Canyon of the Sphinx (12 page)

He didn’t hesitate, but the tears
were back. “I swear it.”

“Thank you. Marcus?”

“What?”

“I love you. Of everything I’ve
ever done in my life, you are my biggest, best achievement. Never forget that.”

His eyes overflowed. “Oh,
Kathlyn….”

The phone crackled and went dead.
Frustrated, Marcus demolished it with his bare hands.

CHAPTER
SIX

Pain on this level was a new
experience to Kathlyn. Having given birth to three children, she was acquainted
with agony that took over her entire body, but this was different. It was as if
her entire leg was in a red-hot vise, squeezing and torturing her until she
couldn’t stand it any longer. Even though the leg was elevated and they had
given her pain medication and what diuretics they could to ease the swelling,
her right leg looked like it belonged to someone else. It was horribly swollen
from the knee down and the underside of it, where the snake had actually bit
her, was one giant blood blister. Debra Jo had finally taken to draping a towel
over it so she couldn’t see it. It was horrifying.

Kathlyn awoke from a long,
drug-induced sleep into agonizing pain. Sweat covered her face and she heard
herself groan. It was dark outside, the sounds of creatures filling the night
air. She was in a long room that normally took about eight patients, but had
been closed off specifically for her. Mark and Debra Jo were sleeping in the
other beds while Otis, Larry and Andy were taking the night watch, keeping the
world’s media at bay outside.

The reporters and cameras had
descended on the little town when Valentine and Desroches got off a May-Day to
the press that Kathlyn Trent was dying. Even though they had exaggerated it a
bit, still, the world’s press had gone crazy. Even the paparazzi had showed up,
trying to catch a glimpse of her for the tabloids. Kathlyn had a small
television at her disposal and so far, she had been one of the top three
stories on every news cast for the past two days. That would have been exciting
enough had the circumstances not been so awful.

It was quiet in the ward except
for Mark’s snoring. Sweating and groaning, Kathlyn struggled to shift herself
around so she could make herself more comfortable. In the process, she bumped
an elbow propped up on the side her bed. Christopher, snapped out of a deep
sleep, almost came crashing down beside her.

“Dr. Trent?” he was groggy but
alert. “What’s wrong?”

“This is killing me,” she rasped.
“What are you doing here?”

“We were taking turns staying up
with you. Guess I kind of failed at sentry duty.”

His attempt at humor went
unappreciated. Kathlyn was only focused on her pain at the moment. “Damn, this
hurts,” she groaned.

  “Do I need to get the doctor?”

She looked over at him; he was
wide-eyed and she could just read the guilt in his eyes. Still guilty, as if
this had all been his fault.

  “No,” she softened after a
moment. “I’m just trying to get comfortable. My butt is hurting like crazy from
lying here for two days and if I had a knife, I swear I’d cut my own leg off.”

Christopher stood up, looking at
the contraption holding her leg up. “Do you want me to adjust this so there’s
not so much strain on your leg?”

“I don’t think it will help,” she
grunted. “I can't believe how bad this hurts.”

“Let me get the doctor.”

Christopher turned away but she
stopped him. “Don’t bother. They gave me a shot only two hours ago.
Paracetamol, or something like that. They can’t give me anymore for another
hour. Besides, I don’t think that stuff is helping anyway.”

Christopher stood there, unsure
what to do. She was so white, like a corpse, and the brilliant green eyes were
lifeless.  “What can I do?” He felt helpless.

Kathlyn looked up at him, feeling
pity for the man. Remorse was written all over his face. A crooked smile
creased her lips. “Why you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you still
hanging out with me? You’ve got a dig to oversee.”

“Are you kidding? I can’t get to
my truck without those press people out there descending on me like locusts. I
might as well stay here.”

“And I thought it was because you
were concerned.”

“No way. I want to see if you’re
going to make it out of this so I know whether or not to prepare for lawsuit.”

Kathlyn actually giggled. “You’re
all heart.”

The problem with her leg, other
than the obvious, was also that it was still mobile. Unlike a broken limb being
mobilized, it was still very functional. She had moved it, unknowingly, on
several occasions and nearly sent herself through the roof. This was another of
those occasions, as her laughing inadvertently caused her to move her leg, and
she bit off a scream as the back of her leg brushed against the sling.
Christopher grasped her ankle and thigh to stop the painful momentum. They had
all been through this drill before.  She clutched at the bed, but he gave her
his other hand instead. She squeezed his fingers until they turned blue.

Kathlyn swallowed hard, trying
not to pass out from the agony. But tears sprang to her eyes and she couldn’t
help the sobs.

“Oh, God,” she breathed. “This is
going to kill me, I know it.”

Christopher held the leg still,
making sure there was no more movement. “Are you sure you don't want me to have
the doctor adjust the sling? It might help.”

“It’s not the damn sling,” she let
go of his hand and wiped tears from her eyes. “It’s that blister on the back of
it. That’s where all the pain is coming from.”

Christopher wasn’t any good at
handling someone else’s agony and compensated with is usual dry wit. “Okay,
that’s it. Where’s the knife? I’m cutting the leg off myself and be done with
it.”

Through her tears, she smiled.
“Now that’s exactly what I need. A quack archaeologist operating on me.”

“Hey, my background is Pre-Med. I
can do as good a job amputating your leg as I can at carving a turkey. I’m a
whiz at Thanksgiving.”

His distraction tactics were
working. “That’s awful,” she muttered. “Get away from me, you nut.”

There was a plastic knife beside
the bed, left over from the dinner she had only picked at. He wielded it in his
best imitation of the ‘Psycho’ movie shower scene.

“Put that thing down before you
hurt somebody,” she told him.

