by Nancy Morse
He thought about Julia’s offer. If he lost this crop, five thousand dollars would keep the farm going. But more than the thought of an influx of much-needed cash was the ever-present thought of her. He couldn’t force her to remember him. All he could do was wait.
Waiting had become a way of life for him. He had waited two long years for the heartache of losing her to go away. He waited for the right time to capture Black and Tan and move the marauding beast into the Serengeti. He waited for the rains to come. He’d never been very good at waiting. For him it was an unnatural state, and anything unnatural was dangerous.
But all thoughts of the past fled when the screen door opened on squeaking hinges and Julia stepped outside onto the veranda. She was dressed in brown jodhpurs, a white blouse, and a belted, sand-colored safari jacket. Her dark hair hung loosely to her shoulders, catching the early-morning light in shades of red and gold.
She went to the tea-table and poured herself a cup of coffee, all the while feeling the weight of his eyes upon her. In a calm voice that betrayed none of the tension she was feeling, she sat down and ventured, “So? Have you thought about my proposal?”
He answered evenly, “I have.”
“And?”
“I’ll do it.”
Inwardly, Julia breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Jonathan replied. “There’s no guarantee you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“If anyone can help me find it, it’s you.”
He scrutinized her from over the rim of his coffee cup and asked, “What makes you so sure?”
“There’s something about you that seems…I don’t know…familiar somehow. I know how crazy that must sound.” She gave an elegant shrug. “Who knows? Maybe it’s just something I sense about you. That you’re not afraid to undertake endeavors that most men would shy away from.”
Jonathan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Do you ride?” he asked, wondering if she had forgotten that, too.
“Yes, I do.”
“There’s a pith helmet in the wardrobe,” he said, getting up and striding to the edge of the veranda. “I’ll meet you at the stable.”
She watched his lean, muscular frame move across the yard. The sunlight bounced off his sandy brown hair, making it appear almost golden before it disappeared beneath the broad-brimmed cloth hat he slapped down upon his head.
The horses were saddled and waiting when she arrived at the stable. “Where are we going?” she asked when she slid her boot into his cupped hands and mounted.
“Nowhere. Anywhere.” He mounted in a fluid motion, secretly hoping the sight of places they had ridden through together might spark a memory of Africa…and of him.
The sky was as clear as a pane of glass as they rode. The earth was pitted with the hoof prints of animals that came to the river at dawn to drink. The smell of their droppings was pungent. And although not a word was spoken about last night’s kiss, its memory lingered in the air.
There were no roads or villages, only the barren stretch of the great plains pocked by old thorn trees for as far as the eye could see. This was big-game country, where white hunters set out on safari to bring down the buffalo, the rhino and the big tuskers. The ice-capped peak of Kibo, the tallest cone of Kilimanjaro, rose in the hazy distance, at one moment seeming very near, in the next moment, with the shifting of the wind and movement of the clouds, as if it would take a thousand years to reach its base. To the east lay the foothills, and beyond that the Kikuyu Reserve stretching a hundred miles and more, where the land was dotted with native huts. To the west grew vast forests of mimosa trees, their wide, thorny branches almost obliterating the sky. But here in the hill country with its valleys and slopes and narrow game paths, the landscape was vast, and despite the drought, the air seemed like a living thing as it filled the lungs.
Jonathan rode without speaking, occasionally stealing peeks at Julia to gauge by her look whether anything was familiar to her. His rifle was secure in the scabbard hanging from his saddle horn. In his saddle bag was the knobkerrie he brought along. The short wooden club with a knob on its end could be hurled end over end…just in case.
Molo, his ever-present hound of dubious lineage, trotted alongside his horse and made occasional dashes into the bush after some unfortunate creature, returning only at Jonathan’s insistent whistle. Having once been gored by a boar, his coat grooved with scars, he should have known better, but the instinct to hunt was far too ingrained in his nature to be ignored.
Julia removed the pith helmet, and with the sleeve of her jacket wiped the beads of perspiration dotting her forehead. The tips of her dark hair caught in the wind, several strands flicking about her temples.
“Here.”
Turning to the sound of Jonathan’s deep voice, she saw the canteen he held out to her. She took several swallows of water and handed it back to him, her body rocking rhythmically to the gait of the horse.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“A little.”
“We’ll stop for a while and rest.” He glanced around. “Where’d that dog run off to now? Molo!”
“Isn’t that the name of a river?” she asked.
Something inside of him came alert. Was she beginning to remember? “How did you know that?”
“I read it somewhere.”
“Oh.” He tried to keep the disappointment from infiltrating his tone. “I got him from a chap I know who has a farm in the Rift Valley. He claimed the dog was killing his chickens so he bound him in a burlap sack and tossed him into the Molo River. Somehow, the dog made it out of the river alive, and one day when I was visiting, he came trotting up the path to the farm. The man went for his rifle, but I told him I’d take the dog off his hands. I figured any dog that survived being drowned deserved a second chance. I named him Molo, and except for chasing warthogs, he’s been a good dog. Besides, I don’t raise chickens.”
