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Time never passed during the night shift at La Santa Sierra.
A man came running across the entrance. In seeing the doctors he stopped.
" Me jamo Pedro Armendariz Un chirurgo, my son is dying," The man mixed Spanish and English.
"I�m a surgeon. Where is he? "
"El Barrio de l'Agua." The man pointed to his knee to explain the wound.
Ravic decided to go. Doctor Gonzalo could take care of the night shift. If needed he could call Dr. Diaz.
A truck waited outside. El Barrio de L'Agua was a place where Mexicans illegally forded the Rio Grande, approximately 30 miles south. He found himself seated between Pedro and the driver. It was a clear night. The driver hung on to the wheel as silent as a robot. In the shafts of light Pedro�s profile was that of a stoned Mexican idol, the hat kept bobbing on his head, one couldn�t say if what marked his face was sweat or tears.
Suddenly the truck reached a vast area of huts and trucks. 'El Barrio De L�Agua announced a Mexican cavalier from a board.
"We're almost there, " said Pedro.
Having passed a junkyard, the truck stopped in a thicket of reeds. Pedro and the driver jumped out, Ravic was invited to follow.
A smell of damp announced the presence of a river. A thick fog staved off the light of the moon.
"El Rio Grande," said the driver. Nothing could be seen. The name of His Majesty the Rio Grande had been mentioned with the respect due to a king, one unable to have its people living in peace.
"Derecha," said Pedro. Next to a tree a boy was lying under a man's jacket.
The boy was delirious. A gash ripped his leg from the knee down. The kneecap was gone.
"Agua, agua, Luis?" Pedro was holding the boy�s head.
"We must take him to San Diego. La Santa Sierra is too far." Ravic was tying an elastic band. Having lost so much blood he wondered how the boy could still be alive. But there were no rules.
"Usted believes....? " Pedro made an unequivocal gesture with the hand.
"Yes, Pedro." That leg would have to go.
At that moment, volleys of fire began to ring over their heads.
"Abajo, abajo," ordered Pedro, this time holding a small machine gun. The driver too was armed. But the firing didn�t seem to be directed at them
A helicopter suddenly smothered the area with its erratic sound.
"On your right, on your right, Jack" An American voice was giving instructions. They were surrounded but no one could be seen. Next to Ravic, Pedro was covering the body of his son with his own. The driver had disappeared.
The whole area suddenly lit up as whirls of wind clamped you to the ground.
"You're surrounded. Come out, hands up." Another volley swept the dark morass.
"Ehi, amigo, Amigo, tenemo un doctore ingles! Iingles! Ingles!." Ravic recognized Pedro�s voice. Total darkness again.
"Pedro, donde sta?" No one answered. Ravic Moon was convinced his time was up.
Through swirls of fog dissolving before the shafts of light Ravic had a glint of the chopper Ratatata, ratatata.. A sting pierced his hand. Not particularly painful. He couldn't assess the damage. You don�t think of damages in those moment, you just think of hiding. A bird drummed off. It must have been close. It was probably a grouse. A grouse... why not a number of smaller birds flying off together? The smell of damp was almost unbearable, as if that part of the world had never dried when the world spun off into being. Wingbeats burst, sputtered.... Small silver orbs began to dance across his vision.
AWAKENING
"It's a bad wound." Doctor Major's voice sounded like a lullaby. "If they had brought the fingers something could have been done. "Don't worry, my boyo." Major was a hand specialist. Words behind morphia. Ravic�s first time on the other side of pain. The king of all invisible forces raging beyond the sure protection of morphia. He wouldn�t know how many times he had passed out. His hand had disappeared inside layers of dressing. As a surgeon he could tell instinctively his hand had been swathed all right. The feelings were all there, together with his missing fingers: the stretching of his rubber glove, the sweat inside his rubber glove, his lancet. His career was at the end, that too he could tell.
"Nurse, nurse..."
"Yes, doctor..."
"Please, call this number. It's my wife..."
"Let me write it down."
The number....What was his number?
"Try this. Ask for Joanna...."
The nurse came back after a few minutes.
"She was asleep and didn't care you've lost two fingers. She said you have three left, enough to stick them up ....you know where." Then she asked: "Are you on bad terms with your wife?"
"With my wife?" What was she talking about?
"Doctor, you better take another sedative. You have a fever. Here's your wife's number, in case you want me to try again."
He looked at the number. It meant nothing. Probably an unknown creature had answered and displayed the usual good manners.
The nurse was Irish. Red hair, green eyes. A winning combination but lost in a sequence of mediocre features. Except for her strapping behind. His thoughts moved in a frenzy. Her way of walking kept his eyes focused.
"Lovely...." No one could say lovely like the Brits, a churning masturbation of OK. "Lynn, my name is Lynn." She had her name labeled on her breast.
"Another shot, please, Lynn. "
"It's too soon. C�mon Doctor Moon, bee a good boy."
"C'mon, Lynn.... Lynn, close the door..." She wasn't that great, she also had cross-eyes, but she had the morphia.
"Not now...doctor Major may come in." He gave his hand to her.
"Yes, Lynn.... you're beautiful. Has anyone ever told you that?" In his delirium he saw his little finger pointed toward the nurse's undulating butt, like those monkeys in the Indian frescoes dancing with one finger up each other's behind.
"Just one kiss... "
"Later, later, be a good boy...." Nobody could say later like the Brits, like a secret message in a private letter. F...the Brits.
She disappeared. She returned. She moved about the room
infinitely remote. He could feel the needle. The touch of her lips oozing out the flavour of an unknown lipstick. The hot-cold of morphia. Her light hand. He could recognize the nurses by the lightness of their hands.
"Shall I try to call your wife again?"
"My wife?"
"You told me to call your wife." He followed her with greedy eyes. "Give me your arm."
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