The Marine's Return

by Rula Sinara

  Like you.

  “I’m sorry you were put through that. I’m staying at the clinic camp just east of here. You know it?”

  “Yes. Dr. Hope’s clinic. She helps many. And Nurse Galen, she stitched my son’s leg after he was bitten.”

  Of course. Everyone relied on the clinic. On Lexi.

  “If you see anything, any sign of poachers, send someone for me.”

  “Okay. Asante. Thank you.”

  Chad hurried back to his jeep. The pyre was kilometers away, nowhere near the clinic. A lone wolf couldn’t have made a kill alone. This had to be a different group. Still evil was evil, and if any of these guys had gotten away, he was going to keep them from crossing the border, if KWS had not already. He grabbed the radio and called the one guy who could get him to the site quickly.

  Mac.

  * * *

  LEXI AND JACEY dropped everything and ran down the path toward the group approaching them. Jacey was well ahead of her, but the rush of adrenaline allowed Lexi to move faster than she usually could lately due to her pregnancy.

  She took in the patient. The wire biting into flesh. The swollen, blue skin around the snare. The child’s pale face.

  He couldn’t have been more than nine years old.

  “Kekidim ateretoki! Help me!” The boy’s father and another man, possibly an older brother, held the boy as they ran toward Lexi and Jacey.

  “Get him to the tent.” Lexi lifted the boy’s leg and the branches still attached to the end of the snare. The men had broken the branches to free the boy and to get him there, but the wire choking his ankle was a different challenge.

  Jacey took the boy in her arms and rushed him the rest of the way to the tent. They had him on the bed in seconds.

  Lexi couldn’t think of the other villagers watching from the courtyard in horror or about all their expensive vaccines that she’d left out—a thought that wouldn’t have crossed her mind but for Chad’s questioning about missing supplies. All that mattered now was saving this child’s foot.

  “His pulse is weak and BP is dropping,” Jacey said.

  “He’s having a vasovagal reaction. He’s not bleeding much. We need wire cutters.” She cursed. Wire cutters weren’t part of their primary care and first-aid setup. At least not the kind used on the twist-ply, thick wire of a snare. Damn poachers.

  “Toolbox. I’ll be right back.” Jacey disappeared.

  The boy cried out when Lexi forced the flat end of a pair of forceps under the wire and used it to wedge enough space to slip the closed tip of a pair of curved, blunt-end scissors into the space to hold it. The snare would only tighten the more she touched it, but she wanted a gap so she could insert the cutter.

  Jacey rushed in, poured a splash of alcohol on the cutters and handed them over.

  “Hold these. Tip the forceps a little. I’m so sorry, baby. I know it hurts.” Lexi snapped off the wire and immediately grabbed the gauze and sterile saline Jacey handed her. “Can you run out and get the Tdap vial?” The kid needed the tetanus vaccine for sure. She had no idea if he’d ever had one, but he’d get it now regardless.

  They stabilized his blood pressure, but his foot was still a deathly shade of blue. “We should call a medic chopper. Let me talk to his father. The boy needs to get checked at a hospital for nerve and tissue damage.”

  “Go ask. I’ll keep an eye on him,” Jacey said.

  Lexi stepped into the sunlight and sucked in a deep breath before calling the father over to see his son.

  Father and son. Childhood dangers.

  Maybe Chad was right. Was she putting her and her child at risk by choosing to live out here?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAD SURVEYED THE landscape as Mac circled the chopper once before landing safely just beyond the group of Kenyan Wildlife Service vehicles. The acrid smoke and rotting stench assaulted Chad’s sinuses the minute he opened the chopper door. It took him back to more than one battle scene, but Chad refused to let memories cloud his judgment. He was in control. He wanted to be here, where the action was.

  Flames engulfed the tusks that KWS had secured, both from this kill and from stashes they’d found earlier that day, just south of here, while the faceless body of an elephant cow lay motionless nearby. Chad let Mac introduce him to one of the officers, who shook his hand and asked him how Ben was doing. Everyone seemed to know his father. Everyone commented on how he looked so much like him. Only he’d never be just like him. He had already failed at that.

  The officer cleared him to examine the area. KWS rangers were experts at what they did, tracking poachers night and day, but a spare set of eyes never hurt.

  “Fresh kill. The men are all in custody. They’ve been interrogated and aren’t from the same team the fugitive was a part of,” Mac said, as he walked over from talking to the KWS team leader.

  “I figured they must have got here in time, considering no one made it off with the tusks.”

  “The poachers had the tusks buried over there...under that tree. They do that. Bury the ivory, make their escape then return when it’s safe enough to collect their winnings.” Mac adjusted his cap. “You satisfied? Want to head back?”

  “No. Look over there.” Chad headed for a broken branch a few feet to the right of a wide path of broken and flattened brush the elephant had trampled in an attempt to escape.

  “She came through here,” Mac said.

  “Not the mother. Over here to the right. See that branch pushed aside?” This path was smaller, narrower, much less obvious. Too narrow for an adult elephant. “Are they positive they arrested everyone?” Chad asked in a lowered voice.

