Echoes From a Distant Land

by Frank Coates

  The filly stood a good two hands shorter than Toby. Her elegant pasterns and fine cannon bones reflected her Abyssinian ancestry, which was an excellent start, but she needed to cover her with a good stallion. Toby was gelded, so was useless for the purpose. She couldn’t afford to buy a tested stallion and hoped the colt would eventually prove his racing capabilities. That, however, was a couple of years away. She had no money for the alternative, which was to pay stud fees for a stallion to service Dancer, and Edward could not be persuaded to help.

  Having failed to find the yearling near the house, she thought he must be in the high pastures. She would have to find him before the day was done. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that another lion had invaded the farm’s territory, but even a leopard or a hyena could be equally destructive if the colt remained outside the home pen overnight.

  Dana went to the shed adjoining the stable, where Jonathan helped her fold back her roadster’s canvas top. She pressed the starter button and thrilled to the sound of the motor as she warmed it with a few revs. She then drove across the grasslands towards the four hundred acres they held in the high ground.

  Dana had purchased the Willys-Knight roadster from the president of the Muthaiga Club the previous year. She was immensely proud of its silver-grey livery, red spoked wheels and black guards and running boards. She loved to collapse the white canvas top for a breezy spin around Nairobi, scandalising those matrons who still thought it unseemly for a woman to drive. The car was a pure indulgence — a luxury she’d permitted herself before her interest in horses exhausted Edward’s limited tolerance for such extravagances.

  Not far from the house she scattered a herd of Thomson’s gazelle, the stag’s propeller tail flicking as he shook his tiny antlers in annoyance.

  She checked the quality of the pasture as she drove. They’d been spared the worst of last year’s locust plague but it had been unusually dry for the time of year and the grass was thinning quickly. She expected she would need to buy fodder for the horses before the rains came. Another expense.

  A dozen zebras trotted off to a safe distance. Dana stopped the car and stood up behind the wheel to check the herd with her field glasses. It was possible the colt might have found comfort in the company of the zebras, but he was nowhere in sight. Upon reflection, she thought it more likely that the zebra stallion would have seen the colt as a threat and chased him off.

  She drove almost to the edge of their cleared land, beyond which the forest held sway. She stood on the running board and scanned the edge of the savannah. A movement caught her eye. Almost hidden in the thin lines of trees, a couple of giraffes ambled through the cedar and podocarpus. A moment later they had melted into the forest.

  The sun was high and Dana was about to turn the car for home when she saw a cloud of dust rising against the eastern sky. She squinted into the glare as she drove towards it.

  A herd of about a dozen horses cut across the sloping grasslands towards the north, with a single horseman at the rear, keeping the stragglers and outliers under control. She was annoyed. There was hardly enough pasture for their own animals without sharing it with itinerants.

  She stopped the car. Even from a distance, Dana could make out the quick dainty steps of animals born to be fleet of foot. The high-stepping hooves and perky angle of their tails showed spirit and strength. She thought there was a resemblance between these horses and little Dancer, her Abyssinian, but that was most unlikely. The Emperor of Abyssinia had declared it a crime punishable by death to remove any of the country’s bloodstock from his mountainous domain.

  The herd was now only a quarter of a mile from her but in another minute they would be into the steep valley and out of her reach. She tooted the roadster’s horn. The herdsman turned towards her. Dana waved to him: she must know more about these magnificent animals. But after a moment’s hesitation, the distant figure wheeled his herd over the rise and away — to where, Dana could not imagine. Certainly, she knew of no one in that vicinity who kept such animals, and the rider didn’t look at all familiar.

  It might have been just the shade from his broad-brimmed hat, but otherwise Dana would have said the rider was, most improbably, a black man.

  CHAPTER 19

  Dana bent beneath Dancer’s neck and ran her hand down her foreleg. The filly’s muscles twitched as if they were suspended on springs and she put her wet muzzle at the back of Dana’s neck and snorted hot breath into her shirt.

  ‘I know, girl,’ Dana said. ‘It’s tender there.’

