a female dog.
LB turned the teacher by the arm. “Come on.”
Inside the hut, the father stood ready at the head of the cot, the women pressed into a dim recess. The teacher moved to the father’s shoulder. LB and Doc bent to hoist the foot of the bed. Doc lent only one hand to the cot; the other supported the IV bags.
“Up.”
The four maneuvered the cot out the door. The boy, like his father, shed years outside. He was no more than eight, smooth skinned with long black lashes fluttering under the morphine. The women filled the doorway, sniffling. The daughter’s veil had gone crooked from her crying; her mother reached to straighten it over the girl’s puffy face.
“Hang on,” LB said. “Set him down.”
The men lowered the cot to the rocky path. LB walked back to the hut, curling a finger for the teacher to follow. The father trailed.
The women retreated in the doorway. The mother hurried to obscure her daughter’s face.
“Wait,” LB said, holding up a palm. “Wait. Teacher, tell them to stand still.”
The man spoke for LB. The women did not disappear into the house.
From behind, Doc called, “What’s up?”
The father rushed forward, in front of his wife and daughter. He bellowed, waving LB and the teacher back from them. LB held his ground.
“Tell his daughter to take down the veil. I need to see her face again.”
The teacher rattled his head. “This is not possible.”
“Make it possible. Tell Pops here she might be sick. We need to check her out.”
The women watched the discussion from the doorway, with the father blocking the way. While the teacher spoke, the father waved his arms more, raising his voice in ire and pointing at LB.
The teacher faced LB with shoulders down. “He will not allow it.”
“Then tell him to look. Look at her hands. Her feet and ankles. Face and neck. He’s gonna see they’re swollen.”
The father rejected this before the teacher had finished translating.
“He says she is with child. This is natural.”
Doc piped up. “Ask him if she ever has seizures. Ask if she shakes, do her eyeballs roll up in her head.”
The father shouted over the question. He aimed a leathery finger at the boy moaning on the cot.
“C’mere.” LB pinched the teacher’s coat to draw him close. “Ask Mom.”
“I cannot speak to her.”
LB let the teacher go. He stuck his tongue in his cheek, considering what to do. He shrugged at Doc, who shrugged back.
Doc set down the bags to put his M4 into his hands. He moved between the father, the teacher, and the women. Doc spread his legs and set himself. The two Afghan men raised their voices and hands, but neither advanced on the stolid Doc, who held both at bay.
LB stepped around them to the mother. She positioned herself in front of her pregnant daughter, both with veiled faces and frightened eyes. They did not retreat, though the father hollered and pointed for them to do so. Doc kept the man back not with his weapon but with a raised, warning finger. Neighbors came out of their own stone hovels to investigate.
Quickly, LB pantomimed what he wanted the mother to do, lift her daughter’s long frock to show her ankles.
The wrinkles beside the mother’s eyes deepened as she looked at LB. After more loud objections from her red-faced husband, she nodded and spoke.
LB called to the interpreter, “What’d she say?”
“Her daughter sometimes shakes. Her hands and face are swollen, and her feet. She does not need to show you.”
LB returned the mother’s nod.
“It’s called eclampsia. It’ll kill the baby, and maybe your girl here. Her blood pressure’s too high; we’ve got to treat it. We can fix it in Bagram.”
LB held out an arm, inviting. The mother waited for the teacher’s translation, then took her daughter’s hand from atop the girl’s belly. She left the doorway, towing her daughter. Leaving the hut, she shouted behind her into the dark.
Inside, deep in the shadows, what LB thought had been a pile of clothes shifted, rose, and ambled forward. An old man, grooved and pitted by decades of mountain wind, scuffed into the light past LB without a glance or a word. He passed the cot, patting the boy’s head.
The angry father finally closed his mouth when his wife and daughter strode past him without deference, heading down the hill. Doc slipped his M4 back over his shoulder. The teacher, father, LB, and Doc hoisted the cot. Carrying his corner, the father sulked, conflicted,