Tuscany

by Matthew Thayer

  Kaikane: “What should we do?”

  Jones: “Hell, I don’t know. Still don’t think we can move her. Stand guard and I’ll keep my eye on her.”

  Kaikane: “Why don’t you stand guard?”

  Jones: “Wouldn’t make much of a guard. One o’ these little kids could whup me in a fight.”

  Kaikane: “Straight up, tell me. She gonna make it?”

  Jones: “How would I….”

  Kaikane: “Tell me what you think. I gotta know!”

  Jones: “Don’t look good. Got blood leaking out her nose and both ears, but no other obvious injuries. Could be all jacked up inside, hemorrhaging in the brain.”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  She laid there without moving for at least an hour. I stroked the hair inside her helmet and told her over and over how much I loved her. I was a wreck. Suddenly, her body began to convulse.

  “Keep it together, man!” Jones had me by the arm. “I need you here. Hold her head and shoulders. Just keep her from hurting herself.”

  He slipped his knife from its sheath and used his fingers to pry Maria’s mouth open to slip the folded leather case between her teeth. Sweeping a finger through the opening, he checked to make sure her airway was clear. We held her until the convulsions subsided and her breathing slowed, then carefully removed her helmet. Short, panting breaths. Jones lifted her lids to expose eyes rolled back in their sockets. He saw something he didn’t like when he wiped the hair from her forehead.

  TRANSMISSSION:

  Jones: “What’s this bruise? There’s a lump.”

  Kaikane: “Dog patrol. Warrior hit her with a club. We got into a scrap by a stream.”

  Jones: “I don’t like it.”

  Kaikane: “Knocked her out for a few seconds. She had a headache this afternoon. Didn’t say anything about it tonight.”

  Jones: “Maybe that was a weak spot. Could be swelling on the brain.”

  Kaikane: “Oh, man, what are we going to do?”

  Jones: “I don’t know.”

  Kaikane: “You’ve been to war! What did you guys do back then?”

  Jones: “Ah, hell, we’d probably just shoot her up with a couple amps of morphine and get her evacuated to a hospital behind the lines. Medi-tanks would fly off and we’d all be happy inside it wasn’t us.”

  From the log of Lance Cpl. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Dr. Duarte has not regained consciousness. Kaikane wrings his hands, walks in circles muttering.

  Dug my computer out of his pack. Scanned data looking for a diagnosis. Useless. Even if we knew what was wrong, nothing to do but keep her comfortable, safe from herself. Kaikane pulls rocks from the brook to use as cold compresses on the lump on her head. Swelling’s gone down some.

  Been so long since I wrote in this journal. Strange to think and speak in English. Living so close to the earth so long, not caring about anybody or any other being, except someone else’s dog. This thing with Duarte tests my sanity. Truth be told, makes me wonder if love and friendship are worth the pain. Every single person I ever cared a lick about is dead. Or left me cold. Everyone but Duarte and Kaikane. And the Old Man. She’s hanging on, but head wounds. Oh man.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TRANSMISSION:

  Jones: “We need a holovision like at the emergency room on a Friday night. Ya ever been to the ER on a Friday about midnight?”

  Kaikane: “Can’t say I had the pleasure.”

  Jones: “I come from a family of drunks and scrappers. As a kid, I spent many a Friday and Saturday in the waiting room with my grandmother while an aunt or uncle was patched up. Ya go on a Friday night, you might be there five or six hours before they’ll even see ya. For a little kid, it was an eye-opening experience–an education. Pimps yelling at whores, drugged-out crazies, survivors of air car wrecks. Me and gramma would watch the HV with one eye and the live entertainment with the other.”

  Kaikane: “Sounds like fun.”

  Jones: “It wasn’t fun, just life for a poor kid with a fucked-up family from Erie, Pennsylvania.”

  Kaikane: “Do you think she’s going to make it?”

  Jones: “Ya keep asking me. What do y’all think?”

  Kaikane: “She’s got to. She’s the best of us by far. I’d trade places if I could. What’s the fucking point of living without her?”

