by Fiona Quinn
Rooster sat back, clearing her view as an EpiPen plunged into Robert’s thigh. She felt a hand on her shoulder and Meg scrambled out of the way. She sat on her heels as she watched the medic try to force an intubation tube through Robert’s nostril. Another medic ran an IV.
The medical team worked with precision and mastery. When they didn’t get the results that they wanted, they rummaged through their bags and pulled out a surgical kit. They would perform an emergency trach right there in the red dirt of the crater.
Meg moved to the Rover. “Ahbou, don’t blare the horn anymore. The medic needs to cut open Robert’s neck, and we don’t want his hands to jump.”
Ahbou looked over to where the doctors were working. The surgery was fast. The tube already inserted, a ventilator in place and one of the men was bagging Robert with an attached oxygen tank. On the count of three, they rolled Robert onto a backboard, strapped him down with spider restraints and carried him to the helicopter. From the time they set down, until the time they were loaded for take-off, it was probably another two cycles on the watch. But Meg felt she’d aged a decade.
Chapter Sixteen
Meg
Room 508, Ngorongoro Crater Imperial Hotel
Meg had showered and taken her time drying and curling her hair, putting on her mascara and perfume, and choosing her dress. She wanted to feel the opposite she had out in the crater, among the dusty gusts of the helicopter’s take off. She was biding her time before she made the call to check on Robert. She was afraid of what she’d hear on the other end of the line.
She sat on the side of her queen-sized poster bed draped in filmy mosquito netting. Her room could easily have been in the Robert Redford movie Out of Africa that had captured her imagination as a child. Dark wood, white walls, deeply saturated jewel-toned cushions. Her window was open to a tiny balcony, and the floor-to-ceiling lace curtains murmured in the breeze.
She picked up the phone with a shaking hand. Even if Robert hadn’t made it, they had tried. They did everything they could, she tried to console herself. The medic on scene had reached into his pocket and thrust a card at her before they rushed off. She looked at it lying next to the phone, pushed her hair back, and released her breath in a rush. She dialed nine for an outside line, followed by the numbers listed for Dr. Kabourou’s cellphone. It was funny to her how she ran into cell tower issues at home in Maryland, but here in Tanzania there were few places the cellphones didn’t work. Most every Maasai tribal member that she knew had their own phone.
Dr. Kabourou answered on the second ring.
“Jambo!” she said, encircling her throat with slender fingers. “I’m Dr. Meg Finley. You gave me your card this afternoon when you took our guide to the hospital. He called himself Robert. I’m sorry, I don’t know his real name. But I was hoping…” Meg blinked away the tears that warped her vision. She had little hope, actually.
“Yes. Yes. The guide had disrepair from the field tracheotomy. He was taken to surgery. He is in recovery now.”
Meg was stunned. Robert’s condition when he left was, she thought, not survivable.
“We don’t yet know how much brain damage he sustained. You may call again tomorrow.”
“Thank you, I will.” Meg’s elation was dashed by the possibility that Robert would be left brain damaged. What kind of life would he have if they saved his body but not his brain?
Dr. Kabourou must have sensed her angst because he added, “I will tell you that when we checked his oxygen levels on the helicopter they were much better than we expected. Your team did everything possible. Call tomorrow maybe around lunch, and I will check his charts for you myself.”
“Thank you,” Meg repeated and hung up the phone.
She looked around the room. Her hand skated over her rose-colored bedspread. She wondered who had slept there before her. Were they happy? Were they in love? Did someone love them in return? She wondered if Robert had a wife and family, and if they knew what had happened. Maybe she could send word somehow. She made a mental note.
On the dresser lay the vest she’d had on all day. It was saturated with her sweat. It was going to stink. But Meg didn’t know how to clean it. She’d just take it to Randy and let him deal with it. She wasn’t sure which room Rooster and Randy would have chosen. They’d each been handed their own key when they came in to talk to the hostess.
She headed to the closest one first, stopped at the door and gave a light rap.
Randy swung the door open. He was still damp from his shower and had a white towel knotted around his waist. He stepped back and let her in. “Where’s Rooster?” she asked as she took in the empty bathroom, moving toward the chairs.
“The others came in from their day. We figured they saw us hightail it out of there, but no one saw Robert go down but us. He’s telling the guides what happened and making sure word gets to Robert’s family.”
“Oh good. That was next on my list of things to do. So now all I have to check off is drinking.”
“Sounds good to me. Let me pull my clothes on and text Rooster to meet us in the bar. You look nice, by the way. What do you call that color, plum? It looks good on you.” Randy pulled a pair of trousers and a button-down shirt from the closet.
“Thanks.” Meg adjusted the spaghetti straps of her full-length dress. She loved the feel of silk blowing against her legs in an evening breeze. “They unpacked my clothes and ironed them for me. I’m impressed by the service.”
He moved to the other side of the dressing screen and pulled off his towel, flipping it over the top. “A huge step up from where I just came from.”
“I called the hospital about Robert. Tell Rooster when you text that he’s alive but they don’t know about the long-term effects yet.”
Randy came out, tucking his shirt in his pants then doing up the top button and buckling his belt. “Wilco.”
