I crept into the hut and picked up the machete. Taking pains to stay low and silent, I stole along the river, heading toward the distant buzz of the motor. As I neared the sound and realized it was coming my way, I slowed down. There was no need to announce myself to an intruder. Hiding and waiting for him was smarter.

I nestled between two palms at the bank, tearing down extra fronds and jabbing them in the soil so they fanned enough to disguise me.

I jumped when there was a crash from a nearby bush. But it was just Drummer. Unfazed by my machete, he settled at my feet and started to groom. Legs trembling, I lowered myself beside him. When the termites emerged from the palms and started tangling into his hair, I plucked them off. He presented his open mouth and I placed them between his teeth. He munched them down happily.

The grooming calmed me. The chimps were rubbing off on me — no time ever seemed as important to them as right now. As the motor’s sound intensified, birds panicked from the trees and snakes plopped into the water. It always amazed me how many animals were hidden in the jungle even when it seemed its emptiest.

Everything was fleeing this intruder. Except Drummer and me.

As the sound got louder, even Drummer grew intrigued. Alert and panting — though making no sound loud enough to give away his location — he climbed a tree. The trunk was too slick for me to follow, and I managed to grab his foot before he got out of reach. He froze and peered down at me, confused. I knew he wanted to get a better look at the intruder, but I felt safer with him nearby. He descended, apparently willing to indulge my strange needs.

We watched as a pirogue bigger and finer than mine nosed around the bend in the river. I folded down a frond and squinted, trying to glimpse any detail. Drummer was so rigid with tension that the strain set his body shaking.

Once this pirogue neared my own tethered at the bank, the rider cut out the motor. I watched as the boat coasted toward the shore. The driver was wearing bulky clothes and a mosquito net so I couldn’t make out his features, much as I tried.

I kept my hand on Drummer’s back, heavy between his shoulder blades. He’d lean forward and then back, teeth bared, and I knew he was torn between whether to attack or flee. If I hadn’t laid a restraining hand on him, and his leg hadn’t been crippled, he would probably already be charging off.

I watched the pirogue settle in next to mine, reeds sighing as they passed under the boat. Was this intruder going to steal my canoe? The only use it served right now was housing spiders, but I hated the idea of someone taking it, in case one day I had to flee back to the Outside.

But I soon saw that this person probably wasn’t a thief. For one thing, it was a she. And white as a root!

For a mad heart-fluttering second I thought maybe it was Prof, that he had walked back to civilization and returned with a boat, and as a woman with white skin to boot. But my head told my heart it was being an idiot, that I’d held Prof’s skull in my hand, and the fluttering of my heart became something I could tolerate.

The woman — narrow-bodied and rickety with age, I could now see — got out of her boat and stepped onto shore, immediately sinking up to her knees in muck. Had she never been beside a river before, that she thought she could walk there? I watched her flail, hat and mosquito net tumbling to the mud. She leaned down to pick them up, but pitched into the muck and shrieked. It had been a long time since I’d heard a person make a noise like that, and there was something quiet and vulnerable about the sound, a noise a person would make only if she thought she was alone.

Drummer sprang from under my hand. War-barking, he crashed through the brush and tore toward the woman. She fell backward into the pirogue and sat up, clutching the side and staring in horror at the beast bearing down. Drummer had his mouth wide open, teeth gleaming. The woman dropped to the floor of the boat.

If Drummer had been calmer, the woman’s submissive stance might have helped her. But he was defending me and the rest of his family, and there was nothing she could do that would stop his attack.

I lunged out of hiding and staggered toward the waterline. I yelled, first in Fang and then in French once I’d gotten my wits: “Into the water! Get into the water!”

The woman rolled over, saw naked me running out of the greenery, and screamed again. But she did as I said, splashing into the river. She crashed through a raft of water lettuce, forcing a wave of murky water out to both banks.

“Farther!” I shouted, shocked by the sound of words from my mouth.