  With the filly’s continued improvement and her good showing on the training track, Dana had decided to enter her for the upcoming Race Week’s events in Nairobi. Toby had not shown much in his training runs and Dancer had proved Dana’s best chance of picking up a first and the much-needed cash prize.

  Dana knew Dancer was well below her best the moment she checked her time on her early-morning workout. She also knew why.

  ‘Don’t worry, my precious. We’ll get it right for you before Race Week,’ she added, straightening up and putting her hands on her hips.

  As she said it, she wondered how she could make it so. The little filly had developed soreness in her tendons and it had reached the stage where the pressure bandages couldn’t alleviate it. Dana had alternatively tried massage, then rest, then light exercise. Nothing seemed to ease the situation. She sighed, her rising costs looming large in her mind. Edward was losing patience as fast as Dana was losing her capital. If she didn’t score a win during Race Week, she would have to pass up her dream of becoming a thoroughbred breeder, and put her three horses out to grass.

  She had foolishly given Edward an opening to vent his displeasure by raising the matter of a new dress that morning at breakfast.

  ‘A new dress? Whatever for?’ he’d said.

  ‘Race Week is coming up. Actually, two new dresses.’

  ‘You have a wardrobe full of beautiful dresses.’

  It was true, but she knew Lady Gladys Cartwright would be there, leading her usual coven of Nairobi’s moral guardians. She didn’t want to disillusion her by wearing something respectable.

  ‘Edward, don’t be so plebeian. You know very well I can’t wear any of those old rags. I’m an owner. What if Toby or Dancer wins?’

  ‘My dear lady, racehorse owners are, by definition, never winners. It’s always money. A new set of silks here, race entries and stabling charges there. Countless bits and pieces of leather. And God knows how the vet can charge so much for damn horse pills.’

  ‘This lady horse needs dawa,’ Jonathan intoned solemnly, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Strong dawa,’ he added.

  Jonathan had a great belief in the power of Kikuyu medicine. It seemed they had a dawa for everything. There was dawa for making babies, dawa for ripening the maize, and dawa for making a man attractive to a woman.

  ‘If this little sweetheart is going to win the Jeevanjee Cup,’ Dana said, ‘she’ll need juju rather than dawa.’

  Jonathan spat on the straw. The mere mention of magic made him nervous. According to Jonathan, it was a known fact that talking about juju was enough to give a malicious medicine man — should he have the mind — the excuse to use black magic against innocent people. Spitting helped to alleviate the risk.

  ‘No, memsahib,’ he insisted. ‘Kikuyu dawa. We call it mugaita.’

  Dana was absorbed in her thoughts. There was a vet in Nakuru who claimed to be successful with bad legs, but it was doubtful he’d agree to come so far when he was sure to be busy helping more influential owners prepare their horses for the upcoming season.

  ‘This dawa, it is very good dawa,’ Jonathan went on.

  ‘Very well,’ Dana said in resignation. ‘Bring this very good dawa, and we’ll give it a try.’

  In the stable a week later, Jonathan lifted a gourd and poured a dollop of gunk into his hand.

  Dana leaned over it. ‘Yuk!’ she said. ‘It smells horrible.’

  Jonathan beamed. ‘Ndiyo, memsah
ib. This a very fine dawa. Very, very strong.’

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, peering more closely at the substance. It was a green vegetable mash with small purple globules in it — perhaps berries of some kind.

  ‘It called mugaita, memsahib.’

  ‘You told me that, but what is it?’

  Jonathan shrugged. ‘It is … mugaita.’

  Dana sighed. ‘I don’t suppose it can do any harm if we just make a poultice of it. Pour some in that bucket and smear it on Dancer’s leg after her exercise walk.’

  Dana watched as Jonathan trotted Toby out onto the farm’s training track — a flat, cleared oval behind the staff huts. He was an able horseman, a skill that Dana had fostered, much to the surprise of her friends and neighbours. It was considered a poor investment to teach an African new skills because labour was so cheap. Why put an African on a horse when you could send a dozen on foot? But Dana needed someone to take the horses for rudimentary circuit training before paying a professional jockey to do the fine-tuning in advance of race days.

