JUNGLE FEVER, Part 1 By Merz Two Women Muscle Their Way Through an African Adventure The last echoes of gunfire were absorbed back into the jungle. For a moment the little village was silent beneath the moon, then the weeping and moaning began. The two American women looked carefully out from the ward of the little clinic where they had prepared to defend the dozen patients too weak to seek safety at their homes or in the bush. "They're gone. It's over." Renee Armstrong-Ragland told her companion, Julie Hunt. They stepped outside into the wide yard that separated the barracks-like ward from the medical offices. They looked about expecting to see their husbands emerge from their own sanctuaries so all four could begin gathering up the injured and putting the little clinic back in business. "Mrs. Ragland! Mrs. Ragland! Those men, they took Dr. Ragland with them. And Dr. Hunt, too. And they shot the park rangers." An excited African man rushed to the two women. He was a tall man of forty years, old in this village, tall and distinguished. Renee and Julie exchanged looks of shock and raced into the medical offices. The place was a shambles with cabinets emptied and overturned, the furniture tossed about, papers littering the floors of all five rooms in the cramped building. In the main room the senior park ranger lay dead, shot repeatedly. Another village man sat in a corner nursing a wound bleeding at his scalp line. "Akili, where have they gone? Is anyone going after them to bring the doctors back?" Renee felt panic rising as she surveyed the wreckage where she had last seen her husband and the visiting volunteer doctor. "No, nobody can go. Those men they have guns and they have taken the guns from the rangers. We cannot follow them. They will shoot us for sure. We will send word to the capital and the army will come to find those men." The capital was a harsh day's drive away. The nearest telephone was ten miles back along the rutted dirt road. Renee sank onto the overturned desk her husband used when he was in from the field to prepare his notes from his scientific forays into the jungles and mountains to the west. Waves of helplessness broke against her insides, seeming to create an audible roar that blocked out the voices of others in the room and outside. "Why would they take just our two husbands?" "Those men, they are rebels fighting in their civil war across the border. They need doctors to take care of their people. They heard Dr. Hunt was working here at the clinic for these two months and they came to get him. They took Dr. Ragland too because he was here." "But Parker isn't a medical doctor. He's a scientist. He can't be of any help to them." Julie Hunt looked up from where she had been salvaging such medical supplies as hadn't been taken away or spoiled by the raiders. "But everybody calls him a doctor. You mean he doesn't know any medicine?" "No, of course not. He's here doing field research on the ecology in this area, comparing parts of the national park that have been affected by all the civil wars and those that have remained relatively untouched." "If he didn't study doctoring, why is he called a doctor?" "He has a doctoral degree. In biology and ecology. He is a doctor but not a medical doctor. Just like college professors have doctoral degrees in their various fields. Parker doesn't like to use his title, but the local people and the government take him more seriously if he calls himself Dr. Ragland." "Then why isn't he called Professor Ragland instead of doctor?" "He doesn't teach in a college so he isn't a professor. Look, nobody's trying to fool anyone with titles. That's just what they call scientists who have been through graduate school. It's just the way it's done, everywhere." Renee was growing impatient with Julie's questions. "I think you managed to fool the raiders, even if you weren't trying to fool anyone else. That's why they took him along with Joseph. They think Parker is a real doctor just like Joseph is. It might be okay that they were fooled like me. Otherwise they might have just shot him instead of taking him away. Like they did with those other men. Maybe having two of them will slow them down and give us more of a chance of catching up with them and getting Joseph back. And Parker too. Where will they go?" "Probably they'll head west into the mountains, then south a ways to a pass, then west again across the border to their camps. They might still have smaller camps on this side of the border, but lately things have been safe enough for them on their own side that they don't need to take chances hiding out on this side. If someone wanted to head them off they could drive along the road where it parallels the mountains, then cut overland toward the pass." "I have to go after them. I figure there weren't more than a fifteen or twenty. Will you want to come too?" "Of course. They've attacked the wrong woman. Watch." Renee marched outside to the rear of the clinic's Land Rover, crouched at its back end and curled her arms under the corner of the bumper. Then she stood, lifting the rear wheel a foot off the ground. She held it a few moments and looked over at Julie, then set the car back down. "I'm a scientist, too. A while ago I used an experimental device that made me stronger at the same time it changed me in some other ways. It made me about a foot shorter, but I estimate I'm three times stronger than any other woman in the world. They shouldn't have messed with me or my husband." "Yeah, I took steroid shots that made me stronger too, when I was in the army. I shouldn't have, but I did and then I got caught. Joseph has told me about the sort of side effects there could have been, but I haven't seen any so it might be okay. At least I didn't get shorter. We'll need some gear, and packs to carry it in once we leave the road. Two liters of water apiece, food for three days, I've got a first aid kit, we'll need a hatchet or machete for each of us, maybe some rope, flashlights, things for starting fires. We should have compasses to find our way, and maps, and a whistle in case we get lost. I'll check the ranger's body. I think he had a whistle. Does it get cold in the mountains or is hot like it is down here?" "It gets pretty cool at the higher elevations. We'll need something warmer than what we have on now, at least at night. I need to warn you, if I'm going