The Lost Hearts (18 page)

When the horse jerked to a stop, Trevor lifted his eyes, dulled and unaware, his body slumping onto the groun
d.  Alexis flung herself at him and cradled his head in her arms.  She howled in terror when she saw the long, deep gash which tore from his ear to his collarbone.

“Trevor!” s
he yelped, her eyes frenetically scanning his ravaged body.  His eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned feebly in his stupor. 

Alexis’ body pulsed with adrenaline, her mind suddenly clear.  In an instant she knew they were alone, far beyond the reach of help, that his fate now rest
ed in her hands.  With all her might, muscles screaming, Alexis dragged the dead weight of his body over the wet gummy ground, rivulets of burgundy mingling with the soil.  When she reached a small grassy spot at the base of a tree, she collapsed, heaving from the exertion. 

In a frenzy, she tore through the camp until she found the hunting knife.  She hovered above him, slashing the bloodied garments, dark and drenched, from his body.  The horses watched her curiously as they chewed mindlessly at the tall grass, unaware of the gravity of h
er predicament.  As she freed the last shred of his trousers from his ankle, her eyes swept over him, her mouth gaping.  His hands, arm, abdomen and thigh were shredded with red oozing trenches.

It had been a cat no doubt, and she could see from the crimson scars on the palms of his hands that he had held them up in defense against its razor sharp claws.  At the mangled edges, she could see that much of the blood was dark, almost black, and hard.  The attack must have happened early in the morning.  Still, the wounds welled and seeped, and Alexis cringed at the thought of how much blood he’d lost by now. 
Please don’t let it be too late,
she prayed.  She sank to the ground and put her fingers to his wrist.  His pulse was faint, his breathing shallow. 

She left him again, this time racing to find shreds of fabric.  She seized the tent she had sewn just minutes be
fore and frantically sliced it into long strips.  Tying the wounds at major pressure points, she started a fire and boiled the water.  By now the hysteria in her mind had died, and she worked robotically, stoically.  The sun was beginning to disappear below the tree tops as she cleaned the last of his wounds, and she bound his limbs and torso in the starchy canvas, bright scarlet beads budding against the white.  She slung herself at his side, lay her head gently across his chest.  His heart beat impishly, and the rise and fall of his chest was almost imperceptible.  Alexis stroked the hair caked in blood and sweat from his pallid brow, tenderly brushed her lips against his forehead.   “Please, Trevor,” she pleaded in a tortured whisper.

Suddenly Alexis’ body contracted in anguish, her eyes squeezing back ferocious sobs which seemed to pull from the depths of her gut.  She buried her face against the hollow of his neck, stiff and
pungent with the raw scent of blood.  Tears gushed from her eyes, her shoulders heaved, and she squeezed the clay-like mud in her fist, pounding violently at the earth. 

She found that she could not leave him just
yet, as though to break touch would be to let him drift down turbulent rapids, lose him forever.  She placed her hand against his elbow, her fingers tracing the veins in his forearms.  It felt strange to touch him so tenderly, to feel the force of an undeniable bond now with a man whom she had despised vehemently just an evening before.  But now she reeled in terror at the thought of watching him fade from life.

As Alexis descended the wave of emotion, she snapped back into doctor mode. She built a fire pit close to where he lay, managed to maneuver a bedroll under his naked body, albeit haphazardly.  She flung open h
er suitcase, shredded the clean delicate garments into bandage strips.  Between the tasks that structured her time and held her sanity in place, she would stare at Trevor’s face, willing his eyes to flutter open, tell her that he would be okay.

When the night inked its path across the sky and the air cooled, Alexis draped her blanket over Trevor’s naked body. 
She ignored the nausea which twisted in her gut and curled tightly against him, grasping his fingers in her hand.  Closing her eyes, she slept fitfully, begging silently for the crushing weight of madness to leave her. 

The moon hung low in the heavens that night, blue and pocked, casting an eerie glow over the camp.  In her sleep she heard a high, plaintive cry and she stirred in her spell until she realized that it came from Trevor’s lips.  She shot up, crouched beside him, stroked his forehead which glistened with fevered perspiration.  “Trevor?” she whispered.

His head, which seemed to fall hard against the bundle of cloth, turned sluggishly, and he hissed at the agonizing pain.  Alexis steadied her hand against his face, coaxing him to be still.  She could see his heavy lids lift, his black eyes flashing with alarm, as though he was
only just beginning to realize what had become of him.  When she saw the corners of his eyes well with tears, Alexis knew she had never truly understood what it was to know heartbreak.  Tears pulsed from her own eyes, her heart exploding in her chest.

