by Chad Oliver
Don’t think. Work, dammit. Set an example.
He uprooted small, dry bushes and ran with them away from the fire. He scooped up sticks and twigs and tufts of brown grass. The sweat poured from his body in drops and trickles and streams. Smoke reddened his eyes and clogged his throat. The fire roared at him, punched at him with fists of heat. He lost all track of time; he was trapped in an eternal now, a moment that stretched on forever, a moment where nothing changed, nothing made any difference …
He ran back and Mbali hosed down his hot skin with water. Even the water felt hot. He went on working in a kind of madness, his eyes wild and bloodshot.
The fire drove them back. They couldn’t get close to the flames; the searing heat reached out for them, hammered them with a wind from hell. Mutisya’s hair began to smolder and he ran screaming for the hose, beating at his head with his raw and bleeding hands.
There were snakes, too many snakes, driven from cover by the crackling heat. Royce saw a six-foot green mamba, its thin body writhing in agony in the dirt. He reached for his rifle, picked it up, and tried to take aim. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t draw a bead on the snake. Wathome ran up and sliced off its head with a panga.
They were losing their fight. Dimly, Royce knew that they could not win. The fire was too big, too fierce, too totally overpowering.
One more effort …
“Stop!” he yelled. No one heard him. “Stop!” he screamed at the top of his voice. “The trench! Dig the trench!”
He grabbed a shovel and retreated away from the heat. The smoke was so thick he could hardly catch his breath. He began to dig, trying to make a wide furrow the fire could not jump. The crust of the earth was as hard as rock. He jammed the shovel into it, cursing it, fighting it. The handle of the shovel was slippery with his own blood. He was so weak that his knees were trembling. His mind began to spin.
He sensed an animal running by him. Heard the thuds of hooves on the unyielding ground. Saw stripes. A zebra …
He fell. He could not get up. He started to crawl away from the fire. His throat was a parched ache. He could not swallow.
He had failed. They had to get out before they were all killed.
“Give it up!” he tried to yell. His voice was little more than a croak. “Get the lorry, get the men out. Elijah …”
Then he heard it. He heard it before he felt anything at all. A hissing sound, a strange hissing, a new hissing that cut through the roar of the fire.
It sounded …
What did it sound like?
He shook his head. It was like a campfire when you poured what was left of the coffee on it. A wet hissing, a hissing like water on flame …
He rolled over, turning his face up to the sky.
He felt it then. Water. Big fat drops of water. Rain!
He said it aloud, tasting the word, tasting the cool drops that splashed on his parched lips. “Rain, rain, rain …”
It came down harder, dripping through the dense clouds of smoke.
He threw out his arms and let it come.
It poured. It rained buckets and lakes and rivers. It soaked him. His skin drank it in like a blotter.
He began to laugh.
He laughed like a crazy man, letting the rain pound him into a growing sea of mud.
Suddenly, incredibly, the whole world was laughing.
He pulled himself to his feet, grabbed his rifle, and staggered for shelter. He couldn’t stop laughing. He didn’t want to stop. Everyone was laughing.
Rain!
“Come on, rain!” he muttered. “Don’t quit. Don’t ever quit. Rain like you’ve never rained before!”
He jerked open the breezeway door and stepped inside. He stood there, swaying. Kathy had come in and she stared at him almost without recognition. His clothes were torn, his hair singed. His face was black and greasy with smoke. His arms were smeared with blood and dirt.
“It’s raining,” he said inanely.
Then he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
When he came to, he could hear it before he opened his eyes. A wild wet drumming on the roof. He could smell it. A fresh clean damp smell, the sweet smell of water, a smell of oceans of rain pouring down on a thirsty earth.
Royce knew the thrill of rain in a dry land. He was no stranger to the electric excitement of a cloudburst after long months of dry, searing heat. But he had never felt it this keenly before. This was more than rain. This was …
Well, hell.
This was life itself.
He opened his eyes.
“The fire?” His voice was a painful rasp.
Kathy handed him a glass of water. He choked it down. It was cool on his throat, cool and wet and soothing.
“There isn’t any fire. There’s nothing out there but a puddle as big as the Indian Ocean.”
Royce tried to get out of bed, failed, and tried again. This time he made it. His body was one dull ache from head to toe. He stumbled over to the window and looked out.
It was a new world. The earth was gray under leaden skies that poured down silvery sheets of rain. Where the fire had been there was an ugly carbon-black scar. The naked land around the Baboonery was splashed with miniature lakes. Rain beat a tattoo on the roof and dripped in a steady stream from the thatch. In the puddles, the big drops hit like bullets, throwing up little geysers of spray. A wet smell filled the air with a heavy, tangible scent.
He took a deep breath. “What time is it?”
“About eight in the morning. You’ve been out for around fourteen hours. I figured you could use the sleep.”
“Where did it come from?”
“It started to cloud up around noon yesterday. I guess you didn’t see it because of the smoke. At first I didn’t think anything of it—we’ve had the clouds before—and then I couldn’t get through to you. You were … well, I’ve never seen you like that before.”
“I hope you never see me that way again. Did you catch the news last night?”
