The Leopard's Prey (22 page)

“WHAT HAPPENED?” JADE asked as she ran to the edge of the porch. She peered over Neville’s shoulder toward his truck as though she expected to see Sam lying in it. Avery hurried up behind her, while Beverly struggled to rise out of her chair.

Neville blinked several times in rapid succession. “A-AVERY?” he stammered.

Avery put his hand on Neville’s right shoulder and drew him into the house. “That’s right, old friend. We just arrived today. Sit down.” He pushed him into a nearby chair. “Have a brandy. My stars, man, you look awful.”

“I’m fine,” said Neville, bouncing back up immediately.

Jade, in the meantime, had grabbed a red-and-black bag woven from wool in serpentine zigzags and diamond shapes, a gift from a grateful Berber clan. She threw anything useful that she could think of into it: jerky from dried antelope meat, her flashlight, matches, and a pocket compass, among other things. If she was going to be gone for a while, she wanted to be ready for anything. “You said Sam’s already in the hospital? What happened to him?”

“He went to his room not long after you left. Said his head felt like a rhino was inside slamming against his skull and that his back and legs ached. Maddy called him for afternoon tea, but we didn’t think much of it when he didn’t respond. After all, the man looked exhausted. But when she went to take him something to eat later, she found him soaked in sweat and raging out of his mind. It took two of my men to help me get him into the truck.”

“Malaria?” asked Beverly.

Neville nodded. “That’s what the doctors at the hospital think. A look at his blood under the microscope should prove it.”

“What can we do to help?” asked Avery.

“Nothing.” Neville nodded toward Beverly. “I should think it would be risky letting your wife go to the hospital. Never know what a person can catch there. But Sam’s still thrashing and the nurses are having a terrible time getting any quinine in him. We thought maybe if Jade were with him, he might recognize her and settle a bit.”

“Is Maddy there now?” asked Jade.

Neville shook his head. “There wasn’t room enough for her in the truck since my men rode with me to hold Sam down.”

“Delirious from fever, I imagine,” said Avery, his face taut with concern.

“How horrid,” said Beverly. “Oh, if only Dr. Burkitt were back.”

“If Burkitt were back,” said Neville, “he’d have had Sam stripped down to nothing. It’s his favorite treatment for
any
fever.”

Jade gave Beverly a quick hug. “Don’t wait up for me.” She turned to leave, stopped, and added, “For that matter, don’t expect me back anytime tomorrow either.”

“I’ll come to the hospital tomorrow morning,” Avery called to Jade’s back.

Jade simply waved goodbye without turning around and headed for her motorcycle. “I’ll follow you there, Neville,” she said as she pulled down her goggles. Neville nodded, started his truck, and led the way to the hospital.

Most of Nairobi had been built in flat, swampy land near the Nairobi River with little thought to clean air, water, or sanitation. The European hospital, however, was constructed on a hill on the northeast side of town not far from the Government House. Unlike much of the city, it possessed a tolerable sewer system, which drained into a septic tank. Both the airy elevation and the decent sanitation increased the odds that anyone brought there sick would actually recover. It was a welcome idea in Jade’s mind, which churned with concerns.

Sam figured into several troubling thoughts. She felt his attraction keenly, but always with an underlying wariness, like a prey being tempted by the all too irresistible bait. She knew that once she gave in, she would be hooked. Married.

Caged.
In a way she understood the plight of those leopard cubs. They would have a good life in the zoo. They’d be pampered, fed, cared for, and never know the threat of death by some set of thrashing hooves or a bullet. But at what price? Oh certainly, Sam said he loved her adventuresome spirit, but later, would he expect her to settle into a more moderate routine? Already he’d disapproved of her newest job and demanded her promise to act more sedately.

She thought about Beverly, so happy in her impending motherhood. Where was the Beverly she’d once known? The Beverly who threw all caution to the wind on an ambulance run had become the Beverly who also worried whenever Jade got a little too daring. Maybe, like the leopards, there wasn’t any place for the free spirit anymore.
Am I a dying breed?

Another part of Jade told her that Sam was different. He wouldn’t cage her. She could trust him. But just recently he’d been gruff, and Jade worried that she’d offended him somehow. She’d been right all along. He hadn’t been well, but her suggesting it had angered him, pushing her away.
How ironic. Maybe my worry about losing my independence is a moot point.