By the time Drummer reached the shore, the woman was treading water in the middle of the river, stroking against the current. Drummer paced up and down the edge, hooting and slamming his fists against the ground. His lips were peeled back so far that I could see his pink gums until they receded into black flesh far above his teeth. The white-faced woman kept her eyes locked on the hostile chimp while she swam.

I cut along the shore until I was beside Drummer. He paid no attention to me, instead focusing on throwing handfuls of soil at the woman. Sprays of gravel and debris riddled the river’s surface and flecked the woman’s face. “Shh, Drummer,” I said, patting his back. “Shh.”

“Can you swim well?” I called out to the stranger in French. But she didn’t respond — either she didn’t speak French or I terrified her as much as Drummer did. We would have to wait until he’d calmed down, or she’d swum to the other shore.

I took the opportunity to peek at the luggage in the woman’s pirogue. The boat was full of odd, large, boxy items zipped into black cases. Once he saw me peering inside, Drummer became interested, too, seizing the largest bundle and running up and down the shore with it high over his head. The woman yelped and started swimming in.

“Come, yes, but it must be slowly, please, madame,” I said, holding my hand out toward her as I crouched. Drummer was on his back, using his good foot and both hands to keep the case in the air, tossing it like he was playing with a baby chimp. Distracted as Drummer was by the new toy, most of the woman’s danger had probably passed.

She stayed in the water but clutched the far end of her pirogue, peering over the top. Drummer looked up briefly from his investigation and then went back to the zipper, tugging savagely at it. I smiled at the woman. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” What I really wanted to ask was, What are you doing here in the jungle, crazy white woman?

She looked like she was getting tired, legs kicking in the water as she clutched the boat. To show her I meant well, I picked the hat and mosquito net up from the mud, shook them clean as best I could, and tossed them into her pirogue. When she put the broad hat on, her head seemed to vanish and she sank farther into the water. Excited about new blood, fat bottle-green flies batted her face. She swallowed one by accident and spat it out.

“Can I come ashore?” she asked in acceptable French, sinking even more as she used one hand to swat at flies. “Is it safe for me?”

“I think you need to come ashore,” I said. “So that is what you should do.”

Drummer was still busy trying to get into the woman’s zippered container. When I patted him on his head he grunted, as if to say, Don’t distract me.

The woman was still treading water, her arms slapped over the side of the pirogue in exhaustion. Getting worried for her, I dropped my grin. “Yes, yes, of course. I’ll make sure Drummer doesn’t hurt you. Come in before you drown.”

Keeping her gaze on Drummer, the woman made her way to shore. She stood before me, covered in dripping muck.

“Are you lost?” I asked. Now that she was near I had a sudden compulsion to cover my nakedness. I’d started plastering mud on my crotch to prevent insect bites, but that didn’t mean I was wearing any clothing. I placed my hands below my waist strategically.

“The ape,” she said, the words jerking as she caught her breath. “Could you get him to release my bag?”

“No,” I said, looking at Drummer sadly. “I’m afraid I cannot.”

The woman collapsed on the soil, breathing heavily. The noise was loud enough that Drummer again became more interested in her than the bag. He stood on two legs, panting and swaying.

“We should be quiet with each other,” I said slowly, “so that he’ll know that we aren’t enemies. Don’t move your hands suddenly, and don’t touch me yet. Otherwise he will think you’re attacking.”

“Okay,” the woman said, keeping her hands in her lap. I figured she must know chimpanzees a little; though she was talking to me, she trained her eyes on a leaf.

“You can look up sometimes. Drummer doesn’t mind that.”

She glanced up and gave a fearful sigh. “Like this?”

“Yes. Like that. Only less afraid.” It was strange; we were speaking out loud, but I was learning so much more by looking at her stance, her rapid breathing, the expressions her mouth took on when she wasn’t trying to say anything.

