Yang passed through the iron gate and went in the front door of the Safari Lodge. She saw Blake coming down the hallway, carrying towels and a pan of steaming water. "There's a kitchen at the other end," she said. "We're using that to boil water for the dressings."
"How is she?" Yang asked.
"Surprisingly good," she said.
Yang followed Blake down to Ruby's room, and was startled to hear the sound of laughter. The scythe-wielder lay on her back in the bed, with a man named Harding adjusting the IV line.
"So the other man says, 'I'll tell you frankly, I didn't like it, Bill. I went back to toilet paper'!"
Harding was laughing.
"It's not bad, is it?" Ruby said, smiling. "Ah, Yang. You've come to see me. Now you know what happens when you try to get a leg up on the situation."
Yang came in, tentatively.
Harding said, "She's high on doses of morphine."
"Not high enough, I can tell you," Ruby said. "Christ, he's stingy with these drugs."
"I'm glad to see you going so well, Ruby." Yang said.
"How else should I being doing," Ruby said. "with a compound fracture of the leg that is likely septic and beginning to smell rather, ah, pungent? And with a HUGE bite mark ripped into my abdomen? But, if you can't keep a sense of humor . . ."
Yang smiled. "Do you remember what happened?"
"Of course I remember," Ruby said. "Do you think you could be bitten by a Tyrannosaurus rex and it would escape your mind? No indeed, I'll tell you, you'd remember it for the rest of your life. In my case, perhaps not a terribly long time. But, still-yes, I remember."
Ruby described running from the Land cruiser in the rain, and being chased down by the rex. "It was my own damned fault, he was too close, but I was panicked. In any case, he picked me up in his jaws and shook me fucking hard, and threw me down." Ruby sighed. "I doubt I'd have survived, except the big guys heart wasn't in it." To tell the truth, he struck me as a clumsy attacker of anything less than an automobile or a small apartment building."
"You think he attacked halfheartedly?"
"It pains me to say it," Ruby said, "but I don't honestly believe I had his full attention. He had mine, of course. But, then, he weighs eight tons. I don't."
She sighed again, and closed her eyes. in a moment, she was sleeping. Blake and Yang walked out into the hallway with Harding. "When will you have a helicopter here?" Blake asked him.
"A helicopter?" Yang asked.
"She needs surgery on that leg, and on her torso. Make sure they send for a helicopter, and get her off this island."