Then there was that nasty bit of business involving Stokes. Sam, it seemed, had become Finch’s key suspect, and while Jade didn’t believe Sam had killed Stokes, some supposed eyewitness did. Had the real killer seen the argument and taken advantage of it to kill Stokes and then blame Sam? That last thought made Jade shudder.

Her reflections ended as Neville left his men in the truck and led Jade into the hospital. They headed for Sam’s ward, where a zealous nurse in stiffly starched whites stopped them.

“Visiting hours are over,” she said. “You must return tomorrow.”

Jade didn’t intend any such thing. “I’ve come to see the American Sam Featherstone.” She kept her tone cool, nonadversarial, and very matter-of-fact, hoping that she spoke with an assured authority.

The nurse immediately looked her over, taking in the dusty boots and jodhpurs. “Mr. Featherstone,” she repeated. “Then you must be Jenny?”

Jade felt a momentary sting, knowing that Sam had called for his plane instead of her. She didn’t show it. “Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“I’ll take you there right away. The doctor thinks you might be able to calm his delirium. We haven’t been able to do much with him. Can’t even draw blood safely.” She nodded to Neville. “You shall have to wait until tomorrow, though, sir. Hospital rules.”

Jade turned to Neville. “You’d better get yourself and your men back home. Maddy will be anxious enough. Thanks for coming for me.”

The nurse marched ahead of Jade down a long corridor, turning right into one of the side rooms, a ward for male patients. Rows of beds, most empty, lined both walls with a narrow walkway between them. A few men lay sleeping under white sheets. One watched Jade pass by.

Jade had no trouble telling which bed was Sam’s. She heard his moans as soon as she entered the room, and they tore into her heart. For a moment she felt transported back to the battlefields, where she’d helped to load the wounded.
All those beautiful, brave young men.
As Jade drew nearer, she could see that they had strapped Sam into the bed around his chest and upper arms and again around his knees, but in his fevered delirium he still thrashed against the restraints.

“Haven’t you gotten
any
quinine in him yet?” Jade asked.

“Some,” said the nurse, “by pinching his nose shut and forcing his mouth open, but I’m afraid he’s vomited most of it back out.”

She knelt beside the bed. “Sam, I’m here. Sam. Can you hear me? It’s Jade.”

“Jade?” snapped the nurse. “
You
said your name was Jenny.”

“It’s a nickname,” said Jade with a dismissive wave. She turned back to the feverish man lying drenched on the bed. His cheeks looked sunken, emphasizing the bold, straight nose that grew from his brow. His gaunt appearance made Jade shudder. Sweat trickled from his high forehead and pooled briefly on his pillow before soaking into the casing. His lips worked as he struggled to give voice to his deliriums and his left foot shifted restlessly under the sheets. Jade noticed that his right leg disappeared about midcalf.

“We removed his prosthetic leg,” said the doctor who had appeared at her elbow.

Jade picked up a cloth and patted his sopping brow. “Sam,” she called again, this time getting closer to his ear. For a second, his moans stopped, and his eyelids flickered. “Rest easy, Sam. No one’s going to hurt you. We want to help you.”

The doctor held a glass to Sam’s lips. “Mr. Featherstone, you must drink this.”

Sam’s left forearm flew up and he swatted at the doctor’s hand. “German swine! You’ll get nothing from me!”

“He apparently thinks it’s the war, and the Germans have him prisoner,” said the doctor.

Jade felt her stomach wrench. He’d never given any hint that he’d been taken prisoner, but then like most soldiers, he didn’t like to talk about the war. For that matter, neither did she.
Is it true?
She remembered Sam talking about interrogation tactics back at police headquarters.

“Give me that,” said Jade. She sniffed it and smelled the lime, which made the bitter quinine in ordinary tonic water remotely palatable. But in here, the quinine dosage was higher. “He’s not British. I don’t think he’s used to your usual sundowner,” she said, referring to the nightly gin and tonic. “I have an idea. Do you have a lemon? And I need an empty glass.”

“Nurse, fetch a lemon sliced in two,” ordered the doctor. He looked at Jade. “Don’t Americans like limes?”

Jade shrugged. “Never had one myself before I came here.” The nurse returned with the two halves of a lemon and the empty glass. Jade took the glass of tonic water from the doctor and squeezed one lemon half into it. “When I give the word, put the
empty
glass in his right hand.”