“You speak very good French,” she said. She was staying so still that the words sounded emotionless, but I could see the tightness of her wrists, the wobble in her legs.

I nodded warily and grunted. Why should my French not be good? I was from Gabon.

“Most people who live in this region don’t speak French, just their tribal language,” she said.

“You’re wrong. Because there aren’t any people around here. There’s no one for days.” I wanted to add not anymore, but realized it might be foolish to give this woman much information.

“You mean to tell me it’s just you here? All by yourself?”

I shook my head. Using words made me feel almost queasy. I didn’t like them anymore; there were so many ways to be untrue. I realized that I’d let my hands fall from my crotch, and I let them stay by my sides.

“I mean, is someone else here taking care of you?”

I laughed. “No. I take care of them. Or we take care of one another, I guess.”

“Them? Can you introduce me?”

“You’ve already met one.”

Drummer was still crouched there, staring at us. When we simultaneously looked at him, he turned bashful. I’d never seen him with an expression like that.

The woman looked confused. “I mean human friends. Not apes.”

There had been a person, of course, but I didn’t want to tell this woman about Prof. I also didn’t want to lie to her, so I chose my words carefully. “There are no other people here.”

“I’m so impressed that you’re able to survive out here all by yourself,” the woman said in this warm tone that made me feel jumbled and angry.

“I told you, I’m not by myself,” I said.

“Yes, you did tell me that,” she said, suddenly cross. “And I’m telling you I’m surprised by it!”

“Are you traveling down the river?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I was.”

“So you’ll keep going.” My arms crossed on their own.

Drummer came closer now. It must have been the woman’s hair that he found so magical; he put his face right by her ear and lifted some of the strands — blond darkened with silver — into the sunlight and let them tumble through his fingers. The woman held perfectly still.

I knew that I’d made it sound like I wanted her to go away. I didn’t, but her leaving me was inevitable; it would feel better if the idea had been mine. “You could stay here for a while,” I said, voice trembling. “If you want a break from traveling.” I have a house.

She nodded. It was almost imperceptible, but I’d noticed it, and so did Drummer. He put his face right in front of hers and delicately pursed his lips so they grazed hers. “It’s okay,” I said. “He’s being curious.”

Drummer draped a lock of the woman’s hair over his own face and turned to me, his lips still pursed. I laughed. “Very pretty, Drummer. You look very beautiful.”

“Drummer?” she said, staying perfectly still as the chimp tugged on her hair. “Is that his name?”

“Yes. Because he likes to drum on the kapok trees. And I think he likes you.”

“I’d much rather that than he hate me,” she said, looking Drummer up and down.

“Yes,” I said, remembering his savage attack on Omar. “It is much better this way. The chimps are all more used to people now.”

“Is your village near here?” the woman asked.

I sighed in irritation. “No. I told you there is no one else around here. I don’t have a village.”

She stared at me.

“But I do have a house,” I said.

“Could . . .” she faltered. “Could you show it to me?”

The woman had three large bags, and as I heaved two of them across my back, my muscles seized in a way I remembered from when I’d first taken Prof’s valise over my shoulder. “Are you sure that’s not too much weight?” the woman asked.

I couldn’t make my lungs fill enough to speak, so I grunted in response.

Drummer served as our escort. He’d bound well ahead, return to make sure we were still there, then hurtle forward again.

I stopped us before we emerged at the lagoon. “I need you to wait here for a few minutes,” I told the woman. “And to keep very quiet.”

She nodded, sitting against a large tree and hugging her knees to her chest.

I proceeded with Drummer and was glad to find the clearing empty. When I brought the metal case out of my hut, Drummer took my hand and dragged me toward our new companion’s hiding spot. As we went, I handed over the case. Thrilled to have his tool in his possession again, Drummer bounded back and forth, banging it against anything in reach (including, painfully, my shin). Distantly, I heard other chimps call as they heard the ruckus. They’d all be here soon. We had to hurry.

