I responded as any red-blooded American male would. By rolling back my shoulders, lifting my chest and sucking in my gut. It was with some pride I noted I didn’t have much to suck.
Nodding her satisfaction, Kayla turned to cleaning up the table. With the sixth sense only a mother could possess, she produced a ball from who knows where and bounced it across the table just as Jengo reached an inquisitive hand toward the bottle of Percocet . Kayla swept the meds into her own hand as the little gorilla hand chased the ball instead.
Without missing a beat, she dropped another treat into the dog’s waiting jaws, sat down beside me, and snapped off a bite-sized piece of a king-sized candy bar for the gorilla before handing me the rest. Nick-of-time sugar to boost my flagging insulin levels.
“You can crash in the guestroom,” she said. “Gus will let us know if anyone comes around who shouldn’t be here.”
“Why are you doing this—for me?”
She looked at me as if she thought the meds or the pain was making me talk like a crazy man. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I could think of a dozen personal-safety reasons off the top of my head.
“Besides”—her mouth quirked in an utterly charming way—“I think you look pretty stunning too.”
CHAPTER 5
KAYLA
As a matter of fact, the doctor did look stunning—high cheekbones, five o’clock shadow and cinnamon-dark eyes coupled with a body that was muscular but not so full of definition as to be overplayed. I wondered if he had scars or hidden tattoos, and I caught my imagination wandering toward places it had no business being. I knew nothing of this man, and in all likelihood would know little more of him before he left. His people would be missing him and arranging to bring him back.
The breep of my phone startled us both.
The display flashed Sefu, one of the plantation workers. “Habari ya mchana.” The customary greeting, though, somehow rang hollow today.
“Habari, jumbe,” he returned the greeting, dismissively but politely as most of the tribesmen were taught by their mothers. Calling me boss now came hard for some still. “Jamal says his wife is ill. That a doctor thinks it is the new sickness that comes from Sudan. Is it true?”
“Is Jamal given to telling untruths?”
“Of course not, jumbe. But I did not know there was a doctor here.”
I looked at Mark. “He’s an…unexpected…visitor.”
Sefu took a moment to absorb that. “But if it is true about Jamal’s wife—”
“Lisha,” I cut in. He knew her name and I would insist he use it.
“—Lisha,” he repeated impatiently, and I recognized perhaps now was not the best time to instruct a Bemba tribesmen on the equality of women, “then we are all at risk. There is talk, too, of civil war. Secret radio messages and secret texts. My brother is with the Congolese army. He is coming here tomorrow to take me, my wife and the mtoto to Bukavu in South Kivu.”
“You’re leaving?” I didn’t expect that.
“Nydio, jumbe. Tomorrow.”
“Will you be back?”
There was a long moment of silence. “Only if the world should change.”
“I wish it was already changed.” I sighed. “Come by if you need anything before you go. I will see you get it.”
“Asante,” he thanked me. “But to go south is what my family needs most right now.”
“I understand. But I still want to help if I can.”
“I will sleep on it. Kwaheri.”
“Kwaheri.” That goodbye wasn’t supposed to feel like forever.
Mark and I exchanged a look as I hung up. The beginning of the end, it said. But there were still practical matters at hand to attend.
“I have some of my baba’s clothes still. It looks like they might fit. Go take a shower and rest. I’ll leave some things in your room and you can try them on after you’ve napped.”
When he didn’t argue, I knew the excitement, the danger, the wound and now the Percocet were taking their toll.
Come to think of it, given my current stress level, I could use a nap as well.
But there were too many things happening all at once, and my brain was much too busy right now to slow down enough to sleep. So, while Mark napped, I sat with my laptop, mapping out all the ways things could go all sideways in a hurry.
I wondered if Mark would be something that would go sideways too.
It was early evening, with the sun falling toward the horizon, when Mark woke. A pair of Baba’s bush shorts and a tan, sleeveless, button-up shirt seemed to fit him well enough. I nodded my approval. “Feeling better?”
