Water From the Moon (12 page)

"She’ll be here." Fred did a few shuffling dance steps, as though unable to resist the music any longer. "About the only thing you can do for Casie is wait." He danced across the veranda toward the steps. "I’m going across. Coming? Easier to wait if you’re busy."

Cameron shook his head. "Later, maybe," he said, and stood without moving, staring into the driving rain.

S
HE WAS DOING what she did best in the world: waiting for something to happen, ready to help things along if nothing did.

There were two of them, within reach but reluctant to be born, their hearts beating fast and steady in her ears.

Acasia lifted her head to smile at the young mother. "Soon," she said quietly, rubbing the swollen brown belly. "Soon." She unbent and pulled the stethoscope from her ears. Soon was always relative. In this case, it was a matter of hours instead of days.

The father hovered anxiously near his wife’s head, his query mute but clear.

"There’s no problem," Acasia told him in his own tongue. "You have two babies coming. They’re slow, but they’re fine. No problems, okay?"

He believed her willingly, grateful for her presence, her reassurance, her knowledge. Acasia handed him a wet cloth, and he used it to cool his wife, smoothing it over her face, her breasts, the belly where his babies lay waiting. Just as Cameron might have done in another place, another time.

Another life.

Bleakly Acasia, the intruder here, turned away, giving them their privacy.

Afternoon clung to the sky, beginning to wane at the edges. Evening nudged the ground, scattered it with patches of darkness, traced deceptive shade through its heat. The support of a seventy–foot tamarind beckoned, and Acasia leaned against it, wriggling a shoulder to find a comfortable spot among the lichen. In another place, another time, she might have found cigarettes in the pocket of her shirt and sought ease in lighting one. In another place, another time, she would have relished the first long drag, pulling smoke deep, holding it in as an act of meditation, exhaling to stave off the bugs. Another place, another time…

The waiting mother cried out with another contraction, and her husband, trembling, bolted from her side and disappeared behind the hut, seeking courage. Acasia went inside to calm her, kneading the woman’s stiff back to take away the pain. The father returned, shaken and pale, to take Acasia’s place.

Again she turned away to leave them alone, unsure exactly why. They came from a culture that expected to share. Privacy was a concept born of civilization and often confused with dignity. This young couple living in the forest alone, without benefit of a hamlet of adjoining huts and family, was the exception rather than the rule. Acasia wondered for a moment if they had been ousted from the tribe, and if so, why. She didn’t dwell on it, however, too involved with the conflicts in her own life to intrude on theirs.

"I’m sorry, Cam," she whispered, scrubbing a palm over her clammy pants before burrowing into Fred’s medical bag in search of sterile instruments she would use later. "You should know better than to count on me. I’ll make it up to you sometime. Maybe. If I can."

She carried the wrapped instruments, a package of sterile gauze and a bottle of silver nitrate over to one of the several woven cotton hammocks that comprised the major furniture in the room. There was blessed little to do, but Acasia puttered around anyway, using up time, conscious every moment of its passing. Time itself didn’t matter, only its loss and the distance it put between herself and any possibility of sharing tonight with Cameron.

She was conscious, too, of the fact that Dominic would return for them when he discovered they were not in the south, but that didn’t bear wasting worry on… now.

Ritimi, the woman, moaned and grunted, and Acasia monitored her again, finding the babies’ progress satisfactory.

"Soon," she assured the young couple. "Soon."

She demonstrated the cleansing breaths she wanted Ritimi to use, and Ritimi laughed at her, forgetting her fears in her delight that this barren old woman–soldier could believe she knew how best to deliver a baby. Acasia laughed, too, ruefully understanding. She had experienced so much of her life as an active spectator—watching other people’s pain, other people’s fear, other people’s joy—that she was no longer always certain which pieces of memory were her own. Sometimes it seemed she was no more than a residue of midnight screams; sometimes she was fresh canvas awaiting the brush, the one Cameron wielded.

