CHAPTER EIGHT
The mounting frustration rose in my gut until it felt like something I could sink my teeth into.
I clenched my molars as my hands moved without conscious thought across the small child.
The bleeding from the tree swing accident had stopped, but two of his baby teeth had come out in the chaos.
At least he would grow permanents, even if it took years for them to show.
Thankfully no broken nose and no need for stitches, since I wouldn’t have known what to use if he had needed them.
The boy’s mother had come. She was now sitting against one of the large tree pillars that held up the roof of the open canopy, rocking his sleeping body back and forth in a soothing manner.
A prick of jealousy turned my stomach and I turned from them to clean the area the best I could, wiping away the blood from my hands and chest with the small bowl of water someone had brought in the squabble.
Would I ever rock my own child like that?
Sali appeared with a covering—if you could call it that—since I had sacrificed my only shirt in the chaos of blood and screaming.
The bodice was made with an intricate detail of beads and shells with a matching cord that tied around my neck like a halter.
I stuffed my large breasts into the top, feeling exposed, but also attractive at the same time.
The material underneath the bodice, made of soft animal hair, slit like an upside-down V revealing my belly button, but generally covering everything else from breasts to waist.
“It is my daughter’s,” Sali said approvingly.
“It’s lovely.”
“She’s much smaller dan u,” she said, making me smile despite the growing frustration of my partially recovered memory.
I was a nurse. This I remembered vividly. The long days, the longer nights in nursing school and then years working the night shift—the reel of patients running through my mind like a broken movie projector.
I was here giving medical aid and…Greg…oh, God, Greg.
Where was he and was he ok? He doesn’t know where I am!
—Rachel, Tom, Dameon, where were they? Where am I?
I realized I still didn’t know, until the remainder of the memory plummeted like an anvil in my mind—the gray bodies painted from head to toe—the bow and arrows.
“U alright, pikinini?” I sank to the ground, Sali’s arms giving me support.
“You…you’re Hundi!” I accused.
Sali frowned in confusion, not knowing what to say.
“You…he…he took me! He kidnapped me!” I shot up from the ground, my steely eyes like slits as I stomped down the hill on my way back to the hut where I had met the chief. Chief! More like a kidnapper.
Kidnapped. The word repeated over and over in my head. How long had I been here? How far was the Hundi village from Makia? Would I be able to convince him to take me back? I fumbled at my wrist, looking for my watch. Where’s my damn watch?
I marched up the rocky steps and blasted unannounced into the hut before logic could reassert itself into my brain.
“You took me from Makia!” the words were out of my mouth before my eyes could adjust to the darkness.
“Your men knocked me out and…and kidnapped me!” I felt my accusatory resolve lessen as the chief took in my new top, his eyes glancing quickly away from my full breasts.
Now I just felt annoyed and violated. “And…and give me back my watch!”
A small smirk pulled at the corners of his mouth.
Am I funny to him? Does he find my kidnapping amusing?
Annoyance quickly turned to disgust and I found that indignant resolve again.
“I need to get back to Makia! You had no right to take me. I need to find out what happened to the rest of my team. I need to let them know I’m ok and—”
“You need many things,” he said calmly, in that perfect English mixed with the indigenous accent.
He’d been sitting when I’d burst in, but now stood and leaned against the rock wall, arms crossing his bare chest, his heel hooked across his leg.
“My men said they found you in distress. What you call kidnapping, perhaps was rescue.”
“It was not a rescue,” my words clipped with hostility.
Jahnu was quiet for a moment and I couldn’t get a read on him. His stolid demeanor was a stark contrast to the way I felt—the way I knew I was coming across.
I needed to be more emotionless—more regulated. It would be better for negotiations if he couldn’t see my cards. I took a deep breath attempting to calm my raging nerves.
I tried to not let things bother me. Ever since I could remember I’d feigned indifference to emotions that felt too big to handle—and there had been a lot of them in my short lifetime.
But I also knew beneath the surface of the thin veneer I placed over my feelings, cracks showed through.