  Jones: “Don’t talk like that man. I’ve been down that road. Closer than you will ever know. There is a point to it all. Life goes on. It does go on.”

  Kaikane: “What the hell you talking about?”

  Jones: “Life. My life, your life, her life. I’ve stood with my toes hanging over the edge of the cliff. Ready to dive off. Not afraid, giddy about it. It was you two, and the old man, who stopped me. Even if she doesn’t make it, I’ll still need you.”

  Kaikane: “I know, man.”

  Jones: “Ya asked me if she would make it. If her brain is bleeding, then no, I don’t think she will. A surgeon would drill a hole in her skull to relieve the pressure. We would kill her if we tried it. But it might not be that bad. Weren’t you a wrestler? Ever have a concussion?”

  Kaikane: “Not from wrestling, surfing. Banged my head with a board at Pipeline on a triple-overhead day. My friends said I kept asking them the same things over and over. ‘What’s for dinner?’ and ‘Where’s Dory?’”

  Jones: “Pretty sure a concussion is when your brain sloshes around hard enough to bang against the skull. Remember in training, instructors asking guys who took hard hits if they were dizzy or were gonna puke?”

  Kaikane: “Guys you whacked with a spear.”

  Jones: “A couple of ’em, yeah. How about you with the big German? Challenged you to a match and you had ’em tied up like a pretzel in 30 seconds. Thought you were going to choke him to death. What happened that day?”

  Kaikane: “He panicked, grabbed my nuts. I was going to go easy on him, then he pulled that bullshit. I lost my temper.”

  Jones: “About twisted his head off.”

  Kaikane: “Didn’t give him a concussion, though, did I?”

  Jones: “Nope, you didn’t. That was me later.”

  Kaikane: “Old Franz sure had a winning personality. I wonder what happened to him.”

  Jones: “Lucky fuck didn’t qualify to jump. Probably home in Bavaria working as a cop or bouncer.”

  Kaikane: “What was your point?”

  Jones “Maybe she has a concussion.”

  Kaikane: “What do we do if she does?”

  Jones: “Computer’s vague on the matter. Says there are different grades. Says if it’s serious we should take her to a doctor.”

  Kaikane: “Really?”

  Jones: “Really. What a mission. We’re supposed to wake her up.”

  Kaikane: “I’ve been trying.”

  Jones: “I know.”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  Gray Beard finally talked us into moving Maria out of the rain. We had a tent rigged over her, but the ground was a muddy mess. He found Martinelli’s digs and assured us she would be more comfortable there.

  Carefully, ever so carefully, his nephew and I carried her through a downpour to lay her down on a dry stack of furs inside Martinelli’s tent. The leather tent was huge, strung up between six trees near the base of the hill.

  That was nearly two days ago.

  The natives tend to Bolzano in a separate tent nearby. Jones says the Italian seems to be doing better. I would trade his life for Maria’s any day.

  Panting, uneven breaths, she jerks and twitches. Every minute or so, it looks like she receives a light electrical shock. She mumbles through a restless sleep. We can’t wake her.

  Jones and I sit nearby. He talked me into pulling out my journal to give me something to do. I can see why people pray. I feel helpless.

  A gust of howling wind just brought another squall off the mountains. We
have staked down three of the tent’s walls and left the downwind side open facing the river. A few drips soak through here and there, but the waxed roof does a damn good job of keeping us dry.

  We reckon Martinelli must have needed at least two dozen strong men to haul the tent and rig it into place. Cured mammoth skins wrapped and stitched at the seems, pulled taught as a drum. Raindrop percussions.

  Jones sorted through the Italian’s crap and found a pouch of sweet dried dates and another with jerked meat. I’ll sign off to join him for a meal.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Kaikane: “How’d we let him get so close?”

  Jones: “Mistakes are easy to see coming when ya look back on ’em.”

  Kaikane: “Shoulda just killed him.”

