A Spear of Summer Grass

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  We parted at Ryder’s boma, each of us heading our separate ways and saying nothing. I stripped off my filthy clothes and tossed them in the corner, too tired to care. I barely washed before I fell into bed and down into a heavy sleep.

  I awoke suddenly, startled by the screech of a monkey in the garden. A leopard must be roaming, I thought sleepily, but there was no familiar rasping cough. Instead, there was a strange, silken noise rustling in my ears and the smell of smoke in the air. I decided someone must be up early, starting a cooking fire against the morning chill, but even as I thought it, I knew it was wrong. It was the middle of the night, far too early for the hearth fires.

  I sat bolt upright, throwing off the blanket and calling out. “Ryder!” I don’t know why I shouted his name. He hadn’t come home with me, but in that moment of horror, his was the name that I shouted.

  I ran through the house and to the outbuildings, screaming for the men. The barn burned hot and high, and the harsh light against the western sky must have alerted Ryder at his rondavel. By the time he arrived, the barn was gone and the kitchen was fully engulfed. Pierre and Omar had rallied the men and they were passing leather buckets of water, but even as they worked I could see it was futile. The lake was full of water but there was no pump to bring it up, and so they worked as best they could, carrying the heavy buckets and passing them from hand to hand. Ryder soaked a handkerchief in water and tied it over his mouth before climbing up to the roof of the house, bucket in hand. He made the trip dozens of times, determined to save the house if nothing else. We worked all the rest of that night, and when the sun rose, it rose upon a battlefield. Two of the workers had fallen from the roof, breaking bones in the process, and several others had collapsed from the smoke and the exertion. Omar had burned his hand badly and Pierre’s eyebrows were singed off. The barn was nothing but a charred ruin and the kitchen with all its stores had been utterly destroyed. The fences and half the garden burned as well, and the guest wing of the house had been gutted. Only the main living area remained, although the drawing room was heavily damaged by smoke.

  I sat on what was left of the lawn, both of us muddy, stinking wrecks at that point. As I watched, the tortoise crawled out from under the veranda and made for what was left of the jacarandas, giving me a baleful look as he went. Ryder came to sit next to me, his hands blistered and raw from the night’s work.

  “At least no one died,” he said drily.

  “Leave it to you to find the silver lining.” I fished in my pocket for a cigarette, but the case had been damaged. All that was left inside were sodden shards of loose tobacco and a few shreds of paper.

  “I would have thought you’d have been cured of that after what you just went through,” he said. I gave him an evil look and he smiled. “Cigarettes are in my truck. I would be the gentleman and get them, but if I stand up I’ll probably fall over.”

  Soot was ground into his skin, but when he smiled the lines appeared, white and sharp, highlighting his good humour even at the worst of times. I fetched the cigarettes and a flask I found in the glove box. We each took a cigarette and a long pull from the flask before he passed it to the men who stood, shocked and exhausted, at the periphery of the garden. Their women had come to tend them, and for once I wasn’t the one doing the mending and patching. The two with broken bones had been carried off to their homes. Until the swelling went down, the bones couldn’t be set. Pierre applied salve to Omar’s burns and covered them loosely, and the others needed only rest and a good meal to put them right.

  “Do you suppose this place is cursed?” I asked Ryder. “Was it built on an ancient Masai burial ground?”

  “The Masai leave their dead out for the hyenas, princess. No, you’re just unlucky all on your own.”

  “You mean Fairlight never had trouble until I came?”

  “I mean you are trouble,” he said. He took a deep drag from the cigarette and immediately started coughing. He spat black soot into the grass and ground out the cigarette on the sole of his boot before clearing his mouth with gin. “If you’ve ruined me for cigarettes I’ll never forgive you.”

  I said nothing and he leaned over, pushing his shoulder firmly into mine. He lowered his head, his voice consoling. “You can always rebuild.”

  “I can’t rebuild what isn’t mine,” I reminded him. “Fairlight belongs to Edgar now, and for all I know, he’ll want the whole place torn down and the land sold.”

  “Pity,” Ryder said lightly. “This place could be a real goer with the right hand at the helm.”

  He rose slowly to his feet and put out a hand to help me up. He winced a little as I grasped his blistered hand. “If the smoke gets to you, you can come stay with me.”

  “You don’t have a guest bed,” I reminded him.

  He gave me a slow smile. “I know. That’s why you would be sleeping out in the boma.”

  He bent and kissed me gently on the mouth, then walked away. I sat on the remains of the veranda, too tired to do anything else, until Moses appeared. He brought a bowl of corn gruel compliments of his babu, and motioned for me to eat while he sat next to me.

  I forced down a few spoonfuls. “I’m happy to see you, Moses.”

  He gave me a smile, his broad, perfect smile. He sketched a few words onto the ground with his stick.

  “You want to stay with me? But I have no cattle for you to tend, Moses.”

  He made a putting away gesture with his hand.

  “You might think it doesn’t matter, but you will miss the cows very much.”

  He put a finger to his chest, then to mine, hovering just over my heart.

  “You are in my heart also, Moses.”

  My throat was too tight to swallow, so I handed him the bowl. He finished off the gruel happily.

