Page 75 of Duty Preserved

“You’ve been in the middle of this for hours, and nobody’s thought about you. I’m thinking about you now. Go.”

He held my gaze for a second. Then he nodded once and walked toward the bunkhouse.

I stood there briefly.

The camp had gone still.

This place felt smaller than it had been this morning.

I turned back toward the mess tent. Sarah was where I’d left her. Sitting at the table with the mug in her hands, the tea going cold. Her eyes faced outward, but I could tell her mind was still inward.

I walked toward her.

Chapter 20

Sarah

I picked up the syringe for the third time.

The vial of long-acting antibiotic sat on the counter where I’d left it, label facing me. The dosage I needed was written in my own handwriting on the chart clipped to the wall above it. Ten milligrams per kilogram. I’d drawn this dosage a thousand times. My hands knew the work, but today, my brain was two hundred kilometers south in a Nairobi hospital.

I drew the plunger back. Stopped. Set the syringe down on the steel tray beside the vial and walked to the recovery pen.

The young eland was standing, which was good. His laceration was closing well, and he’d been putting weight on the leg since yesterday. I checked his water. The trough was full. His feed was half eaten. I picked up the chart hanging from the pen rail and wrote the time and the water level. Then I stood there with the pen against the paper, unable to remember what came next.

I knew what came next. Temperature, respiration, appetite score. I’d written this sequence every morning since I’d been here.

I hung the chart back on the rail and went to the supply shelf instead. Counted the gauze packs. Twelve. Counted them again. Still twelve. Moved two from the back to the front because the older stock should rotate forward. Then I stood in front of the shelf with my hands at my sides and nothing left to pretend to do.

The satellite phone sat on its charger at the end of the counter. The camp’s one line out. It lived here because the vet facility had the most reliable power, and it stayed plugged in because I kept it plugged in. It hadn’t rung in twenty-four hours.

What we knew: Alyson made it to Nairobi alive. There had been surgery. Past that, nothing. We didn’t know whether she’d made it through the surgery or whether she’d wake up. Information didn’t come back out of a Nairobi hospital to a bush camp quickly.

Donovan’s hand settled between my shoulder blades.

“Sit down,” he said. “Eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I know.”

His thumb moved once against my spine. He’d been here since dawn. When I froze over a task or lost my place in a chart, his hand found the back of my neck. He hadn’t said much. The steadiness was his body beside mine, not a speech.

I went back to the counter. Picked up the syringe. Drew the plunger back, watched the liquid rise in the barrel, and set it down again because the number on the vial blurred and I couldn’t tell if I’d drawn eight or ten.

The satellite phone rang.

I was across the room with it in my hand before the first ring ended.

“Hello?”

“Sarah? It’s Cole. Alyson is alive and stable.”

My free hand found the counter edge and gripped it. Everything I’d been holding for twenty-four hours left my body in a single breath.

I hit the speaker button and set the phone on the counter so Donovan could hear.

“Say that again.”