Hunted / Season 1, Episode 7
Nightfall
APEX Season 1, Episode 7: "Nightfall" --- [CHAPTER 1: THE COMMISSION] They offered me $200,000 to film a jaguar hunt. Not a staged hunt—those were common enough, shot in private reserves with semi-tame cats. They wanted the real thing. A wild jaguar, in the deep Amazon, taking natural prey. National Geographic had tried for years and failed. Discovery had lost two crews to accidents before giving up. I said yes because I was young and stupid and believed I was invincible. That was my first mistake. My crew was small: Roberto, my cameraman and best friend since film school. Lucia, our sound engineer, who spoke four languages including passable Tupi-Guarani. And our guide, an indigenous hunter named Karaí who claimed his grandfather had been killed by a jaguar and his father had killed one in return. "The jaguar remembers," Karaí told us the night before we departed Manaus. "It remembers every human who enters its territory. It remembers every insult. It remembers every kill." "You're saying they hold grudges?" I asked. He looked at me with ancient eyes. "I'm saying they remember. In the jungle, that is worse." [CHAPTER 2: INTO THE GREEN] We traveled twelve days upriver before we saw our first sign. The Amazon in dry season was low and lazy, the canopy pressing close on both sides,...