Drummer tailed me when I went back to the woman, metal case dragging in the dirt. When she saw the chimp carrying a briefcase, she laughed out loud. Drummer looked at her and then at me, confused. Maybe even embarrassed.

“There will be other chimps at the lagoon soon,” I said curtly; there was no need for her to make Drummer feel bad. “And that case keeps Drummer dominant. Which keeps you and me safe.”

Her smile dropped. “Of course,” she said.

We made our way to the lagoon. As we went, Drummer trucked the case along the ground and made terrific crashing sounds that had him hooting in pleasure. When we emerged into the clearing we found many of the chimps already assembled at the far side, agitated and making their own excited noises. Drummer did a victory lap around the lagoon, losing the case once or twice when it hit a root or rock but soon retrieving it. Silver Stripes and the other males scattered whenever the younger male neared.

The woman and I stood near the waterfall, completely overlooked. “Amazing,” she breathed. “Just amazing.”

I gestured proudly around the lagoon. “Yes, it’s beautiful. And have you seen the house? It’s around the bend!”

“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure that’s impressive, too, but I mean the chimpanzees.”

“Drummer loves that case,” I said. “And you can see why.”

“Is it yours?”

I didn’t know. It hadn’t been mine, but now I supposed it was. “Yes. It’s mine.”

“Amazing,” the woman said. “I’d like to make a record of this.”

“I’ve been making notes,” I said. “With drawings. I can show you, if you like.”

She seemed to barely hear me. “Tool use is nothing that hasn’t already been observed in the wild, of course. But not in Gabon’s chimp cultures. And never quite like this.”

“Never with a spy case, you mean?”

She shook her head in confusion. “Was Drummer always the alpha? I’m surprised, with his leg the way it is.”

“Was Drummer always in charge? No. I can tell you all about it. I can show you the research,” I said, drawing out the word. I took the woman’s wrist lightly in my hand and tugged her toward my hut, grunting despite myself. The chimps noticed us and increased their ruckus, climbing nearby trees and hooting. They were still hemmed in by Drummer, who was proudly banging the case against everything he could reach, denting trees and ripping apart bushes.

“I made this hut,” I said, shouting to be heard over the noise. “From trees and vines. If you had come by a few weeks ago, it wouldn’t have been finished yet. But now it is!”

But the woman wasn’t looking. She was staring at the chimps, her hands on her hips. “It’s amazing!”

I looked out at the apes. They were them. Which was amazing, I supposed.

I unhooked the door’s vine handle and pried it open. Omar stepped out — I’d taken to keeping him indoors when I was away from the lagoon, in case one of the chimps got ideas and again tried to make a meal out of the aging monkey. He scampered up to my shoulder and started scolding the woman.

“This is Omar,” I said.

“Hello!” she said, holding out a hand with one finger outstretched, like he was a parakeet. Omar stared at the finger, waiting for food to appear.

The woman pulled away her hand. “A vervet! He’s far from his home range.”

I cocked my head at the woman. “It’s true. He’s not from the Inside. How did you know that?”

The woman didn’t answer. She was staring out the doorway, clearly overwhelmed by the sight of the chimps. The males were falling over themselves frantically, but — predictably — their displays of power were turning to play. None of them was in a position to directly challenge Drummer, which meant that after they’d finished horsing around they’d all be back to their usual grooming and friend-making.

“Do you want to come in?” I asked. “I can make you a mint tea.”

“I’d rather stay out here and watch them.”

I sighed and stashed the woman’s bags in my hut. Shy again about my nakedness, I took my remaining scrap of shirt and tied it around my waist. We sat on the broad flat stone beside my cooking fire and watched the chimps. I made tea for her because it was what an adult did for a guest, even a guest who hurt her host’s feelings by not wanting to see inside his hut.

Mango had spent the day with Good Mother and her son, and they were the last of the chimps to arrive. When she saw me she raced forward, then stopped short when she realized someone new was there. She eyed the new woman suspiciously.