“Alexis,” he choked, his voice crackling in his throat.  As though the effort of her name had exacted too high a price, his eyes sunk back into his head, and he fell once more into a coma.

“I
thought I was going to lose you,” Alexis said through a tortured smiled, intending to make light the terror of her true feelings, but the words splintered with emotion, and she fought the mutinous tears springing in her eyes.  Trevor watched her somberly, bankrupt of the energy to say more than a few words at a time.  His hand twitched, and with gargantuan effort, moved it toward her where she knelt beside him.  She took his ragged hand in hers, stroking softly at his fingertips.

More than a day had passed before h
e had revived from his comatose state.  In that day, Alexis had examined his body with great care, and with the best of her limited medical knowledge, surmised that only two of the hideous gashes would require stitching.  With a leaden stomach, bile rising treasonously in her throat, she had lowered a needle into the flame of the fire and threaded it with soaped string.  Though she hadn’t eaten since Trevor had returned unconscious to their camp, she wretched violently as she watched the needle’s head puncture the angry lips of his torn skin, the flared edges cinching tightly with every pull. 

“Are
you warm enough?  Too warm?” she asked, brushing her palms against the heavy, coarse wool.  Trevor grimaced and shook his head lethargically. 

Alexis h
eld a cup of water to his mouth and his lips parted instinctively.  She hummed to him, a song she had forgotten, a song her mother had sung to her. 

“You’re going to be okay,” she said, her voice more confident now.  She stroked his jaw, felt the pulse at his clammy neck.  “Once you’re better, you’ll get to se
e my handy work.  I’m no doctor but I stitched you up decent enough.”  When she looked into his eyes, she saw they watched her like a child.  Alexis gulped, alarmed to find that that all her tender words and gestures came naturally, and that his gaze was one of humble acceptance.  Her eyes burned with tears when she saw that his arm had risen, that his fingers were now grazing the small apple of her chin.

Chapter
Fifteen

“Boy, are we way behind schedule,” Alexis joked as she rifled through her suitcase, now a makeshift medical kit.  She held up the gauzy materials that had once been dainty, feminine sun dresses and undergarments, now frayed ribbons she used to bandage Trevor’s wounds.  Trevor sniffed good-naturedly as he shifted against the padded seat Alexis had made him from the camp supplies, his body smarting with unyielding pain.

“Trevor,” Alexis said when she saw him biting back the pain, his face bristling in silent agony, “I think we should go back to Moresby.  You need to see a doctor, and the last thing you need is to spend another month and a half hacking our way through mountain forests.”  Her voice was soft, maternal.  She had broached the notion of returning to civilization for medical attention a number of times now, all of her suggestions received with nothing more than a grunt and obstinate shake of the head.

Trevor’s face clouded, his thick brows knotting.  “Absolutely not.  I’m fine.”  He folded his arms gingerly across his midsection and Alexis knew the subject was closed. 

Alexis had run the camp for more than a week now, and
she watched gleefully as Trevor awoke each day with less discomfort, speaking more with ease and clarity.  When he had regained his energy, he told her of the morning he left to check the sodden terrain.  He had wanted to see if the storm’s deluge had made their route impassable, and as he bore through the fallen brush from the storm, he heard the unearthly rumble of a jaguar, its piercing shriek blasting as he saw a bolt of black streak head on.  He didn’t know what had happened, he told her, until he felt the jagged hooks of its claws rip like lightning through his flesh. 

Alexis thought she heard his voice quake
, and she had let her hand brush the curve of his shoulder, squeezing softly.  They sat so close these days, and she had grown accustomed to the feel of his body pressed against her as she cared for him.  Now that she knew he was safe, that he would stay with her, her mind had freed itself of the panic, the primary instinct to worry, and become more acutely aware of his bare skin just beneath the blanket.  When she bathed him, the wet cloth moving slowly over the hard ripple of his stomach, she sensed they were both attuned to this new intimacy, and she felt the familiar warmth blossom inside her.  They would avoid each other’s eyes as she unwound the bandage from his upper thigh, the thick muscles covered in chestnut hair.

One day, she helped him with the excruciating task of dressing himself with loose, cotton underwear.  She had promised herself she would avert her gaze, but as she slid the white
fabric upward toward the dark triangular tuft of hair, she slighted when her eyes locked on him.  Against her every instinct, she had met his unblinking eyes, and the silence thundered electrically.  Searing heat erupted inside her, expanding until the surface of her skin throbbed and shivered. 