After giving Ritimi’s tummy a final pat, which also confirmed the babies’ positions, Acasia rejoined the dusk, taking advantage of the enfolding comfort of a jute–colored hammock. Palm leaves fringed her line of sight, melted into the forest and went up to join the sky. There was a peculiar sense of peace in waiting for life to be renewed—peace wrapped up in an expectation of life’s continuity and the possibility that with each new birth the world had a chance to get a little better. Birth bred hope.

There was a gasp of surprise, a strangled groan, and then it was time.

Excitement, razor–sharp, pricked Acasia’s nerves and washed over her in waves. This was what it was all about; this was the why of being: new life springing forth with intense relief and joy.

Sisiwe, the husband, held Ritimi from behind, supporting her while Acasia urged her to push. Acasia was ecstatic when the first infant’s warmth filled her arms and its shriek of outrage split the hut. She worked fast, laying the baby on Ritimi’s belly while she cut the cord and waited for the twin to follow. Ritimi glowed, holding the first of her babies, a daughter, joy completing the metamorphosis from pain to laughter.

Cam should be here, Acasia thought as she took the baby and carefully cleaned her. We should share this. I need to share this with him. I need him.

She didn’t even realize what she had thought, she was so wrapped up in the baby. Need was not something she allowed herself to fall prey to. Need was too much like love, was in fact the word the Indians used to express love.

Ritimi held out her arms, and Acasia returned the baby to her mother. Sisiwe watched his wife and baby with unabashed delight, and Acasia turned away quickly, imagining his face was Cam’s.

The second child seemed content to take its time arriving, so Acasia went outside again to wait. Dusk had gone; night had settled firmly into place. The pieces of sky that were visible above the forest canopy were streaked with purple and gray, mottled with restless clouds. Adventurous insects braved the shield of repellent Acasia had applied, settling lightly on her exposed skin. Sighing, she swatted them away and leaned back against an available roof support, using it to scratch her back. Outside the perimeter of Ritimi’s joy she felt unsettled. Disquiet lay over her like a shadow without a name, approaching, placing cold fingers on her neck.

She listened to each sound with suspicion, but she missed their footsteps anyway. There were five of them. They materialized around her, weapons slung carelessly, baseball caps fitted to their heads, faces half covered by bandannas.

"We heard you were here."

Acasia’s mouth tightened when she recognized the voice. The Zaragozan National Liberation Front called him Angelo, the angel; UPI referred to him as Lucifer, the angel of death.

"Bad news travels fast," she said grimly.

"Yes," Angelo agreed. "Your well–being has brought us much—" He searched for a word that pleased him. "Distress. Yes," he nodded, "much distress."

Suddenly cold, Acasia smiled. "Your son is well?" she asked softly, reminding him of who he had to thank for the boy’s safe entry into life.

"We did not take the man you rescued as we might have this afternoon," the freedom fighter snarled. "Be aware of that. I have not forgotten the debt I owed to you and your brother. I now consider us even."

Nausea swelled, but Acasia recovered quickly, because she had to. Here, mercy was as foreign as snow. Quietly she stared at Angelo, showing no emotion. The man lowered his bandanna and moved closer, but still she said nothing.

"Your well–being," Angelo said again, as much for himself as her, "has brought us trouble. Our president—" he spit the word scornfully into the dirt "—has sent a message to yours telling him we have Mr. Smith. You know this is a lie."

Inside the hut, Ritimi began to moan. Acasia’s attention slipped. "Get to the point."

"Still so impatient," Angelo murmured. "It is your greatest asset and your greatest fault." Acasia made a move to leave, and the dark man shrugged. "No more games. We need supplies."

"Tell the Red Cross," Acasia snapped. "I don’t run a freight service."

There was a sudden flash of teeth, and Angelo chuckled at some private joke. "These supplies are of a more delicate and explosive nature."

Acasia froze. That these men would even consider approaching her in this manner…

"Mr. Smith is wealthy, and he owes you his life. He could supply you with funds for us…"

"No," Acasia said evenly, finding her voice,

"…to help overthrow our president’s violent regime…"

"No."

"…and bring our more benevolent selves into power."

He smiled, enjoying himself, and Acasia stared at him, appalled. "¡Estas loco!" she said, forgetting all her deeply ingrained rules of coolheaded negotiation. "You’d be just like Sanchez—maybe worse."