“That’s Mango,” I said.

The woman took an orange from her bag and held it out in her open palm. “Here you go, little one,” she said.

Mango looked longingly at the fruit. Oranges did not grow in our jungle, and this was a once-in-a-lifetime treasure. But when she looked at the woman, her eyes turned stormy.

“Mango . . .” I said warningly, “be nice.”

Mango took the orange into one hand and sniffed it. Then she slowly and deliberately placed her teeth over the woman’s wrist and bit. The woman gasped and yanked her arm away.

Mango scampered off. Then, for good measure, she kicked soil at the woman before vaulting up a tree. The dirt spray fell far short.

“Are you okay?” I asked her. “Did Mango draw blood? I’m sorry — she’s never done anything like that before.”

The woman examined her hand. The palm was cramped in one position, like she was trying to pick up something narrow and heavy, but I didn’t see any blood. “She crunched me a little,” the woman said. “But I don’t think she wanted to hurt me.”

Mango settled a short distance away, orange in her lap. When Drummer came near she shrieked her head off and hurled her whole body over the precious fruit. Drummer easily rolled her over and took it for himself. When she cried pitifully, he cuffed her and she fell flat. Then she turned pleading, placing her face right next to Drummer’s and making cooing sounds while he bit into the fruit.

“It’s amazing,” the woman whispered. “Chimps clearly don’t expect justice like humans do, but at the same time they show a lot more tolerance. Can you imagine any powerful human male accepting someone so close to his face while he was eating?”

“That’s his sister,” I explained. “He’s used to having her in his face all the time.”

“Even so. It’s amazing. They’ll fight and make up and be okay with having their boundaries overrun.” As if to prove the woman’s point, Mango pulled a slice of orange right from between Drummer’s teeth. Her brother permitted it, and she turned away from him to enjoy her rescued treat, her back resting against Drummer’s lame leg. The moment she’d finished that slice, she went back into his mouth and plucked away a final morsel.

“What happened to the dominant male’s leg?” the woman asked.

“Drummer? He was caught in a trap. I freed him.”

“You did? All by yourself? Where are your parents?”

I shook my head. The point was that I had freed Drummer from a trap. That I had made a house for myself out here in the wilderness. That I was a boy researcher.

“So . . .” she said, watching my expression. “How did you keep him alive?”

“I did what my mother once did for my father. I made a salt drip. It used up almost all of the salt I had, but Drummer lived.”

“He’s a very handsome chimp.”

Drummer looked up, coarse black hair flopping over his forehead. “He is. You’re right.” We sat in silence for a while. It had been so long since I’d been around anyone who spoke a language that I had to think about how to make words work; it was like there had to be two conversations, one silent about what you were feeling and one out loud about what you were saying, and the two only rarely managed to be the same thing. It was exhausting. “It seems like you have been around chimpanzees before,” I finally said.

She dragged one of her bags out of the hut. “Yes, many times. But only in sanctuaries and zoos.”

“So you have come into the jungle to study them?” I asked, hoping this woman might be like Prof.

“Not exactly.” She sighed, staring into my eyes. Then she clapped her hands. Mango startled and leaped in the air, then hunched down and fixed the woman with an evil eye. “Are you hungry?” the woman asked.

She unzipped the bag, and the moment I glimpsed what she had inside, I put a hand over hers to stop her. “Bring it into the hut. If the chimps see that food, it will all be gone in seconds.”

I ushered her in, dragged the bag in after us, and set one of the smoldering logs on the doorstep. I did that whenever the chimps got too curious about my home. Finished with her orange slices, Mango positioned herself on the far side of the log and stared the intruder down through the rising smoke.

The woman laughed. “That little chimp is never going to come around to me, is she?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think she will.”

The woman lifted the bottom of her bag. Mango paced at the other side of the smoking log, trying to get a better view.

