by Fiona Quinn
Rooster reached down and caught the goat in his arms, turning his back to block the sight. She’d expected them to hand Rooster a knife. Instead, he went down into a squat, laying the kicking goat in the leaves and leaning forward with one knee on its shoulder and the other on its hips. The goat struggled, but couldn’t squirm his way out from under the weight that Rooster brought down on it. He caught the goat under the chin with one hand and held its muzzle with the other. He was suffocating the goat as it thrashed under him.
The warriors were smiling and nodding at Rooster’s technique. It went on and on. Finally, the goat stopped moving, and Meg thought, thank god, its suffering was over. Then from some inner will to survive, it thrashed again, desperate to get free. Bile gathered at the back of her tongue. Now she realized why Rooster hadn’t wanted her to see that. It wasn’t a quick plunge of the knife into its heart, or the flash of a blade across the carotid that would have bled out almost immediately. This was a scene of misery. But thankfully, it was finally over.
Meg looked at the ground between her legs. That definitely sucked. She realized she was gripping the cookies, crushing them in her fist.
Robert stood a little ways apart from the warriors, speaking to the men gathered on the other side of the circle. “Come forward, and you can see why we do this. It is our tradition to suffocate the goat, because it keeps all of the blood in the vital parts of the body. Blood is not wasted by making the goat bleed to death. Blood is an important part of our diet.”
One of the warriors sliced the goat open. “You see here? The blood is coagulating in the chest cavity and is easy to retrieve. This is the time the warriors like to eat the blood. It is still warm from the body. The warriors invite you to try it.”
A few of the scientists moved forward and scooped up some of the jelly-like blood globs and sucked them into their mouths. Others demurred. Robert sent Meg and Ahbou a look that told them they weren’t invited. Thank goodness. Meg was the kind of person who was all-in when she travelled. If they ate it, she ate it. If they slept there, she slept there. If they jumped off a cliff, well, she wasn’t suicidal, she’d check it out and see if she thought it was doable for her, and then she’d jump off the cliff. Granted, some of those experiences were awesome and some not so much.
One of the Maasai reached into the carcass and pulled out the kidneys and offered one to Robert and one to Rooster. Meg assumed that these were choice parts offered to Robert as the elder and Rooster as the warrior who made the kill. Rooster reached around to draw Randy forward. Meg couldn’t tell if it was to include Randy in the honor, or if he was still giving Randy shit. Randy reached out his hand to accept the kidney, then popped it in his mouth.
“The fresh kidney tastes sweet,” Robert explained to the others. “Much better than when it is cooked.” He poured a little water on his hands and then wiped them with a cloth before he helped Randy and Rooster wash up too. “The warriors will put the meat onto skewers and put them over the coals in the fire they made on the other side of our circle.”
A man moved into the ring. A big blue plastic bucket with a lid tightly attached dragged at his hand.
“This is honey beer.” Robert grinned. “In just a moment I will show you how it is made. But first I would like you to taste it. Be careful, though. Honey beer is very strong.”
There was a visible shift in the warriors’ moods. They had been happy enough before, but now they were all smiles. Meg stood up to stretch her legs. The log was making her butt numb.
As Robert set up to dispense the beer, Rooster came to stand next to her. “I can see it in your eyes, you’re upset with me.”
“I’m upset, yes.” She thought she’d done a better job of hiding her emotions. “Not with you.” Meg turned her head and tried to swallow, but her throat had closed up and her mouth was filled with saliva. She reached into her pocket for her bottle of water and shoved her crumb-filled napkin into the other one to free her hands to get the top off. She took a swig, hoping to clear a path. “I get that the warriors plan to eat the goat. This is how they survive. In the wild, I watch animals kill animals all the time. I don’t know why watching this affected me like it did. I know you were trying to make it as quick and as painless as possible. It’s probably very hypocritical of me. I eat meat. I just don’t want to see the death process.” She chuckled before taking another swig. “I’d make a terrible farm girl.”