They found welcoming shade beneath the roof of a massive baobab tree. A shiver of anticipation coursed through Julia when Jonathan placed his hands around her waist and hoisted her down from the saddle. The memory of last night’s kiss surged back, causing her to flinch away. While he tethered the horses to a low-hanging branch, she sank to the ground and pressed her back against the smooth, gray bark of the tree’s wide trunk.
“The natives call this the tree of life,” Jonathan said as he sat down beside her. “Animals feed on the leaves, the flowers and the fruit, and the natives make food, clothing and medicine from it. Often the trunk is hollowed, but it keeps growing and continuously bears fruit.”
The dog crashed through the thickets and threw himself, panting hard, down beside Jonathan. “He seldom leaves my side,” he said, stroking the mottled coat. “I guess he knows if it weren’t for me, he’d be dead.”
“As I would be,” Julia said, “if it weren’t for you. I shudder to think about how close I came to dying out there in the middle of nowhere. I suppose if you had found me dead, you could have given me a Masai funeral.”
“I don’t think you’d have wanted that. The Masai believe that once life comes out of the body, the body has no further use, so they throw it into the forest to be devoured by the animals.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, my.”
He laughed softly at her mortified reaction. “Are you hungry?”
“I confess I could eat something.”
“I asked Raj Singh to pack a lunch.”
She looked at him dubiously. “Were you that sure that I’d go riding with you?”
Yes, he wanted to say, he was that sure. He knew she loved riding through the savannah with the hot, dry wind rushing past her face. He could have told her about the time a rhino emerged from the bush and charged them and how they galloped away and laughed about it afterwards. Or how they watched together the rhythmic movement of great herds of wildebeest and zebra. Or how they made love in the grass beneath this very tree as a
huge equatorial sun slowly sank over the horizon.
“No,” he said. “Raj Singh always packs a lunch for me whenever I go out. I’ll get it.”
She watched his long, easy strides cover the distance to the horses. There was something about the way he moved, with muscles working in harmony, which held her attention. He appeared deceptively relaxed, but she noticed the way his eyes scanned the surroundings on a constant lookout for danger, and she felt keenly the tension simmering just beneath his surface, like a tightly-coiled spring ready to snap. There was an odd familiarity to the sensations that careened down her spine, as if she knew that stride and recognized the strain of his emotions.
There were other things about him as well that seemed somehow familiar. Beneath the rough exterior he tried to impart, he possessed a rare sort of charm, not the solicitous kind, but the charm of intellect and strength of character. He was the kind of man who could look at an outcropping of rock and find something poetic in its existence. Her thoughts shocked her. How could she possibly know these things about him? And then she remembered with a nervous laugh that she had seen the books lining the shelves of his parlor, books on art and poetry, and told herself that what she mistook for familiarity was merely assumption.
He returned with a small parcel. Dropping back down beside her, he spread a white cloth over the ground. On it he placed two oranges, hard boiled eggs, a small dish of raisins and almonds, a slab of bread, and a tin of chutney. He reached into one of the four pockets of his khaki bush shirt for his knife and used it to spread chutney over the bread. Breaking off a piece, he handed it to her.
“Compliments of Raj Singh,” he said, “the chutney king of the East African Protectorate. Oh, that’s right, we’re a British crown colony now, much to the displeasure of the Africans, not that I blame them. The white settlers are allowed to elect members to the legislative council which, in turn, has created new legislation that confines the tribes to reservations.” He peeled an orange with his knife as he spoke. “The Kikuyu are the biggest losers in this. There’s no gold or diamonds in this area like there is in South Africa. What we have here is land. The Kikuyu have lived by agriculture for generations. This used to be their land. Now it’s known as the White Highlands.”
Julia accepted the slice of orange he offered and took a bite, licking the juice from her lips. “But the farms are good for the economy, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” he conceded, popping an almond into his mouth. “And the railway helps, too. Indentured labor from India was brought in to build it. Now we have a sizable Indian population.”
“Your cook is Indian, is he not? He seems a disagreeable sort.”
“Raj Singh is not very sociable, I’ll grant you that.”
“There’s something in his eyes. Resentment, I think. Perhaps it’s just because he’s a servant.”
“A servant is no less a man because he’s a servant,” Jonathan said. “Raj Singh is a good enough chap. I saw him pull a lion off one of the Kikuyu boys with his bare hands. I’ll never forget it. When I heard the screams, I grabbed my rifle and ran from the house. I caught a glimpse of his white turban rushing past me, and when I got there, I saw him club that lion over the head with a cast iron skillet, grab him by the mane and pull him away from the boy. The lion ran off. That night he came back and killed one of the oxen. I went out the next day and shot him. If you ask Raj Singh about what he did, he’ll say it was nothing, but that boy wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for him.”
