CHAPTER THIRTY
The rhythmic beeping didn’t sound like any jungle bird I could identify, but I did recognize the noise. It beeped with a steady pulse that felt familiar. In fact, it was curiously satisfying, like a piece of home from a lifetime ago.
Beep, beep, beep.
Other than that sound, it was so quiet. Maybe I could hear the hum of electricity, or the rumble of an overhead air duct, but it was faint. Where were the organic vibrations of jungle song? I had grown so used to the noise, the absence of it created a strange hush.
Cold, manufactured air surrounded me, and I needed more than the light blanket draped over me. I was laying on the cushion of a bed, my entire left arm numb, like it was missing.
I finally decided to open my eyes and take in my new environment. Greg’s blond hair stood out against the white and blue striped blanket on the bed. Sitting in a chair, slumped over and asleep on the foot of my hospital bed, faint light spilled in from the window behind him.
I examined myself. My arm was cast from my elbow to my shoulder and something else wrapped around my rib cage, making it hard to get a deep breath. My breathing quickened and the resulting beeps sounded the alarm. Greg pulled himself out of a dead sleep.
“Sid? Hey, hey, it’s ok. You’re ok, baby” he said, rising and standing over me.
I didn’t feel ok. Vulnerable and powerless were two descriptions that came to mind, and my arm and shoulder throbbed with a pain I hadn’t known was possible.
“Water,” I croaked, to which he supplied a small cup—the tepid liquid not only slaking my thirst, but also making it a little easier to talk.
“What happened?” I asked, fumbling for the button to call the nurse. “Need more pain meds…” I managed to wheeze.
While Greg left to get the nurse, I lay in the small room, bracing for the memories to storm me. I had ridden in a chopper. I remember the dip of my stomach and the deafening whirl of the blades overhead that sent the trees into overdrive.
Before that, we had bounced down the mountain in a vehicle.
I had lain in the backseat while Greg drove, but I only remember sketches.
The pain rendered me unconscious. Thinking about it now was like trying to remember a dream.
Before that? Before that I was lying on a table.
They had kicked off the legs and used it as a gurney to take me down the hill.
It had been a rough and bumpy journey, and I remembered crying out a few times because the pain was excruciating.
Then I remembered Jahnu’s fierce gaze, and Greg’s shaking hands as he held the gun—the gun. I had been shot. Greg shot me!
Greg returned with a nurse and administered the pain meds, giving me relief enough to find my voice once she left the room.
“Did you shoot me?” The question sounded funny—like a joke—and I heard him moan my name.
“Oh God, Sid. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what was happening. Honestly, this whole thing has been a nightmare. I pulled the trigger and you must’ve jumped in the way. Why would you do that?”
I thought briefly about the exchange in the canopy, but couldn’t come out and tell him it was because he was about to shoot the man I loved.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Always saving people,” he shook his head. “The bullet hit your shoulder—crushed your glenohumeral joint. They did an arthroplasty to repair the joint.”
“So I’m a bionic now?” The pain meds were providing me levity.
“Part of you, yes,” he didn’t find my comment funny, but rubbed a hand down his face as if to erase the exhaustion.
“It’ll be eight weeks until you can use your shoulder again…
a year before you’re back to normal.” His diagnosis of my recovery didn’t register.
My mind was back with the Hundi, back in the canopy with the dancing shadows and the man I had hoped to save.
“Greg.” Tears were already welling in my eyes, slipping down my temples and into my ears. He came near, held my uninjured hand, his face a crush of emotions. He almost never saw me cry.
“What happened…after?” I asked. I almost didn’t want to know, but I had to find out if Jahnu was still alive.
“There was an all-out attack. I don’t know where they came from, but they sprang out of nowhere…twelve or so men died. The big one, Mimbeck? He died as well.”
“And what about…the man…he wanted you to kill? Did you…?”
“No,” he said, breathless, shaking his head, tears streaming down his unshaved face. “But I would’ve…I would’ve if you hadn’t jumped in the way…to save you, I would’ve done anything. Oh, Sid, I thought I lost you,” he kissed my hand, holding it in both of his, weeping silently.
I lay my hand on his head, my tears now dry with the news Jahnu was still alive.