Rooster considered her for a moment. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “I have the feeling you’re not so much upset about the goat, but that the way it died made you remember something you would have preferred to leave in the past.”
Meg thought back to the three things Rooster had told her about herself that Randy wouldn’t have mentioned. Rooster had been correct on all three. He really did seem to have the knack for reading her like she was words on a typewritten page.
Rooster was close enough that Meg could smell the clean scent of his laundry detergent. She stared at one of his buttons, not wanting to acknowledge that he was right again. She had the sudden urge to curl into him and lay her head on his chest. She wanted nothing more than to cower there until the memories passed. When Rooster held down that goat and it had struggled, that was a scene she had seen through stair rails when she was little and her father had trapped her mom, struggling in her white nightgown. Her mom had fought and fought against his hands until she stopped. Limp, he dragged her by the foot to the other room.
Rooster slid his hand down Meg’s arm and held her hand in his. “I’m sorry you remembered.”
Meg tipped her head back to see his face, and she found concern and kindness in his eyes.
He reached up to catch a strand of her hair that blew across her face in the breeze, pushing it back behind her ear. Meg’s gaze drifted to Rooster’s mouth. She wondered what it would be like to kiss his full lips. They looked warm and soft.
“Honey,” Randy called, and like a light switch snapping on, Meg came back to her senses. What the hell was she thinking? Even if he weren’t in a relationship with Randy; as a woman, she was definitely not Rooster’s type.
Chapter Fifteen
Meg
Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania
Meg took another sip from her cup. It didn’t taste like beer at all. It tasted sweet and fermented, like a fruit drink. She moved the beer around her mouth, trying to decide what it tasted like. Watered-down orange juice, maybe? But it was delicious. She took another drink as she watched Robert demonstrate how it was made.
“This will be ready in three or four days’ time,” Robert said. “I have started the processes by warming some water. Then I take this.” He held up a section of root. “This is aloe vera root. It is farmed here in Tanzania. We dip each end into ash and put it in the water. Now we add hot embers from the fire. Most important is the honey.” Robert called out some words in Maa. A warrior came over with a paddle that was covered in honey, with bees dancing angrily in the golden goo. He put the whole thing down in the water. A few bees escaped before Robert clapped the top onto the bucket.
Robert caught Meg’s eye. “Do you like this?”
“I do, it’s refreshing and fizzy.”
“It’s strong though, so be careful. It is stronger than most wines. If you drink too much you will be singing and dancing.” Robert lifted his elbow and flicked a bee from his skin.
The warriors were refilling their cups from the first bucket. They were laughing and singing together, preening each other like Meg had with her girlfriends back in high school. Fixing each other’s hair.
Meg leaned over to tap Ahbou’s shoulder. “I bet your wife will make honey beer. Have you thought about what she will look like?”
“Oh yes. Her gums will be black. She will have very white teeth, and her legs will be slightly bowed.”
“That sounds lovely. And what kind of person will she be?”
“I would like her to be a teacher. To know a lot of things from books. And she will smile with her eyes
and talk softly.”
Meg had her eye on Robert. He had moved to the side and looked at his arm. She thought he’d probably been stung. She wondered if the kitchen trailer had any ice for him and started to go and check. But she second guessed herself. If the Maasai men could sit there and be circumcised without flinching, going over and mothering Robert over a bee sting might be dishonorable for him. She wasn’t even sure she was allowed on that side of the camp.
As she watched closer, Robert didn’t look good. He touched his lips. Ran his hand down his throat. His face looked like it might be swelling. He slapped a fist into his chest.
Meg stood up and stared right at the back of Rooster’s head. She must have been sending out a palpable thought rays, because Rooster, Randy, and Abraham all started toward her.
Meg kept watch on Robert as he wobbled around the back of the food trailer. “Rooster, can you go check on Robert? A bee stung him, I’m pretty sure. I think he’s having an allergic reaction.”
Rooster slid away, blending with the shadows, doing a good job to preserve Robert’s privacy if Meg were mistaken. After a moment, Randy’s phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket. “You’re on speaker.”