“Come on. Let’s go have that well-deserved drink. You said you’d buy.” She pointed to the vest in her hand to remind him why.
***
Rooster was heading down the hall in their direction. Meg raised her hand from their bar table to wave him over. He was dressed in a pair of trousers that showed off his slender waist. His blue silk shirt displayed the expanse of his chest and shoulders. Meg got a flash of him hunkered against her, bare-chested, using his shirt to filter the debris kicked up from the helicopter, blocking the battering winds and allowing her to continue with the resuscitation. It hadn’t registered in that moment, but had obviously made its way into her subconscious. She tipped back her glass of hibiscus wine. Yup, she was undressing Rooster in her mind, and she was well aware how wrong that was and on how many levels.
She showed her empty glass to the bartender, then turned back to Randy to respond to the jibe he’d made before she’d caught sight of his boyfriend. “Randy, you are so full of crap.” Maybe she should watch how much she drank tonight. She probably needed to have control of her tongue and her expressions with Rooster’s powers of observation. How horrible would it be if he knew what was still playing in her mind?
“You calling me a liar?”
“I’m telling you you’re full of crap.”
“Yeah? I’ll tell you what, I challenge you to a game of bull’s-eye/bullshit.” He tipped his head toward the dartboard at the back of the room.
“You’re on.” Meg stood and headed toward the board, pulled the darts off, and moved to a closer table where Randy carried his beer.
Rooster strode over. He laid his hand on Meg’s back as he pulled out a chair for her.
She looked up at him with a smile. “Hey there, where’s your shadow?” Meg asked a little too brightly as Rooster’s warmth spread across her bare skin. “Did Ahbou go home with his uncle?”
“With you and Randy over here cussing up a storm, I’m not going to subject the little guy to your locker room behavior.”
The bartender brought Meg another glass of wine. “And you, sir?”
“I’ll have the same as Ra
ndy.” Rooster pointed ay Randy’s beer. “You good? Can I get you another?” He put his hand on Randy’s shoulder.
“Thanks, Honey.”
Rooster lifted two fingers.
“Ahbou?” Meg redirected the conversation.
“The cook is giving him dinner in the kitchen. He’s going to hang out there until his uncle is done for the day.”
“He’s still working? But he was here at breakfast.”
“He’s covering for a friend who’s sick. What’s this game you’ve got going on?”
“Randy’s getting ready to bare his soul. The game goes like this—there’s a questioner and a player. The questioner can ask any personal question they want. The player then tries to get out of answering by hitting a bull’s-eye. If they get one, their turn is ended, and they’re no longer in the hot seat. The danger is that the longer you play, or the drunker you get, the more personal the questions become. Truth is a requirement. The questioner can’t go on forever, they only get three questions, and then, if there are more than two people playing, the questioner and player shift one to the right. Okay?”
“All right,” Rooster said, reaching for the darts Meg held out to him. “Normally, I’d say ladies first. But having just learned that the questions get more private as we play, seems like a good strategy to request that I go first.”
“Fine by me,” Meg said. “But you have to stand farther back than the line, Rooster. If you stand where a normal-sized person would, you could just reach out and place the dart on the board.”
“Are you calling me a freak?”
“Is that my first question? I thought you wanted to play first.”
“Funny.” Rooster didn’t even line himself up, he just threw the dart, and it landed in the green circle just outside of the bull’s-eye. “So close.”
“An inch is as good as a mile.” Meg leaned her hips back into the table. “First question—how’d you know about me?”
Rooster canted his head. “More specific?”
“How did you know I took ballet but wanted to climb trees?”
Rooster smiled. “You point your toes when you lift your foot. You stand in third position when you stop walking—”
Meg raised a questioning brow.
“My sister, Mary Margaret, took dance most of her life, and I got dragged along when I wished I was climbing trees instead. As to the tree part, you want to be out in nature, and you have an adventurous spirit, that’s something you were born with.” Rooster was grinning when he threw a haphazard dart at the board. “Next question?”
“My horse?” She sat down in her seat.
“When you sit, you put the balls of your feet on the rungs of your stool like a stirrup. Heels down. Mary Margaret and I rode as kids. I saw firsthand how the girls at the stable were in love with their horses. That one was part observation, part guess.”
“Here’s the one I really want to know, how’d you know my father was left-handed?”
Rooster looked over at Randy, Randy tilted his head. Meg guessed Randy was wondering too. Rooster lined his body up and took a few practice jabs with his arm, on the last extension the dart flew toward the red center. Meg held her breath. She really wanted to know the answer. Especially since this time Rooster obviously didn’t want to tell her.
Randy lifted off his stool and walked toward the board. “Guess I’m the referee on this one.” He pulled the dart from the very top of the tiny center bullseye on the line between the red and green. “I’d say it’s a miss.” He set his jaw and looked at Rooster square on.
Meg was intimidated by the power behind Randy’s glare and his slow walk back toward Rooster. Rooster didn’t rise to the bait Randy was laying out. Meg wasn’t clear what that was about. But she found herself holding her breath.
Rooster raised his eyebrows, a question, nothing else.
