Perusina, Perusino, and Franz in Sullana

The first scream came from the banana plantations.

"Gone! All gone!" a boy cried, running so fast across the dusty path that Franz startled and tumbled backward into a basket of mangoes.

Perusina turned around. "What's gone?"

The boy stopped, gasping for breath. In his hand, he held only a wet string. "The map of Tangarará. My grandfather wanted to show it today. It was old. Very old. And now the Río Chira has swallowed it."

Perusino looked over at the river. The water gleamed wide and sluggish in the heat. "A river doesn't swallow maps."

Franz sniffed the string. "It does. If someone helps it along first."

The boy's name was Mateo. He hastily explained: The map showed the old path from San Miguel de Tangarará to the river. There, his grandfather said, everything used to begin: paths, boats, fields, town stories.

But just before the children arrived, a man in a straw hat had bumped into the table. Afterward, the map fell into an irrigation canal.

Perusina knelt by the canal. The water rushed between earthen banks.

"If it fell in here, it's drifting towards the Chira."

"Then we have to be faster than it," said Perusino.

"You always say that just before we get wet," Franz grumbled.

They ran off.

The canal wound through banana plantations. Large leaves slapped their faces. Perusino jumped over a ditch, landed halfway in the mud, and pulled out a shoe that made a suspicious squelching sound.

Perusina stopped. A piece of paper was stuck to the edge of the canal. Not the map. Just a corner.

On it was a symbol: three short lines, like claws.

Franz pricked up his ears. "It smells of mango. And fear."

"Mango isn't scared," said Perusino.

"This one is."

A cart rumbled out of the plantations. On it lay green banana stalks, sacks, and a crate of mangoes. The man in the straw hat sat at the front. When he saw the children, he cracked his whip in the air. The mule pulled forward. The cart rumbled away.

"That was him!" Mateo cried.

Perusina ran off. "Don't follow him. Cut him off! The canal makes a bend towards Laguna de los Patos."

They hurried through the heat. Dust burned in their throats. Then the landscape suddenly grew quieter. Reeds grew by the water. Birds scattered. Laguna de los Patos lay like a green eye between dry forest and fields.

Then they heard a cracking sound.

The cart was half in the reeds. The crate of mangoes had tipped over. The man was frantically searching in the water.

"He doesn't have the map," Perusina whispered. "He's looking for it too."

Franz crawled under the cart. "There's something else here."

He pulled out a rolled-up piece of cloth with his teeth. On it were the same three claw lines.

Mateo turned pale. "That's not a symbol. That's the mark from my grandfather's old storehouse."

At that moment, the man jumped up. "Give that here!"

Perusino threw the cloth to Mateo. Perusina ripped open a sack. Banana leaves slid out and skidded in front of the man's feet. He stumbled, caught himself, and reached out again.

Franz shot off, straight through the reeds. "I've got the scent!"

At the edge of the lagoon, something brown drifted in the water. Not the whole map, just a soggy part.

Perusina reached for it. Too short.

Perusino threw himself prone into the grass and held her feet tight. Mateo held Perusino. Franz bit Mateo's trouser hem, just to be safe.

Perusina caught the paper.

No treasure was marked on it. No gold. No secret tunnel. Just a line from the river to an old tree near Tangarará. Next to it was written: "When the Chira rises, do not seek the path on the ground."

"Not on the ground," Perusina repeated.

They ran back to Tangarará. At first, they saw nothing by the old tree. Then Perusina noticed the shadow. The afternoon sun cast the fork of the branches directly onto a mud wall. There, the three lines on the map matched three incised notches.

Mateo's grandfather slowly approached. "So, that's the old waterline."

Behind the mud wall, they found no chest, but flat stones with markings. They showed how high the Río Chira used to rise and where one could safely build, plant, and walk.

The man in the straw hat lowered his head. He had wanted to steal the map because he believed it would lead to treasure.

Perusino looked at the stones. "And? It does."

Franz licked mango from his paw. "A treasure that explains why you don't work against the river."

Perusina smiled. "Sullana didn't hide its secret. The Chira merely guarded it."