  Jones: “Roger that.”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  I’m back. Lit by the glow of my computer monitor, Maria has now settled into a state of calm. Comatose or napping? I can’t tell. The twitching stopped while Jones and I were talking over old times. Jet black, shoulder-length hair has fanned out to frame her oval face. Purple bruises form half moons under each eye.

  Her chest slowly rises and falls inside the jumpsuit. The botanist whose hair once smelled of ginger now carries the tang of sweat, salt, smoke, blood, guts and a thousand other things. Yellow dirt and grime is wedged under fingernails bit down low. She must have been on the computer recently. That was one of her things. Type for a while, stop to think, chew on a nail, go back to work. I watched her do it for hours at a time and never said one word about it. I thought it was cute.

  “Quit staring,” she would scold me with a sigh.

  At first, whenever I set up to work on a spear, weave a fishing net or do any other chore, I’d orient myself so I could keep an eye on Maria. Camp security and all that. Protecting her. Wasn’t long before I grew to appreciate just how enjoyable it was to watch her do even the most mundane things. She gets involved in something, especially her reports, and her whole being becomes fully engaged. Facial expressions, tilts of the head, stops to chew a nail, it got me wondering what was so darn intriguing. I’d look over her shoulder and it would be some report on pine trees or a thesis on Gray Beard’s hunting stories.

  I found myself fretting she was too smart for me, wondering what a woman like her was doing with a community college graduate like me. I’ve been scared from the start. Scared I might lose her the way I lost Doreen. Or scared she may grow tired of me. The competition with Jones was a close-run thing.

  I confessed my fears early on. She surprised me by saying she had the same anxiety about me. Surfing, climbing mountains, dragging game through forests thick with lion, wolf and bear, I could be killed or maimed at any time. That cheered me up some.

  I asked if she would ever leave me for Jones.

  “More likely Gray Beard,” she said it with a straight face. “Jones wouldn’t have me.”

  At the time, I thought she was bullshitting me. I learned soon enough, Maria had self-doubts like anyone else. She was forever self-conscious about the dark hair that covered her legs and grew in silky bushes under each arm. And the barely visible little mustache that I love to kiss. If I was caught staring, it better not have been there.

  I gave her a kiss a minute ago, and while I was holding her hand, I swear she gave me a squeeze.

  “I love you, my darling,” I whispered in her ear. “You can’t leave me yet. We have a world to explore. We’re finally free to stop and catch our breath. There are new plants to name. You want to do that, don’t you, my love?”

  There was no reply and no more squeezes–if there ever was one in the first place. I can barely keep my eyes open. Jones says he’ll keep watch while I lay down for a quick nap.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Jones: “Where’d you guys come up with that stunt with the suits and Gray Beard.”

  Kaikane: “We had lots of time to think out there spinning circles on the raft. Too much time. When it was down around freezing, Maria and I would put on our jumpsuits to keep warm. One morning she and the old man were leaning back-to-back when I saw her suit was projecting his image. One side sampled him and the other side displayed him. We fooled around with our technique and found ways that made it work better and others that made it worse.”

  Jones: “And the pistols?”

  Kaikane: “That was all Maria. She found an upload on the computer that messed with the targeting system.”

  Jones: “Pretty smart.”

  Kaikane: “And then Maria got to worrying that somebody from the future might tip off Martinelli.”

  Jones: “Huh?”

  Kaikane: “I don’t know, dig up our computers early or something. Lorenzo was on such a roll, she thought he might have had help, an early head’s up.”

  Jones: “No offense, but your girlfriend’s still a conspiracy nut.”

  Kaikane: “She does worry. Anyway, we set up rules. No talking or writing about our plans until Martinelli was taken care of.”

  TRANSMISSION:

  Jones: “Come on, little lady. Don’t give up now. Hold on, Doc.”

  From the log of Lance Cpl. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Kaikane’s still asleep, curled up next to Duarte. Her breathing is ragged in the gray dawn. Body shook with convulsions before daybreak. Kaikane slept through the whole thing. No sense waking him so he can worry his head off. My duty.

  Searched for signs her brain is swelling and found none. What the fuck to look for? Blood’s not leaking out her ears anymore.