Alexis shot up, her heart drumming so furiously she thought Trevor might hear it.  She had cleared her throat loudly, pulled at the sullied fabric of her dress as she nervously paced, frantically searching for a distraction.  Finally she asked him to finish his story abou
t the jaguar.  He nodded stiffly, suppressing an incendiary longing that of late had begun to trump the pain of his wounds. 

Trevor had curled himself into a tight ball,
he said, his horse vanished from sight.  The jaguar had clawed diabolically, and Trevor believed himself to be as good as dead until he remembered that he was carrying his small revolver.  As the cat pummeled him, he managed to wedge his foot at the beast’s abdomen and shove it back.  He had aimed blindly, his eyes clouded with dirt and blood, and fired.  He saw the jaguar spin midair from the force of the bullet, heard its confused wail rip the muggy air.  And as quickly as it had come, the cat was gone. 

“Binda was nowhere to be seen when the jaguar pounced, and I must have passed out.  But I woke up to her nuzzling.  I c
ould barely see a thing,” he told her, his voice trailing off in a daze.  “I don’t know how we got back to camp, I just remember opening my eyes and seeing you.  That’s it.”  She’d noticed how he looked at her when he said it, the charge of his eyes, as though they both coveted something neither could name.

Alexis stirred the small pot sinking sideways in the fire’s blazing embers.  She decided his speedy recovery merited the luxury of a nighttime coffee.  They sipped in placid silence, the frogs belching in rhythm with the forest’s chorus of nocturnal life.  Trevor shifted in his seat, placed the warm tin in the folds of his blanket now draped around his midsection.  He had walked that day, stiffly and loudly as he yelled through his pain.  Alexis winced, stifling the urge to weasel her body beneath him like a crutch. 

“I think I’ll be ready to go in a couple of days.  We’ll have to take it slower than usual, but we should get to the village you’v
e got on your map there in a couple of days.”  He tipped the last of his coffee back, nodded his head toward the tarp under the boulder.  “How’s the food supply?”

Alexis sighed happily.  “We’re doing great actually.  Neither of us ate too well those
first couple of days when you…”  Her voice sagged, a lump rising in her throat.  She coughed, “Well, we should be fine.”

“Good,” Trevor said, his tone gentle, approving.  Alexis was startled to find that
she basked in his good opinion like a pig in mud.  With incredulity, she remarked the heights to which her mood had climbed despite their difficult circumstances.  If she were honest, she couldn’t remember such a giddy, all-consuming happiness.

Alexis sank against a log she had rolled close to the fire, draping her bare arm over the rough bark.  “Tell me about when you came to New Guinea, Trevor.”

Trevor’s brow lifted, a soft, nostalgic smile spreading across his face.  “I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”  He picked a twig from the ground, snapping it in his fingers before he flicked it into the fire’s orange core.

“Well,” he sighed, “I told you I came here when I was eighteen.  I had nothing left for me in Australia but hard memories.  I guess I wanted to put it behind me.  So…I scraped together the little money my family had and jumped on a boat to this island.  I’d heard it was the last place of great exploration, that there was money and adventure to be had.”  He frowned pensively.  “I’ll admit in my
younger days that both of those things meant a lot to me.  My intentions weren’t exactly honest or noble, and I wanted to get a piece of the pie.  A lot of talk about gold.”

Trevor fingered the stubble on his chin reflectively. 
“I was something of a drifter in the beginning.  I didn’t have a lot of money to start with, but I managed to pick up the languages easily, and I came to know these hills and valleys like a native.  I worked on teams of foreign men looking for gold.  When I’d made enough to last awhile, I settled down in Moresby.  I made friends.  Met a woman.  It was a simple life, but I had everything I needed.”  He looked up at her, almost uneasily.  “And…in the end, I grew to love this place and the people.  I make no distinction between myself and any other here.”

Alexis lowered her gaze, trying to ignore the rising bile of jealousy when he mentioned the woman. 
She wasn’t interested in Trevor, why should she feel threatened, she reminded herself.  But the words escaped her mouth before she could reel them back.  “You’re married?” she asked, her affected nonchalance dangerously transparent.

Trevor shook his head
and hid his smile.  “No, not married.  We were very young, and I didn’t want to…disappoint anybody.  I was honest with her.  About my intentions.”

“So what happened?”
Alexis probed, trying still to manage her voice, neutralize the tinge of envy laced in the inquiry.

“She left me.”  Trevor’s face was blank, revealing neither regret nor relief. “She wanted to have children, but I didn’t.  So she left me.  She went back to her family.”

“So…you haven’t been with anyone else since?”

Trevor laughed, and Alexis flinched with surprise when she saw the two dimples form at his cheeks.  She hadn’t noticed them before, all of those times he had smiled contemptuously at her.  “Well, of course I’ve been with women.” 