She nodded. “The rains have started all over southern Kenya. It was raining in Nairobi when the news came on. I guess this is it.”
Royce sat down on the bed again. He felt like hell. Everything hit him with a rush. He’d seen that crazy baboon and something had tried to burn them out of the Baboonery, and he had cleverly passed out and left his wife alone. If anything had happened …
“The kids?”
“They’re having breakfast with Wathome.”
“Susan?”
“She’s better, I think. Maybe this rain has helped her, somehow. There was no fever this morning.” She sat down next to him and took his hand. “Stop worrying. You’re in no shape to wrestle with any problems yet. We’re all safe and the fire is out.”
“But …”
“After breakfast, okay? You didn’t get around to eating yesterday—it’s not like you to forget that.”
“I don’t have time to eat …”
“Royce. Look at me. If you get sick and conk out on us, what happens then? You go take a shower—the water’s a little muddy but not too bad yet—and get some clean clothes on. I’ll fix breakfast. Then we’ll worry. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Royce peeled off his pajamas—Kathy had somehow managed to get his dirty clothes off after he had passed out—and stepped gingerly into the shower stall. He turned on the taps and waited. The water got lukewarm but not hot. Maybe that was just as well; there never was any really hot water until the cook stove had been going for two or three hours. The water was brownish and gritty but it felt good against his skin. He let it soak in for ten minutes or so and then shaved and dressed. He felt better. His hands were cut and blistered and his hair and eyebrows were singed, but otherwise he seemed to be okay except for a persistent ache in his shoulders.
He had been lucky, very lucky. But it would not do to push his luck too far. He had been warned. The fates would not likely intervene on his behalf again. He had to get Kathy and the kids away from this place
.
He stepped out of the bedroom into the breezeway. The rain was coming down in solid sheets and the plank floor was slick with moisture. The dry warmth of the kitchen was suddenly very welcome.
He shook hands with Wathome and thanked him for all he had done the day before. Then he greeted the kids. Barby was bright-eyed as usual, and eager to go play in the rain. Susan looked better, much better. He gave her a kiss. Surely, she could stand the trip to Nairobi now.
He seated himself at the wooden dining table in the main room and discovered that he was famished. He put away a pile of Kathy’s scrambled eggs and six slices of fried Spam—available at the curiously named Supermarket in Nairobi, an edifice that contained everything from groceries to a tearoom, and an institution that endeared itself to visitors by stocking such exotic foods as hamburger and Chef Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti. As far as Royce was concerned, Spam was considerably better than Kenya bacon, and it hit the spot this morning. He drank three cups of coffee and began to feel almost human.
He pushed his cup back. “There,” he said. “Now we can attend to our worrying.”
“Okay.” Kathy lit a cigarette. She looked fresh and relaxed, as though she had been enjoying herself on a carefree vacation. “Worry away.”
Royce considered. “I’m not much for giving orders,” he said slowly, “but I’m giving one now. It’s time for you and the kids to get out of here. Susan is well enough to take the trip to Nairobi. We can put you up at the Norfolk. I can come back here and do what has to be done. I can take care of myself, but its too dangerous for you to hang around here. I … what the devil are you laughing about?”
Kathy’s laughter had an edge of hysteria to it; she wasn’t as relaxed as she looked. “I listened to the news while you were taking your shower. I’m afraid your plan won’t work.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You hear that rain out there?”
“I’m not deaf.”
“Well, old sport, we’ve had better than six inches of rain since yesterday. There’s no end to it in sight, either. We could never make it through that gunk to the main road. Even if we did make it we couldn’t go anywhere.”
Royce felt a sudden cold knot in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t been thinking. This was Kenya, not the United States. The main road to Nairobi was paved after a fashion, but the bridges …
“There are cars stuck all along the road,” Kathy said. “Every last crossing between here and Nairobi is under water, and it’s the same way between here and Mombasa.”
“The train?”
“They’re holding them at both ends of the line. Same deal—tracks covered with water and a couple of the bridges too dangerous to cross.”
Royce stood up. “That’s just great.”
He listened to the rain pounding down on the thatch roof. He should have known. Everything stopped when the rains came. Even back home, all through the southwest, a good gully-washer could knock out a road. And here …
“How are we fixed for food?”
“Pretty good. Enough for a couple of weeks, anyway.”
Royce pulled at his ear. He had plenty of petrol on hand; he could keep the generator and the pumps going for a month if he didn’t use the truck or the Land Rover. And he wouldn’t be using the vehicles in that soup out there. They were in no immediate danger from the rain. Unhappily, the rain was the least of his worries.
“We’ll just have to wait until the water goes down,” he said, trying to get a confidence into his voice that he was far from feeling. Kathy had had enough shocks. She wasn’t Superwoman. He had to be careful, very careful. “It can’t keep on raining like this for long. It doesn’t rain continuously during the rainy season. If the sun comes out for a day or two we’ll be able to make it.”
“If the bridges hold.”
“We’ll worry about crossing the bridges when we can get to them, to coin a phrase. I’d better go out and check things over. We may have a flood on our hands if this keeps up.”
“Royce?”
