The Testament (36 page)

In the room, Nate collapsed on the bed. The little escape had tired him immensely. Jevy found the rerun of a soccer game on TV, but after five minutes was bored. He left to continue his flirting.

Nate tried twice to get an international operator. He had a vague recollection of hearing Josh’s voice on the phone, and he suspected that a follow-up was needed. On the second attempt, he got an earful of Portuguese. When she tried English, he thought he caught the words “calling card.” He hung up and went to sleep.

The doctor called Valdir. Valdir found Jevy’s truck parked on the street outside the Palace Hotel, and he found Jevy in the pool sipping a beer.

Valdir squatted at the edge of the pool. “Where is Mr. O’Riley?” he asked. His irritation was obvious.

“Upstairs in his room,” Jevy answered, then took another sip.

“Why is he here?”

“Because he wanted to leave the hospital. Do you blame him?”

Valdir’s only surgery had been in Campo Grande, four hours away. No one with money would ever voluntarily submit themselves to the hospital in Corumbá. “How is he?”

“I think he’s fine.”

“Stay with him.”

“I don’t work for you anymore, Mr. Valdir.”

“Yes, but there is the matter of the boat.”

“I can’t raise it. I didn’t sink it. A storm did. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to watch Mr. O’Riley.”

“He needs money. Can you wire it in for him?”

“I suppose.”

“And he needs a passport. He lost everything.”

“Just watch him. I’ll take care of the details.”

________

THE FEVER returned quietly during the night, warming his face as he slept, taking its time as it built momentum for the havoc to come. Its calling card was a row of tiny pellets of sweat lined perfectly above the eyebrows, then sweat in the hair that rested on the pillow. It simmered while he slept, stewing, preparing to erupt. It sent tremors, little waves of chills, through his body, but he was fatigued and there were the remnants of so many chemicals that he kept sleeping. It built pressure behind his eyes, so that when he did open them he would want to scream. It drained the fluids from his mouth.

Nate finally groaned. He felt the vicious pounding of a jackhammer between his temples. When he opened his eyes, death awaited him. He was in a pool of sweat, his face on fire, his knees and elbows bending in pain. “Jevy,” he whispered. “Jevy!”

Jevy hit the switch for the table lamp between them, and Nate groaned even louder. “Turn that off!” he said. Jevy ran to the bathroom and found a less direct source of light. For the ordeal, he had purchased bottled water, ice, aspirin, over-the-counter pain medications, and a thermometer. He thought he was prepared.

An hour passed and Jevy counted every minute of it. The
fever climbed to 102; the chills came in waves so violent that the small bed rattled and shook on the floor. When Nate wasn’t shaking, Jevy stuffed pills in his mouth and poured down water. He soaked his face with wet towels. Nate suffered in silence, bravely gritting his teeth so that the pain was quiet. He was determined to suffer through the fevers in the relative luxury of the small hotel room. Every time he wanted to scream, he remembered the cracked plaster and smells of the hospital.

At 4 A.M., the fever climbed to 103, and Nate began to drift away. His knees almost touched his chin. His arms were wrapped around his calves. He held himself tightly. Then a chill would hit and untangle him as his body shuddered.

The last temperature reading was 105, and Jevy knew at some point his friend would go into shock. He finally panicked, not from the temperature, but from the sight of sweat dripping from the bedsheets onto the floor. His friend had suffered enough. There were better drugs at the hospital.

He found a janitor asleep on the third floor, and together they dragged Nate to the elevator, through the empty lobby, and to his truck. He called Valdir at 6 A.M., waking him.

When Valdir finished cursing Jevy, he agreed to call the doctor.

THIRTY-SEVEN
_____________

T
he treatment was phoned in from the doctor’s bed. Fill the IV bag with lots of goodies, poke the needle in his arm, try to find a better room. The rooms were full, so they simply left him in the hall of the men’s ward, near a messy desk they called the nurses’ station. At least they couldn’t ignore him. Jevy was asked to leave. There was nothing he could do but wait.

At one point in the morning, during a lull in other activities, an orderly appeared with a pair of scissors. He cut off the new gym shorts and the new red tee shirt, and replaced them with another yellow gown. In the process Nate lay naked on the bed for five full minutes, in plain view of everyone passing by. No one noticed; Nate certainly didn’t care. The sheets were changed because they were soaked. The rags that had been the shorts and shirt were thrown away, and once again Nate O’Riley had no clothes.

