THAT CAMP finally came late in the day.

The rain had stopped an hour earlier, but the leaves on the trees and plants still glistened with residual wetness. With the return of the sun came the steam drifting up from the warm rocks. Though the temperature was only about ten or fifteen degrees warmer than back home in New Mexico, the humidity was quadrupled. Skip felt like he was chewing and swallowing the thick air rather than breathing it in.

Killa finally turned the canoe toward a small beach of coarse sand over on the right-hand bank. The jungle to either side framed a clearing straight ahead, which opened up beyond the river to a wide view of a range of rough, rocky mountains a few miles distant.

Skip set up their three-person North Face family dome tent with ease, while Killa preferred sleeping under the overturned canoe with a couple of lightweight blankets that she had made herself. Nusiri heated up a simple MRE-based dinner on the tiny backpacking stove. Killa looked at the prepackaged beef stroganoff dubiously, but agreed later that it was quite tasty.

With the recent rain and the time of day in mind, Skip kept an eye on the mountains ahead. Finally he caught the effect he'd been hoping to see. With the setting sun at their backs, he directed the other's attentions to the view forward.

"That's what caught the attention of the Raposo expedition. See the way the setting sun plays the light on the rocks up there, still wet from the rain? Quartz crystals. And that's how we know they were traveling west to east, as we are now. Keep in mind that they had been exploring the rainforest for ten years by that time. They had started out in what is now Bahia State, near the Rio Sao Francisco, and ended up three or four river systems to the west. Maybe at that point they were working their way back. Who knows? But by climbing those mountains up ahead, they found that lost city that intrigued them so."

They watched the light play its evening show, turning the hills from sienna to rose to deep lavender. Then they turned back to camp and an early bedtime, for tomorrow would be a day of hiking and mountain climbing.

∆ ∆ ∆

The next morning they awoke to the smell of fish cooking over an open fire that Killa had caught while they were still asleep. After splashing their faces in the shallows at the river's edge to wake up, they settled in for a quick breakfast before striking camp and shouldering packs.

"At least the beginning of this little hike looks easy enough," remarked Skip, eyeing the mile or two of relatively open savanna leading to the rough mountains ahead. "'Without hindrance of forests or rivers' is how the Raposo expedition described it. Although a few palms and ceibas have taken hold since then. The difficult part for them was finding a way up the mountains themselves."

A minute later he spotted a thin waterfall ribboning down from the heights to their left.

"Must've been deeper into the wet season when Raposo came through. He noted several falls, running full and white as snow, turning to fire in the light of the setting sun."

Nusiri grinned. "Hopefully, your article will sound just as poetic," she teased.

"Never said I was another Hemingway. Usually takes a couple of drafts to get it right."

"Dad always says he became a writer because words come out better on paper than they do out of his mouth," joked Zane.

"Hey!" said Skip, making a playful move as if to give chase. Zane merely sidestepped a few strides and twisted out of the way, his soccer footwork kicking in.

"Guess I shoulda just stuck with guiding wannabe adventurers into the wilds of Ecuador or the mountains of Alaska."

They were nearly across the plain and approaching the trees at the base of the mountains when the mood suddenly went from carefree to cautious.

Killa, in the lead, held up a hand and stopped, sniffing the air.

The rest of them smelled it too.

"Cannabis?" said Zane.

Nusiri shot him a look, but her son just shook his head.

"Not me, or my friends either, but I've smelled it before. I know what it is."

But Killa shook her head. "Urine. It is how the maned wolf marks his territory."

"You have wolves in South America?" asked Zane.

"Look," whispered Nusiri, pointing to a large, unusual-looking canine with reddish brown fur, skinny black legs and a dark mane of longer hair across its shoulders. It was feasting on the remains of what had probably been a giant anteater.

"Looks like a big fox on steroids."

"They are usually pretty shy of humans."

Just then the wolf noticed them. With his large ears flattened back, he took a step forward with a menacing growl.

"All wild animals can be dangerous when disturbed," said Killa. "Especially when they are on a kill."

But the four humans were not the only ones about to disturb the wolf's breakfast.

As the tall canine crouched low, ready to pounce against these invaders, all hell suddenly broke loose.

With a blood-chilling snarl, a puma, stalking the wolf through the tall grass, sprang from his hiding place and took a flying leap at the maned wolf. The wolf, sensing the danger at the last possible instant, yelped and twisted, his long, thin legs working frantically to propel him to safety. In a cloud of dust, the puma, aiming for the wolf's neck, instead was only lucky enough to get a swipe at the hindquarters, as the wolf scooted out of the way.

But only for an instant.

The puma wasted no time in spinning around and repositioning for another attack.

But before the next deadly pounce, the true apex predator made its appearance. From between the trees at the edge of the clearing, came a jaguar, running full speed into the grassland in leaps and bounds. The wolf and the puma, each a split second away from being prey themselves, forgot their own struggle and flew off in opposite directions.

The jaguar, her final pounce landing on empty ground, did not come out of it without a consolation prize, however. She merely contented herself with the leftovers from the anteater. It would serve as an appetizer until next time. Whether her intended target had originally been the puma or the wolf was impossible to tell. As for the humans, either of the smaller two of which might have been a satisfying meal, she decided against.

Maybe it was the safety of numbers. But as they cautiously got back on their way, giving the jaguar a wide berth, Skip could have sworn he saw a look of understanding pass between the jaguar and their guide, Killa. Jaguar whisperer indeed. He thought back to Puma, the village chief, and noted the symbolism. The puma might be a bad-ass cat, but the jaguar still was queen of the jungle.

"From merriment to mayhem," Skip mused. "How's that for a poetic episode in the article? "

Nusiri just shook her head. "Come on. We still have a mountain to climb."

They made it through the forest between the savanna and the mountain range in short order. "Now here is where the Raposo party almost turned back," said Skip. "They made it to this point easy enough, but couldn't find a way up the slopes, until one of their hired hands happened upon a deer, and followed it up a game trail, which led to what to them looked like a road up the pass to the top. From there, well, we'll see what we see."

The path Killa led them to might have been the very same route followed by those Portuguese explorers so long ago. Her people certainly kept it maintained, for here also was the way to that spring of healing herbs that had helped her great-grandfather, Jack Fawcett, reach such great longevity. Where Raposo and his party had taken three hours to make the climb, stopping to admire the play of light and color of the crystalline rocks, Skip Hutchins and his party made it in two, though not without donating their fair share of sweat along the trail. If there was something to see up here, they were going to have to work a bit to see it. The path wound around a group of large boulders that had fallen from somewhere above eons ago, consistent with the account in Manuscript 512. Above that, the quartz crystals embedded in the rock face were no less impressive now than they were in the eighteenth century. And beyond that, the pass reached the summit itself.

And from that summit, they could at last see what had made the Raposo expedition famous, what had led to Manuscript 512, and what had been such an inspiration for Percy Fawcett's theory of Z.

It wasn't just the view, which was impressive enough: an open plain, with a river running through it, leading back to dense rainforest a few miles away. But it was what was tucked into the corner where plain, river, and jungle all met.

"Now that," said Skip, "that is a lost city."