A child’s scream pierced the Brazilian jungle night, wrenching Camille from the tendrils of a nightmare. The wail soared through the trees again, long and desperate. She rolled out of her hammock and stumbled on numb legs, gripped the supporting rope, and got her bearings. The humid night vibrated with fear and confusion in time with her pounding pulse.
Nearby, a mission team member hit the floor with a thud, emitting the forced unh!of having the breath knocked out of him. She could run to him or toward the shriek that woke them.
Shouted questions stabbed the moonlight and flashlights snapped on at odd angles. The child howled a Portuguese word Camille didn’t know, but she couldn’t miss the desperation.
Focus. Reacting with her nurse’s training and passion, she slipped on flip-flops, grabbed a flashlight, and dashed off the open platform in the direction of the pitiful cries. In this jungle, she and Dr. Flavio were the only ER.
“Sucuri! Sucuri!” The word rang throughout the village more like the name of a beautiful bird than the vicious anaconda.
She ran to where villagers converged on the wide footpath in front of the stilted houses. Raised machetes flashed as muscular brown arms brought knives down hard. Shouting and groaning, men hacked at an enormous snake curled in the baked red dirt.
Camille pushed into the circle of defenders and found a young boy under attack. The snake writhed, dying but not giving up its prey. A final cut severed the snake’s head from its squirming body. Blood squirted on the clay clearing and the people. Snake blood and boy blood.
Camille recognized Pedro as a ten year old from the previous day’s medical clinic. He cried, but no longer with curdled terror. She knelt in the dust to examine his wounds and her guts twisted. She had to get him somewhere she could treat him.
