I glance at the stands filled with fruits and vegetables I don’t recognize and push my fist into my belly. Hunger is something new for me. I doubt I’ve gone a day in my life ever experiencing this gnawing pain. But we don’t have anything to barter.
That’s when I see a stall with what looks like pills in tiny bottles. I tug on Max’s sleeve.
“What kind of medicine do you think that is?”
He peers at the shack, then moves toward it with interest. “Let’s find out.”
The rifle slung over his back draws every eye, but they don’t seem nervous about a man walking armed into their town. It makes me think they’re used to it. Max also has a pistol shoved in the back of his pants. I do too.
“Do you even know what to ask for?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Which is exactly what Max does for the next ten minutes. In broken Spanish, with lots of wild gesticulation, Max draws a crowd. Seems to me that’s not such a good idea, but infection is setting in. If we don’t get some kind of antibiotics on board, we’re going to have a big problem.
Then I wonder how Knox and the other men on Max’s team are going to find us. He showed me how he’d been leaving a trail, bending back sticks that pointed in the direction we came from, rather than where we were heading, but once we reached the road, he’s left no sign that I can see.
And I don’t like the attention he generates with his questions, or the looks I’m getting. I stick out like a sore thumb, which makes me wish I had one of those colorful scarves to wrap around my head. I’m a brunette, not a blonde. Regardless, my hair is noticeable, memorable, compared to the deep black of the women’s hair all around me. They keep looking at me, grinning, as they reach out to touch my hair.
When one of the women sees me eyeing her stall filled with the bright scarves, she waves me over. I hold out a hand, waving her off, but she’s persistent. Not wanting to make a scene, I wander over. She immediately begins showing me brightly colored fabric, holding it up to her face, then points at my head.
It takes a minute, but I finally figure out what she wants. I pull out one of the pins in my hair and hand it to her. She cups it like a priceless treasure and hands me three of the scarves. I wrap one around my head, covering as much of my hair as possible, one around my shoulders, and I know exactly what I’m going to do with the third scarf.
A glance at Max brings a smile to my face. He towers over the villagers, but his smile is infectious. Everyone grins and laughs with him. They slap each other as if they’re long-time friends, telling tall tales with a fantastic joke at the end. I simply look on at the man I’ve somehow managed to fall in love with over the past few days.
I’m not really sure when that happened, but I’ve been bit by the love bug, and dammit if it didn’t strike hard. I’m desperately, achingly, head over heels in love with Max, and I don’t even know his last name.
Mr. S.
Max S?
If S is really the first letter of his last name.
There is so much we don’t know about each other, but I feel like it doesn’t matter. Now, in addition to Max haggling with the villagers over the price of the pills, I wonder if someone around here might have a condom, or two, or three. With one look at the several women with swollen bellies, I figure that isn’t something anyone around here would have.
Which sucks.
I’m ready for something more than a decadent, toe-curling kiss.
Max finishes up and returns with a bottle filled with six pills. Four are the size of horse pills. They’re dull white in color. Two are smaller capsules, tinged blue.
“What’s that?”
“I think it’s penicillin. For all I know, it could be Viagra.”
“I think that’s a little blue pill, and I have a feeling that’s not something you need.”
He stretches his wounded arm and winces, drawing my attention to the cut under that shirt. I’m also concerned about his leg, but there’s no good way to take a look at that here. We need a room, preferably one with running water, a bunch of bandages, and that bed I want.
It would be better to find a real doctor who spoke English and could help out, but we don’t have that luxury.
“What do we do now?”
“It’s siesta time. Everyone is closing down for a few hours.”
“I don’t get how they accomplish anything around here.”
“Siesta makes sense when the middle of the day is sweltering hot. They save important business for the evening hours. Different place. Different culture.”
“Different life.”
“I’m sure it is.”
“What about this bus?” He’s stoked my curiosity about this pimped-out mode of transportation.
“The chicken bus?”
“Yes.”
He smiles. “It hasn’t come by yet. All we have to do is wait.”
“Aren’t you worried about…” I glance around and lower my voice. “Benefield and his men?”
“They’re off in the jungle searching for us, headed North. Knox made sure to leave a trail they could follow that would take them away from the road.”
“Wait a second. You knew about the road the whole time?”
“Of course.”
“How does he know we’ll head to the road?”
“We discussed it.”
“When?”
Max loops his arm over my shoulder and pulls me into a hug. “We always have contingency plans.”
“Oh.” I’m amazed with how seamlessly the two of them operate together. The heat radiating off Max’s arm reminds me I want to look at his wound. “You should probably take one of those pills.” Hopefully, it really is some kind of antibiotic. “And I want to look at your arm.”
He stretches it, wincing again. “It’s just a bit stiff.”
“Take the pill.” I stare him down, not giving in.
“What if it’s a blue one?” He lifts his brows suggestively.
“We’ll deal with whatever comes up.”
“Is that a promise?” His eyes smolder as he takes me in.
“Find some condoms, preferably unused, and yeah, that’s a definite promise.”
“That’s a gross mental image.”
“Did it take your mind off sex?”
“No, but kind of put a damper on it.”
“Good, then it did the job.” I point at a nearby boulder that’s relatively flat on top. “Now sit down and let me look at that arm.”
Max unscrews the pill bottle and swallows one of the larger pills down without water. That makes my throat hurt. Then he sits down and I do what I can with the angry red gash.
Definitely infected.
Thirty-Five
Max
The skin of my arm stings. The wound in my leg throbs. I dry swallow two of the dull white pills and follow them up with a blue capsule.
This heat is giving me a headache and exhaustion pulls at my body, making it ache and respond sluggishly to my commands.
It’s a mystery what I’m taking, although with the villagers help, lots of pantomiming, and showing them the wound on my arm, a consensus was reached among the women. I’m forty percent sure they gave me antibiotics.