Page 94 of Empire of Shadows
“Have some water,” he ordered. “And use this.”
He pulled a small tin canister from the rucksack and tossed it at her.
“What is it?” Ellie opened the container and gave the jelly-like substance inside an experimental sniff. It smelled of herbs and citrus with bitter undertones.
“Rub it on any exposed skin,” Bates said. “It’ll help keep the bugs off.”
Ellie scooped a little of the salve out with her fingers and rubbed it onto her neck and wrists.
“You need a break?” Bates asked.
“Certainly not,” Ellie returned a bit defensively.
“Great.” He drove the pole with the dead lizard into the earth by the fire. “Grab us another couple logs.”
By the time Ellie dropped a final pile of slimy wood on the stack, Bates had finished constructing their shelter. It looked surprisingly sturdy and comfortable. He had added a simple frame of saplings to the platform. The mosquito net hung over it, covered with more palm fronds to keep off both the bugs and the damp.
The platform was not particularly large. Ellie would be sleeping quite close to Bates. Of course, the hammocks on theMary Leehad hardly been much further apart. Ellie reminded herself that in practice, there had been nothing terribly indecent about that. Besides, they were in the back country now. Survival obviously took precedence over any silly social constraints.
Bates sat on a rock by the little blaze and gave the coals a stir. The skin of the spitted iguana had gone black and crackly.
He shoved a few more sticks into the earth around the fire. They were speared with chunks of a thick white vegetable.
“What are those?” Ellie asked as she plopped down beside him.
“Palm hearts,” he replied.
He plucked the spit with the iguana from the ground and dropped the cooked lizard onto a pile of plantain leaves.
“Hot hot hot…” he cursed, shaking out his fingers.
The iguana tasted better than it had any right to. Ellie devoured it, along with the grilled palm hearts.
She had just drained the last mouthful of water from the canteen when she was struck by a terrible realization.
“We can’t refill this from the river!” she blurted. “The water might not be safe.”
“Nope,” Bates agreed.
“And we have nothing in which to boil water,” she pointed out urgently.
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“You really think I made it this far in my life without knowing how to find water out here?” he prompted. “I can get you some now, if you’re thirsty. Or… you can help me drink this.”
He reached into the rucksack and pulled out a bottle, which he gazed at with an appreciation that looked almost loving.
Ellie recognized it as the mysterious item that Bates had wasted precious seconds adding to his bag when their boat was about to plummet over a cliff.
“Please tell me that’s medicinal,” she commented flatly.
“It’ll cure what ails you.” Bates set the blade of his machete to the wax-covered cork. “Veni, Sancte Spiritus,” he recited and neatly popped it loose.
“Come, Holy Spirit?” Ellie automatically translated, both impressed and slightly aghast. “Did you just apply the Pentecostal liturgy to your whiskey?”
“It’s rum.” Bates took an indulgent sniff at the top of the bottle. “The best rum in the world, and thank all Sanctis Spiritibus, it made it ashore in one piece.”
“It’s just ‘spiritus’ in the accusative,” Ellie replied automatically, using the longer ‘u’ to indicate the plural.