  “I’m not so sure anymore. But something—call it experience—tells me a poacher didn’t go through here. The team catches and arrests first, then they scout the area for other fatalities or casualties. They’ve started at that end and you can see them working their way around the perimeter,” Mac said.

  Chad followed the trail a good ten meters and stopped in his tracks. It ended by the massive, gnarly trunk of a boab tree. Standing frozen and terrified at its side was a baby elephant. Chad wiped a hand across his face.

  An orphan like the ones his aunt Anna saved and raised down at Busara. An orphan like Tony had once told him Lexi had been.

  “I think we just found what KWS is looking for.”

  Mac took off his cap and swore.

  “I’ll never get used to it. In all my years finding orphaned calves, it still infuriates me every time,” Mac said, approaching the baby slowly. It backed up nervously. Mac stopped moving toward it. “Keep track of her. I’ll go let them know,” he said, heading down the trail in the direction they’d come.

  Chad whispered softly under his breath and held his palm out, the way he did when gaining the trust of the war dogs he’d handled. Not just the service dogs, but the local abandoned ones he couldn’t leave behind. He’d helped to rescue as many as he could, finding shelter and food near the military compounds.

  The baby touched his palm with its trunk, then proceeded to wrap its trunk around his wrist. Trust me. He took another step and was at its side.

  A child whose mother was killed, just like his had been. It was almost as if this baby knew he understood.

  “You’ll be okay.”

  This. This was why he couldn’t sit back and wait for things to happen. This was why he needed to do more to stop corruption and atrocities...to stop violence and sociopaths who stole good people’s peace of mind.

  The problem was that needing and wanting to do something weren’t the same as being able to.

  * * *

  LEXI SAT BACK and kicked up her feet.

  “Was this the longest day we’ve had in months?”

  “It’s not over yet,” Jacey pointed out as she took a long drink.

  They still had to put things away, but they ne
eded a breather. At least they’d taken care of all the kids, and the little boy had been flown to the hospital in Nairobi where experts would make sure he got the treatment he required. She’d actually called in the case to both Hope and Taj so that they could do what they could, in terms of professional connections, to get him good care.

  In the meantime, they had reported the location of the snare and the authorities had sent a team to scour and clear the area near the boy’s homestead. It was about eight kilometers away. She still wasn’t quite used to thinking in metric.

  Chad wasn’t going to like it when...if...she relayed the information. Though the way word traveled around here, he’d probably already heard.

  “I’m sure Chad’s okay,” Jacey said, reading her mind.

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Yes, you are. It’s all over your face, and if you don’t stop chewing your lip we’re going to have another bleeder on our hands.”

  “Mac called in and said he met up with Chad near the Ngotori enkang. Besides, I’m not thinking about Chad any more than you’re thinking about Taj.”

  Jacey’s eyes widened and the tip of her nose turned red.

  “That’s so far off base it makes Kilimanjaro look like it’s only meters away.”

  “Jace. We’ve known each other for five months, working together day in and day out with hardly anyone else around. Truth be told, I’m closer to you than I’ve been to any other woman in a long time. I know, that says a lot about me. But it’s the truth. I mean, Hope has been wonderful, too, but she doesn’t live out here. You don’t have to trust me, but you can. Just saying.”

  “I plead the fifth. For now. I’ll give you that he’s more than cute, but that’s all there is. Don’t make assumptions.”

  “Fine. If you say so. Same goes for Chad. He’s not on my mind, other than in a professional capacity. Don’t read into anything.”

  “If you say so.” Jacey chuckled as she got up and started putting supplies away. Lexi rose to help.

  “You know, if Chad brings up the snare and starts arguing that he can’t keep us safe, I want to be able to point out that nothing is missing from our supplies. All this stuff we had to abandon while we helped the boy and not even a bar of soap is out of place. That proves we’re surrounded by good people who care...who help watch the area. I never doubted it, but I think he has seen too much evil in the world to realize that most people are good. The evil-doers just stand out more. They make the news.”

  “If that injured poacher tried swiping anything with that boy’s father and all the mothers around, he’d have been in for one wicked surprise,” Jacey said.

  They exchanged glances at the sound of the jeep approaching.

  “We were fine. Got it?”

  “We did totally fine on our own,” Jacey said. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to add any evidence to his case.”

  Chad parked but just sat staring at the wheel for a moment before getting out.

  “That’s strange. I’m going to see what’s up.” Lexi set down the bag of soap and met him halfway. “What’s wrong?”

  Chad cranked his neck.

  “I met up with Mac out there. He flew me over to an ivory burn. We had to call Busara for help with an orphan.”

  “Oh, no.”

  He walked past her and straight for the copse of trees on the side of camp. She frowned at Jacey and followed him.

  “I’m sorry for what you witnessed. Are you okay?”

  “Are you? No problems out here?”

  “Just medical cases, as expected.”

  “You expected a snare case?” He raised a brow at her. “Mac heard the medical call over the chopper radio and told me.”

  She tipped her chin up.

  “Good. I’m glad he did. Now you know that we can handle just about anything here.”

  He closed the gap between them, resting his hand against a tree trunk.