“I need the Kiswahili word for EpiPen.”
Meg shook her head. She had nothing. “Ahbou, do you know the word for EpiPen?”
Ahbou looked at Meg and blinked. Meg explained. “It’s a medication that comes in a shot. People who have bad allergies carry it with them. Do you know the word?” She drew an arc with her arm, as if she were administering the shot into her thigh.
“I have seen this. I can explain the word,” he said and leaned over the phone to speak Kiswahili words that Meg had never needed to know and so had no fluency in.
Meg understood Robert’s “no.” She heard how labored Robert’s breathing had become. She turned to Abraham. “Look in the other Rovers see if they have anything that would help. Ice pack. Benadryl. Anything.”
She grabbed Ahbou’s arm and moved toward their Rover to do the same. “Can you tell me what he said?”
“That he has swollen from bee stings before, but this time it is swelling his heart in his chest. He can’t breathe.”
She pulled out the first aid kit and clawed through the contents. Nothing. She pulled Ahbou into the Rover and drove behind the canteen, parking it where they could load Robert up. Randy was checking Robert’s pulse. Abraham came around the corner shaking his head. “There’s nothing.”
“Let’s move,” Rooster said. He, Randy, and Abraham worked like they were a trained team as they lifted Robert and trundled him over to the Rover.
Meg jumped into the driver’s seat. She drew Ahbou along with her. She felt responsible for his whereabouts and didn’t want him getting lost in the shuffle. And she might need him to translate. Meg scrolled through her contacts and got the hotel on the phone. “This is Meg Finley. This is an emergency, is there a doctor on staff?” She thought that of the scientists on their task force, Dr. Clemmons, the other American who was a Mayo Clinic physician, would have been the most helpful. But he was stuck back in the US with visa issues.
“No, miss. No doctor.”
“Can you direct me to the nearest clinic if I give you GPS coordinates?”
“No miss. No doctor.”
Okay, this wasn’t helpful. She said a quick good-bye. They had Robert in. Randy held him up in half-sitting position in the center row. Rooster and Abraham squeezed into the back.
“I don’t want to just start driving. We need a destination or I might just end up backtracking. I need a second.” She pulled up a Google search and put in Ngorongoro Clinic and found only one; it was called FAME. When she pulled up the GPS coordinates and put them into her map it said she was fifty-two kilometers away as the bird flies. Shit, that was far. The wheezing behind her head was sounding dangerously labored. Meg shoved the Rover into gear. Pushing the phone toward Ahbou, she shifted to second. “Hold this out and make sure that red arrow stays on the green line. Randy, how are we doing?”
“The sooner the better, Meg.”
When they had loaded Robert in the car, he had all the signs she knew to look for—his dark skin seemed overly pale, his face and lips were swollen, his eyes mere slits. She could imagine how tightly his windpipe was being squeezed by the swelling. Her foot came down on the clutch. She jerked them in quick succession from second to third to fourth gear, then she kept her foot pressed heavily on the gas pedal. Meg was accustomed to driving in the wilds of Africa, but she berated herself for unseating her passengers as she plowed ahead, hitting the rocks and bumps at near-reckless speeds. Meg’s hands were shaking. She was sweating profusely. The bulletproof vest was hot as hades, and she longed to have the luxury of time so she could rip it off. “Ahbou, do you know of any herbs or anything that is available at the villages that helps people when they swell from bee stings?” She turned her head toward him for a split second. “Put your seatbelt on this minute.”
Ahbou reached for the belt as he was told. “If they swell a little there are pastes that the grandmothers make by chewing herbs and then mixing it with clay. They put this on the sting. But when people swell like Mr. Robert, there is nothing to do but sing.”
The Rover bounced hard and Meg set her teeth. “Sorry. Sorry.” She glanced down at the phone to make sure they were on track. She was on the line, but they didn’t seem to be making any progress. “Have you ever heard of a tourist getting hurt or sick out in the crater? If they are badly hurt, is there someone who comes to help?”