“Oh,” Alexis sputtered, her face falling into a dark frown as she remembered where she had first met him.  “That’s right,” she said, her voice heavy and dull.  “You pay your women.”

Chuckling, Trevor ran his fingers through his loose waves
of hair.  “I’ve never paid, Red,” he said softly.  “Just because I prefer the company of folk not inclined to judge doesn’t mean I take advantage of all the services available.”

Ale
xis could feel her cheeks sting and she thanked the shadows for concealing the color of her embarrassment.  Helplessly, she fought the sickening twist of her stomach as she imagined Trevor with other women.  Naked.

His voice interrupted her combative thoughts.  “And you, Red?” 

Alexis smiled.  It sounded so different now when he called her Red, like a shared secret.  But the question snapped her back, and she thought of Philip for the first time since she had written the fuming letter that first day they had climbed the hills of New Guinea.  She was amazed to discover that he no longer seemed like a real person to her, but a cold relic of her past, a one-dimensional image in her mind’s eye. 

“Uh…I,” she stammered, unsure of what to say.  She
suddenly realized she didn’t want admit that she was attached.  “I have someone waiting for me back in Boston,” she offered reluctantly. 

Was she mistaken to see the same flash of jealousy pass over his face?  His eyes widened.  “Oh?”

“I met him, Philip, when I was at university.  I wasn’t exactly…popular.  The men there hated my presence.”  Alexis watched the sky, searching her thoughts among the brilliant stars.  “But Philip, he was different to me.  He was so interested and persistent.  He became the closest friend I’d had…well…just about ever.  He seemed so accepting of me.”

“Seemed?”
Trevor asked.

“It’s complicated,”
Alexis murmured.  “I suppose I should have seen it all along, but I was lonely.  I took his overtures for love and respect.  Along the way, I found I was just a trophy to him.  At least in the beginning.  I still don’t know why.”

Trevor grunted.  “You don’t?”  His eyes trailed slowly over the contours of her face, the delicate slope of her nose, the full, rosebud lips, and the halo of her flaming red tres
ses. Alexis shifted timidly under his gaze and her fingers twitched nervously, searching for something to distract her from the remark.

Alexis sighed and
shrugged her shoulders.  “In any case, when my father fell ill and asked me to come here in his place, Philip gave me an ultimatum.  It wasn’t even my safety he was concerned about,” Alexis sniffed heatedly.  “He was worried about what the Boston elite would think of his woman parading about the world like a man.”  Alexis rolled her eyes scornfully at the memory of it, the indignation of countless challenges and confrontations.

It dawned on Alexis that she was omitting the key detail of the story.  She didn’t mean to lie, but suddenly she had no way of explaining her bond to Philip, not even to herself.  That full-bodied moment beneath the willow tree the eve of her departure had thinned.  So much had happened since.  She looked at Trevor and swallowed.  “Before I left, Philip proposed.”

Trevor’s head smarted to attention.  “Did he?”

Alexis nodded her head somberly.  Why did Philip feel so far away now?  And why couldn’t she look Trevor in the eye? 

“And?” he prodded, a hint of impatience leaking into the words.

“I accepted.”

Trevor’s face settled impassively.  “Why?” he asked.  “After knowing what he really wanted from you.”

Alexis cleared her throat.  The honesty was choking her.  “I guess because I was tired of being a pariah, and Philip is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I belonged.”

Trevor ignored the twist in his gut and smiled, the dimples pressed deep.  “I guess you and I have something in common, then.”

“What’s that?”

“We both felt like strangers in our homeland.”

Alexis pulled her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms protectively around them.  She lost herself in the dancing flames of the fire, unaware that Trevor watched her face from beneath his heavy brows. 

“So, what do you want, Red?”  His question caught her off guard.  A mere month ago the answer was crystal clear.  Go home, marry Philip, work at the museum, live happily ever after.  Now she couldn’t imagine life post New Guinea.  It had swallowed the whole of her existence, and she couldn’t see beyond its conclusion. 

She frowned in her contemplation.  “I don’t know, Trevor.  I want the best of both worlds, and yet it feels impossible.  I want to feel okay loving the things I love to do without always having to second guess myself just because I’m a woman.  And yet, it seems that when I cling to my ideals, my dreams, I lose my chance at basic human connections.  I feel like a leper.”

It was the first time she’d so honestly revealed herself, and for a moment she feared what he would do with her vulnerabilities so exposed.  She looked at him, but he said nothing.  Feeling a jolt of insecurity, her voice flared in self-defense.  “I suppose that sounds silly to you, too.”