Meg was still confused. And she still wanted her answer. She waited.
Rooster sniffed and turned away from Randy, moving around the table to sit on her right-hand side. He laid his hands flat on the table, fingers splayed. “When I walked out to greet you in the airport, I was watching you and Randy.”
This doesn’t have to do with baseball, Meg thought. He had observed something other than how she caught the puzzle ball that Randy tossed her.
“When I approached, you noticed that I was tall, but when you went to hug me and I lifted my left hand, you squinted and ducked your head. Your dad used to hit you in the face and head with his left hand. Randy and you are close to the same size, and you know and trust him. You didn’t know or trust me yet. I’m guessing you were about ten when your father left your life.”
Meg blinked. She had been exactly ten when Paul left. He’d gotten drunk on her birthday, beaten her mom and all three kids, then passed out. It was the last straw. Her mom called the cops, and he’d been hauled off to jail, and convicted in short order. Men who abuse kids don’t fare well in prison. He died when one of his ribs was broken and perforated his lung. Jim Finley came into the picture about a year later. He’d married her mom and adopted all three kids. Old memories didn’t lie so deep that they couldn’t be dredged up by the simple fact that Rooster was damned tall, he was an unknown quantity, and she still protected the right side of her face.
“You handled me somehow to make me feel safe, didn’t you?” It wasn’t exactly an accusation, but some part of her was a little ticked off to think about all that shit again. And Rooster had brought it up by his sheer size. It was the second time today she was swimming in those memories. Of course, she had asked. And the rules were the rules. You were honor bound to tell the truth. She didn’t want to think of herself as damaged goods. She didn’t want Rooster to think she was either.
“I manipulated the circumstances, not you.”
Meg tried to blink away the unexpected surge of anger. “What did you do?”
“I kept my distance, and when we walked together I offered you my left arm to hold. That way I wouldn’t do anything that would surprise you. I didn’t want you triggered.”
Well that was reasonable. And gentlemanly. Meg swallowed. “Thank you.”
“Fuck, Meg. Why didn’t you ever tell me that about you and your family?”
“I guess we both have secrets about our lives, huh, Randy? Things that we’re just now letting each other know about?” Randy looked like he was thoroughly confused. Meg hated that this little walk down nightmare lane was marring their brief time together. So what if Randy hadn’t told her he was gay? He had every right to explore his relationships in private. “Let’s change the subject. Let’s focus on Randy.” She forced herself to smile, even though she knew Rooster could tell she was trying to end that conversation.
“I’m up.” Randy moved to the dartboard.
“I know just about everything I care to know about Randy,” Rooster said as he sent her a wink. He was playacting too, Meg knew. He was probably worried about how much he’d upset her; how many bad memories had been dredged up. “Why don’t you ask the question?”
“All right, good. I want to know about your call sign. Why do they call you Randy?” Meg had always assumed she knew what the call sign was about. But if he’d been hiding his sexuality from his teammates, then it wouldn’t be the British term for horny.
“He didn’t tell you?” Rooster asked.
“All he said was that for security’s sake, once he became a Ranger, to please only call him Randy in public.”
Randy threw his dart and missed. “Randy is an acronym, not a word.”
“That’s not enough.” Meg protested.
Randy popped his eyebrows a few times and grinned. He’d followed the rules, he’d answered the question.
“Fine. What’s the first letter of your call sign stand for?”
He threw and missed.
“R is for? What? Come on, Randy.”
“Ricochet,” he said.
“—ing.” Rooster added. “Ricocheting.”
Randy squinted his eye
s at Rooster and shook his head.
Oh, she’d found a hot spot. “Okay, I get another one. What’s the second letter stand for? The way you throw darts, I’ll get the whole truth before the night is through.”
Randy hit a bull’s-eye.
Meg got up for her turn.
“I’m coming for you, Meg.” Randy sent her a wicked grin. “I’ve got a good one too.”
Meg wrinkled her nose at him then turned her shoulder to the board, threw the dart and jumped up and down cheering when she saw she’d made a bull’s-eye.
Rooster held out his hand for the darts.
“Okay, Rooster, an easy one—what’s your call sign?” Meg asked.
Rooster looked over at her, puzzled.
“What? You don’t want to share? Something embarrassing?” Meg sing-songed.
Rooster stared at her. Meg could see his mind working something through. He sat down heavily, propped his elbows on the table, and dropped his head into his hands. His whole body started shaking.
Meg thought that somehow she’d brought him to tears. She’d crossed some line. She scooted her chair closer to him and put her hands on his shoulder, leaning her cheek onto his arm. She sent Randy a searching look. Maybe something happened when he was in the military that was painful. Maybe he didn’t use a call sign at Iniquus. Randy was watching the scene with his brow knit together. Why didn’t Randy come and console Rooster? Meg turned until her forehead rested on Rooster’s biceps. “I’m sorry… Did I say something to hurt you?” she whispered.
Rooster put his hands over his face and sat up, then leaned back with a groan. He scrubbed his palms over his cheeks. His face was red. Meg could see tears still clinging to his eyelashes and frowned her apology, rubbing a soothing hand up and down his arm.