  Together we watched the giraffe come and drink at the far edge of Lake Wanyama. It was a small herd, just a few cows with their calves and a few adolescent males trailing behind. They were graceful and silent, bobbing their heads down at a ridiculous angle to get to the water. A crowned crane waded nearby, breaking the water into small ripples that flowed over to our edge, connecting us. And suddenly, the feeling Moses had conjured grew so strong and so deep I felt I could just float away on it. I was in love, really in love for the first time in a very long time, maybe the first time ever. And it was with this place, this Africa, as real to me as any man. The grey-green water of the Tana River was his blood and his pulse was the steady beat of the native drums. The red dust of his flesh smelled of sage from the blue stems of the leleshwa and sweetness from the jasmine and under it all the sharp copper tang of blood. In the heart of the Rift lay his heart, and his bones were the very rocks. Africa was lover, teacher and mentor, and I could not leave him.

  I brushed the tears from my cheeks as I rose and put out my hand to Moses. “We’re going to Nairobi.”

  He raised his hands palm up, questioning.

  “Because I’ve been holding hands with ghosts for too long.”

  I motioned for him to get into the truck Ryder had left and we headed for the duka. Mr. Patel was sewing on his veranda, running up long lengths of sari silk.

  “I am making curtains,” he said, waving excitedly. “For Fairlight. To replace those which burned up. Only the best for Memsahib Delilah.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I couldn’t pay for them. I couldn’t even be sure Edgar would want them for what was left of Fairlight. But I smiled anyway. “Mr. Patel, I need to go to Nairobi. Have you seen Ryder? I want to take the truck, only I don’t want to leave him without it if he needs it.”

  He waved a hand. “The sahib has already left on my motorcycle. He will have no need of the truck. If I see him, I will tell him you have taken it to the city.”

  I didn’t stop to ask where Ryder had gone. I waved and floored it, heading as fast as I could to Nairobi.
Unfortunately, I had a puncture and Moses proved as useless with machines as he was gifted with cattle. It took me more than an hour to wrestle the wheel off and patch it, and by the time we reached the city, the afternoon was sitting in long shadows.

  I had given it some thought on the drive and it seemed to me my best chance was to head straight to the top. I hadn’t bothered to wash or change my clothes and by the time I walked into Government House, I looked like something three days past death. My clothes were stiff with mud and sweat and my face was covered in streaks of soot. Mr. Fraser jumped to his feet as I strode into his office, Moses following close behind.

  “Miss Drummond! What on earth—”

  “I have a crime to report. Gates tried to burn down my farm.”

  Fraser looked pained. “Do you have evidence to this effect?”

  “No, but who else would it have been? I have a witness that he threatened me when I discharged him.” I jerked my head to Moses.

  The lieutenant governor narrowed his eyes. “Is this the same boy that you reported Mr. Gates as having struck during the incident which caused you to discharge him?”

  “Yes, but I hardly see—”

  The inspector, who hadn’t even opened his notebook, rose and gave me a pitying look. “I understand your frustrations, Miss Drummond, but I’m afraid this matter is at an end.”

  “At an end? Did you even hear what I said? The man tried to burn down the farm where I live.”

  “Was anyone killed?”

  “No, but that’s—”

  “Was anyone materially injured?”

  “Two with broken bones and one with a burned hand,” I recited. “Still, I hardly think—”

  He gave me a cool look. “Miss Drummond. Africa is a difficult place. Too difficult for some. Now, I suggest you book passage back to England or New York or wherever it is that you came from and forget all about this.”

  “That’s it? That’s all the Kenyan colonial government can offer? I am patted on the head and told to go home like a good little girl?”

  “As I said, Africa is a dangerous and difficult place to live. This colony demands a very specific type of temperament to thrive here. One must be resourceful and strong and able to withstand anything. Very few people manage to live here happily.” He gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I think it has become quite apparent that you, Miss Drummond, are not one of those people. And in light of this most recent development, I feel I ought to warn you that steps will be taken.”

  “Just what does that mean?”

  “It means that you will be asked to leave the colony. I’m afraid your time here is at an end.”

  Moses’ hand crept into mine, and I tightened my fingers around it. “You can’t do that.”

  “I think you will find that I can. The governor is indisposed with an attack of malaria and not expected to resume his duties here for at least a month. In his absence, all trivial matters are being handled by me. And you, Miss Drummond, are a trivial matter.”

  “But I have permission,” I said, my voice hollow.

  “Permission that may be rescinded at any time by this office. I did warn you of that when you arrived,” he said, a trifle more kindly. “But it would seem you have made a habit of trouble, and you have overstayed your welcome here. You may return to Fairlight to collect your things. Passage will be booked for you on the steamer leaving out of Mombasa in a fortnight. That should give you ample time to say your farewells.”

  I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me beaten. I gave him as dazzling a smile as I could muster, the one that got me the best room at the Hotel de Crillon even when I was skint. “I’ve learned a lot from my time in Africa, Mr. Fraser, a lot about how to survive here. And one of the first things I learned is that before you count your kill, you better make damn sure you’ve done the job. Because something you’ve only wounded will have just enough fight left in her to make her dangerous. Come on, Moses. We’re leaving now.”

