CHAPTER THREE #2
She was beautiful, yet fierce. Intense and serious about everything. Her strength and no-nonsense attitude were evident in the sharp plane of her tight jawline. Her eyes were sunken and bloodshot from days of travel, but her smile lit them with a spark of life.
“Hey, stranger,” she said, falling into his embrace. She smelled of airplane fuel and sunscreen and a brief whiff of deodorant that was quickly wearing off. He didn’t care. He kissed her temple and held her back from him, his hands on her shoulders.
“Save more lives on the way?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not unless you count the barf bag I held for the little girl sitting in my row. Her mom had gone to the bathroom when she started heaving. I think that was on my connecting flight from Jakarta, but they’re all running together now.”
“Thank God, you were there,” he said in jest. “A regular Florence Nightingale.” He kissed her firmly on the mouth, the taste of her sending shocks through his body.
She let out a huff of a laugh as they turned to the cargo hold where the pilot was already taking out the luggage and plastic bins full of extra supplies Sidney had brought with her.
“You look skinny,” she eyed him, suspiciously.
“Yeah, well, the jungle has a way of leeching the nutrition right out of you, no matter how hard you try.”
He handed her a crate full of gauze, tape, and bandages. “Have any trouble with all this?”
“Nope, they were waiting for me in Port Moresby, thankfully. Though we did have a time fitting them in the cargo hold, didn’t we, Eddie?” The pilot, Eddie, wrinkled his weathered face with a smile.
“I bring her safely to you,” he said with an air of prideful kindness.
“Yes, you did,” Greg replied, not taking his eyes off her.
With the luggage and bins unloaded and carted to the waiting boat, the charter plane turned around and took off again down the dirt runway.
The fisherman and his son showed up with a bucket full of fish and started helping them load the items into the boat. Greg wiped the sweat from his temple on his shoulder, turning to pick up another crate when he heard Sidney.
“No, don’t touch those!”
He turned just in time to see her trip across the seat-well, attempting to reach the boy holding a plastic syringe. Her body lunged off the edge of the boat and into the shallow water lapping at the sides.
“I meant to do that,” she said, while Greg stifled a laugh. She lay with her butt in the water, one leg still inside the boat, water rippled at her rib cage. The boy was saying something Greg didn’t understand as he came over to help her up.
“You were hot,” he said.
“Naturally…and now I’m cooled off.”
He pulled her to him. “And did you also mean to do this?” Greg swiped at the cut just over her right eyebrow.
She winced. “Well this is off to a great start.”
“Doesn’t look too bad. Maybe a stitch or two, or just a butterfly. Come on.”
Everything loaded, they set off for the half-hour boat ride across the channel.
He scanned her. Her wet, white tank was pressed against her body showing the outline of her bra. He looked at the fisherman, but he didn’t seem to notice, the old man’s gaze was set firmly ahead as he guided the engine.
“So what’s going on with the tribe? Rachel said there was another attack?”
“Makia has been working with local financiers to better monetize their economy. You remember from the report that the deforestation companies came in and drained the peatland forests in the area to create palm oil plantations?”
“Vaugely,” Sidney shrugged.
“Well, apparently the newly-drained peatland forest caught fire during the dry season and spread to the Hundi village. It had been a relatively peaceful discourse between the tribes until the fire. From what I understand, several of their tribespeople died, including women and children and now the Hundi are ransacking Makia for revenge. They’re savages. ”
“What can we do about it?”
“Nothing, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not really our fight.
We came to give medical aid, and we’ll leave in two weeks whether things with the tribes are settled or not.
It’s just so frustrating. There’s no measurable outcome for success in this situation between the tribes.
Feels like it’s a waste,” he shrugged. Not a complete waste.
He would still get his letter, he reminded himself. It’s all he cared about anyway.
The boy prattled, tugging at Greg’s sleeve and motioning toward Sidney who was soaking in the sun.
“Katim lewa,” the boy pressed his forearm across his chest just below his breast bone. “Katim lewa,” he grinned at Greg.
“What’s he saying?” Sidney asked.
Greg thought for a moment and then grinned. “He says you cut him to the liver.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Papuans consider the liver, the lewa, to be the seat of emotions. So it can be associated with varying degrees of affection. Basically he’s saying you are very beautiful.”
“Oh,” Sidney blushed visibly and leaned forward crossing her arms across her chest. “I guess I don’t know much of the language, yet. I didn’t have time to really study it much.”
Greg squinted against the overhead sun. “It shouldn’t be a problem among the tribe. A lot of the Makian’s can speak broken English, but sometimes they go off on a tangent I don’t understand.”
Greg ruffled the boy’s black fro, “Katim lewa a mi,” he mimicked the boy’s emotion, pressing his arm across his liver and grimaced in mock pain, making Sidney giggle.
“Besides, there’s really just one phrase you need to memorize.”
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” asked Sidney.
“Smolhaus i stap we? Where is the toilet?