"James Rollins - Amazonia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Romeyn Henry)

"Rest, senhor," he urged the stranger. "Let me clean your wounds and get some antibiotics into you:'

The man did not seem to understand. He struggled to sit up, reaching for the sponge, crying out eerily.
As Garcia pushed him by the shoulders to the pillow, the man gasped out, and the padre finally
understood why the man could not speak.

He had no tongue. It had been cut away.

Grimacing, Garcia prepared a syringe of ampicillin and prayed to God for the souls of the monsters that
could do this to another man. The medicine was past its expiration date, but it was the best he could get
out here. He injected the antibiotic into the man's left buttock, then began to work on his wounds with
sponge and salve.

The stranger lapsed between lucidity and delirium. Whenever he was conscious, the man struggled
mindlessly for his piled clothes, as if he intended to dress and continue his jungle trek. But Garcia would
always push his arms back down and cover him again with blankets.

As the sun set and night swept over the forests, Garcia sat with the Bible in hand and prayed for the
man. But in his heart, the padre knew his prayers would not be answered. Kamala, the shaman, was
correct in his assessment. The man would not last the night.

As a precaution, in case the man was a child of Christ, he had per-formed the sacrament of Last Rites
an hour earlier. The fellow had stirred as he marked his forehead with oil, but he did not wake. His brow
burned feverishly. The antibiotics had failed to break through the blood infections.

Resolved that the man would die, Garcia maintained his vigil. It was the least he could do for the poor
soul. But as midnight neared and the jungle awoke with the whining sounds of locusts and the croaking of
myriad frogs, Garcia slipped to sleep in his chair, the Bible in his lap.

He woke hours later at a strangled cry from the man. Believing his patient was gasping his last breath,
Garcia struggled up, knocking his Bible to the floor. As he bent to pick it up, he found the man staring
back at him. His eyes were glassy, but the delirium had faded. The stranger lifted a trembling hand. He
pointed again to his discarded clothes.

"You can't leave," Garcia said.

The man closed his eyes a moment, shook his head, then with a pleading look, he again pointed to his
pants.

Garcia finally relented. How could he refuse this last feverish request Standing, he crossed to the foot of
the bed and retrieved the rumpled pair of pants. He handed them to the dying man.
 The stranger grabbed them up and immediately began pawing along the length of one leg of his garment,
following the inner seam. Finally, he stopped and fingered a section of the cotton denim.

With shaking arms, he held the pants out to Garcia.

The padre thought the stranger was slipping back into delirium. In fact, the poor man's breathing had
become more ragged and coarse. But Garcia humored his nonsensical actions. He took the pants and felt
where the man indicated.