He knew what was coming. He did not know what he could say. He waited.
“Royce, what is it? I mean … what’s happening? Is there something after us?” Kathy laughed nervously, almost in embarrassment. There had been no melodrama in the world she knew. They had all been conditioned to a different kind of life. Indian raids, ghosts, outbreaks of plague—those things were over and done with, dead as the dinosaurs. Even here, linked by an umbilical cord to the world outside, such things were anachronisms. They just couldn’t happen. The fabric of their lives, the assumptions they took for granted—they could not simply disappear.
Royce hesitated. The words were hard to say. There was a kind of magic to words. If you did not put a name to a thing, it was not quite real. It might go away, it might be nothing at all …
Say it. Spit it out. She has a right to know.
“It’s just a guess, Kathy,” he said. “I may be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. But I think we have visitors. And I don’t think they come from … well, anywhere on this earth.”
She stared at him. She seemed shocked not so much by what he said as the fact that he had said it. “You? Things from another world? You always said those people—people who believed in that stuff—you always said they were a bunch of nuts.”
He shrugged. “I said I’d believe it when I saw it with my own eyes. I think I have. I don’t give a damn about theories. I don’t care if a million lunatics saw visions in their backyards. All I know is that I’m faced with a situation and I have to deal with it as best I can. I can’t refuse to face it just because of some stupid name tags. Call that thing I saw a glotz if you want to. I think we’ve got one.”
“But here? In the middle of nowhere? It’s crazy. What would they want here?”
“Facts aren’t crazy just because we don’t happen to understand them. Let’s assume they want baboons, for openers. That’s what they’ve taken. Let’s assume they want us. We’re the ones who are here—you and I and the kids and Wathome and Mutisya and Elijah and the rest.”
“But why? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t make any sense to us. Why should it? If there really are beings out there somewhere, and if they did decide to pay us a call, their motives might be absolutely alien to us. Maybe they came all this way to do the equivalent of throwing a pie in our face. Maybe they came here because they have a passion for snails or butterflies or baobab trees—how in the hell would I know?”
Kathy, strangely, looked relieved. The unknown was a fearful thing. But this sort of notion—something that rational people had laughed at for years—this couldn’t be serious. “This will all seem funny in a day or two. There must be some perfectly reasonable explanation for it all. The fire could have started naturally—a spark from the train, an African tossing a cigarette into the bush. Maybe the baboons are just sick or something.”
“Maybe.” Royce managed a smile. “Maybe I’m just tired. But it is raining, and I’ve got work to do.”
He walked into the bedroom to get his raincoat and boots. The rain was coming down in buckets. There was half an inch of water on the floor of the breezeway.
He listened to the rains with new ears. The rains had saved the Baboonery, no doubt of that. Probably, the rains had saved his neck as well. But there was a bitter irony in those driving rains.
They were completely isolated now. There could be no help from anyone. The rains could not alter the basic fact: someone—something—was out to get them. He did not believe for a moment that there was no logic or reason to their actions, whoever or whatever they might be. He was ready to take them at face value. They had come. They had taken baboons. They had killed. They had threatened the Baboonery.
And here he was, with his family.
Sitting ducks.
He was cut off as surely as though he had been trapped on the moon.
7
Royce stuck the .38 in his jacket pocket where it would stay dry and stepped outside. It was
incredible how much everything had changed. The very air had a new smell to it, an underwater smell, a smell of sand on the beach when the tide ran out. His boots sank into gummy mud that was inches thick. There was a solid sheet of water beginning only thirty yards or so back of the baboon cages. The gray sky was thick and close and the rain poured down with numbing force.
He stood in the driving rain and tried to think. It was at least possible that the beings who had come out of the sky might be slowed up in their activities by the rain. It was also possible that they might welcome it; he could not know. In any event, there were three things that had to be done without delay.
He slogged around to the men’s quarters and rapped on Elijah’s door. “Hodi?” he shouted.
There was a moment’s pause. Then he heard Elijah’s voice. “Hodi.”
Royce shoved the door open and stepped inside. Elijah was sitting on his bed, warming his hands over a small charcoal stove. He still wore the inevitable tinted glasses.
Royce stood there dripping. “Elijah, I know you’re tired. I’m tired too. But there’s a lot of work to be done.”
Elijah sighed. “We cannot stop the rain, Mr. Royce.”
Royce felt a brief irritation. He stifled it. “You have all done very well. I appreciate it. But we have to protect the pumps and the generator. The baboon cages have to be moved. We can’t just sit in our houses and wait for better days.”
Elijah said nothing.
“I want the men out, Elijah. I want you on the cages—we’ll have to move them into the shed. I want Mutisya to take charge of getting some runoff ditches built around the pumps and the generator. Have Mr. Donaldson’s men gone back to their camp?”
“They are not here, Mr. Royce.”
“Well, they’ll have their hands full with those tents. I’ll check later and see if they need any food. Let’s get with it, Elijah.”
Elijah moved slowly, but he moved. He shrugged into a plastic raincoat that had been supplied by the Baboonery and stepped out into the rain with obvious reluctance. Royce followed him out.
It was a bad day.