She held the second lemon half under Sam’s nose, her fingertips brushing his mustache. “Sam,” she said softly, “it’s a hot summer day. You’ve been working hard in the field. It’s time to come to the porch and drink a cool glass of lemonade.” She nodded to the doctor. “Now.”

Sam’s lips moved in a voiceless response. His nostrils twitched, then flared as he inhaled the clean scent of lemon. After a moment, his right hand gripped the empty glass and lifted at the elbow. At the same time, Jade held the glass of quinine water to his lips. Sam drank slowly at first; then, with the doctor supporting Sam’s head, he gulped the rest just as he might have drained a glass of lemonade back on his home farm in Indiana.

“That was delicious, wasn’t it, Sam?” Jade said, her voice soothing and calm. “Now you should take an afternoon snooze here on the hammock.”

“Work … Jenny,” Sam muttered.

“Don’t worry about Jenny,” said Jade. “She’s fine. I’m taking care of her.”

Sam’s body relaxed as he drifted into sleep. The doctor took a syringe full of Sam’s blood for observation.

“That was brilliant, miss,” said the doctor. “I’m most grateful to you.”

“Once his fever’s down, you’ll probably find him more pliable,” said Jade. “But you might have to resort to this deception again. If you don’t object, I’d like to stay by him until then.”

“Not at all,” said the doctor, ignoring the nurse’s shocked glare. “Your presence appears to me most soothing to him. But I’m confused. I thought you were Jenny. You’re not?”

Jade shook her head.

“Then is this someone we should send for?”

Jade’s lips twitched in a brief, wry smile. “Hardly. It’s his plane, Doctor. A pilot’s first love.”

“Oh, I see,” mumbled the doctor. Then his eyes opened wide and he held Jade’s gaze. “I daresay, that’s a bit of a stunner for you, miss … er, what
is
your name?”

“Jade del Cameron. And it’s probably no more than I deserve.” She smiled weakly. “He’s a good man and a war veteran, as you probably gathered.” Jade nodded toward the stump where his lower leg should have been. “I expect you to treat him as such.”

“Of course, Miss del Cameron. All our patients receive the best of care. I must own I wondered about that leg. Tough break for the chap, but I’ve seen worse.”

Jade met his eyes. “So have I.”

Something in Jade’s emerald eyes made the doctor wince, as though she projected all the pain and sorrow she’d ever experienced hauling the wounded and mangled in her ambulance. He stood. “Nurse Harper will be in the ward, of course, and I will make rounds again in a few hours. If he, or you, should need anything, let us know.”

Jade thanked them both, then settled into a wooden chair by Sam’s head. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned her head back against the wall.
Might as well catch a bit of sleep before Sam wakes again. It’s going to be a long night.

She catnapped, slipping out of sleep every time the nurse walked by or whenever Sam shifted in his bed. Then, as soon as her brain registered that all was well, or at least not any worse, Jade drifted back into her fragmented dreams. Her body rested, but her mind worked at sorting and organizing her many questions and her scant information. As a consequence, she dreamed of Biscuit chasing raggedy, half-starved zebras into newspaper offices full of orphaned babies.

The doctor returned at four a.m., and together, they repeated the last ruse and tricked Sam into swallowing the bitter concoction. He thrashed less than before, and drank willingly if less eagerly. This time he didn’t speak. He continued to perspire, but seemed less feverish than before. The nurse brought fresh sheets and a clean nightshirt.

“Wait outside, miss. It would not be proper for a”—she paused, eyed Jade’s clothes, and nearly choked on the next word—“
lady
to be present while the patient was bathed and dressed.”

“I was an ambulance driver during the war,” Jade said. “I’ve been around men while they’re being cared for.” She pointed to the restraints. “What if he gets violent again? You know you shouldn’t be doing this alone. If you don’t want
me
around, then get a second nurse in here or the doctor.”

“The doctor is resting at the moment,” said the nurse, “and we only have one nurse per ward during night shift.”

“Then you’re stuck with me.”

The nurse scowled. “Very well, but I do not approve.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Jade. “Now, you’re in charge. What do you want me to do?”

Knowing that Jade was willing to follow her directions placated the nurse’s sensibilities. “Undo the chest strap only. If he begins to thrash, apply firm but gentle pressure to his shoulders and I’ll redo the restraints. We must work quickly.”