He leaned back on his elbows and stretched his legs out before him. Gazing up at the sky, he said, “I love the sky at this time of day, how it changes blue from deep to light and how the clouds appear to float on its surface like ships at full sail. Whenever I think that maybe I’ll go someplace else, all I have to do is look up at that sky or look at the ranges painted by the setting sun, and I know this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. All my memories are of Africa.”
Julia drew in a breath and let it out in a soft, wistful sigh. “I wish I had memories.”
“Maybe this will help.” From his pack he withdrew a pair of field-glasses. Reaching for her hand, he drew her to her feet and led her to a grassy terrace from which there was an unobstructed view of the plain. Handing her the glasses, he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward the vast expanse that lay before them.
She held the field-glasses to her eyes and scanned the vast, empty expanse of land in a wide arc.
“Over there.” She felt his warm breath against her neck. His fingers flexed on her shoulders as he shifted her view to the right.
The Serengeti Plains yawned in the distance, endless and empty, or so it seemed at first. A movement caught her eyes. It looked like a giant boulder had come to life, but as it moved, it took on the appearance of a rhino, thick and solid and as gray as the mist that lay upon the hills. Suddenly, the land came alive with moving things—buffalo and wildebeest stampeding in dark waves across the land, and the sleek little Thomson’s gazelle leaping into the air as they ran.
“Why are they all running?” she asked.
“They’re being hunted. There, can you see it?” He moved a little closer, lightly pressing against her back, and pointed.
Through the field-glasses she spotted the reason for the stampede. A pride of lions was on the chase and closing in. With a little cry, she lowered the glasses and turned away. “I can’t bear to watch.” He was standing so close she was seized by the impulse to be held in his arms.
His hands slid around her shoulders to her back and pulled her toward him. For several incomprehensible moments she stood there with her face buried in his chest. But just as he lowered his head toward hers, she broke away and ran back to the baobab tree.
“It may not be pretty, but it’s life,” he said when he caught up with her. He bent to gather what was left of lunch and pack it away, then swiped the cloth off the ground and stuffed it into his saddlebag. “You can’t love the prey and hate the predator. Out here, it is kill or be killed. That’s just the way it is.” He packed his saddle bag, and then cupped his hands and lifted Julia into the saddle.
They rode back to the farm in silence.
As they cantered along the narrow, beaten path that led back to the house, they passed Raj Singh in his lorry.
“Where are you going?” Jonathan called out.
“To shoot a guineafowl for dinner.”
Julia turned in the saddle and watched Raj Singh’s white-turbaned head disappear down the road.
When the house came in sight, Molo sprang ahead to greet the other dogs. There commenced a wild cacophony of barks and growls and furious tail-wagging of hello, where have you been, and what great adventure have you been on.
Jonathan helped her down from the saddle, and again the pressure of his fingers at her waist constricted the breath in her throat.
“I’m tired,” she said, moving nervously away from him. “I think I’ll take a nap before dinner.”
He watched her climb the steps to the veranda and disappear into the house before turning away and leading the horses to the stable.
It was cooler inside the house. Removing the pith helmet, Julia smoothed her hair and brushed dampened strands from her face. Her flesh felt warm to the touch, and inside she was burning up. From the heat of the day…or from his touch?
Why had she wanted to press herself against his chest and be enveloped in his strong arms? It wasn’t like her to be so demonstrative with a man she scarcely knew. She tried to convince herself it was the way any woman would react to a handsome, virile man, for he was certainly that. Yet something nagged at the back of her mind. What was it about this particular man that made her crave the pressure of his lips and the heat of his body melting into hers? With trembling hands she poured water from the ewer into the basin and splashed it over her face. Stripping out of her dusty clothes, she slipped into bed, and with the thought of him in mind, dozed off.
Chapter Eight<
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Darkness loomed beyond the window. There was no twilight in Africa. Night chased after day with the speed of a cheetah chasing down zebra. The sounds of the day were gone now. The night was filled with the far-off chatter of hyenas hunting by the light of the moon, the flutter of bats winging across the sky, cicada beetles calling to one another from the treetops, the yelps of the jackals, the ha-ha-ha-de-dah call of the ibis, and far out upon the plain the long, deep roar of the lion trailing off into a series of shorter, grunt-like sounds. But it was the sound of music that awakened her.
In the parlor Jonathan placed a disc on a wind-up table-top gramophone and sat down before the fireplace in an arm chair of heavy, carved wood, one leg crossed casually over the other, sipping wine and listening to the music streaming through the big brass horn.
He closed his eyes to the beauty of the Beethoven piano concerto that filled the room. When he opened his eyes, he thought at first that he must be dreaming, but several hard blinks confirmed that he was fully awake.
She was wearing a sheer black silk dress that fell to her ankles and whose drop waist had three bands of fabric curving down over her left hip and flowing into teardrop panels that flowed when she moved. As she neared, he could see that the skirt was two layers of silk and more opaque than the top. The shoulders, sleeves and collar were of dark cream-colored lace, like the color of a tea-stain, scattered with rhinestones that captured the glow of the table lamps like stars scattered across the sky.