  24

  I went straight to the nearest telegraph office and cabled London. I had to do something, anything, and my only hope lay with Edgar. I explained, as briefly as I could, that Fairlight had been badly damaged by fire and that I wanted to buy the place. I cabled Quentin to offer him a business deal and to discover whether or not it was legal for Fraser to kick me out of Kenya. I bought Moses and myself each a stalk of sugar cane and we sat on the steps of the telegraph office to wait for the replies.

  “Do you like Nairobi?” I asked him. I sucked at the cane, tasting a thousand memories of Reveille. Each year, the Colonel would take me out to the field to cut the first cane of the harvest, testing it for sweetness. He always cut a piece for me, peeling back the skin to offer me the pale flesh. It seemed impossible that the same taste was on my lips in Africa of all places.

  Moses nodded excitedly then dampened his finger with juice from the cane to write on the step. “London.”

  “You want to go to London?”

  He nodded again. He occupied himself drawing pictures with the end of the cane while I ticked off the minutes.

  Finally, as the sun dropped below the horizon and the brief evening turned sharply to night, the proprietor emerged with two pieces of paper. He put them into my hands and I thanked him, holding them up to the paraffin lantern to make out the words.

  The first was from Quentin, assuring me that the lieutenant governor did indeed have the power to revoke my permission and have me chucked out. He promised to get on to one of his influential friends to sort it out, but that could take weeks, and by then I would have been bundled onto a steamer out of Mombasa. He also agreed to a proposition I had made him, and I felt my spirits rising as I tore into the next telegram, the one from Edgar. I read it over twice then three times before crumpling it up in my fist.

  “Let’s go, Moses. There’s no reason to stay.”

  I didn’t dare the drive all the way back to Fairlight in the dark. I stopped a little distance outside Nairobi and Moses and I slept in the truck. Hyenas kept up a racket during the night, and long before the sun was fully up we were on our way. We arrived back at Fairlight by lunchtime. The place looked sad and tattered and a little embarrassed as the acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air.

  “Nothing hard work and some paint can’t fix.” Ryder emerged from the house as we arrived.

  “Sorry I took your truck without asking.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t need it.”

  “I went to Nairobi,” I started, but he held up a hand.

  “First things first. I need to take Moses home.”

  “Moses has gotten himself to and from his village a hundred times without help,” I snapped. I was tired and cross and all I wanted was a stiff drink and a proper sleep.

  “Not this time,” Ryder told me. He motioned to Moses and they set off. I threw up my hands and followed them. We struck out on the path that we always took, but even before we reached the village, I knew something had changed. There was no gentle droning buzz of activity, no smell of woodsmoke and milling cattle. The village was empty of life, and the gates all stood open to the savanna beyond.

  “What happened?”

  Ryder turned to me. “The Masai will leave a place when they feel it’s time. His village has moved on, and I know where they’ve gone. His babu asked me to bring him when I could.”

  He headed us into the bush and I felt my anger growing with each step. Half an hour’s walk past where the village had been, the Masai were building a new settlement. The women had staked out new homes and were busy plastering fresh mud on the walls while the men constructed sturdy bomas to hold the stock. I stopped at a distance and nodded to Moses, telling him to go on. He waved at me and I turned back to the path, walking as fast as I could.

  Ryder stayed to chat with the babu a moment, but caugh
t up to me quickly.

  “You don’t have a weapon,” he said lightly. “Did you forget everything I taught you?”

  “Shut up,” I told him. “Just shut up. I don’t want to talk.”

  “Fine. I won’t tell you you’re about to step in an ant-bear hole.”

  I dodged it and dashed my hand across my eyes. Ryder caught at my hand but I shook him off.

  “Leave me alone before you catch it,” I muttered, but his hearing was good.

  “Catch what?”

  “Whatever damned curse it is that’s following me around.” I strode off again, and Ryder followed more slowly, walking behind me until we reached the ruined garden at Fairlight. He took my arm, hard this time so I couldn’t pull loose.

  “Want to explain that now?”

  “No,” I said, but he didn’t move, and I realised he was prepared to stand there all night, holding my arm.

  “Everything is ruined. Everything I’ve done since I came here is wrecked. Everyone I cared about has been damaged.”

  “That is quite a curse,” he said solemnly.

  “Don’t you dare laugh,” I warned him. “I will slap you so hard your grandchildren will be looking for your teeth.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said, but his lips still twitched.

  I raised my hand, and he took it, pressing it close to his chest. I could feel his heart beating, slow and steady, and I shook my head. “Don’t. Don’t be nice either. It’s just too hard.”

  “What is?”

  “Saying goodbye to you. To this, to Africa.”

  “So don’t go.”

  “I have to,” I told him. “Fraser is rescinding my permission. I have to leave within a fortnight. He’s booking my passage back to England.”

  “And you don’t want to go?”

  “Of course I don’t want to go!” I said it as though it were the most obvious truth, the truest thing that anybody ever said, as I said the words aloud for the first time. “I don’t want to go,” I repeated. “I tried to buy Fairlight today.”