Charley Brindley - Raji, Book Three

Raji

Book Three: Dire Kawa

by

Charley Brindley

charleybrindley@yahoo.com

www.charleybrindley.com

Edited by

Karen Boston

Website https://bit.ly/2rJDq3f

Cover art by

Charley Brindley

© 2019

All rights reserved

© 2019 Charley Brindley, all rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition February 2019

This book is dedicated to

Tatta Marie Brindley

Some of Charley Brindley’s books

have been translated into:

Italian

Spanish

Portuguese

French

Dutch

Turkish

Chinese

Ukranian

and

Russian

The following books are available in audio format:

Raji, Book One (in English)

Do Not Resuscitate (in English)

The Last Mission of the Seventh Cavalry (in English)

Hannibal’s Elephant Girl, Book One (in Russian)

Henry IX (in Italian)

Other books by Charley Brindley

1. Oxana’s Pit

2. The Last Mission of the Seventh Cavalry

3. Raji Book One: Octavia Pompeii

4. Raji Book Two: The Academy

5. Raji Book Four: The House of the West Wind

6. Hannibal’s Elephant Girl

7. Cian

8. Ariion XXIII

9. The Last Seat on the Hindenburg

10. Dragonfly vs Monarch: Book One

11. Dragonfly vs Monarch: Book One

12. The Sea of Tranquility 2.0 Book One: Exploration

13. The Sea of Tranquility 2.0 Book Two: Invasion

14. The Sea of Tranquility 2.0 Book Three

15. The Sea of Tranquility 2.0 Book Four

16. Sea of Sorrows, Book Two of The Rod of God

17. Do Not Resuscitate

18. Hannibal’s Elephant Girl, Book Two

19. The Rod of God, Book One

20. Henry IX

21. Qubit’s Incubaator

22. Casper’s Game

Coming Soon

23. Dragonfly vs Monarch: Book Three

24. The Journey to Valdacia

25. Still Waters Run Deep

26. Ms Machiavelli

27. Ariion XXIX

28. The Last Mission of the Seventh Cavalry Book 2

29. Hannibal’s Elephant Girl, Book Three

See the end of this book for details about the others

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Raji

In the fall of 1932, Fuse and I walked through the near-deserted campus of Theodore Roosevelt University, in Richmond, Virginia.

We were third-year students in the medical school and would have been at the top of our class–had there been a class. Two days earlier, the two of us sat in the rigid wooden chairs in front of Dr. Octavia Pompeii’s desk. She was chancellor of the medical school, and she looked as if she carried the weight of the entire university on her tiny shoulders. Her beautiful red hair was thinning, and during the past two years, streaks of gray had crept into the curls from her temples. Dark circles saddened her eyes.

Dr. Pompeii took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “Raji, Fuse, I have bad news.”

Fuse and I glanced at each other. We knew the university was in dire financial straits, just as all the schools were. Faculty and students had been drifting away ever since the crash of 1929.

“We’re closing the medical school,” Dr. Pompeii said.

“Oh, no,” I said. “Why?”

She toyed with a yellow pencil for a moment. “We’ve lost seventy percent of our funding and enrollment for next semester is next to nothing.”

Fuse was quiet, but I knew he was in shock, just as I was. We had talked about this very event over the past semester, but I don’t think we really believed it would happen. No one spoke for a while.

“Dr. Pompeii,” Fuse finally said. “What will you do?”

My old pal Fuse, always thinking of others first.

“Strangely enough,” she said, “I’m going back to school.”

“That’s wonderful, Dr. Pompeii,” I said. “Where will you go?”

“Cornell University. I’m going to study ortho-pedics.” She looked through some papers on her desk. “I’ve prepared a list of ten schools where I want both of you to apply. I’ve mailed letters of recommendation, along with your transcripts, to all of them. I have no idea what the scholarship situation is, but you have to try.”

“Dr. Pompeii,” Fuse said. “I don’t think…” He paused to look at me. “I don’t think any of them have money for scholarships.”

“You don’t know that. If none of these ten will take you in, then we’ll find ten more. There’s no one in this country more deserving of scholarships than you and Raji.”

I took the list of schools. “Thank you so much, Dr. Pompeii,” I said, then stood. “We’ll get right to work on these.”

Dr. Pompeii rose from her chair and reached across the desk to take my hand. “I wish both of you all the luck in the world.” She held her other hand out to Fuse.

“Thank you, Dr. Pompeii,” Fuse said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

* * * * *

I don’t know why, but our rambling walk took us to the nearby campus of Octavia Pompeii Academy. I thought about that day in August 1926, when I had joined the junior class. Fuse didn’t finish the competition in the top fifty, but he was invited to attend when one of the other students had to leave due to a death in his family.

Now the once lively academy was a depressing sight, with the windows and doors boarded up and weeds overgrowing the sidewalks and tennis courts. We stopped in front of Hannibal House to watch a trio of crows pecking at the disintegrating parapet above the door.

“I wrote a letter to Mom,” Fuse said, keeping his eyes on the crows.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

He nodded, still not looking at me. I turned to walk along the sidewalk, watching the cracks in the crumbling cement. He walked beside me.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He stopped to face me, and I saw that crooked grin I knew so well.

“I’ve always wanted to see India.”

“Me, too.” I returned his grin.

It had been fifteen years since I was taken from my home in Calcutta. Thinking back over my life in America, I truly believe I should be thankful to those thugs who grabbed me, along with twenty other girls and young women, from the streets in 1912. We were shipped to New York in the hold of a cattle boat like so much livestock, then sold off to become indentured servants. After my thirteenth birthday, I ran away from the house in Queens where I had been held. Two days later, I ended up sleeping in a barn in rural Virginia.

How fortunate for me that the barn belonged to the Fusilier family. Fuse, who was a boy of fourteen at the time, discovered me the next morning, then I spent the most wonderful year of my life with him and his family. Marie Fusilier took me in as if I were her own daughter.

“I should write to Mama Marie, too.” I took Fuse’s hand.

“I told her you were going with me.”

“Well, how presumptuous of you.”

“Uh-huh.”

That night, Fuse and I packed what little gear we had and hitched a ride to New York City on the back of a potato truck, then we walked along the docks of lower Manhattan.

Two days later, we shipped out on the Borboleta Nova , under the command of Captain Sinaway. The Borboleta was a beautiful new freighter only six months out of the shipyards at Lisbon. She was bound for Calcutta with a cargo of dynamite, and since neither Fuse nor I had any sailing experience, the captain assigned Fuse to the engine room, shoveling coal, and I went to work as a deckhand. We didn’t care what we had to do—we just wanted to escape. From what, I don’t think either of us knew.