She pulled her shirttail from the waistband of her pants and used her teeth to tear a strip from it, pressing it against the cut on Liam’s scalp and securing it in place with another strip.
“Wake up, O’Shea!” She slapped his taut cheek lightly—the same side of his face she’d slugged before. “Come on. You think I’m going to let you do this?”
He made a sound that might have been a groan.
“That’s right. You going to go down without a fight, Lucky Liam? You worked your way up out of poverty and got rich just to die in some sticky jungle? Huh?”
His lids twitched. His left hand flexed almost imperceptibly. She reached for it and laced her fingers through his, squeezing hard. “You’re the most arrogant son of a bitch I’ve ever met, but I took a hell of a risk to save your life. You owe me, O’Shea, and I’m going to collect, one way or another.”
“Señorita?”
She looked up, expecting a guerrilla or a rifle aimed at her heart. But it was Fernando, his expression anxious and his attention fixed on Liam.
“Thank God you’re here, Fernando. He’s been injured. Uh, el tiene—We need to get him back to camp. Campo. Can you help me?” She pantomimed lifting Liam. “Ayudeme?”
Fernando crouched beside her, touching the blood on Liam’s forehead. “Vamos, señorita.”
Even without a common language they understood each other. Mac positioned herself at Liam’s feet to help lift him and caught a glimpse of sunlight on metal, dancing at the corner of her gaze.
Not a rifle. Not a weapon at all, but something silvery bright against the foliage, caught on a branch by a metal chain. She reached out and snagged the chain, lifting it free.
A watch. An engraved watch, finely made and definitely of Western origin. But she had no time to examine it. She stuffed it in her pants pocket and took up her place at Liam’s feet again. As one, she and Fernando bent to lift him. The jungle had fallen mute again save for the occasional call of a bird or monkey. Mac hoped she’d been right about the guerrillas being gone for good.
With grunts and pants she and Fernando maneuvered Liam’s considerable weight along the narrow trail. It felt like far more than a few hundred yards to camp, and Mac was soaking wet by the time they reached the tent. Fernando propped Liam awkwardly while Mac opened the tent flap. Another major effort got him onto the cot.
Mac’s reward was to see Liam stirring at last, lifting his hand toward his head. He groaned again. Mac caught his hand to keep it away from the hastily bandaged cut. “Fernando, do you have, uh—medicine? Medicina?”
Fernando nodded and turned toward the pile of supplies in the corner of the tent. He came back with a length of soft cloth and a dark bottle and some kind of primitive atomizer. “Agua,” he said, left the tent, and returned with a battered pan of water. It wasn’t hot, but it was better than nothing.
The contents of the bottle had a very strong odor, and not one that Mac recognized. A little plastic bottle of Bactine would have come in very handy about now.
But Fernando, at least, knew what he was doing. He used a tin cup to pour out a measure of water and mixed it with a little of the contents of the bottle, then filled the atomizer. He gestured to Liam and made motions of unwrapping.
Mac followed his pantomimed instructions and removed the makeshift bandage. The bleeding had stopped. Fernando sprayed the cut and dabbed it with a piece of cloth. Some kind of antiseptic, she guessed; not something that would have been in common use in the 1800s, but damned helpful now. The cut didn’t appear deep enough to need stitches, though Liam was going to have a nice goose egg in a few hours.
Liam grunted and twitched as Mac tore more cloth strips and completed bathing the wound. She made better work of the bandage the next time around.
“There,” she said, grinning at Fernando. “Finished.”
He nodded. “Bien hecho.” He studied Liam, laying his hand on his chest. “Estará bien, solo tiene que decansar.”