“Healthwise, yeah, actually. About being in Ushindi right now, still not so much.”
I couldn’t fault him there. “Up for a walk?”
“If it’s a short one and doesn’t wind me up in some rebel camp, sure.”
“We’re good on both counts.” I hefted the backpack I’d just finished loading to my shoulder.
It didn’t matter how many times we’d been through this ritual, Gus and Jengo acted like it was the first time. The Rottweiler danced and circled, his long tail whipping in excitement. Jengo clutched my hand, jumping up and down, tugging me toward the door.
“Right. Let’s go then.”
“Must be quite the walk,” Mark said as he followed Gus and Jengo out the door I held open.
I led Mark past the gardens and into the wilds of Zahur’s greenbelt, a long, narrow strip of rainforest fenced to either side that would never be cleared—a stewardship of the generations of my family who’d honored the diversity that was our mountain.
“It’s…beautiful.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been waiting for Mark’s validation of my biased view until he’d given it. Why did it matter what an outsider thought of Zahur?
“You’ll find a lot of micro-holdings—two or three acres each—out here, but plantations of this size that are still family owned are quite rare.”
“Why’s that?” Mark’s interest seemed real enough. Or maybe he simply needed the distraction.
“Economic pressure. Over the years most of the original plantation owners have been forced to sell to larger holdings—new owners who live thousands of kilometers away, from the Middle East to Europe to America. They have no love for the land, only the profits it can produce. Every year more of the mountain’s rainforests get cut and planted. And more of the mountain’s animals are driven out.”
If it were this mountain alone losing habitat, the world could bear its wound. But it was spreading, as fast as men’s greed could manage. Scarring mountain after mountain, nation after nation—Ushindi, Ethiopia, Uganda. Not all the animals on Mt. Stanley could flee as the machines came in to fell the forests. Those that could fled east, braving the Rwenzori range, or north toward Lake Albert, or south to Lake Edward, or west across the Great Rift that split its way through the heart of Africa.
“A Greek philosopher once saw these peaks and named them the Mountains of the Moon,” I told Mark. “For generations, even before they were rediscovered, Europeans believed they were the birthplace of the Nile, perhaps even where the race of men arose. When British explorers came, they ignored the names our tribes had given the great mountains, and instead claimed them under British rule and gave them Western names.”
Colonial rule might have been abandoned, but the subjugation of the land continued. Multi-peaked Mt. Stanley rose like a guardian dominating our eastern sky. On the other side lay Uganda. There, civilization spread more slowly, but like the Subs virus-bearing mosquitoes swarming down from Sudan, men would overrun Uganda’s pristine wilderness soon enough, carrying destruction like a plague with them.
Did Uganda have any more defense against that inevitability than we had defense against Subs?
“And what of us here in Ushindi? Will the threat of plague drive us from our homeland? How far can we run, if so? And can any of us run far enough?” It was a somber topic for a walk through paradise. I should not ha
ve followed that trail of despondency, not out here where nature still prevailed.
“Not that I could ever leave here,” I assured Jengo, who gripped tight to my hand as we walked along.
Gus’s sudden bound, accompanied by a furious wag of tail, told me welcome company was on its way. A perfect diversion from civil wars, plagues and economic woes.
With a grin, I watched Mark’s expression as two creatures crashed out of the underbrush, running full tilt toward us.
CHAPTER 6
MARK
“What the—!”
I tensed, reflex only, as Kayla beside me seemed to be encouraging the beasts our way.
The two animals charging us couldn’t have been more different. One I recognized, the slower and heavier of the two, stubby legs pumping as it tried to keep up with its companion. A rhino, young and small, with a blunt face, big feet and bat ears perched high on top of its head.
It was the second animal that baffled and awed. Truly the strangest-looking beast I’d ever seen, like some wild genetic experiment right out of the pages of The Island of Dr. Moreau.
