“That should feel better,” he said. He was, she suspected by his carriage, the group’s leader, though how many people he led, she couldn’t say. There had to have been at least eight to ten of them at the camp that morning: two or three for each Land Rover, and at least three or four more to supervise the porters as they ransacked the site. But there may have been others. She just had no idea.
But now she stretched her legs and rolled her wrists, and it felt good. She wondered whether she should only speak when spoken to. That was how she had viewed her first foray from the hut, a few hours ago, when she had been taken outside to relieve herself.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay,” she said hesitantly.
“I gave your husband some aspirin. For his nose.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re pregnant, yes?”
“Yes.”
“One of my men told me. How many months?”
“Three.”
“The child making you sick?”
Child. It was a peculiar choice of word, and she attributed it to English being his second or third language. But was it really any stranger than the way she and Billy referred to their baby as the kid?
“No,” she said.
“Good. I’m untying you because I want you comfortable. More comfortable. But you can’t leave this hut unless we bring you outside. I hope you are all home soon, including your child.”
“So, this is a…a kidnapping?”
It was odd: now that the flashlight was pointed at the ground, she could barely see his face, and he could barely see hers.
“Yes, this is a kidnapping,” he replied, and there was a lightness to his voice. It was reminiscent of the way she had heard Billy laugh when he was confirming something for his little boy that was obvious to grown-ups. Yes, a starfish needs to be in the water to live. Yes, the sand does stick to our feet when we come out of the ocean. Yes, once upon a time you were as little as that baby. These were all things that Billy had said to Marc when they had been at the Santa Monica beach that summer.
“Are you…” she paused, worried that she shouldn’t be asking any more questions. Perhaps questions were like wishes in fairy tales and she’d been given her one and she’d used it. （No, that wasn’t right. If this were a fairy tale, which it sure as hell wasn’t, wouldn’t she have three?）
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Are you going to untie the others?”
“I untied your movie star friend.”
She knew that he was referring to Katie, not Terrance. A woman. She supposed that also meant the three men were still bound to the sleeping pallets. “Thank you for giving my husband some aspirin. Is he”—and, again, her voice wavered briefly—“in a lot of pain?”
“Probably.” He pointed the flashlight at his own nose. “But he’ll live.”
This fellow seemed so civilized, so unlike the man who had swatted Billy or the crew that had murdered a pair of rangers and Juma. She wanted to ask him his name, but knew she didn’t dare. That was definitely going too far.
“How long will we be here?” she inquired instead.
He reached into her hair, and she was able to restrain a flinch. He pulled out a leaf and a twig and showed them to her with his flashlight. “Don’t leave the hut,” he told her, his tone at once kind and firm. Clearly, he had no intention of answering her question. “My boys are edgy. Do you know the expression ‘trigger-happy’？”
“I do.”
“Good.” He dropped the leaf and the twig on the ground, and she thought he was going to leave her alone. He turned toward the entry and may even have moved slightly in that direction, and she regretted that she had not mentioned her own wounds, especially the cut on her stomach. He had that flashlight. Perhaps he would allow her to examine it. But then, as if he had read her mind, he paused and turned back toward her.
* * *
.?.?.
This morning she had awoken and put her bare feet down on the canvas groundsheet in their tent. Sunlight had pulled her from sleep before the porters. Each day one had arrived and called, “Jambo!” outside the flaps, and left a pot of steaming coffee, a little pitcher of milk, and two porcelain mugs on the ground before the tent’s wide zipper. She’d felt the uneven earth beneath her toes and placed her hands low on her stomach, her way of saying good morning （and she said it every morning） to her baby. She saw Billy was still sleeping deeply in his cot. He’d awaken when the java arrived. Then she’d stood, a little awed that she was here, so very far from her and Billy’s modest place in L.A., and climbed out from beneath the mosquito netting. Outside a bird sang, but she knew almost nothing of birds and had no idea what kind it was. Then she heard some snuffling behind the tent, the side where the porters had set up the bathtub, and went there. She had brought a nightgown to sleep in, but the first night she had opened her eyes around two thirty, sweating as if she were in a sauna, and since then had slept in only a T-shirt and underwear. Still, however, inside this tent she felt strangely invulnerable.