“You should be with them.”
“I’m glad to be with you.”
“What time is it?”
“Never mind.”
Going and coming. The day got darker rather than brighter. The air was heavy.
It was a long day.
Again, Fletch awoke in the tent. He didn’t remember being carried back.
Carr was standing over him, smiling.
Fletch hadn’t heard the Jeep.
“How do you feel?” Fletch asked.
“Wonderful!” Carr held his hand out. Fletch did not reach for it. Carr held something up for him to see.
“What is it?”
“Pottery shard. You can see a piece of what is distinctly a Roman soldier walking with a spear and a shield.”
“Fabulous!”
Carr held up his other hand. Something glinted in the low kerosene light.
“And, in case you have any doubts about what we have found, look! A coin!”
“No!”
“Yes!” Carr laughed. “Showing the head of Caesar Augustus. Or so we think. Wasn’t he the pretty one?”
“They were all pretty, as boys.”
“Definitely Caesar Someone.”
“My God!”
“And I think we may have found the top of an ancient wall. Pretty sure of it.”
“Carr, that’s wonderful!”
“I’ll say. Sheila’s outside doing the Masai jump, which ain’t easy on a crutch.”
“What’s that?” Fletch heard something like clods of dirt being thrown against the tent.
“Rain.”
“It’s going to rain?”
“Probably not.”
“Carr. Congratulations. Good news. Sorry I wasn’t there.”
Barbara came in behind Carr, to see how Fletch was.
“Fine.”
Carr said, “I’ll be back later, to take your temperature.”
Later, the sound of the rain was wild. Fletch heard none of the cooking, dining noises. The tent sides were billowing from the gusts of rain.
Fletch watched the water seeping in from under the tent sides. A few rivulets first, turning into brave streams, as well as a general dampness growing in from the sides, all sides; soon there were good-sized puddles inside the tent.
Carr was soaking when he came in.
He turned up the kerosene light on the box to read the thermometer. Frowning, he said, “You’re pretty sick, Irwin.”
“Sick of Irwin.”
“You should be better.”
“I agree.”
“You can only keep up these high temperatures so long, you know.”
“How long?”
Hands on hips, Carr watched how the rain beat down on the tent. “Can’t fly you out to the hospital in Nairobi in this weather. Can’t take off.” He looked sideways and down at Fletch. “You’ve got to get better.”
“My legs, Carr.”
“What about ‘em?”
“They feel awful.”
“Like what?”
“All broken up.”
Carr pinched a toe on each foot. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“Can you feel that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s just the fever.”
“They feel all broken up.”
More soup, more pills.
Fletch awoke while Raffles was washing him down again.
Fletch wanted all the blankets back on him.
The three blankets were soaked through. They weighed like lead.
Leaving, Raffles had to fight with the tent flap to secure it down against the wind and the rain.
Later, when Fletch awoke, Juma was standing over him silently. In the low light from the kerosene lamp, Juma’s hair and skin glistened with rainwater.
Fletch said, “Not a nice time.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“You’ve got to put down that box of rocks.”
The muscles in Fletch’s lower stomach heaved.
Juma helped Fletch throw up, on the ground, on the side of the cot away from the tent flap.
Then Juma was there, wet again, with a broom, pushing the vomit and the mud around it out of the tent. He held the bottom of the tent up with one hand while he swept the vomit out under it.
Alone, Fletch listened to the rain. It was interesting watching the vomit seep back in, under the tent wall.
When his stomach felt better, he rolled onto his back.
“Oh!” Fletch jumped awake.
There was a terrible smell in his nostrils.
Huge, red-veined eyes were staring into his from only a few centimeters away. His ears were filled with a weird, high crooning. There was pressure, warmth, against his forehead, and against his heart, and his penis and scrotum were warm. It was not the warmth of the jungle heat or the warmth of the fever. It was a different, drier, more real, more human warmth.
Looking down as much as he could from the staring eyes, Fletch saw the nose, the cheeks of an old face. Orange streaks were painted on the face.
The breath of the crooning old man was horrible in Fletch’s nose, mouth.
The old man’s forehead was pressed against Fletch’s. The old man’s left hand was pressed against the skin of Fletch’s heart. The old man’s right hand was cupped in Fletch’s crotch, over his penis and scrotum.
Breathing into Fletch’s face, the old man was crooning up and down the scales.
Fletch said, “Jesus Christ.”
When he awoke, the old man was gone. Had he dreamt it? The stink was still in his nostrils. The three wet- heavy blankets were smoothed over him again, from toe to chin.
He felt no better from the event, the reality, the dream. Except for the lingering smell, he felt no worse.
Then Carr, bare-chested, wet, was shaking more pills out of a bottle.
Fletch did not remember taking them.
The sound of the rain, pelting the ground outside, hammering against the tent, went on and went on and went on.
