“Wait, Pablo,” she said. Ciara looked at the three punctures on her shin. They had swollen a great deal since she last looked at them and even in the dim light the protruding volcanoes looked red and threatening like they were ready to erupt. The man smeared the mixture from the leaf thickly over the wounds. Then he wrapped the leaf around the area and secured the whole thing in place with a piece of long slender vine that he tied off. He had made a poultice for her. Ciara touched his arm. “Thank you,” she said. “Muchas gracias, Senor.”
The man stayed in the same position on his knees in front of her. He leered again. Their eyes met and Ciara realized that the man smiled because he was proud of himself. He was not leering at all. He was simply smiling the only way his face would work with
