My jungle girl was nowhere to be seen but it was obvious that she made this her home, at least sometimes. The mat where I had slept was on one side of the room, covered in a mattress I now recognized as savannah grasses. On the other side was a similar bed, along with several pieces of ancient luggage. Opening them up I found clothing that might have come from America or Europe but that was some ten or fifteen years out of style, not that I kept up with such things. There were a few very nice pieces of gold jewelry and a small personal journal.

I couldn’t read the book. It was in a foreign language that I was able to identify as Russian only by the peculiar additions to the alphabet. From the inside cover I determined that this was the journal of one Aleksandra Christyakova-Romanov. I scanned the pages and found the names Robert James Haldane and Aleksandra Haldane. From this scant evidence I pieced together a picture of a Russian woman who married an Englishman. Perhaps he had visited Russia on business or in some diplomatic capacity, had met the young woman and married her. I knew of course that Romanov was the family name of the Russian monarchy, but surely there were others as well with that surname.

Stuck between the pages in the back of the book were five photographs. They were of people I could not know, of course. Nor could I identify the locations where they were taken. Three were snapshots of people standing in front of unidentifiable buildings. All that I knew was that they had not been taken in Elizagaea—most likely somewhere in Europe. The fourth was a baby picture in an opal shaped vignette. The child was curly-haired and swaddled and could have been a boy or a girl. The final picture was a studio portrait of three people—a distinguished looking man with a thin mustache, a beautiful woman in a long white dress, and a pretty little girl of about six or seven. None of the pictures but this last was labeled. It had on the back, written with a very light touch of pencil in small delicate letters, “Robert, Me, Katarina, 18 April 1895.”

Had I discovered the origin of my jungle girl? Was she the child in the picture—this Katarina? Kanana could have been about twenty-four years old, though it was difficult to judge from what I had seen of her mud-covered form. But if this was true, what was she doing here? I could well imagine the route taken by the Haldanes—across the Atlantic, riding the rails of America’s transcontinental railroad, and then across the Pacific by ship. But why? There was no way to know, unless I could translate the journal or if Kanana/Katarina could remember and tell me.

As consciousness returned, I could easily detect the smell of my own blood, which covered me. As this registered in my mind, I became aware of something else—the feeling that something, something big, was moving very close to me. I opened my eyes to see a lion. It was gigantic, far larger than its African cousins. Tawny brown with a thick black mane, it stood not more than a dozen feet from me, panting in the heat of the late afternoon. It made no move to attack. It simply watched me with a sort of casual detachment. I slowly reached for my pistol, only to find an empty holster on my belt.

Then it made a noise. I would have expected a lion to roar and I would have expected the roar from this particular lion to be a mighty and a frightening one because of its size. It didn’t roar. It made a series of moaning sounds. “Mmwuugh. Mmwuugh.   Mmwuugh.” It seemed to wait expectantly, and when nothing happened it made the same series of noises again. This time it was answered from somewhere nearby. “Mmwuugh. Mmwuugh.   Mmwuugh.” Obviously this lion was the leader of its pride and having found helpless prey was calling the others to feast on me.

I was far less surprised to find myself the probable meal of a pride of lions than I was at what happened next. The figure of a human being dropped from the tree above to land right next to me. It was a female, though it took me a moment to recognize her as such because of her appearance. Naked but for a loin cloth, she was covered from head to feet in a layer of thick brown mud, which also caked her hair, leaving almost nothing of her humanity visible except for two bright green eyes staring into mine. She was thin and athletic, with well-tone muscles that flexed with every move. Paying no attention to the lion, she ripped open my shirt and pressed a handful of leaves onto my wound. I winced as the foliage poked the swollen and tender injury, but froze again when the lion took a step toward me.

The strange mud-covered girl lowered her face to just in front of mine and stared into my eyes with a look of wonder in her own. I could see now, not only the brilliant green of those eyes, but could also see just around them, where the thick coating of mud had been wiped away before it dried. Her skin, revealed only in this tiny area, was very light. It was in fact, at least a shade lighter than my own.

“Mmwuugh,” the lion moaned again. Then it took several steps toward me. I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the huge fangs in the panting mouth.

“Mmwuugh.” To my surprise, the girl answered the lion with the same sound. It must have been her that I heard before from a distance. She stood up, crossed over to the lion, and gave him a shove. I expected her actions to be met with a full-on attack. But the lion, who must have possessed seven or eight times the weight of the girl, allowed himself to be pushed away. He turned and wandered away into the nearby jungle.