  At the end of the training gallop, Dana clicked her thumb to stop the timer, but she already knew that something very strange had occurred that bright, crisp morning. A glance at the stopwatch confirmed it. Toby had lopped twenty seconds off his regular three circuits of the farm’s training track. Toby, the lethargic, the fluky performer, Toby the indolent, the slacker, had just run his best time. Ever.

  Jonathan brought him in, his smile indicating he’d also felt Toby had performed well.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ Dana asked.

  ‘This Toby horse feeling very good this morning, memsahib.’

  ‘But, I don’t understand.’ She looked at the watch again. ‘He’s run a mile rate of … under two minutes.’

  Jonathan couldn’t contain his grin. ‘Very, very fast,’ he said, nodding vigorously.

  ‘Well … my …’ Dana was speechless. She was thrilled with the result, but perturbed that she couldn’t explain it. Had it been his recent training regime? Dana’s closer attention to his feed? Her insistence that Jonathan give him an extra rub down after his runs? None of it could explain his turnaround in form because even before Dancer developed leg soreness, her times had not improved under the same regime.

  Like many aspects of horse training, Dana found it a mystery, or as Jonathan might express it — juju. Magic!

  There was none of the usual feeling of tedium in the Albion lorry as Dana, Jonathan and Benard made the journey down to Nakuru the next day. They’d been making the trip once a week since the training program for Toby and Dancer began in earnest. It gave the jockeys Dana had signed up for Nairobi the chance to get acquainted with their mounts, and the opportunity to give the horses their heads in a real race situation. The added excitement that day, which had touched all of them, was to test Toby on a proper racetrack and get a better measure of his apparently better times. It would also allow an assessment of Dancer’s recovery — and her ability to compete with horses of Toby’s newly improved ability.

  After a couple of warm-up gallops, the jockeys trotted the horses to the fourteen furlongs starting point. Dana set the stopwatch, and a moment later the trial race began.

  Dancer leaped to the front, as she usually did, but Toby’s longer stride slowly gathered her in. As the horses passed Dana for the first time, Toby drew level with Dancer. Gradually but indisputably he continued to make up ground. At the end of the race he’d won by three or four lengths.

  Dan Tucker, Toby’s rider, walked the gelding back to the saddling area where Dana waited with a broad smile.

  ‘He did well, didn’t he?’ she asked, as Tucker swung down from his mount.

  ‘He did indeed. What time did he make?’

  Dana checked the watch again to be sure. ‘Twenty seconds better than his previous best,’ she said proudly.

  ‘My God! What have you been doing for him?’

  ‘Why, I …’ She didn’t want to admit she had no idea. ‘I suppose it’s just the new workout schedule I have him on up at Kipipiri.’

  The jockey didn’t appear convinced.

  ‘And better grazing,’ she added. ‘That little bit of rain has come at a good time.’

  ‘I see, well, I’d say Toby has made a real improvement,’ Tucker said with more conviction than she’d heard from him since hiring him. ‘But why hasn’t little Dancer seen the same improvement? On her previous form, she should be finishing ahead of Toby by the same three lengths.’

  Dana turned her palms up and shook her head. ‘I have no idea,’ she admitted glumly.

  ‘Maybe you need to think about starting Toby in the Jeevanjee Cup instead of Dancer.’

  The prospect of swapping Toby for Dancer in the feature event of Race Week didn’t appeal at all. She knew it was unprofessional, but Dancer was her sentimental favourite and nothing would please her more than leading the pretty filly into the presentation ring under the noses of Nairobi’s society. She could see the look on Gladys Cartwright’s face. It would be sweet revenge for all the scurrilous remarks she’d made behind her back.

  Oh, she would do anything to wipe that supercilious smile from her face.

  Dana strode down towards the Zephyr stable, Ndorobo trotting behind. Having complied with Edward’s wish that she go to Nairobi before him, she was now keen to be on her way. It had only taken a mention of shopping to have Edward agree she should go a few days early.

