Page 10 of Beasts of Mine

The tayra turned back toward me.

I waited with one hand resting on the top of my backpack.

“What?” I asked the creature, expecting it to continue once it had checked that I wasn't following.

Instead, it walked a little farther, stopped again, and looked back.

Understanding slowly settled in.

“No,” I told the tayra, shaking my head as I stood. “I already left the trail for you. We're not adding another bad idea to the afternoon.”

Its tail moved once.

“No, I'm not following you,” I repeated to the creature, pointing toward it even though I was fully aware of how ridiculous I looked.

The tayra continued deeper into the trees.

Then stopped.

Again.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered to the tayra, resting one hand on my hip while it waited.

I checked behind me. I could still remember the direction of the trail, but the colored markers were hidden by the vegetation. Following a wild tayra deeper into a rainforest I'd arrived in only a few hours earlier was objectively stupid.

Unfortunately, curiosity had caused a significant portion of the questionable choices I'd made throughout my career.

“I have spent almost a decade working with animals,” I told the creature, pulling my backpack onto my shoulders. “I should be harder to manipulate than this.”

The tayra made a short sound.

I narrowed my eyes.

“Don't get smug,” I warned the tayra, adjusting the straps before stepping carefully over a root.

It started walking.

“Five minutes,” I called after the tayra, following several yards behind. “After that, I'm turning around.”

The creature didn't bother acknowledging me.

The farther we moved from the maintained trail, the thicker the vegetation became. Moss covered fallen wood and exposed stones, while large roots forced me to watch my footing. Several vines hung low enough that I had to duck beneath them, and the narrow path the tayra followed would have been easy to lose if I allowed it to get too far ahead.

Then I noticed the sound.

Or rather, the lack of some of it.

The rainforest hadn't become silent, but the constant noise had thinned. I couldn't hear the capuchins anymore. Bird calls were less frequent, and even the insects seemed quieter than they had closer to the trail.

I stopped long enough to listen. Nothing about the forest looked threatening.

Still, the change made me uneasy. I checked the GPS clipped to the outside of my pack.

The screen flickered.

I tapped it once with my finger.

The display returned to normal.