In the upper reaches of the Amazon River system a mammoth dam called O Ecuador has been built to harness a wild tributary of the Rio Negro. That, at least, is its stated purpose. In the process it will flood a mountain valley where an elusive tribe of feared headhunters called the Kuru still live in utter isolation. Even FUNAI, the Brazilian Indian affairs bureau knows virtually nothing about them. Millions have been spent to construct the dam. Billions in gold are at stake. Jim Malloy is an American pilot on the run from U.S. federal agents working as a cargo hauler to a logging firm on the other side of the mountains from Cannibal Valley. His meeting and subsequent rescue of a Kuru boy sets up a chain of events which rapidly spins out of his control. Before he knows it, Malloy is being coerced into flying a team of U.N. inspectors to the dam site. He refuses, because he senses they're unlikely to return. But when a beautiful FUNAI representative thinks Malloy is the man for the job and Malloy's only friend, a hulking Polish giant named Wall who believes there's a fortune to be had in the going, makes it unanimous, he agrees. They are all three of them right. Malloy is the man for the job. There's a fortune waiting for those who can find it. And none of them are supposed to make it out of Cannibal Valley alive.