  “Lex. Have you ever seen in person what these poachers can do? They are bad men with absolutely no compassion or respect for life in this world. I just saw more evidence of that today.”

  She sucked in a deep breath.

  “I’m not as ignorant as you assume. Why do you think I’m out here trying to do good? Maybe you could give me the benefit of the doubt for once instead of assuming I’m in over my head.”

  “Maybe you should trust my judgment for once,” Chad quipped.

  Lexi glared at him, then turned and stalked back toward the bungalow.

  * * *

  EARLY THAT EVENING, Chad rested his forehead against the creviced bark of a tree that faced the western horizon. The trunk was rough and coarse but it didn’t relieve the itching and tingling along the upper right of his back. Still, he didn’t dare scratch. He knew the rules. The doctors and nurses had warned him numerous times not to scrub at any of his scars, especially where he’d suffered burns. His skin had healed for the most part, but the itching that would sometimes flame to life like a disturbed mound of fire ants was beyond irritating.

  No, it didn’t compare to the soul-changing pain he’d suffered during his hospital recovery, but still, it shook him. It made him feel weak and vulnerable, bitter and angry, restless and agitated. And there wasn’t anything phantom about the itching, though he’d been told the same relaxation and meditation techniques that were supposed to help the pain in his missing arm would help ease the itching of his scars.

  Yeah, right. Staring at the sunset just now hadn’t done a drop of good in the name of comfort. But what he really hated was the fact that, prior to the explosion, a crawling feeling on his neck or back would have been a sign...his intuition warning him of danger or that something just wasn’t right.

  Now the blasted, godforsaken prickling was nothing more than a reminder that he’d never be the same again. That he’d never be capable of the same military duty again. That he simply was...less. He was nothing but a walking, talking example of how war stripped a man or woman of their soul...

  Not that the world would ever heed the reminder. There were too many sociopaths, fanatics and fundamentalists out there—enough to keep perpetuating the cycle. Crazy, self-righteous people unable to fathom that their way wasn’t the only way. Greed had driven conquerors for millennia. Poaching had many masks. Evil was nowhere close to being eradicated. And he couldn’t really do anything about it anymore. He’d been sidelined.

  Life goes on. War goes on.

  He pushed away from the tree, spared the bloody sunset one last glance, and stalked off toward the bungalow, making an extra effort to ignore Lexi and Jacey.

  He should try lying down. The pressure against his back might help ease the itching. What he really needed was to sooth the tight skin with some lotion or oil, but he couldn’t reach that area on his own.

  “Hey, Chad. Could you give me a hand?” Lexi called out. She was taking down the tables they’d used for the outdoor clinic they’d held earlier in the day.

  So much for avoiding her. Maybe she’d calmed down from their earlier argument. Maybe he should apologize, though for what, he wasn’t quite sure.

  Chad squeezed his lids briefly and let out a breath. He straightened his shoulders the best that he could and went to her, hoping she couldn’t see through him. For some reason he couldn’t quite define, Lexi was the last person he wanted perceiving him as weak. The fact that she was a nurse scared him a little in that sense. Nurses were trained to pick up on a patient masking pain.

  But he couldn’t ignore her. Jacey had hitched a ride with Mac to deliver some feminine hygiene products and soap to a neighboring village and Lexi wouldn’t be able to put away the tables on her own.

  He quirked the corner of his mouth up in as casual—albeit annoyed—smile as he could muster and walked toward her as she stood by a folding table near the medical tent.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, e
ven if it was obvious what she wanted him to do.

  “This has to be collapsed and stored. I can tip it over and fold the legs, but I don’t want to lift it. I figured you—” She hesitated and sucked in her lower lip.

  Was she as nervous as he was? There was something about them both being out here alone that—as expansive as their wild surroundings were—felt intimate and personal.

  “We don’t like leaving the table outside—bird droppings and such,” she explained. Enough said. “I could wait for Jacey to get back, but I figured if I helped guide it, you could—”

  “I can get it,” he said, sparing her from pointing out that she’d assist him because he only had one arm. “Keep it from falling over and I’ll get the rest.”

  He grabbed the edge with his left hand, tipped it gently and folded the legs in, as she held the top in place on its side. Then he gripped the center of the long edge as tight as his could and carried it into the medical tent before she could try to assist.

  He frowned as he set the table against the tent pillar she’d motioned toward and released his grip seconds before the table would have slipped from his fingers. The task had almost been beyond him. He should have let her help him. Why had he been so determined to prove to her he could do it himself?

  “Anything else?” he asked, dabbing at the bead of sweat that trailed down his cheek. The brief distraction had given him some relief from the itching in his back, but the gnawing discomfort was returning.

  Lexi wiped her palms against the sides of her shirt. Her cheeks were rosier than usual and she seemed to be avoiding looking right at him.

  He could guess what was going through her mind. Since the explosion, he’d encountered three types of people: those who stared, those who avoided the sight of his injuries and the few—typically medical personnel and his family—who looked but made a concerted effort not to acknowledge the limitations of his injuries, as if doing so would rob him of hope and keep him from trying to heal.