Restless Soul - Alex Archer [50]
ANNJA AWOKE ON THE SAME table Zakkarat had occupied, a coarse blanket draped over her, another folded blanket serving as a pillow. Her head pounded, her right arm ached terribly and her right leg felt…nothing. She propped herself up on her elbows.
“Hello, there.” A man well into his middle years tended her numb leg. “I expected you to be out for quite some time longer, Miss—”
“Creed,” she replied. Her tongue felt thick and unwieldy. She opened her mouth to speak again, but one of the villagers held a ladle up to her lips and encouraged her to drink. The mixture was a pulpy, fruity nectar that tasted sweet and went down her throat slowly.
“Well, Miss Creed.”
“Annja. Call me Annja.” She nodded her thanks to the villager. “And you are?”
She had other questions on her mind…where was Luartaro’s body, where was Zakkarat, what about the gunmen…where were the two thugs she’d left alive? How long had she been out? It was still raining; she could hear it rhythmically strike the roof. It didn’t sound quite so hard as earlier.
Someone had brought a lantern or two into the schoolroom, the glow filled with gnats and illuminating the concerned faces of the villagers and the craggy visage of the doctor. She remembered Zakkarat saying someone had gone to get a doctor who lived nearby. A white man, though well tanned. He was clearly not Thai.
“Nigel Willingson…or Doc as the Thins call me.”
British or Australian from the sound of his accent. She could better pinpoint it when he talked more. “Thank you for taking care of me, Dr. Willingson. Where are—”
“Nigel will do, or just Doc. Nothing formal for me anymore. Doc, actually—I prefer that.”
Definitely British, Annja decided.
He glanced over his shoulder at a broad-shouldered woman with a careworn face and spoke quickly in what Annja assumed was the Thins language. “They want to know why the men came after you. What you did to make those men so angry they would shoot you…and kill little Kiet’s dog. They want to know where you came from and when you will be leaving. These are a peaceful people, Miss Creed.”
“Annja,” she said. “Nothing so formal for me, either.”
He smiled, revealing crooked teeth stained yellow by smoking. “We can deal with their questions later… Annja. Right now I need to deal with your wounds. I’ve already plucked three bullets out of your calf. I have one left to go. They tore into your muscle and did some damage, but nothing you can’t recover from. It certainly could have been much worse. You could have lost the leg. And I want to get those bamboo splinters out of your arm. Give you a tetanus shot just in case…or have you had one recently? There’s a good risk of infection, all the mud and muck you were rolling in. Have you had a tetanus shot?” He didn’t wait for her answer, sticking a needle into her leg. “Then I need to see to your friend.”
“My—”
“Mr. Larto.” He butchered Luartaro’s name.
Her heart leaped. “He’s not dead? Lu is—”
“Ah, Lu…much easier to pronounce. I like that, Lu. No, he’s not dead. But he does have a concussion. He’s on another table, er, desk. You can’t see him for all the Thins. Nearly half the village has managed to fit in here. Curious, they are. Your Lu said one of those bad men hit him hard on the top of his head with a machine-gun stock. I have him resting. You’re my immediate concern.” He spoke more to the broad-shouldered Thins woman, punctuating his speech with a clacking sound that a few others nearby echoed. “Yes, we’ll deal with their questions shortly, Annja. I want to finish patching you up and make sure you’re cleaned up properly and are strong enough to travel. We need