  Kaikane holds her hand tight against his chest. Their love has grown since they left me. Acting like an old married couple after they got Bolzano down off the cross–checking to make sure where each other was and if they got enough to eat. Helpful and caring. Did a mirror thing after eating. Stood facing each other. He checked out her clothes, picked leaves from her hair, used spit and a thumb to wipe smudges from her face while she did the same for him.

  Gray Beard is right. She is the most beautiful woman on this planet. And the smartest.

  Was a time not long ago, wanted her love so badly I would have killed him to get it. She saw it before I did. Got me alone and warned me off. Said she didn’t know what went through my mind, but she didn’t appreciate the looks I gave her man. Said I may as well kill them both, because if I left her alive she wouldn’t rest until I was dead. Didn’t call her bluff, and now I never will.

  Their love seems pure, or as close to pure as love can be. Helps me to know Maria and I would make a poor union. Too much alike. Probably fight all the time. She needs an upbeat guy like Kaikane.

  Gray Beard left before daybreak, came back with a couple trout to cook for breakfast. Checked on his favorite patient. Fed her water with drips from his fingertip. Said he thinks Sal might make it. Had no predictions for the doc.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “Are you going to finish that piece of fish?”

  Jones: “You want it?”

  Bolzano: “If you don’t mind. It would be a shame to see it go to waste.”

  Jones: “Keep it up and you’ll get fat again.”

  Bolzano: “Not a chance. Not as long as I am upright and able to exercise.”

  Jones: “How much weight you think you lost?”

  Bolzano: “Most of it. Look at me, I am skin and bones.”

  Jones “Look better than you did up at Kolettelena’s. What a porker.”

  Bolzano: “I’ve always had to be careful with my waistline.”

  Jones: “How you feel?”

  Bolzano: “Better than I deserve.”

  From the log of Cpl. Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  Sweet, wonderful pain. My fingers move, birds sing, I am alive.

  Cpl. Jones delivered my computer this afternoon. He discovered it tucked away in a bundle of furs in Lorenzo’s tent as he was searching for food.

  Lorenzo
. Everyone assures me he is dead, yet I expect him to arrive at any moment with his rhino tarp or a hot stick to press upon my shrunken feet. My eyes dart incessantly, searching him out. I cannot stop them. I confessed my fears to Cpl. Jones and was surprised by his compassion.

  We have never been friends. In fact, I had not once engaged the intimidating American in a one-on-one conversation until today. In training, and on the ship, we moved in different circles. I always had the feeling he considered me a weak link, or a sissy. Even with a bent back and skeletal frame, the man still exudes an aura of strength and confidence.

  Jones gestured toward a wolf pelt near my pallet, and after receiving my permission, folded himself down upon it. Leaves and sticks jutted from his long, kinky hair. I believe they once called the style an “afro.” His leather outfit was of Cro-Magnon manufacture, as were his muddy moccasins. Settling into his seat with small grunts and groans, he proceeded to share a story about a group of prisoners he helped rescue long before the jump. As I listened, I realized the man bears some sort of grudge against pronouns and prepositions.

  “Was an elite force of French Canadians drugged and captured out of a bar in Montreal. Anarchists trucked ’em up to a fishing shack on a pond up north, chained ’em to a stainless steel skinning table and left ’em there. Men spent a long spring and summer living on rats, bugs and rainwater. And eventually each other.

  “Bad guys might have been watching them, or maybe they knew how long it took to break a man. Told us where to find them as a warning–see what happens when you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. I led the squad that brought them in. Boys were in sorry shape mentally and physically. Fucked up.

  “I’m telling you this for a reason. Most of them guys bounced back. The ones with positive attitudes. From what I seen of you, I think you’ll do all right. Just don’t hold it in. Talk it out. Why not start now? How’s it going?”

  I told him I felt like a pile of dog poo sitting in the rain on the Via Speronari. Although he undoubtedly had plenty of questions concerning the events of the past 10 months, he refrained from posing them. My tales of woe carried on far too long. Finally, I interrupted myself with a query of my own.