“But that can’t be all,” Dree said. “One person can’t do anything big. I mean, individual people like me, anyway. I’m just a farm girl who managed to go to nursing school. People like Bill Gates and other billionaires could do more, I guess.”
“Ah,billionaires,”Father Booker said as if he found something distasteful.
Three of the six people sitting around that campfire had at least a theoretical claim to that social class.
Alfonso and Isaak shifted where they sat and stared at their food.
Maxence lifted his head. “And yet, most billionaires’ net worth pales when compared to governments who could tax them and help far more people. Even here in Nepal, some people are extraordinarily wealthy. The Shah family, who were the Nepali royal family before they were all killed in the massacre—”
“What!”Dree half-stood. “Like when Tsar Nicholas the Second and his family were executed a hundred years ago in Russia?”
“Except that it was in 2001.”
“Seriously?”She glanced behind herself as if regicides might be lurking in the dark hills.
“It was in the middle of a civil war that lasted for ten years. The entire immediate family of the king was mass-murdered in exceedingly odd circumstances. Ten people, including the king, the queen, all their children and their spouses, and most of the king’s siblings and their spouses were all murdered, except for one of his brothers. That brother decided not to attend the supper that night. His wife and son were minorly wounded, just winged. So he became king. They blamed it on the crown prince ‘accidentally’ killing everyone and himself with an automatic weapon.”
“That’s unbelievable,” Dree said, her voice squeaking.
“Oh, yes,” Maxence said. “It’sabsolutelyunbelievable. No one believes that’s how it happened. Anyway, the king’s brother who ‘decided not to go’ was king for a while before he was forced to abdicate.”
In the warm light of the fire, Dree pointed to the sky and far, dark mountains. “But—but—didn’t he have something to do with it?”
Maxence shrugged. “Like I said, no one believed that the crown prince killed his parents, himself, and everyone else who might have had a claim to the throne except for that one brother of the king, and somehow only lightly wounded his family.”
“Right,” Dree said, staring at the fire and shaking her head as she processed that.
“Palace coups still happen. The massacre sent a chill through every royal family in the world. When there are billions of dollars and actual power at stake, people will do shocking and terrible things. Anyway, the king’s surviving brother and his family, the Shahs, retain an excessive amount of wealth, considering the poverty of many Nepalis. And then when the civil war finally died down, the earthquake happened.”
“Earthquake?” she squeaked.
“In 2015. Practically leveled some regions and damaged buildings everywhere.”
“Jeez, this poor little country!” Surprise had turned to empathy in her voice.
A lot of the people Maxence knew or was related to would not have been so affected by Nepal’s plight. Dree and himself were more kindred spirits than different. “Indeed, those are some of the reasons we’re here. Nepal has just had blow after blow. The government should do more to help these people. Theworldshould do more to help these people. The moral test for any society and civilization is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens.”
Father Booker looked up from his food at Maxence and studied him, holding his bread pinched in his fingers but not eating, because Max had just thrown a theological bomb into the conversation.
Maxence continued, “Because of Matthew, Chapter Twenty-Five, right?”
One of Father Booker’s silver eyebrows twitched, and he went back to eating.
They spent the rest of the evening talking about less controversial things—things that wouldn’t get anyone laicized or excommunicated—until the fire burned down to coals and darkness crept over the stony ground, encroaching on their little camp.
The plan was to get up the next morning early and survey the areas that Isaak and Alfonso had scouted that afternoon before pressing on to the next village.
Where Dree would undoubtedly work herself to exhaustion again.
Maxence would need to watch over her.
Isaak was standing, stretching his fists into the air and groaning, which sounded uncannily like the way he snored.
Maxence was not looking forward to these nights when he was bunking with the two of them. Maybe he should ask Father Booker and Batsa if they had room in their tent for one more. Batsa was skinny. There was probably more room in that one.
Well, he’d evaluate after tonight. Maybe those two would snore less sleeping on the earth instead of the saggy beds at the inn.
He stood and stretched, his long legs a bit cramped from sitting cross-legged near the fire. The tops of his feet were warm. He grabbed his flashlight off the ground beside his foot and switched it on. Father Booker, Batsa, and Isaak did the same, and the beams strobed in the darkness of the country night.
