Noble Hearts (Wild Hearts Romance Book 3) (19 page)

Together
. I accepted now that it meant not just Kayla and me.

As we closed in on the checkpoint, it hit me just how tall an order
together
would really be. For that, I didn’t have to look any further than to Kayla, from the tight lines at the corner of her frown to the hollow scorn in her eyes. It was the look of someone determined to fight in the face of news the cancer they have is terminal. A look of inevitability, of pragmatism warring with bravery, all backlit by a spark of eternal hope. It was, I realized, her normal look of resolve.

One of the attendings who’d taught me, a stern woman in her mid-60s, had once pointed to a patient with that same expression. “Take a good look,” she’d directed the handful of us tagging at her heels. “That’s the face of a miracle waiting to be made, not just happen. Of someone who’s going to stare down the odds and prove your prognosis wrong. The 1 in a 1000, 1 in 10,000 or 1 in a million patient is the one that never loses that quiet determination. If you can only go the extra mile for one patient, don’t choose the one full of fear or the one wearing a mask of false bravado or the one waiting for something outside themselves to save them. Choose
that
one.”

I recalled vividly the doctor’s face when that patient died three weeks later. It was the face of someone who’d gone the extra mile…and lost. But it was also the face of someone without regret and who’d give more than their all again for the next patient determined to make their own miracle.

It was one of those life moments that sneak up on you and in a single flash of brightest epiphany become a truth so gut-deep you never forget.

Nothing was ever guaranteed in life—sometimes the bad guys finished first. But for the right person, you’d keep fighting.

Kayla had become that for me—the right person.

We’d make our opportunities here, our own miracle—together.

Damned if I knew how, though.

Damned if she knew either, I bet, but her look of resolve never faltered. Not even when the checkpoint came into view ahead—a natural tree-dotted clearing to either side of the road already littered with the bulks of vehicles forcibly abandoned. Military jeeps with gun mounts and gum-smacking gunners poised over them wove in and around, canopied from the rain by high tarps slung between the trees. Under a lower canopy to the east several dozen people sat on the ground surrounded by guards with AK-47s. The attempt at handmade uniforms was only half-successful, but the red armbands worn by all the militia united them—DRC and Ushindi alike. My jaw hardened, my skin went cold, and my side throbbed anew with the remembered feel of a bullet when I recalled the last run-in I’d had with men in red armbands.

I didn’t realize my breathing had roughened too until I felt Kayla’s eyes on me. “You going to be okay?” she asked, and the tension in her voice made me wonder why she was asking me that when I should have been asking it of her.

“Yeah. I’m just remembering why I’m so pissed at them. You?”

“I’m thinking about how much they’re about to piss me off.”

Nice rational responses. That boded well. Not. But anger would stand us in infinitely better stead than fear. Wouldn’t it? Was it really better to be a brave dead fool than a live coward?

Not that they would kill us right away, of course.

There was a possibility, too, that ours would be among the vehicles allowed to turn around and head back…where? To Hasa? It looked like maybe only the occupants of one in five vehicles were being detained and forced under the heavily guarded canopy. Under normal circumstances the odds would be in our favor.

Unfortunately, there was nothing normal about us or our circumstances.

A dozen cars ahead, a woman wailed and a man shouted as patrols dragged them from their car and prodded them toward the group of detainees. They were well-dressed—a businessman and his wife, no doubt, both on the youngish side and well-to-do, just the types of recruits the Democrat militia would prize.

The woman’s wails betrayed her fear as a soldier pushed her forward with the butt of his rifle, she stumbling along in front, knees giving way with each terrified step.

The businessman, though, was resisting.

“Stupid fool,” I muttered when he swung around and made a grab for his soldier’s weapon. He had his hands on the rifle, tussling for control, when one, two, three other rifles cracked loud. In the echo of the thunder above, the man jerked, twisted and fell.

The woman plunged to her knees, her wails redoubled with grief and fear.

Gus whimpered and Jengo whirled and wrapped his arms around my neck.

The shock that reverberated along the line of waiting cars was palpable. A door clicked open, closing rapidly when a soldier pointed his rifle that way. The growl of straining engines seemed to grow louder and louder...

“Look!” Kayla pointed back to the southwest where a squadron of low-flying helicopters
thwocked
our way.

“Reinforcements?”

A welcome
rat-a-tat
of automatic gun fire said otherwise.

“They’re not rescue, either,” Kayla was quick to point out. With a flick, she cut the engine, then reached behind to the jumpseat where we’d stocked our bug-out supplies—bottles, formula, food, cash, deeds, jewelry, rifles and ammo.

