thrashing spread through the rest of her body.
'She's seizing!' the woman said. 'Get her into the ward!'
The pudgy nurse led the way, holding the door wide for the stretcher.
Kelly O'Brien rushed alongside the girl as the two men swung the stretcher toward one of the four beds in the tiny emergency ward. Snatching a pair of surgical gloves, the tall doctor barked to the nurse, 'I need ten milligrams of diazepam!'
The nurse nodded and dashed to a drug cabinet. In seconds, a syringe of amber-colored fluid was slapped into Kelly's gloved hand. The doctor already had a rubber tourniquet in place. 'Hold her down;' she ordered Nate and Takaho.
By now, a nurse and a large orderly had arrived as the quiet hospital awakened to the emergency.
'Get ready with an IV line and a bag of LRS,' Kelly said sharply. Her fingers palpated a decent vein in the girl's thin arm. With obvious competence, Kelly inserted the needle and slowly injected the drug.
'It's Valium,' she said as she worked. 'It should calm the seizure long enough to find out what's wrong with her.'
Her words proved instantly true. Tama's convulsions calmed. Her limbs stopped thrashing and relaxed to the bed. Only her eyelids and the corner of her lips still twitched. Kelly was examining her pupils with a penlight.
The orderly nudged Nate aside as he worked on Tama's other arm, preparing a catheter and IV line.
Nate glanced over the orderly's shoulder and saw the fear and panic in her father's eyes.
'What happened to her?' the doctor asked as she continued examining the girl.
Nathan described the attack. 'She's been slipping in and out of consciousness most of the time. The village shaman was able to revive her for a short time:'
'She's sustained a pair of cracked ribs and associated hematomas, but I can't account for the seizure or stupor. Did she have any seizures en route here?'
No.
'Any familial history of epilepsy?'
Nate turned to Takaho and repeated the question in Yanomamo.
Takaho nodded. 'Ah-de-me-nah gunti.'
Nate frowned.
'What did he say?' Kelly asked.
'Ah-de-me-nah means electric eel. Gunti is disease or sickness.'
'Electric eel disease?'
Nate nodded. 'That's what he said. But it makes no sense. A victim of an electric eel attack will often convulse, but it's an immediate reaction. And Tama hasn't been in any water for hours. I don't know . . . maybe `electric eel disease' is the Yanomamo term for epilepsy.'
'Has she been treated for it? On medication?'
Nate got the answer from Takaho. 'The village shaman has been treating her once a week with the smoke of the hempweed vine:'
Kelly sighed in exasperation. 'So in other words, she's been unmedicated. No wonder the stress of the near drowning triggered such a severe attack. Why don't you take her father out to the waiting room? I'll see if I can get these seizures to cease with stronger meds:'
Nate glanced to the bed. 'lama's form lay quiet. 'Do you think she'll have more?'
Kelly glanced into his eyes. 'She's still having them:' She pointed to the persistent facial twitches. 'She's in status epilepticus, a continual seizure. Most patients who suffer from such prolonged attacks will appear stuporous, moaning, uncoordinated. The full grand mal events like a moment ago will be interspersed. If we can't stop it, she'll die:'
Nate stared at the little girl. 'You mean she's been seizing this entire time?'
'From what you describe, more or less:'
'But the village shaman was able to draw her out of the stupor for a short time:'
'I find that hard to believe:' Kelly returned her attention to the girl. 'He wouldn't have medication strong enough to break this cycle:'
Nate remembered the girl sipping at the gourd. 'But he did. Don't discount tribal shamans as mere witch doctors. I've worked for years with them. And considering what they have to work with, they're quite sophisticated:'
'Well, wise or not, we've stronger medications here. Real medicine.' She nodded again to the father. 'Why don't you take her father out to the waiting room?' Kelly turned back to the orderly and nurses, dismissing him.
Nate bristled, but obeyed. For centuries, the value of shamanism had been scorned by practitioners of Western medicine. Nate coaxed Takaho out of the ward and into the waiting room. He guided the Indian to a chair and instructed him to stay, then headed for the door.
He slammed his way out into the heat of the Amazon. Whether the American doctor believed him or not, he had seen the shaman revive the girl. If there was one man who might have an answer for Tama's mysterious illness, he knew where to find him.
Half running, he raced through the afternoon heat toward the southern outskirts of the city. In about ten blocks, he was skirting the edge of the Brazilian army camp. The normally sleepy base buzzed with activity. Nate noted the four helicopters with United States markings in the open field. Locals lined the base's fences, pointing toward the novelty of the foreign military craft and chattering excitedly.
He ignored the oddity and hurried to a cement-block building set amid a row of dilapidated wooden structures. The letters FuNm were painted on the wall facing the street. It was the local office for the Brazilian Indian Foundation and represented the sole source of aid, education, and legal representation for the local tribes, the Baniwa and Yanomamo. The small building housed both offices and a homeless shelter for Indians who had come in search of the white man's prosperity.
FUNAI also had its own medical counselor, a longtime friend of the family and his own father's mentor here in the jungles of the Amazon.
Nate pushed through the anteroom and hurried down a hall and up a set of stairs. He prayed his friend was in his office. As he neared the open door, he heard the strands of Mozart's Fifth Violin Concerto flowing out.
Thank God!
Knocking on the door's frame, Nate announced himself. 'Professor Kouwe?'
Behind a small desk, a mocha-skinned Indian glanced up from a pile of papers. In his mid-fifties, he had shoulder-length black hair that was graying at the temples, and he now wore wire-rimmed glasses when reading. He took off those glasses and smiled broadly when he recognized Nate.
'Nathan!' Resh Kouwe stood and came around the desk to give him a hug that rivaled the coils of the anaconda he had fought. For his compact frame, the man was as strong as an ox. Formerly a shaman of the Tirios tribe of southern Venezuela, Kouwe had met Nate's father three decades ago, and the two had become fast friends. Kouwe had eventually left the jungle with his father's help and was schooled at Oxford, earning a dual degree in linguistics and paleoanthropology. He was also one of the pre-eminent experts in the botanical lore of the region. 'My boy, I can't believe you're here! Did Manny contact you?'
Nathan frowned as he was released from the bear hug. 'No, what do you mean?'
'He's looking for you. He stopped by about an hour ago to see if knew which village you were conducting your current research in.'
'Why?' Nathan's brow wrinkled.
'He didn't say, but he did have one of those Tellux corporate honchos with him:'
Nathan rolled his eyes. Tellux Pharmaceuticals was the multinational corporation that had been financing his investigative research into the practices of the region's tribal shamans.
Kouwe recognized his sour expression. 'It was you who made the pact with the devil.'
'Like I had any choice after my father died:'
Kouwe frowned. 'You should not have given up on yourself so quickly. You were always-'
'Listen,' Nathan said, cutting him off. He didn't want to be reminded of that black period in his life. He had made his own bed and would have
to lie in it. 'I've got a different problem than Tellux.' He quickly explained about Tama and her illness. 'I'm
