The Hollow in the Forest

In the late 1800s, eight of us set out to chart a remote Amazon tributary, expecting nothing more than dense forest and routine river travel. I was twenty-seven, hired as a clerk and rifleman, tasked with keeping the daybook and counting supplies. Our leader was Captain Alvaro Da, a proud Portuguese officer whose knowledge of the river was matched only by his stubbornness. With us were Brother Tomas, a Dominican priest with a calming voice; two rubber men, Ruie and Matias; Lo, a cartographer; Bento, our cook and boatman; and our local guide, Iua, from a village on the lower Shingu.

We paddled upriver in two canoes, the forest pressing close, the air thick and wet. The river was dropping for the season, sandbars showing pale backs in the bends. Mosquitoes swarmed at dusk, ants found every crumb, and a black cayman drifted near our campfire one evening, its eyes like wet stones.

We traded with two villages. In one, the elder warned Iua quietly about the “hollow.” Later, Iua explained: “Old path, bad place. Not for walking.” Captain Alvaro dismissed superstition, eager to press onward.

On the ninth day, we entered a narrow tributary marked on the captain’s map. The water moved slow, trees arched overhead, and the world grew quiet. Birds vanished, insects fell silent. Bento, usually cheerful, rubbed his arms and said the air felt wrong.

That afternoon, Lo spotted prints along the muddy bank—three long toes, each print longer than my forearm. The stride was vast, the depth impossible for any animal we knew. Brother Tomas examined them. “Not a tapir,” he said. “Not a man.” Iua replied, “We do not hunt it.” Captain Alvaro was pleased; this was the unknown he sought.

We camped early on raised ground. The silence pressed in. No frogs called after sundown, no night chorus. Near midnight, I woke to a low, muffled call from across the river, followed by a brief rush through brush. Everything went still.

In the morning, we found a tree on the edge of camp pushed half over, roots torn, bark scored in long lines. Captain Alvaro blamed storms, but the sky was clear.

We pressed on, the tributary narrowing, the undergrowth thinning. The air cooled. Iua touched his necklace of seeds, his eyes restless. By midday, we reached a pool at the mouth of a steep, green valley. The water smelled metallic and old. Iua refused to step out. “Not valley,” he said. “Mouth. Big one.”

We climbed the bank, finding disturbed mud and leaf litter. Bento stayed with the canoes, saying only, “I will keep the boats ready.” The captain chose the party: himself, me, Lo, Ruie, Matias, Brother Tomas, and Iua.

As we climbed, the forest grew quieter still. We reached a shelf where the ground leveled, opening into a broad hollow. Sunlight filtered through gaps, but the air was dull, half-lit. Ferns covered the ground, and in the center stood a dark, round pool.

The ground was trampled with tracks—like those on the riverbank, but more numerous, overlapping, cutting across each other. The earth was pressed deep, paths circling the hollow and disappearing into the trees.

We moved along the edge, following the tracks through two stone outcrops. The ground showed a steady line of disturbance, flattened plants, snapped branches at chest height. Something large passed here often.

Brother Tomas asked Iua what his people called this place. “Old mothers say there is a path where the ground remembers the time before,” Iua said. “Sometimes it opens, sometimes it closes. When it opens, big ones walk. When it closes, big ones sleep and dream.”

We found a carcass near a low ridge—a capybara, half its torso missing, bones snapped inward, spine bent, jaw too wide. “No cat does that,” Brother Tomas murmured. Lo noted its placement and the drag marks.

Ruie wanted to turn back, but Captain Alvaro insisted on pressing to the next rise. “We have not seen it,” he said. “We need more than dead animals and holes in the ground.”

The air grew colder as we climbed, breath turning to faint white puffs. At the top, we heard a deep, cracking call ahead and to our right, then a heavy impact as if something large shifted against a tree. We moved into denser cover.

In the next clearing, ferns were flattened in wide loops. At the far side, half in shadow, something moved—a massive creature, walking upright on two powerful legs, three forward toes, thick tail, conical teeth, small dark eyes. It exhaled, breath visible in the chilled air, and scanned the clearing.

It found a half-eaten carcass, tore it up, and swallowed. Then it looked toward our line of trees. Its gaze passed over us, listening. A distant thud echoed—Bento shifting a canoe below. The creature turned toward the river, tail stiffening.

Then a branch cracked to our left. Something else moved in the trees, heavy and slow. The creature in the clearing swung its head, growled, muscles tensed, posture defensive. Another bulk of skin moved through the brush, advancing, not creeping or fleeing.

We began to retreat, inch by inch, keeping low. Each step felt like a shout. The two unseen forces seemed aware of each other, not yet in conflict. Only when the clearing was out of sight did we quicken our steps, stumbling down the path.

Back at the river, the air warmed, forest sounds returned. Bento waited at the canoes. “We leave now,” he said. The captain’s voice wavered. We loaded fast, hands shaking. Only when the river carried us away did anyone speak.

“There are beasts in that valley,” the captain said. “Two, at least, large enough to topple trees. They walk on two legs, kill anything they find, guard something there. We cannot return.”

Iua said, “We leave this river. Not tomorrow. Now.” The captain nodded.

As the current took us away, I looked back. The forest looked ordinary, but I felt the creatures behind the trees, walking paths older than our maps, older than any village. I wondered how many lived in that valley, if two enormous shapes could cross paths without surprise.

We paddled hard until the river widened and the sun dipped low. The captain ordered us to continue even after dusk. Sleep did not come easily, not that night, nor many nights after.

We reached a village. The elder there studied us. “You crossed the wrong place,” he said. “Not all who cross return.” The captain replied, “We will not go that way again.” The elder nodded. “Old things wake when the door opens. They walk until the door closes again.”

We continued downstream. The oppressive sense of weight faded. Birds called, insects hummed. At a sandbar, we finally allowed a fire. Around it, we spoke quietly. “Do you think there were more?” Rui asked. “Many paths, many scents, more than two,” Iua replied.

We reached Bame as the rains returned. The city felt rooted in the present, real and solid. The captain ordered us to write separate accounts, but none of us named the location of the hollow. “We are preventing a disaster,” he said. “If others go there with more men, more weapons, more ambition, they may not return. Or worse, they may bring something back.”

Life returned to routine, but the memory of the hollow lingered. Sometimes, as the sun set, a cool breeze swept down from upriver, goose flesh rising on my arms. Nobody else noticed. I stood still, listening, remembering the cold breath in the valley.

The forest keeps its secrets. The hollow is far away, the creatures farther still. Yet sometimes, when the wind shifts in just the wrong way, I remember the elder’s words: Old things wake when the door opens, and I wonder if the door ever truly closed.

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