Free The Clouds Beneath the Sun by Mackenzie Ford

publishing their paper quickly, despite all that had happened? She couldn’t believe it.
    She looked at Christopher but couldn’t read his expression.
    “I can make a draft,” she said. “Of course I can, and I’d be pleased to. But there are other books I’d need to check, back in Cambridge, I mean, before I could go into print. And other colleagues I’d like to consult.”
    Richard looked at her and nodded.
    What did that mean? she wondered. Did it mean anything? Why was everything to do with this dig, even important discoveries, now complicated by layers and layers of speculation? She had never anticipated this.
    “Let’s take it one step at a time,” she said in a measured way. “I do have a few books back at camp. I’ll give you a more considered response at dinner. How’s that?”
    “Fine,” said Richard, “just fine.”
    •   •   •
    When Natalie got back to her tent there was still no sign of Mgina. The bed had been made, but from the different way the fresh towels had been folded and laid out, she could tell that someone else had done the cleaning that morning. So she just dumped her hat and sleeveless vest, in which she kept her bits and pieces, and left her tent, aiming for the area of the camp behind the refectory, near the storeroom, where the laundry was done. What had happened? One of the cleaning staff should know.
    She was halfway across the clearing when she saw Jonas Jefferson getting down from a Land Rover. He saw her at the same time as she saw him and immediately set off towards her. As he drew close, he took off his hat and growled, “Odnate’s dead.”
    “What? No, please no!”
    He wiped a hand across his face. “The family stopped giving him the pills.”
    She stared at him. Her throat was damp.
    “I’ve come across this before. Even in Britain, people don’t always complete the course of antibiotics. Some of the time, if you’ve a bad dose of flu, say, it may not matter, it delays recovery but that’s all. With more serious diseases, however, it matters very much.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “What you saw in Palestine wasn’t Africa. Palestinians are quite highly educated, relatively speaking, but here … here, traditional ways are still very powerful and they can, and do, reassert themselves. Once Odnate was feeling better, he got up, started playing, looking after the goats, and stopped taking his antibiotics. The family let him. Then, as soon as the symptoms reappeared, his parents concluded that Western medicine was no better than their own remedies. They resorted to their herbal cures, and didn’t bother to tell us—it was their affair. The poor boy died yesterday.”
    Natalie couldn’t think what to say. It was as if there was a big, empty space in her brain. It had happened before, when her mother died. “When is the funeral?”
    Jonas stared at her. “He wasn’t a chief or a warrior … He was a child.” He passed his hand over his face again. “I’m sorry, Natalie, but his body was left out in the bush last night, to be eaten by predators and scavengers. There’s nothing left of him to be buried … it’s the tradition here.”
    Natalie felt out of breath. This was a bad business and it had just got worse. “Did you see Mgina?”
    He nodded. “She’s upset but it’s a large family—I’m not saying the Maasai don’t feel grief the way we do because they do, keenly, and he was a lovely boy. But mortality is high in the bush. That’s not supposed to comfort you, but it is a fact. Mgina says she’ll be back in a day or so.”
    He took his hand off her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I have some sedatives if you’d like one.”
    Natalie still felt winded, but she shook her head. “No, no thanks. I’ll just lie on my bed for a bit. It’s so … so disappointing.”
    He nodded. “That’s the right word. It’s one of the first things you learn when you qualify as a doctor, that there are some people you can’t save, even though,