If he shook too much or moaned too loud, the nearest doctor or nurse or orderly would gently open the IV. And when he was snoring too loud, someone would close it a little.

A cancer death created an opening. Nate was rolled into the nearest room where he was parked between a worker who’d just lost a foot and a man dying from kidney failure. The doctor saw him twice during the day. The fever wavered between 102 and 104. Valdir stopped by late in the afternoon for a chat but Nate was not awake. He reported the day’s events to Mr. Stafford, who was not pleased.

“The doctor says this is normal,” Valdir said, speaking into his cell phone in the hallway. “Mr. O’Riley will be fine.”

“Don’t let him die, Valdir,” Josh growled from America.

Money was being wired. They were working on the passport.

________

ONCE AGAIN the IV bag dripped itself empty, and no one noticed. Hours passed and the drugs gradually wore off. It was pitch dark, the middle of the night, and there was no movement from the other three beds when Nate finally shook off the cobwebs of his coma and showed signs of life. He could barely see his roommates. The door was open and there was a faint light down the hallway. No voices, no feet shuffling by.

He touched his gown—drenched from the sweat—and realized he was again naked underneath. He rubbed his swollen eyes and tried to straighten his cramped legs. His forehead was very hot. He was thirsty and could not remember his last meal. He tried not to move for fear of waking those around him. Surely a nurse would stop by soon.

The sheets were wet, so when the chills began again there was no way to get warm. He shook and vibrated, rubbing his arms and legs, his teeth clapping together. After the chills stopped, he tried to sleep and managed a few naps as the night wore on, but
when it was darkest the fever rose again. His temples pounded so hard that Nate began to cry. He wrapped the pillow around his head and squeezed as hard as he could.

In the darkness of the room, a silhouette entered and moved from bed to bed, finally stopping beside Nate’s. She watched him flounder and fight under the sheets, his low moans muffled by the pillow. She touched him gently on the arm. “Nate,” she whispered.

Under normal circumstances, he would have been startled. But hallucinating had become a common symptom. He lowered the pillow to his chest and tried to focus on the figure.

“It’s Rachel,” she whispered.

“Rachel?” he whispered, his breathing labored. He tried to sit up, then tried to open his eyes with his fingers. “Rachel?”

“I’m here, Nate. God sent me to protect you.”

He reached for her face and she took his hand. She kissed his palm. “You are not going to die, Nate,” she said. “God has plans for you.”

He could say nothing. Slowly his eyes adjusted and he could see her. “It’s you,” he said. Or was it another dream?

He reclined again, resting his head on the pillow, relaxing as his muscles unclenched themselves and his joints became loose. He closed his eyes, but still held her hand. The pounding behind his eyes faded. The heat left his forehead and face. The fever had sapped his strength, and he drifted away again, into a deep sleep induced not by chemicals but by sheer exhaustion.

He dreamed of angels—white-robed young maidens floating in the clouds above him, there to protect him, humming hymns he’d never heard but that somehow seemed familiar.

________

HE LEFT the hospital at noon the next day, armed with his doctor’s orders and accompanied by Jevy and Valdir. There was no
trace of fever, no rash, just a little soreness in the joints and muscles. He insisted on leaving, and the doctor readily concurred. The doctor was happy to be rid of him.

The first stop was a restaurant where he consumed a large bowl of rice and a plate of boiled potatoes. He avoided the steaks and chops. Jevy did not. They were both still hungry from their adventure. Valdir sipped coffee, smoked his cigarettes, and watched them eat.

No one had seen Rachel come and go at the hospital. Nate had whispered the secret to Jevy, who had inquired of the nurses and maids. After lunch, Jevy left them and began roaming downtown on foot, searching for her. He went to the river where he talked to deckhands on the last cattle boat. She had not traveled with them. The fishermen hadn’t seen her. No one seemed to know anything about the arrival of a white woman from the Pantanal.

In Valdir’s office, alone, Nate dialed the number of the Stafford Law Firm, a number he had trouble remembering. They pulled Josh out of a meeting. “Talk to me, Nate,” he said. “How are you?”

