From Dr. Ehirllimbal's private journal—

April 16th, 1954: Mr. Benway died in his sleep last night. One of the Ytucali warriors—the one we have taken to calling "Yellow Eye"—has been wounded, though neither myself nor Dr. Arnash can find any visible damage. The other Ytucali, "Red Feathers," says, as near as Círo and I can make out, that the beast which invaded our camp last night was a spirit creature, a dream jaguar. Yellow Eye drove it off but not before it managed to take Mr. Benway's spirit.

I have asked Círo to not mention this explanation to the rest of the crew. Dr. Arnash has heard it, as he was trying to treat Yellow Eye as Círo and I talked with Red Feathers, and in a private conversation later, he admitted that such an explanation might actually be worth some consideration. Yellow Eye, in his opinion, is exhibiting all the symptoms of abdominal injuries—as if he had been gutted by a large cat—without any of the physical damage. While Dr. Arnash is publicly suggesting that Yellow Eye's symptoms are entirely psychosomatic, brought about by the same belief structure that allows Red Feathers to suggest that such a psychic assault could be possible, privately he is trying to keep an open mind.

But . . . I am not ready to leap to such an exotic explanation. I want to, God help me, I want to. It would validate so much of what I came here to prove, but that is exactly the trap I must avoid. My observations must not be tainted by my own lack of objectivity. The material is already going to be difficult to believe. I don't need to give the psychiatric community any easy reason to dismiss it out of hand.

That night, I am visited by a dream of Mr. Benway. He is wearing a jaguar head and his voice is like rolling thunder. "You will never find the tree," he tells me. He puts his jaws around my head, and all I can smell is a fetid, floral stink, like decaying plants drowned in water and left to rot in the sun. Caught in his back teeth is a single unopened bud of white and yellow flowers.