"In the end," Angelo agreed calmly, as though this were not the middle of the rain forest but some academic round table discussion. "But it would be better for a while."

"No."

Angelo caressed the butt of the pistol on his hip. "Not a wise answer to this request under the circumstances," he told her. "Perhaps if you were to reconsider…"

The nerveless smile returned to Acasia’s face. "It must be galling for you to owe a debt of honor to a woman." Darkness crowded them, the trilling of tree frogs and insects rising and falling in waves. Ritimi called out, but Acasia stood her ground.

And prayed.

Angelo considered her with respect. "I have always thought you would be a valuable man," he said. "But all Americans come here with a price. I wonder what is yours." Again he studied her, this time with regret. "The information concerning your whereabouts is a valuable commodity. It would bring a high price at auction."

Calculation arrived almost as swiftly as fear. He would do it; he would sell the information to Dominic, and Dominic would return… but not soon enough. She and Cameron would be gone before Dominic could harm them. No deal, Lucifer, she thought. Not this time.

Boldly she stared at Angelo, and he stared back. He moved first, giving her a wry salute and an appreciative shake of his head. "So be it," he said, and with a small motion of his hand he left Acasia alone once more.

Relief made her weak; the enormity of Angelo’s request and the accompanying threat were all that kept her knees from turning to water. She’d been in this business far too long if the players had begun to mistake her for one of them. It wasn’t so much that Angelo had thought her principles might be for sale that bothered her. It was realizing that once upon a long–ago time he might have been right.

She went back inside to wash the invisible film of filth from her skin, then delivered Ritimi’s second baby. This second little girl was as warm and vibrant as the first, but Acasia’s joy as she held this child was tainted by the devil’s request. For a long time after the need for her was gone, she stayed with the family, watching Ritimi nurse her daughters. Then the babies slept, and Acasia watched that, too, touching their foreheads gently with a finger, blessing them when they sneezed.

Tranquility seeped back slowly, allaying self–doubt and confusion, and she welcomed it with a sleepy smile and a soft kiss for each infant. The Indians had no word for "thank you," nor for "goodbye," so she said neither, leaving with the promise to send Fred along to check on her work in the morning and a single backward glance.

Sometimes, she realized, looking back was what made you go on.

T
HE RAIN WAS just a steady drip–drip–drip in the trees and the clinic was dark when Acasia walked up the steps, euphoric and tipsy from exhaustion, singing happily. She didn’t see Cameron stretch quietly on the porch glider and heave a grateful sigh.

She lost her balance on the top step, staggered heavily and landed in Cameron’s lap.

"
Oof!
" he said by way of greeting.

"Who’s there?"

"Me. Where the hell have you been?"

"Delivering babies." She sagged against him, aimed a kiss at his mouth but hit his chin instead. "Hey, you’re all stubbly. When did your start growing a beard?"

She was cute, he had to give her that, and the hands that played with his shirtfront were making him forget what he had to say. He caught them firmly in one of his.

"I hit puberty last year. What did you say you did today?"

"Babies," she crowed ecstatically. "I delivered two beautiful babies. Lovely. Black hair, big eyes, girls. Nice, nice girls. I’d like a girl someday. Just one. And four boys. I figure I must have at least eight or ten… maybe even fifteen good childbearing years left. What do you think?"

Oh, Lord. What did he think? That this was getting out of hand. Acasia wiggled in his lap and his anatomy insisted on recalling exactly how babies were made. Cameron slid an arm around her, holding her still. "Quit it, Casie."

"Quit what?" She turned an innocent face to him, leaned across his chest and poked her tongue into his ear.

It tickled and Cameron began to laugh. Damn, she was a handful, but at least she was safe.

"Are you laughing at me?" Acasia demanded, liking the sound.

"Yes."

"Well, stop it." She dropped her backpack and Fred’s medical bag to the floor, then snugged herself farther into Cameron’s arms. "You feel good," she murmured drowsily. "Have I ever told you how good you feel?"

"You used to tell me a lot of things." He smoothed her hair and felt her grow comfortably heavier. "I think it’s bedtime for you, lady."

"With you?" she asked around a yawn.