Part 12 (1/2)
”Did the Chinese kill them?”
”Nah, just didn't feed us enough-and there was that epidemic, remember. Them other folks been in the field so long their shots were worn out. We all got the s.h.i.+ts and they died- me, I remember little things like shots so I just got the dysentery and I lived till the old lady come around. She's somethin', heh? Crazy as a bedbug but she's not mean like that young one. I don't know why they let her just pick people out to bring in here, but they do. She told me I told her what she needed to know while I was delirious and she was healin' me. I'm glad 'cause now that she caught me, I don't want that ol' gal throwin' me back 'less she could throw me clear to Mandalay and I imagine that pretty lady I was on my way to see there has clean forgot about poor old Doc by now.”
After a moment he said, ”I haven't minded it too much here except it's boring. It's not dirty like the other place and it's maybe a step up from cleanin' birds, but for some reason, people-not you, dollin', you done your share-but everybody else I mean, don't get real sick real often. I haul rocks good as the next fella but I'm better at medicine. The medical supplies from my kit are about gone now anyway, of course. You used up a lot of 'em, cher. Didn't settle down like the rest of us.”
”I keep expecting things to get worse,” I told him. ”Or-I did. Any more though, I don't know. For draconian cruelty this is rather an uninspired bunch, don't you think?”
”What about those bruises on you when you miscarried?”
”I did that myself,” I said shamefacedly. ”Freaked out.”
He shook his head once sharply, as if clearing his ears, ”Well, that's what you said but we didn't believe you.”
”True, I'm afraid. Of course, they were pretty nasty when I started screaming-came and tied me down and taped my mouth over.”
”They do that. When I first come here, they knocked me around a little, trying to get me to tell 'em something they could use. When I started in to hollerin' though, they taped my mouth and I don't see how I was supposed to tell 'em anything. I figure they are still worried about the building caving in and figure screaming and such could knock something loose.”
”A simple explanation would have sufficed,” I said stiffly, but actually, it wouldn't have, since hysterics interfere with one's ability to be reasonable about things and anyhow, an explanation that the building actually was in danger of falling in on me would scarcely have been therapeutic.
Merridew groaned and Thibideaux bent over him, humming.
”What is it that you and the doctor hum to quiet him?” I asked.
”Well, I don't know about her, but I'm hummin' a little s.n.a.t.c.h of 'Jolie Blonde.' It was my mama's favorite c.o.o.n-a.s.s fais-dodo song and she set a lot of store by it, so I figure it's probably got as much power as the next thing,” he admitted after a moment. ”We got nothin' else to help him with right now, and these folks got different ways of curin' I haven't heard of before. If hummin' helps, I just hope the Colonel likes Cajun music.”His humming was interrupted by a light scrabbling on the roof overhead, and a heart-rending yowl like the one I had heard in our cell. After a moment there was another, more unearthly than the first.
”Spooks?” Thibideaux asked, only half joking.
”You figure the monks they murdered to take over this place come back on the anniversary of their ma.s.sacre to haunt it or something?” I was jeering, but I was s.h.i.+vering while I did it.
He mulled that over for a moment. ”Nah,” he said, and whisked to the door, and lightly left and closed it behind him. I didn't hear his footsteps at all, but in another moment he ducked back in and gestured to me to follow. I did, as quietly as possible.
The mist had all blown away and the moon nestled in the cleft of the mountain, which glinted white and horned as the crown of Isis. I saw my way clearly and moved as noiselessly as I ever have, following Thibideaux. Despite the moonlight, the top of the infirmary lay in deep shadow cast by the canopy. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, Thibideaux put his finger to his lips and pointed to a rock on the top-a rock which wriggled, squirmed, and opened white sharp teeth to yowl again. Not ghosts.
Demons? The Tibetans at one time had been very big on demons, which may have explained the lack of guards rus.h.i.+ng out to investigate. I leaned closer and saw that the rock was blurred and furry in outline.
Then another portion writhed and yowled, outlining ears and a muzzle and one foot, pawing at the moon.
Thibideaux had been quietly pulling off his pajama jacket and motioned me to do the same. I did, s.h.i.+vering in earnest now and feeling embarra.s.sed as well. The prison wardrobe didn't feature inst.i.tutional bra.s.sieres or even T-s.h.i.+rts and although I had seen women working barechested on the hill on warm days, that sort of National Geographic local color was their bag, not mine. As soon as I held the jacket in my hands, outspread like a matador's cape, Thibideaux nodded to me to emulate his movements and dove for the toothy pile in front of us. I dove too, and momentarily I even made contact with something, until it bounced in the air, taking me with it, and when the stony ground rared up to jar my teeth loose and bruise me from neck to kneecap, there was nothing underneath my s.h.i.+rt but rocks.
Thibideaux's training as a bird cleaner came in handy at catching other slippery things and as I raised my battered body from the ground, he knelt triumphantly, juggling a bulging pajama top. It churned from within, the whole thing alive, spitting, hissing, growling and yowling furiously, throwing claws and teeth out the openings of the s.h.i.+rt.
”Come on, baby lion,” Thibideaux said to the squalling bag of spit and claws. ”Ol' Doc's gon' be your daddy now.”
I retrieved my pajama top and pulled it on, pulling the sleeves down over my hands as I helped him haul the cat down the little slope leading to the door of the infirmary. About that time, the guards showed up, Tsering, Samdup, and two others from the perimeter I hadn't noticed before.
”What is it? Shoot it!” one of the newcomers said.
