📸 Photo

other, no less ferocious voices joined in a chorus of snarls.

‘No, that isn’t a jaguar,’ Karl changed his mind. ‘It’s a big howler monkey, a maneche. Their cries are deceptively similar. Look, up in the tree.’

I looked up. A family of enormous brown-coloured monkeys was watching us curiously and calling down to us.

‘They don’t taste as good as the marimono, the black one, but they’re OK,’ Karl said. ‘Let’s get one.’

He took aim and fired but missed his shot. From where I stood, it was an easy target. I had a clear view of the monkey.

‘Give me the shotgun,’ I said.

I took it from him, aimed, and fired. The monkey fell, grabbed at branches on its way down, plunged again, and then one of the lower boughs arrested its fall. Karl grabbed the shotgun from me and ran toward it.

‘It’s the size of a gorilla,’ he called out as he helped the monkey to a quick and merciful death with another shot fired at close range. The animal dropped to the ground. Karl gutted it right there on the spot to make it lighter. We carried it back to the camp together.

We found Kevin in a great mood. He had been snapping dozens of photos. We had our picture taken with our prey, holding our weapons.

Marcus tried to avoid acknowledging the monkey’s presence, though the smell of its scorched flesh, once