A gazelle, I thought at first, seeing its long legs, but it ran more like a horse. Some sort of mutant zebra then, I guessed, the dappled light through the trees splashing across stripes that would no doubt dazzle a leopard’s eye. But no, the stripes were horizontal, not vertical, and only ran along the animal’s butt, thighs and upper forelegs. The rest of it was mainly a deep chestnut with striking gray-white cheeks and a black nose. As it neared, it was clear there was nothing equine about the shape of its head or its long, slender neck—more like a cross between a deer and giraffe.
What I did know as it capered in front of Kayla, wagging its bottle-brush tail, was that it was pretty damn cute.
Jengo left Kayla’s side and threw his spindly arms around its neck. A few yards behind, the rhino had stopped to sniff noses with Gus.
“The rest of the family,” Kayla said as she shrugged out of her backpack. “The rhino is Tamu and the okapi is Nyota.”
“So Nyota is supposed to look like that?”
Kayla laughed as she unpacked what looked suspiciously like baby bottles. “Wait ‘til you see her best trick.”
Tamu came pushing up between us, squealing and eager for whatever was in the bottles. Kayla gave her nose a stern push away. “Be polite,” she admonished. To my surprise, the rhino plopped down on her haunches like a dog, obediently waiting for what I guessed now was her supper.
Kayla offered Jengo the smaller bottle, and he unwrapped his arms from his okapi friend’s neck and scampered the couple of feet to take it. Kayla then offered the next-larger-size bottle to me. “For Nyota. Keep it tilted up just above her head so she doesn’t swallow air. And no matter what, hold on tight.”
There was something about her tone and smile that made me think I was being set up. I eyed the okapi with suspicion while Kayla handed Gus a large dog biscuit before positioning a gallon-sized baby bottle just over the little rhino’s head. Tamu’s eyes shut with contentment as she began to nurse.
The okapi took a step toward me, her wide eyes staring hopefully at what she apparently knew was her bottle. Her back was only about waist-high, but her long neck gave her added reach. I held the bottle over her head…and despite Kayla’s warning, I damn near dropped it when a long blue snake streaked out of her pointed muzzle.
I gasped.
Kayla snickered.
It wasn’t a snake, of course, but her tongue. Darker blue than a Chow’s tongue, and longer than the tongues of giraffes I’d seen foraging at the zoo. How it fit in her mouth without her strangling I didn’t know, but she swallowed it back in right before latching on to the bottle and sucking away.
The next 10 minutes were Eden-like bliss, with the calls of monkeys high above us, a flutter of brightly colored wings through the trees, and the noisy contentment of our menagerie of suckling babes. If those moments could have stretched into eternity, I would have gladly stayed forever in this idyllic piece of heaven.
It couldn’t last, of course, but I was given an extension when the okapi finished her bottle, licked the last drops of milk from her lips with that amazing tongue of hers, and snuggled by the rhino to catch a nap. I sat beside them, my hand on the rhino’s rough shoulder watching her suck down the last of her milk, and watching the exquisite face of the extraordinary woman who’d made these moments possible.
When she was done, the little rhino—little only in the sense of being young since size-wise she was easily the mass of four 100-pound Rottweilers—stretched out under my hand, careful of the calf curled up next to it. Not to be left out, Jengo brought his half-finished bottle over and kicked back, using the rhino’s broad rump as a backrest.
Just another litter seeking the comfort and security of family. My eyes met Kayla’s over the sprawl of babies, and she smiled, all of Eve and the First Garden in her full and perfect lips and the warmth of her dark eyes.
A pang shot through me in response—a deep and powerful longing, though for what I wasn’t sure. I followed the mystery of it as it twined through my gut, my brain, my heart.
Peace. Family.
I shook my head. That was the Percocet whispering foolishness in my ear. Right now, I didn’t have time or place in my life for a goldfish. Not according to my 10-year plan. Once I was hired on as an attending physician at one of the better hospitals in Boston or Hartford or even Upstate New York, maybe then I could entertain thoughts of wife and kids and condos with all the amenities. When the student loans were all paid off and I could direct money into college funds for another generation. That, however, was a dream for the 20-year plan. A decade away from even starting it.
