Mark Lee - The Canal House

“Was he all right?” Isaac asked.

“He was fine, Isaac. Just a few broken bones. Three years later we got married and we were very, very happy.”

I WAS WORRIED that we’d miss the pathway from the riverbed to Kosana, but Isaac found it easily. Most of the Karamojong came out to meet us when we reached the camp. Richard and Billy had already flown back to Nairobi. Julia stood near the medical tent between Steve Ramsey and the two Irish nurses. She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe that we had survived, then stepped forward and took Isaac’s hand.

“Welcome back, Isaac. It’s good to see you again.”

“Dr. Cadell, this is Joan Siebert,” said Daniel. “Why don’t you take a look at her and make sure that she’s all right.”

Daniel and I took turns having a bucket shower. When we dropped by the medical tent, the two Irish nurses were there with Joan. They had given her a sponge bath and she was lying on a cot with an IV tube in her arm. Isaac sat beside her, eating a bowl of oatmeal.

“Tell them I’m all right, Daniel. They’re treating me like a feeble old lady.”

Fiona came over and checked Joan’s pulse. “You’re not feeble, Mrs. Siebert. But you do need to rest. Dr. Cadell says that your heartbeat is irregular and you’ve got very low blood pressure.”

“The only thing I really needed was a bath. Isaac had a bath, too.”

The boy nodded and raised his spoon. “They gave me soap.”

“Lavender soap. It smells quite wonderful.”

THAT NIGHT WE HAD a celebration in the staff tent. Julia had decided to call me Nicky, but Daniel was still Mr. McFarland. She kept glancing at Daniel, waiting for him to talk about his triumph. Instead he sat quietly at the table and ate dinner. I was the one who told everybody about Samuel Okello and the hostages. Fiona touched my hand twice and said that I was intrepid. After we had eaten some freeze-dried sponge cake, the nurses and Ramsey went back to their tents.

Julia sat down next to Daniel and began to question him about Isaac. Did he talk about his family? Were any of his friends at Okello’s camp? If I had written everything they said it would have sounded like a normal conversation. But there was an intensity between them, an awkwardness in their exchanges. Both of them had the power to make the other one nervous. I sat between them, feeling like I was in one of those mad scientist movies with a charge crackling through the air.

When they had finished talking about Isaac, Julia went around the tent, picking up dirty plates and silverware. I was about to say good night when she put down the dishes and approached Daniel.

“Mr. McFarland, I’d like to apologize to you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Joan Siebert might have died if you hadn’t brought her here. She was severely dehydrated. And Isaac is talking. He still hasn’t recovered from his trauma, but he’s much improved.”

I had the feeling that Julia didn’t apologize very often. She waited, expecting Daniel to accept her concession, but he wasn’t in a gracious mood.

“It was wrong to risk Isaac’s life,” Daniel said. “I made a mistake using him as a guide.”

“That’s true, Mr. McFarland. But the result was positive.”

Daniel stood up and slipped his notebook into his pocket. “Thank you for the dinner and all your help. I think you’re doing a great job here.”

He walked out of the tent, disappearing into the darkness. Julia looked irritated. “Mr. McFarland can be a very annoying person,” she said.

“You’re right about that.”

“Is he still angry with me? Is that it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How does he act back home? Is he always this rude?”

“He doesn’t seem to have much of a personal life.”

“Does he have any friends, Nicky? Are you his friend?”

“Not really. But we’re working on it.”

I TOOK A LANTERN back to our tent, loaded my cameras, and cleaned the lenses. Daniel showed up an hour later and sat on his cot. We looked at each other and smiled. Almost anyone can climb a mountain. The trick is to climb down.

“I talked to Paul Rosen on the radio,” Daniel said. “He’s flying to Entebbe tomorrow. There are four seats in the plane so he can only take Tobias, Joan, and one other person. It’s your choice, Nicky. We can stay together or flip a coin to see who leaves. Whoever goes down first will hire a charter plane and send it back to Kosana.”

“I’ve done my part of the job,” I said. “You’ve got to write the article and send it out from Kampala. I’ll give you the disc from the digital camera and you can transmit those photos. We’ve met Samuel Okello and freed a hostage. It’s news.”

“Are you sure you want to stay here?”

“I’ll take more pictures and annoy everyone.”

PAUL FLEW IN the next morning and the staff walked out to the airstrip. Joan embraced Isaac and said that she would send him some books from America. I pulled the disc out of my pocket and gave it to Daniel.

“I don’t know if they’re any good.”

“You got a picture of Okello. That’s the main thing.” Daniel smiled and touched my arm. “We should do this again.”

“No more walking,” I said. “That’s my only condition.”

The plane raised a cloud of dust as it taxied away from us, then took off and disappeared into the blue. Julia looked relieved that Daniel was gone. “Well, that’s over,” she said in a proper British manner. “Back to work.”

I spent most of the day in my tent, drinking water, sleeping a little and reading some old magazines I borrowed from Ramsey. An hour before nightfall, Julia came in looking worried.

“I just got off the radio. Paul’s airplane is eight hours overdue at Entebbe. No one seems to know where they are.”

“They crashed?”

“It doesn’t look good, Nicky.”

I followed her outside. One of Hand-to-Hand’s computer camps had been set up near my tent; it buzzed and clicked and panned back and forth on its little steel tower.

I stood beside the tent with my hands in my pockets while Julia looked up at the sky. And the world expanded around us, past the tents and the grass to a dark horizon.

I stayed nearthe camp radio for the next twenty-four hours and listened to the news about the search for the missing travelers. Several pilots retraced the route from Entebbe to Kosana, but the Cessna had completely disappeared. In the morning an airplane flew over the refugee camp and I ran out of my tent, half expecting to see Paul waving from the cockpit window. Instead, it was Erik Viltner.

I walked over to the runway while he taxied to the camp. When Erik climbed out of the cockpit, he saw me and frowned.

“Your friend was with Paul?”

“That’s right. Has there been any news?”

“Nothing.” Erik glanced up at the sky as if a neon message would suddenly appear in the clouds.

“What are their chances?”

“They have the plane and the radio. Even if Paul was forced to make a landing, his radio should still operate.”

“Unless it was a bad crash.”

Erik touched one of his elephant hair bracelets for luck. “Paul was a very good pilot.”

I returned to the camp and found Julia in one of the medical tents. She had just delivered a baby and Fiona was washing it off in a basin.

“I’m flying back to Entebbe airport. Erik wants me to pick out the landmarks we passed on the way up.”

“Good luck. Maybe they just had mechanical problems and had to make an emergency landing. Paul could do anything with that plane.” Julia tried to look optimistic, then gave up and pulled off her surgical gloves. “Of course, we probably should have heard from them by now.”