“The park ranger is there to help.” He sat quiet for a moment then added. “My uncle told me that one time they called the helicopter to come.”
“A helicopter? Yes. Great. Who sent the helicopter? Is there a military base near here?”
“Not soldiers. The doctor helicopter.”
“From FAME?”
“From the hospital in Arusha.”
“Rooster?” Meg called.
“On it.”
“Meg, he’s got no airway,” Randy called. “Stop. Stop.”
Meg brought the Rover to an abrupt halt. She was out of her seat and popping open the door to where Robert lay. He looked inhuman as she picked up his limbs by the pants legs the way she’d been trained in her survival courses. They hauled him out of the vehicle and had him on the ground. Meg started mouth to mouth, trying to force her breath through even the slightest of passageways down into the man’s lungs.
Randy was checking his carotid, and she guessed he didn’t find a heartbeat because he started CPR.
“Fifteen minutes,” Rooster said as he joined the scene.
They worked as a team. Ahbou watched the time. Every three minutes they switched positions. She or Abraham did the breaths. Randy or Rooster did the compressions. Their battle-hardened chest and arm muscles bulged with the effort of forcing Robert’s chest to descend the two-inch minimum that could force his heart to pump. When Ahbou called time and the teams switched places, those who were catching their own breaths put their back to the scene. It was imperative that they kept a keen eye out for the predators who could smell the sick and dying in the wind and might be coming in to feast. This was dangerous for all of them. Buzzards circled above, to direct the predators to the right spot. The birds needed the hunters to open the carcasses so they could pick the bones clean. A hungry hyena or cheetah would see Robert as a feast and also see that he had a comparatively weak and ineffectual pack around him. “Ahbou, get into the Rover and roll up the windows. Keep watching the time for us and when you get to the three-minute mark, I want you to blare the horn for a count of five. Leave the window down a few centimeters so I can talk to you,” Meg ordered as she took her place on the other side of Abraham, ready to switch when Ahbou signaled.
Randy was singing the Bee Gees refrain about staying alive that kept the pace and set the tone. It sounded hopeful. But Meg’s hopes dwindled with each switch.
“Time,” Ahbou called from behind the closed door. Then he blared
the horn that Meg hoped would keep the predators at a distance.
In Meg’s mind, if she had three minutes on and three minutes off she should only have three turns before she heard the rotors on the helicopter. This was her fourth cycle. All she heard was Randy singing. It was a fast-paced beat that had worked its way into her pulse, making her blood run furiously through her veins. Randy wasn’t giving up. She shouldn’t either. They’d keep working on Robert. But God, he looked awful. She blew as hard as she could, and she felt most of her breath slipping out between where her lips locked around his. The seal she’d tried to create was failing under the pressure. Her lungs hurt from the effort. Robert’s lips were blue. And there was nothing. No signs of life.
“I hear them,” Ahbou screamed from inside the car. He popped the door open.
Meg turned her head to suck in another mouthful of air but used it for Ahbou instead of Robert. “Get back in that car and stay there,” she yelled with an authority she’d never heard come out of her mouth before.
The wind picked up around them. Debris sprayed everywhere. Randy had ducked his head down, he was no longer singing, but she could feel the movement as he kept pushing down that vital two inches. One hundred and twenty times per minute. Two times per second. He was a robot.
She had her mouth back on Robert’s, but the air she was sucking in to transfer was filled with pebbles and sticks. She coughed it back up. Rooster pulled his shirt off, leaning over her, using his body and the fabric to encapsulate her head and Robert’s in a makeshift tent, protecting them as she sucked in air through her t-shirt she’d pulled over her mouth, then lifted her chin to clear the cloth and sealed her mouth over Robert’s swollen lips. It was slower. But it was something.
The copter set down at a short distance, and the wind died down a bit as the rotors ground to a stop. Rooster switched places with Randy. Randy lay on his back, sucking air, exhausted from his exertion. Meg didn’t sense Abraham nearby, she assumed he was helping the rescue workers somehow. She longed for a break but kept powering through, forcing air down Robert’s windpipe.