“The fever is gone,” he said, rocking in Valdir’s easy chair. “I feel fine. A little sore and tired, but I feel good.”

“You sound great. I want you home.”

“Give me a couple of days.”

“I’m sending a jet down, Nate. It will leave tonight.”

“No. Don’t do that, Josh. That’s not a good idea. I’ll get there whenever I want.”

“Okay. Tell me about the woman, Nate.”

“We found her. She is the illegitimate daughter of Troy Phelan, and she has no interest in the money.”

“So how did you talk her into taking it?”

“Josh, you don’t talk this woman into anything. I tried, got nowhere, so I stopped.”

“Come on, Nate. Nobody walks away from this kind of money. Surely you talked some sense into her.”

“Not even close, Josh. She is the happiest person I’ve ever met, perfectly content to spend the rest of her life working among her people. It’s where God wants her to be.”

“She signed the papers though?”

“Nope.”

There was a long pause as Josh absorbed it. “You must be kidding,” he finally said, barely audible in Brazil.

“Nope. Sorry, boss. I tried my best to convince her to at least sign the papers, but she wouldn’t budge. She’ll never sign them.”

“Did she read the will?”

“Yes.”

“And you told her it was eleven billion dollars?”

“Yep. She lives alone in a hut with a thatched roof, no plumbing, no electricity, simple food and clothes, no phones or faxes, and no concern about the things she’s missing. She’s in the Stone Age, Josh, right where she wants to be, and money would change that.”

“It’s incomprehensible.”

“I thought so too, and I was there.”

“Is she bright?”

“She’s a doctor, Josh, an M.D. And she has a degree from a seminary. She speaks five languages.”

“A doctor?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t talk about medical practice litigation.”

“You said she was lovely.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, on the phone two days ago. I think you were stoned.”

“I was, and she is.”

“So you liked her?”

“We became friends.” It would serve no purpose to tell Josh that she was in Corumbá. Nate hoped to find her quickly and, while in civilization, try to discuss Troy’s estate.

“It was quite an adventure,” Nate said. “To say the least.”

“I’ve lost sleep worrying about you.”

“Relax. I’m still in one piece.”

“I wired five thousand dollars. Valdir has it.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“Call me tomorrow.”

Valdir invited him to dinner, but he declined. He collected the money and left on foot, loose again on the streets of Corumbá. His first stop was a clothing store where he bought underwear, safari shorts, plain white tee shirts, and hiking boots. By the time he hauled his new wardrobe four blocks to the Palace Hotel, Nate was exhausted. He slept for two hours.

________

JEVY FOUND no trace of Rachel. He watched the crowds on the busy streets. He talked to the river people he knew so well, and heard nothing about her arrival. He walked through the lobbies of the downtown hotels and flirted with the receptionists. No one had seen an American woman of forty-two traveling alone.

As the afternoon wore on, Jevy doubted his friend’s story. Dengue makes you see things, makes you hear voices, makes you believe in ghosts, especially in the night. But he kept searching.

Nate roamed too, after his nap and another meal. He walked slowly, pacing himself, trying to keep in the shade and always with a bottle of water in hand. He rested on the bluff above the river, the majesty of the Pantanal spread before him for hundreds of miles.

Fatigue hit him hard, and he limped back to the hotel for another rest. He slept again, and when he awoke Jevy was tapping on the door. They had promised to meet for dinner at seven. It was after eight, and when Jevy entered the room he immediately began looking for empty bottles. There were none.

They ate roasted chicken at a sidewalk café. The night was alive with music and foot traffic. Couples with small children bought ice cream and drifted back home. Teenagers moved in packs with no apparent destination. The bars spilled outdoors, to the edges of the streets. Young men and women moved from one bar to the next. The streets were warm and safe; no one seemed concerned about getting shot or mugged.

At a nearby table, a man drank a cold Brahma beer from a brown bottle, and Nate watched every sip.

After dessert, they said good-bye and promised to meet early for another day of searching. Jevy went one direction, Nate another. He was rested, and tired of beds.

Two blocks away from the river, and the streets were quieter. The shops were closed; the homes were dark; traffic was lighter. Ahead, he saw the lights of a small chapel. That, he said almost aloud, is where she’ll be.