”No,” I said, since I didn't want them to do that, especially since Thibideaux and I were wrapped around it.
Thibideaux disregarded them entirely as I freed a hand to open the infirmary door while he carried the bundle inside and the guards crowded after.
”What is it?” Tsering asked.”A demon,” someone else said authoritatively.
”It's no demon, it's an orphan,” Thibideaux said. ”Somebody go get me a box to pin it in.”
Samdup opened the door again and slipped out but Tsering raised a pistol and aimed it at the bundle howling b.l.o.o.d.y murder in Thibideaux's arms. ”Are you nuts?” I screeched in English, because my brain wouldn't translate quickly enough to stop her. ”You'll bring the house down for sure,” and pointed at the ceiling. Someone swept her gun aside and someone else closed in on Thibideaux, trying to take the bundle away from him. Thibideaux, of course, didn't want to let go and the pajama s.h.i.+rt came loose and a flash of pale fur streaked away from them, straight toward the guards, jumped into the air, onto Merridew, up to the top of the cabinet where the few supplies were kept and back down the side, bounding from wall to wall, shedding fur and spraying spittle in its wake.
Like the players in some sort of pajamaed basketball team, we hopped stiff-legged from side to side, trying to corner the cub in the small room while it yowled, spat, and took warning swipes at us with claws splayed into ninja stars.
Its ears laid back and its eyes wide with anger and fear, the cub screamed at us and kept screaming until suddenly I was shoved aside by a plastic milk crate. Thibideaux took the crate and, with the rest of us as a human pen, cornered the cub and held it down. Paws shot out in all directions, teeth gnawed at the plastic, but the cat was trapped.
Tsering once more leveled her gun at it but the weapon was knocked aside and Dr. Terton stepped in front of her. As calmly as if she was waiting for a bus, the old woman stood between the gun and the cat, which was trapped under the milk crate by a lacerated and bleeding, but triumphant, Thibideaux.
Dr. Terton knelt about two feet from the crate and, as far as I could tell, simply looked at the embattled, spitting cat. I certainly didn't hear anything over the din the creature was making, but first one claw disengaged itself from the flesh of Thibideaux's b.l.o.o.d.y palm, then the teeth closed with a mere nip to the plastic cage rather than a snap, a second paw dislodged itself from trying to disembowel Thibideaux, and the other two withdrew into the cage, to join the body in a tight crouch. After a time, the ears rose to points, the tail slowed from a rapid jerk to a quiet question mark, and the great glittering eyes focused on the old woman, who was crooning to it, singing to it, like one of those snake charmers in the stories, except this was a cat. The animal's ears p.r.i.c.ked forward, to catch more of the croon, its pudgy, kittenish front paws slid forward and its chin settled onto them with almost a clump, the back legs sprawled out and the eyes closed. Still crooning, the old woman made an impatient gesture with her hand to Thibideaux indicating that he should stand away from the milk carton, which he did. She lifted the carton off the cub, scooped the cat into her arms and walked off with it.
”I was going to do that next,” Thibideaux said. ”What she did. It's an old animal-taming trick.”
”Bulls.h.i.+t,” I said, and asked Tsering for water to wash his wounds, noticing as I lifted my hands again that trickles of blood were running down my own arms from my encounter with the cub's litter mate.
Tsering returned with a Russian-style helmet full of water, half of which sloshed out when she dropped it into my hands, made a sharp about-face, and left, barking after her for the others to follow.
”You think she's p.i.s.sed because we caught the cub?” I asked Thibideaux.
”Nah, she's just being hard-core again. I told you-”The doctor shoved open the door then and Thibideaux interrupted himself to ask, ”What did you do with the cat?”
”I fed her,” she said. ”And put out food for her brother. I have her in a cell for now. Tomorrow I will set a trap for the other.”
”Some high-cla.s.s camp we're in here, Vanachek, just us political prisoners and a stray cat or two-seriously, Doc, how did you do that? I heard of soothin' a critter down but never that fast.”
”Was it hypnosis?” I asked.
”Of a sort,” she said. ”I believe you are familiar with the technique, Dr. Thibideaux?”
”Yes, ma'am. It's mostly thinking like an animal. But I'm not so almighty quick as you are and I thought I was one of the best...”
”Do not discommode yourself, my dear Thibideaux. The snow lion is the guardian beast of Tibet. I share with it an affinity which no outsider can hope to attain. I thought perhaps I might live without seeing such a creature again and yesterday, when Nyima precipitously shot the mother of the cubs, I mourned perhaps more profoundly, I admit, than I would have had the victim been your Colonel Merridew. But you have found the cubs and when the other is located, we shall protect them here, as we will the yaks and any other creatures who find their way to our valley.”
”That's great,” I said. ”But what are you going to feed the cats? A child a day?”
”There are rodents in abundance,” the old woman said, and added, with a rather gruesome twinkle, ”and, of course, when our food has run out, there will be corpses to dispose of.”
”You aren't expecting another pack train, then?”
”I didn't say that but we seem to have been forgotten, wouldn't you say?” Oddly, her tone was one of grim satisfaction and I thought, 'The old girl has flipped out, gone around the bend, her motherboard has bit off half a bite more than it can chew.'
”Ma'am, I've been thinkin',” Thibideaux said. ”If we're all on our way out, don't you think maybe it's going to take more than one person doctorin' to make the end a little easier for everybody?”
”I didn't say we were in any such condition, Dr. Thibideaux, but your suggestion contains merit, nevertheless,” she said after a deep search of his eyes with her own.