A lifetime from here.
In the settled quiet, the soft buzz of Kayla’s vibrating phone carried clearly. She flicked a look at the display, then held it anxiously to her ear. “Jamal! Habari ya jioni. How is Lisha?”
I needed the coming 10 years to better learn how to deal not just with patients but with their families. To deliver bad news compassionately. To not keep my emotions walled-off in my soul, but to share just enough of them that we connected not as doctor and client, but as caring human beings. God knows I felt those emotions to the core, but somehow, somewhere in my training I’d learned that to protect my own heart, I had to be as steel in the face I turned to my patients.
Watching Kayla’s expression crumble and feeling the surge of grief that washed over me on her behalf, I wondered if 10 years would be enough.
“I’ll be by soon,” she promised, before pocketing the phone and turning a wounded look on me.
No tears, was all I could think. Shouldn’t there be tears? And shouldn’t I do or say something? Something professional or something personal? Or both? A part of me wanted to wrap my arms around her and share her pain, take it all away. But… professional distance—I needed it, as much now as in the future, or every bit of pain around me would become my own, would overwhelm me so I could no longer function, could no longer be the healer I wanted to be, needed to be.
I settled for taking her hand, feeling the long fingers and soft skin of that most efficient hand that could feed a zoo, run a plantation and doctor wounds with equal ease.
“Is it Subs?” I asked.
She nodded.
Sometimes it sucked to be right. More so, even, in this case because it was confirmation of a widening spread of the deadly disease.
Something she was thinking of herself. “How many more?” she whispered.
“It’s not just the direct cost of lives. If tourists stay away out of fear, and if those with the resources to leave do so, think of the economic consequences.”
“Just what we need—even more fear and panic before Ushindi’s first real elections.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Those men—the militia that took me—one of them said something about needing a medic because they had a war to fight. In Hasa. Add a deadly mosquito invasion into the mix—”
“
They wouldn’t. Not when we’re so close to getting the kind of leaders Ushindi needs to grow and prosper. Their leaders…” Horror grew in her widening eyes. I had distracted her from her grief about her friend’s predicament only to have her worrying about the larger predicament her country now faced. “But of course that’s exactly when they would strike, isn’t it? News of the Subs virus will only help, turning public sentiment from political strife to simpler concerns about staying healthy and staying alive. Few people will care who is in power then. They’ll only care about who can best help. And the answer right now is…no one.”
I gripped the hand in mine. “None of that has happened yet.”
She stared at my bandaged side. “No?”
“Collateral damage. No one meant for me to be in that camp. I wasn’t a target.”
“Someone was. There had to be some kind of advance planning. Helicopters, guns—”
“—drugs.” I remembered the bag of cocaine. “Probably how they’re funding their operations—through cocaine and heroin trafficking.”
“Is there someone we can warn?”
I scowled. “I don’t even know which side to be warning or who to root for here. The side who kidnapped me or the other side who also may have shot me? I’m not really seeing an upside to either. My guess is being in Hasa isn’t going to be smart for anyone in the next week or two.”
“I’d heard rumors the incumbents might dig in, refuse to leave office, no matter how the vote went. That’s what happened in Angola , Rwanda and the Congo Republic.”
“And…what happened?”
“Uprisings. Civil war. Fighting that tore those countries apart not so long ago. They’re still recovering emotionally and economically. Politically, they may never recover.” I watched her thinking about that happening here. Saw the numbness in her face, the devastation in her eyes.
I tried to empathize with her country, but couldn’t. It was too far outside my experience where even the occasional riot in American streets was something on TV to shake my head over, but not something connected to me in any important way. The walls around my feelings were not ones I’d built consciously. All I knew was that they grew higher and more distancing every year. I was comfortable behind those walls where the pain of others’ misfortunes couldn’t affect me.
Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) Page 3