I could feel it now as my rosacea crept across my chest and neck.
I knew the chief could see it, but the only thing to make it go away was to calm down.
“Come.” He said, and walked past me out of the hut and into the bright sun.
I reluctantly followed down the stone steps and through a winding path behind the building to a clear space overlooking tree-covered mountains.
Jahnu stood stoically at the edge of the vista his arms locked behind him scanning the expanse below. I approached hesitantly.
“Tell me about Makia,” he said. It wasn’t even a question and I felt my defenses rise.
I considered refusing until he promised to return me—strike a bargain—but thought better of it when he turned his gaze on me.
Even though his dark eyes pierced the protective inner wall I was beginning to build and my situation felt foreboding, somehow, I didn’t feel threatened in his presence.
I responded, “They are a large tribe that live in various clans around the base of the mountains.” His gaze returned to the view below.
I followed. “They are spread out, but still operate quite well within elder leadership. They are forward-thinking…progressive, and just want what’s best for their tribe. ” I gave him a side-long look.
“Before the conflict started with your tribe they were brokering a deal with the New Guinean government to create new plantations that would bring in more jobs and revenue for their growing economy. We came with a mission to bring medical aid because of all the fighting. I’m a nurse…
I…I help people who are sick or hurt and there have been quite a lot of them since the attacks started and I have no idea what shape they are in after the last attack.
Or if they are even still…” I let my voice trail. I was babbling.
I wasn’t sure why I said that last part, but the chief hadn’t made one reaction while I explained it all and I felt myself starting to panic. I stopped talking and let the silence build around us.
Greg was fine, my logical brain told me.
Our life back home was waiting for us to pick back up upon our return.
But there was another part of my mind which I rarely indulged that was already preparing to hear the news of his death.
I would have to travel home alone, inform his family, our friends, the staff at the hospital, plan the funeral…
my perfect plans for the future were dissolving before my eyes.
Stop it! One problem at a time, Sid. First, I had to figure out how to get back to Makia.
After setting my eyes again on Jahnu, I took a calculated risk, licked my lips, and tried a different tactic.
“I’m sure this whole thing has been difficult for your tribe, as well.” If you weren’t such savages maybe none of it would’ve happened. “Maybe I could be of some assistance. Do you have a doctor, or healer that helps care for the wounded?”
The young chief didn’t reply.
“I could offer my services for some of you who are sick or wounded in exchange for a guide to take me back to Makia. I’m sure they will be looking for me.”
Still no reaction from the statue beside me. Was he even listening? My frustration rose.
“I would hate for them to find out that you refused to take me back and held me here against my will. Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to have someone take me back and—”
“You will stay as long as necessary,” the same words he’d used just earlier, before I’d remembered who I was, gave me a different feeling now. It was not an invitation. It felt more like a sentence.
“What does that even mean?” I said to his retreating back. He didn’t turn to explain, but left me standing at the overlook, my resentment and emotions running high.
Fine! If no one would take me back to Makia, I would just have to do it myself—just like everything else in my life. I don’t know why I should be surprised in this situation. Why was I always the one that made things happen?
I began to make a plan. I’d gather food over the next few days and try to search secretly for an escape-route that would take me back down the mountain and back to Greg.
I was invited to dinner by Sali. We shared the evening meal in the communal hut sitting in family clumps.
The starchy cakes they served were bland and filling, crusty on the outside and gelatinous within.
By the next morning I had only procured a green mango, which I swiped from the kitchen area and hid under my pillow in the tree house. Extra food was hard to come by.
I felt uneasy with nothing to do. Actually, that was putting it mildly. I felt like I might go crazy with boredom, and the anger at being held against my will eroded to a slow, simmering depression. I had to get back. How would Greg find me? I couldn’t stay here another day.
I sat against the base of a tree, watching children of varying ages shoot arrows across the field at homemade targets. A few Hundi men stood behind them, offering instruction with gentle taps to lower shoulders or raise the elbow higher.