The girl sat down beside me again and graced me with a broad smile full of perfect white teeth. She pressed the poultice she had already applied with the palm of her hand, and reaching behind me, placed a similar poultice on the entry wound. Handily ripping a good portion of my shirt off, she tied it around my stomach in a crude bandage. Then she left me for only a moment as she walked to the river ten feet away, and brought back a drink for me, using a very large leaf curled into the form of a cup. She sat cross-legged next to me as I drank.

“Kanana,” she said when I was finished, placing her hand upon her chest.

“Kanana,” I repeated. “You’re supposed to be a legend.”

“Kanana,” she insisted. She had a deep, almost boyish voice.

Reaching over, she placed the palm of her hand on my chest and looked at me expectantly. With a vicious predator no longer looming, I took leave to examine her more closely. She was at that moment closer to me physically that most women I had ever in my life known. Though it was coated in mud, I could tell that her hair was long and had been braided together with shells and other beads, just as I had seen some of the natives do in Abbeyport. I could make out nothing concerning the condition of her skin, as it was completely smeared over, but her perfect breasts were presented directly in front of me, muddied but otherwise bare. Though her arms, legs, and torso were all well muscled they did not appear unfeminine. Quite the contrary, and I couldn’t help but stare. But my fascination was not due to lewdness or unseemliness, but a simple appreciation of beauty. She was like an ancient Greek statue of Artemis come to life.

She pressed her hand again to my chest.

“Henry Goode,” I said.

“Henry Goode,” she repeated. She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Good Henry. Good Henry Goode.”

That evening, decked out in a suit and tie, I walked from the hotel to the home of the Winston-Smiths, who lived in one of the larger colonial homes, set somewhat away from the others. The house and yard were brightly lit with hanging lanterns, and music was playing. Dozens of people wandered in the yard or stood on the veranda and I could well imagine that every white man and woman in Abbeyport was to be present that evening.

“Good evening,” said a handsome and well-dressed British woman at the door. “I’m Charlotte Winston-Smith. Welcome to my home.”

“Thank you. I’m Henry Goode.”

“Oh, you’re an American. How wonderful. Are you acquainted with Mr. Roosevelt?”

“There isn’t an American alive, ma’am, who isn’t acquainted with Mr. Roosevelt, but I have the pleasure of saying that Mr. Roosevelt is acquainted with me.”

“Quite, quite.   Please do come in.” She took me by the arm and led me through the foyer into the parlor where a dozen men were carrying on a lively conversation.

“There you are, Henry.” I immediately recognized Colonel Roosevelt’s patrician voice, though I hadn’t initially seen him in the room. He stepped from behind three men to greet me. “I was just telling these gentlemen that we’ve discovered your reason for being in Elizagaea.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, Winston-Smith here knows all about it.”

Having seen Mrs. Winston-Smith, I expected her husband to be an older gentleman, but he looked to be at least ten years her junior. A handsome man of about my own age, he was tall and thin and sported a splendid handlebar mustache.

“How do you do?” he said, reaching out to shake my hand. “I was just telling Mr. Roosevelt about the legend of Kanana.”

“Kanana?”

“Yes. She’s a legendary jungle goddess: part of the culture of the natives for hundreds of years. Lately though, she’s taken on a new hue, as it were. As the story is told now, Kanana is white-skinned. I would assume this is because of the native contact with Europeans, whom they naturally see as superior to themselves.”

“So you see, my boy,” said Roosevelt. “I’ve discovered your secret plan. You are going to capture this Kanana, this jungle goddess, for yourself.”

“I can assure you, sir, that is not my plan. In fact, I am through with women, whether they be civilized or jungle variety.”

Winston-Smith laughed and Roosevelt chuckled, but I could feel his keen eye taking a deeper look at me.

“I have decided to hunt some of the big game,” I said.

“I heartily enjoy hunting,” said Roosevelt. “There are few sensations I prefer to that of pitting my wits against the forces that nature has to offer. But remember that the hunter is a steward of his land and not the conqueror.”

“This land cannot be conquered,” said Winston-Smith. “The jungle here is untamed and will likely stay that way forever. Why, we lose more than half of those men who head into the bush.”

“That is the fate of the unprepared,” replied the former President. “A toughness and hardy endurance are necessary to contend with the forces of nature, whether it is to resist cold and wintery blasts of the arctic, or the heat of the thirsty desert, to wander away to new pastures, to plunge over the broken ground, or to plow one’s way through jungles and quagmires. But there can be found no greater beauty than lands untouched by human hands. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, or its charm. The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.”

“Why Mr. Roosevelt,” said one of the other men. “I thought you only waxed poetic about navies.”

“Colonel Roosevelt has written a great deal on hunting and the wilderness,” I said. “Every young man should read Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail.”