Heaven Is High by Kate Wilhelm

the coast,” David said. “A big difference is that you couldn’t hack your way through that wall of trees with a machete. Here you can. And in places it thins out considerably, not quite a savannah, but not like this, either. Near the road, with more light, everything grows and grows.”
    Somewhere along this road, Barbara was thinking, Augustus Santos had been gunned down. Where had his assailants hidden? How had they known he would be along? Or was it a commonplace, random event on this jungle-enclosed road?
    David slowed down a bit and said, “Let’s all keep an eye out for the turn. It might be hard to spot in advance.”
    No guardrails, and no road signs, either, Barbara thought without commenting on it. The broncos stopped their ongoing chatter and helped watch. Suddenly there were ear-piercing screams, howls, roars.
    Barbara jerked away from her door. “My God! What is that?”
    The howls continued, gradually died down, only to be echoed from a greater distance.
    â€œThe goddamn baboons,” Bobby said in disgust when the noise subsided. “They’re not baboons, no matter what the bozos here call them. They’re just fucking monkeys screaming their asses off.”
    â€œBlack howler monkeys,” David said. “Little guys, ten, fifteen pounds at the most, indigenous here. They say they have the loudest cry of any land animal.” Another howling started, this time from a different direction, somewhere behind the Jeep. “If they scream and no other bunch picks it up, it’s probably a male dominance contest. If it gets repeated, it probably is an attack. Jaguar, snake, guy with a gun, whatever, they can tell the difference and repeat the warning.”
    â€œI think for the brochure we should include something like if you’re lucky you might hear the famous howler monkeys, and if you’re really lucky you might even spot a group of them,” Ben said.
    â€œIf you’re lucky enough, they’ll all drop dead of monkey plague or something,” Bobby muttered.
    â€œWe have to include them,” Ben said. “You can’t spring something like that on people not prepared for it. You saw how Barbara jumped. It scares the crap out of people the first time they hear it.”
    â€œI think that must be the turnoff,” Barbara said, squinting at a break in the foliage. It looked more like a deep shadow in the greenery than the entrance to a road, but a few seconds later, it proved to be the road they wanted. Paved, narrower than the one they left, with a small sign that said, ORANG W LK in lettering so faded as to be almost illegible. There was a ramshackle, abandoned building and the remains of a gas station with a concrete post for a pump, a ruined bit of concrete that might have been a driveway, and nothing else.
    â€œThree miles and then left onto a gravel road,” David said, after making the turn.
    *   *   *
    It was much hotter on this road. The canopy closed in like a ceiling, then opened to admit a shaft of brilliant light, closed in again, and no air stirred. If two cars approached each other, one of them would have to brush against the jungle. Late in the day, early morning, whenever the sun was not high enough to shine almost straight down, it would be perpetual dusk in here, Barbara thought uneasily. At night, it would be a child’s worst nightmare, especially if the howler monkeys started screaming.
    She realized that she was beginning to feel a bit of sympathy for Bobby. This was not her kind of forest.
    The broncos apparently shared her unease. Their endless chatter was silenced until David turned off onto the gravel road.
    â€œIf we can sell him, we’ve got it made,” Ben said in a low voice then. “He said one hour. That’s how long you can take, David. Use it all, the whole hour. I just hope and pray he meant that we’ll have an hour to talk to him while you’re doing