It came as no surprise to Dave that Skip let him take the pilot's seat for the flight back to Quito. They often traded roles, pilot and co-pilot, and on a long, multi-day shuttle, flying Lucille back to California from Alaska or Ecuador, would fly twelve- hour days in four three-hour shifts. What Skip had to say at the Quito airport, however, as they were transferring their clients to a commercial flight for home, came as a total surprise.

"It's all yours from here, buddy," he told Dave, with a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Looks like I'll be staying on awhile."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that if Pan Pacific can pull Adventureland out of Ecuador, maybe it's time for me to pull out of Adventureland. You were always better at the business end of it anyway. I was always in it for the same reason I was all along, what it all started out as, just an adventure."

"So, what are you going to do? Move down here with Nusiri and go native?"

"Maybe. If she'll have me, that is. I'll go through the process, put up with all the bureaucracy one more time, establish residency. Beyond that, who knows? We'll marry, I'll live in Tsukanka's house in the traditional Jivaro way, until the birth of the baby. Then we've already got a house waiting for us, a mile downstream. Who knows, maybe I'll commute to Macas on weekends and guide some tourists into the jungle. Or maybe not. After all, Nusiri's people, the Shuar, and all indigenous peoples like them, are just that, people, like you and me, not tourist attractions or anthropological curiosities. Who knows what our future holds, mine and Nusiri's? I just know that mine's been needing something of an adjustment for a while now. A change of latitude will do me good."

Dave McRae looked into the eyes of his best friend and saw that he was serious. He also saw something else, a sense of purpose perhaps, or an intense desire to peek around the corner at one of life's unexpected bends, and set out on a new path.

"I'm gonna miss you, buddy. What about Lucille?"

"Come back down next week and I'll help you shuttle her back to the States. I'll need to wrap things up there anyway. Then I'll catch a commercial flight back down and take the bus or a charter from Quito back here to Macas and catch a ride upriver with one of the locals. And Lucille? Take good care of her for me, will you? And for my grandfather, too, God rest his soul."

"Roger that, will do."

The last call for their flight was announced over the P.A. system, in Spanish and in English. Skip Hutchins and Dave McRae shook hands and held the grasp and each other's gaze a long moment. Then Dave turned to the clients, herding them on board, wondering what to tell them about why his partner was staying behind, and Skip walked back down the terminal, his heart lighter and freer than it had been in years, and took the first steps into his greatest adventure yet.