screeches as the night predators began their hunts, I realized how risky it was for Mango and Drummer to be out in the open in their helpless state.

I unzipped the tent and crept to Drummer, arms outstretched in the darkness. Heart quaking, I located his good leg and took it in hand. I had no way of knowing if he was awake, and had to choke back the image of the powerful male baring his teeth at me. But he made no movement: Drummer was still unconscious. By gripping the hair of his meaty shoulders I was able to lug him over the roots and into the tent. I felt a small hand tug my pant leg as Mango joined us.

I used up some precious battery to power the flashlight long enough to get all of us positioned. Mango had wedged herself between her brother and the tent’s edge and was staring at me, eyes gleaming electric orange. I decided to take the opportunity of Drummer’s unconsciousness to examine his wound, steeling myself to find patches of rot.

The injury was laid over his marks from the leopard attack, making layers of crisscrossed red wounds.

But no black, and no green.

Relieved, I clicked off the flashlight.

I had hoped to stay awake the whole night to treat Drummer, but I must have fallen asleep on the job. The kettle had fallen over, wetting Mango and me and half the tent with salt water. I cursed and set it upright.

Then I yelped.

Strong black fingers had wrapped around my forearm.

When I yelled, Drummer averted his eyes. His hand stayed on me, though. The fingers began to move, passing through the sparse hair on my forearm.

He was grooming me. As best he could groom a human.

I remembered Prof once telling me how the chimpanzees groomed to determine authority. That it happened mostly between males, to establish partnerships.

I held still, marveling at the rough touch. Drummer’s head lay against the wet fabric of the tent floor, as if he were in too much pain to budge any part of his body but the fingers. He was willing to suffer moving his hand, though. For me. To establish a friendship with me.

“Drummer,” I said, “I may hate you, but I’ve decided Prof wouldn’t want me to kill you. You don’t have to groom me.”

I cautiously lifted Drummer’s hand and laid it on the canvas floor. Kettle in hand, I left the tent and headed down to the river. There I refilled it and poured in more precious salt. I let myself be stingier with it now, as Drummer’s wound seemed to be healing well and our supply was more than half gone. Back by the tent, I lowered the plastic basin, dumping Omar and getting a loud scolding in the process, then pulled out some black bananas. When I went back inside, Drummer was instantly grooming me, kneading my pant leg.

I began the salt drip, and though Drummer scrunched his eyes at the sting, he did nothing to stop me.

That afternoon Drummer allowed me to turn him over so I could examine his other side. I was heartened to see the back of his leg in better shape than the front; the saltwater spill the night before might have been a disguised blessing.

I decided to scale back the saltwater drip even more, both to conserve salt and to give me a break from my hospital memories. I stepped out of the tent, Mango tight on my back. We surprised Omar, who had been sunning on a nearby branch; at the sight of Mango he shot up a tree. The little chimp squealed in joy when she saw her playmate and was soon chasing him through the branches. Up and down they went, all around the tent.

While they played, the metal case gleamed at me. I remembered the numbers Prof had told me. But I wouldn’t open it yet. Instead I went into the valise and pulled out his bent notebook and a pencil.

He’d made meticulous columns of numbers and letters. I had no idea what the Arabic script meant, but some of the scribbles were in a column by themselves, and in them I saw numbers.

I arranged myself beside the river, cooling my feet and taking occasional drinks of water, then turned to the next blank page. Gripping Prof’s unfamiliar pencil in my fist, I drew a shaky line across, and an X to indicate I was taking over. Then I painstakingly drew a little drum to represent Drummer, like this:

Then I drew a body of a chimp and made a mark where Drummer’s injury was, along with a sketch of the jaw trap.

Because I wanted her included, I drew a picture of Mango, too. She had broken off from chasing Omar and was staring at me with such a calm, curious expression that I wanted to preserve it:

Then beside it I made one short line to indicate that this was the first day of my observations. I really didn’t know what information Prof had been writing down, but for his sake I wanted to find some small way to continue his work. If I met more chimpanzees I figured I’d assign each a picture and draw simple images of what they did. I looked proudly at my first entry and imagined how it would feel to fill a whole page, someday a whole notebook.

I shut the book, smoothed my hands over the cover, and toyed with the spirals at the edge.

I wanted to live inside that book.

Which is how I knew I was staying.

I’d stay to continue Prof’s work, the life’s labor that had been so important to him. And I’d stay because no one was waiting for me anywhere else in the world, but here were Mango and Omar.

I went back into the tent and gave Drummer a fresh saltwater drip. I couldn’t resist staring at the metal case, right outside the opening, and before I knew it I had tugged it onto my lap. I turned the dials to make one, nine, seven, one from left to right. I startled when the case clicked open. I hadn’t expected it to work.

But it did.