We grabbed a backpack and rifle each as the helicopters swooped in and the gun mounts on the jeeps erupted in automatic fire.

“We have to move. Now!” Kayla shouted above the gunfire and the storm.

Other occupants up and down the line had the same idea as men, women and children swarmed from their vehicles. We could lose ourselves in the sudden chaos and be safe.

Could…if it weren’t for certain four-legged responsibilities we had to make a decision about now.

No.
I
was the only one who had to make that decision. Kayla was already scrambling out her door and around to the back of the van with a firm, “Stay close,” command thrown over her shoulder to the Rottweiler following on her heels.

The gorilla baby screeched his loud desire to follow them, then suddenly his face was in mine, wide, dark eyes pleading and pouting lips anxious. In that moment, I understood completely what drove Kayla. The face staring back at me was no less vibrant, no less alive, no less deserving of my help than any human child. There was no decision to be made here. There was only follow-through to be done.

Scooping Jengo close till he clung to me on his own, I grabbed my backpack, ammo and rifle and headed for the back to join Kayla.

The cargo doors were already swinging open when I got there. The van’s springs were old, the lip of the cargo floor low, no more than thigh-high. Inside, the youngsters shivered with fright, huddled up against the hay bales.

“Come along,
watoto
,” Kayla encouraged.

A jeep’s gas tank exploded up the line, and Tamu and Nyota renewed their cowering. I swung into the back with them, urgently and firmly herding them toward the open doorway. The long-legged okapi, surely part gazelle, took the leap first. Whether or not she would have fled in panic was moot when Gus shouldered into her to block her running.

With the SUV behind us too close to consider putting the ramp in place, our short-legged rhino was going to have to make the leap of faith on her own as well, with encouragement from Kayla and me.

“Go on girl, fly!” I kneed her rump firmly from behind while Kayla tugged her shoulders from the front.

With a decidedly un-gazelle-like leap, Tamu half-jumped, half-fell out of the van with Kayla taking part of her weight to steady her landing and protect her legs and knees. The rhino’s short, thin tail swished rapidly, probably in fear but I wanted to believe it was out of pride for her accomplishment.

Out of all the necessities we’d so carefully packed into the back of the van, I grabbed a length of rope before jumping out. Most of the other occupants who had fled their vehicles were already out of sight, swallowed up by the rain and jungle. Further down the line, away from the fighting, some of the vehicles were turning back for Hasa and making a run for it. Cars and panic, however, were never a good mix. Horns blared and the distinct
bam-bam-bam
and
crunch
of numerous vehicles colliding behind us rivaled the crack of rifles and thunder of helicopters ahead.

I froze. Casualties from soldiers fighting was one thing—especially if those soldiers meant harm to me and mine. Accident victims, though, that was another thing altogether.

Kayla saw me hesitate as I stared behind us. “Bumper cars,” she said. “No one’s going fast enough back there to get more than a bruise.  As for the rest, they’ll either get away or be stuck like us. There’s nothing you can do about that either way. We’re getting out of here.” And by
we
she meant her strays and her. “I want you with us. I need you with us. But you have to make the decision now.”  She held out her arms, the rifle in its sling swaying awkwardly at her side. Gus was still keeping the rhino and okapi herded together but as fidgety as they were, it was clear they could bolt at any time.

Almost overhead an engine exploded and, trailing a plume of black smoke, one of the helicopters fell from the sky, breaking apart on impact to cheers from the Red soldiers on the ground.

That moment, more than any other, galvanized me, made me realize we weren’t necessarily going to be saved by the cavalry flying in like some last-minute
deus-ex-machina
. We had to get as far the hell away from here as we could as fast as we could.

Kayla’s reaching arms could have meant a lot of things. For half a second I imagined them imploring me into them, to wrap ourselves together as defense against the world. A nice fantasy, but what she actually wanted was for me to hand over Jengo if I decided to stay and let myself be captured and pressed into service—or be held a hostage to ransom for American dollars.

Kayla was right; there was little I could do here as a doctor without the tools of my trade. And my status as a doctor and an American was a liability here, not an asset. Clutching Jengo close, I shook my head, my decision made. “I’m coming with you.” She wanted me, needed me.

More, I wanted her, needed her.

The little gorilla brushed the back of his hand against my cheek.

Needed
this
.

We ran.

Or rather we slogged quickly through the mud and undergrowth with branches and vines slapping us in our faces and roots and deadfall tripping us up as we fled.