  She felt the first touch of warmth on her bare legs and glanced up at the sun. It was now well clear of the Aberdares, and she chided herself for her tardiness. She wanted the horses stabled in Nairobi by mid-afternoon, and her first gin and tonic in her hand by dusk.

  She was pleased to find Jonathan already at the stable with the Albion lorry backed up to the loading ramp. Benard was slouching against the railings at the stable door. He straightened as Dana swept into view.

  ‘Jonathan,’ she said without breaking stride, ‘have you loaded enough feed for the trip?’

  ‘I am doing it just now, memsahib.’ He hurried towards the hay bales, hissing at Benard to follow.

  In the stable, Dana entered Dancer’s stall. The filly snuffled a greeting. Running her hand down the neck to the flank and foreleg, Dana could feel the ripple of taut muscles under her fingertips.

  Dancer accepted her probing fingers on the sore tendon. To Dana’s inexpert touch, all seemed well.

  ‘So girl, what are we going to do with you?’ she whispered to the horse. ‘Are you up to the St Leger? Will I put Toby in the Jeevanjee instead of you?’

  Dancer dipped her muzzle into the feed trough.

  ‘I feel you’re the better horse for the distance, but Toby is doing so well in training.’

  The filly continued to feed.

  ‘I can’t let Gladys Cartwright beat us, Dancer. I’ll just have to go with the best I’ve got, and at the moment I’m afraid that’s Toby.’

  The Albion rolled out of the farm with Dana following in her roadster. She would stay with the horses until they had successfully negotiated the fifty treacherous miles from Kipipiri.

  The first part of the journey entailed a steep descent from the foothills of the Aberdare Ranges into the Great Rift Valley near Naivasha. The next section — the climb up the Kikuyu escarpment — was the most difficult. Here Dana would take the wheel of the Albion, entrusting her Willys-Knight to Jonathan until they reached Kijabe at the top of the escarpment. She valued her horses even more than the roadster.

  The remaining twenty miles into Nairobi were relatively safe, so Jonathan would again take over while Dana drove on to ensure the stalls at the racecourse were ready for her two mounts. Dana had taught the sharp-eyed Ndorobo to keep watch for potholes and to thump the dashboard when he spotted one so that Jonathan could take evasive action. It was a task she had no doubt Ndorobo enjoyed as much as Jonathan resented it.

  Dana had eased back half a mile to stay out of the Albion’s dust cloud. As she reached the Malewa River crossing, she came up
on a small herd driven by the same lone horseman she’d seen a couple of weeks previously. This time he had no escape, trapped between the river and the road. She drew the roadster to a halt beside him. She was surprised to find he was someone’s black employee.

  ‘Habari,’ she said, greeting him in Swahili.

  ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ he replied, touching the brim of his hat.

  The accent confused her. ‘Oh … I’m sorry. Good morning.’

  His smile was broad and, considering she had mistaken him for a native, quite generous. She dragged her eyes from his and studied his herd. They were as she’d at first suspected — Abyssinians.

  ‘You have some very fine horseflesh here,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you. They’re starting to put on a little condition.’

  ‘Thanks to my husband’s Kipipiri grass.’

  ‘The Willys-Knight,’ he said, running his eyes over the roadster. ‘I remember you.’

  ‘Well?’ she said with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Well … thank you for the short agistment. I appreciate it.’

  ‘I should think an apology would be more appropriate.’ A smile played on her lips as she said it. ‘People up here don’t take kindly to trespassers, but if you’d knocked on our door we would have been happy to help you out.’

  ‘Well … I wondered about that. But I thought that if a black stranger knocked on your door, driving a herd like this, maybe I’d be welcomed with a shotgun and a whole lot of questions, rather than a smile.’

  ‘They are beautiful,’ she said, again looking over the animals. They were mostly mares with a few yearlings or younger, and a couple of fine stallions. ‘But, how … Where did you get them?’