to be working hard and moving fast I'll need to eat more than other people would so I'll bring extra food. I'll ask Akili start to putting together a kit for each of us. We should have help from the rangers back in town within two days so we'll be able to get started very soon. Getting the army moving to send troops out here would take another few days." Akili looked from one of the women to the other wondering which made less sense. They were both short, the blonde Julie at five feet three inches standing a few inches taller than the darker Renee. Julie was also more heavy set although he had grown accustomed to seeing Renee perform feats of strength he himself couldn't match. She didn't often demonstrate her power as she had with the Land Rover, but in the construction of the clinic buildings she had sometimes lifted huge loads and supported amazing weights when she thought no one was looking. Without waiting to be asked he left the clinic to begin assembling the supplies Julie had mentioned. "I'm not waiting on any rangers. The border is only about thirty kilometers away. In two days those guys will be able to get back across. It sounds like if they get that far it would be too late. I don't know any of the people here, but it doesn't look like any of them are soldiers. The park rangers maybe were partly soldiers, but not for this job. When it's morning and we can see, then we'll have to start. We'll need the gear put together tonight so we can leave early. You can talk with them. Give them some money for whatever we can take from the rangers who were killed and we'll gather up the other things we need around the clinic. " "But we don't have any guns and we're just two women. How are we supposed to take on a band of guerillas in the jungle? I don't think I can allow us to start out before we have someone from the government to lead the search." "Don't worry. I know how we should do this because I was a soldier, so I'll be the leader." "I just told you, I'm at least three times stronger than you. I earned a Ph.D. and you've barely read a book in your life. I've been in Africa for months and I've studied the area. I should be giving the orders. What do you mean you were a soldier, like you're Xena the Warrior Princess? Who cares about that? I'm smarter and I'm stronger than you." "Not a warrior, a soldier. I was in the army for eight years. A soldier is different from being a warrior. I know some women who are warriors, but they wouldn't be very good soldiers. Soldiers do the job they have to. Warriors just fight, like it's the only thing that matters to them. Soldiers can stop fighting and retreat when they're told to and not feel bad. Warriors would hate to retreat. I don't know if they can do that instead of just dying. Sometimes I can feel what's inside people. I can just feel it when I meet a warrior, like they have electricity inside them that leaks out and I can feel it. Sometimes they aren't in places you'd expect. Last Christmas I was in some trouble along with a woman who mostly just sells clothes and we became . . . friends, and she was such a warrior she practically gave off sparks when I saw her fight some men. But I don't think she could do this like a job where we just have to get our husbands back, maybe without fighting or punishing those people. That's what soldiers can do." "Then teach me to be a soldier." "No, only sergeants know how to make soldiers. I didn't learn how to be a sergeant, just a specialist. Sergeants know how to take out everything inside you that isn't like a soldier and then fill you back up again with just soldier stuff. Including knowing how to keep becoming a better soldier when you don't have the sergeant to help anymore. You have a lot of things inside so it would take a long time to empty you out before you could start getting filled up again to be a soldier. Maybe you could be an officer, but I don't need an officer. I just need to get the job done. We both do if you're coming. I'll tell you what to do, but you won't really be a soldier." Renee snapped out her hand and grabbed Julie's forearm. Glaring at the slightly taller woman Renee applied crushing pressure, her knuckles growing pink against her bronze skin as the effort increased. "I can just squeeze and break your arm. Then what would you do? Didn't you believe that I'm strong enough to make you do what I want? You can feel now how easily I could break your arm." Julie reddened and stared at the small hand gripping her forearm, gripping and applying pressure like a vise until she could feel the bones in her forearm on the verge of giving way. She reached for the little hand and grabbed the middle finger, which she pried off of her arm and then slowly bent backwards against Renee's efforts. As it bent farther back Renee released her grip and Julie quickly forced the small woman to her knees, maintaining her pressure on the bending finger. "Your arm is stronger than mine, but at least I'm strong enough to break your finger. Look in my eyes. You see that I will do that, don't you. If I break it and you have to get it splinted it will slow you down, get in your way when we go after those men. What will you do about that?" "Ow ow ow! If you break it I'll just have it fixed, and go when it's healed enough. That won't take long. I'd still go after them, even if there was a delay." "If we waited even one day it would be too late. They'd get away across the mountains and we wouldn't be able to catch up with them. Look in my eyes. You could break my arm by squeezing it. But I could see you wouldn't. You can see that I will break your finger. If my arm was broken so it would keep me from leaving in the morning to go after them, I'd cut my own arm off and still go as soon as I could find the way. You can see that in my eyes, too, can't you? Can't you? That's what it means to be a soldier, to do my job no matter what." "Yes, I can see that. Please, let me go. You can be the leader. Just let me go." For what remained of the night the two women collected such equipment as could be found on short notice, tended to the few injuries left behind from the raid, and made arrangements for villagers to provide care to those already filling the clinic's beds. Julie retired to her hut for an hour's sleep before daylight would make the start of their trip a reasonable risk over the treacherous road they would follow.