The woman dumped out the bag’s contents. When I saw what tumbled out, I gasped.

A fresh bag of rice. A tin of salt (that shiny container with its sturdy lid was as exciting as what was inside). Crackers in crinkly wrappers. Strips of dried buffalo. Bandages and antibiotics. A bar of chocolate.

I was crying. The hot tears falling down my face made me feel childish, so I buried my head between my bare knees. Having that kind of food in front of me would have been overwhelming even back in Franceville, but here in the jungle the shock was even worse. “I’m sorry,” I blubbered. Hearing how weak my voice sounded in front of this stranger only made me sob harder. “I’m sorry!” Then the fact that I’d apologized on top of everything else made me feel even worse.

The woman’s hand was on my back. “It’s okay! I shouldn’t have dumped it all out at once, right here on your living room floor. That was really bad judgment. I’m sorry.”

I let myself lean into the hand on my back, and it became an embrace around my shoulders. She made soft cooing sounds, completely unlike the coarse panting sympathy of chimp mothers. “Where is all that food from?” I finally managed to get out.

“The city. I flew into the capital, took the Transgabonais train across to Franceville, and came up to you by logging truck.”

“That’s where I’m from,” I said. “Franceville. It’s where I was from before I was from here.”

“So you’re a city boy.”

I removed myself from her embrace, faced her, and sat up tall. When I stared straight ahead I couldn’t see the food, and once I couldn’t see the food my voice became strong again. “I grew up in a village. And then the city. And now here.”

“That’s a lot of traveling for someone so young.” She reached down, and the chocolate came into view. She unwrapped the bar, and I tentatively accepted it. I licked an edge, and the flavor was so intense it curled my tongue. I folded the wrapper back over and put the bar to one side. “Can I save this?”

The woman nodded, her smile huge but frowning at the corners. “Of course. It’s yours to do with as you like. I want you to keep all of this.”

Thank you seemed inappropriate for something so tremendous, so I just nodded.

“I brought it for you. I bought all of this with you in mind.”

I looked at her. She was a foreigner; maybe she’d messed up her French. “What do you mean, with me in mind?”

“I stopped here because I saw your canoe. And then I saw you.”

“Yes . . .” I was dying to know more. But as I watched the woman choose her words, another thought struck me: I was in a room with four walls and a roof, sitting across from a person and having a conversation. That was a surprise and a mystery, as much as what she was saying. It made my body trill to think that a few feet away were a lagoon and lounging chimpanzees and miles of jungle with no humans in it. But here we were in a little house. This woman and I, we were people.

She smiled warmly. “I haven’t even properly introduced myself. My name is Anne Osgood. I’m a photographer for the National Geographic Society.”

Right as she said that, a squabble broke out among the chimps. I listened to them shriek, their calls intensifying as the whole troop became involved. Though I could see chimps running back and forth behind her, screaming their heads off, the whole time Mango sat perfectly erect at the far side of the smoldering log, concentrating on us with every jealous bone in her body. I saw her, but my thoughts were only on Prof and everything he’d meant to accomplish. I willed myself not to cry again.

“It was true,” I managed to gasp. My heart was filling and bursting and filling again in a way that felt so good, it was uncomfortable. “You mean Prof didn’t lie. He told the truth!”

She tilted her head. “Sorry?”

“Professor Abdul Mohammad,” I said proudly. “The chimpanzee researcher! Africa’s Jane Goodall! Who else could I mean?”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“I came here with him. I was his assistant. I’m carrying on his work.”

I watched her stumble through her confusion. Finally she took my hands in hers and leaned in. Mango made defensive barks as the woman brought her head close to mine. I was worried Mango would step on the smoldering log and burn her feet, so I could barely concentrate on Madame Anne Osgood’s words as she spoke: “Whoever he is, that person is not why I’m here. I’m here to photograph the boy who lives with the chimpanzees. I’m here for you.“