Patrick couldn’t help but agree. He finished repacking everything he’d hung out to dry the night before, and, after pulling down the tent and dousing the fire, gathered Linley into his arms for the long walk ahead.
Carrying her by stretcher had proved difficult, but moving her by hand was much, much harder. Patrick’s arms throbbed from fighting with the river the day before. An hour into their march, his entire upper body shook from the effort it took to carry her. Plus, he kept having to stop to adjust Linley’s head so that she did not flop around like a ragdoll.
Schoville walked a few steps ahead, stopping now and then to let the slower man catch up. “I can carry her for a while,” he said as he watched Patrick struggle.
“No, thank you. I’m managing just fine.”
“You look like you’re about to have an apoplexy.”
Patrick blew out his breath. “I’m as healthy as a horse.”
“More like a broken-down nag.”
He shifted Linley against his chest. “Hardly! If it wasn’t for these blasted wet boots I’m walking in, you’d be having to try and keep up with me.”
“Wet boots,” Schoville scoffed. “When you’ve walked all night in freezing cold, sopping wet clothes, only to get up the next morning and do it all over again in damp ones, then you can complain to me. Until then, I have no sympathy for you.”
Patrick ought to have been used to it all by then. It was over a month since he first came to India, first rode elephants, and first experienced the relentless beating rains of monsoon season. First felt the sticky wetness that clung to the very air he breathed. His only respite from it had been at the monastery, perched high above the clouds.
But not even that had been pleasant. He’d had too much on his mind to even think about the weather. Or lack of weather. Or anything at all, really. He was too busy running from Linley then, when what he really should’ve done was run straight to her.
Right into her open, willing arms.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Neither Patrick nor Schoville ate anything that day, since all their food had been contaminated with river water.
They lost the map, as well—another sacrifice to the water gods.
With little energy and no way to tell if they were headed in the right direction, Schoville decided they would set up camp before nightfall and worry about making up for lost time the next morning.
“If this mission camp is where the old Lama said it was,” he explained. “We should be getting close.”
Patrick did not bother looking up as he hammered tent stakes into the soft, gooey ground. “He told me it was four or five days walk. But even then, he couldn’t guarantee the missionaries would still be there. They might have cleared out before the rains came.”
“Even if they have gone, we can still use their shelter.” Schoville’s stomach made a strange, gurgling noise. He put his hand over it to dampen the noise. “And with a little luck, they might have left some supplies behind.”
Patrick was too preoccupied to reply, as he had just went to work examining his swollen, itchy feet. Walking all day in wet socks and boots definitely took its toll, it seemed. And, to be honest, they hurt like the blazes.
“How are your feet holding up?” he asked Schoville.
“My feet?” The man bent down to have a look at his own gangly trotters. “A bit pruny, perhaps. Why? What’s wrong with yours?”
“I don’t know. They’re very itchy.”
Schoville leaned over the fire to see for himself. “Probably nothing. But if it keeps up, you might want to piss on them.”
“Piss on them?” Patrick asked. “Piss on my own feet?”
“Sometimes we pick up ringworms and the like. Bedford swears that the best cure is urine, and in my experience, he’s right.”
Patrick wrinkled his nose. “Thank you, but I’ll pass.”
From inside the tent, came a low guttural moan. Both men turned around at the sound.
“I hate when she does that,” Patrick said. “I always hope she’s waking up.”
“I hate it when she seems to follow me around with her eyes.” Schoville stabbed at the fire with a long stick, kicking up embers into the night sky. “But I know she doesn’t see me.”
Patrick watched as the orange flakes drifted up into the tree canopy and fizzled out. “She has to be hungry. She hasn’t had anything to eat in days. I’ve only gone one day without a meal, and I know I’m starving.”
“You and I can make it quite a while as long as we have clean water, but I don’t know how much longer Linley can go. She needs a doctor that can give her fluids.”
“Will there be any lasting damage, do you think?” he asked. “With a fever this high, for this long, without anything to eat or drink?”
Schoville shrugged. “Who can say?”