Impatient with the steady clack of hoofbeats on the hard trail I nudged Emily to a trot. I knew the noise would draw Ernesto out to meet me. The look on his face, sauntering into the equitorial swelter told me I had no need to dismount.

“No letter today, senor.”

I swallowed hard. My head swam through a feeling of being utterly lost.

“Ees a woman, no senor? Every day of the week you come. She break you heart?” Ernesto offered a weak and gap-toothed smile with his query.

I shrugged, “I wish I knew, amigo.”

With a flick from the reins Emily turned to take me to the solitude of a jungle plantation. The sun taunted me through the leaves. An airfield and old Cessna mocked me from down the hill, a trip I’d never get the nerve to take.

As if the stale air could somehow transmit my plea I wondered aloud, “Ah Madeleine, why don’t you write me? Call me near, my love, or tell me to stop this dreaming.”

Emily whinnied, and my stomach called for lunch.

All the same, it was not for food that I hungered.