Christopher grinned and dutifully
put the knife down. “Well, at least you forgot about the pain for a minute.”

Her smile faded. “For a minute.”
Looking at her elevated leg, she pulled the towel off. The cracked, swollen
skin looked horrible and she could partially see the black blister on the rear
of the leg. She sighed at the sight of it.

“You know, I used to have nice
legs. I don’t think this one will ever been the same.”

Christopher shrugged and sat back
down on the chair next to the bed. “I’ll give you that; you have gorgeous
legs.  Who knows? They’re doing great things in plastic surgery these days.”

She lifted an eyebrow at him.
“What are you doing looking at my legs?”

He crossed those massive arms
defiantly. “It’s a free country.”

“Not this country, pal.”

He didn’t look the least bit
concerned. “Egypt, either. Hasn’t your husband warned you about wearing
short-shorts like that around the rank and file? Those boys don’t see flesh
very often, you know. It might send them into a tizzy.”

She had to smile. “You sound just
like him.”

“Maybe so. But do you ever listen
to him?”

“What do you think?”

Christopher grinned and averted
his eyes. “I think Dr. Burton has his hands full.”

She rolled her eyes. “Where have
I heard that before?”

He laughed softly, picking his
baseball cap off the floor and smacking it to get the dirt off. He didn’t know
what else to say, mostly because he realized, at that moment, that he was
suddenly very sorry she was married. His shy nature took hold and he kept his
eyes downcast, hoping she wasn’t looking at him and praying that, if she was,
she couldn’t read minds.

 “Dr. Murphy?” she said softly.

He looked at her sideways. “It’s
Chris.”

“Chris,” she corrected herself.
“There’s a medicine cabinet over there.”

He looked over near the door at
the stainless steel cabinet. “Yes?”

“Can you get me a scalpel out of
there?”

“What for?”

“Just… can you get me one?”

He looked at her, long and hard.
“What for?”

She sighed heavily, not wanting
to answer him. But she was in a spot. “My leg… this pain is unbearable and I’m
thinking maybe….”

“You’re going to amputate your
own leg?”

“No,” she said it as if he wasn’t
such a know-it-all. “But I’ve been thinking… if I lance this blister, it might
relieve some of the pressure.”

He looked at her as if she had
lost her mind. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah.”

Christopher shook his head. “No
way. If it’s killing you that badly, let me go talk to the doctor and see if he
can do something along those lines. But you’re not going to pop that like you
would a normal blister, uh-uh.”

“Fine. Go talk to the doctor,
then. But if you were hurting like this, you’d sing a different tune.”

He softened. “I didn’t mean to
sound uncaring. I’m sorry. I know it must be goddamn killing you.”

“Then will you go find the
doctor, please? Maybe if they won’t lance it, they’ll give me something
stronger for the pain. I can’t sleep like this.”

Christopher pulled on his
backwards baseball cap and stood up. “You got it. I’ll be back.”

She watched him leave the
darkened room. As soon as the door closed quietly, she was on the move; her leg
felt like it weighed a ton and hurt worse than anything she could have possibly
imagined. But she knew, instinctively, that the massive blister was partially
responsible for the agony. Everything seemed to originate from that point.  Reaching
up, she released the tension on the sling, too quickly, and her leg came
bumping down directly on the blister.

 Kathlyn bit off her scream so
hard that she bit her tongue. Bright red blood appeared on her lips and sweat
sprang to her forehead, but she fought it. She had to be strong. Lying still
until the world stopped rocking and the pain went from a stabbing agony to a
sharp throb, she moved to the next phase of her plan.

Her right leg went over the side
of the bed first. It was huge and hot and pulsing. Her left leg followed,
normal and agile. The world moved unsteadily and she sat, waiting for it to
pass, before putting all of her weight on the left leg and struggling to stand.
Her right leg was like dead weight, making walking prohibitive.

As quietly as she could, so as
not to wake Mark and Debra Jo, she dragged herself along the bed, sweating
profusely with effort and pain. She didn’t realize how weak she was until this
moment, but her body was horribly drained.  She didn’t feel like herself at
all, but that didn’t curb her determination.

At the end of the bed, she came
to a halt. Panting and perspiring, she eyed the cabinet a few feet away,
realizing she would have to let go of the bed in order to walk across the floor
to get to it. She wasn’t sure she could do it; letting go of the bed, she
hopped on her left leg, dragging the right one behind her. Hop, drag, hop drag,
until she reached a chair next to the cabinet. She was surprised Mark and Debra
Jo hadn’t woken up with all of her thumping. Falling onto the chair, she opened
the first drawer of the unlocked cabinet.

 There were things like cotton
pliers, a hemostat, and other useless items. The second drawer held even less,
but she did come across a pair of sharp scissors. She held on to them as she
quietly rummaged through the rest of the drawers in search of something lethal
or penetrative.  When it became apparent there was nothing truly surgical in
the cabinet, she looked at the scissors and realized that if she wanted the
blister popped, this was her best option. Chills began to run through her and
her eyes felt hot, a sure sign that she was running a fever. She knew she was
getting sicker as time passed and these doctors were just going to let her die.
Her swollen purple leg was killing her and the more she looked at it, the more
unstable she became.

“If thy leg offends thee, cut it
off.”

She whispered a passage from the
Book of Job. It seemed at that moment the passage had particular meaning for
her. A strange buzzing filled her ears and she felt light headed. If she was
going to do something, now was the time. She couldn’t trust those quack bush
doctors to know how to take care of her. What needed to be done was obvious.

Holding the scissors as if she
was going to cut into a piece of cloth, Kathlyn hacked into the flesh right
where the snake bit her.