Well, tripping Kayla and me up—even the rhino was remarkably agile in the jungle. And more me than Kayla, if I left my ego out of it. In fact, Jengo got so disgusted with my clumsy attempt at running, he threw himself out of my arms and knuckle-ran alongside me, presumably to show me how it was done.

The rhino and okapi amazed me yet again, following Kayla along as obediently as ducklings without need of my rope or Gus’s encouragement.

“My biggest worry,” I panted at Kayla, “was keeping the beasties close enough to handle. Looks like you’ve got that under control.”

“Nature won’t let them get too far away,” Kayla said, and I wondered where the strain from exercise in
her
voice was. “They’re imprinted.”

Was that why I was following her too? Was that why it hurt to think of
not
following her? Had I imprinted on her?

It might not have been good time we were making in the rainforest, but we were putting distance between ourselves and the sound of battle dissipating behind us. I thought we would surely run into other refugees, but it was a wide jungle and there was no single destination in this direction toward which we were all heading.

“I bet most folk are turning back south to Hasa,” I said when we’d dropped back to a walk after what felt like 20 miles but in reality was probably not even one. It was still raining—we could hear the beat of the rain on the forest canopy above, but the leaves were thick enough and the rain light enough it felt more like a drizzle here at ground level. “Do we have some sort of plan now?”

The dark eyes Kayla turned on me were raw and bruised. Because she was so strong otherwise, it was easy to forget how vulnerable she could be too. Twice now she had driven or walked away from the things in her life that kept her grounded, not knowing if she’d ever see them again or return to the life she and her parents and their parents had made for her. Somehow, I’d get back to my home in the States. I might be captured and ransomed first, and it might be weeks ahead, but the monthly draft from my bank account assured my apartment and all my belongings would still be there when I returned. And even if not, my parents would be there to welcome me in. My roots would not be lost.

Yet here I was expecting answers, decisions, leadership from a woman who was still reeling from her parents’ deaths, from the impending death of a friend, from being abandoned by everyone else she depended on, and from having to abandon her home and memories. Where was the line between respect for equality and the mercy of sharing a heavy burden? I was more than willing to step up to the line and be a man, but society and the woman I mostly knew kept moving that line and redefining it until I had lost complete sight of it.

“Uganda.” I didn’t know I had said it until I heard the word strong in my own ears. “Across the Mountains of the Moon.” We’d talked about it before, and we were already heading east, so why not? “Every other border will be watched. But who would be crazy enough to cross the mountains in this weather and as unprepared as we are?”

Just to our north. A helicopter
thwocked
low and slow over the forest canopy. “Reds or Yellows?” I asked, expecting that shake of Kayla’s head. “If we can’t tell friend from foe until they’re on top of us, then out best course is to not let anyone get on top.”

“Why would you think just because the incumbent party aren’t the enemy that makes them our friends? If it comes to civil war, both sides will need property, money and recruits. We’ll all be pawns. No one will be safe.”

“If it comes to civil war…” I repeated.

“Ushindi will be lost to the DRC. The Congo is too old, too powerful, too practiced as a militant country. It will swallow up a divided Ushindi as easily as a lion swallows up a tiny hyrax. If we are found, it won’t matter which side finds us.”

“Then let’s not be found. Not till we’re over the mountains and safe in Uganda.” I tried not to think about the trial ahead making it across 50 or 60 miles of rainforested mountains—jungle, really—when another thought struck. “Uganda
is
still safe?”

Kayla shrugged—not in a brusque
who knows and who cares
kind of way, but in a small
who knows but what can we do about it
way. “Safer than here, I would think. They’re not going to get into a war with the DRC. Not over Ushindi and its refugees. But you’re American. That will get you amnesty.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been a Ushindi refugee in Uganda before.”

I deserved the sharp look and the sharp tone. It was like asking me what the United States would do with the refugees if the rest of Mexico invaded Baja California. How the hell would I know what policies might be implemented and whether the refugees would be granted political asylum and be welcomed with open arms, or be classified as potential unfriendlies and be deported right back to Mexico to be dealt with by the Mexican government.

“Safer it is then.” I kept my tone neutral by way of apology.

“We just have to survive a week in the jungle,” Kayla pointed out, “cross over the third highest mountain range in Africa, then find Kasese without a map or GPS on the other side. That is, if we can avoid the leopards and poisonous snakes and climbing too high into the cold for the clothes we have along the way. None of which will matter, of course, if we contract the
Subs
virus first.”

Safer
, it seemed, had a whole different translation in Africa.