The salt scents of the sea and her sweat sat thick in my head, laid over with unfamiliar flowers, and a trace of animal—pig? She barely reacted to heat that made it hard for me to breathe. Her right knee sent shooting pains up her back whenever she stepped on an uneven patch that turned her foot inward. A chronic injury? She didn’t let the pain slow her. She turned from time to time, looking back over her shoulder. The thick wooden handle of a machete rode loosely in her fingers, like I might carry my car keys or all-in-one, like part of her. We rode host’s senses, not feelings, not true emotions. That’s what they told me, anyway. But right now, I felt her. I felt what she felt. I knew she was frightened of whatever it was she kept turning to look for, frightened of something or someone who could leap out of the jungle at her. I had been told that it would be hard to ride a far-host, but no words had told me how foreign another woman in another place could smell and move and even see.
