worked, never bent, never clicked straight. They wobbled. His lower back felt like a rusty crane.
He took a deep breath.
He turned around.
Carr looking solid, arms akimbo, Sheila on her crutch, one foot off the ground, Juma smiling uncertainly, eyes dancing, Barbara dressed like a drugged Sunset Strip tart, hair dirty, sweat and dirt sworling on her skin, stood with a stranger among them, all looking at Fletch.
The stranger said, “He’s a pretty poor-lookin’ specimen, isn’t he?”
Everything below Fletch’s waist went numb.
He raised his face, for air. His eyes closed against a spinning sky.
When his knees hit the ground, the back of his neck snapped forward. His right shoulder was shot with pain as he landed badly on his arm, twisting it.
The hard rain did not begin until late the next afternoon.
Fletch had a raging fever.
Looking up, Fletch saw Carr’s face looming above him, looking larger than normal. Above Carr’s head was the peak of the tent. Fletch did not know how he came to be on the narrow cot in a tent. His legs ached. His head ached. He was cold. Sweating cold. His mouth tasted filthy. His right shoulder pained. He did not know the source of the pain in his shoulder.
“How do you feel?” Carr asked.
Fletch thought it all through again. “Wonderful.”
“That’s good.”
“May I have a blanket?”
“Sure.” Carr stuck a thermometer in Fletch’s mouth.
Barbara’s round-eyed face was over the end of the cot. Arms folded across his chest, Juma stood near the tent flap.
Raffles came in and covered Fletch’s body with a brown blanket.
Carr removed the thermometer and studied it. “At least now we know it wasn’t my superb flying that laid you low.”
“I’m hot.”
“I’ll say you are.”
Carr fed him a glass of cold soup and two pills.
“Pity,” said Carr. “We’re planning fettucini with a nice anchovy sauce for dinner.”
Consciousness coming and going, Fletch marked time through the night. He heard pots and lids banging in the cooking tent and then talk and laughter from the eating tent. Carr came to see him again, shook him awake, said something Fletch couldn’t remember long enough to answer, gave him two more pills, more cold soup. At some point, he saw Barbara’s face in the low light of the kerosene lamp. Then silence, long, long silence. Carr came again during the night. He helped Fletch sit up, take more soup, more pills. For a while, Fletch remained awake under the mosquito netting, conscious now of the raucous jungle noises. Hot, he tossed the blanket off. Cold, he pulled it back up to his chin.
Carr was there again in the morning. He read the thermometer in the daylight near the tent flap. “May you live as old as this reads,” he muttered. More soup. More pills.
“How do you feel?”
“Wonderful.”
“That’s good.”
There were more happy noises from the cooking tent, eating tent. Someone kept whistling the first four bars of that popular Italian song. Over and over. Maybe it was a bird.
Juma stood beside Fletch. He said nothing.
After a long while, Carr was in the tent with Barbara and Sheila.
Carr said, “You awake?”
“Wonderful.”
“We’re going to trek through the jungle to that mound we saw yesterday. Do you remember?”
“Sure. Mound.”
“See if we can dig up anything. Pick-and-shovel brigade. You’ll be all right?”
“Sure.”
“Sheila’s staying here. Can’t drag her through the jungle anyway. She’ll keep putting fluids into you, and pills.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll be back.”
“Right. Good luck.”
“You’ll be better when we get back,” Carr said.
“Absolutely.”
Carr’s big bulk moved away from the cot.
Barbara asked, “You want me to stay?”
Fletch wanted her not to have asked. “No.”
“I can stay.”
“No. It’s an exciting day.”
“You’ll be all right?”
“Go find the lost Roman city. You don’t want to miss that.”
“I really believe it is there.”
“Hope it is.”
“If you rather I stay …”
“No. Go with them. Go.”
“… okay.”
Barbara left the tent sideways.
Sheila’s voice seemed stronger. “You want anything now?”
“No. I’m fine.”
Sheila left.
Distantly, Fletch heard the Jeep start. Voices called to each other. The Jeep’s engine accelerated. There was a shout, a squeak of brakes. The Jeep started off again.
Raffles came in and washed down Fletch’s body with cold, wet rags. It felt wonderful. Raffles even turned Fletch on each side, to wash his back thoroughly.
“Raphael?”
“Yes?”
“Will you bring every blanket in the camp, please, and pile them on top of me?”
“Well. Okay.”
During the morning, Raffles and Winston entered the tent, not saying anything. They picked up the cot with Fletch in it and carried him outside. It was a surprisingly dark, gloomy day. They set him evenly on the ground under a tree.
Winston put a camp chair next to the cot.
“Rain?” Fletch asked.
“No,” Winston said. “Many times it looks like rain here, but there is no rain.”
Sometimes when Fletch awoke, Sheila was sitting in the chair, sometimes not. Sometimes she was leaning forward, working a wet rag over his face and chest. She gave him soup and a lighter, cold herb tea and the pills while either Raffles or Winston held his head up.
“Are they back yet?” Fletch asked.
Sheila said, “No.”
