The Edge
Page 98

Savich kept the fire burning bright. No more giant armadillos came to visit. No snakes slithered in to get warm. Just the four of us and the fever that was burning Laura up inside.
I was sleeping lightly when I felt her trembling beside me. The shakes, I thought, from a breaking fever. I got all the water I could down her throat, then eased her tight against me, and perhaps it worked because she stopped moaning and eased into fitful sleep for several hours.
We had to find civilization.
With our luck, we'd probably go loping into another drug dealer's compound.
The next morning, we drank a bottle of our precious water, ate two more mangoes, three more bananas, and savored the last of our Baby Ruths.
When we were ready to head out, Savich looked at me and held out his arms. I shook my head and pulled Laura closer to my chest.
"Give her to me. You're driving yourself into the ground, Mac. It hasn't been that long since Tunisia. You do the chopping for a while. I'll carry her until noon, then you can take over again."
It was clear ahead, no need for the machete. It was an unlooked-for blessing.
Laura's fever had fallen close to morning and hadn't come back, as far as any of us could tell. But she was weak. The wound was red and swollen, but there wasn't any pus. I rubbed in the last of the antibiotic cream. Her flesh felt hot beneath my fingers. I didn't know how serious it was, but I knew we had to get out of this damned hellhole. I had very little of anything left. I prayed that a real live doctor would suddenly appear in the path just ahead of us, waving a black bag and speaking English.
When Savich was holding her, I took the edge of one of the shirts she was wearing and wet it. I dabbed it all over her face. Her mouth automatically opened. I gave her as much water as she wanted.
"I figure we pulled a little south before we stopped yesterday," I said, once I'd gotten my bearings. "Let's go due west and hold to it."
"Look, we've got to be somewhere," Sherlock said, swiping an insect off her knee. "It's a small planet, right?"
"You're right," Savich said. "Sherlock, lead the way. Mac, you take the rear. Everyone, eyes sharp. I've got a hankering for a banana, so keep a lookout for some ripe ones."
When it rained late that morning, Sherlock managed to capture a good half bottle of fresh rainwater, again using one of those big leaves as a funnel. She stood holding that half-filled water bottle, hair streaming down her face, covered with bite marks, puffed up proud as a peacock, grinning like a fool.
We were wet, but there was nothing we could do about it. Savich managed to keep Laura's wound dry.
The ground turned to mud again and the undergrowth suddenly thickened. I pulled out the machete and began hacking. My arms felt like they were burning in their sockets. When we found a small area that enjoyed, for some reason unknown to me, a patch of clear sunlight, Savich laid Laura on her back on a blanket and wrapped another blanket around a water bottle to put under her head.
We got a small fire going within ten minutes this time. With that sun overhead, we found dry tinder quickly. With the fire burning brightly, the insects backed off.
Savich began peeling mangoes with the first-aid scissors. "I always liked these things," he said. He gave a slice to Sherlock.
He cut off another thick slice and handed it to me. I waved it over Laura's mouth. She opened up. She was still eating. The food seemed to rouse her. She sat up and said suddenly, "Sherlock, have you felt any sort of withdrawal signs? Like you wanted more of that drug?"
"God, no." She shuddered. "Why do you ask? Oh, I see. If a drug's not addictive, it wouldn't be worth the drug dealer's time to sell it. No repeat customers."
"Right. Mac, how about you?"
"I haven't felt anything either."
"Maybe you guys haven't had enough of it," Laura said. "Maybe it takes more than three doses to get hooked."
"Do you think Jilly was hooked, Mac?"
I hated to say it, but I did. "Yes."
"I wonder who else in Edgerton has tried the stuff and what they're doing now," Sherlock said.
"I'll bet you Charlie Duck tried it. The coroner told me there was something odd in Charlie's blood. He was going to run more tests. Maybe he even tried it on purpose to find out what was going on. He was a retired cop, remember."
"Maybe that's why someone killed him," Laura said.
"That works," Savich said, nodding as he ate a bite of banana.
"Mac," Sherlock said suddenly, "you had that hookup with Jilly when she went off the cliff and you were actually in bed in Bethesda. You just didn't understand it. Well, maybe it happened again. Maybe Jilly was just in your mind, warning you."